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Don’t believe your lying eyes — Australian newspaper archives are full of temperatures recorded higher than 121 in the shade which is 50C. All of these temperatures in the map below are found in historic newspaper archives. Measurements done after 1910 are even done with official Stevenson screens, yet the BOM “throws them away”. It’s true that ones done in the 1800s are often recorded on non-standard equipment, or are just literally “in the shade” under cover. So some of these, perhaps many, are one or two degrees too high. But even if we take two degrees off, how scary is global warming when Australia knew many days of 48C and 49C and some at 50C 120 years ago? The BOM — supposedly so concerned about the State of Our Climate — show little interest in talking about our history or in analyzing it, or even mentioning it.
And modern temperatures are recorded on electronic equipment, sometimes in areas affected by urban heat islands (concrete and cars).
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50C temperatures have occurred all over Australia before
Australians have been recording temperatures of over 50C since 1828, right across the country. In 1896 the heat was so bad for weeks that people fled on emergency trains to escape the inland heat. Millions of birds fell from the sky in 1932 due to the savage hot spell.
In 1939 outer Sydney reached 122F or over 50C — recorded at Windsor Observatory — a place that had had a Stevenson screen for around 40 years at that stage. Without fanfare, the Ballarat Star in January 1898 notes that there was a “genuine heat wave” in Blanchetown SA in November the year before. Temperatures of 120 and 121 are recorded on four days that month.
All these measurements are wrong?
 click to enlarge. Contrast that with last week when towns in the outback reached 48 and 49C and the Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Michael Efron said — “They are pretty incredible temperatures.” Seriously. It’s hard to believe that after a quadrillion megatons of emissions we are nearly as hot as we were in 1896? It’s as if hundreds of measurements of similar temperatures across four states of Australia and on many occasions from 1828 to 1939 don’t even exist.
The worst heatwave was probably January 1896 when the nation was “like a furnace”.
From a post in 2012: All these measurements are wrong too?
Extreme heat in 1896: Panic stricken people fled the outback on special trains as hundreds die.
It is as if history is being erased. For all that we hear about recent record-breaking climate extremes, records that are equally extreme, and sometimes even more so, are ignored.
In January 1896 a savage blast “like a furnace” stretched across Australia from east to west and lasted for weeks. The death toll reached 437 people in the eastern states. Newspaper reports showed that in Bourke the heat approached 120°F (48.9°C) on three days (1)(2)(3). The maximumun at or above 102 degrees F (38.9°C) for 24 days straight.
By Tuesday Jan 14, people were reported falling dead in the streets. Unable to sleep, people in Brewarrina walked the streets at night for hours, the thermometer recording 109F at midnight. Overnight, the temperature did not fall below 103°F. On Jan 18 in Wilcannia, five deaths were recorded in one day, the hospitals were overcrowded and reports said that “more deaths are hourly expected”. By January 24, in Bourke, many businesses had shut down (almost everything bar the hotels). Panic stricken Australians were fleeing to the hills in climate refugee trains.
It got hotter and hotter and the crowded trains ran on more days of the week…
To get a feel for how widespread and devastating it was, read through just one report in one paper (there are scores more).
The Warwick Examiner, Jan 29, 1896. Click to enlarge.
 ,,,, Thanks to Chris Gillham, Lance Pidgeon, Ken Stewart, Warwick Hughes, and all the BOM audit team.
Photo: Jo Nova
9 out of 10 based on 133 ratings
Where is your carbon footprint when you need it?
 … This week the same people who advertise their virtue with climate cloaks are advertising their status with a Bombardier 7500.
Don’t call them hypocrites, it’s completely consistent. Both are pretentious attempts to peck up the order.
More And Bigger Private Jets Landing at Davos as Leaders Discuss Climate Change
Erin Corbett, Fortune
Perhaps its all because of jet envy.
At least 1,500 private jets are slated to arrive in Davos. The number is up from last year’s estimated 1,300, according to the Air Charter Service, which also found that this year’s jets are larger and more expensive.
Why more and bigger jets?
“This is at least in part due to some of the long distances traveled, but also possibly due to business rivals not wanting to be seen to be outdone by one another,” Andy Christie, the private jets director at ACS said in a statement.
Would you like a helicopter with that?
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9.6 out of 10 based on 75 ratings
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9.3 out of 10 based on 13 ratings
 … Look out, another knot of tortured researchers just went past. All this time we’ve been pouring money into planting trees and stealing land from farmers because we were sure that trees would cool the world. (Just like solar panels do, yeah?) But life is so complicated — for years now some researchers have been quietly wondering if more trees were actually going to warm the planet instead, but they didn’t want to say much. It turns out that while trees absorb the sacred CO2 (that’s cooling!) they also emit methane (that’s warming!), and terpenes (cooling) and isoprene (warming and cooling!) If that’s not complicated enough, then there is the albedo effect. Trees are dark, they absorb more sunlight than bare ground and snow. So depending on where they are planted, that makes for “warming”. Then some VOCs or volatile organic compounds also seed clouds.
So what’s the net effect? Who knows, it’s not like there are whole industries dependent on it…
Now they ask?
Trees are supposed to slow global warming, but growing evidence suggests they might not always be climate saviours.
Gabrielle Popkin, Nature
As usual, the debate is based on logic and death threats:
At the same time, some researchers worry about publishing results challenging the idea that forests cool the planet. One scientist even received death threats after writing a commentary that argued against planting trees to prevent climate change.
It doesn’t matter if the planet dies, editors don’t want to look stupid:
“I have heard scientists say that if we found forest loss cooled the planet, we wouldn’t publish it.”
Yay, free speech!
