Canadians dreaming of “plus 1”

RMR (Rick Mercer Report) sends up the long winter. Love that Canadian sense of humour. : – )

Pace, Paul Howard’s comment on youtube: here’s sending a group hug for our Canadian friends.

h/t Richard

9.6 out of 10 based on 80 ratings

Science buried in bureaucracy and corruption: Office of Research Integrity director quits in disgust

Bureaucrats have not only taken over much of the science world, but even the parts of the bureaucracy designed to hunt out corruption in science are incapacitated with bureaucracy-at-its-worst too. This is second order corruption — even the checks and balances on corruption are corrupted.

As James Delingpole points out: Science is rife with corruption, incompetence, dishonesty and fabrication–and now, thanks to a frank resignation letter by the US’s top scientific misconduct official we have a better idea why.

Government science desperately needs auditing– or the free market solution, competition

One in 50 scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once. It’s not just about fraud, it’s about bias, and statistical sloppiness. Up to 30% admitted other questionable research practices. When asked about their colleagues, 14% said other scientists falsified results, and 70% used other questionable research practices (Fanelli 2009). In the modern electronic science world, not only are many results not replicated, but the raw data itself is not even available for checking most of the time. Research shows that scientists who withhold data are more likely to have published errors (see below). Half of the papers in high-end journals contained some statistical error (Wicherts 2011).

What we’re seeing here is how even government funded checks on government funded science don’t work. Without free market competition and private funding, the layers of corruption and perverse incentives just build on the previous layers rather than neutralize them.

In this corrupt climate the need for independent checks is even more important

The director of the U.S. government office that monitors scientific misconduct in biomedical research has resigned after 2 years out of frustration with the “remarkably dysfunctional” federal bureaucracy. David Wright, director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), writes in a scathing resignation letter obtained by Science Insider that the huge amount of time he spent trying to get things done made much of his time at ORI “the very worst job I have ever had.”

Science Mag has the letter from David Wright:

“The rest of my role as ORI Director has been the very worst job I have ever had and it occupies up to 65% of my time. That part of the job is spent navigating the remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy to secure resources and, yes, get permission for ORI to serve the research community. I knew coming into this job about the bureaucratic limitations of the federal government, but I had no idea how stifling it would be. What I was able to do in a day or two as an academic administrator takes weeks or months in the federal government, our precinct of which is OASH.

On one occasion, I was invited to give a talk on research integrity and misconduct to a large group of AAAS fellows. I needed to spend $35 to convert some old cassette tapes to CDs for use in the presentation. The immediate office denied my request after a couple of days of noodling. A university did the conversion for me in twenty minutes, and refused payment when I told them it was for an educational purpose.

Wright describes OASH (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health) as “secretive, autocratic and unaccountable”.

Third, there is the nature of the federal bureaucracy itself. The sociologist Max Weber observed in the early 20^th century that while bureaucracy is in some instances an optimal organizational mode for a rationalized, industrial society, it has drawbacks. One is that public bureaucracies quit being about serving the public and focus instead on perpetuating themselves. This is exactly my experience with OASH. We spend exorbitant amounts of time in meetings and in generating repetitive and often meaningless data and reports to make our precinct of the bureaucracy look productive. None of this renders the slightest bit of assistance to ORI in handling allegations of misconduct or in promoting the responsible conduct of research. Instead, it sucks away time and resources that we might better use to meet our mission. Since I’ve been here I’ve been advised by my superiors that I had “to make my bosses look good.” I’ve been admonished: “Dave, you are a visionary leader but what we need here are team players.” Recently, I was advised that if I wanted to be happy in government service, I had to “lower my expectations.” The one thing no one in OASH leadership has said to me in two years is ‘how can we help ORI better serve the research community?’ Not once.

I’m offended as an American taxpayer that the federal bureaucracy—at least the part I’ve labored in—is so profoundly dysfunctional.

Hidden Data

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9.8 out of 10 based on 83 ratings

Join the “radical” international protest: Work on Wednesday

Remember the decidedly uncivilized protests we had here in Australia last week, called the “March-in-March”?

Tim Blair, of The Daily Telegraph, laments that he made fun of the kind-hearted and caring people who wore shirts suggesting they’d like to have sex with our Prime Minister, or alternately, to kill him. In a brilliant move he suggests the right thing to do is a mass national counter protest called “Work on Wednesday”. I’m in! Will you join me?

Celebrate civilization & democracy, and help the GDP too — Work on Wednesday!

Let’s make it global. This crosses national boundaries and cultures, it’s about democracy. It’s about being civilized. It’s about not using free speech to metaphorically behead, kill, or abort people. It’s about having an argument instead of just an insult.

Let’s show them how a civilized protest is done.

Twitter: @WorkonWednesday. Retweet it to your friends.

Tim Blair explains:

I was also wrong to dismiss the March in March movement as inconsequential. This is because I hadn’t realised the rules had changed, and that last September’s election can now be overruled by some shouty people whose total number amounts to only around one-tenth of Brisbane council’s electorate.

The only proper response, obviously, is for the forces of civilisation to conduct an even larger demonstration – without the obscene signs, Socialist Alliance t-shirts and dopey chants. This will be a demonstration of solid Australian values, supporting democracy, order, good manners, application and ambition.

I propose that we hold just such a demonstration this very week. Despite minimal time for organisation, this could be the largest demonstration in Australian history. For that matter, it might turn out to be one of the largest demonstrations ever held on earth.

Forget March in March. This counter demonstration is called Work on Wednesday. Here’s how you can participate in the greatest display of collective Australian solidarity witnessed since settlement:

This Wednesday, the 26th of March, proudly and defiantly take to the streets and go to your place of employment.

Put in a hard day’s work, earning money for yourself and your family.

When the demonstration is over, after perhaps eight hours or so, again take to the streets and return home.

It’s a lot to ask, I know, but your Work on Wednesday sacrifice will really send a powerful message to the ABC and others about community values, inclusiveness and diversity.

Tim Blair asked all those participating to send him emails on Wednesday of them protesting.

Social media is important these days, according to social media, so Work on Wednesday has its own Twitter feed where regular updates and progress reports will be posted throughout the big day. Everyone who joins in is invited to send photographs of their Work on Wednesday activities to my blog. Email me at [email protected].

