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.
Evidence of the corruption of the once sacrosanct scientific process grows daily with scientific bodies falling victim to wokeness, unscientific findings and pseudo-scientific romantic mythology. Theย latest reportย on the future of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) by the Australian Academy of Science (AAS)ย is another sad reflection of this depressing trend. According to long-time Reef expert Dr. Peter Ridd,ย the report demonstratesย that the AAS, Australiaโs principal science body, is not just unscientific, but anti-science. Writing recently inย Spectator Australia, he also noted it had become โastonishingly wokeโ.
Evidence of the corruption of the once sacrosanct scientific process grows daily with scientific bodies falling victim to wokeness, unscientific findings and pseudo-scientific romantic mythology. Theย latest reportย on the future of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) by the Australian Academy of Science (AAS)ย is another sad reflection of this depressing trend. According to long-time Reef expert Dr. Peter Ridd,ย the report demonstratesย that the AAS, Australiaโs principal science body, is not just unscientific, but anti-science. Writing recently inย Spectator Australia, he also noted it had become โastonishingly wokeโ.
The AAS observed that the Reef could already be โirreversibly damagedโ. This propagandised opinion flies in the face of the fact that coral on the Reef is at a 37-year record high, despite a challenging past decade of cyclones, natural localised warming spikes and starfish attacks. Coral is now double that recorded in 2012. Nowhere in the report, including the executive summary, introduction and conclusion, is any of this mentioned. Also considered unworthy of note is the fact that UNESCO recently declared the GBR was not endangered.
What we get is a parade of wokeness and half-baked possible solutions to combat the mortal danger the doomed GBR is supposed to be in. Much play is made of the involvement of aboriginal people in the roundtable process that helped compile the report. Having a โtraditional knowledge co-chairโ in each roundtable โallows for different sources of knowledge to be sharedโ. This provides a โholisticโ understanding of the GBR, encompassing โcustomary activities, song-lines, stories, totems and spiritualityโ.
The original settlers in Australia were immensely practical people learning to survive in a hostile environment. But Dr. Ridd suggests that selecting people on the basis of their ethnicity, rather than their scientific experience, is a โfundamentally anti-scientific approachโ. He did however feel that people โdeeply practicalโ about the Reef could have helped in pointing out the absurdity of some future actions proposed by the AAS. Deeply practical people know that you cannot bolt the Reef, the size of Germany, to the sea floor. Under โrubble stabilisationโ, the AAS seems to suggest coral rocks can be glued back together. Even if by some โclimate magicโ the Reef is broken up, are they seriously suggesting we can wire it back together, asks Ridd.
Folk more practical than the experts at the AAS might also have a problem with โsolar radiation managementโ, a daft idea, unsparing of other peopleโs money, that could see the entire Reef shaded from the sun with artificial fog and clouds. Of course, since this is an Australian Government-bound report, nothing as vulgar as costings are supplied. โHow are you going to make a cloud as big as Germany and keep it anchored over the Reef for the whole summer over the next few hundred years?โ asks Dr. Ridd. In addition, he continues, you will have to stop hot water flowing from the Coral Sea, and this would necessitate building a dam 2,000 kilometres long and 100 metres deep.
While a simple calculation is all that is required to reveal the absurdity of such ideas, โmodern science is full of people who are almost completely non-quantitative and, as such, impractical and virtually useless as scientistsโ, concludes Ridd.
The recent coral recovery on the GBR has been a major embarrassment to many climate alarmists, not least those found in the mainstream media. The story has disappeared from the headlines, leading to the obvious charge that the MSM are now lying about the spectacular recovery by omission. In a recent report, Dr. Ridd, who was cancelled in 2018 from his post as a physics professor at James Cook University for questioning the institutional narrative around the GBR, said recent events โraised serious questions about integrity in science institutions and in the mediaโ. Coral has never been in better shape, he reported. โAn uncharitable observer might conclude that periodic mass coral mortality events, which are largely completely natural, are exploited by some organisations with an ideological agenda and a financial interest.โ
The AAS holds itself out as providing โindependent, authoritative and influential adviceโ to Government. It appears to be somewhat ruthless in protecting its trade. Last year it called for broadcast news and the internet to censor what it called โclimate denialism misinformationโ, as well as โdisinformationโ about the GBR, Covid vaccines and other issues that result in โsocietal harmโ. It went on to call for all social media platforms to proactively promote โtrusted informationโ to โinoculateโ people against misinformation. Platforms should be held accountable for content that challenges the official narrative on any of these issues.
At the time, the Australian climate writer Jo Nova quoted the atmospheric physicist Professor Garth Paltridge, who said: โI just cannot understand how any science academy that is supposed to operate through rational debate can behave like this โ that is, to use pure political brute force to prevent one side of the argument from putting its caseโ.
Chris Morrison is the Daily ScepticIโsEnvironment Editor.
The new study onย stalagmites in caves of the Pyreneesย shows that modern climate change is nothing compared to normal fluctuations in the last 2,500 years, when it was at timesย much hotter, colder, and more volatile. Rapid shifts between temperatures were common.
The new study on stalagmites in caves of the Pyrenees shows that modern climate change is nothing compared to normal fluctuations in the last 2,500 years, when it was at times much hotter, colder, and more volatile. Rapid shifts between temperatures were common.
The researchers looked at 8 stalagmites in 4 caves and local lake levels, but they also compared their results with other European temperature proxies and reconstructions and the pattern is consistent across the region. The Roman Warm Period was much hotter than today, and for hundreds of years as well, even though coal plants were rare. Apparently, there was a reason Romans were dressed in togas.
The Dark Ages were very cold, especially around 520 โ 550AD โ which may be related to what the researchers call a โcataclysmicโ volcanic eruption that took place in Iceland in 536AD. It was followed by two other massive volcanic eruptions in 540 and 547AD. This effect is apparently visible in European tree rings which showed โan unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized coolingโ.
Indeed, the researchers declare that volcanoes and solar variability appear to be the main drivers of the climate in SouthWestern Europe.
