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.
Last December, the Guardian ran a story claiming that polar bears were โvanishingโ from Churchill, the polar bear capital of the world, using copy supplied by the green activist operation Agence France-Presse. Similar headlines appeared across many mainstream media, with the BBC making up a headline that claimed Canadaโs polar bear population had plummeted. The decline was said to be 27% over five years in Canadaโs West Hudson Bay (WH) area, but inexplicably missing from the green propaganda was a note that bear numbers in the adjacent and larger South Hudson Bay (SH) climbed 30% in the same period.
There is now growing interest about the 27% headline figure. In December a full report on WH scientific findings was not available from the local Nunavut Government, but the biologist and investigative science writer Dr. Susan Crockford has now seen a copy. She suggests the media must have been given little more than a press release โwith approved talking pointsโ. It is obvious the press never saw the full WH report, not least because it referenced similar SH work disclosing the higher local polar bear numbers. Of course in the interest of promoting yet another climate scare, the blinkered media might have ignored the second report anyway.
Crockford has been indefatigable in hunting down the mis- and disinformation used to promote eco-scares in the Arctic regions. She recently wrote a book titled Fallen Icon: Sir David Attenborough and the Walrus Deception. The book followed a 2019 WWF-Netflix Our Planet episode which showed hundreds of walruses falling off a cliff. Attenborough explained that the horrific scenes were due to โclimate changeโ, although an undisclosed pack of nearby polar bears provided a more obvious explanation. For their part, polar bears move around and their numbers can be difficult to calculate. But in recent years, attempts to make them the poster animal of the so-called climate emergency have been hampered by evidence that they have increased in overall numbers.
The West Hudson scare story had added value in promoting global climate fear, and hence support for the collectivist Net Zero project. West Hudson Bay is on the cusp of the Canadian Arctic, and every year millions of dollars worth of tourism is attracted to the Manitoban town of Churchill, dubbed the polar bear capital of the world.
The 27% drop in WH bear numbers arises from an 2021 estimate of 618 compared with 842 in 2016. But Crockford notes that similar estimates in SH increased by 223 bears compared with the 224 WH loss. But this is not a neat end to the story, since it might be at least partly a coincidence.
Most of the WH loss was found in female and young bears with male abundance remaining unchanged. However there is some biopsy dart evidence that suggested 22% of sampled WH male bears were now to be found in the south. They were not the โmissingโ females. It also begs the question why male bears locating to SH did not produce a corresponding decline in WH. In the south, the 30% jump in numbers to 1,119 could be due to natural birth rates, although the SH authors initially said this was โhighly implausibleโ. Nevertheless, Crockford notes their data indicated that 35% of all SH bears were yearlings or cubs less than 12 months old. The authors finally concluded that a natural increase in numbers did happen with good ice conditions, and perhaps there was immigration of some bears from other subpopulations that could not be verified.
The AFP/Guardian story tied its โvanishingโ bear trope to the sea-ice habitat that is said to have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Crockford notes the suggestion of the WH report authors that the decline was โconsistentโ with predictions of adverse effects of climate change, but she adds that no sea ice data were provided to back up this assertion. However, observations by others, continues Crockford, including the SH authors, indicate the decline couldnโt have been caused by sea ice conditions over the last five years, โbecause WH ice from 2017 to 2020 was better than it had been for decadesโ.
So what did happen to any missing bears? As always, a more logical explanation is at hand to debunk the convoluted and implausible media-ready accounts twisted to fit the global Net Zero narrative. They simply went north to Foxe Basin, Crockford suggests. There hasnโt been a census in this area since 2010, but at that time they were doing well with an estimated population of 2,580. Foxe Basin bears mix with their more southerly neighbours, and sea ice generally persists at the more northerly location until well into August.
Crockford is highly critical of the Hudson Bay surveys, noting the results reveal that polar bear specialists have no idea whatโs actually going on with Hudson Bay bears. โWithout sea ice to blame, theyโve got nothing. They simply canโt explain their results,โ she concludes. To be charitable, the scientists have an obvious message to spin, but they are at least out in all weathers, counting bears and attempting to detail habitat and animal behaviour. Mainstream media writers sit in a warm office, fail to ask any investigative questions, and simply sub a press release constructed to boost the pre-determined political narrative.
Chris Morrison isthe Daily Scepticโs Environment Editor.
Sky News publishing lies like this without any consequences as long as climate change get blamed.