To greener types, it doesn’t matter if trees warm the world on net, because they cool the world as well. And if that makes sense to you, the UN has a job waiting for you:
Although the analysis relies on big assumptions, such as the availability of funding mechanisms and political will, its authors say that forests can be an important stopgap while the world tackles the main source of carbon emissions: the burning of fossil fuels. “This is a rope that nature is throwing us,” says Peter Ellis, a forest-carbon scientist at The Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Virginia, and one of the paper’s authors.
Australians should — in theory — care more about this than almost anyone. We are one of the countries that did count carbon storage. If it turns out that land clearing cools the planet, Australia is stuffed (carbon accounting-wise): Our emissions per person fell 28% since 1990, but the largest single factor there was “land use” — meaning we stopped clearing and let regrowth take over some farms and paddocks. Then we shafted the farmers who owned the land and couldnt use it.
The 1997 climate treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol allowed rich countries to count carbon storage in forests towards their targets for limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. In practice, few nations did so because of the agreement’s unwieldy accounting mechanisms and other factors.
The albedo effect:
Researchers have known for decades that tree leaves absorb more sunlight than do other types of land cover, such as fields or bare ground. Forests can reduce Earth’s surface albedo, meaning that the planet reflects less incoming sunlight back into space, leading to warming. This effect is especially pronounced at higher latitudes and in mountainous or dry regions, where slower-growing coniferous trees with dark leaves cover light-coloured ground or snow that would otherwise reflect sunlight. Most scientists agree, however, that tropical forests are clear climate coolers: trees there grow relatively fast and transpire massive amounts of water that forms clouds, two effects that help to cool the climate.
This chemistry is so complicated, if only we had climate models that worked, we could figure out how much all this mattered:
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9.6 out of 10 based on 61 ratings
Another family friendly picnic day in Australia where nice people spend their leisure time advertising an industry worth more than $476,000,000,000.
A bunch of Australians do free corporate advertising
 They would kick themselves if they knew… The message will say: Renewable energy, make the switch now, 100% renewables… imagine.
Blue Mountains residents will stand side by side to form the word “SWITCH” which will then be photographed from the air.
Imagine if this was an advert for Coke, or Exxon? It would be so much better. Coke and Exxon produce something that people want voluntarily.
One hundred years from now, people will look back and marvel at the Great Renewables Marketing scam known as “climate change”.
9.5 out of 10 based on 87 ratings
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8.9 out of 10 based on 28 ratings
The terror. Sit down I tell you. The ABC tells us that you should “Grab a latte while you still can”.
In full, the true catastrophe is that if the models that are always wrong get something right, some wild coffee relatives, but not actual coffee crop plants, might go extinct. We don’t use them for coffee but you never know, we might one day use them as breeding stock. It’s that serious.
And we can’t save the seeds because apparently liquid nitrogen is too expensive. Wail. Gnash. Fawn.
Since bulk liquid nitrogen is cheaper than spring water, I rank this one as a Prime SkyWhale Class Scare, it’s all hot-air and scary for the wrong reason. You are meant to be afraid of the end of coffee, but what’s really frightening is that science journalism is dead instead.
By Belinda Smith and Nick Kilvert, ABC Australia
The set up:
You might also want to sit down before reading this. And maybe grab another latte while you still can.
Of the 124 wild coffee species worldwide, UK researchers have declared at least 60 per cent of them in danger of dying out.
There might be science there:
In a paper published in Science Advances today, the researchers warn we need to beef up existing conservation plans, because the ones we have in place now are “inadequate”.
Stick to Climate 101 reporting rule: Good things die, Bad things go viral.
But with deforestation and a changing climate, which brings unpredictable rain, pests and fungal diseases, coffee farmers will be hit hard.
A 2016 report by The Climate Institute found worldwide coffee production could be cut in half by 2050.
We’re already seeing declining production and quality in some traditional coffee-growing regions, said Robert Henry, a plant geneticist at the University of Queensland who was not involved in the research.
Need some condescension?
So why not store coffee beans in a seed bank? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
“It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to conserve coffee using conventional seed storage methods,” Dr Davis said.
This is because seed bank storage freezers, even at -20 degrees Celsius, don’t cut it when it comes to preserving coffee beans.
They need to be chilled by liquid nitrogen — a costly process.
Price of liquid nitrogen: allow for doubling since 2007 and it’s still $1 per gallon. Less than coke.
If the government stopped funding renewables for 24 hours they could save wild coffee seeds.
Let’s check. Here’s what excess fossil fuel emissions have done to coffee production
Looks like coffee has been relentlessly increasing. It has doubled since 1977. Another 100 years of this kind of climate change and we will be drowning in the stuff. Get out your life jackets.
 Global Coffee Production, Graph, FAO .Ho hum.
 Scary like the SkyWhale Skywhale image by Nick-D | Coffee beans Image Hesham Raouf
h/t Dave B, Bill, George.
9.8 out of 10 based on 76 ratings
Third World Science with First World Funding
Is James Cook University a grants machine or a research institute?
James Cook University reviews ex-student’s ‘fishy’ findings, by Graham Lloyd, The Australian
Oona Lönnstedt has been prolific, writing alarming papers on microplastics, acidification, and reef degradation. But her work looks like a trainwreck. One paper has been withdrawn, in another it was “found that Lonnstedt did not have time to undertake the research she claimed.” She’s been found guilty of fabricating data on the microplastics study. Now Peter Ridd has pointed out that the photos of 50 Lionfish appear to contain a lot less than 50 fish. Images have been flipped, spun or “manipulated” so the same fish appears more than once.
James Cook has done what any ambitious, money-hungry grant troughing institute would do, a very slow investigation of allegedly corrupt behaviour and a very quick sacking of the honest researcher who threatens to expose them. Any respectable Science Minister would freeze all grants to James Cook until this situation was resolved and reversed.
