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.
A New Jersey senate candidate, Christina Amira Khalil, was quick to blame climate change for the 4.8 power earthquake that impacted New Jersey and New York. Analysts, commentators, and politicians were quick to mock and decry Khalil’s social media post, on X, and rightly so. There is no evidence climate change caused that earthquake, or any other earthquake for that matter.
A New Jersey senate candidate, Christina Amira Khalil, was quick to blame climate change for the 4.8 power earthquake that impacted New Jersey and New York. Analysts, commentators, and politicians were quick to mock and decry Khalil’s social media post, on X, and rightly so. There is no evidence climate change caused that earthquake, or any other earthquake for that matter.
Khalil’s post was widely mocked on X and elsewhere.
“Holy crap. I was just joking about people blaming climate change and then this genius pops up. A Senate candidate no less!,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) wrote in response to Khalil’s claim, in a post on his own X account.
Fox News among other outlets noted that the Kyle Mann, editor-in-chief of the news satire site, The Babylon Bee wrote, “Gonna have a call with my Babylon Bee writers to figure out how we failed to come up with ‘the earthquake was caused by climate change’ before the libs did.”
Among the hundreds of posts making fun of Khalil’s claim was a fact check posted by X itself, a “Community Note” stating, “NJ is located near a fault line, and has often experienced earthquakes.”
In response to the dozens of derisive comments, Khalil eventually deleted the post and made her account private.
A few fringe writers have suggested that climate change might cause earthquakes by increasing or decreasing the weight of water along fault lines, but NASA is quick to point out there is no such thing as “earthquake weather.” Although “microseismicity—tiny earthquakes with magnitudes less than zero, far smaller than humans can feel,” due to changes in water or ice and snow volume above fault lines, is real, it is normal and has not increased in frequency or power amid climate change. NASA jokingly writes that any connection between climate change and earthquakes is “shaky.”
To be clear, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has never stated nor implied that climate change has or even could cause earthquakes.
The rapid derision and mockery Khalil received for her claim that climate change caused the early April earthquake in New Jersey and New York was well earned. Her claim that climate change causes earthquakes will join the pantheon of other idiotic climate assertions made at one time or another like that climate change has contributed to divorce, mental illness, hyperactivity, childhood attention deficit disorder, rising crime rates, rising drug use, “cultural erosion,” the increased likelihood of space satellite collisions, and inflation. None of these phenomena are in any way connected to climate change except in the twisted minds of the researchers, media outlets, and politicians attempting to profit in some way from making such a connection. A hearty guffaw is a perfectly justified reaction to such claims, and perhaps the most appropriate reaction.
In the first part of this article, we argued that there is no climate crisis and politicians, climate researchers and journalists were urgently requested to stop scaring the hell out of the population and citing the results of dubious climate models.
In the first part of this article, we argued that there is no climate crisis and politicians, climate researchers and journalists were urgently requested to stop scaring the hell out of the population and citing the results of dubious climate models. In this part, emeritus professors Guus Berkhout and Kees de Lange argue in favour of ending the fighting between alarmists and realists. They make a plea to start working together on the large opportunities offered by climate change. This means a completely different approach to climate policy and the energy transition.
It is time that we stopped accepting that more and more unelected international organisations – such as all those UN-organizations (WMO, UNEP, etc.) and the thousands of NGO’s – who are forcing us to organise life in our own country according to their preferences. Above all, it is high time that we eradicated the stories of fear and the coercive measures forced upon us by these organisations. This is only feasible with a strong national democracy! National governments must set a new course with plenty of courage and expertise. The result will create hope for a prosperous future. Such a new course starts with a sensible climate policy.
Get rid of climate anxiety.
Enough about all these fear-mongering narratives and all the nonsensical net-zero CO2 billions. We are now going to talk about the positive climate prospects for the future. The graph on the right in illustration 4 was published in 2020 by the well-known Danish environmental economist Bjørn Lomborg. It shows at a glance – without complicated models – why the climate scary narratives are misplaced. It turns out that investing in adaptation measures is extremely rewarding!