Let’s show those howling misfits at March in March how to conduct a real demonstration, with a positive message, a huge attendance and a brilliant outcome. Work on Wednesday! If it succeeds, we might have to do it all over again next week.

9.8 out of 10 based on 108 ratings

Nick Cohen “deniers have won” — gets startlingly close to the truth

What insight. ‘Tis prosaic — Nick Cohen in The Guardian packs more truth — runs tantalizingly close to a major insight, yet skates off, one single word short.

It’s projection on a rampage, and Cohen almost seems to realize it. Perhaps we can help him?

“The climate change deniers have won”

Where else, but The Guardian?

Yes, Mr Cohen, those whom you deliberately and with malice call “deniers” are winning. Incredibly, even though they have only 0.03% of the funds, none of the machinery or the institutions, the enmity of western governments, existential opposition from the $350 billion renewables industry, no support from the large global carbon trading market, and only scorn and derision from the entire UN, and yet they are winning with nothing but wits and facts.

“Scientists continue to warn us about global warming, but most of us have a vested interest in not wanting to think about it”

Exactly! If you care about the environment you need to think. How serious is the problem of CO2? Here’s a handy list of topics that won’t tell us that answer:

Any list of organizations, associations, committees.
Any survey of keywords used in publications.
Psychoanalysis, pop psychology, anonymous internet surveys
Funding, imaginary or real.
Studies of cults.
Speculation about vested interests, oil companies, political ideology.

Here’s a list of topics that will:

Observations about the climate – weather balloons, ice cores, satellites, corals, rocks, thermometers, stuff like that.

Cohen talks about the green-gravy train grinding to a halt, and says:

All of which is a long way of saying that the global warming deniers have won. And please, can I have no emails from bed-wetting kidults blubbing that you can’t call us “global warming deniers ” because “denier” makes us sound like “Holocaust deniers”, and that means you are comparing us to Nazis? The evidence for man-made global warming is as final as the evidence of Auschwitz. No other word will do.

It’s neat how he compares being skeptical of the climate to being skeptical of Auschwitz, then calls people cry-babies who point out that “deniers” is namecalling and a tactic that bullies and people who have no arguments use. See, I wouldn’t have said “holocaust denier” in an email, because I’d assume he uses the denial word simply as cheap shot, an abuse of English. Indeed — in a sense, this is the only word he’s got wrong in the whole article, and his logic is sort of sensible and understandable if there were deniers denying scientific observations. But everything he’s written depends entirely on the accuracy of that highly unscientific word. He uses it as a tool to shut down debate, without realizing the minds it closes are those of him and his friends.

I mean, go figure, who would listen to a denier? It’s like talking to your cat. No wonder he finds this debate so baffling.

Tempting though it is to blame cowardly politicians, the abuse comes too easily. The question remains: what turned them into cowards?

What turns politicians into cowards? How about a rampant vicious namecalling campaign run by second rate journalists calling people deniers? Could be…

And when the world makes no sense you have to resort to rabid conspiracy theories eh?

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9.7 out of 10 based on 194 ratings

Unthreaded Weekend

Carved granite | Photo: Jo Nova

Each year the winter whitewater carves out a tiny bit more rock, and each summer we see the ripples in the granite.

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8.4 out of 10 based on 25 ratings

Bloggies voting closes late Sunday – Your chance to promote skeptical science blogs

After skeptical climate science blogs dominated the science category in 2013, the bloggies caved in and dumped the whole category. This is your opportunity to show that scientists are skeptics, and the opinions of hundreds of thousands of readers still count.

So in 2014, I suggested we could lodge a protest, or we could just nominate our favorite blogs for other categories couldn’t we? And boy-o-boy, nominate we did. (Thank you.) Skeptical science blogs are now spread across many other categories. (In the end, trying to keep skeptics out may give skeptics more wins. Ain’t that the way?) But voting closes on Sunday, so if you haven’t already done it, please take the time to tick those boxes. I know it’s a chore, but it’s a way you can help bloggers reach a wider audience, spread their influence. It’s also a way you can direct readers to sites you find rewarding that they may not have heard of. It’s also a way you can let the Bloggies organizers know that it’s no accident that skeptical blogs are so popular.

This year I’ve been lucky enough to be a finalist in three (gosh) heavy hitting categories, with some stiff competition.

Best Topical Weblog
Lifetime Achievement
Weblog of the Year

What am I most proud of?

Since Sept 2008 I have written 1,403 posts and almost two million people have visited this site from over 200 countries. The Skeptics Handbook has found its way in hard copy to 220,000 people, including all politicians in Australia and the US, and was translated by volunteers into 16 languages, and remarkably — in such a contentious topic — five years later, has survived unscathed — there is not much I would change. John Cook took two years to try to knock it down with help from four professors, but I only needed four days to take his arguments apart. Thanks to this blog, I’ve done repeated Op-Eds for The Australian, a sought after Diary post on the Spectator, and been named in the Australian Parliament — where Rob Oakshott “smelt a rat” and claimed I ran a well organized and well funded campaign “to her credit”. My favourite posts include an epic five part debate with Prof Andrew Glikson. I was one of the key protagonists getting Dr Paul Bain and Nature to issue a partial correction “regretting the offence cause by the term denier”. I still think my initial response to him is one of my best pieces. Among my readers are three national cartoonists, and at least a dozen MP’s and senators. I’ve been cited by and talked to the very people who I admire greatly — Mark Steyn, Matt Ridley, James Delingpole and Andrew Bolt, who described this post as outstanding and “a magnificent polemic”.

On the 2014 Bloggies Voting Page — Look out for Tallbloke, Donna La Framboise (No Frakking Consensus), WattsUp, GWPF, Climate Audit, and Small Dead Animals. Yes, some are competing with each other. Darn — you shall have to choose! Voting closes 10pm Sunday EST US time.

Anthony Watts has a list of suggestions, check his page or see below for the details on making your vote count. Remember you must tick a blog in three categories, you must scroll down, fill in the darn Captcha, with a real email, and click the link that will be sent in your email.

Whatever happens I’ve already had a win, and I’m grateful to those who nominated and voted for me in the shortlist.

HOW TO CAST YOUR VOTE

1. Click on the 2014 Bloggies Page

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9.2 out of 10 based on 60 ratings

China going cold on carbon market? Cites Australia and US

Another day is The Backdown? Everything is more important than carbon action these days. In China, real pollution is trumping the fake kind. China has been toying with carbon markets, but this month announced they might have to back away. (The shame!)