After torrential rain amid Storm Babet the nearby river burst its banks and gallons of water flowed through the village of Bettws Cedewainย (Image: Josh Jones)
It has a lot to do with the unusually warm seas it crossed as it tracked up from Portugal and the Bay of Biscay to the UK.
It meant more water evaporated into the atmosphere. And because the air is relatively warm too, all that moisture got transported with the storm system to fall as rain over Britain.
Itโs exactly what scientists predict from climate change, particularly over winter.
The UK will have to prepare for more floods, even in areas that are normally much drier.
According to the Met Office, the wettest place in the UK on Friday was Sheffield, which had 84mm of rain, 3.3 inches:
The record daily rainfall there stands at 119.2mm, set in July 1973. Extreme rainfall hit much of Britain on several days that month, as the Met Office reported at the time:
Clearly there is nothing at unusual about 3 inches of rain falling in a day, even in the supposedly dry side of the country, as a glance back at the weather of a hundred years ago shows:
Note the comment that only falls of over 4 inches are regarded as noteworthy, and that in 1917 there had been 68 instances, with 1923 being seen as low.
Note as well the storm at Carrbridge, which lies in the Northeast of Scotland, near to the areas affected by Babet.
And as KNMI shows, Babetโs rainfall in NE Scotland was not exceptional by historical standards, nor is there any trend to more intense daily rainfalls in the region:
Over-sensitive and unpredictable lithium-based batteries continue to be a headache, for various reasons. Is the EV industry really ready for prime time, as government โnet zeroโ mandates take hold? โ โ โ Electric cars risk becoming effectively uninsurable as analysts struggle to put a price on battery repairs, the researcher for the car insurance industry has said. โ The Telegraph reporting.
Jonathan Hewett, chief executive of Thatcham Research, the motor insurersโ automotive research centre, said a lack of โinsight and understandingโ about the cost of repairing damaged electric car batteries was pushing up premiums and resulting in some providers declining to provide cover altogether.
Electric cars can be particularly expensive to repair, costing around a quarter more to fix on average than a petrol or diesel vehicle.
Experts have previously warned electric vehicles are being written off after minor bumps because of the cost and complexity of fixing their batteries.
Mr Hewett said: โThe challenge is that we have no way of understanding whether the battery has been compromised or damaged in any way.
โThe threat of thermal runaway means that a catastrophic fire can take place if the cells of the battery have been damaged in a collision.
โWhat weโre struggling to understand at the moment is how we approach that diagnostic technique.
โItโs like a doctor trying to understand whatโs wrong with you without any notes or an X-ray.โ . . . Mr Hewett said premiums would eventually begin to level out and match those of petrol and diesel cars once actuaries had the tools needed to better understand the risks of insuring electric cars, saying the issue would likely be โshort termโ.
However, he added: โThe battery is an extremely expensive component of an electric vehicle and until we find efficient ways of dealing with it we have the challenge of high premiums for electric vehicles, which nobody wants.โ
Some customers are now being quoted over ยฃ100 a week to insure their electric vehicles, with others reporting premiums doubling or tripling compared to a year before.
The courtโs decision inย Heldย bars the state from enforcing either law at issue. The Montana Attorney Generalโs Office has issued a statement criticizing the decision as โa week-long taxpayer publicity stunt,โ maintaining that โour state has no impact on the global climate.โ
A recent Montana court decision on environmental rights may soon have significant legal and economic implications on Connecticut, especially if the state adopts a โgreen amendment.โ
On Aug. 14, Montana District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled in favor of 16 โyouth plaintiffsโ (between the ages of 5 and 22), who argued in Held v. Montana that the state legislature had violated their constitutional rights by passing legislation friendly to fossil fuels in recent years.
Two particular policies drew the plaintiffsโ ire. Since 2011, the Montana legislature has forbidden state agencies from considering the cost of carbon emissions for economic development under the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA). And this past April, the state legislature repealed the Montana Energy Plan, which had โpromote[d] energy efficiency, conservation, production and consumption of a reliable and efficient mix of energy sourcesโ since 1993.
The plaintiffs argued that these recent actions were taken without consideration for the environmental rights of residents, especially those of younger generations.
The case will likely be appealed to the Montana Supreme Court, but one thing is clear: climate decision-making through the judiciary suddenly looks more viable than just a few months ago. Since at least 2010, young persons from across the country have attempted to sue the federal and state governments over a perceived lack of action surrounding climate change. Until now, those attempts were never successful.
