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 colours on the Coral Health Chart are based on the actual colours of bleached and healthy corals. Each colour square corresponds to the concentration of symbiotic algae living in the coral tissue, which is directly linked to coral health.
I was back at John Brewer Reef last week and many of the corals are now dark brown. John Brewer reef has lost its pink, for the moment.
The corals in this section of John Brewer Reef are now very brown, or green, because they are replete with zooxanthellae.
There is a Coral Watch program that was developed at Heron Island by the University of Queensland. The ‘Coral Watch Coral Health Chart’ quantifies the health of a coral according to the intensity of its colour that is considered a proxy for the concentration of zooxanthellae. A report on the status of corals at Heron Island indicates that the corals tend to score between 3 and 4, which is considered healthy.
Dive Master Paul Crocombie holds a Coral Health Chart against a branching Acropora at John Brewer Reef last Tuesday, 3rd October 2023.
According to The Coral Watch website, to score a reef: 1. Choose a random coral and select the lightest area. [Don’t include the growing tip that is usually white.] 2. Rotate the chart to find the closest colour match.
Photographed at John Brewer Reef last Tuesday by Leonard Lim, colour chart held by Paul Crocombe.
3. Record the colour code on a data slate. 4. Select the darkest area of the coral and record the matching colour code. 5. Record the coral type. 6. Continue your survey with other corals. Record at least 20 corals. 7. Submit your data online at http://www.coralwatch.org
Ideally this is done with the chart beside the coral at the reef. But, given the extraordinary quality of the underwater photographs taken by Leonard Lim last Tuesday, and that some include the colour chart held by Paul Crocombe, a Dive Master, Skipper and Owner of Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive, I am attempting some interpretation here, so we might be able to quantify how brown the corals were last week for that patch of reef.
All four colours of the symbiotic algae/zooxanthellae in the Coral Watch Coral Health Chart are shown in this photograph. I calculate the average colour to be 3.7, I would have guessed that it was even higher.Photograph taken at John Brewer Reef on Tuesday 3rd October 2023 by Leonard Lim.I can’t bring myself to write on this photograph, it is so beautiful. Another from John Brewer Reef on 3rd October 2023.
This section of reef, towards the north east, has particularly healthy corals and exceptional coral cover. There are some sections of John Brewer reef that are all coral rubble. Coral cover and coral colour varies with the particular habitat. Different habitats include reef crest, reef front and back lagoon.
I first visited John Brewer reef on 10th April last year, with photographer Leonard Lim and cinematographer Stuart Ireland, specifically to photograph and film the bleaching. At the time this reef, John Brewer Reef, was reportedly the centre of a sixth mass coral bleaching – and I wanted it all recorded, for that moment in time.
We did find some corals that had bleached white, but mostly I was surprised at how pink the reef was back then. Leonard took some exquisite photographs and Stuart filmed sections of coral that can be viewed in part 1 of a documentary entitled ‘Bleached Colourful’.
The same section of reef, but quite a different colour in April 2022.
Back in April 2022, many of the corals had ‘kicked out’ their symbiotic algae and so it was possible to see more of their natural pink colour. The pink is from a florescent protein that can ‘upregulated’ when corals are stressed.
It is somewhat counter intuitive that the more symbiotic algae, also known as zooxanthellae, the healthier a coral and the less colourful!
According to the Coral Watch Website:
“The Coral Health Charts are based on the actual colours of bleached and healthy corals. Each colour square corresponds to a concentration of symbionts contained in the coral tissue. The concentration of symbionts is directly linked to the health of the coral. All you have to do is match the colour of the coral with one of the colours on the chart. You then record the lightest and darkest colour codes, along with coral type, on a waterproof data slate.
The hues on the chart represent the most common colours of corals, and help our eyes to make an accurate match. The brightness of the colours ranging from 1 to 6 are the same on every side of the chart, so you can mix and match sides.
How beautiful and brown is this coral, photographed at John Brewer Reef last Tuesday.Another Leonard Lim photograph from last Tuesday.What a special coral reef: John Brewer Reef with Paul Crocombe, photographed by Leonard Lim on 3rd October 2023.Every photograph shows something different.
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Stuart, Leonard and Jen at Heron Island in November 2021; I forgot to get a selfie during the recent trip to John Brewer.
“So will Michael Giberson and Lynn Kiesling ever consider the opportunity cost of their politicized electricity ‘market’? Will they consider a real free market that was at the center of the classical liberal debate before mandatory open access (etc.) came along? How much failure–and how far on the ‘road to serfdom’ does U.S. energy policy have to go before mid-course corrections?”
Lynne Kiesling and her close associate Michael Giberson have done great damage to the simple conception of a free-market electricity market and related public policy. By the use of hidden assumptions, cloudy definitions, and disengagement (all to “raise rival’s cost”), they have misled many free-market scholars in regard to a fundamental industry.
I am documenting this as much as I can for the historical record. Kiesling counters that I am ignorant of the technical subject matter and exhibit “aggressiveness” in my quest for clarification and openness. As it is, my basic questions get answered only in bits and pieces and only after, yes, direct confrontation.
From this, Lynne has admitted to her “synthetic theory of regulation and technological change” where “the grid is a common pool resource in which it is literally—literally—impossible to define and enforce property rights.” This is statism on stilts–with no midcourse correction amid the Biden Administration’s step-by-step takeover of power grid (and energy markets in general). Free-market advocates beware….