Send your thoughts to The Hon Karen Andrews. Contact her here: karen.andrews.mp AT aph.gov.au. There is a crisis in Australian science. Who is going to fix it?
 50 Lion Fish (or not). Click to enlarge. |
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 Fishy copies of Lion Fish. Click to enlarge. |
All Peter Ridd had to to was line up the shots in order they were taken. Peer reviewers didn’t do that.
The real problem here is not about fish or plastic but about the science industry
Walter Stark, a marine scientist with 50 years experience, and a proper skeptical scientist, explains how our current academic ecosystem rewards alarming results:
Starck says generations of researchers have been schooled in a culture wherein threats to the Great Barrier Reef are an unquestionable belief from which all evidence is interpreted.
“She (Lonnstedt) got into the ocean acidification and global warming and the effect CO2 was going to have on the behaviour of marine animals and she started publishing,” Starck says.
“Immediately the publishers lapped it up. As a graduate student she managed to get as much published in one year as most professors do in a decade.”
Imagine, hypothetically, that our academic grant machine was actively promoting the fakest science anyone can get away with when it comes to climate research. Where are the brakes? What stops fake science?
Not peer review. Not journal corrections. Not most of the media. (Where is the ABC? They report the alarm, but not the allegations?)
Confirmation bias is a much bigger problem and much harder to spot than fabricated data. Who is even trying to put those brakes on?
There’s a pattern here
Lönnstedt first got into trouble with a 2016 paper on microplastics that showed that little fish ate tiny bits of plastics preferentially, and then their growth suffered and they were eaten by bigger fish. The Central Ethical Review Board in Sweden investigated was so concerned and declared it was research misconduct. UU’s Board for Investigation of Misconduct in Research called it fabrication. That paper was published in one of the two highest profile science journals there is — called Science. So much for peer review at top journals? The microplastics case has been called “outright fraud” and by Science itself.
When Science demanded the data (that she should have archived) alas the only copy was on her laptop, which was stolen just after the request came through. How in-convenient?
No data? Doesn’t matter
It still took months before Science responded:
Dr Roche told the HES that Science should have retracted the report as soon as the authors failed to provide the raw data, “rather than waiting for the results of a lengthy investigation that only came months later”. But it was a “positive sign” that Science had published a letter criticising its policy, he conceded.
Peter Ridd wonders why we give still her the benefit of the doubt?
Ridd said given that Lonnstedt had been shown to have deficient data in other research, and given that there seemed to be evidence of modified images, it would not be wise to give the benefit of the doubt in this case.
Ridd contacted the co-authors of the lion fish study and the weak excuses flowed forth:
“Based on our understanding, it was not her intent for the collage to represent a picture of all of the lionfish she used,” they said. Rather, she was providing it as evidence “that she had lionfish in the laboratory”, the co-authors said.
Yes, sure. Because we were wondering if she had any Lionfish at all, not whether her 50 Lionfish were 50 different fish.
Her co-author Doug Chivers says there is now a dilemma because Lonnstedt has gone off to Sweden and isn’t doing science anymore and doesn’t want to answer questions. Jo Nova says this is pretty simple, tell her she can pay back her salary or respond in full. She was paid to reveal all her methods and data. She hasn’t finished the job yet.
As I said about James Cook Uni’s treatment of Peter Ridd:
This taints all research the institution puts out. How do we know that any news they announce is the whole truth — we must assume every result is put through the political filter and inconvenient conclusions or implications are removed.
Which other employees of James Cook are concerned about this issue? If they don’t say, is it because none of them care or that those who do feel too intimidated to say so. (Since they are too scared to even use their official email accounts, we can assume they won’t be issuing press releases.) Either way, it’s systemic, it’s institutional and it’s not science.
Uppsala found Lonnstedt “fabricated” results. Look at how that uni responded:
A biology journal is investigating concerns about a 2014 paper by a marine biologist who was found guilty of misconduct last year.
In December, Uppsala University concluded that Oona Lönnstedt had “fabricated the results” of a controversial 2016 Science paper(now retracted), which examined the harms of human pollution on fish. (Lönnstedt’s supervisor Peter Eklöv was also found guilty of misconduct and had a four-year government grant terminated.)
–RetractionWatch
ScienceMag says that “Lönnstedt has reportedly lost her funding from Formas, the Swedish Research Council, as a result of the report. “
Though it took three rounds of investigations before Upsalla Uni got this far. (See page 8 -9 of the NAS irreproducability report. ) Critics need to keep pressing.
JCU takes a whole year to form an investigation panel
James Cook says they are “committed to the highest standards of ethical research”. Concerns over Lonnstedt’s work were raised over a year ago in December 2017. It took until May for JCU to say it would establish an external panel of experts to investigate. And after a whole year they’ve managed to finalize the member list of that panel, though they haven’t even been formally appointed yet. Apparently the Great Barrier Reef may move before the investigation is finished. The Reef is under a dire threat but JCU is in no rush to get the science right. Or perhaps they are just waiting until there is a new Minister of Science who also thinks that science is just a grants-machine to produce PR excuses to screw more tax out of taxpayers?
Speaking of which, the Shadow Minister for Science is the Hon. Kim Carr. Is he going to point out that Karen Andrews isn’t doing enough on this, or does he approve of Fake Science? Contact: senator.carr AT aph.gov.au
Likewise, the shadow Minister for Climate is The Hon. Mark Butler MP: Does he care that we may be wasting money fighting irrelevant battles based on dodgy research? Contact: senator.butler AT aph.gov.au. If the climate matters, so does climate science.
James Cook University is a joke, and if they were serious about showing they care about ethical and rigorous research they would reinstate Ridd immediately and finish the investigation fast. Anything less is “business as usual” at JCU. Fake science.