Even with a supermajority in the House and Senate, Connecticut legislators have been reluctant to seriously consider impeding economic development dependent on fossil fuels en masse. Therefore, finding one sympathetic judge would be a much easier lift for Connecticutโs environmental activists than convincing dozens of legislators.
The probability of beating the government through climate litigation on a state-by-state basis hinges in large part on two factors. First, the right to environmental protection as outlined in a stateโs constitution. Second, having state-based environmental planning requirements that mirror the federal National Environmental Policy Act.
Connecticut is one of 20 states with such planning requirements, making it an attractive judicial target. The Connecticut Environmental Policy Act (CEPA) was enacted in 1972 and โrequires every state agency to develop a list of agency actions that have significant impacts on the environment, and it provides a process by which those agencies review their proposed actions to determine whether to move forward with them in light of the effects on the environment.โ
On the other hand, Connecticut is also one of 43 states that do not have environmental rights enshrined in the state constitution in some form. Therefore, the state is less vulnerable than Montana to judicial challenges in regards to constitutional language โ at least for now.
In 1972, Montana rewrote their constitution to include some rather progressive provisions. Article IX, Section 1 of Montanaโs Constitution declares, โThe state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations. (2) The legislature shall provide for the administration and enforcement of this duty. (3) The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources.โ
Montanaโs Article IX sounds incredibly similar to the โgreenโ amendment proposed in Connecticutโs last legislative session:
โEach person of the state of Connecticut shall have an individual right to clean and healthy air, water, soil and environment; a stable climate; and self-sustaining ecosystems; for the benefit of public health, safety and the general welfare. The state shall not infringe upon these rights. The state shall protect these rights equitably for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, tribal membership status, gender, socioeconomics or geography. The state, municipalities, and any political subdivision thereof, shall serve as trustee of the natural resources of Connecticut, among them being its waters, air, flora, fauna, soils, and climate; and shall conserve, protect, and maintain these resources for the benefit of all people, including present and future generations. The rights stated in this section are inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible, are among those rights reserved to the people, and are equivalent with all other inalienable rights.โ
If Connecticut were sued successfully in court along climate lines, many construction projects could become dependent on judicial outcomes. This could further slow an economy that just regained all the jobs it lost during Covid.
A host of difficulties immediately emerge when โpositive rightsโ โ which require sacrifices by or resources from others, rather than just a guarantee of noninterference by government โ are extended to something so nebulous as โenvironmental rights.โ This is especially true when the science and politics of climate change comes into play.
As a hypothetical but plausible scenario if the amendment is enacted, Connecticut Resident 1 might enjoy uninhibited views of landscapes and wildlife from her back porch. However, Connecticut Resident 2 could emphasize his โright to a stable climateโ as a reason to import solar panels and wind turbines into that pristine landscape. At this point, it would be entirely up to the discretion (and political leanings) of the judge to rule in one residentโs favor.
As it stands now, after Montanaโs ruling, Connecticut is vulnerable to climate-based litigation. Passing the green amendment would only accelerate the likelihood of climate litigation and set up a showdown between economic development and the loudest anti-development voices on the fringes of Connecticut discourse.
David Flemming joined the Yankee Institute in April 2023 after working for five years as an energy policy analyst at the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont.
What is climate loss and damage? The clash between rich nations and developing economies during extended three-day talks sets the course for a difficult UN COP28 climate summit next month in Dubai.
Handout seeking dictatorships are furious rich nations once again refuse to hand over funds with no strings attached.
Climate โloss and damageโ talks end in failure
Paris Sat, October 21, 2023
A crucial meeting on climate โloss and damagesโ ahead of COP28 ended in failure Saturday, with countries from the global north and south unable to reach an agreement, according to sources involved in the talks.
The agreement to set up a dedicated fund to help vulnerable countries cope with climate โloss and damageโ was a flagship achievement of last yearโs COP27 talks in Egypt.
But countries left the details to be worked out later.
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The failure โis a clear indication of the deep chasm between rich and poor nationsโ, Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy for Climate Action Network International, said in a statement to AFP on Saturday.
Going by the steady, unbroken rise of atmospheric CO2 measured by Mauna Loa observatory, none of the money spent on climate conferences or the trillions of dollars spent on CO2 reduction measures to date have had any noticeable impact on global CO2. There is zero chance the hundred billion dollars per year recipient nations want will have an impact.