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Michael Giberson is less evasive and arrogant, but he is beholden to Lynne and has chosen the statist route with R Street. My exchange below began when he reposted a piece by Pat Wood III with the comment:
Pat Wood: “Outsiders are surprised when I assert that Texas is setting the global path for the clean energy transition. That shift is happening here faster than anywhere else. And it’s being driven by markets and innovators, not by monopolies and governments.”
Bradley: Mike: no critical comment here? ‘All of the above’ with wind and solar and batteries okay with you?
Giberson: Yes, I believe markets will continue to work, even with wind and solar and batteries. Obviously grid operation rules are, like for instance the rules of the road affecting pizza delivery, not market outcomes but rather part of the group-determined rules needed for multiple companies to jointly share the grid.
As problems emerge participants will need to continue to work on the grid rules to discourage too much free riding on the reliability efforts of others. Some rules may be targeted to problems associated with particular technology (ie resources interconnecting via grid-following inverters may reasonably be treated differently than other resources). Other than that sort of limitation the market rules should aspire to tech neutrality and “all of the above” is great (or rather, “whatever consumers want to pay for” is great).
Bradley: If you think a governmental market of central wholesale planning (ISOs/RTOs) is a market, and a worst-energies-first is a market, then the concept of a free market has no meaning.
Under price controls, there is still a market. A legal market, a black market, etc. But it is the very opposite of what a free market, classical liberal considers a market.
Your analogy of delivery on a government road is not very persuasive in the case of electricity. Any other analogies?
The “virtual power plant’ is about as Statist as I can think of, short of a nationalized grid. ‘Real time pricing’ in the framework is government rationing once removed.
Giberson: Re: “The ‘virtual power plant’ is about as Statist as I can think of, short of a nationalized grid. ‘Real time pricing’ in the framework is government rationing once removed.”
Rob, your objections need substance. What is “statist” about so-called virtual power plants? In ERCOT a VPP is simply a retailer coordinating demand-side resources to reduce consumer costs and help stabilize the market. It’s a tiny effort, all things considered, but it is one tiny way some consumers can better manage their energy use. What on earth is your objection?
“Real-time pricing … is government rationing once removed”? I assumed you understood the role of energy imbalance markets in electric markets, but now I’m not so sure. Most power that flows through ERCOT is bought/sold through long-term or short-term contracts negotiated bilaterally between generators and retailers. Because of natural variability between planned consumption and actual consumption on the demand side, and similarly on the supply side, physical production and consumption will not precisely match contracted volumes. In ERCOT the imbalances are settled at market prices based on voluntary bids and offers made available to the market. This is the real time price.
The Virtual Power Plant is an energy-environmental term for a continuation of the present to where (open-ended, highly subsidized) wind and solar penetration is joined by batteries to have a transformed grid. That is Statism-on-stilts on the supply side. “Tiny” efforts toward this goal might be a ‘tiny’ definition of VPPs.
A centrally planned wholesale market (PUCT/ERCOT) here in Texas, with wind, solar, battery takeover, does not generate prices that a free market does. It is political pricing inherited downstream. (Any direct CO2 pricing adds to this.)
Political pricing from government-induced supply distortions/shortages is “government once removed.” It is more government intervention to rescue prior. And with smart meters, instruction to thermostats to be lower in winter and higher in summer (etc.) is government in the home and business. It is a ‘road to serfdom” by decree and degree.
Opportunity cost in political economy terms is the free market vs. Statism. The free market stands as the alternative to dealing with the problems of intervention at each piecemeal junction.
That fact that you (and Lynne “I will not dance to your tune” Kiesling) refuse to even present/consider the true free market alternative (traditionally defined)–and are exclusively wed to a ‘make-statism-work-better’ paradigm–is what is very peculiar and disingenuous.
Disengagement, as in: Gone. Silence. No reply. The same story (chronically) with Kiesling here, here, here, and here.
So will Michael Giberson and Lynn Kiesling ever consider the opportunity cost of their politicized electricity “market”? Will they consider a real free market that was at the center of the classical liberal debate before mandatory open access (et al.) came along? How much failure–and how far on the ‘road to serfdom’ does U.S. energy policy have to go before mid-course corrections?
Solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles all critically depend upon a raft of minerals known as ‘rare earths’, as well as mountains of copper and cobalt.
With the exponential increase in demand for minerals comes an exponential growth in the mountains of toxic filth left behind during mining and processing those minerals.
The minerals in question have become ‘rare’, of late, as a consequence of the Western world’s insatiable appetite for ‘feelgood’ electricity generated by sunshine and breezes, occasionally stored in giant lithium batteries, as well as the thirst among the truly virtuous for the ultimate exhibition of moral posturing: the all-electric powered vehicle.
Mining concentrated ore bodies ordinarily involves local environmental harm, depending upon what’s being mined and where. Hence, strict environmental controls and cleanup orders once the orebody is spent and miners go home – at least in Western democracies.
However, the rush to provide the ingredients for the purported wind and solar (and all-EV) transition means more mines, often operated in Third World countries where the environment rarely rates a mention.
Matthew Phelan takes a look at some work aimed at identifying the scope of the environmental destruction being caused by the West’s obsession with subsidised wind, solar and electric vehicles.
Devastating risks of transitioning to ‘green’ energy Daily Mail Matthew Phelan 22 September 2023
Tens of millions of people — more than live in the entire state of Florida — are now exposed to toxic water runoff from metal mining, a new study has found.
