Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The global electric vehicle (EV) market is reeling from one of the most dramatic collapses in monthly sales to date, with Rystad Energy research showing that only 672,000 units were sold in January, almost half of December 2022 sales and a mere 3% year-on-year increase over January 2022. The EV market share among all passenger car sales also tumbled to 14% in January, well down on the 23% seen in December.
EV sales have been on a relatively consistent upward trajectory in recent years – aside from periods impacted by Covid-19 pandemic-related supply chain issues – and a significant collapse in sales is worrying news for the industry. Tax credits and government subsidies have propped up the EV market to date as countries identify passenger car fleet electrification as a core tactic for meeting net-zero emissions goals, but the reduction or removal of these subsidies this year has dampened consumer sentiment. Automakers are now scrambling to reverse the downward spiral and salvage the market in 2023.
The automotive market is usually cyclical, with sales taking a hit after new subsidy rules come into effect at the start of each year, followed by a gradual recovery. However, the cuts in January this year hit harder than normal, triggering this dramatic collapse. The ramifications of this will be long-lasting and will impact sales through the first quarter of the year and potentially the rest of 2023.
EV subsidies in many European countries and mainland China were sliced at the start of the year, and a return of any significance is highly unlikely in the immediate future. One ray of hope for the global outlook is the US market, which is just beginning its electrification journey and rolling out tax credits thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. The US was the only major market that saw an increase in both EV sales and market share year-on-year, although its contribution to the global total is still relatively minimal.
“The sands are shifting for the global EV market. Consumer appetite for electric cars remains strong, but it’s clear that tax credits and subsidies still play a significant role in convincing consumers to make the switch. Carmakers may have no option but to respond with reduced prices,” says Abhishek Murali, clean tech analyst with Rystad Energy.
China, the largest EV market globally, experienced a near 50% cut in EV sales in January 2023 compared to the prior month, but the year-over-year change was relatively flat due to the affinity of consumers for cheaper domestic-made models. The Chinese Association of Automotive Manufacturers forecasts a slowing of sales momentum this year, predicting around 8 million EV sales this year. We expect slow sales to continue through the first quarter, but CATL’s announcement of a price cut in battery cells for automotive offtakers will help boost sales again.
Although there was a marginal year-on-year growth in EV sales in Europe last month, market performance has been grim, with many countries showing a steep drop in EV sales from December 2022. With EV subsidies coming to an end, many consumers brought forward their purchases from the first quarter of 2023 to December 2022, leading to a massive spike in purchases before the end of the year. Widespread subsidy reductions will have a lasting impact on sales activity, but automakers will not tolerate this weakening for long – Tesla is already testing their pricing limits, offering a massive discount, triggering a large volume of pre-orders.
Germany have seen a steep falloff in sales and market share. Sales in Germany dropped about a third in January compared to 2022, totaling only 27,000 for the month. Market share in the country also fell off a cliff – after EVs accounted for 55% of all car sales in December 2022, the market share fell to just 15%. Elsewhere in Europe, the EV market share in the UK halved from about 40% to 20% month-to-month and from 50% to 24% in the Netherlands. This downward trend is replicated across much of Europe and will be giving automakers sleepless nights.
Norway experienced the worst monthly passenger car sales in over 60 years, with just 1,860 vehicles sold, including EVs. Electric cars accounted for 76.3% of those sales, totaling 1,419 units. That market share was also the lowest and dipped below 80% for the first time in two years. A slew of new taxes have contributed to this, and battery electric vehicles are now impacted by two new taxes that will negatively impact sales.
Across the Atlantic, the US anticipated falling EV sales and was one of the only markets to implement fresh incentives through federal tax credits. Around 80,000 EVs were sold in January – a 7.8% market share. However, there was no sales surge from these credits as automakers made the prudent decision to offer EV discounts in December to avoid an unmanageable influx of orders. US automakers are also grappling to make smart pricing decisions for their EV models. Tesla, for instance, is slowly increasing vehicle prices to gauge consumer price ceilings after previously offering sizeable discounts. The US market outlook for 2023 is strong, and the country is expected to break the 10% adoption mark this year.
However, the proclaimed climate crisis exists in computer models only. The cult of ‘manmade climate change’ is a media and UN politically-promoted ‘ideology’, that is used for a wider political and corporate agenda.
Many people worldwide are concerned about climate change and believe there is a climate emergency. For decades we have been told by the United Nations that Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activity are causing disastrous climate change. In 2018, a UN IPCC report even warned that ‘we have 12 years to save the Earth’, thus sending millions of people worldwide into a frenzy.
Thirty-five years ago, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the (World Meteorological Organization) WMO established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide scientific advice on the complex topic of climate change. The panel was asked to prepare, based on available scientific information, a report on all aspects relevant to climate change and its impacts and to formulate realistic response strategies. The first assessment report of the IPCC served as the basis for negotiating the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Governments worldwide have signed this convention, thereby, significantly impacting the lives of the people of the world.
However, many scientists dispute with the UN-promoted man-made climate change theory, and many people worldwide are confused by the subject, or are unaware of the full facts. Please allow me to provide some information you may not be aware of.
1. Very few people actually dig into the data, they simply accept the UN IPPC reports. Yet many highly respectable and distinguished scientists have done exactly that and found that the UN-promoted manmade climate change theory is seriously flawed. Are you aware that 1500 of the world’s leading climate scientists and professionals in over 30 countries have signed a declaration that there is no climate emergency and have refuted the United Nations claims in relation to man-made climate change? See this
2. I have also signed this declaration. How can I make such an assertion? I have experience in the field as a former scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK Government; and as former staff member at the United Nations Environment Division, where I was responsible for servicing the Pollution Release and Transfer Register Protocol, a Multinational Environmental Agreement, involving the monitoring of pollutants to land, air, and water worldwide. Real pollution exists, but the problem is not CO2. Industrial globalisation has produced many substances that are registered as pollutants, including thousands of new man-made chemical compounds, toxins, nano-particles and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that are in violation of the scientific pre-cautionary principle.
A book I published recently also provides ample evidence and testimony from renowned scientists that there is no Climate emergency. The book titled ‘Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability’ is available here on amazon.COM
3. Next, I will mention the Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) website, a valuable resource founded by Jim O’Brien. I am grateful to the ICSF for their excellent work in highlighting the scientific flaws in the UN climate narrative. The ICSF provides a comprehensive lecture series from renowned international scientists providing much evidence, analysis, and data that contradicts the UN assertions. The lectures are available here.
The ICSF scientific view coincides with those of the Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. Based on this common conviction, 20 Irish scientists and several ICSF members have co-signed the CLINTEL World Climate Declaration “There is No Climate Emergency” (see this).
4. The reality is that the climate changes naturally and slowly in its own cycle, and solar activity is the dominant factor in climate and not Co2. We can conclude that carbon emissions or methane from livestock, such as cows, are not the dominant factors in climate change. In essence, therefore, the incessant UN, government, and corporate-media-produced climate hysteria in relation to carbon emissions and methane from cows has no scientific basis.
Please note that I have no commercial interest in stating that climate change is not caused by CO2. In truth I am against ‘real’ pollution, and the reality is that the CO2 component is not a pollutant. Unfortunately, many misinformed environmentalists are driving around in electric cars, the battery production for which has caused vast amounts of ‘real’ pollution via the industrial mining and processing of rare earth metals, and the consequent pollution to land, air and water systems. Note that the UN does not focus on the thousands of real pollutants that corporate industrial globalisation creates.
5. The conclusions of the Climate Intelligence foundation include the following
There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm.
Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming: The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.
Warming is far slower than predicted: The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.
Climate policy relies on inadequate models: Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.
CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth: CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.
Global warming has not increased natural disasters: There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent.
6. In the above book I reference the relevant work and scientific presentations of some of the world’s leading climate scientists. Let us examine some of the work and testimonies of these scientists:
“deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that Co2 from human industry was a dangerous plant destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that Co2 the life of plants was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” – Professor Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT.