Original sourceย NOAA, annotated to show significant geopolitical climate events.
It is time to call an end to the charade and futility, time to cancel all future COPs, and stop this pointless waste of taxpayer resources once and for all.
The wind energy sector’s days are numbered. The greeniesโ dream of โcleanโ (except for millions of dead birds) energy from wind farms is dying in the face of the poor economics (even with tax subsidies) and unreliable technology.
The wind and solar industryโs sales pitch has been exemplary, but their product delivery and after-sales service is pure rubbish. Incapable of delivering electricity on demand, wind and solar will never amount to anything other than an effort in pointless vanity signalling.
The reason for the sudden collapse starts and ends with the product, really. As this Doomberg post spells out below, when physics and platitudes come head-to-head, physics wins, every single time.
Windbaggery: The wind energy sectorโs days are numbered Substack Doomberg 17 September 2023
Captain Platitude, reporting for duty | Getty
โReason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze.โ โ Aimรฉ Cรฉsaire
To be an effective podcast guest requires a few basic tactics. First, it is important to let the host get their full question asked before beginning to answer yourself. In normal conversation, it is not uncommon to understand where a friend is going and to get there before they do, but in a podcast setting it can be off-putting. It is also advisable to directly address the hostโs questions in a concise manner and to mix in a few memorable phrases that listeners can work into their own discourse. Driving home a key communication objective with a catchy turn of phraseโa verbal meme, if you willโcan make the difference between being remembered or forgotten.
One phrase that we coined and have popularized on various podcast appearances is โIn the battle between physics and platitudes, physics is undefeated.โ It is a polite way of articulating that the hard realities of life must eventually be confronted, and no amount of pompous speech, deceptive statistics, or outright fabrications can overcome the laws of physics. It might take many years, involve billions in misallocated money, and cause significant social and political upheaval, but one simply cannot wish away the fundamental constraints of the universe. The global energy strategy is no exception.
Perhaps no sector is more guilty of leaning on platitudes than the wind industry. Through dishonest manipulation of cost estimates and a relentless campaign of propaganda, proponents of wind energy have convinced countless politicians to support a technology that disrupts the smooth operation of electricity grids and is utterly dependent on the intermittency of the weather. Anybody with a passing knowledge of energy fundamentals knows this simply canโt be sustainable, as we explained back in February (emphasis added throughout):
โโฆthe fundamental challenge plaguing wind technology: low energy density. Wind is dispersed and to harvest economically significant amounts of energy from it with any semblance of efficiency requires huge plastic composite blades that are designed to be both lightweight and exceptionally strong. The forces and material science challenges involved are substantial. Offshore wind blades now exceed 100 meters in length, and their tip speeds can surpass an incredible 200 miles per hour. The blades convert kinetic energy into rotational energy, which is then usually fed into a gearbox, which increases the rotational rotor speed. A generator is then used to produce electricity. Electrical, mechanical, and blade failures are common and expensive, as are the myriad ongoing servicing activities needed to maintain smooth operation. Confronting these fundamental limits of physics is challenging.โ
During our July Doom Zoom presentationโDoom Scrolling: Searching the Globe for Things to Worry Aboutโwe made the case that the wind sector might be teetering on the verge of collapse. We argued that the never-ending pursuit of longer blade lengths would be the industryโs undoing, that the resulting balance-of-system stresses were being wholly underestimated, and that the existing fleet of turbines in the field are stationary point-sources of future liability for those who installed them. We repeated our claim that levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) estimates were tantamount to fraud, and that the veil would soon be lifted, causing significant disruption to the entire wind value chain.
In the intervening weeks, the pace and severity of news articles detailing the wind industryโs persistent struggles have surprised even us. At a time when the Biden administration is pushing for massive new installations of both onshore and offshore wind turbines, the sector is recoiling from one disaster after another, calling into significant doubt the wisdom of throwing good money after bad. Are we finally nearing the crossroads? Will the realities of physics conclusively reassert themselves? Letโs stick a finger in the wind and find out.