So finally we see one long continuous proxy record from ancient Greek times right through until 2010. The big question is why these sorts of studies are not done everywhere and all the time. Itโs not like we donโt have plenty of caves with stalagmites to analyze. If the climate really was โthe biggest threat to life on Earthโ why are these extraordinary datasets not the top item on the wish-list of every institution that claims they care about the climate?
There will be more to say on this remarkable paper:
Some passages from the paper discuss how these results match other studies from Europe:
The cold event at ca. 540 AD (the coldest of the speleothem record) may be related to a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that took place in Iceland in 536 AD and spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere, together with the effect of two other massive eruptions in 540 and 547 AD (Sigl et al., 2015). An unprecedented, long-lasting and spatially synchronized cooling was observed in European tree-ring records associated with these large volcanic eruptions, corresponding to the LALIA period (Bรผntgen et al., 2016).
Some passages from the paper discuss how these results compare with many other studies from Europe and with stark moments in history.
5.2.2. Temperature variability in W Europe and the W Mediterranean during last 2500 years There are very few high-resolution speleothem records in Europe covering the CE (Comas-Bru et al., 2020). We compare the Central Pyrenean speleothem composite with nine selected speleothems records in Europe and northern Africa which cover with robust chronology and decadal resolution the last 2500 years (Fig. 5). One of these records is interpreted as NAO variability (Baker et al., 2015), three are paleo-precipitation reconstructions (Ait Brahim et al., 2019; Cisneros et al., 2021; Thatcher et al., 2022) and the other five are reflecting paleo-temperature variations (Affolter et al., 2019; Fohlmeister et al., 2012; Mangini et al., 2005; Martรญn-Chivelet et al., 2011; Sundqvist et al., 2010). Considering these differences in the interpretation and the fact these records are from different regions with different climates (from Sweden to Morocco), dissimilar profiles of paleoclimate variability can be expected. Still, some features are comparable and can be discussed to obtain a super-regional picture.
A. The Roman period in Europe-W Mediterranean. In Europe, and particularly in the Mediterranean region, the RP is well-known as a warm period (e.g., McCormick et al., 2012). The average sea-surface temperature in the western Mediterranean Sea was 2ยฐC higher than the average temperature of the late centuries (Margaritelli et al., 2020). Our composite, with high values of normalized ๏ค 18O values during the whole RP, and particularly from 0-200 AD, agrees with the scenario of warm temperatures (Fig. 5i). Speleothem data from the Balearic Islands (Cisneros et al., 2021) indicate a transition from humid to dry conditions along the Iberian-RP (Fig. 5c). The dry period at the end of the RP in the Balearic record, appears in agreement with a new speleothem record from northern Italy (Hu et al., 2022), suggesting that the observed drying trend was a possible contribution to the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. Record from Morocco (Ait Brahim et al., 2019), contrarily, marks a humid trend at the end of the RP (Fig. 5d). Similarly, an increase in humidity was observed in southern Iberia during the Iberian-Roman Period (Jimรฉnez-Moreno et al., 2013; Martรญn-Puertas et al., 2009) thus reflecting a large spatial heterogeneity in precipitation during the RP when comparing records from the north and south of the Mediterranean basin.
Back in 1969, scientists knew the floods were a meteorological phenomenon. Nowadays so-called scientists just lazily blame them on climate change, and demand we change our lifestyles to prevent them in future.
The sheer size of the area affected was itself astonishing, with most of Tunisia seriously affected and even Algeria too.
Back in 1969, scientists knew the floods were a meteorological phenomenon. Nowadays so-called scientists just lazily blame them on climate change, and demand we change our lifestyles to prevent them in future.
Wind and solar have lost their โsocial licenceโ; the masses no longer believe the โclean and greenโ propaganda. Wrecked communities, wrecked environments and wrecked economies are too difficult to hide or spin away.
Wind and solar have lost their โsocial licenceโ; the masses no longer believe the โclean and greenโ propaganda. Wrecked communities, wrecked environments and wrecked economies are too difficult to hide or spin away.
Once people get a grip on the great wind and solar scam, their conversion is irreversible.
The original trope had it that wind and solar were โfriends of the earthโ. But as millions of toxic solar panels and thousands of toxic wind turbine blades get crushed and dumped into landfill, that relationship appears more strained than ever.
Which is where nuclear power steps in.
Safe, reliable and affordable, nuclear power ticks all the boxes, including being the only stand-alone power generation source that can satisfy those fretting about human-generated carbon dioxide gas, by not generating any during the generating process.
Sky Newsโ Chris Kenny takes a look at Canadaโs exemplary move towards a nuclear-powered future, in this interview with Dr Chris Keefer.
Nuclear energy is the โmost environmentally friendlyโ option Sky News Chris Kenny and Chris Keefer 6 September 2023
Canadians for Nuclear Energy President Dr Chris Keefer says nuclear energy is the โmost environmentally friendlyโ form of energy due to its low environmental impact.
โThe entire nuclear sector, including the uranium mines, factories, the fabrication of fuel and the power stations, even the waste storage fits on 20 square kilometres of land in Ontario, thatโs the size of our Pearson International Airport in Toronto,โ Dr Keefer told Sky News host Chris Kenny.
โSo this is an incredibly dense form of energy.
Nuclear energy is the ‘most environmentally friendly’ option
Transcript
Chris Kenny: Joining me is Dr. Chris Keefer, a medical doctor and president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy. Thanks for joining us, Chris. Really appreciate the chance to talk to you. First, tell us about Canada. Canada is not as blessed with the coal reserves that Australia has, but you have an enormous amount of gas and also an enormous amount of hydroelectricity power. Why has there been a push back away from coal to nuclear power, especially in a big province like Ontario?
Dr Chris Keefer: Well, most of the nuclear is concentrated in the province of Ontario, and thatโs precisely because we werenโt blessed with the kind of coal reserves that Australia has, and so we were importing coal over from the United States. And when the 1973 energy crisis hit, we had a doubling in that price of coal and weโd been developing this nuclear reactor technology. We ended up commissioning 22 reactors in just 22 years and accidentally decarbonized our electricity grid. So itโs interesting that a power source can help grow an economy and accidentally decarbonize it. I think that shows you something about how cost-effective it can be.