The Lonnstedt investigation hasn’t been done yet. But if she cares about the reef, and JCU cares about science, she needs to explain herself, asap.
PS: I do hope people write to the politicians. As always, please be polite, no matter how angry and frustrated you may be. Please copy letters into comments as it may help others.
hat tip to John of Cloverdale, Scarper, Barry Woods, Steve Hyland and Pat.
9.6 out of 10 based on 120 ratings
Everyone “knows” fires are caused by climate change, but how many Australians know that when it comes to the huge Californian fires of October 2017 as many as 750 civil suits have been filed against Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E),the 150 year old utility in California? The fire bill is running at around $30 billion dollars. PG&E are facing financial ruin, calling in a Chapter 11, and going broke.
That’s bad news for people filing the claims, but it is also bad news for renewable energy.PG&E are a major holder of some $35 billion dollars in long term green energy contracts many of which are at above market rates. PG&E may not have to pay out those high prices which means the Green industry will be hurt too.
What goes around comes around. Bad science begets bad business. The Green Industry could have cared enough about the environment to speak out about reducing fire risks through managing fuel loads, and the fires would have been less damaging. Instead they were busy putting up windfarms to stop bushfires instead.
Meanwhile their friends are still doing their best to increase fuel loads in order to reduce CO2 (and stop bushfires).
California fire investigators have determined that PG&E power lines sparked 18 wildfires in October 2017 that burned nearly 200,000 acres, destroyed 3,256 structures and killed 22 people.
California’s largest utility said Monday it was preparing to file for Chapter 11 protection before the end of the month as it faces more than $30 billion in potential liability costs related to its role in sparking wildfires in recent years. Electricity and natural gas would continue to flow to homes and businesses, PG&E said.
PG&E Corp.’s plan to file for bankruptcy protection has enormous repercussions for everyone from the homeowners suing the utility for California wildfire damages to the companies that furnish it with green energy. — WSJ
If only green energy was actually competitive, they could have just renegotiated with some other buyer.
Keep reading →
9.4 out of 10 based on 81 ratings
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9.2 out of 10 based on 18 ratings
It’s not well known, but in the same way that climate change causes every hot weekend it also causes snow dumps, avalanches, and freak weather. The scientific link is just as strong and calculated the same way. Take a tendentious cross-correlation on free-range seasonal assumptions, and then pour Vodka in the Cray.
If only the Germans had built more windmills they could have stopped this.
Three metres of snow fell in the space of 48 hours in some parts of the country and more than a metre is forecast to fall today and tomorrow. — The Times (paywalled)
Heavy snow paralysed much of Europe for yet another day, cutting off mountain villages, sparking avalanches like one that crashed into a Swiss hotel, and killing at least four people.
At least 21 weather-related deaths have been reported in Europe in the last 10 days.
—ABC
With three million dollars to spend today (like every day) the ABC found cute photos of white stuff on cuddly sheep and scooters to fit the deadly theme. Nice.
There is avalanche danger, blocked roads and floods in Southern Germany.
The Beast From The East comes back to Britain
The UK is headed for the coldest weekend of the year — The Express
A swathe of bitter air will pour in from the Arctic pushing temperatures to freezing or below across the entire country through the next 48 hours.
Scotland, northern England and even parts further south are on alert for wintry downpours towards the end of the week and into the weekend.
It could be the first widespread snowfall since the Beast from the East brought Britain to a near standstill last winter.
Campaigners have reiterated calls for elderly and vulnerable people to take extra care during cold weather.
The weekend blast may be linked to the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) which appeared in December. Temperatures suddenly rose over the Arctic up high above the jet streams. Often cold temperatures on the surface seem to kick in two weeks or so later.
A possibly lengthy winter blast will be driven by warming of the air over the North Pole encouraging a colder airflow into the UK.
The so-called Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW), which was the driver for last year’s crippling snowfall, set in at the end of December
Best wishes to our Northern Hemisphere friends.
9.5 out of 10 based on 71 ratings
Millions of dollars will be burning on electricity tomorrow
With normal hot summer days expected tomorrow price spikes are forecast.
It’s not that hot
These are hot, but not unusual days for the capitals — Adelaide is forecast to be 41C, the other capitals are tame: Melbourne 33, Canberra 39 and Sydney 30. Though small inland cities are baking – like Albury at 44C.
South Australia could burn $36 million an hour
For South Australia tomorrow the AEMO is forecasting the state will need 2,800MW for 2.5 hours at $12,000/MWh. That could be $35m per hour. Note that forecasts in electricity often vary quite a lot from actuals. Looking at the truckload of cash being offered (from a generators point of view) will presumably bring in some extra supply and lower that price.
 Forecast prices for Jan 15th 2019 | AEMO
For Victoria, things are even worse
The AEMO is forecasting 9,000MW will be needed at $14,500/MWh for 3 hours. That’s $130 million per hour. Hypothetically, it would be an obscene $390 million dollars just to power the state just from 3 – 6pm. Enough to buy an entire gas fired power plant and have it sitting around all year waiting for spikes.
 Forecast prices for Jan 15th 2019 | AEMO For those peak hours, if it hits the price cap, spike pricing would be 400 times more expensive than baseload brown coal. The same $400m dollars could theoretically power the state for 50 days of non-stop electricity from brown coal stations like Hazelwood Power Plant (if only they hadn’t shut it). Though peak prices in midsummer are normally higher so it is not an apples to apples comparison. Note too: These are wholesale spot prices — there are other charges beyond this like the FCAS which will could rise tomorrow too. We are not even counting that.
It sounds outlandish but one two-day heatwave last year cost SA and Vic $400m dollars.
Could this week be the 2019 bonfire heatwave?