This might come as a surprise to some, but projects that require an enormous amount of concrete, steel, high-performance plastic resins, fiberglass or carbon fiber reinforcement materials, high-end magnets derived from rare earth metals, designer lubricants, and labor are susceptible to inflation dynamics and particularly sensitive to the price of fossil fuels. This is further pronounced if all this effort is directed toward harvesting ultra-low-density energy sources like wind. Even the Washington Post was forced to begrudgingly admit as much last week:
โRenewables have also been hurt by broader inflationary dynamics. The cost of raw materials and construction labor has gone up. And to an extent, the industry has been hurt by its very growth, which is not restricted to one country or region but is global.
The current squeeze is particularly acute in the field of offshore wind projects, which are extremely important to the energy future of the northeastern US. These are places with progressive politicians who want to decarbonize, but theyโre not as sunny as California and they donโt have the wide open spaces of the plains to deploy utility-scale onshore wind.โ
While the wind sector has certainly grownโand this has crimped the supply of certain materialsโthe manner in which it expanded has exacerbated the problem. The industry lacks much in the way of standardization, and many developers have agreed to localize various aspects of their supply chains across innumerable states, provinces, and cities to win political backing for new projects. As a consequence, benefits from economies of scale have been difficult to realize.
These ominous currents have put the developers who already inked fixed-rate contracts with utilities in a spot of bother, and many are seeking a do-over. In some instances, companies are walking away from their commitments, preferring to pay substantial breakup fees over embarking on money-losing mega-projects. Hereโs just one example from New York, where the sobering effects of reality are finding their way into the political conversation:
โMultiple offshore wind projects that are not even built yet have asked the stateโs Public Service Commission (PSC) to renegotiate their strike pricesโthe amount they will be paid per megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity produced. (A megawatt hour is roughly enough electricity to power 750 homes for one hour.)
รrsted and Eversource have asked for a 27 percent increase for their Sunrise Wind project, which would raise their strike-price from around $110 to nearly $140 per MWh. And the joint venture of Equinor and BP has asked for increases on all three of the projects it is developing. For Empire Wind 1, they want a 35 percent increase that would raise its strike-price from $118 to almost $160, for Empire Wind 2 a 66 percent increase that would bring its strike-price from $107.50 to almost $178, and for Beacon Wind a 62 percent increase to lift its strike-price from $118 to over $190.โ
With an inability to generate a profit at reasonable electricity prices, it is unsurprising that planned future projects are suddenly going โno bidโ:
โNo new offshore wind project contracts have been bought by developers at a key government auction, dealing a blow to the UKโs renewable power strategy. Results showed no bids for new offshore wind farms, but there were deals for solar, tidal and onshore wind projects.
Firms have argued the price set for electricity generated was too low to make offshore wind projects viable. The government said a โglobal riseโ in inflation impacting supply chains had โpresented challenges for projects.โโ
All this industry backpedaling comes on the heels of long-held claims that wind energy is the cheapest form of electricity available on the market. This lie is based on faulty LCOE calculations, a methodology of cost estimating that is designed to make renewable energy projects look better at the expense of traditional power sources like natural gas, coal, and nuclear. In fact, LCOE โis so spectacularly contrary to reality that it doesnโt nearly do it justice to call it just a โlie.โโ In the face of the events of the past few months, anybody who continues to push this metric should have their intentions questioned.
If cost pressure was the only issue facing the wind industry, things might not be so dire. Inflationary pulses come and go, after all, and governments in the West arenโt usually afraid to throw money at problems of their own making. But thereโs a giant scandal brewing in the offshore wind industry, one that seems to involve an overt coverup on the part of scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dozens of endangered whales are dying all along the US East Coast, and the wind industry is almost certainly to blame. Michael Schellenberger and the team at Public have done an incredible job exposing this troubling series of events:
โThe increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say. Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry.