Mind you, the Western world has become considerably more prosperous in the past century due to reliable and affordable energy. This prosperity could be used to finance technological progress. And that technology could be used to prevent climate casualties. Mitigation technology has never saved a life or made a difference, but adaptation technology has saved millions according to Lomborg!
Illustration 4: While the CO2-concentration in the atmosphere continues to rise – despite the many mitigation-billions spent (left-hand side) – we see a strong decline of the climate-related mortality numbers (right-hand side) by adaptation policies. The decline is spectacular and proves that the fear-mongering narratives in the media about catastrophic mortality due to climate change are flatly wrong.
We now forecast the arrival of most extreme weather days, sometimes weeks, in advance so that proper measures can be taken. In prosperous countries, dikes are being strengthened and houses are much more resistant to hurricanes and increasingly to earthquakes. Wide firebreaks are created in forests to ensure that forest fires remain local, new water management techniques are developed to collect excess rainwater in overflow areas to be used later in dry times, etc.
Net-zero policies deliver nothing.
The graph on the left in illustration 4 shows that all those thousands of billions for net-zero policies have yielded nothing for decades! So why continue with it? Apparently, neither the climate nor CO2 care about human mitigation policies at all. Whereas the graph on the right in illustration 4 indicates that investments in adaptation are showing spectacular results, saving millions from death due to weather and climate events. Therefore, making a population poorer through pointless climate policies and unaffordable energy prices is stupid, wasteful, and immoral.
Why do we never see the side-by-side comparison in illustration 4 in the media? The IPCC is also completely silent about this! But the population is desperate for just that comparison, show them the costs and benefits of both possible solutions. For further information on this important topic, see also this thorough analysis by Clintel that shows serious errors in the latest IPCC report.
Foolish Western Illusions
In the Western world endless meetings are held to discuss methods of controlling Earth’s climate. In those meetings, policy measures are invented about Earth’s climate by green politicians who have little factual engineering or scientific knowledge. Partly because of this, Western countries want to be in front of the moral procession (‘look at us saving the world’) when it comes to taking moralistic climate measures. However, the population suffers as a result. Countries such as China and India are watching with utter amazement as the EU drives its high-quality industrial production and jobs out of Europe with foolish climate regulations.
The non-Western world, which is the vast majority of the world’s population, has many other things on its mind than an alleged climate crisis. They do not have any understanding or patience with a public welfare-destroying net-zero policy. They realise that their growing populations can only be given a future with the large-scale use of fossil fuels, followed by a gradual transition to the large-scale use of modern nuclear energy. Countries like China and India consider the net-zero policy to be a foolish Western illusion that serves them well. As a result, we see that the West weakening economically. Geopolitical relations are changing in favour of emerging economic superpowers, such as India and China. Europe is working hard to make itself irrelevant.
CO₂-emissions in the Netherlands
Illustration 5: The outgoing Dutch cabinet is going to spend 28 billion on climate projects to reduce global warming. Upon request, Minister of climate, Rob Jetten, agreed that the reduction will be only 0.000360C. That is many thousands of billions of euros per degree Celsius! Stupidity or evilness?
A specific example. How much CO₂ does the Netherlands actually emit? The facts: The Netherlands is responsible for 0.47% of global CO₂-emissions. If we follow the IPCC and believe their assumption that there is a simple linear relationship between CO₂-emissions and global warming, then the Netherlands’ contribution to global warming is 0.47%. If we also follow the alarmist climate models – human CO₂ is assumed to be the main cause of global warming – then the Dutch CO₂ contribution is responsible for an annual warming of about 0.0001°C! Even with the darkest IPCC scenario, our contribution is so small it cannot be measured!
So, the Dutch citizen is forced to spend hundreds of billions of euros to ensure that the global temperature is reduced by an immeasurably small amount every year. Looking at the major shortages in healthcare and education, among other things, isn’t this climate policy an outrage against the citizens of our country?
Consequences of net-zero climate policy
Because the main cause of global warming is attributed to CO₂ and increases in CO₂ in the atmosphere are attributed to the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), the net zero measures are aimed at eliminating fossil fuels. Did you know that these measures have their origins in the Paris Agreement? There were politicians and civil servants who had no clue about Earth’s climate system (there was no serious scientist in sight). The huge amount of nonsense that has been expressed during the prelude to this agreement is a clear demonstration that when science and politics are at loggerheads, science is bound to lose.