Chris Kenny: Now with the continuing push for net-zero, some of thatโs been expanded because around the world, after Fukushima, there was a lot of push to get out of nuclear. But now weโre seeing in South Korea, in Finland, in France, in the UK, going back to nuclear. Whatโs your assessment of Australiaโs options when it comes to reliable, affordable emissions-free electricity?
Dr Chris Keefer: Well, listen, the grid is a civilizational life support structure, and I think thereโs symptoms that itโs not doing well right now. I pick up a newspaper here in Australia and I see story after story, rolling blackouts anticipated this summer because of low wind and high temperatures from the end of the La Nina effects. I see coal stations that are being life extended because the reliability of the system is in such peril. You see the blowouts at Snowy 2.0. The situation is not looking great. I think itโs always important to have a plan B. And what weโre seeing here, I think, indicates that itโs better to have more tools in the toolbox than to cut something out that actually has a proven record of decarbonization. Thereโs no jurisdiction in the world that has achieved what we have in Ontario, which is a deeply, again, decarbonized grid, with wind and solar, that just hasnโt happened to this date.
Chris Kenny: Let me show you what our current federal labor climate and energy minister tends to say about the nuclear option.
Chris Bowen: The most expensive form of energy and the slowest to roll out, nuclear. The only thing small about a small modular reactor is the output. Nothing small about the cost.
Chris Kenny: How do you fact check a statement like that, Chris?
Dr Chris Keefer: Well, I hate to rub it in, but our emissions are 1/10th those of Australia in Ontario, and our electricity is one half the cost. Again, we commissioned 22 large nuclear stations in 22 years. When thereโs a sense of urgency in Australia, I can see that thereโs bipartisan moves that can happen, such as with the AUKUS situation. And I think as the grid Australia continues to become more unreliable and more expensive, eventually that will lead to a search for other options. And I think if you want those to be low carbon ones, thatโs going to have to be nuclear.
Chris Kenny: Yeah, I think itโs inevitable too for those reasons, and weโre seeing enormous backlash around the country as we look to put in wind turbine farms, offshore wind projects, solar farms, massive transmission projects to connect all of this. So youโre creating a lot of other environmental problems and using up a lot more land. One of the advantages of nuclear is itโs concentrated in the land it requires and plugs into largely the existing transmission network.
Dr Chris Keefer: Thatโs absolutely true. The entire nuclear sector, including the uranium mines, the factories, the fabrication of fuel, and the power stations, even the waste storage fits on 20 square kilometres of land in Ontario. Thatโs the size of our Pearson International Airport in Toronto. So this is an incredibly dense form of energy, which means that it has the lowest environmental impacts. It requires the least mining and the least land footprint. And so really nuclear is the most environmentally friendly form of energy, but itโs been misrepresented so much over the years.
Chris Kenny: It sure has. And one of those relates to peopleโs health and safety. Just very quickly, as a medical doctor, your assessment there?
Dr Chris Keefer: Youโre right, Iโm a medical doctor. I am the source of the largest amount of radiation, artificial radiation that people get every year. We all get a natural background dose. Medical doctors deliver the majority of that. But it makes me literate in again, that dose of radiation. And the nuclear industry has done an extraordinarily good job at limiting any emissions from the plants. I mean, we have a perfect track record in terms of nuclear waste storage. Just the fact that we can contain all of the waste thatโs produced is remarkable and again, speaks to that incredible energy density. So I live with my family about 20 kilometres from one of Ontarioโs large nuclear stations, I feel very safe living there and so does the community around the plant.
Chris Kenny: Thanks so much for talking to us, Chris. I really appreciate it.
Dr Chris Keefer: My pleasure.
Chris Kenny:ย Chris Keefer there, sharing with us some of the insights from Ontario in Canada. We need to learn and follow this. I think, like Chris said there, I think itโs inevitable Australia will go down this path, especially given we have such great uranium reserves that weโre exporting to much of the world. Weโll go to this form of energy eventually. So every year we dawdle, we just add to our own burden. Sky News
โGiven the observed temperature increase, and the output from their computer simulations of the climate system, the IPCC rejected the idea that less than half the warming was man-made. They said there was less than a 5% chance that this was true.โ
London, 13 September โ A new paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that the IPCCโs 2013 report contained a remarkable logical fallacy.
The author, Professor Norman Fenton, shows that the authors of the Summary for Policymakers claimed, with 95% certainty, that more than half of the warming observed since 1950 had been caused by man. But as Professor Fenton explains, their logic in reaching this conclusion was fatally flawed.
โGiven the observed temperature increase, and the output from their computer simulations of the climate system, the IPCC rejected the idea that less than half the warming was man-made. They said there was less than a 5% chance that this was true.โ
โBut they then turned this around and concluded that there was a 95% chance that more than half of observed warming was man-made.โ
This is an example of what is known as the Prosecutorโs Fallacy, in which the probability of a hypothesis given certain evidence, is mistakenly taken to be the same as the probability of the evidence given the hypothesis.
As Professor Fenton explains
โIf an animal is a cat, there is a very high probability that it has four legs. However, if an animal has four legs, we cannot conclude that it is a cat. Itโs a classic error, and is precisely what the IPCC has done.โ
Recall that the particular โclimate change numberโ that I was asked to explain was the number 95: specifically, relating to the assertion made in the IPCC 2013 Report of โat least 95% degree of certainty that more than half the recent warming is man-madeโ. The โrecent warmingโ related to the period 1950โ2010. So, the assertion is about the probability of humans causing most of this warming.
Before explaining the problem with this assertion, we need to make clear that (although superficially similar) it is very different to another more widely known assertion (still promoted by NASA) that โ97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming and climate changeโ. That assertion was simply based on a flawed survey of authors of published papers and has been thoroughly debunked.
The 95% degree of certainty is a more serious claim. But theย case made for it in the IPCC report is also flawed.