But now, a new documentary,ย โThrown To The Wind,โ by Director and Producer Jonah Markowitz,ย proves that the US government officials have been lying.ย The full filmย ย documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vesselsย when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And itย shows that the wind industryโs increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths.โ
Adding insult to their injury, thereโs yet another nagging issue plaguing the wind energy sector: turbine blades are practically impossible to recycle, and most will remain buried in landfills, effectively forever. The very toughness that is necessarily designed into these high-performance composites is what makes them extremely challenging to recycle, and despite claims to the contrary, there arenโt yet any viable processes to handle the avalanche of end-of-life blades coming in the years ahead. Amazingly, the industry has made the problem significantly worse in its reach for yet more government handouts. We turn to an explosive report in Texas Monthly for the shocking details:
โThe Sweetwater piles are also at least partly the indirect result of a rule clarification the Internal Revenue Service issued in 2016. Before then, a wind farm could collect valuable federal tax credits for only its first ten years of operation.ย But the IRS determined that it would restart the clock on the credits if a wind farm โrepoweredโ its turbinesโreplacing most of their equipment with newer parts. So, despite the expected two-decade lifespan for turbine blades, wind farms across Texas and other states began replacing many that remained in good shape years early.โ
As we reflect on the current mess that is the wind industry, we canโt help but ponder how future historians will marvel at the sheer lunacy of it all. As evidence of the sectorโs ongoing implosion continues to mount, efforts to further impose this failed technology upon our society are only accelerated. The Biden administration is still insisting that there will be 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity installed between now and 2030, actively pretending that the real world simply does not exist. Spinning turbine blades now stand as the perfect metaphor for the circular nature of our broken energy policy.
We might just have to add that last line to our podcast repertoire. Substack
The termย temperature anomalyย means a departure from a reference value or long-term average. A positive anomaly indicates that the observed temperature was warmer than the reference value, while a negative anomaly indicates that the observed temperature was cooler than the reference value.
I have the worldโs best science gig. I can research whatever I want, whenever I want, for as long as I want, and I donโt get paid a dime no matter how hard I work. Whatโs not to like?
In any case, I got to wondering about how many temperature stations weโd need to get an accurate idea of the average temperature of the earth. Being a data guy rather than a theory guy, I figured I could use the CERES dataset to take a first cut at the question.
Let me preface this by explaining the temperature dataset I use in my analyses. The CERES radiation datasets donโt contain a surface temperature dataset. However, they have an upwelling surface upwelling longwave (thermal) radiation dataset. Because many of my analyses use the CERES dataset, I used the CERES surface radiation dataset to create a surface temperature dataset. I did the calculation using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and utilizing the gridded surface emissivity from here.
How good is the resulting CERES calculated temperature dataset? Hereโs a comparison with the Berkeley Earth, HadCRUT, and Japanese Meteorological Agency datasets. Seasonal variations have been removed from all datasets.
As you can see, the calculated CERES surface temperature agrees with the other three as well as they agree with each other. Turns out it also agrees better than either the HadCRUT or the JMA dataset with the Berkeley Earth datasetโฆ so I use the CERES data in this and my other analyses. However, as indicated by the graph above, it makes no practical difference which dataset is used. Doing the following analysis on the Berkeley Earth gridded temperature dataset gives essentially the same results as using the CERES dataset.
With that as prologue, my scheme was to randomly pick a subset of the 64,800 1ยฐ latitude by 1ยฐ longitude gridcells that make up the earthโs surface, and see what that subset gave me as an average temperature.
The most interesting results were when I used just one percent of the gridcells (n = 648). Hereโs an example of one of the random selections of 1% of the gridcells.
As you might imagine, running the random example many times gave very different average temperatures from different random subsets of 1% of the gridcells. Hereโs a histogram of the average temperatures of a typical run of 100 trials using only 1% of the gridcells.
The average temperatures range from 13.5 to 16.5 degrees, so there is little agreement between subsets. No surprise, as I said.
But my next graph was a surprise. I decided to plot the monthly data for some of the individual runs. Hereโs an example of ten runs, including the linear trend lines. Iโve removed the seasonal variations from each dataset.
Two things were surprising about this. One was that the trends were all pretty much identical. I expected much greater differences using only 1% of the data.
The other was that the actual monthly results were all so similar, having the same overall shape with just a different average temperature.
To investigate further, I plotted up the anomalies for each of the runs. I created the anomalies by subtracting the average of each run from the values of that run. Here are those results.
Fascinating. Although we canโt get much clarity on the absolute global average temperature from 1% of the data, we can use that same 1% of the data to get a pretty good idea regarding the overall trend and the monthly variations in the global average data. None of the individual 1% runs vary much at all from the global average, and their trends are tightly clustered. I didnโt expect that at all.
Next, I got to thinking about the oft-repeated claims that the Little Ice Age back in the 1600โs โ 1700โs was just a Northern Hemisphere phenomenon, or that itโs only based on land records, or both. So, I thought Iโd take a look at just the NH land data, to see how random subsets of just the northern hemisphere land matched up with the global data. Of course, since the NH land is much smaller than the globe and itโs land rather than ocean, the temperature swings in the average NH land temperature will be larger than the swings in the entire global average. So in order to compare them, Iโve adjusted for that in the following graph.