[Reuters] “…the all-out efforts to combat China’s disastrous pollution levels might get in the way of plans to tax carbon dioxide emissions in a bid to stunt the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions, Zhu Guangyao, the vice environment minister, said.

“We have to reflect the requests of the majority through many consultation rounds,” he told the Beijing Morning Post from the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary sessions.

A carbon tax is increasingly controversial among lawmakers, said Zhu, adding that an environment tax would be easier to push through without carbon in the mix.

Zhu also referred to the fact that Australia, under a new conservative government, is trying to abolish its carbon tax, while a price on carbon has been blocked in the United States.”

China’s carbon markets were never serious anyway — the glorious plan was to launch seven pilot trading schemes — and each new market was an excuse for environmental activists to issue press releases and proclaim “success” and “momentum”. It was all about the number of new markets opening (not the number of degrees the world would cool). In reality, even these pilot schemes were a pile of tokens (so to speak) — most of the credits were given out for free. The fines for non-compliance were minimal. It almost looks like it was designed with PR in mind?

I’m pleased to see they have noticed the general direction of the Australian Carbon Market (and the oath to axe it). Julia Gillard wanted us to be leaders. What can I say?

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9.8 out of 10 based on 49 ratings

APS reconsiders its position on climate — Scientific storm on the way?

Everything about associations and committees is so paralyzingly slow. But nearly four and a half years after 160 members bitterly complained about the American Physical Society (APS) statement on climate change, they are finally revisiting it, and there are very promising signs. They’ve appointed Richard Lindzen, John Christie, and Judith Curry, all either longstanding skeptics or sympathetic to skeptical arguments. That’s three of six. (Though I stress that I will remain skeptical until the new statement comes out. One other member, Ben Santer, has a record of rewriting conclusions of much larger committees, and other shenanigans*.)

In 2007, the APS improbably stepped out of the world of physics and into the world of policy and proclaimed:

The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.

If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.

In 2009, when 160 members of the APS protested, the council “overwhelmingly” voted to reject their proposal. (See how these things work? There are 47,000 members, of which 160 people took the effort and time to publicly protest, and then a council of what, six people, gets to use the word “overwhelming” as if it means something.) They also wrote: “APS adheres to rigorous scientific standards in developing its statements. The Society is always open to review of its statements when significant numbers of its members request it to do so.” It’s all about the PR isn’t it? It’s about the importance of seeming to be transparent and open, when the reality is the APS statement of 2007 was profoundly unscientific, misleading, and against the wishes of many of the members, yet even in 2014, the statement still stands.

Prominent scientists like Nobel Prize winning Ivar Gievar and long standing Professor Hal Lewis resigned in disgust. The IPCC was exposed again and again as having poor quality control, an unscientific attitude, using magazine articles as references, and allowing activists to help review their work. One of their leading scientists was caught saying he used “tricks” to “hide declines” and other scientists were caught saying they approved of his approach. Evidence accumulated that the IPCC projections were wrong, double wrong, useless, unskilled and failed on all the major predictions. Still the APS supported them.

This is why Science-by-committee is such a hopelessly unscientific approach.

Now finally, the APS announces it will Review that 2007 Statement on Climate Change, February 20, 2014.

There are six members of the new committee, and it is indeed the most broad spectrum and balanced climate science committee I’ve seen. The other three members are Ben Santer, William Collins, and Isaac Held (all essentially climate modelers).

It could be that years after individual physicists and bloggers saw the writing on the wall, the APS has finally realized their support of the IPCC is shredding their scientific reputation. They have a 115 year history as one of the largest hard-science societies. They should never have supported a religion with a trillion dollar price tag.

If they jump ship, the quickening will start… that acceleration on the curve where other agencies and groups rush to dump the dying meme. The moment is coming when the phase change occurs and everyone starts to say “I was always a skeptic”.

Tony Thomas has an excellent article in Quadrant, arguing that this is “finally some real climate science” and the tide has turned. (Perhaps it has, but I’m waiting for the outcome). If the APS really is being transparent, open, and are willing to objectively assess the evidence, then it will cause a storm.

The APS audit of the IPCC makes a contrast with the Australian Science Academy’s (AAS) equivalent efforts. In 2010 the AAS put out a booklet, mainly for schools, ”The Science of Climate Change, Questions and Answers”, drafted behind closed doors. The drafters and overseers totalled 16 people, and the original lone sceptic, Garth Paltridge, was forced out by the machinations of then-President Kurt Lambeck.[5] The Academy is currently revising the booklet, without any skeptic input at all. Of the 16 drafters and overseers, at least nine have been IPCC contributors and others have been petition-signing climate-policy lobbyists, hardly appropriate to do any arm’s length audit of the IPCC version of the science. Once again, the process is without any public transparency or consulting with the broad membership. –– Tony Thomas

As Thomas notes, the questions posed are “trenchant”. I would say they also cut to the core of the points that really matter:

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9.6 out of 10 based on 83 ratings

This is what we need more of: Scientists calling out newspaper hype

Professor Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts Research, Met Office Hadley Centre, responded to an alarmist news story in the Independent, both with a comment at the article, and in a tweet (or two). If more scientists spoke out publicly, reporting would get better.

Prof Richard Betts commenting at the Independent (my bold):

Official prophecy of doom: Global warming will cause widespread conflict, displace millions of people and devastate the global economy

Leaked draft report from UN panel seen by The Independent is most comprehensive investigation into impact of climate change ever undertaken – and it’s not good news

Climate change will displace hundreds of millions of people by the end of this century, increasing the risk of violent conflict and wiping trillions of dollars off the global economy, a forthcoming UN report will warn.

Based on thousands of peer-reviewed studies and put together by hundreds of respected scientists, the [IPCC] report predicts that climate change will reduce median crop yields by 2 per cent per decade …

And so on– it is pretty much all there: war, starvation, floods, seas rising, and death.

Richard Betts comments (my bolding):

“I’m one of the authors of the IPCC WG2 report, and I think this article by the Independent is highly irresponsible, especially the headline.

The author of this article has chosen some juicy bits which back up the “climate doom” meme, but ignored other information. The headline writer has then done the same with the original article to come up with the headline of catastrophe.