Illustration 6: The left graph shows global warming (about 1.20 C) on the usual mini scale. Thus, the warming appears catastrophic. But if we show the same warming with Singapore and Oslo temperatures (about 280 C and 60 C), the warming is barely visible.
However, that did not stop them from jointly determining that the average global warming should not exceed the “disastrous” limit of 1.5°C! Since then, the Paris Agreement has been sacrosanct. When we talk about climate policy, we talk about ‘meeting the Paris Accord’. So, scientific content has completely disappeared from the climate debate and is replaced with an arbitrary political goal! Illustration 6 shows that the average annual temperature difference between Singapore and Oslo is about 22°C. Despite Singapore being 22°C warmer than Oslo, both cities are very prosperous. So, what does the 1.5°C Paris disaster limit represent?
Energy crisis
There is no climate crisis, and it is also a fiction that this crisis is caused by the Western world. But there is indeed an energy crisis of our own making (‘anthropogenic’). Historically, virtually all of humanity’s progress in the last few hundred years is due to advances in science and technology and the availability of sufficient reliable, affordable, and safe fossil energy sources. These sources can provide energy any time it is demanded. Modern fossil fuel power plants provide demand-driven energy and are a monumental technological-scientific achievement. They are also getting cleaner!
It is of utmost importance for everyone’s future that the energy needs of the world’s population are adequately met. This is no mean feat, with the world’s population continuing to grow and with per capita energy needs constantly increasing. In this context, look at the fast-growing data centers, which require a huge amount of energy. Serious projections of the world’s energy demand in 2050 show that an increase of about 25% can be expected. How are we going to provide that? Certainly not by phasing out fossil fuels as quickly as possible! Did you know that for years, 80% of energy has been supplied by fossil fuels and that the contribution of alternative energy sources remains around 20%?
Biomass, wind and solar
The alternative options that have been put forward for fossil fuels for years are biomass, wind, and solar. Even climate alarmists are beginning to realize that cutting down our forests en masse, and then burning them in biomass power plants, is great folly. We know that wind and sun only produce electricity when the wind is not blowing too hard or too soft and only when the sun is shining. Because we cannot practically store large amounts of electricity, solar and wind are, at best, niche solutions. Despite all the warning signs, politicians continue to cut down forests on a large scale and direct us en masse onto an inadequate power grid. Without a change of course, we are on our way to an anthropogenic energy crisis, in which blackouts will occur regularly.
Nuclear energy
Is there no solution at all? The cynical thing about the situation is that an excellent solution does exist. The key word is nuclear energy. Nuclear power is available, reliable, safe, and affordable, and has the advantage of emitting virtually no greenhouse gases, for anyone with a carbon phobia. Affordable waste recycling is also on the horizon. Nuclear power thus seems to be a possible solution that alarmists and realists could quickly agree on.
New course in climate policy
We conclude with a few guidelines on what a climate policy should look like under a new government (in The Netherlands a new government is now being formed):
Policy should not be based upon immature computer models, but reliable facts.
Facts show there is no climate crisis at all and CO₂ is not a thermostat that allows people to set the climate to a desired setting. Facts show that extremely expensive mitigation policies do not help at all, whereas adaptation policies are successful.
CO₂ is not a harmful gas and CO₂ emissions are not environmental pollution. On the contrary, CO₂ is the molecule of life on planet Earth. More CO₂ in the atmosphere can cause modest warming, but also makes Earth greener, and greatly increases agricultural productivity. We should therefore be very happy with more CO₂.
Climate change and environmental pollution should not be lumped together. Apart from the fact that it is factually incorrect, it makes climate policy unnecessarily complex. Climate change requires adaptation technology, and environmental pollution requires clean production technology. Therefore, impoverishing the population through pointless climate policies and unaffordable energy prices is naive and immoral. Only a prosperous nation can invest in climate adaptation and produce fossil fuels and other fuels more cleanly!