Dr Nils-Axel Mörner was a former Committee Chairman at the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was an expert involved in reviewing the first IPPC documents. He says the UN IPPC is misleading humanity about climate change. He tried to warn that the IPPC were publishing lies and false information that would inevitably be discredited. In an interview, he stated: “This is the most dangerous and frightening part of it. How a lobbyist group, such as the IPPC, has been able to fool the whole world. These organised and deceitful forces are dangerous” and expressed shock “that the UN and governments would parade children around the place at UN Climate summits as propaganda props”. The following is his testimony as detailed
“solar activity is the dominant factor in climate and not Co2… something is basically sick in the blame Co2 hypothesis… It was launched more than 100 years ago and almost immediately excellent physicists demonstrated that the hypothesis did not work.
I was the chairman of the only international committee on sea levels changes and as such a person I was elected to be the expert reviewer on the (UN IPPC) sea levels chapter. It was written by 38 persons and not a single one was a sea level specialist… I was shocked by the low quality it was like a student paper… I went through it and showed them that it was wrong and wrong and wrong…
The scientific truth is on the side of the sceptics… I have thousands of high ranked scientists all over the world who agree that NO, CO2 is not the driving mechanism and that everything is exaggerated. In the field of physics 80 to 90% of physicists know that the Co2 hypothesis is wrong… Of course, metrologists they believe in this because that is their own profession – they live on it.… I suspect that behind-the-scenes promoters… have an ulterior motive… It’s a wonderful way of controlling taxation controlling people” – Dr Nils-Axel Mörner, a former Committee Chairman at the UN IPPC, and former head of the Paleo Geo-physics and Geo-dynamics department in Stockholm
Another climate scientist with impeccable credentials that has broken rank is Dr Mototaka Nakamura. He asserts: “Our models are mickey-mouse mockeries of the real world”.
Dr Nakamura received a Doctorate of Science from MIT, and for nearly 25 years specialized in abnormal weather and climate change at prestigious institutions that included MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, JAMSTEC and Duke University.
Dr Nakamura explains why the data foundation underpinning global warming science is “untrustworthy” and cannot be relied on and that:“Global mean temperatures before 1980 are based on untrustworthy data”.
Professor John R. Christy, Director of Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, University of Alabama, has provided detailed analysis of climate data, see Endnote [i]. I summarise the main points from his analysis below:
“The established global warming theory significantly misrepresents the impact of extra greenhouse gases; the weather that affects people the most is not becoming more extreme or more dangerous; temperatures were higher in the 1930s than today; between 1895 and 2015, 14 of the top 15 years with the highest heat records occurred before 1960; the temperatures we are experiencing now in 2021 were the same as 120 years ago…
the number of major tornadoes between 1954 and 1986 averaged 56/year, but between 1987 and 2020 the average was only 34/year; between 1895 and 2015 on average there has been no change in the number of very wet days per month, and no change in the number of very dry days per month, and the 20 driest months were before 1988. Between 1950 and 2019 the percentage of land area experiencing droughts has not increased globally – the trend is flat; the incidence of wildfires in North America between 1600 and 2000 has decreased substantially. Sea levels rose 12.5 cm per decade for 8,000 years and then it levelled off, now it rising only 2.5 cm per decade… worrying about 30 cm rise in sea level in a decade is ridiculous, in a hurricane the east coast of the U.S. gets a 20 foot rise in 6 hours, so a 30 cm rise will be easily handled!”
In a lecture titled The imaginary climate crisis – how can we change the message? Available on the Irish Climate Science Forum website, see Endnote [ii]. Richard L Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT summarises the battle against the climate hysteria as follows:
“in the long history of the earth there has been almost no correlation between climate and co2… the paleoclimate record shows unambiguously that Co2 is not a control knob… the narrative is absurd… it gives governments the power to control the energy sector… for about 33 years, many of us have been battling against the climate hysteria… There were more important leading people who were objecting to it, they were unfortunately older and by now most of them dead…
Elites are always searching for ways to advertise their virtue and assert their authority. They believe they are entitled to view science as a source of authority rather than a process, and they try to appropriate science, suitably and incorrectly simplified, as the basis for their movement.”
“CO2… it’s not a pollutant… it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis… if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality.” – Prof. Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and President of Greenpeace in Canada for seven years, states:
“the whole climate crisis is not only fake news its fake science… of course climate change is real it’s been happening since the beginning of time, but it’s not dangerous and it’s not caused by people… climate change is a perfectly natural phenomenon and this modern warming period actually began about 300 years ago when the little ice age began to come to an end. There is nothing to be afraid of and all they are doing is instilling fear. Most of the scientists who are saying it’s a crisis are on perpetual government grants.
I was one of the (Greenpeace) founders… by the mid-80s… we were hijacked by the extreme left who basically took Greenpeace from a science-based organisation to an organisation based on sensationalism, misinformation and fear… you don’t have a plan to feed 8 billion people without fossils fuels or get the food into the cities…” – Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace
Professor William Happer, Princeton University, Former Director of Science at the US Department of Energy, is also a strong voice against the myth of man-made global warming. He states: “More CO2 benefits the Earth”.
7. The UN IPCC cherry picks data, uses flawed modelling and scenarios not remotely related to the real world
The UN climate crisis predictions are not based on physical evidence, rather they are based on complex computer modelling. One has to decode and analyse the modelling process to ascertain whether or not the models are valid and accurate or whether they have obvious flaws. The vast majority of scientists, economists, politicians and the general public have simply assumed that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models are accurate. Very few people have the time or skills to analyse these models, not to mention actually dispute them. Nonetheless, there were many senior and highly distinguished scientists that did exactly that – they claimed the UN narrative was incorrect and that there was no climate emergency. Their voices have been drowned out by a vast money-driven political and media establishment of the globalised ‘system’. The vitally important work of some of these renowned scientists is referenced in the above book.
“The computer models are making systematic dramatic errors… they are all parametrised… fudged… the models really don’t work” – Patrick J. Michaels, Director, Cato Institute Center for the Study of Science
Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado, has conducted a detailed scientific review and analysis of the UN IPCC AR6 report, see Endnote [iii]. He describes that in relation to climate modelling, the IPCC detached the models from socio-economic plausibility. In creating the models, instead of first completing integrative assessment models (IAMs), the IPCC skipped this essential step and jumped straight to radiative forcing scenarios and thus these scenarios are not based on competed IAMs. This led much of climate modelling down the wrong track. I quote points from Dr Pielke’s analysis as follows:
“The four IPCC scenarios came from a large family of models so instead of splitting modelling from socio-economic assumptions the models already had the assumptions faked and baked in to them, because they had to have those assumptions to produce the required radiative forcing (to produce a desired climate ‘crisis scenario’ outcome).
In another fateful decision the 4 representative concentration pathways (RCPs) came from 4 different IAMs, which was a huge mistake. These models are completely unrelated to each other, but the impression has been given that they are of a common set, only differing in their radiative forcing, this was a huge mistake. Furthermore, no-one has responsibility for determining whether these scenarios are plausible. The climate community decided which scenario to prioritise and they chose the two most implausible scenarios! There are thousands of climate assumptions, but only 8 to 12 of them are available currently for climate research. The IPCC report even states that “no likelihood is attached to the scenarios in this report”. The likelihood is considered low they admit – This is an incredible admission by the IPCC.
These extreme unlikely scenarios dominate the literature and the IPCC report; therefore, the IPCC report is biased. Bottom line is that there is massive confusion. The IPCCs’ Richard Moss warned that RCP 8.5 was not to be used as a reference for the other RCPs, but 5,800 scientific papers worldwide misuse it like that… The whole process is seriously flawed… Nothing close to the real world is represented by the IPCC scenarios. Climate science has a huge problem! The IPCC currently uses RCP 8.5 as the ‘business as usual’ scenario, but RCP 8.5 is wild fantasy land and not remotely related to current reality at all… climate science has a scientific integrity crisis.” – Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado,
8. Financialization of the entire world economy is now based on a life-killing ‘net-zero’ greenhouse gas emissions strategy.
The UN Agenda 2030 plan and the Paris Agreement goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 7% per annum until 2030 is in effect a plan that would disable the current resource mechanisms of the industrial economy for the food, energy and goods that enable human life and survival. This is being implemented before humanity has transitioned away from the flawed polluting trans-national industrial economy toward self-sufficient local/regional economies.