They’ve also completely ignored all the important discussion in the report on adapting to climate change and increasing resilience.

The upshot is a very biased, alarmist headline.

The problem is this then risks damaging the credibility of the report. There’s much more to it than the impression given by this article, especially concerning other (non-climate) influences on human health, economies, etc.

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9.5 out of 10 based on 68 ratings

Global anxiety? Scared of maths? Could that explain why some people are innumerate about the climate?

I find myself using the word innumerate more and more. Anything to do with climate change is about the numbers — how much will the planet warm? How much will it cost to change the weather? How much useful electricity do wind turbines produce? The arguments of everyone from trolls to Naomi Klein, to Sir Paul Nurse avoid the numbers. And the only time Greenpeace discuss numbers, they seem to pick the wrong kind — dollars instead of degrees. Then they miss the biggest dollars in this debate anyway (but only by a factor of 3,000). Numbers are just not their strong point.

Some people avoid the numbers strategically, — because it’s a debate they can’t win. Sir Paul Nurse hopes we don’t notice that he doesn’t even make an argument, he just declares his side “won”. He tosses a red herring about CO2 being a greenhouse gas. (Which is not what the debate is about. Perhaps he’s heard of feedbacks? He doesn’t say.) Otherwise, he declares the majority “know the cost benefits are worth it”, which is a/ a logical fallacy, b/ a lot like a car advert, and c/ completely wrong. The last UK poll I saw, showed more than 60% of Brits didn’t even believe in a man-made climate, let alone approve the cost of trying to “fix” it. Now Sir Paul is probably very numerate (being a Nobel in Medicine, and President of The Royal Society), which begs the question of why he seems so scared of talking about climate numbers? Perhaps he’s anxious?

Apparently some people are at greater risk “to fear math” not just because they did badly at it, or had nasty teachers and mean gloating friends. But genetically they might be the anxious kind of person, and not be too hot with math skills. About 40% of the differences in math anxiety, as it is called, is possibly due to genes.

Math anxiety it seems, is a hot field of study. It was a new term for me. A different study using brain scans reckons that when people worry about maths, their brain feels real pain. It’s not something we hear about much on skeptical blogs. Probably since more than half the readers of skeptical blogs had a maths, physics or engineering background. Likewise most geoscientists and engineers are skeptics (and also not too scared of math).

Since maths anxiety seems so common among climate activists, perhaps it’s time we asked if climate-anxiety causes maths anxiety? Or rather whether maths anxiety causes the climate kind…

Time to talk about some numbers then?

Who’s afraid of math? Study finds some genetic factors

Date:

March 17, 2014

Source:

Ohio State University

Summary:

A new study of math anxiety shows how some people may be at greater risk to fear math not only because of negative experiences, but also because of genetic risks related to both general anxiety and math skills. The results don’t mean that math anxiety can be blamed solely or even mostly on genetic factors, the researchers emphasized. In this study, genetic factors explained about 40 percent of the individual differences in math anxiety.

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9.6 out of 10 based on 61 ratings

Tribal warfare, the hatefest runs. Bully barbarians at their intellectual “best”

Here in Australia the intellectual depth and moral caliber of the fans of big-government handouts is on display. This is a world where your intellect and popularity is measured in how much you hate Tony Abbott and Andrew Bolt.

The witless debate ensues, aka the March-in-March protest this weekend: “How much money should we take; you’re a racist, homophobic, corporate a** _______.” Last week a thrash band mock-beheaded Tony Abbott with jets of squirting blood for entertainment. It’s base, it’s barbarian, it’s childish and extreme. Enough.

Last week the ABC wallowed in rants, namcalling and false claims about Andrew Bolt. He who argues we should not judge people by their race, gets called a racist. Tonight the ABC finally agree to “clarify” the claims. (Why not just apologize?) Today, surprise, the ABC finds space for 43 protest photos, but omits the ones that show the depraved nature of some of the protestors. It’s not reporting, it’s propaganda. Privatize it.

Placards from the March in March protest and the “beheading” band.

After Bolt was subjected to abuse he wondered if he should give up. I was struck that what he and what Tony Abbott need are not voices just urging them on, but people willing to do something. Civilization depends on people being civil. It’s not enough to stand by and just cheer on those who fight for logic, decency, and reason. It’s time to speak up against the bullies; to write letters to editors, journalist-activists and politicians. To demand that something be done about the ABC. You may think one voice doesn’t matter. But bullies follow the herd, and they need to know the grownups outnumber them and they are not impressed.

Another Canberra woman, November, said she was upset about too many things to list. When asked what she wanted to achieve, she said, “I want to see Tony Abbott lynched.”— Canberra Times

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9.4 out of 10 based on 126 ratings

The North Atlantic jet stream correlates with Solar output over a millennium

A new paper (Moffa-Sánchez et al) reports that they looked at layers of dead plankton in ocean mud (otherwise known as foraminifera in marine sediments) and have reconstructed the temperature and salinity of a couple of spots in the North Atlantic between 818AD – 1780 with data on δ¹⁸O and the Mg/Ca ratios. One immediate thought, an aside, is that if this technique works, there is no shortage of ocean mud, surely, and perhaps we could drill and analyze more mud for solar correlations in other places. (I hear foraminifera live in the Southern Hemisphere too). Perhaps no one is looking for the connection with the sun?

Moffa-Sánchez et al find the big climate shifts (the 100-year variations) correlate with total solar irradiance (TSI). See especially that orange line black line track in the d graph below. I stress, correlations don’t mean causation and the mechanism is mere speculation. But I find the graph intruiging. There are a lot of turning points, and in pure “curve fitting” type of analysis, this is a better curve fit than the one with CO2. (Find me a turning point that matches with carbon dioxide!) I suspect we’ll be referring back to this paper, and I hanker for more TSI comparisons with other sites and regions.