The report lays bare the devastating impacts that can follow a reckless transition to ‘green’ energy, compounding the ecological damage wrought by over 150 years of drilling and mining for fossil fuels.
The researchers found that 23 million people worldwide, as well as 5.72 million in livestock, over 16 million acres of irrigated farmland and over 297,800 miles worth of rivers have been contaminated by mining’s toxic byproducts seeping into the water.
This metal mining includes many so-called ‘rare earth elements’ essential to the manufacture of high-tech electronics, solar cells, wind turbines and all the batteries needed to store sustainable ‘green’ energy (and power electric cars and iPhones).
While the new study focuses on environmental impacts, global metals mining has recently faced shocking lawsuits against major tech firms, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Tesla, over child slavery in the Congo, where 70 percent of the industry’s cobalt is sourced.
‘Rapid growth in global metal mining is crucial if the world is to make the transition to green energy,’ noted Chris Thomas, a zoologist at the University of Lincoln whose specialty is in spatial ecology and threats to the global water supply.
Thomas led the analysis and modelling work for the new study, which was published today in Science.
Thomas and his colleagues have developed a new database, supported by on-the-ground testing, which now maps the hundreds of square miles’ worth of rivers and floodplains contaminated by these industrial processes across the globe.
The devastation wrought by this contamination, they found, was widespread, affecting approximately 297,800 miles (479,200 km) of river systems total and over 63,000 square-miles (164,000 sq-km) of floodplains worldwide.
But, North America stood out as the most affected, at 123,280 miles of tainted river systems, and approximately 10.7 million acres of polluted floodplains.
But the damage was not much better in South America with 50,766 miles of rivers and over 9.5 million acres of floodplain impacted; nor in Asia with about 37,842 river-miles and about 8.3 million acres of floodplain polluted by metal mining waste.
In terms of potency of local damage, however, the scientists saved their harshest criticisms for ‘the environmental legacy of historical mining,’ which they said was ‘most problematic in western Europe,’ where long-abandoned old mines have left lasting environmental damage.
‘Much of the estimated global contamination we have mapped is a legacy from the industrial era,’ Thomas said in a press statement. ‘Rightly, modern mining is being encouraged to prioritize environmental sustainability.’
The researchers identified 159,735 abandoned mines, marked in blue above, whose environmental impact due to laxer historic regulations contributed ‘much of the estimated global contamination,’ according to report co-author and spatial ecology expert Chris Thomas The study also modelled the waste from 22,609 active mines, marked in red above, as well as 11,587 mining waste storage facilities and 257 known cases of failed and leaking storage sites (not pictured above): ‘the most comprehensive compilation of metal mine locations to date’Inactive mines and their pollution outnumbers the mining waste generated by new mines
The researchers developed a model to predict the spread of contaminants from all known active and inactive metal mines — plus facilities used to seal off hazardous mining waste — with a focus on pollution from lead, zinc, copper, and arsenic.
These potentially harmful contaminants and industrial byproducts can seep into the local water supply, whether transported downstream where the metals are deposited along river beds and floodplains, or otherwise sinks deep into underground aquifers.
Mark Macklin, director of the university’s Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health, who led the international team behind the new research, said he anticipates the new study’s maps and modelling tools will help prevent future reckless mining.
‘We expect that this will make it easier to mitigate the environmental effects of historical and present mining,’ Macklin said.
‘Our new method for predicting the dispersal of mine waste in river systems provides governments, environmental regulators, the mining industry and local communities with a tool that, for the first time, will enable them to assess the offsite and downstream impacts of mining on ecosystem and human health.’
All told, the researchers identified 159,735 abandoned mines and 22,609 active mines — as well as 11,587 mining waste storage facilities and 257 known cases of failed and leaking storage sites.
The team described the new database in their report as ‘the most comprehensive compilation of metal mine locations to date.’
Concerns over just how bad the ecological impact of metal mining for sustainable technology might be is complicated by the diverse variety of resources involved, which can lead to ‘apples to oranges’ comparisons.
According to the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, green energy technologies like wind turbines and electric cars often do require many more mined minerals than the present fossil fuels infrastructure.
One electric car, for example, requires six times more metallic and mineral materials than a combustion engine car, MIT’s university team reports.
And a wind power plant requires nine times more of these mined compounds than a traditional gas-fired plant.
The transition, according to the IEA, will require new mining under 30 million tons.
Scott Odell, a visiting scientist at MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative who specializes in clean energy and mining, cautions however that these environmental impacts often need to be assessed on a more detailed, case by case basis.
The mining of any two different metals requires different techniques with different impacts — as can two separate deposits of the same metal if located in significantly different conditions.
‘I think if someone were to tell you one or the other is better in terms of direct impacts pound for pound,’ Odell said, ‘you should ask a lot of questions about how they got to that answer.’ Daily Mail
In a recent twist, global warming is now being blamed for potentially altering the taste of beer. A study claims that the quantity of European hops, responsible for beer’s distinctive bitter taste, is on the decline. “A new study reveals that the quantity of European hops… is declining.” But before jumping to conclusions, it’s worth examining the broader picture.
A Deep Dive into Dubious Data
The research compared aroma hop yields between two periods: 1971 to 1994 and 1995 to 2018. The findings? A supposed drop of nearly 20% in output in some hop-growing areas. The reason? “Drier conditions – probably due to climate change.” It’s curious how a complex system like climate can be so simplistically linked to the yield of a single crop.