Zero carbon emissions, in essence, means pulling the plug on current systems of industrial agriculture, transport, goods production, electricity production, etc., and many millions of people reliant on these systems worldwide could be faced with a lack of electricity, food, goods, etc. This could have terrible consequences, particularly in locations and countries, that are currently unable to produce much food.
It should be noted that for decades, these same political, government, and corporate powers have rampantly promoted corporate economic globalization and fossil fuel dependency. Whilst, at the same time actively hindering the funding, creation, or government support of, more self-sufficient local communities/regions, and local co-operatives. Most of the world population thus became reliant on the globalized fossil-fuel dependent system.
9. Central bankers are entirely funding / controlling the advancement of the worldwide climate change ‘project’
The decision to drastically reduce CO2, one of the most essential compounds to sustain all life, is no co-incidence. It should be noted that it is the world’s central bankers that are behind this decision and are entirely funding and controlling the advancement of the worldwide project of combatting man-made climate-change.
This project involves an attempt to de-carbonise the activities of the entire world population. In December 2015, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), which represents $118 trillion of assets globally, see Endnote [iv]. In essence this means that the financialization of the entire world economy is based on meeting nonsensical aims such as “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions”. The TCFD includes key people from the world’s mega-banks and asset management companies, including JP Morgan Chase; BlackRock; Barclays Bank; HSBC; China’s ICBC bank; Tata Steel, ENI oil, Dow Chemical, and more.
The fact that the world’s largest banks and asset management corporations, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, the UN, the World Bank, the Bank of England and other central banks of the BIS, have all linked to push a vague, mathematically nonsensical ‘green’ economy, is no coincidence. There is another agenda at play that has nothing to do with environmentalism. The green economy along with UN Agenda 2030 is an agenda of world control, and will also develop trillions of dollars for the behind-the-scenes mega-banks. When the world largest banks, corporations, and institutions, all align to push a climate change agenda that has zero evidence, one can see there is another major agenda going on behind the scenes. This agenda tries to convince the common people of the world to make huge sacrifices under the emotive guise of “saving our planet.”. While all the time the corporations and banks make vast profits, and political institutions implement worldwide technocratic control systems under the banner of combatting, and adapting to, so-called man-made climate change.
“The links between the world’s largest financial groups, central banks and global corporations to the current push for a radical climate strategy to abandon the fossil fuel economy in favor of a vague, unexplained Green economy, it seems, is less about genuine concern to make our planet a clean and healthy environment to live. Rather it is an agenda, intimately tied to the UN Agenda 2030 for “sustainable” economy, and to developing literally trillions of dollars in new wealth for the global banks and financial giants who constitute the real powers that be… “ – F. William Engdahl, strategic risk consultant and lecturer
Back in 2010, the head of Working Group 3 of the UN IPCC, Dr Otmar Edenhofer, told an interviewer,
“…one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
To better perceive what is ‘behind the curtain’ of the Climate hoax and the UN/WEF agenda it also helps to examine what has happened in the decades beforehand. It is important to perceive the implications of the worldwide fractional-reserve debt-money banking scam and the subtle system of debt-slavery that has existed for decades. If you look at the World Bank website you will see that virtually every nation on Earth is in vast debt. In debt to who you may ask? The answer is to privately owned mega-banks. For many decades the so-called banking and corporate elites have had full control of the source of money creation and its allocation, via the debt-money system, and have therefore, by default, been able to fund, and increasingly control and manipulate the entire world spectrum of industry, media, government, education, ideological supremacy and war to their own design, agenda and benefit. Mayer Amschel Rothschild (banker) is widely reported to have said:
“Give me control of a nation’s money supply and I care not who makes its laws.”
10. Central bankers hijacked the real environmental movement in 1992 creating the fake climate change agenda
Psychopaths can utilise any ideology and, change it from within to something that may eventually be entirely different to its original purpose. Meanwhile, the original followers and advocates continue to pursue what they believe is the original ideology, but gradually become mere pawns in the agenda of a self-serving elite. Unfortunately, over the past decades, this is exactly what has happened in the environmental movement.
Whistleblower George Hunt served as an official host at a key environmental meeting in Denver, Colorado in 1987, and states that David Rockefeller; Baron Edmund De Rothschild; US Secretary of State Baker; Maurice Strong, a UN official and an employee of the Rockefeller and Rothschild trusts; EPA administrator William Ruccleshaus; UN Secretary General in Geneva MacNeill, along with World Bank and IMF officials were at this meeting. Hunt was surprised to see all these rich elite bankers at the meeting and questioned what they were doing there at an environmental congress.
In a video recording, Hunt later provided important evidence from the documents of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3-14 June 1992. This conference was the well-known UN ’92 Earth Summit and was run by UNCED. According to Hunt, via the Earth summit, the UN was setting a net, an agenda, to place the power over the Earth and its peoples into their own hands. The world private banking cartel are the same ultra-rich banking families that had been instrumental in the setting up of the World Bank, the UN, and other international institutions, after WW2. Their political cohorts included Stalin (the leader of a brutal communist regime in the USSR that committed genocide of millions of people), UK Prime minister Churchill, and US President Roosevelt. Hunt refers to these banking families and their financial and international institutional networks as:
“The same world order that tricked third world countries to borrow funds and rack up enormous debts… and purposely creating war and debt to bring societies into their control. The world order crowd are not a nice group of people…”– George Hunt, Whistleblower speaking about the UN Earth summit of 1992
As a consequence of the UN Earth Summit, the honest, genuine environment movement that actually cared about real pollution to land, air and water, was politically hi-jacked by powerful political and financial interests with a different agenda.
Maurice Strong, a UN official and an employee of the Rockefeller and Rothschild trusts, had convened the first UNCED congress in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972. Then, 20 years later he was the convenor and secretary general of UNCED. Hunt also provided video evidence from the Fourth UNCED World Congress meeting in 1987 of an international investment banker, stating that:
“I suggest therefore that this be sold not through a democratic process that would take too long and require far too much funds to educate the cannon-fodder, unfortunately, which populates the Earth. We have to take almost an elitist program…”
Thus, the decrees leading to the 1992 UN Earth summit were dictated without debate or opportunity for dissent and would supersede national laws. The decrees were dictated into existence by the banker Edmund de Rothschild, who got these major decrees into the ’92 UN resolutions without debate or challenge. Hunt asserts that he was denied the opportunity to openly challenge Rothschild’s remarks by the meeting Chairman.
Is it any surprise that the Rothschild bank of Geneva is the nucleus of the World Conservation bank and the wealthy elite are integrated into the bank via the Rothschilds private offering of shares. The banks assumes control of world conservation and decides and controls how these resources are allocated or utilized.
11. Despite the deceptive and fake environmental facade, it has adopted, the vast institutional entity of the UN has fully endorsed environmentally destructive industrial globalisation for the past 70 years. The UN climate change, sustainable development and green economy policies over the past 30 years are little more than worldwide marketing tricks that have tragically brainwashed two generations of young people who do not understand what the UN actually is, and who is it is really designed to serve.
This current globalised system involves the promotion of beliefs and fake science that claim to be unchallengeable truths, but are, in fact, ideologies in which evidence is manipulated, twisted, and distorted to prove the ‘governing idea’, and thus promote its worldwide dissemination. They start with the conclusion they want and then wrench and manipulate what scant evidence they can to fit that conclusion. Man-made climate change due to anthropogenic carbon emission is a major example of this.
Institutions, including the UN, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the World Health Organisation (WHO), are privately-motivated unelected unaccountable organisations controlled by the source of debt-money creation, i.e., the world private-banking cartel; and are just clever marketing tools and political mechanisms for implementing and maintaining a corrupt worldwide system, under the clever guise of ‘fixing the problems of the world’.
These powerful special interests have been promoting certain ‘ideologies’ for decades to advance their corporate and political aims. The word “sustainable” was hijacked decades ago, and it is now deceptively used to advance the agendas of globalist mega-corporate interests who couldn’t care less about the environment. The aim is to catapult humanity into the arms of UN Agenda 2030 and the WEF ‘reset’ plan, which are clever marketing plans entirely designed by the so-called elite mega-corporate interests of the WEF Davos group.