[Commment: In the short video above, Norman Fenton explains the fallacy IPCC committed. Synopsis of example. A man dies is a very rowdy gathering of young men. A size 13 footprint is found on the body. Fred is picked up by the police. He admits to being there but not to killing anyone, despite wearing size 13 shoes. Since statistics show that only 1% of young men have size 13 feet, the prosecutor claims a 99% chance Fred is guilty. The crowd was reported to be on the order of 1000, so there were likely 10 others with size 13 shoes. So in fact there is only a 10% chance Fred is guilty.]
The flaw in the IPCC summary report
It turns out that the assertion that โat least 95% degree of certainty that more than half the recent warming is man-madeโ is based on the same fallacy. In my article about the programme, I highlighted this concern as follows:
The real probabilistic meaning of the 95% figure. In fact it comes from a classical hypothesis test in which observed data is used to test the credibility of the โnull hypothesisโ. The null hypothesis is the โoppositeโ statement to the one believed to be true, i.e. โLess than half the warming in the last 60 years is man-madeโ. If, as in this case, there is only a 5% probability of observing the data if the null hypothesis is true, the statisticians equate this figure (called a p-value) to a 95% confidence that we can reject the null hypothesis.
But the probability here is a statement about the data given the hypothesis. It is not generally the sameas the probability of the hypothesis given the data (in fact equating the two is often referred to as the โprosecutors fallacyโ, since it is an error often made by lawyers when interpreting statistical evidence).
IPCC defined โextremely likelyโ as at least 95% probability. The basis for the claim is found in Chapter 10 of the detailed Technical Summary, which describes various climate change simulation models, which reject the null hypothesis (that more than half the warming was not man-made) at the 5% significance level. Specifically, in the simulation models, if you assumed that there was little man-made impact, then there was less than 5% chance of observing the warming that has been measured. In other words, the models do not support the null hypothesis of little man-made climate change. The problem is that, even if the models were accurate (and it is unlikely that they are) we cannot conclude that there is at least a 95% chance that more than half the warming was man-made, because doing so is the fallacy of the transposed conditional.
The illusion of confidence in the coin example comes from ignoring (the โprior probabilityโ) of how rare the double-headed coins are. Similarly, in the case of climate change there is no allowance made for the prior probability of man-made climate change, i.e. how likely it is that humans rather than other factors such as solar activity cause most of the warming. After all, previous periods of warming certainly could not have been caused by increased greenhouse gases from humans, so it seems reasonable to assume โ before we have considered any of the evidence โ that the probability humans caused most of the recent increase in temperature to be very low.
Only the assumptions of the simulation models are allowed, and other explanations are absent.
In both of these circumstances, classical statistics can then be used to deceive you into presenting an illusion of confidence when it is not justified.
If these temperature changes drive other variables and give rise to dangerous weather etc, then it seems unlikely that any such changes would be noticeable on a year-to-year basis.
The climate โcrisisโ is not accelerating.
Just how fast is the climate โcrisisโ accelerating?
If the mainstream media is to be believed, the climate โcrisisโ is accelerating fast. Everything is so much worse than last year, and next year will be much worse than this year, and so on.
But just how much more potent is the greenhouse effect now than last year? Itโs something that is not made obvious in discussion of emissions (globally seemingly flatlining according to EDGAR) or even as reflected in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
The consequences of climate change arise downstream of the physical drivers. The most important driver of present interest is CO2 concentrations, to which global atmospheric temperature increases are related by a logarithmic function. As we know, CO2 concentrations are inching up year by year, but the thing that is dinned into us more often than anything else is the importance of the CO2emissions themselves, in other words our current account spending, when the problem is in fact the overdraft.
This way of thinking only gets you so far, because if this โpollutantโ was cleansed from the atmosphere, every living thing on Earth would die. Some pollutant. Situation โnormalโ we consider to be 280 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere by count of molecules, and it is against this benchmark that the climate โcrisisโ is judged.
Well, I decided to crunch the numbers to find out just how objectively worse this yearโs climate is compared to last yearโs in terms of the potency of the CO2 in the atmosphere.
I also wanted to answer a subsidiary question: How much better would things have been this year, if the UK had not existed at all?
Some interesting numbers 1: the mass of the atmosphere
According to Wiki, the mass of the atmosphere is 5.15*1018 kg, or 5.15 petatonnes. Of that, about 3.13*1015 kg is CO2, or 3.13 teratonnes. [Remembering that CO2 is heavier than the other molecules.]
In Denierland, I said that the present mass of C [not CO2] in the atmosphere is 850 Gt, which equals 3.12*1015 kg CO2, close to Wikiโs figure.
Allowing 0.04 % CO2 to equal this figure, you get 1 ppm CO2 โ 8 Gt (billion tonnes).
Some interesting numbers 2: global emissions of CO2
According to EDGAR, the total quantity of CO2 emitted globally in 2022 was 38.5 Gt. This is 3.85*1013 kg, or roughly 1% of the quantity of CO2 already in the atmosphere.
However, not all our emissions end up getting added to the atmospheric stock. Again referring to Wiki I find that 57% of humanityโs emissions were absorbed in 2012. Iโm going to say that is reduced to 50% today, which is the same figure I used in Denierland (benefitting the alarmist case). So of the 38.5 Gt emitted, 19.25 Gt net is added to the atmosphere.
Net added last year / Existing stock = Proportion added last year
19.25 / 3120 โ 0.006
This is about 1 part in 167, so it would take a further 167 years for CO2 levels to double from todayโs, given no change in our behaviour. [We are already well on the way to doubling from 280. This illustration would take us from 420 to 840 in 2190 AD, although we would probably run out of fossil fuels before then.]
We already have the estimate that 1 ppm CO2 โ 8 Gt, so we estimate too that the 19.25 Gt we added last year would have increased the CO2 concentration by 19.25 / 8 โ 2.4 ppm.
In May last year (Wiki again) the concentration of CO2 was 421 ppm. So on these numbers, it should now be 423.4 ppm.
What about the UKโs contribution to this increase? According to EDGAR, the UK emitted 0.34 Gt CO2 last year. This is 0.88 % of global emissions, meaning that we are responsible for 0.0088 * 2.4 ppm, or 0.0212 ppm out of the increase of 2.4 ppm.