Again, most interesting. With knowledge of the temperature in around a hundred twenty randomly selected gridcells out of the 64,800 total gridcells, with the known gridcells located only on land and covering less than a quarter of one percent of the earthโs surface, we can closely approximate both the global temperature anomaly and the global temperature trend.
Any given run may or may not be all that exact a match to the entire globe, but none of them are much different, and their trends only vary slightly โฆ which makes me misdoubt the idea that the Little Ice Age was a local phenomenon.
Seems like a validation of what I modestly call โWillisโs First Rule Of Climateโ, which states:
โIn climate, everything is related to everything else, which in turn is related to everything else โฆ except when it isnโt.โ
Best of life to everyone,
w.
As Always: I ask that when you comment you quote the exact words you are referring to. I can defend my words. I canโt defend your idea of what my words say.
“I have been saying for some time that many of our #science institutions have become totally untrustworthy. By its wilful abandonment of quantitative analysis, the AAS has destroyed its reputation as a source of useful scientific advice.” – Peter Ridd
Great Barrier Reef report by the Australian Academy of Science: Lots of facts and figures on gender and race of participants But it forgot to mention ๐๐ค๐ฌ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ง๐๐๐ ๐๐จ ๐๐ค๐๐ฃ๐ Well, here are the newly released stats:https://t.co/U7cZQjBFTehttps://t.co/pwFHw8Sm6Epic.twitter.com/RyBhZYO2L2
"I have been saying for some time that many of our #science institutions have become totally untrustworthy.
By its wilful abandonment of quantitative analysis, the AAS has destroyed its reputation as a source of useful scientific advice." – Peter Riddhttps://t.co/k6AgkdeOdN
Thanks Katta OโDonnell for destroying the climate movement and doesnโt realizeย that. Now it will be more difficult for financially incontinent politicians to borrow money.
A green lawsuit which likely does more good than harm, by making it more difficult for financially incontinent politicians to borrow money.
A world-first case, brought by a young law student, has forced the federal government to acknowledge its failure to declare the risks to the value of its debt as a result of climate change. By Katta OโDonnell.
Government settles climate bond lawsuit
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Three years ago, with the help of Equity Generation lawyers, I sued the federal government. In my view, it was not fully disclosing the financial risk the climate crisis poses when it issued bonds โ that is, raised money from the banks, institutions, super funds and retail investors that typically buy its debt.
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This is the first time a country with an AAA credit rating has acknowledged that climate change is a systemic risk that might affect the economy and, therefore, the value of its debt. If a countryโs debt is considered less valuable, that increases the amount of interest investors will demand to hold it, and that pushes up the governmentโs debt service costs โ an especially unwelcome development if it needs to borrow more in future, to pay for the physical and social infrastructure of the essential rapid transition to adapt to the effects of the climate crisis.
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โI doubt that it will be as difficult as the Commonwealth submits to establish that global warming and climate change gives rise to real, systemic risks to the Commonwealthโs coffers and therefore to the value of the change traded government bonds,โ the judgement said. โFor the purposes of the application I take judicial notice of the fact that the consensus position of leading climate scientists around the world is that global warming and climate change brings risks of more frequent and more intense bushfires, storm surges, coastal flooding, inland flooding, cyclones, droughts and other extreme weather events.
โTo my mind, it seems likely that such events will give rise to a huge drain on Commonwealth resources and on the tax base over a very lengthy period, perhaps forever, and therefore also weigh on forecasts in relation to the Commonwealthโs financial and economic position.โ
Katta OโDonnell, the brilliant young lawyer who brought this lawsuit, seems to think she has forced governments to finally take the climate crisis seriously. I suspect her mistake is believing the climate crisis is real. She doesnโt realise that what she has actually done is to destroy the climate movement.
Which option is easier:
a) Spending the money required to actually reduce global emissions, satisfying courts that the climate crisis has been addressed. b) Simply accepting it just got more difficult to borrow money to buy votes. c) Downgrading the climate crisis: Convincing the courts climate change no longer poses a risk to bond repayments, then switching horses to a new imaginary crisis to wrangle the voters.
Iโm guessing politicians will go with option c).