12. Furthermore, the current green energy/renewable technologies being promoted by the UN and WEF, are not a viable solution for the world’s energy supply. Although these technologies have some limited viability in certain locations and scenarios, the fact remains that the Energy Returned on Energy Invested is much too low – in essence the entire process is mathematically flawed. This is evidenced by the work of scientists, including Professor David MacKay, former Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University and former Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Summary
In summary, CO2 reduction is the main focus of the UN-promoted climate-change-hysteria that has been rampant among the world’s population. However, the proclaimed climate crisis exists in computer models only. The cult of ‘manmade climate change’ is a media and UN politically-promoted ‘ideology’, that is used for a wider political and corporate agenda. Manmade climate change is not based in fact, and has hijacked real environmental concerns.
The world’s central bankers are fully funding the worldwide climate change ‘project’. The truism ‘follow the money’ springs to mind – and by doing so, one quickly discovers who runs the corporate, political, and media world.
Due to incessant UN, government, and corporate-promoted climate change propaganda, many people are, thus, in a media-induced state of confusion, and, thus, blindly assume their pre-determined role in society under this ‘dictatorship of words’ without even being aware of it. For example, we now have millions of so-called climate change warriors blind to the fact that climate change is not actually caused by carbon emissions. This is all to scare people into accepting totalitarian authority and limitations to their freedom and personal well-being.
The unpalatable reality is that people’s access to energy and resources is being intentionally reduced via bogus climate change policies, high inflation, ongoing geo-political theatre and intentionally instigated war.
We cannot understand how to create a truly resilient society unless we correctly perceive the current society we live in and how it came to exist. So, who are the architects of the current paradigm. The above book is designed to help in that regard. Unless we recognize the untruths of the current paradigm, even if it is not ‘politically correct’ to do so, then we will not be able to make the correct adjustments to our current communities and local/regional networks, or create a truly resilient thriving society in Ireland. In this spirit of truth, new networks are emerging worldwide.
Households that have hydrogen boilers installed could be forced to drill a 4×4-inch hole in their wall to mitigate risks of explosion, according to recommendations in a government-backed safety report.
Households that have hydrogen boilers installed could be forced to drill a 4×4-inch hole in their wall to mitigate risks of explosion, according to recommendations in a government-backed safety report.
Residents in a neighbourhood being considered for a trial of hydrogen for home heating have been alarmed by a report’s recommendation that rooms with boilers hobs or substantial pipework “should have non-closable vents with [an] equivalent area of 10,000 mm2”.
The report, by Arup, the design consultants, said these should be located as close to the ceiling level as possible and no more than 50cm below ceiling level.
The same report, which came out in 2019, said that hydrogen for home heating could cause four times as many explosions and injuries than gas boilers without sufficient mitigations, including ventilation.
The report, which is based on a two-storey, masonry-built, terraced house with a basement and a loft conversion, will be used to inform the trials of hydrogen for home heating expected to go ahead from 2025.
Whitby, in the Cheshire town of Ellesmere Port, is one of two neighbourhoods being considered for conversion to hydrogen, with the final decision expected to be made by the Government this year.
In discussions with residents, representatives from Arup and gas network Cadent, which is bidding to run the trial, have said most homes will not require the maximum ventilation given the draughtiness of much of the UK’s housing stock.
Kate Grannell, a resident of Whitby who has led opposition to the plans for the hydrogen trial, said the assurances had not allayed concerns.
She said: “All we’ve done for decades is insulate and draught-proof our houses. So to say homes are leaky enough to void the requirements for ventilation, I think is a really big question.”
Richard Lowes, an energy expert at the Regulatory Assistance Project, said that it ran counter to efforts to reduce draughts and insulate homes to reduce emissions.
He said: “We’re trying to make building more energy efficient and putting in a 10-centimetre hole is doing the opposite of that. So it’s totally backwards.
“To counteract the heat loss, you’d have to have more heat so it is making hydrogen more inefficient. We already know that hydrogen will be more expensive, so it’s making that even more expensive.”
Hydrogen for home heating could cause four times as many explosions and injuries than gas boilers, according to a report CREDIT: Sem van der Wal/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
After the meeting ended, the same official took me aside and quietly said that despite government pronouncements, “Net zero is really more like a dream than a reality.”
Japan’s utilities are building coal and gas-fired power plants. This plant, the Yokosuka coal plant now being built in Tokyo, will have a capacity of 1.3 gigawatts. Construction will be completed next year. Photo credit: Masato-san
It said that “In the face of the climate crisis, 136 countries around the world have pledged to reach net zero by 2050. This includes Japan, which is on the path to carbon neutrality with an interim goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 46% compared to 2013 levels by 2030.” It continued, saying that the Japanese government, has created a “green innovation fund” that aims to spend some $15 billion on “areas essential to the circular economy, such as storage batteries, offshore wind power, next-generation solar cells, hydrogen, and carbon recycling.”
On its website, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs notes that in addition to the federal government’s declaration that it will achieve net zero by 2050, “More than 281 cities/local governments declared net zero by 2050,” and this covers more than 100 million people, or “about 80% of Japan’s population.”
But 26 years after the Kyoto Protocol––the most famous document adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change––was agreed to in Kyoto in 1997, the numbers, and the reality on the ground in Japan, show that talk about bold action on climate is cheap. Actually cutting emissions is a different story.
Rather than slash its emissions by at least 18% below 1990 emissions levels by 2020, as was specified at the COP18 meeting in Doha, Japan’s emissions are still at roughly the same level as they were in 1990. As can be seen in the graphic above, Japan’s emissions in 2021 were just 4% lower than they were in 1990. (For Kyoto signatories and commitments, click here.)
I have spent the past week in Japan. My visit was sponsored by the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan and facilitated by Washington Policy and Analysis. I was part of a group of five Americans who were given the chance to see the cleanup efforts at Fukushima Daiichi. We saw the sprawling operations of Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited in Aomori Prefecture, which includes a uranium enrichment plant, high- and low-level radioactive waste disposal, and other facilities, including a plant under construction that will reprocess spent nuclear fuel. We also met with industry leaders and Japanese government officials.
As I wrote in these pages a few days ago, the visit to Fukushima Daiichi was a sobering experience. I saw firsthand the damage caused by the nuclear accident and the devastation caused by the tsunami which killed some 19,000 people. The visit to JNFL’s facility in Aomori was equally eye-opening. Japan’s electric utilities are spending some $20 billion on a state-of-the-art complex that could eventually manage the entirety of Japan’s nuclear fuel cycle, except for the supplies of uranium. The scale of the project is massive and is concrete proof of Japan’s ability to execute large, forward-looking, highly technical, multi-year infrastructure projects. (Seeing it also increased my skepticism that the U.S. Congress will be able to muster the political will to plan, fund, and execute a similar project.)
My takeaway from all of those visits and discussions, as well as what I have seen here in Tokyo and around the country, is that energy realism in Japan is trumping action on climate change. It provided yet more proof for Roger Pielke Jr.’s Iron Law of Climate Policy, which says that “When policies focused on economic growth confront policies focused on emissions reductions, it is economic growth that will win out every time.”
Before going further, let me stipulate that solar is growing here. According to BP, solar capacity in Japan tripled between 2014 and 2021 and now stands at about 75 gigawatts. In 2021, Japan generated 86 terawatt-hours of energy from solar, which was about half the amount generated in the U.S. That’s an impressive achievement. But Japan can’t run its economy on solar. Furthermore, Kyushu Electric Power Company isn’t adding any more solar capacity because its system can’t accommodate any more of it. Meanwhile, Japan’s wind capacity is small (about 4 gigawatts) and is constrained by local opposition and the country’s mountainous topography. The country can’t tap its geothermal resources because of public opposition.
What about adding more nuclear? Japan is reactivating many of its existing reactors. But it won’t be adding any new reactors anytime soon. In more than half a dozen meetings with business and government leaders, I asked the same question: In the best-case scenario, how soon might Japan build a new reactor? The answer from all of them was the same: 15 to 20 years.
Thus, unable to build more renewable or nuclear capacity, Japanese utilities are building 7.3 gigawatts of new generation capacity that will burn hydrocarbons. (For comparison, the four ruined reactors at Fukushima Daiichi had a total capacity of about 2.7 gigawatts.)