The AEMO has issued a LOR (Lack of Reserve) warning — Grade 2 for Victoria
There is a forecast LOR2 for Victoria in place at the moment. The AEMO says reserve available is expected to be 658MW but 978MW is needed. That’s 300 MW short. If the price is right (and it could not get more “right” without breaking the law) presumably there will be some new generation on offer. The availability and demand numbers can dance around a lot. This afternoon, the AEMO has issued two updates and curiously the situation has got worse with each update, not better.
But hey, it might be windier than they expect tomorrow, and then everything will be just fine.
UPDATE 10PM: Victorian LOR2 downgraded to LOR1. Expected reserve capacity now 1002MW. The required is 1090MW. The people in the control room must be very very busy.
TonyFromOz explains that all our available coal power is running flat out. The peak today (Monday) was 32,000MW.
Forerunner to tomorrow was the Peak today at 5PM. Total power generation (therefore total power consumption) was 32300MW. There are currently three coal fired Units off line, (one in each State still with coal fired power) so the total available coal fired power Nameplate is 19600MW. The total coal fired power being delivered at 5PM was 19200MW.
Add on natural gas fired power and the smaller Other sources, and the total CO2 emitting power on line delivering power at 5PM came in at 81.2% of that total. Hydro was at 12.2, and wind and solar power combined was delivering 6.6%.
And tomorrow, they say it will be even higher. Coal fired power is running at max already.
Hmm! Imagine if there was just one more coal fired power plant, umm, say even that ancient old clunker Hazelwood.
Take away coal fired power, umm, tell ‘em they’re dreamin!
Tony.
Bear in mind years ago the real system peak was 36,000MW. Now it appears we can’t do that unless we get lucky. It’s a good thing those car manufacturers and smelters shut down…
9.4 out of 10 based on 64 ratings
Look, another climate expert the BBC won’t be interviewing
Anastasios Tsonis is emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of more than 130 peer reviewed papers and nine books. He is just retired, and finally able to speak his mind. [Updated] …though he’s been a climate professor and a skeptic for some years, somehow the media didn’t beat a path to his door. He commented below that rather than staying silent til his retirement he has been skeptical for many years and was free to say so at his university (such a rare thing, how many other profs can we say the same about?). His University of Wisconsin site is here, and his statement here.]
The overblown and misleading issue of global warming
Washington Times
 Anastasios Tsonis The fact that scientists who show results not aligned with the mainstream are labeled deniers is the backward mentality. We don’t live in the medieval times, when Galileo had to admit to something that he knew was wrong to save his life.
Lives are not at risk, but careers sure seem to be. Not medieval times but perhaps modi-eval?
So how many of the 97% of climate science believers are actually skeptics? Even after they retire there are lots of reasons for them to stay quiet. [Obviously, not the case for Prof Tsonis].
He’s willing to debate
Science is all about proving, not believing. In that regard, I am a skeptic not just about global warming but also about many other aspects of science.
All scientists should be skeptics. Climate is too complicated to attribute its variability to one cause. We first need to understand the natural climate variability (which we clearly don’t; I can debate anybody on this issue). Only then we can assess the magnitude and reasons of climate change. Science would have never advanced if it were not for the skeptics.
The models were wrong. If they can’t explain the pause, they don’t understand the cause. (h/t HockeySchtick for that phrase.)
All model projections made for the 21st century failed to predict the slowdown of the planet’s warming despite the fact that carbon dioxide emissions kept on increasing. Science is never settled. If science were settled, then we should pack things up and go home.
My research over the years is focused on climate variability and climate dynamics. It is my educated opinion that many forces have shaped global temperature variation. Human activity, the oceans, extraterrestrial forces (solar activity and cosmic rays) and other factors are all in the mix. It may very well be that human activity is the primary reason, but having no strong evidence of the actual percent effect of these three major players, I will attribute 1/3 to each one of them.
Good on him for speaking out. Shame he didn’t feel he could when he was employed.
h/t Climate Depot and Pat.
***Edited headline to remove the incorrect “retires and”. Thanks to Prof Tsonis for commenting:
9.5 out of 10 based on 133 ratings
When cheap solar is expensive
Badly installed solar PV makes Australia’s grid fragile
On August 25 last year there was nearly a system blackout when, improbably, three states of Australia were islanded by one lightning strike. Within seconds, trips were switching, two smelters were load shed to save the grid from collapse, and across the Eastern Seaboard of Australia frequency and voltages surged or fell everywhere. In Sydney 45,000 homes lost power for a couple of hours. Shops had to close. Trains were stopped. Passengers were stranded. Traffic signals were not working on major roads. There was chaos. Industrial users shut down in a mass of 725MW of load shedding.
The AEMO final report on that day has just come out and shows us just how fragile our grid is. This was not so much a freak accident, as an accident waiting to happen.
It turns out that another cost of cheap rushed solar panels is that many drop out with voltage spikes, suddenly going offline and leaving another hole to fill. The numbers are amazing — of panels installed in the last 2 years as many as one-third in South Australia dropped out when we needed them and about 1 in 6 failed in Queensland.
If smelters are offline, hundreds of thousands of dollars are burning, and millions is at risk…
 … Obviously the true costs of installing solar panels properly are higher than advertised. When we add up the lifetime cost of solar does it include loss of earnings of unrelated businesses?
August outages underline risks to the reliability of the national grid
Perry Williams, The Australian
The Australian Energy Market Operator said several generators failed to respond as expected including “counter-productive responses” that could have been limited or prevented if sufficient frequency control settings were enabled in each region.
While Tesla’s giant battery was praised for helping to stabilise frequency, four unnamed wind farms in South Australia reduced their output to zero because of incorrect settings while solar rooftop systems also crashed out and were unable to assist in boosting supply to either Victoria or NSW.