Figure 2 | Proxy records from RAPiD-17-5P. a, Solar irradiance forcing reconstruction based on the cosmogenic nuclide 10Be (ref. 10; orange) and global volcanic stratospheric aerosols30 (grey) TSI, total solar irradiance. b,
Temperature and c, salinity/18Osw estimates derived from paired Mg/Ca and 18O measurements in G. inflata calcite from RAPiD-17-5P. SMOW, standard mean ocean water. d, Three-point smoothed temperature record
from RAPiD-17-5P (black) and 1TSI (ref. 10) (orange). A 12.42-year lag has been imposed on the 1TSI forcing as indicated from the highest Pearson correlation (Supplementary Notes, Supplementary Fig. 3). Shaded areas
highlight the well-known periods of solar minima. (Click to enlarge and see original unscaled graph*)

The researchers suggest that when solar activity is low the winter jet stream over the North Atlantic is more likely to get blocked. (Which means vast tongues of cold arctic air stretch far to the south, and someone somewhere, gets freaky and not-nice weather.)

Scientists studied seafloor sediments to determine how the temperature of the North Atlantic and its localised atmospheric circulation had altered. Warm surface waters flowing across the North Atlantic, an extension of the Gulf Stream, and warm westerly winds are responsible for the relatively mild climate of Europe, especially in winter. Slight changes in the transport of heat associated with these systems can lead to regional climate variability, and the study findings matched historic accounts of climate change, including the notoriously severe winters of the 16^th and 18^th centuries which pre-date global industrialisation. — Science Daily

Back when CO2 levels were “ideal” the climate apparently swung wildly:

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9 out of 10 based on 73 ratings

Weekend Unthreaded – how can any post not be an anti-climax

I’ve been humbled by donations from Australia, USA, UK, Canada, NZ, Ireland, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Holland, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Israel, Austria, and Cyprus. I hope I haven’t missed any? (For the record, Queensland has the most skeptics per capita. :- ) )

I thought I might have had writers block trying to live up to that.

Here’s the irony, can you believe? I’ve run out of chocolate. More than 600 people bought me a chocolate, yet I have none in the house.

Back soon…

Donors came from all over the West. This graphs the number of donors from each country.

(Thank you to everyone, I’m trying to send emails, but I may not manage…)

*Holland/Netherlands — yes I realize, but I’m acknowledging the names that donors used.

UPDATE: Oh! Norway added to the post and to the graph, as it should be! – Jo

9.9 out of 10 based on 66 ratings

An offer I couldn’t refuse… Jo Nova gets outfoxed

UPDATE: This is just overwhelming. Amazing! New donations are coming in from the UK, Canada, France, Austria, New Zealand, Germany. Brilliant. Brilliant. Every bit counts. Thanks Anthony Thanks Jaymez.!

UPDATE #2: Donations (this random moment 9pm EST) are coming in the last hour from Columbus, OH; Lower Plenty, Victoria; Multi Way London; Newtown, New South Wales; Kew, Victoria; Aurora Ontario; Albion, QLD; Hollola Finland; Belmont, Western Australia; Sawston Cambridge, UK; Point Lonsdale, Victoria; Ermington, New South Wales; Witham, Essex UK; Marrickville, New South Wales; Ascot, Berkshire UK; Belair, South Australia; Oslo Norway; Tatura, Victoria ; Oxley, Queensland; Point Cook, Victoria; Stewarton, East Ayrshire UK … I’m lost for the right word.

At this rate we might make the target Jaymez set.

UPDATE #3: Good news we are well over the half way mark. I’m really delighted, thank you.

UPDATE #4!! Great news, we have claimed the full bonus from Jaymez. (Thank you! I owe a lot of people an email. I did not expect it to be reached so soon. 🙂 Extra mention goes to donors to the NAB account, I have no way of identifying or thanking some of you personally (unless you email, please!). It all makes a big difference, and is support for us over the next few months. If you haven’t yet made a contribution, please don’t stop, the extra funds are still very useful too — in the long run, we need to find a way to fund ongoing independent analysis, research and commentary in a more sustainable way. Any government will grow until something stops it. What stops it? We, the people. — Jo

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I received a strongly worded email today from a long time loyal reader complaining that he almost missed this request which I placed at the bottom of yesterdays post.

Our bank account is looking very low. All contributions would be gratefully received. Thanks

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He claimed that hardly anyone would have seen it, and while I think I’m getting a great response, he thinks I’m crazy. He knows I hate asking for money (or even thinking about finances), but he also knows I work full time and despite the claims, big oil isn’t sending cheques, and there are no government grants to fund someone to fill in the gaps the CSIRO ($1.2b budget) and BOM ($300m) seem to miss. To cut a long story short he made an offer I just couldn’t refuse. I had to do a proper request for donations. He’s been ribbing me for ages to get onto it. I keep making excuses, but he’s finally outfoxed me, and in the nicest possible way.

This time, to ensure that I did so he made the extraordinary offer of giving me a dollar for every $4 I raise in the next week to a maximum of $5,000 (hypothetically if I was to raise $20,000). So any support you can give me would be gratefully received (and amplified by 25%). It will help me to keep not-thinking-about-money and think about corruption-in-science or getting logic-into-schools or trying to reduce your tax bill instead.

Indeed, it’s really just about our freedom to say what we think and the kind of civilization we want to leave for the kids.

I would love to claim the whole $5,000 he is offering, because it will be very useful (just wait ’til you see what’s been cooking around here). Just wait!

As Jaymez says: “So there is your challenge Jo! Now you have no excuse.”

Shucks, Thanks Jaymez.

Wow. Just wow.

For those who want to“buy” $1 units of chocolate support. (Click on the currency button, and write in the quantity).

…

…or visit the Donations page.

Hate Paypal? There are alternatives (Deposit & Cheques button).

Why this odd arrangement? Would you believe — the Australian government say that I need permission from them to accept “donations”. (It might be your money, but you can only donate it to a Registered Charity.) So instead of accepting “donations” I’m “selling” units of $1 emergency chocolate support (for me) of which you may purchase as many as you want.

PS: For anyone wondering, Jaymez is not a magnate, not a wealthy businessman, and not in the fossil fuels industry. He spends some of his time working pro bono in developing countries. He writes that he “understands better than most how restrictions on industrial growth will impact the poorest in the world.”

PPS: I owe some other thank yous still. They’re coming.

9.4 out of 10 based on 111 ratings

What the CSIRO State of the Climate report forgot to tell you

The CSIRO decided to leave out some information about the state of our climate in their State of the Climate Report CSIRO.

CSIRO published these “Fast Facts” in bold. I’m publishing the things they didn’t say, but could have, in points in between.