JERA is building a big coal plant in Tokyo. The Yokosuka plant will have two ultra-supercritical generators and a total capacity of 1.3 gigawatts. Shikoku Electric Power is building a 500-megawatt coal plant in Saijo. Like the Yokosuka plant, it will use ultra-supercritical technology, which is the most efficient way to burn coal. In addition, as can be seen in the list above, (data is here) Japanese utilities are building eight new gas-fired power plants that will have a total capacity of 5.5 gigawatts. When I showed the list of power plants to a friend in the utility sector last Friday, he nodded his head, smiled, and said, “Yes, this is the reality today in Japan.”
After the meeting ended, the same official took me aside and quietly said that despite government pronouncements, “Net zero is really more like a dream than a reality.”
Another key theme I heard many times during our meetings last week was that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally changed Japan’s energy plans. One government official was blunt, saying “Energy security is more important than action on climate change.” After the meeting ended, the same official took me aside and quietly said that despite government pronouncements, “Net zero is really more like a dream than a reality.”
As for Japan’s 4% drop in emissions, my Japanese friends advised me that that reduction was largely due to a slowdown in the country’s economy, not any government efforts. They also said Japan will not rely on China for the commodities it will need to move to alternative energy. Japan has a long history with China and nearly all of it is bad. As I explained back in January, China has a stranglehold on the rare earth elements and high-strength magnets that are needed for many alt-energy technologies. In 2010, China blocked exports of rare earths to Japan and kept export restrictions in place until 2014.
In addition to China, Japan’s other neighbors (Russia and North Korea) aren’t exactly Ozzie and Harriet. In short, Japan will look after Japan. And any serious action on climate change will remain more like “a dream than a reality.”
Recently I was surprised to see a Tweet from a climate researcher who I’ve known for a while that looked like an advertisement for a particular renewable energy company. The researcher was promoting the company to his many followers. Reading on, I saw that the researcher disclosed that he was being paid by the company and had an equity interest. So it was an advertisement. Academics can also be investors, right? So no problem?
Well, here is the problem. This researcher was one of the central analysts whose work was used to design and then promote the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The company he is promoting is a direct beneficiary of that legislation. At the same time, the researcher claims that his analyses offer an “independent environmental and economic evaluation of federal energy and climate policies.” BS. There’s a sucker born every minute.
I called out the researcher on Twitter for taking money not just from one but from many companies that are direct beneficiaries of the legislation he helped to design and sell to policymakers and the public. He responded to me in a huff — proclaiming his noble intent and track record of advocacy for renewable energy for many years (almost as bad as the climate researcher who told me she could not have a conflict of interest because her husband was a preacher). All that may well be true, but goodness, this absolutely stinks.
I’m not naming the researcher (you can find him easily enough), because his case is far from unique in climate research these days, and this post is about a far bigger more important issue.
There is a gold rush going on in climate research right now, as researchers scramble to cash in on their new-found access to politicians and philanthropists. As Professor Jessica Weinkle of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington stated in her opening remarks in testimony before the U.S. Senate last week, “Today, it is not easy to separate the going-ons in climate change research from the special interests of financial institutions.”
She continues:
The landscape of climate change research is made complicated by an outcropping of non-profit advocacy organizations that double as analytic consultants, hold contracts with private companies and government entities, and engage in official government expert advisory roles- all while publishing in the peer reviewed literature and creating media storms.
This is not really an issue of any one entity. It is pervasive.
Experts monetizing their expertise is one important reason why people become experts, and there is no problem with people seeking to make a buck. But where expertise and financial interests intersect, things can get complicated. That is why there are robust mechanisms in place for the disclosure and mitigation of financial conflicts of interest, a subject I’ve focused on for decades.
All of this is just common sense. Your doctor can’t prescribe you drugs from a company that pays him fees. You wouldn’t think much of a report on smoking and health from a researcher supported by the tobacco industry. Should climate researchers play by a different set of rules, because the cause is so important?
Call me a stickler, but in my view, the more important the cause, the more important it is to enforce standards of research integrity.
Following her testimony, Weinkle addressed a few questions that were raised at the Senate hearing. Here is her response to the first one:
Well… I don’t know if it was really a question. It was a set up to imply that the only conflicts of interest that should matter are those coming from the fossil fuel industry.
I don’t agree. At. All.
Frankly, that’s absurd.
In fact, when people argue that the only conflicts of interest that matter are those held by their opponents they are saying that the rules of the game don’t apply to themselves or those that support them.
Conflicts of interest are a concern for scientific integrity no matter where the money is coming from.
Further, it was implied in the hearing that only the fossil fuel industry hides what they are doing by donating to non profit groups that then do research. No.
I encourage you to read Professor Weinkle’s testimony in full. She cites three examples of many that raise serious questions of financial conflicts of interest in climate research (see the testimony for all the footnotes, which I removed here):
Central bank stress testing scenarios are developed by researchers who are also lead authors on IPCC reports and have important roles in organizing the international modeling community in the development of IPCC scenarios. Funding for central bank scenario development and the most recent meeting of the scenario modeling community comes from influential organizations including, Bloomberg Philanthropies, ClimateWorks, and the Bezos Earth Fund.
McKinsey & Company used a climate consultancy to produce a series of widely influential reports on climate change financial risks. In defense of their use of RCP 8.5 the report cited a peer-reviewed publication written by its own consultants. The researchers did not declare their COI as consultants for McKinsey or their association with the asset management firm, Wellington. Shortly after publication of the article one of its authors landed a political position while the authors’ home institution announced coordinated efforts with Wellington to influence SEC regulatory decisions.
The Risky Business Project, an academic-industry research collaboration was organized by three wealthy politicians with the goal to “mak[e] the climate threat feel real.” Research products are important components to national climate and sea level rise assessments, and a policy advocacy tool used to evaluate real estate flood risk. Core members of the research collaboration move seamlessly between private consulting, policymaker science advisory positions, and academic research.
Again, this stinks.
Nothing could be more delegitimizing to climate science and policy than a toxic combination of unmitigated financial conflicts of interest and claims that climate researchers, by virtue of the noble cause, are exempt from the rules that govern every other setting where expertise and money intersect.
I’ll let Professor Weinkle have the last word today:
Climate change science demonstrates an underappreciated dynamic system of conflicts of interest among climate change researchers, advocacy organizations, and the financial industry.
A thorough and truly independent report by the NAO would surely have called into question the whole decarbonisation strategy, as being wasteful and poor value for money, poorly thought through, impractical and endangering the UK’s energy security.
The NAO have just published a report into decarbonising the power sector.
It should have been the ideal opportunity to highlight the enormous risks and the massive costs involved, as well as to question some of the assumptions made by government.
Sadly however, the NAO have done none of this. Instead they have broadly accepted government strategy and costings, whilst waffling on about “delivery”:
But let’s start with a few pertinent facts they have highlighted:
These numbers alone show both the enormity of the task and the tiny amount of emissions it will actually save – 54 million tonnes is just 0.1% of global emissions. Should not fact alone force the NAO to question the “value for money”.
The increase in demand is also worth noting. They also make the remarkable admission:
And yet they have not challenged the government strategy to plough ahead regardless!
And their recommendations include maintaining some gas generation. Naively though they think that demand-side flexibility will make up for the loss of proper generation:
Diving into the specifics, they simply repeat the official ambitions but fail to challenge them:
For instance, why have they not queried why we will waste billions on solar panels, which effectively shut down in mid winter when the power is most needed? For an organisation that is supposed to be concerned about value for money, this really is a shocking omission. Imagine what they would say if the government built new offices without any heating, which could therefore not be used in winter?
And nowhere in the report is there are any appraisal of how the grid will be able to meet demand of up to 80GW, based on such a high proportion of intermittent renewable energy. They do mention the need for 30GW of flexible low-carbon generation, such as hydrogen and CCS, but even this will leave the grid woefully short.
And, of course, there are huge issues to be faced with this scenario.