AEMO detailed how 15 per cent of sampled solar systems installed before October 2016 dropped out during the event. Of those installed after that date, nearly a third in South Australia and 15 per cent in Queensland failed to meet standards.
 For the next hour frequencies rocked all the way from Queensland to Victoria …
 Spikes and struggles on the line between SA and Victoria Crash Test Dummies are here
Australia’s shift to renewables is ramping up:
The rapid switch to renewables is having a profound impact on the grid, with solar generation jumping by 38 per cent in the three months to September while wind grew by 16 per cent, displacing gas from the grid’s power mix.
From the AEMO report: There has been a decline in system resilience.
Keep reading →
9.4 out of 10 based on 60 ratings
Australia Wins The Global Patsy Award 2019
The Brookings Institute released a report that claims everyone is better off economically by sticking to Paris, but check out the devastating graphs. Economically, everyone is a loser, but the three biggest losers are Australia, Russia and OPEC.
Australia is doing more, paying more, suffering more and yet will make almost no difference to the global emissions tally in anything other than a purely symbolic impress-your-dinner–guests kind of way.
If Australia left the Paris Agreement, even the left leaning Brookings Institute can’t find much difference in total global man-made emissions. Australia is forcing the renewables transformation faster than anywhere else, it will lose GDP, wages, jobs, investment, and the dollar will fall. All that, and no one could even tell the difference between Paris with Australia, and Paris without.
Clearly Australian negotiators at the UN are incompetent on a whole new scale. If they had Australian’s interests at heart, even a little bit, they would have done this study themselves, and gone to Paris with some realistic comparative data to argue that we are cutting too fast and paying too much. Finalists for most useless Global Negotiator of the Decade are Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop. Wayne Swan, treasurer of the year, deserves a mention.
Australians basically walked in to Paris and said “hit me”.
Don’t miss these fun graphs:
Bad news for the Australian dollar:
 Change in exchange rates thanks to the Paris Agreement
Who needs Trade balance anyway?
At least our falling dollar will help to stop Australians importing so many goods.
 Change in trade balance thanks to the Paris Agreement. Spot the difference: If Australia left The Paris Agreement the world not even notice
Theoretically, this graph below shows how much global emissions would be reduced should the unthinkable happen and everyone actually met their Paris promises. The lowest red line is the glory of Paris “success” with Australia included.
The dashed line on top of that is Paris success if Australia bailed. Exactly.
 Theoretically, this is how much emissions will be reduced if every nation sticks to the Paris agreement. Despite the title on the graph above, this is not Global CO2 emissions at all which are around 750 billion tons. This, obviously, is the insignificant man-made part.
Go on, let’s add Global Emissions to the scale…
Everyone’s economy will shrink
Less energy means less economy.
Three regions will be the worst hit — Australia, OPEC and Russia.
 Change in GDP relative to business as usual without all that virtue signalling. Large drop in jobs coming
Whichever way you look at it, jobs are going. Just that in Australia they’re going faster. We apparently outdo the rest of the world til Russia (allegedly) catches up. Then some magical assumption happens in 2021. (Trump becomes our PM, perhaps?)
 Whichever way you look at it, jobs are going.
Notice no country on Earth will get richer because of Paris
Australians are getting rid of evil capitalist wages faster than anyone, though apparently OPEC puts on a good finish in the race to the bottom.
 Change in CO2 emissions, Paris Agreement, 2019. Graph. The three biggest losers of wealth — Australia, Russia and OPEC
This graph says something.
 Change in CO2 emissions, Paris Agreement, 2019. Graph.
Australians will be consuming less, are you looking forward to that?
Did I mention rubbery figures?
The researchers do some serious economic-number-mashing, converting everything into a carbon tax.
From the Brookings Institute press release:
[The researchers]… use a multi-region model of the world economy to analyze the economic and environmental outcomes that are likely to result from these [Nationally Determined Contributions] NDCs. To construct the modeling scenario, the authors convert the disparate NDC formulations into estimated reductions in CO2 emissions relative to a baseline scenario with no new climate policies. They then solve for the tax rate path on CO2 in each region that achieves the NDC-consistent emissions reductions in the target year, 2030 for most regions.
Then funny things happen where the carbon tax they calculate bears little relation to the actual emission reductions. Could it be because a tax on a universal molecule essential to life is a stupid economic idea? Some of the players won’t respond because energy needs are inelastic, and most of the players won’t respond because they are blue-green algae, or otters, or E.Coli. And some of the players who do respond pick windmills and solar panels for reasons which defy any economic or scientific analysis.
Comparing projected 2030 CO2 tax rates to the same year’s percent emissions abatement relative to baseline, the authors find that declines in CO2 emissions do not necessarily correlate with the CO2 tax rate. For example, under Paris, Japan’s emissions decline the most of all regions, but its CO2 tax is the fourth lowest at about $US 16 per ton. India and the United States share a common goal for percent reduction of emissions relative to baseline, but India’s tax rises to about $US44 per ton in 2030, about 70 percent higher than the $US 26 tax in the United States in its target year of 2025.
Rubbery figures meet Rubbery assumptions
— The Australian:
The paper assumed a government-introduced $5-a-tonne carbon tax from 2020 — which neither the Coalition nor Labor has foreshadowed — to cut Australia’s carbon emissions by a promised 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
Now lets pretend there are benefits from cutting CO2
Santa Claus says reducing an airborne fertilizer is a benefit they can put a hundred billion dollar figure on.
And this comes from the Brookings Institute – friends of Big Government. Imagine if sensible independent engineers wrote it?
 Australia is irrelevant. Whatever happens: It’s gonna cost you
At least Warwick McGibbon is honest telling us that economic pain is inevitable. Furthermore he admits that if you just care about jobs and wages not the climate, you’d quit Paris.
Warwick McKibbin, an ANU economics professor and one of the report’s authors, said Australia could not avoid economic pain by pulling out of the agreement.