UPDATE: The CSIRO budget is $1.2 billion a year and the BOM’s is $300 m. Why is it left to unfunded volunteers to provide the full story?

Fast Facts from the CSIRO and BOM

“Australia’s climate has warmed by 0.9°C since 1910, and the frequency of extreme weather has changed, with more extreme heat and fewer cool extremes.”

The CSIRO-BOM team could have said:

Scientifically, extreme weather measures are lousy indicators. They’re noisy and not very meaningful. They are however useful for getting newspaper headlines. It depends on what your aim is…
Australia’s had extreme hot days for as long as we’ve been measuring the temperature. Charles Sturt recorded 53C in 1828 which seems fairly extreme. Thomas Mitchell did it too in 1845 and are many others (see the map below, check Trove, ask the BOM — no don’t ask the BOM). The records prior to 1910 seem to have gone down the memory hole, but if the BOM and CSIRO were trying to give Australians a true sense of the state of our climate perhaps Australians might like to know that extreme heat occurred even when CO2 levels were ideal.
Before we hit the national Panic Button about the effect a hot day has on our airconditioners, ponder what other Australians went through. The January 1896 heat wave killed hundreds, and temperatures of close to, or over, 50C, were recorded right across the country in Mullewa, Carnarvon, Southern Cross, Wilcannia, Ungarie, Quirindi, Camden, Brewarrina, Cunnamulla and Mildura. No phones, no cars, no helicopters. No refrigerators.
It’s misleading to say that the recent “extreme” records are meaningful. The cause and effect connection between man-made CO2 emissions and Australian “extreme” hot days is extremely tenuous. CO2 is a greenhouse gas every day of the year, so if extremes are rising in some places and on some days, but global trends are not, a normal scientist wouldn’t make much of the connection. But the CSIRO-BOM do, though in a special kind of caveat-speak where a null result is reframed:

“Some recent instances of extreme summer temperatures experienced around the world, including record-breaking summer temperatures in Australia over 2012–2013, are very unlikely to have been caused by natural variability alone.”

Admire how a conclusion so weak a skeptic could agree somehow “seems” to endorse the general theme of fear and angst about CO2. It’s all in the wording. The corollary to the conclusion above is equally true: some of these hot summer records are very likely to have been caused by natural and unnatural variability together. Since any unnatural effect greater than flat-zero makes the above statement technically correct, the precise message it conveys is close to nothing. As I keep saying: all forms of warming, cause warming. It doesn’t mean that CO2 caused it.

The hottest temperatures here were recorded in the 1800’s.

“Rainfall averaged across Australia has slightly increased since 1900, with the largest increases in the northwest since 1970. Rainfall has declined since 1970 in the southwest, dominated by reduced winter rainfall. Autumn and early winter rainfall has mostly been below average in the southeast since 1990.”

In a nation with the most unpredictable rainfall in the world, it would be amazing if some regions did not show some change over short periods like 100 years.
In South West WA, the rainfall decline correlated better with man-made land clearance than CO2. Rainfall declined the most in areas where the most native flora was cleared. It didn’t change much in zones where humans left the scrub alone. Apparently Australians don’t need to know that planting trees might increase the rainfall. (Which side of politics wants to plant 20 million trees, again?)

“Extreme fire weather has increased, and the fire season has lengthened, across large parts of Australia since the 1970s.”

Fires are caused by heat, humidity, winds, fuel loads, rainfall patterns and delinquent teenagers. In the last 100 years we are sure things have got hotter, and there are definitely more delinquent teenagers. But we can’t predict wind, fuel, or humidity, or for that matter, temperature in 2100. This apparently doesn’t stop us from accurately predicting “fire-weather”.
This short recent trend (since the 1970s) may not include the worst fire seasons we know of like those that occurred in 1939 or even in 1851. Real scientists would not draw any serious conclusions from a marker as vague as a “fire season”, nor over such a short period of time.

“Global mean temperature has risen by 0.85°C from 1880 to 2012.”

Temperatures started rising in the 1700s — long before CO2 did. Even though 85% of man-made CO2 was emitted after World War II, the rate of warming is no different to the era before that. The trend in the 1870s was the same as the peak trend in the 1980s. Even Phil Jones (Director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia) agrees both rates peaked at 0.16 C per decade.
Hadley Global Temperature Graph with trends according to Phil Jones trends annotated on top. Red trend lines there to show roughly where these trends occur.

“The amount of heat stored in the global oceans has increased, and global mean sea level has risen by 225 mm from 1880 to 2012.”

The oceans appear to have warmed by two hundredths of a degree in the last 10 years. (If you believe that we can measure the 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of ocean to a hundredth of a degree, I have a giant working solar plant to sell you.)
The heat stored in all the oceans is pretty hard to measure, and based on the best measurements we have, we are fairly, possibly, or a little bit sure the heat has increased. Though the increase was a lot less than we predicted, and quadrillions of joules of energy is missing, these may not matter because the real error bars are so large that the ones on the observations totally overlap the ones on the predictions, ergo, we are still possibly right (or at least Not Wrong Yet). In 40 years we’ll know, in the meantime call it “settled”.
The seas started rising in the early 1800’s about the same time Napoleon launched the moon mission. (Sorry, we mean that horses, carts, and wind-driven-boats caused pollution. Scratch that. Punters don’t need to know that.)

“Annual average global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached 395 parts per million (ppm) in 2013 and concentrations of the other major greenhouse gases are at their highest levels for at least 800,000 years.”

For most of the history of life on Earth CO2 levels were higher than they are today, sometimes 10 times higher. It was a lot hotter, except when it was a lot colder. For 500 million years nobody taxed carbon. Somehow life flourished and coral reefs existed.
Sometimes asteroids dropped in — and then, boy, did that climate change. But that’s not the point, no one can tax an asteroid.^

Source: www.geocraft, Scotese and Berner 2001

“Australian temperatures are projected to continue to increase, with more extremely hot days and fewer extremely cool days.”

These projections are made by models which have no skill in predicting humidity, droughts, clouds, and rain. They also can’t predict decadal trends, or millenial ones. They don’t work on regions, continents or global trends either. (Did we forget to mention that?)

The best models in the warmest decades, peak CO2 emissions, and still no glory for modelers.

Information about the graph. [See all posts on Climate models].