New course in energy transition
The above new course in climate policy will automatically lead to a completely different energy transition. Protesters, who want to abruptly stop using fossil fuels, show they have no idea what they are doing. If the use of fossil fuels stops at very short notice, modern society collapses. A transition, as the word suggests, is a gradual process. The energy of the future is clearly nuclear energy, consisting of a collection of well-positioned mix of large and small nuclear power plants. Practice shows unmistakably that supply-driven wind and solar energy can only play a niche role in our future energy system. After the election, the new Netherlands government must get to work on it quickly.
In conclusion, we once again call on both climate worlds, alarmists and realists, not to fight each other, but to work together to build up more knowledge about the behaviour of the earth’s climate and about the choice of our future energy systems.
You came here for truths and straight talk, so, here’s a doozy.”
Standing on stage at the National Press Club — being beamed live into offices and lounge rooms across the country — one of Australia’s top energy bosses was preparing to say what few in the industry will acknowledge publicly.
Jeff Dimery — CEO of Alinta Energy — looked up from his notes on the lectern and delivered the promised doozy to the audience.
“Australians will have to pay more for energy in future,” he says.
“We need to be honest about that.“
…
Yes, renewables are the “lowest cost, new form of generation”.
But building the wind and solar farms at the scale required to replace coal, together with the batteries needed to store the power, and the new network of transmission lines to distribute that power to consumers will involve tens of billions of dollars’ worth of investment.
This is a big change from previous claims that renewables would bring down near term prices.
Electricity prices predicted to fall as renewable supply increases, gas price falls
Posted Mon 21 Dec 2020 at 5:32am
Key points:
Electricity prices are expected to fall by 9 per cent over the next three years
More renewable energy production is behind the fall
Power prices in Canberra are predicted to buck the trend
Household electricity bills are expected to fall by 9 per cent over the next three years as more renewable generation joins the grid.
A new report by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) predicts all states in the National Electricity Market — NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania — will have lower energy prices in 2023.
The residential electricity price trends report 2020, published by the advisory body today, projects the ACT will have a slight rise in electricity prices over the next three years.
…
The report says the main reason for the drop is lower gas prices and the introduction of new sources of energy generation like solar and wind.
It also says network costs and environmental costs are falling, too, although they contribute less to the overall reduction.
It is not just the ABC. The AEMO, the industry body tasked with regulating the East Coast Australian energy grid, has also frequently added to the confusion about the true cost of renewables;
Renewables push NEM electricity prices down to historical levels
23/10/2023
AEMO’s latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report shows that wholesale electricity prices averaged $63 per megawatt hour (MWh) in the September quarter, down 41% from the June quarter ($108/MWh) and 71% ($216/MWh) from Q3 2022.
By region, South Australia recorded the highest average quarterly price at $92/MWh, followed by New South Wales ($81/MWh), Queensland ($65/MWh), Victoria ($49/MWh) and Tasmania ($29/MWh).
Total electricity supply by fuel type saw renewables (wind, grid-scale and rooftop solar, hydro and other sources) contribute 38.9% of total supply, up 4.6%, while black coal’s share fell 3.4%, primarily due to the Liddell Power station closure, and gas fell 2.3%. Brown coal’s market share increased 1%, mainly due to fewer unplanned outages.
AEMO Executive General Manager Reform Delivery, Violette Mouchaileh, said that the growing influence of renewables in the NEM was apparent in the warmer September quarter as prices returned to historical levels.
“Record renewable generation output helped push down average wholesale electricity prices by more than two-thirds, double the occurrence of zero or negative wholesale prices (19%) and reduce total emissions by 11% compared to the previous September quarter,” Ms Mouchaileh said.
“Renewables also supplied a record 70% of total energy used over a half-hour period, with rooftop solar contributing 39%, again highlighting the likely benefit from coordinating rooftop solar and home batteries.
There is no excuse for this confusing messaging about prices. Renewables were always going to be expensive. It was up to the industry oversight body to keep people informed. Does leaving out the bit about how much renewables cost seem like a reasonable effort to keep people informed?
According to the AEMO “Who we are” page, “… AEMO provides the detailed, independent planning, forecasting and modelling information and advice that drives effective and strategic decision-making, regulatory changes and investment. …”. Do articles like the fluff piece above, which somehow fails to mention that any renewable driven cost reduction is temporary, that someone has to pay for all the green infrastructure, does any of this seem like the AEMO is adequately discharging its duty to provide independent advice?