The Inflated Cost of Inflation
Martin Mozny, a co-author, suggests that these changes might lead to higher beer prices. With beer prices already up by 13% since the pandemic, it’s convenient to have climate change as the next scapegoat for any future price hikes.
Flavor or Flawed Science?
The study also points to a reduction in the alpha bitter acids of hops, which influence beer flavor. The alleged cause? “Higher and more extreme temperatures.” Yet, with predictions of a 31% reduction in these acids by 2050, one has to wonder about the precision of such long-term forecasts, given the track record of past climate predictions.
Farmers’ Futile Fight?
While farmers are innovating and adapting their practices, the study insists more investment is needed. It’s commendable that farmers are always seeking ways to improve, but it’s questionable to suggest massive changes based on a single study’s narrow findings.
In Conclusion
This latest research, published in Nature Communications, is a classic example of the narrow lens through which many studies view the world of climate aka climate catastrophizing. Instead of jumping on the climate alarmism bandwagon, perhaps it’s time to enjoy a cold one and savor the rich history and tradition of brewing, rather than brewing unnecessary panic. Cheers to clear thinking and good beer!
A recent rise in the global brewery sector has increased the demand for high-quality, late summer hops. The effects of ongoing and predicted climate change on the yield and aroma of hops, however, remain largely unknown. Here, we combine meteorological measurements and model projections to assess the climate sensitivity of the yield, alpha content and cone development of European hops between 1970 and 2050 CE, when temperature increases by 1.4 °C and precipitation decreases by 24 mm. Accounting for almost 90% of all hop-growing regions, our results from Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovenia show that hop ripening started approximately 20 days earlier, production declined by almost 0.2 t/ha/year, and the alpha content decreased by circa 0.6% when comparing data before and after 1994 CE. A predicted decline in hop yield and alpha content of 4–18% and 20–31% by 2050 CE, respectively, calls for immediate adaptation measures to stabilize an ever-growing global sector.
Introduction
Beer is the world’s third most widely consumed beverage after water and tea1, and traditional beer brewing in central Europe dates back at least to the Neolithic period circa 3500–3100 BC2. In addition to water, malting barley and yeast, a much more expensive hop is needed to give beer its incomparable taste3. The specific hop aroma emerges from its bitter acid content and many other compounds, including essential oils and polyphenols4,5,6. Changes in alpha bitter acids affect the quality of hops7,8,9,10,11,12, and there has been a recent change in consumer preference towards beer aromas and flavors that heavily depend on high-quality hops13,14. Amplified by the ongoing craft beer popularity13, this trend contrasts with previous demands for lower alpha content14. The recent craft beer expansion therefore not only triggered new microbreweries but also boosted the demand for aromatic hops globally15,16. Although linkages between hop production and climate variation have been reported at local to regional scales9,10,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27, relatively little is known about the possible, direct and indirect, effects of a predicted warmer and drier climate on the yield and alpha content of hops.
Since the cultivation of high-quality aroma hops is restricted to relatively small regions with suitable environmental conditions (Fig. 1), there is a serious risk that much of the production will be affected by individual heat waves or drought extremes that are likely to increase under global climate change28. Hop farmers can and have responded to climate change by relocating hop gardens to higher elevations and valley locations with higher water tables, building irrigation systems10, changing the orientation and spacing of crop rows, and even breeding more resistant varieties29. Changing the orientation of crop rows and combining irrigation with water-saving soil management practices have proven to be effective adaptation measures in viticulture30,31. It is important that the generative phase of hop plants occurs only in the appropriate photoperiod when sunshine duration is decreasing. This can be achieved by slowing plant growth via growth inhibitors or by building protective shading structures; which is, however, quite expensive. There is a similar problem in vineyards where shading by agrovoltaic panels has been introduced32,33. The higher probability of droughts can be partly mitigated by less frequent tillage and cultivation of hop fields, changes in fertilization and the use of row cover crops to support root growth34. A systematic and European-wide investigation of the impact of ongoing and predicted climate change on the quality and quantity of aroma hops is, however, still missing.
Just over three decades ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by President George H. W. Bush in Rio de Janeiro. It has one objective: to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so as to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” This objective incorporates three assumptions that collectively constitute a scientific and policy paradigm of climate change.
The first assumption is that climate change is caused exclusively by human emissions of greenhouse gases, principally from the combustion of fossil fuels. The second asserts that all the climate impacts from burning fossil fuels are unambiguously bad for people and the planet. The third is that the solution is the progressive—and preferably rapid—elimination of fossil fuels, requiring mankind to do without its main source of energy.
Five presidents and a generation later, this paradigm has been elevated into an overriding planetary imperative. Yet, on its own terms, the UNFCCC has failed. In the ten years before it was signed, global emissions of carbon dioxide rose from 18.88 giga-tonnes (GT) in 1982 to 22.58 GT in 1992, a decadal increase of 3.70 GT. By 2022, CO2 emissions had risen to 37.49 GT, implying an average decadal increase of 4.97 GT—a rise 34% higher than the increase in the decade prior to the UNFCCC. Despite the UNFCCC being further from its stated objective—global net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases—than when it was signed, paradoxically, the three assumptions that underpin it have hardened into unquestioned and unquestionable propositions driving the West’s futile attempt to decarbonize the global economy. Seen in these terms, the UNFCCC might well be the most consequential international agreement of all time.