“Average rainfall in southern Australia is projected to decrease, and heavy rainfall is projected to increase over most parts of Australia.”

See the point about models above. The models don’t work. It would be cheaper and just as scientifically valid to throw darts.

“Sea-level rise and ocean acidification are projected to continue.”

If the BOM and CSIRO had wanted Australians to be informed and calm about the risks of Ocean Acidification, they would have said things like this:

The oceans are not acidic, and not close to being acidic with a pH of more than 8 which is alkaline. However natural unpolluted clean rainfall has a shockingly acidic pH of about 5. [Source CSIRO] Life on Earth seems to cope. Some natural undersea vents have a pH as acidic as 2.8. That’s acidic.
The ocean changes pH naturally. In the Southern Ocean pH shifts by 0.3-0.5 units every summer and winter. Quite a lot of marine life are okay with this.
Some parts of the ocean vary even more every day than the most pessimistic models predict the ocean will change in the next 100 years.
It’s tricky to know what the pH of the world’s oceans are today (because of this natural variability) but it’s even harder to know that the pH was in 1750 since the pH scale and meters and what not, was only invented 150 years later. Instead our scientists estimate what the pH might have been then with models. Did we mention we are uncertain about the accuracy?
Sea level rise has decelerated lately, which suggests that more CO2 does not make the sea rise faster. A lot of heat is missing from climate models, but if the “missing heat” is hiding in the oceans — sea levels would be rising faster.
Australian and New Zealand sea levels were rising faster in the 1930s and 1940s than they have in the last 40 years. (Isn’t that a bit relevant?)
Sea levels all over the world started rising before 1800 when CO2 was still at “perfect” levels. Something was warming the planet back then. If climate modelers knew what it was, their models might work.

More information

Posts on Extreme weather, Heatwaves, Australian temperatures, Sea Level, Oceans.

Our bank account is looking very low. All contributions would be gratefully received. Thanks

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* Remember how the BOM had to change the whole color scheme on the national weather map just to forecast a potential “50C” in 2013? They had to issue a whole press release, where they also didn’t mention the previous 50C+ days in our national archives. Spot the pattern.

^This does not preclude the possibility that we might “need” a large bureaucracy and soon, to protect us from falling space rocks. Pace NASA, and DOD. Awaiting events in Syria/Ukraine…

REFERENCES

Berner et al, GEOCARB III: A revised model of atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic Time, American Journal of Science, Vol. 301, February, 2001, P. 182–204. (GEOCARB III)

Scotese C.R., Golonka, J., and Ross, M.I. (1994) Phanerozoic Paleogeographic and Paleoclimatic Modeling Maps, in A. F. Embry, B. Beauchamp, and D.J. Glass (editors), Pangea, Global Environments and resources, Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir 17, p. 1-47.

Scotese, Worsley, T. R., Moore, T. L., and Fraticelli, C. M. (1994) Phanerozoic CO2 levels and global temperatures inferred from changing paleogeography, in Klein, George D., (editor), Pangea; paleoclimate, tectonics, and sedimentation during accretion, zenith and breakup of a supercontinent. Special Paper Geological Society of America 288, p. 57-73, Boulder, CO.

Scotese C.C., Upchurch, G.R., and Otto-Bliesner, B.L. (1999) Terrestrial vegetation and its effects on climate during the latest Cretaceous, E. Berrera and C. Johnson, (eds), The Evolution of Cretaceous Ocean/Climate Systems, Geol. Soc. Amer. Spec. Paper, v. 332, pp. 407-426.

9.4 out of 10 based on 103 ratings

Kochs give $100 million to hospital. People protest.

How much do they hate the Koch brothers? So much, that when the Koch’s paid for a new hospital care centre, nurses stormed the streets.

Washington Beacon: it was the New York State Nurses’ Association, the NAACP New York State Conference, and SEIU Local 1199, among others, who marched on the soon-to-be-built David H. Koch Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, which was funded in part by a $100 million donation from the man one prominent liberal recently predicted would go down in history as a “famously evil person.”

The donation was the largest in the hospital’s history, and will presumably create a fair number of new nursing jobs. So why are the usual suspects up in arms? Well, the agitators were apparently agitated because this particular hospital didn’t need all the money. Oh yeah, and because it was International Women’s Day, and the Kochs are the primary funders of the “war on women’s reproductive rights … and many other issues of concern to American women.” They’re also behind “the effort to defeat and repeal healthcare to all Americans,” whatever that means.

From the twitter #kochBros

David Koch is against affordable healthcare. Why is his name on a hospital? #stopKoch

The real issue apparently is “Affordable Healthcare”. If you are dependent on big-government largess (or aiming to be that way), I guess the last thing you’d want is successful free market philanthropy.

Once upon a time people who created productive industries and gave away large sums of money were lauded, now there is no amount of money the Koch’s could give…

If you like your small hospital, you can keep your small hospital?

Oh the dilemma, The Koch’s support of climate skeptics* means the hospital gift is tainted money:

David Koch Gives $100 Million Dollar Donation to New York Presbyterian Hospital-Their Largest Single Gift in History While Koch Maintains Campaign Against Climate Changing Science..

The donation will bear his name, David Koch on a new outpatient facility and he sits on the Board of Trustees at the hospital. This just goes to show what wealth is doing today in the US, sure the hospital welcomes the money and who wouldn’t but it’s strange spot to be in with the political side of where Koch goes with their campaigns, so I guess in essence we need fossil fuels to keep some hospitals going? It’s a strange world we live in today. BD

Grist are right into the irony (as they see it). The hospital is “desperate” because of the extra patients due to the trauma of Hurricane Sandy, and yet The Kochs helped made Hurricane Sandy worse!

“NewYork-Presbyterian declined to comment on whether the hospital is comfortable accepting millions of dollars from a donor whose companies create the conditions for future superstorms.”

h/t Marc Morano Climate Depot

*I’m not one.

9.6 out of 10 based on 79 ratings

Weekend Unthreaded

The loose ends….

7 out of 10 based on 26 ratings

Media bias — ABC, CBS exclude skeptical scientists for 1300 days

The bias is obvious in what they don’t say. Reporters are supposed to seek out and promote the most rational, well argued positions they can find. Instead they elevate themselves to defacto “science judges” and decide which scientists deserve to be heard. It could be called arrogance, or it could be called “lying by omission”.