“If we stay in, we’re better off because if we pull out, we’ll still be getting most of the economic damage — other countries won’t be buying our resources so much — but miss out on the benefits of curbing carbon emissions such as less pollution,” Professor McKibbin told The Australian.
“You don’t have to believe in climate change at all to support staying in Paris. That said, if you just cared about jobs or real wages but didn’t care about climate or pollution, you’d stay out.”
— The Australian
He sings an ode about beating the mythical pollution ogre. Even if CO2 actually caused much warming, Australian emissions are irrelevant, CO2 is a well mixed gas, and there is a very substantial benefit, thankyou, in raising CO2 on a dry agricultural nation.
Frank Jotzo, Professor at ANU in Climate Policy tweeted:
Paris Agreement modelling by @WarwickMcKibbin and colleagues: meeting 2030 emissions targets to yield net economic benefits to individual countries (before taking into account avoided climate change damages)
No mention by him that Australia got one of the worst deals globally. It’s not like he is supposed to be serving The Australian Taxpayer.
Academics, we can’t sell them fast enough.
Hat tip to Pat
REFERENCE
Liu, McKibben, Morris and Wilcoxen (2019) Global Economic and Environmental Outcomes of the Paris Agreement” (PDF), Brookings Institute.
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Go on. Prove how much you love the planet, or maybe just outdo the Jones’s and get yourself a $2,000 automatic designer cat door that is draft free, radio controlled and evens opens the door for the cat in case your cat is intellectually challenged.
How many storms will this cat door prevent?
This story was first reported on CBC by Greg Rasmussen. What else are public broadcasters for?
Sometimes being energy conscious can mean geeking out on gigawatts, or studying the latest heat exchanger technology. But in this case, it involved splurging on a $2,000 cat door.
The super-insulated, radio-frequency-controlled designer cat passageway is one of many energy saving features in a super energy efficient house being built in West Vancouver.
I thought climate warriors weren’t supposed to have a cat?
Just three million dollars to build a passive “net zero” house:
Costing about $3 million to build, it’s not far out of line in pricey West Vancouver. James said he kept close watch on the extras and said it only cost about 4 per cent more than it would have to build a similar home that meets existing building codes.
They didn’t want the dingy small windows common to “passive houses”. So they got large windows, even floor to ceiling windows. And then they flew these floor-to-ceiling, triple glazed windows across the Atlantic:
… the huge triple glazed windows had to be brought in from Europe because no one could supply them locally.
Wonder what the lifetime emissions are on that?
Note the fine print:
“We’re going to be what’s called net zero energy, so we’ll generate more electricity over the year, and sell it back to BC Hydro, than we use,” said Dean
What he really means is that they will be 100% dependent on the Grid to be there when they need it.
Net freeloaders on the system?
The designer cat door is apparently a “PetWalk” one.
I fear it’s going to lead to mental health issues in Pets:
Within the same household, different pet’s chips can be set to different programs. So if, say, one of your dogs or cats needs a bit more exercise, you can program the door to let one pet back inside but not the other. This may seem either unfair treatment or a brilliant solution to pet obesity and indolence, but the people at Petwalk feel that it’s something pet owners might like to control.
First world problem.
10 out of 10 based on 53 ratings
Tony Abbott won a 90 seat landslide based on a blood oath to Axe The Carbon Tax. In 2014 he was thwarted in the Senate from instigating his plans to clean out the green-machine burden, largely by Clive Palmer and cohort, a coal explorer and senator who was a skeptic til Al Gore visited the week before key legislation was voted on. The people who voted for Clive sure didn’t vote to bankroll the Renewables Industry but that’s what they got, and thanks to the Australia Institute we can see just how much the turncoat cost — about $1,000 per person.
The Australia Institute is suddenly raving about the value of crossbench Senators — especially the ones who did the opposite of what their voters expected — “yay”, democracy. Then they’ve paired it with the release of a nothingburger survey that asked the wrong people no relevant or specific questions so the Institute could pretend Australians approved of the sell-out Senators who wasted $23 billion dollars on a pagan weather-changing plan. Do you like the Senate, then you love Renewables? Cheers Jiminy!
Is the Australia Institute a research group or a PR Agency for Renewables?
How the Senate crossbench saved Australia’s renewable energy industry
The Abbott Government’s attempts to abolish key renewable energy policies were foiled by Labor and the Senate crossbench. These efforts have supported $23.4 billion worth of clean energy projects during a period that saw renewable investment fall by up to 48% in some years.
Bravo. Crossbenchers saved an industry which investors were running away from. Why? Because it was A/ an efficient provider of a valuable service and investors were stupid or B/ because no one wants overpriced, unreliable power?
Hmm.
Between 2013 and 2016, the Coalition Government attempted to abolish Australia’s three key renewable energy policies: the Renewable Energy Target (RET), the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
These three policies were saved in the Senate….
As a result, the CEFC continued financing, ARENA continued providing grants and other assistance and the RET continued encouraging renewable energy generation. In total $7.8 billion in government support has been provided to projects worth $23.4 billion, as shown in Figure 1:
| Figure 1: Total clean energy support saved by Labor and crossbench (2013–2018) |
|
| . |
Funding and investment ($m) |
Total project value ($m) |
|
| CEFC investment |
$6,652 |
$19,000 |
|
| ARENA grants |
$1,187 |
$4,371 |
|
| Total |
$7,839 |
$23,371 |
|
In addition, the RET has assisted the installation of 806,000 solar panel systems and 226,000 solar hot water systems between 2013–2018 and the generation of 85m MWh of electricity from large-scale generators. Saving the RET and CEFC has resulted in emissions reductions of at least 334m tonnes CO2-e. This is more emissions reduction than the government’s policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund, is likely to deliver over its six years of operation (92m tonnes from its creation in 2014 to 2020)
By contrast, the Emissions Reduction Fund is estimated to abate 192m tonnes, of which about 92m tonnes will be abated between its creation in 2014 and 2020, and the remaining abatement happening after 2020.37
Renewable energy subsidies; Six times as useless
So the $23 billion dollars used by the crossbenchers saved 334m tonnes of CO2 (equivalent) at a cost of $70/ton.