Some interesting numbers 3: global temperature change
We know that every time you double the CO2 concentration, you get the same increase in global temperature. What this means is that every ppm you add is worth less in terms of warming potential than the previous. It also means that, if you have a baseline level of CO2 (280 ppm) it is easy to calculate the temperature difference resulting from any other concentration of CO2, with a couple of caveats.
Caveat 1: you have to put in a number for transient climate response (TCR). TCR is the fast-acting part of climate change, the bit that is relevant to a human timescale, before long-term feedbacks have reached equilibrium. Lewis & Curry (2014, ?Climate Dynamics) estimated this to be 1.33 K per doubling using an energy budget approach. Big computers give higher numbers. Iโm very generously (for the alarmist case) going to call TCR = 2 K here. However, TCR is not instantaneous; itโs relevant to 2100. So the temperature change reported here would be in train but not wholly realised.
Caveat 2: there are other things going on other than CO2 concentrations going up. There are other greenhouse gases (in particular methane), and natural cycles, volcanoes, etc. This elementary analysis ignores all those.
The function you end up with (I donโt know if this is standard, or idiosyncratic) to calculate the temperature change from the baseline is:
Or in words, the temperature change from the baseline equals TCR times the logarithm base 2 of the present CO2 concentration divided by the baseline concentration (280 ppm).
We can now estimate the temperature increase from the baseline by plugging in TCR = 2 K and CO2 = 423.4. The answer you get is that the global climate should be an average of
1.193 K
warmer than it was in the pre-industrial baseline situation (or it will be once the short-term feedbacks are settled).
If you plug in last yearโs concentration (421 ppm) you get
1.177 K
So the annual increase in temperature in this idealised situation would be 0.016 K between 2022 and 2023, or a sixtieth of a kelvin.
What about the UKโs contribution to the temperature increase over the baseline? What if we had disappeared last year? What if, in 2022, the UKโs 0.34 Gt had not been emitted?
With the UK, the estimated increase over the baseline was 1.193 K. Without the UK, the estimate is
1.193 K
(Yes, itโs the same number because of insufficient significant figures.) In fact, on these estimates, the UKโs contribution to climate change last year was:
0.00014 K
Or roughly 1/7000th of a kelvin.
Bottom line
Although temperatures are rising, they (or the part driven by CO2 emissions at any rate) are rising at a non-threatening and incremental rate. With parameter estimates favouring the alarmist cause, the effect of CO2 emissions last year was of the order of a sixtieth of kelvin. The UKโs contribution to global warming from CO2 emissions last year was about 1/7000th of a kelvin, again with parameter estimates favouring alarm.
If these temperature changes drive other variables and give rise to dangerous weather etc, then it seems unlikely that any such changes would be noticeable on a year-to-year basis.
The climate โcrisisโ is not accelerating.
Editorial
Oh, for a leader who would stop dictating every aspect of our lives, and let us get on with them.
The alarmist media bought it at the time, which may well have been the idea. โ โ โ A new paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that the IPCCโs 2013 report contained a remarkable logical fallacy, says Climate Change Dispatch.
The author, Professor Norman Fenton, shows that the authors of the Summary for Policymakers claimed, with 95% certainty, that more than half of the warming observed since 1950 had been caused by man.
But as Professor Fenton explains, their logic in reaching this conclusion was fatally flawed.
โGiven the observed temperature increase, and the output from their computer simulations of the climate system, the IPCC rejected the idea that less than half the warming was man-made. They said there was less than a 5% chance that this was true.โ
โBut they then turned this around and concluded that there was a 95% chance that more than half of observed warming was man-made.โ
This is an example of what is known as theย Prosecutorโs Fallacy, in which the probability of a hypothesis given certain evidence is mistakenly taken to be the same as the probability of the evidence given the hypothesis.
If an animal is a cat, there is a very high probability that it has four legs. However, if an animal has four legs, we cannot conclude that it is a cat. Itโs a classic error, and is precisely what the IPCC has done.โ
Officials at the Department of Interiorโs Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are within weeks of deciding whether to list a small, light-brown lizard as either threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Sceloporus undulatus, Lookout Mountain Trail on the northeast side of Glenwood Springs, 39.551 -107.314, Garfield County, Colorado, 15 Jun 2008.
Officials at the Department of Interiorโs Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are within weeks of deciding whether to list a small, light-brown lizard as either threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The dunes sagebrush lizard was proposed for listing under the ESA in late June, giving the public 60 days to submit comments to the FWS. Swamped by comments opposed to the listing, the FWS extended the comment period for an additional 30 days, until Oct. 2. In 2018, the Center for Biological Diversity CBD) petitioned the FWS to add the lizard to the endangered species list, and โ after five years of study and bureaucratic inertia โ a final decision is expected this fall.
As fate would have it, the lizardโs habitat in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas overlaps with the Permian Basin, home to Americaโs most productive oil and gas fields. The Permian Basin produces up to 5.8 million barrels of oil per day and has a sizeable impact on the economies of both states.
Fearful that an ESA listing for the lizard would impose strict land-use restrictions on the area, the oil and gas industry, joined by cattle ranchers, has argued that voluntary community conservation efforts to protect the creature are more effective than the heavy hand of the ESA.
In comments submitted Aug. 25 to the FWS, Tim Tarpley, president of the Energy Workforce and Technology Council, said the listing would impede planning and cause delays for the energy sector., without benefiting the lizard. The council represents 250 companies and over 600,00 workers, he noted.
Voluntary Conservation Agreements
Tarpley also pointed out that about 1.9 million acres of land in New Mexico are enrolled in what are known as candidate conservation agreements, under which landowners undertake certain practices that protect the lizardโs habitat, obviating the need for ESA-style land-use restrictions.
โWhile the Sagebrush Lizard favors the welcoming landscape of Texas and New Mexico, this same habitat plays home to our nationโs most critical oil and gas developments,โ he said in his comments (CarlsbadCurrent Argus, Sept. 12). โUnder these agreements, the industry has voluntarily committed to implementing practices that reduce or even remove threats to the lizard.โ
โPlacement of the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard on the endangered species list will further reduce production and development opportunities across our robust energy industry jobs in the region and infringe on property rights,โ Tarpley added.