Initially, these propositions did not command the universal assent of climate scientists. In its first assessment report, released in 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) observed that the average global temperature had increased by between 0.3°C and 0.6°C over the previous hundred years. “The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability,” the IPCC declared.
Pursuant to the convention’s first proposition, the IPCC’s equivocation gave way to increasingly confident statements ascribing the rise in global temperature to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Pressure to make the science conform to politics was the cause of the IPCC’s first scientific scandal in 1995 when the Clinton administration leaned on the IPCC to delete sentences that contradicted the second assessment report’s topline claim, written in concert with government representatives, that a balance of evidence suggested a “discernible human impact on global climate.”
A minority of climate scientists have consistently rejected the three axioms of government-approved climate science, a notable exponent being MIT’s Richard Lindzen. Rarer still, and possibly unique, is the climate scientist who once subscribed to the three propositions but subsequently changed her mind. Such is Judith Curry. That alone makes her new book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk, exceptional. Subtitled Rethinking Our Response, the book not only challenges the third UN climate proposition on policy responses but rethinks the first and second.
Moreover, Curry’s position differs from leading dissenters such as Lindzen. In a July 2023 comment letter on the EPA’s proposed fossil-fuel power-plant rule, Lindzen and physicist Will Happer wrote that while more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to cause some surface warming, the effect “would be small and benign” and diminish with each increment added to the atmosphere. From now on, our emissions from burning fossil fuels will have little impact on global warming. We could double atmospheric CO2 to 840 ppm [parts per million] and have little warming effect.
Curry disagrees. “Yes,” she writes in Climate Uncertainty and Risk, “CO2 emissions are a problem and should be reduced, but not as an urgent problem that trumps the need for abundant, reliable, and secure sources of energy for the global population.” In her book, Curry questions, rethinks, and rejects the three propositions of the UN climate-change paradigm, and she replaces the paradigm with a new one.
Proposition #1: Rehabilitate natural variability
Politicization of climate science became institutionalized with the setting up of the IPCC in 1988, in order to support a political agenda that would be adopted in the UNFCCC’s focus on “dangerous anthropogenic interference.” Its effect has been to marginalize scientific research into, and concern about, natural climate variability. Successive assessment reports ratcheted up the IPCC’s confidence in attributing it to human causation. Thus, in the IPCC’s 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, which paved the way for net zero by 2050, the IPCC opined that natural variability contributed less than one-tenth of one degree Celsius to the one degree warming from 1890 to 2010.
The conceit of the UNFCCC and the IPCC is that without fossil-fuel emissions, there would be no climate change. Model simulations of internal climate variability are too weak over multi-decadal time scales, and averaging a large number of simulations with different phasing assumptions nets out the effects of internal climate variability. Ignoring internal climate variability in predictions of future warming runs the risk of overestimating warming over the next two to three decades, Curry warns.
Since 1995, we have been in the warming phase of the 60–80-year Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which is shortly expected to shift to a cooling phase that has a peak-to-trough impact on global temperature of 0.3°C–0.4°C. The effect of volcanoes is also left out of computer climate projections, and the past 150 years have been relatively quiet in terms of volcanic eruptions decreasing global temperature. How much cooling could there be from volcanoes over the rest of this century? Curry asks. Then, there is the impact of solar variations. Solar activity in the second half of the twentieth century is estimated to have been the highest in the last 8,000 years, yet the IPCC’s treatment is worse than negligent. Curry quotes a researcher who says that “the sun/climate debate is one of these issues where the IPCC’s ‘consensus’ statements were prematurely achieved through the suppression of dissenting scientific opinions.”
Incorporating the main components of natural variability produces a very different picture of future climate change from that promoted by the IPCC. When summed, Curry writes, “their magnitude approaches, or could even exceed, the magnitude of the emissions-driven warming for the next three decades.” What game is the IPCC playing by excluding the probable effects of natural variability? Its climate projections are deployed to promote the UN’s net-zero climate agenda. By contrast, the climate scenarios that Curry outlines are designed to inform practical decision-making. The outcome is that the IPCC risks badly misleading policymakers. In its efforts to fight climate change, the European Commission is consulting on proposals for “solar radiation modification” by seeding man-made aerosols in the stratosphere to artificially bring about falling global temperatures when they might be falling, anyway. That could very well bring about a genuine climate catastrophe.
In a similar vein, the IPCC keeps policymakers in the dark about the presence of 183 volcanoes under the West Antarctic ice sheet, producing a steady flux of heat, something that net zero can do nothing to affect. Even more reprehensible than this omission is the IPCC’s promotion of the discredited RCP 8.5 climate scenario, which Curry says biases climate assessments in an alarming direction, the outcome—presumably intended—being that “the scientific literature has become imbalanced in an apocalyptic direction.”
Curry also has harsh words for economists who dip their toes into climate science to fabricate spurious climate catastrophes from so-called fat-tail distributions that have no scientific validity, their extreme values “unjustified by either observations or theoretical understanding.” In any case, brandishing catastrophic fat tails to justify draconian emissions cuts does not remove the sting from the fat tail:
If unknown tipping points exist that are associated with natural climate processes, there can be no certainty that the risk of climate catastrophe would be eliminated even if emissions fell to zero.
Even the virtuous risked being damned by a fat tail.
Proposition #2: Restore balance to assessing climate-change impacts
The fundamental presumption of the UNFCCC is that human-caused climate change is dangerous and that all its impacts are bad. As Curry points out, this is irrational: “Few would choose the pre-industrial climate of the eighteenth century.” If the world’s climate were warming solely owing to natural causes, it is unlikely that humanity would feel obligated to slow down future warming.