COLD SHOULDER: ABC, CBS Exclude Scientists Critical of Global Warming for More Than 1,300 Days | NewsBusters

Like a simple parlor trick, the networks are able to make skeptical scientists vanish, at least from the eyes of their viewers.

In some cases, the broadcast networks have failed to include such scientists for years, while including alarmist scientists within the past six months. ABC, CBS and NBC’s lengthy omission of scientists critical of global warming alarmism propped up the myth of a scientific consensus, despite the fact that many scientists and thousands of peer-reviewed studies disagree.

Neither CBS nor ABC have included a skeptical scientist in their news shows within the past 1,300 days, but both networks included alarmists within the past 160 days — CBS as recently as 22 days ago. When the networks did include other viewpoints, the experts were dismissed as “out of the scientific mainstream” or backed by “oil and coal companies.”

CBS was the worst, ignoring skeptical scientists for 1,391 days, ever since the May 15, 2010, “Evening News.” That night, CBS interviewed former NASA climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer during an extensive profile of alarmist meteorologist, and non-Ph.D., Dan Satterfield.

It was just 22 days ago, on Feb. 12, 2014, that CBS included an alarmist physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku on “This Morning.” Kaku is a contributor to “This Morning” and that day he warned of the “heating up of the North Pole” which “could cause gigantic storms of historic proportions.”

ABC last included a skeptical scientist 1,383 days ago. During the May 23, 2010, segment of “World News,” ABC played a brief, 23-second clip of Princeton-educated Dr. Fred Singer expressing his skepticism over man-made climate change, along with clips of two alarmist scientists. Singer’s was the only opposing view in that report and his views were actually taken from a much earlier interview aired on ABC March 23, 2008.

The ABC referred too here is the American one, not the Australian ABC. (Has anyone analyzed the local highly influential mass-media outlet?)

For those choosing networks in the US, NBC did better than either the ABC or the CBS. Of course, the evil Fox out-rates them all. Could it be those viewers hate being told what to think?

Fox News topped the cable news ratings race for the 12th consecutive year in 2013, with more total viewers than MSNBC and CNN combined. Meanwhile, MSNBC slid to third place in total-day viewership while CNN hit a 20-year low in prime time. — politico

Cue the commenters who will claim news ought to reflect the consensus. Meaning that journalists should decide who goes to air, not by reason and evidence, but because key-word surveys on specialty magazine publications suggest that there are more scientists who believe a particular, unlikely, idea. Rent out your brain, you “investigative journalists”. Government funding pays for magazine subscriptions, just like it pays for repeated irrelevant press releases. Since when was this science?

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9.1 out of 10 based on 84 ratings

The miracle gas that causes everything and nothing

In the true spirit of satire Steve Hunter manages to pretty much expose the grand flaw.

Thanks to Steve Hunter

Credit Steve Hunter illustrations

Man-made global warming is unfalsifiable.

Scientists make predictions and test them. Only unskeptical scientists ignore the failures.

Flannery has missed a few. Bolt has a copy of Flannery’s Dam Predictions. For the record.

For your entertainment, the list of things that global warming can cause has been collected by NumberWatch:

A list of things caused by global warming

A snippet from I – K:

… indigestion, industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insect explosion, insect invasion, insurance premium rises, Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, invasion of alien worms, invasion of Antarctic aliens, invasion of Asian carp, invasion of cane toads, invasion of caterpillars, invasion of cats, invasion of crabgrass, invasion of herons, invasion of jellyfish, invasion of king crabs, invasion of lampreys, invasion of midges, invasion of pine beetles, invasion of rats (China), invasion of slugs, island disappears, islands sinking, Italy robbed of pasta, itchier poison ivy, Japan’s cherry blossom threatened, jellyfish explosion, jets fall from sky, Kew Gardens taxed, kidney stones, killer cornflakes, killing us, kitten boom, koalas leaves inedible, koalas under threat, krill decline…

9.3 out of 10 based on 129 ratings

Zombie carbon market falls 60%, revived by EU decree – media spins “soaring success”

Global Carbon Markets peaked in 2011 at €96bn euro. Over the next two years they plummeted to €36bn* euro collapsing by 60%. Though the press didn’t seem in a hurry to convey that, and if I search, no government funded agency has done a graph like this below (perhaps I missed it?)

The decline was looking pretty terminal, but the EU government has now voted to backload (which means hold off the permits and cut the supply). This is a desperate measure involving over half the new permits to keep the “free” market alive.

Instead, the news agencies with greener leanings have underplayed the fall, and the 60% decline is now invisibly massaged in places like BusinessGreen into a “market set to soar”. This is not just media-spin but a news-through-a-centrifuge.

The value of the world’s carbon markets is set to soar to €64bn (£53bn) this year, up from €39bn in 2013, as the European Union launches a temporary fix to revive its ailing emissions trading system.

Peak carbon came and went. Those 2014 figures are speculation. Otherwise the trend was terminal.

A breathless journalist at Thompson Reuters describes the possible revival of the market back to 30% below the peak as “astounding”:

Emil Dimantchev, analyst at Thomson Reuters Point Carbon, anticipates that such significant growth will be driven by “expectations that after imminent backloading is implemented early in 2014, EUA prices could rise to €7.5/t, increasing over-the-counter and exchange traded liquidity. This would lead to an astounding increase in value, up by more than two thirds to €61bn ($US84bn) from €36bn ($US49bn) in 2013”. –BusinessSpectator

Let’s not forget this soaring revival is only due to Government decree. The EU voted to simply hold back some promised carbon credits. They cornered the market from the start. There is nothing “free” about this fixed market, and the people who will pay (consumers and taxpayers, us) don’t get a choice. The Australian carbon market is still tied to the EU one. Ask Bill Shorten (the opposition leader) why a group of EU bureaucrats are setting the price.

The long-awaited “backloading” of European Union carbon allowance auctions will start on 12 March, marking the first time that governments will sell fewer permits than required by power producers

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Fast Facts from the CSIRO and BOM

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The long-awaited “backloading” of European Union carbon allowance auctions will start on 12 March, marking the first time that governments will sell fewer permits than required by power producers Keep reading →

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The long-awaited “backloading” of European Union carbon allowance auctions will start on 12 March, marking the first time that governments will sell fewer permits than required by power producers

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