In the short term, to win votes in 2024, left wing politicians might go with another virus scare. There is an outbreak of Nipah virus, deadly contagious encephalitis, which is currently spreading through Asian tourist spots. With a little spin, Nipah fear might stampede voters in the next election, as Covid did in 2020. But a real replacement for the climate crisis would need to be much more durable than gambling on people falling for another virus crisis.
And there is a candidate fake crisis, with much broader bipartisan appeal, which is just itching to be exploited: Fear of malevolent artificial intelligence.
The signs are there that the AI crisis is gathering momentum. China just launched its Global AI Governance Initiative, at a conference attended by Russian and Taliban representatives, apparently an attempt to pressure the USA into relaxing AI chip export controls which just went into effect. The UN has also been publishing articles about the risk of uncontrolled AI, and the need for more regulation. Hollywood did its bit to prepare the ground for the new fake crisis, with movies like the Terminator franchise.
Sure politicians might buck at the harness a bit, try to breath life into the climate crisis which served them for so long, toy with passing laws to exempt themselves from having to make climate financial disclosures, but the real damage has already been done. Passing laws which tell creditors you donโt have to explain risks to them doesnโt really help smooth the progress of your loan application. Thanks to Katta OโDonnellโs lawsuit, creditors now have a new stick with which to beat debtor nations into paying higher interest rates, or to demand a portion of the borrowed money be immediately spent on their mandatory โclimate repayment insuranceโ.
Eventually even the dumbest politicians will in the end accept that the climate crisis has outlived its usefulness.
The far left extremists and eco- nutters really want is for us all to pay much more for our energy in the name of global warming. Well, what do they want to tell us when we get a colder climate period?
Letโs see what the fraudsters at CCN have been up to this week:
Writing in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, Bill McKibben and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. urged President Joe Bidenโs administration to block โa massive fossil fuel buildoutโ being proposed in Louisiana. The argument they make is worth journalistsโ attention, for it highlights a central challenge often overlooked in climate coverage.
Itโs indisputably good news that solar, wind, batteries, and other climate-friendly energy sources have been plummeting in cost and gaining market share, because this can reduce demand for fossil fuels. But reducing the supply of fossil fuels is the true measure of successful climate policy, because global temperatures will keep rising until the world stops burning those fossil fuels. The fossil fuel industry has no intention of letting that happen. ExxonMobil just announced a $60 billion purchase of a rival oil and gas producer, signaling that Exxon plans to sell vast amounts of fossil fuel for decades. The United Arab Emirates is expanding its production capacity by 7.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, even as Sultan Al Jaber, who heads UAEโs state-owned oil company while also presiding over next monthโs COP28 summit, insists that he favors a net-zero future.
The contradiction at the heart of the climate fight, as Paris Agreement architect Christiana Figueres told the recent โClimate Changes Everythingโ conference, is that climate-friendly technologies are accelerating even as fossil fuel industry intransigence keeps greenhouse gas emissions climbing. This is the contradiction that our reporting needs to spotlight and explain to audiences. In Louisiana, oil and gas companies want to construct an array of pipelines and terminals to export liquid natural gas. The climate implications are enormous, partly because LNG is as carbon intensive as coal. The proposed CP2 terminal alone would โbe responsible for 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions annually than the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaskaโ that Biden approved earlier this year, McKibben and Yearwood write, according to analysis by the US Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department cited by the Sierra Club.
Journalists do not have to be in Louisiana to report this story. As Damian Carrington and Matthew Taylor revealed last year in their โcarbon bombsโ expose for the Guardian, scores of similar climate-busting projects are being proposed or developed all over the world.
Incredibly, governments and public lending agencies are spending trillions of dollars to subsidize such climate-wrecking fossil fuel production. In 2022, they paid out $7 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies, the International Monetary Fund calculated. โThatโs a definition of insanity,โ John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate change, said two years ago in the lead-up to COP26.
As journalists prepare to cover the COP28 summit starting November 30 and elections in the US and elsewhere next year, itโs essential we understand โ and help our audiences understand โ that fossil fuels have to go, soon, if a livable planet is to be preserved. Questions to explore in your reporting include: How much is your countryโs government spending to subsidize fossil fuels? And what is your country doing โ or failing to do โ to stop burning the fossil fuels that are dangerously overheating the planet?
![โ[COP28 Preparation] Climate loss and damage talks end in failureโ](https://i0.wp.com/climatescience.press/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/054255b20b7ee256d2a679bbd7c436e38c4318900.webp?fit=450%2C450&ssl=1)
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