As far as CCS is concerned, apart from the fact that the technology is not proven at scale, there are no CCGT stations, with the exception of maybe a couple, that are CCS ready – that is where a Carbon Capture unit could be simply plugged in. Given the age of most of the CCGT fleet, it will not be economical to convert the rest for carbon capture, meaning that we would need to build a new fleet from scratch. Nor do the NAO recognise the fact that CCS adds to the running costs of CCGTs and is wasteful of energy – far from enhancing the UK’s energy security, CCS will leave us even more dependent on imported gas.
As for hydrogen, there is no way that a national hydrogen network will be available in the 2030s, and such a thing remains unlikely thereafter. Where then will these new hydrogen burning power stations get their hydrogen from?
Such a large scale rollout of either hydrogen or CCS must of course put into question the whole renewable strategy. Why bother with wind and solar when you have all that dispatchable capacity sat idling?
Instead of asking these awkward questions, the report waffles on about demand flexibility again:
The report does briefly mention the necessary upgrading of the grid, the cost of which is not included in the £400 billion mentioned above. But it makes no attempt to put a cost on it, or for that matter the government for its failure to do so.
Given that the NAO’s remit is to ensure value for money, surely they should have demanded that the government produce a fully costed and audited budget for decarbonising the power sector, without which the whole strategy cannot properly be assessed.
A thorough and truly independent report by the NAO would surely have called into question the whole decarbonisation strategy, as being wasteful and poor value for money, poorly thought through, impractical and endangering the UK’s energy security.
On the newest episode of Conservation Nation, host Gabriella Hoffman explores a tale of two forest managements: that is, the policies of Montana and Pennsylvania.
On the newest episode of Conservation Nation, host Gabriella Hoffman explores a tale of two forest managements: that is, the policies of Montana and Pennsylvania.
This is an incredibly important issue given the prevalence of forest fires in the United States.
Has the Biden Administration made things worse by limiting the prescribed burn management program in Montana?
Are private loggers just in it for the money, or do they serve a necessary function in keeping forests healthy?
These are just a few of the questions Hoffman will explore in this important episode!
CFACT, founded in 1985 by Craig Rucker and the late (truly great) David Rothbard, examines the relationship between human freedom, and issues of energy, environment, climate, economics, civil rights and more.
Loose talk about ‘green’ hydrogen, mega-batteries and pumped hydro is the default response from rent seekers forced to face up to wind and solar’s hopeless intermittency.
Loose talk about ‘green’ hydrogen, mega-batteries and pumped hydro is the default response from rent seekers forced to face up to wind and solar’s hopeless intermittency.
None of the aforementioned generate a single watt of electricity; all of them chew up mountains of energy and resources in their creation; and all of them consume electricity in volumes way beyond the energy they can ever possibly return to the grid.
Australia’s grandstand pumped hydro project is referred to as Snowy 2.0. Its chances of completion are rapidly diminishing; whereas the cost of the project are rising, exponentially.
Back in October 2020 STT wrote:
With a price tag in excess of $10 billion, Australia’s biggest pumped hydro project, Snowy 2.0, is easily its single biggest white elephant. Sure, the Feds have already squandered magnitudes more on subsidies and soft loans to wind and solar. And the purported benefit of Snowy 2.0 is to use excess wind and solar power to pump water uphill so that it might deliver electricity on demand – rather than at the whims of mother nature. But one form of wicked waste, hardly excuses another.
The pitch for the project goes like this: if we use 3 MWh of wind or solar power to pump water through 27 km of tunnels, over an elevation of 900m, later, when power consumers actually need it, Snowy Hydro could return 2 MWh to the grid.
Never mind squandering 1/3 of the electricity originally generated; never mind that with the inclusion of the $85 per MWh REC the cost of the wind or solar power involved exceeds $110 per MWh; never mind that the owners of Snowy 2.0 will charge a further $150-300 per MWh to re-deliver power to the grid; never mind that, in reality, the power used to pump the water uphill will largely come from coal-fired power plants, delivered overnight when it’s cheapest. For a break down of the costs and engineering of what’s proposed see our post: Turnbull Plays ‘The Man from Snowy River’ in Uncosted Pumped Hydro Plan
The only thing we were wrong about was our projection for the ultimate price tag for the project which, as Ted Woodley explains, is more than double that – assuming that the project is ever completed. Ted – former managing director of PowerNet, GasNet, EnergyAustralia, GrainCorp and China Light & Power Systems (Hong Kong) – just might know a thing or two about electricity generation and large-scale infrastructure projects.
Six years of bungled billions; time to cut losses on Snowy 2.0 The Australian Ted Woodley 20 February 2023
Snowy 2.0 is again making headlines with more delays, tunnelling problems and cost increases. So, on the eve of the sixth anniversary of its announcement in March 2017, let’s have a quick recap.
The vision for this “nation-building” pumped-hydro battery was for it to be built in four years, for $2bn, with no taxpayer support. It was to generate renewable energy and bring down electricity prices, while incurring minimal damage to Kosciuszko National Park. None of those lofty aspirations has turned out to be anywhere near true. During the ensuing six years the news keeps getting worse and worse, with Snowy 2.0 setting many unenviable records and fast becoming one of Australia’s most spectacular infrastructure debacles.
Record one: underestimated completion time – four years to 12-plus When announced, Snowy 2.0 was to be built in four years (that is, by 2021), unbelievably fast for such a large, complex project. Since then the completion date has been extended numerous times, with last month’s deferment from 2026 to December 2027 still looking optimistic. Completion this decade is now unlikely. While it is rare these days for infrastructure projects to be completed on time, underestimating by a factor of three is unprecedented. And every year’s delay adds hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost and forgone revenue.
Record two: slowest tunnel boring machines – 200m in a year Snowy 2.0’s three tunnel boring machines are excavating about 33km of tunnels. There has been scant mention of problems but it has recently been discovered that boring rates are far below specification and tunnelling is two years behind schedule. The covert record-setter is TBM Florence, having bored just 200m of the 17km headrace tunnel since her commissioning last March. For the past two months she has been “temporarily paused” (Snowy Hydro’s terminology) under a sinkhole she created, with no indication of when she will be un-paused. It is now starkly evident that Florence has been paused for most of her boring life. At this rate she will take 70 years to finish the tunnel.
Record three: underestimated cost – $2bn to up to $20bn Snowy 2.0’s $2bn estimate increased to $3.8bn-$4.5bn in the business case, to $5.1bn for the main contract (only), to $5.9bn now. It is important to note these estimates don’t include all project costs, such as capitalised interest and suppressed dividends during construction, hedging, exploratory and other works, design, project management, and trans-mission. Also, the allowance for contingencies would have been exceeded by $2.2bn of contractor claims, with more to come. The final cost of Snowy 2.0’s main works is likely to exceed $10bn.
Then there’s a further $9bn-plus for 1000km of 500kV transmission connections to Sydney and Melbourne (Sydney Ring South, HumeLink and VIC/NSW interconnector), primarily for Snowy 2.0’s pumping and generation. Snowy Hydro initially estimated $1bn to $2bn. If Snowy Hydro is not compelled to contribute its fair share of the cost, arguably the majority, NSW electricity consumers will face a doubling of transmission tariffs.
An all-up cost for Snowy 2.0 approaching $20bn represents a tenfold increase, surely a record for cost underestimation.
Record four: underestimated subsidies – $0 to $1.4bn, with more to come Despite repeated assurances that taxpayer support was not needed, the government was pressed to shore up Snowy 2.0’s business case with a $1.4bn equity injection, though this was insufficient to stop Snowy Hydro’s credit rating being downgraded two years ago from A- to BBB+. Then in December S&P Global Ratings revised Snowy Hydro’s credit outlook to “negative”, with “a high likelihood of (further) extraordinary government support” needed in the next 12-24 months, due to Snowy 2.0 (and Hunter gas station) delays and cost escalations, and an anticipated halving of earnings.
Record five: increasing electricity prices Far from bringing electricity prices down as claimed, Snowy Hydro’s own modelling predicts prices will rise because of Snowy 2.0. And this is before accounting for transmission tariffs doubling.
Record six: inducing the NSW government to grant exemptions from environmental legislation The claim that Snowy 2.0 will incur minimal impact on Kosciuszko National Park is demonstrably false. Vast construction sites across 30km of the park have been cleared, blasted, excavated, reshaped and compacted. Hundreds of kilometres of roads and tracks are being constructed/ widened, and 20 million tonnes of excavated spoil will be dumped (when the TBMs get boring). But it’s the NSW government’s granting of exemptions from statutory protections that sets a record for environmental vandalism.