The Emissions Reductions Fund cost $2.29 billion and will save nearly 200 million tons at a cost of $12 per ton which makes it six times as effective. And if you believe reducing CO2 is important, Tony Abbott’s plan could save six times as many environments.
The $23 billion dollar gift to the renewable industry thus wasted 83% of taxpayer funds — a cool $19.5 billion dollars that could have been used to help the poor or the spotted quoll, but was instead wasted propping up a freeloading industry that makes electricity more expensive, drives other industries away from Australia, and probably loses 3 jobs for every one it creates. On the upside, Australia saved 334m tons of CO2 — equivalent to five weeks of emissions from China.
The senate sell-out cost every man woman and child in Australia about $1,000. Babies too. That’s $4,000 per family of four. That’s a family holiday the kids will never forget, because it didn’t happen.
During Tony Abbott’s time as PM renewable energy investment returned to “a free market” and fell by half:
In 2014 and 2015, while worldwide investment in the sector grew, Australian renewable energy investment fell by half. If the Senate crossbench had failed to save the CEFC, ARENA and RET, the decline would have been much greater and the rebuilding of the industry much more difficult. The future of Australia’s renewable sector was saved by the (cross) bench.
The decline of renewables would have been greater, but so would Australian wallets and in so many ways. The Australia Institute obviously approves of governments interfering in the market, and picking winners (or rather “picking losers, but calling them winners”.)
They even admit the Senators largely betrayed their voters:
Having been typecast as ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’, the new minor parties on the crossbench were widely expected to vote with the Abbott Government – and, indeed, Day and Leyonhjelm proved to be fairly reliable votes for the government. But Xenophon, Wang, Lambie, Lazarus, Muir and Madigan, along with the Greens, ensured that the Senate crossbench served as an important check on the government’s power.
Palmers team (bolded) didn’t so much serve as an “important check on the governments power”, but as an check on voters power. Not that The Australia Institute shows much concern. After the Palmer 2014 sell out, it appears half his voters voted for other people and the Palmer team (such as it wasn’t) won nothing ever again.
The Australia Institute didn’t ask Palmer’s voters what they thought, because they already knew the answer. Instead they asked other voters generic questions about the Senate and whether it was useful and what color their seats were. ( Seriously, 40% knew the Senate seats are red). Hence the Australia Institute got a headline that bore no resemblance to reality by asking no questions about the carbon tax or any issue relevant to their press release.
Spot the bait and switch with the word “which”:
Majority of Australians support Senate crossbench, which saved $23b of renewables from Coalition cuts
The ‘Saved by the bench’ report is being released in conjunction with Australia Institute polling* which shows that a majority of Australians believe the country is better off because of the Senate and that better laws are created when the government has to negotiate with other parties
It’s great PR for the renewables industry but not so great for Australians who had $1000 stolen.
The Australian Institute paper mentions no conflicts of interests nor donors. But with a $23 billion dollar carrot swinging through Australian Industry, there is potentially a nice river of tax-funded flowback that could have come their way. Who knows? That’s an awful lot of profits that are far more dependent on the mood of Parliamentarians than on providing something their customers need at a price they are willing to pay.
h/t Pat
REFERENCE
Saved by the bench, The Australia Institute, Dec 2018
CER announces eighth Emissions Reduction Fund auction results, 18 December, 2018
Global Carbon Project (2018) Carbon budget and trends 2018.
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 Paid by the people to give them the facts, Clive Lewis is proud that he deceived them and delivered a message that served his own interests rather than theirs. From a Jan 2018 story by Amanda Cashmore For Mailonline:
“Clive Lewis admits broadcasting biased news“:
In 2017 Lewis admitted to biased reporting whilst working for the BBC. At a Momentum rally he stated: “I was able to use bias in my reports by giving less time to one than the other. I reported on both but the angle and words and the language I used — I know the pictures I used — I was able to project my own particular political positions on things in a very subtle way.“
This is clearly in breach of the spirit, ethics and whole point of the BBC. Did he think the people of the UK needed his wise but hidden counseling because he’s been born so much smarter than everyone else.
Naturally, we know where people struggling with reality end up in the climate debate. This is Clive Lewis, Jan 1 2019:
Politicians must persuade consumers to make dramatic lifestyle changes if devastating climate change and mass extinctions are to be averted, according to … Clive Lewis.
And we know where public broadcasting reporters go for their next job — The Labor Party. Clive Lewis is now their MP for Norwich South and the the shadow Treasury minister. He’s helped Jeremy Corbyn and is touted to become Shadow Secretary of State for Defence or as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport should the Labor Party win. Lord help the UK.
It’s exactly this kind of admission that shows why public broadcasters are The Swamp. Where was the outrage?
UPDATE: Commenter Greg says”… but everyone is biased”.
Jo replies: Everyone has biases, but there used to be a time the media would strive to overcome them. If a BBC reporter was called biased, that was embarrassing. Now, every little narcissist is openly biased and proud of it. As if it’s noble to put their own spin on the story while they pretend to be neutral.
How’s the ethics work? One political party get a dedicated propaganda outfit paid for by the public dollar and disguised as non-partisan.
Sell public broadcasters now. Give the money back.
h/t Pat (PS Pat, meant to say thank you for your lovely card which I got just before Christmas, Merci!)
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