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, voiced similar concerns in her Aug. 4 comments to the FWS.
โThe proposed Rule stands to have a significant impact on Alliance membersโ business planning and operations by increasing operational costs, delaying project timeframes, and limiting or precluding operations in certain areas.โ
The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association also urged the FWS to forego a listing, citing its effect on agriculture.
โGiven the extensive work that has been done to protect this species in this state and the effectiveness those actions have had, it would be improper to list the dunes sagebrush lizard as threatened or endangered in New Mexico,โ Loren Patterson, the associationโs president, wrote in his comments, as reported by the Carlsbad Current Argus.
Adult dunes sagebrush lizards are about 2.5 inches long and spend their lives in the regionโs low-lying shinney oak shrubs, where they hunt insects and spiders and have some protection from the weather and predators. Their habitat is the second-smallest of any lizard species in North America.
โWe wonโt stand by while the last dunes sagebrush lizards disappear,โ said the Center for Biological Diversityโs Michael Robinson in a statement last year. โEven as the oil and gas industry ruins our climate, itโs also destroying the lizardโs last home. Protection under the Endangered Species Act is this unique animalโs last hope.โ
The Center for Biological Diversity may just get its way. Biden administration appointees at the FWS are every bit as hostile to the oil and gas industry and cattle ranchers as is the CBD. Adding the lizard to the endangered species list will reduce fossil-fuel production in the Permian Basin, something both want.
Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investorโs Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country.
He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.
He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh.
He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. โ summa cum laude โ from the University of Munich.
The media seem to be having a competition to see who can print the biggest pile of BS about climate change!
I wonโt bother copying this latest rubbish from the Telegraph โ itโs the usual claptrap about wildfires, droughts, floods and typhoons, as if none of these had ever happened in the past.
But almost to a man, the commenters have had a field day, tearing this drivel to pieces; for instance:
There are a couple of comments about Bill Gates and his Global Health Security outfit. Sure enough, at the bottom of the article is this:
In short, the Telegraph has prostituted itself to Bill Gatesโ billions. Despite its protestations about full editorial control, there is no way the paper would have published such ill researched, manifestly fake news in the past, when it could rightly lay claim to being a serious newspaper.
And if you want proof of this, just look at the author of this article, Harriet Barber:
Ah! Human rights, violence against wimmin and the refugee crisis. That obviously makes her a qualified expert on climate!
Her co-author, Verity Bowman, is , as some surmised, still in her twenties, and like Barber has no real world experience in these or other matters:
Every country thatโs tapped into the grand wind and solar transition has left power consumers suffering from Post Transition Stress Disorder โ where households and businesses are being pounded with power prices at unprecedented rates.
Every country thatโs tapped into the grand wind and solar transition has left power consumers suffering from Post Transition Stress Disorder โ where households and businesses are being pounded with power prices at unprecedented rates.
Australia, is no exception.
At the minute Australians are being bombarded by media attempts to convince a wholly non racist Australian public to embed racist division in their Constitution, providing a tiny number of elites claiming Aboriginal ancestry with unparalleled power over the 97% of the population who do not share that ancestry. Think Apartheid, in reverse.
The upcoming referendum for the so-called Voice to Parliament has dominated the print and broadcast media for months and will continue to do so until the vote is taken on October 14. STTโs tip is that it will fail dismally, simply because Australians are the least racist group of people, on earth.
In the meantime, however, the hubbub provides perfect cover and distraction for an even greater calamity: Australiaโs self-inflicted, subsidised wind and solar calamity.
Households and businesses have been receiving power bills over the last month which are the highest ever experienced in this country.
In South Australia, Australiaโs wind and solar capital, peak rates are running at 50 cents per kWh, the highest in the country, and right up there with Germany and Denmark, who suffer the highest prices in Europe.
Across Australia, retail rates have risen between 20 and 30% since February, when rates jumped between 10 and 15% on those prevailing in the last half of 2022. Meanwhile, ordinary Australians are left seething, while their political betters squabble over the Voice to Parliament, which at its heart is a naked Marxist power grab.
All that would be bad enough, but, behind-the-scenes, Australiaโs notional energy market regulator (how do you โregulateโ utter weather-related chaos?), has determined to lift the wholesale market price cap from its current $16,000 per MWh to $22,800 per MWh.
To explain a little of what that means, hereโs an extract of an STT post from August 2018:
The last thing Australia needs is another MW of intermittent power generation, which means slashing subsidies to wind and solar, right now.
Thankfully, the new Energy Minister, Angus Taylor is determined to do just that.
Taylorโs shortest route home is to fix the power market dispatch rules, which give preference to intermittent wind and solar.
Once upon a time, those rules required electricity generators to tell the grid manager when and how much power they intended to deliver, and over what time-frame.
Demand was forecast in advance, based on seasonal variations, time-of-day and day of the week, with allowances made for extreme weather conditions, when the use of air conditioners (either for heating or cooling) would lead to spikes in demand. Supply was organised according to schedules to match forecast demand.
Generators hoping to participate in the National Electricity Market were required to offer power according to scheduled demand, in a manner that would satisfy all power consumerโs needs.
Then, along came wind power.
With their output determined by the weather, wind power generators determined to rewrite the rules, they could never satisfy.
After Kevin Ruddโs Labor government took power in 2007, the Renewable Energy Target was jacked up ten-fold to 45,000 GWh: 41,000 GWh of wind and large-scale solar (LRET) and 4,000 GWh of domestic rooftop solar (SRES).
Under the dispatch rules that then existed, wind power was designated โnon-scheduledโ, which meant that wind and large-scale solar power outfits had no right to dispatch power to the NEM, unless the grid manager, the National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO) permitted them to do so. The alternative was to try and meet the requirements set by the definition for โscheduledโ generators: namely, guaranteeing delivery of set volumes of power, over a pre-determined time-frame. Obviously, the fickleness of Mother Nature meant wind and solar generators could never satisfy that definition.