Snowy 2.0 has been exempted from the statewide ban on transferring noxious pests between waterways. This condones the movement of invasive Redfin perch, among other declared pests, from Talbingo Reservoir to Tantangara Reservoir and then across the alps into the Murray, Snowy, Murrumbidgee and Tumut headwaters, overwhelming native species and devastating trout fishing. Also, Snowy 2.0 has been exempted from the obligation in the Kosciuszko Plan of Management for any additional transmission to be located underground. Four 330kV transmission lines on two sets of 70-metre towers will traverse 8km of the park over a cleared easement swathe up to 140m wide. This will be the first time transmission lines are erected in a NSW national park for 50 years.
Misrepresentation: Snowy 2.0 is not a renewable generator, just an inefficient battery Snowy 2.0 is not a renewable hydro generator that converts rainfall stored at elevation to electricity. It is no more than a battery, and as such will be a net load on the National Electricity Market. And Snowy 2.0 will be a wasteful battery, consuming about 1.5 kilowatt-hours for pumping for each 1.0 kilowatt-hour it delivers, due to losses in the pumping/generation cycle and for transmission (two ways).
What should be done? Snowy 2.0 never stacked up economically, technically or environmentally, and its gargantuan cost and environmental impacts cannot be justified for providing occasional long-duration storage. It will never pay for itself. There are better alternatives.
The Australian government, Snowy Hydro’s shareholder on behalf of all Australians, must commission a comprehensive independent review, as experts have been urging for years. Unfortunately, a few billion dollars have already been sunk, including the public’s $1.4bn, but many more billions are yet to be committed. Construction is bogged down in the early stages and the transmission connections have yet to be approved – it will be next decade before completion.
The current government did not approve this debacle but it will be held accountable if it fails to intervene. The Australian
At least a month earlier than in more northerly areas of the Arctic, the first known female with new cubs-of-the-year has been reported on the sea ice hunting for seals in Western Hudson Bay.
At least a month earlier than in more northerly areas of the Arctic, the first known female with new cubs-of-the-year has been reported on the sea ice hunting for seals in Western Hudson Bay. Remember this when the cries of “early” breakup of sea ice on Hudson Bay come in the summer: these WH bears routinely get a head start on spring feeding that other bears don’t get.
Bear O4 just left her den & made it to the sea ice (bear closest to coast): likely with her cubs out to hunt. She needs to rebuild depleted fat depots for next summer.
Here is the map he included, on which I’ve circled “Bear 04”:
As I’ve stated previously, in most areas of the Arctic, December is when polar bear cubs are born, although in southern regions (like Western and Southern Hudson Bay), some may be born in late November and in the far, far north, a few may be born as late as early February.
The actual date of birth for polar bear cubs is often back-calculated from when they emerge with their mothers in the spring at about 3 months of age, because they are born well away from our prying eyes in the dark of the Arctic winter, deep within a snow or soil den dug for that purpose. So our knowledge of the true dates of birth in various regions is limited.
We have some evidence from native Canadian hunters prior to 1968, when it was both legal and common practice in Canada for Inuit to hunt bears in their dens (Van de Velde et al. 2003), and from a few scientific research expeditions (Amstrup and Gardner 1994; Harington 1968; Ramsay and Stirling 1988).
It appears that the female shown on Derocher’s map (“04”) indeed must have given birth in late November in order to have cubs old enough to be well offshore by 4 March. In other words, the family were likely out of their den, getting ready to move out, close to the middle of February (presuming this female indeed has cubs with her, which has not been confirmed).
This female’s location in early February:
For comparison, the video below offers a discussion of polar bear den studies in Svalbard, produced by Polar Bears International in 2021. They map they show indicates how much further north Svalbard is than Western Hudson Bay.
Keep in mind that since sea ice conditions have changed around Svalbard (about 2003), most pregnant females make their dens on the sea ice or in Franz Josef Land. And despite pessimistic prognostications for the future, Svalbard bears (including adult females) have been doing very well despite much less sea ice (Lippold et al. 2019:988), as Jon Aars honestly admits in the video.
Harington, R. C. 1968. Denning habits of the polar bear (Ursus maritimus Phipps). Canadian Wildlife Service Report Series No. 5., Ottawa
Lippold, A., Bourgeon, S., Aars, J., Andersen, M., Polder, A., Lyche, J.L., Bytingsvik, J., Jenssen, B.M., Derocher, A.E., Welker, J.M. and Routti, H. 2019. Temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants in Barents Sea polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in relation to changes in feeding habits and body condition. Environmental Science and Technology 53(2):984-995.
The high temperature level of the last 20 years in Germany can primarily be attributed to the current warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation AMO and the spread of the “Western Hemisphere Warm Pool” WHWP.
The high temperature level of the last 20 years in Germany can primarily be attributed to the current warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation AMO and the spread of the “Western Hemisphere Warm Pool” WHWP.
Over the next 10 years, the temperature of surface water in the Atlantic, Caribbean and eastern tropical Pacific is expected to decrease due to the cycle. As a result, temperature levels and sunshine duration will most likely decrease again in Germany.
The spring drought that has occurred since 2008 is based on an approximately 15-year low-precipitation cycle phase, which is repeated regularly during the approximately 65-year AMO cycle. Over the next few years, spring precipitation activity is expected to gradually normalize.
It is surprising that the German Weather Service does not say a word about the influence of ocean cycles on weather and climate in Germany in its climatological review of 2022, justifies the high temperature level of recent decades with anthropogenic influence and calls for political measures against climate change.
For five years I have been searching for natural cycles in historical climate data. My motivation is based on the mistrust of the claim that the current warm phase is solely or primarily anthropogenic caused, as in Climatological Review of 2022.
The results of my research so far are documented in a publication (Solar influence on rain in Europe, 2019) and several articles in klimanachrichten.de. The publication would never have been produced without considerable support from Sebastian Lüning and Horst Lüdecke.
Again and again I have come across the variation of solar activity as the main cause in the search for natural influence on weather and climate, both in the search with the help of google scholar and in the search in historical climate data series, which are abundantly available on the Internet.
In the search for solar influence in historical climate data, the publication byS. C. Chapman et al. 2021 helped me a lot.
For the first time, he has defined and named the starting years of the approximately 22-year Hale cycles of the Sun on the basis of solar physical measurements. With the help of these starting years, it is easy to detect solar influence in historical weather data series. An example is the precipitation sum of the 2nd half of the year in the Netherlands in the following figure. In this illustration, five identical approximately 22-year cycle phases from the period since 1926 are stacked on top of each other.
Figure 1: Precipitation total in the second half of the year in the Netherlands in five Hale cycles of the Sun
The decrease in the precipitation sum from cycle year 7 to 8 cannot be a coincidence, but can only be explained by the influence of solar activity on the Earth’s atmosphere, which is repeated approximately every 22 years. The solar influence is similar in the other Benelux countries and Germany. Numerous proofs of solar influence, supported by literature references, are documented in klimanachrichten.de. Ms. S. Veretenenko 2022 provides a plausible explanation for the influence of varying solar activity on the Earth’s atmosphere and precipitation.
New project: How the Caribbean and Atlantic periodically heat us up and bring us beautiful summers
Is the current warm phase in Germany with 1.7 degrees higher temperature compared to 1881 anthropogenic or the result of natural cycles, or both? In order to present the answer to this question as vividly as possible, the first step is to show the temperature trend of the ocean surface, which warms the air before it is carried to Europe by southwesterly winds. For this purpose, two data sets provided by the American weather agency NOAA are used, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation AMO and the Oscillation of the extent of the “Western Hemisphere Warm Pool” WHWP, Monthly Atmospheric and Ocean Time Series . The areas from which the data originate can be seen in the following figure.
Figure 2: Area reference of AMO and WHWP
The AMO influences the climate throughout the northern hemisphere from the Arctic to the Sahel or India. See Google Scholar. It has a period of over 60 years. Currently, the AMO is at the end of a warm phase. The AMO is a natural temperature fluctuation that has been detectable for several centuries. The fluctuation range of the AMO with about 0.5 degrees is also currently within the framework of natural variability.
The Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP), where water is warmer than 28.5°C in summer, extends from the eastern tropical North Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean and overlaps at its tip with the tropical North Atlantic. I included the WHWP to check the cyclical influence of the second warmest “bathtub” on earth with a summer temperature level of over 28.5 °C on the European temperature level. The variability of the WHWP influences the hurricane activity and the temperature level of large areas of the northern hemisphere (literature).
In order to be able to illustrate the influence of AMO and WHWP on the temperature trend as clearly as possible, periods of the same cycle phases are first stacked on top of each other, as in the example in Figure 1. The cycle length for the oscillations mentioned is the period of three Hale cycles of the Sun, corresponding to about 65 years. From recent publications, there is evidence of a link between the approximately 60-year cycle, which can be detected on the Sun, and the approximately 60-year cycles, such as in the AMO, WHWP or PDO. (Scafetta 2020, Veretenko 2021, Olilla 2022). The period of about 65 years results if three Hale cycles are ranked consecutively with the starting years mentioned by Chapman, see Table 1.
Table 1: Hale cycles of the Sun and about 65-year AMO cycles since 1837, in brackets duration of cycles in years. Determination of the first year of the Hale cycles based on S. C. Chapman et al. 2021
The trend of AMO is stable in the last three cycles
With the help of the phase length determined in this way, approximately 65-year periods of the AMO can be defined as in the following figure, in which the cycle repeats.
Figure 3: Trend of the AMO since 1870 with the starting years of the approximately 65-year AMO cycles
If the three approximately 65-year periods of the AMO are stacked on top of each other, it becomes visible how the course of the AMO repeats itself from cycle to cycle.
Figure 4: Trend of the AMO in the approximately 65-year AMO cycle since 1858
The three cycles follow a common trend. Currently (grey column, 2022), the AMO is at the end of the last warm phase and still at a very high level compared to the two preceding cycles (blue and green). In the next few years, a more or less sharp decline in the AMO index and a cooling of the northern Atlantic are to be expected.
Area extent of the WHWP varies cyclically and in step with the AMO
At the same time and congruent as the AMO, the area extent of the WHWP fluctuates, see the following figure. Here, the AMO trend is transferred from the previous figure with a blue dashed line.
Figure 5: Trend of WHWP since 1950 in the approximately 65-year AMO cycle
AMO and WHWP appear to be synchronized by the same external drive. Whether the periodically fluctuating solar activity is actually the driving force will certainly be clarified in the next few years.
While the trend of water temperature at the AMO is approximately the same in the three cycles (see Fig. 4), the area extent of the WHWP differs between the current (red) and previous cycle (green) in the middle of the 3rd Hale cycle (yellow rectangle) by about 4 million km², more than ten times the area of Germany. This difference may explain at least part of the exceptionally high temperature level of the last 20 years in Germany.
The WHWP is also expected to enter a longer cooling phase. This is currently confirmed in the Caribbean in the trend of anomaly of the water temperature of recent months, source.
Figure 6: Trend of Caribbean surface water temperature anomaly in recent months
Temperature trend in Iceland closely linked to AMO and oscillation of WHWP
The extent to which the temperature trend from the Atlantic incl. the Caribbean and the eastern tropical Pacific is transferred to Europe is shown in the following figure with the cyclical temperature trend of Iceland. Due to its insularity in the Atlantic, temperature transmission from the ocean surface is still most likely to be expected in Iceland.
Figure 7a: Trend of temperature in the summer half year in Iceland since 1903 in the approximately 65-year AMO cycle
Also in this representation the temperature trend of the AMO is inserted. The temperature trend in Iceland runs parallel to the AMO trend. Thus, the temperature increase of the last 30 years in Iceland of a good one degree can be explained solely by the trend of AMO and oscillation of the WHWP. If the temperature trend is transferred to Greenland, it is understandable that the current AMO warm phase may have contributed significantly, if not dominantly, to the ice loss of recent decades.
Current warm phase in Germany influenced by the trend of AMO and oscillation of WHWP
Also in the area average of Germany, the AMO and the oscillation of the WHWP leave deep traces in the temperature trend of the summer half-year, see next figure.
Figure 7b: Trend of temperature in the summer half year in the area average of Germany since 1881 in the approximately 65-year AMO cycle
In the current cycle (red), the curves for the trend of the mean temperature and the AMO (blue) run parallel. The total temperature increase in Germany over the last 30 years can be attributed to the influence of the AMO and the oscillation of the WHWP.
But why does the temperature trend of the current cycle (red) from the middle of the 65-year AMO cycle around the year 2000 decouple from the previous older cycles and rise about 1 degree higher? The cause could lie in the oscillation of the WHWP. For the WHWP in Figure 5, the area with > 28°C in the period 2016 to 2021 (red line in the yellow field) is about 4 million km² larger than 65 years earlier from 1950 to 1955 (green). This difference could have had an effect on the temperature level in Germany.
Significant influence of AMO and WHWP on sunshine duration in Potsdam
The sunshine duration in Germany is also influenced by AMO and WHWP, see next figure. Here the data from Potsdam are used because they go back to 1893, while the data for the area average of Germany are only available since 1951.
Figure 8: Trend of annual sunshine duration in Potsdam since 1893 in the approximately 65-year AMO cycle
The trend of sunshine duration increases in the two cycles in similar orbits until the last third of the cycle by a remarkable 200 hours. The trend in the current cycle (red) runs parallel to the previous cycle (green) until 2017. Until 2017, the increase in sunshine duration over the past 30 years can be attributed solely to the trend of AMO and oscillation of the WHWP. Further evidence for the link between Atlantic temperature and sunshine duration in Europe is provided by Andrzej A. Marsz et al. 2021.
The regular increase in sunshine duration during the AMO cycle acts as a temperature booster of the AMO cycle. The air in Europe is preheated in warm phases by the Atlantic and Caribbean surface and finally further heated by prolonged sunshine. (Laurenz 2021)
The cause of extremely high sunshine duration in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022 due to a long-term trend and interpolating into the future cannot be deduced from the presentation. Rather, the current solar activity is likely to be responsible for these extreme years. (Laurenz 2021)
Spring drought of the last 15 years in Germany correlates with approx. 65-year AMO cycle
The 65-year period can also be used to explain other climate and weather phenomena. In Germany, the spring has been rather too dry since 2008, with below-average precipitation in April. April is considered the front month of summer. Drought and parched soils at the end of April reduce cloud and precipitation formation in the following period. Thus, an April drought can develop into an early summer and summer drought. The next figure shows that this trend is likely to reverse soon:
Figure 9: Trend of the April precipitation sum in the area average of Germany since 1881 in the approximately 65-year AMO cycle
The precipitation trend follows a common trend in all three cycles. In the first half of the third Hale cycle, the precipitation total in the three cycles (black, green, red) is almost 20 mm or a third lower than in the cycle time before or after. In the next five years, the level of April precipitation should return to normal, and the risk of early summer drought in Germany should decrease again.
Why does the German Weather Service overlook the influence of ocean cycles on the current warm phase in Europe?
The link between AMO and WHWP cycles with the temperature trend in Germany and Europe is extensively described in the literature and cannot be overlooked in the illustrations in this article. Against this background, I am surprised that the German Weather Service does not say a word about ocean cycles in its last annual report, justifying warming practically solely with anthropogenic influence (climatological review of 2022). Here is a small excerpt of the summary:
“Since 1881, we have now had an increase in the annual mean temperature in Germany of 1.7 degrees. This can only be explained by man-made climate change. Since the early seventies, this warming trend has accelerated significantly and there is no reason to assume that it will slow down in the next few years. We are now experiencing heat waves and intensities that we would have expected from the climate models in a few decades. All this must be a strong motivation for us to significantly promote climate protection in Germany and globally, because adaptation is much more expensive and even here only possible to a limited extent.”
Law on the German Weather Service (DWD-Gesetz) § 4 Tasks, point 6: Analysis and forecasting of meteorological and climatological processes as well as the analysis and projection of climate change and its impact.
You must be logged in to post a comment.