People would adapt to the changing climate as they always have.… There would be no motivation to attribute every extreme weather event to the warming because there would be no political gain to be obtained from such attribution.
The first half of the twentieth century had more extreme weather than the second half. “The disconnect between historical data for the past 100 years and climate model–based projections of worsening extreme weather presents a real conundrum,” comments Curry.
A warmer climate is associated with more rainfall, notably in regions affected by the Asian monsoon. At least 60% of the region’s agriculture is rain-fed, and these areas are home to about half the world’s population. For this reason, the Asian monsoon is one of the most studied weather systems in the world. If climate policy were decided by popular vote, wonders Curry, would a majority vote for more CO2 emissions so that there would be greater water availability?
Proposition #3: Prioritize adaptation to a changing climate
In terms of policy responses, the first two of Curry’s propositions point away from the UN’s goal of rapidly phasing out fossil fuels toward adaptation as the rational policy response. As Curry notes, climate activists view adaptation as undermining the cause of emissions cuts, a message reinforced by the IPCC and its drumbeat of alarm about a “brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.” The IPCC’s view of a liveable future excludes billions of people over the next few decades. “Mitigation via emissions reductions helps no one for decades to come, whereas people are helped in the near term as well as in the future by locally designed and implemented adaptation,” Curry explains. Rehabilitating natural variability inevitably requires adaptation, unless the threat of extreme weather is used merely as a rhetorical device to secure support for emissions cuts. In all the analyses that Curry has undertaken of regional scenarios of extreme weather events over the next three decades, “variations associated with natural climate variability substantially exceed any expected change from global warming.”
Curry points to practical examples of successful adaptation. In 1970, up to a half-million Bangladeshis lost their lives because of a tropical cyclone. In 2007, a similar-magnitude cyclone cost 3,000 lives. The enormously reduced toll on human lives is thanks to the building of cyclone shelters, early warning systems, and mangrove restoration. A heat action plan that Curry helped devise for Ahmedabad, one of India’s hottest cities, involved mapping high-risk hot spots, providing more access to drinking-water stations, and more green spaces.
Curry contrasts the doctrine of sustainability, which aims to put a dynamic world into a stationary balance, with resilience, which looks for ways to manage weather risk in a continually imbalanced world. Superstorm Sandy in 2012 hit New York hardest, where it had been most recently redeveloped. Lower Manhattan had been rebuilt to be sustainable, not resilient. Blaming the destruction caused by extreme weather events on climate change gives politicians a free pass. They can blame the horrifying wildfires on Maui this summer on climate change, but responsibility for the lack of preparedness and consequential loss of life lies squarely on the negligence of state and local officials.
The slow pace of warming and sea-level rise over the past century has allowed time for adaptation, Curry argues. Ten years ago, the extreme RCP 8.5 emissions scenario was regarded as the business-as-usual trajectory. Since then, RCP 8.5 has been viewed as increasingly implausible, and a trajectory closer RCP 4.5 has taken its place, implying a 2°C–3°C end-of-century warming. In the past, the prospect of such an outcome would have been regarded as a policy success, Curry says. She is rightly cynical that as the lower emissions and warming trajectories gained acceptance, the goalposts were moved by the IPCC in 2018, and the target lowered to 1.5°C, which is how we wound up with net zero by 2050.
An alternative to the UN climate-change paradigm
Curry rejects the UN climate-policy paradigm and what she calls the “politics of climate scarcity” and the associated politics of energy and material scarcity, and she advises abandonment of arbitrary temperature targets. Instead, the focus should be on appraising specific regional risks and vulnerabilities and proactively developing responses to them that have greater benefits than costs, noting the importance of prosperity, as people are less exposed to weather and climate shocks if they are not poor.
The need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is much less pressing than the IPCC and the UN contend because of the implausibility of extreme emissions scenarios such as RCP 8.5 and of high values for the climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide (the warming caused by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). Natural variability is likely to slow down the rate of warming over the next few decades, and further time can be bought by targeting greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, which account for up to 45% of human-caused warming.
Climate Uncertainty and Risk is more than a book. Curry has produced a single-author counter to the IPCC that offers a radical alternative to the UN paradigm of climate change that could well serve as a manual for a future Republican administration.
The kids grew up: Australia is reaping a bitter harvest, for enabling and encouraging a foreign criminal climate radical to groom our kids.
Why Australia’s answer to Greta Thunberg is facing years behind bars
At 19, this climate activist is now facing serious legal consequences over a foiled protest outside the home of the boss of an energy giant in Western Australia. Here’s why she still believes she’s on the right side of history.
Published 12 October 2023 5:40am By Tessa Fox Source: SBS News
Even as a young kid in school, Matilda Lane-Rose always spoke up when she saw injustices in the playground.
Later, at the age of 15, she’d stand in front of hundreds of students engaged in the School Strike for Climate rallies with a megaphone.
…
For her, the anxieties and fears now-famous climate activist Greta Thunberg held of the future amid climate change were relatable, and seeing someone the same age taking action was empowering.
“I just decided I’m going to do something to stop this rather than just accept it,” Lane-Rose told SBS News on her decision to campaign for climate justice.
…
Five years later, Lane-Rose has become a prominent young climate activist, and the university student, now 19, faces a charge of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. She’s also been slapped with a violence restraining order, had her home raided and possessions seized and been banned from associating with fellow campaigners.