Moreover, the grid manager hits โscheduledโ generators with substantial financial penalties, in the event that they fail to deliver power according to the pre-ordained schedule.
Unable to satisfy the dispatch rules, the wind lobby did the next most obvious thing: it rewrote them.
The Australian Energy Market Commission was inundated with complaints about how unfair it was that wind power outfits were unable to โcompeteโ in a market where customers had this pesky habit of demanding power as and when they needed it, rather than having it delivered at crazy, random intervals.
If a wind power outfit wanted to guarantee regular participation in the NEM, it effectively had to build an equivalent capacity in fast-start up gas (Open Cycle Gas Turbines) or diesel generation to match whatever wind power capacity it built.
AGL did just that back in 2001, when it built its Hallett Power Station (200 MW of OCGTs that it runs on diesel), in order to match the wind power capacity, it was then planning to build between Jamestown and Hallett.
The cost of building utterly unreliable wind power capacity โ as well as being forced to build additional reliable plant to compensate for the inherent intermittency and unreliability of weather-dependent wind โ was viewed with contempt: operators like AGL determined that it was much fairer to pass the true cost of intermittent wind power generation to somebody else; namely, Australian power consumers.
The AEMC (packed with Big Wind friendlies) willingly obliged: under its Rule Determination issued in May 2008 it created an all new category of generator defined as โsemi-scheduledโ, tailored to suit the chaotic delivery of wind and solar. Masters of the English language might scratch their heads at a linguistic concept that sounds a lot like the idea of being half pregnant.
The new dispatch rule came into force in January 2009 and the rest, as they say, is history: from that point forward, more than 1,600 wind turbines were speared across four states and connected to the Eastern Grid.
Over the last three or four years, plenty of large-scale solar has been rolled out across southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, enjoying the same care-free classification: โsemi-scheduledโ.
From 2009, semi-scheduled wind and solar were then, and thereafter, entitled to dispatch electricity to the NEM, whenever the wind and sun permitted.
Critically, the failure of a semi-scheduled generator to deliver power to the grid has no consequences at all for the wind or solar power outfit concerned. Consistent with their general manner of operation, it was all care and no responsibility for the wind and solar industries, from then on.
The conventional generators (coal, gas and hydro) are still designated โscheduledโ generators: a failure to deliver according to the agreed schedule results in the imposition of very substantial financial penalties. True it is that their operation isnโt dependent on the time-of-day or whether the wind is blowing, which makes them unlikely to be hit by those penalties. However, they still need to schedule, well in advance, if they wish to participate in the market, at all.
Once a coal or gas-fired plant is scheduled to deliver, that plant must remain online at all times, irrespective of whether itโs able to dispatch power to the grid.
When the wind is blowing and the sun is up, wind and large-scale solar generators use the value of their Renewable Energy Certificates โ they receive one REC for every MWh dispatched, with a REC currently worth $85 โ to undercut coal and gas generators. Those generators (forced to remain online because theyโre scheduled and would face penalties if they didnโt) continue to burn fuel, pay wages and overheads, but are unable to dispatch electricity and earn revenue.
So, the scheduling rules that Angus Taylor is about to tackle involve a double whammy for conventional generators: they suffer financial penalties imposed by the grid manager if they fail to deliver power according to the grid managerโs pre-ordained schedule; and they suffer financial losses because they canโt deliver power when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, even though they continue to burn coal and gas and run up other costs.
If anyone studying the operation of markets is looking for an example of an unequal playing field, Australiaโs electricity market is it.
While thereโs been plenty of talk from Liberal and National MPs about refurbishing Australiaโs existing fleet of coal-fired power plants and building new High Efficiency Low Emissions coal-fired plants, unless and until the dispatch rules are returned to what they were in 2008, conventional generators will suffer the same disadvantage thatโs making them unprofitable, now; and which has done so, since 2009.
The first and most obvious step towards restoring reliability to Australiaโs power grid and affordable power to Australian power consumers, is redefining wind and large-scale solar as non-scheduled generators. By that definition, wind and solar power outfits would no longer be able to participate in the NEM, without the permission of the grid manager. Scheduled generators, on the other hand, would be able to dispatch electricity according to the schedule, without interference from chaotically intermittent and heavily subsidised wind and solar.
The alternative is to classify all generators as โscheduledโ generators; thereby requiring wind and solar power generators to actually compete in the power market and to suffer the same financial penalties that apply to every other generator in the market. Either way, the characters who keep claiming that wind and solar are truly competitive would get the opportunity that they fear the most: a head-to-head with coal, gas and hydro.
For Taylor to meet his objective of getting power prices down, his other target must be an immediate end to the subsidies directed to wind and solar (currently worth more than $3 billion a year) that created the mess, in the first place.
The direct cost of those subsidies is added to every Australian power bill; namely the cost to retailers of purchasing the mandated number of Renewable Energy Certificates each year: 28 million this year, with the mandated requirement rising to 33 million in 2020, with that number needed each year until 2031. The alternative for retailers is paying the shortfall penalty, a $65 per MWh fine imposed for failing to meet the LRETโs mandated targets, set by the Federal governmentโs Renewable Energy (Electricity)(Large-Scale Generation Shortfall) Act 2000.
The indirect costs of intermittent wind and solar are also born by power consumers, which include: power market gaming around wind and solar output collapses, that send the spot price all the way to the regulated market cap of $14,200 per MWh, for power that costs less than $50 from coal-fired plant; and escalating distribution costs, the result of building networks to take spurts of โoccasionalโ power from hundreds of very remote locations.
Needless to say, nothing much has changed in the last 5 years. Indeed, with a rapid increase in wind and solar generating capacity, the situation has become a whole lot worse. So much so that the โregulatorโ is arguing that the regulated wholesale market price cap (currently $16,000 per MWh) be amped up to $22,800 per MWh.
Bear in mind that our remaining coal-fired power plants are still capable of dispatching power, profitably, at less than $60 per MWh, all day, every day, whatever the weather, without batteries and without backup.
Those plants have ceased to be profitable for precisely the reasons set out above.
Those reasons remain, hence the regulatorโs efforts to up the price cap so that the owners of fast-startup Open Cycle Gas Turbines and diesel generators can rake in even more easy cash, whenever high demand coincides with sunset and/or calm weather.
Simon Benson lays out the propaganda pitch from the Energy Market Commission below (with some helpful STT comments provided).
Power prices set to go up another three per cent after rule change by energy market regulator The Australian Simon Benson 15 September 2023
Electricity prices are set to rise further over the short term under a draft ruling by the Australian Energy Market Commission to raise the existing market price cap to drive urgent new generation as households and businesses face the prospect of blackouts.
The AEMC on Thursday announced draft changes to the National Electricity Rules that it says were needed to prevent an electricity reliability failure as ageing coal-fired generation plants were retired amid the transition to more renewable ยญenergy. [STT: These plants are not anywhere near decrepit, they are simply unprofitable because they are being undercut by subsidised wind and solar when the sun is up and the wind is blowing โ see above.]
The AEMC modelling revealed that the proposed move to raise the wholesale price ceiling from $16,000/MWh to $22,800/MWh by 2027 would result in retail electricity prices rising by a further 3 per cent. [STT: donโt believe a word of it; retail power prices will skyrocket. Anyone backing energy market โmodellingโ hasnโt been paying attention.]
This would come on top of the more than 20 per cent increase to retail electricity prices consumers are already facing. [STT: 20-30% starting in July, on top of 10-15% increases last February, with Australian power prices now among the highest in the world.]
The move to reset the pricing rules is the first permanent change in more than a decade amid warnings that without the new investment, retail prices could eventually rise by significantly more. โThis proposed change is about improving reliability and decreasing prices for households and businesses over the long term,โ a spokesperson for Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said. [STT: wrong. Throwing petrol on out-of-control fire, more like.]
It is the second alarm bell for the Albanese government over its drive to transition the energy market to renewables amid warnings raised in August by the energy market operator that a lack of investment in new generation would lead to a reliability crisis. [STT: wrong again. Itโs the deliberate destruction of the reliable generators that ran perfectly well, for almost a century thatโs done the damage.]
The AEMC says the current wholesale price was too low to drive more generation investment into the system and consumers would ultimately benefit from greater competition, resulting in greater reliability and lower retail prices of 1.6 per cent over the long term. [STT: opportunistic price gouging is not competition, itโs crony capitalism, and its worst.]
The draft determination by the AEMC says โprice settings in the wholesale electricity market are currently set too low to ensure there is enough generation and battery storage to keep the system reliable as it transitionsโ. [STT: the transition theyโre talking about is one where power is routinely rationed and so expensive that low income households and low margin businesses will never afford it.]
โThe AEMC sets the rules for the National Electricity Market and provides independent expert energy advice to Australiaโs state and federal governments,โ the AEMC said. [STT: the experts in question have no engineering or electricity market expertise; theyโre are arts/law grads who havenโt a clue about how electricity grids are run and operated. The engineers were shown the exit, years ago.]
โIt is strongly focused on providing a framework for a reliable electricity system and affordable electricity prices, particularly in light of the current cost-of-living concerns. [STT: that would involve maintaining coal-fired power generating capacity, adding to it and ditching intermittent wind and solar, altogether.]
โAn essential part of this work involves implementing arrangements to make sure there is enough electricity supply in the wholesale electricity market to meet the needs of households and businesses over the coming years and reduce the risk of outages. [STT: see above.]
โAnalysis from the AEMC has shown that price settings in the wholesale electricity market are currently set too low to ensure there is enough generation and battery storage to keep the system reliable as it transitions.โ [STT: battery storage is a complete myth; at its best, battery storage involves short bursts of power being delivered to maintain frequency. Grid-scale storage electricity is impossible using batteries for reasons both economic and physical.]
The AEMC said the proposed new price settings would have โno impact on wholesale electricity prices over 99 per cent of the timeโ and would kick in only in extreme or emergency settings. [STT: more propaganda, it all depends on the weather now and time of day. Increasing reliance on wind and solar means increasing opportunities for price gouging by the owners of fast start gas and diesel generators.]
However, they would deliver additional capacity into the system by driving new investment โthat will have substantial benefits in reducing the risk of outages and ensuring our electricity system remains reliable for households and businessesโ.
โAs these price settings apply rarely, the proposal is expected to result in a relatively small impact on retail electricity prices,โ it said. [STT: perhaps, they can put up some kind of financial guarantee behind that statement? But we doubt it. Talk is always cheap.]
โThe Reliability Panelโs modelling predicts a small increase in retail electricity prices by 2027, but ultimately the adjustment will lead to lower long-term prices for consumers than would otherwise have been the case.โ [STT: These are the same modellers that predicted Australians would already be enjoying the lowest power prices on earth.]
The modelling also showed extra investment stimulated under the rule change would ultimately result in lower prices and better reliability because of the effect the investment would have on driving competition in the market. [STT: utter twaddle. The last 20 years proves just the opposite.]
AEMC chair Anna Collyer said adjustments needed to be made to manage the transformation and โsupport decarbonisation of the electricity sector. These changes would encourage more generation and battery storage into the system when we need it most, reducing the risk of damaging outages for electricity consumers and keeping the system stable as we rapidly transition to higher levels of renewable energy and decarbonise our economy,โ she said. [STT: spoken like a true ideologue. If she was serious about reducing carbon dioxide gas emissions in the electricity generation sector, she would be out there promoting nuclear power generation, as if this countryโs future depended upon it. But donโt hold your breath.]
Opposition energy spokesman Ted OโBrien said the proposed rule change would force consumers to pay for the transition to renewable energy.
[STT: correct.ย Households and businesses are already on the hook for tens of billions in subsidies and are suffering the worldโs highest power prices all thanks to an obsession with intermittent wind and solar. Welcome to your wind and sun powered future!]
[STT: correct.ย Households and businesses are already on the hook for tens of billions in subsidies and are suffering the worldโs highest power prices all thanks to an obsession with intermittent wind and solar. Welcome to your wind and sun powered future!] The Australian
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