Matilda Lane-Rose is legally an adult, so she will have to answer for her actions in an adult court. There is no fixing that.
But all the teachers, politicians and other adult influencers who helped make Greta Thunberg such a big part of her life, who encouraged her to embrace the climate extremism which led to her alleged criminal acts, should hang their head in shame.
The article claims even as a kid Matilda has a strong sense of justice, that she tried to keep other kids safe. Imagine such a dedicated, committed person using that sense of justice in a positive way, teaching and protecting kids, working in child safety, or for our police or security services. She could have been a real asset to society.
All those doors to a better future which could have been will be closed if Matilda is convicted of a serious crime, closed by the child groomers who took Matilda’s love and care for others, and twisted it into fanaticism and climate radicalism.
Matilda Lane-Rose will, she must and will bear responsibility for her adult actions, and be punished for any crimes she has committed. But with all my heart I wish the cowards who egged her on, who enabled and encouraged Greta and other climate radicals groom our kids, I wish they could also be made to pay for what they did to young adults like Matilda.
Busy day at the Briggs compound, and I only have time to tell you, with regret, that the feminists are at it again.
Turns out there is a journal, and I promise this is true, called Australian Feminist Studies. And in this journal is a peer-reviewed—what is a peer here? angry unnaturally colored hair she beasts?—a paper titled “A Climate of Misogyny: Gender, Politics of Ignorance, and Climate Change Denial – An Interview with Katharine Hayhoe” by Sophie Bjork-James and Josef Barla.
According to her official bio at Vanderbilt Bjork-James “has engaged in long-term research on both the US-based Religious Right and the white nationalist movement.” Which makes her officially ignorant on the subject of physics of fluid flow on a differentially heated rough rotating sphere.
But she does appear quite knowledgeable about what eye wear to don to signal to others her woke credentials.
I refuse to look up Barla because no man has any business in a “feminist” journal.
Hayhoe, however, does know something about physics. She’s best categorized in that second-tier of scientists (see her paper titles) who take an idea given to them by first-tier scientists, and worries that idea to death. She has no idea how to even question the idea given to her. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Most of us do not belong in the first tier of anything.
Yet this paper is a catalog of feelings of these three people—transcribed from a Zoom call! Which, I suppose, is precisely what a paper in a feminist journal should be. So this is not a criticism. The only fallacy would come in supposing depth of feelings is a sound proxy for the correctness of propositions like “climate emergency.”
Sophie starts us off: “We find it striking that many of the voices downplaying or denying the reality of climate change are also those who forcefully oppose gender equality.”
This is because those in opposition understand Reality. In Reality, there is no interesting or important threat from “climate change”, and gender equality is a myth. I don’t mean myth in its modern sense of fiction or error. I myth in its classic sense of a foundational moral story. Only this one happens to be false, too.
Hayhoe (you do realize, dear reader, the intense effort it takes to not tease that name?) responds:
…there is the issue of gender inequality in the physical sciences in general. So, when you look at the earth sciences for example, which is my field, by the time you get to the level Full Professor, only 13% of us, according to the most recent numbers I have seen, are women.
Realists would take this as proof that men are better than women at physics, on average. And that the woke have not yet made the field DIE. But that it’s getting there.
Hay—stop me!—hoe’s answer goes on for a very long time to this first question. Indeed, the paper goes on for pages and pages. You know I love you, my dear readers, but even my great heart is of finite size. I could only read snatches.
Anyway, she says “research has shown”—research!—“that climate denial is not exclusively but predominately a male-dominated area and it is usually older White men”.
Which, again, proves older White men (ahem) are more in touch with Reality than others. And ore often tell the truth.
She immediately confirms this judgment: “Women conversely are more concerned about climate change.” Ain’t it the truth! Because “climate change” is a cultural or social phenomenon, and maintaining rules and order in these are what women excel at.
“Briggs, that is so sexist. That isn’t true. That makes you a misogynist.”
Uh huh.
Heyho’s very next sentence: “I am part of this program called Science Moms that just launched yesterday and part of why we did that was that it turns out that 83% of women in the USA are worried about climate change.”
Almost every one of these 83% of women do not understand any physics, but they do understand they have to be seen caring about “climate change.” Yet their deep feelings for “climate change” means nothing to the climate.
Wait. Why did she say White (and notice the capitalization) men are so amazing?
“The fact that being a White man has allowed them to dominate Western society for centuries and all of a sudden that is not enough anymore.”
Allowed to dominate? Who allowed them? Women?
She then moves to a story of her—and I know you won’t believe me, but you know your Uncle Sergeant Briggs wouldn’t lie to you—a story about her cats.
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
Newsmax TV will air a Prime Time Special, titled A Climate Conversation, on Sunday, October 15th, 2023 at 8 PM Central Time that cuts through the rhetoric and propaganda to ask the simple questions.
The new documentary by Heartland, titled “A Climate Conversation“, is narrated by Colorado radio personality Kim Monson, the film takes an even-handed and scientific approach to the question of man-made climate change and its perceived significance for life on Earth. In it, you will see familiar faces, longtime Heartland advisers, and collaborators.
World leaders should view and listen to the Newsmax Prime Time Special “A Climate Conversation” that cuts through the rhetoric and propaganda to ask simple questions that are addressed by: • Director: Colton Moyer • Producer: Walt Johnson • Narrator: Kim Monson, from the Kim Monson KLZ talk radio host in Denver • Greg Wrightstone, Executive Director, CO2 Coalition • Ken Gregory, Director, Friends of Science • Ronald Stein, P.E., Energy Literacy Consultant
This film is an important vehicle to reach people who have doubts about the climate alarmist narrative but are not yet on our side of the issue. We’re not just preaching to the choir with this film. It is well-argued and persuasive but not confrontational or overstated.
Newsmax reaches more than 100 million U.S. households and is carried by all major cable providers and streaming services.
If your TV provider carries Newsmax TV, you can view the film there, as well as on the Newsmax TV app, or on their website, here.
In the film, “A Climate Conversation” viewers will have a better understanding of why world leaders are continuing to experience a “dangerous delusion” of a global transition to “just electricity” that that they believe will eliminate the use of the crude oil that made society achieve so much in a few centuries.
Viewers will have a better understanding about how crude oil is the basis of our materialistic society, even for the components and equipment for the generation of electricity by wind, solar, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro are all made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil !
Most folks may know, wind turbines and solar panels only generate occasional electricity, but manufacture nothing for humanity.
The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the 8 billion on this planet.
• Crude oil derivatives manufactured from raw crude oil are the basis of our materialistic society!
• All the components and equipment for the generation of electricity by wind, solar, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro are all made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil !
• The world populated from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 years, after human ingenuity discovered how to refine oil derivatives from crude oil that are now the basis of our materialistic society.
• Ridding the world of raw crude oil before we have a replacement to produce the oil derivatives currently manufactured from crude oil, we’re back to the 1800’s, and it could be the greatest threat to the lives of billions of the world’s populations that did not exist before those oil derivatives began supporting more than 6,000 products for society.
Shockingly, very few parents, teachers, students, politicians, and those in the media, have any clues or understanding about the basis of the products in our daily lives from crude oil! Energy Literacy at its best!!!
Viewing “A Climate Conversation” on Newsmax Sunday October 15th at 8 PM Central Time will greatly enhance your energy literacy to be able to have constructive conversations at the dinner table with friends and family.
Author | Columnist | Founder at PTS Advance 949-306-6604
Ronald.Stein@EnergyLiteracy.net
https://expertfile.com/experts/ronald.stein Co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations” Policy advisor on energy literacy for The Heartland Institute, and The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and National TV Commentator- Energy & Infrastructure with Rick Amato.
On average, these operating costs add £242 to each customer’s annual energy bill, accounting for approximately 13% of the total bill, according to a report from the Warm This Winter Tariff Watch.
The report indicates that energy firms are allocating a considerable chunk of their operating costs to marketing activities.
This category encompasses expenses related to sponsoring football teams, event venues and the creation of television adverts.
According to the report, the cost of marketing activities amounts to roughly 11% of their overall operating expenses, charities have said.
In contrast, spending on maintaining customer contact centres, a crucial aspect of ensuring customer satisfaction accounts for around 12% of their operating costs.
Ofgem allows energy companies to adjust these costs for inflation.
Over the past six years, this inflation-driven increase has amounted to 37.5%, rising from £176 annually in April 2017 to £242 annually as of October 2023.
However, the authors of the Tariff Watch report argue that this approach lacks transparency and call for a reevaluation of how these operating costs are factored into customers’ bills.
A spokesperson for Ofgem said: “The standing charge is covered by the price cap, which sets a ceiling on the total amount households can be charged.
“Suppliers have always been free to structure their tariffs as they see fit and we know some suppliers do not have a standing charge. However, we continue to keep the issue and how costs are passed on to customers under review.
“It remains a complex issue with a recent impact study showed that moving costs from the standing charge to a higher unit rate would result in winners and losers – and could be particularly damaging for the most vulnerable consumers. This includes those who are unable to reduce their energy usage because of age, disability or reliance on medical equipment.”
Just another manufactured climate scaring study. Now it is the style of beer.
Climate change threatens the cultivation in Europe of aromatic hops which gives beer its bitterness, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
European varieties of hops are prized and used by brewers around the world, but rising temperatures and less rain are reducing yields and the concentration of the compounds that provide beer its refreshing tartness, telling us Phys.org.
The researchers observed this trend by analyzing data from five sites in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovakia, which along with Poland are the primary hops growers in Europe, study co-author Miroslav Trnka said.
Yields fell between 9.5 and 19.4 percent at four sites and were stable at a fifth when data from 1995-2018 was compared with 1971-1994.
Meanwhile the concentration of the bitter compounds, alpha acids, decreased.
Extrapolating from the data, the researchers predicted a drop in yield of between four and 18 percent, compared with 1989-2019 while the concentration of alpha acids could drop between 20 and 31 percent as temperatures rise and rainfall is impacted.
With droughts expected to increase in central and southern Europe “it will be necessary to expand the area of aroma hops by 20 percent compared to the current production area to compensate for a future decline in” potency and yields, said the study.
It called for “urgent adaptation measures to stabilize international market chains” such as moving crops to more suitable areas or irrigating.
Hops farmers are trying to adapt, but Trnka said their options are limited as “hops needs a specific combination of climate and soil” and the introduction of genetically modified plants designed to better support warmer temperatures and drought is prohibited in Europe.
Brewers can also try to modify their methods to adapt to the reduced bitterness in hops.
Hops is what gives beer its refeshing bitterness, but a study finds climate change is hitting both yields and the potency of the key ingredient to the popular beverage.
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