$383 billion is just under $15,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia, or $39,000 for every working person in Australia, just to pay for initial construction. All those extra transmission lines and renewable systems will have to be maintained, at a cost of billions of dollars every year in addition to the cost of maintaining existing infrastructure.
Australia’s peak demand was 31GW in 2023-24, serviced by a capacity of 55GW. According to Wikipedia, the capital cost of building new coal capacity is US $4,074 / Kw to around $1,201 / Kw for gas.
Isn’t climate change supposed to create superstorms and violent weather? If say a big hail storm comes along and wrecks a vast acreage of solar panels, as happened last year in Nebraska, well that will have to be paid for as well.
What are the alternatives to renewables?
Underinvestment in Australia’s energy infrastructure has left most of it in a decrepit state. Lets assume for a moment we have to replace it all.
55GW x 1000000 (convert to Kw) x $4074 = US $224 billion to completely replace all of Australia’s coal capacity with coal. Multiply by 1.54 to get Australian dollars, and you have $345 billion – well short of the $383 billion Energy CEO Jeff Dimery estimated for renewables. If the coal plants use brown coal, which has zero value except as fuel to be shovelled into an adjacent generator, that is a saving of $38 billion in capital costs, + the system does not incur higher transmission line maintenance charges, and a massive cost every time. We save at least $38 billion, and since coal is dispatchable, we wouldn’t have to panic every time the wind dies.
And of course there is the very real risk the $383 billion costing is a massive underestimate. A lot of rather arbitrary assumptions go into calculating such numbers, such as the battery capacity required to accomodate renewable intermittency. Extreme excursions from normal weather conditions such as season long wind droughts over large geographical regions occur often enough to be a problem.
Even when the power doesn’t completely fail, economically damaging spikes in electricity prices can devastate the finances of energy intensive businesses. No energy intensive business can afford $5000 / MWh on a regular basis.
Green energy is a bottomless money pit, always was, always will be. It is time for politicians to be honest with voters, and put a stop this colossal waste of taxpayer resources, before they burn even more money for no benefit.
Germany’s ambitions to take a leading role in electromobility are experiencing a severe setback in the first quarter of this year. A significant slump in sales is emerging. In March, only 31,384 new electric vehicles were registered, a drastic decrease of 28.9 percent compared to the previous year.
Germany’s ambitions to take a leading role in electromobility are experiencing a severe setback in the first quarter of this year. A significant slump in sales is emerging. In March, only 31,384 new electric vehicles were registered, a drastic decrease of 28.9 percent compared to the previous year. The slump in registrations contrasts with policy objectives and underscores the gap between a politically planned economy and actual market conditions. The challenge lies in whether political measures are effective enough to counter consumer preferences and market dynamics (FAZ: 06.04.24).
Electric car shock: Market share plunges to 11.9% – end of subsidies exposes Germany’s dilemma
A dramatic decline is characterizing the current registration figures for electric vehicles. Its market share has fallen to just 11.9 percent. This casts a glaring light on the mismatch between Germany’s political goals and the reality of the automotive market. It is clear that policy incentives and measures are inadequate.
They fail to create sustained demand for electric vehicles or change consumer preferences in the long term. The elimination of the electric bonus at the end of 2023 has revealed another problem. The sector’s dependence on government subsidies became apparent. This has further exacerbated the crisis of confidence in the electric car market.
Planned Economy vs. Market Dynamics: Germany’s Electric Car Industry Before the Storm
The discrepancy between policy objectives and market developments reveals the limits of a planned economy strategy in a rapidly changing market environment. The automotive industry, which has invested considerable sums in electromobility, is now facing great uncertainty. This is particularly evident in companies such as Volkswagen and Ford, whose production facilities have been converted to electric mobility and are now facing significant economic challenges due to declining demand.
Back to the combustion engine? Germany’s electromobility strategy at a crossroads
In light of current developments, the urgency of a market-oriented approach to policy strategy development becomes clear. Policies that do not take into account the real needs and preferences of consumers risk missing not only economic but also environmental objectives. The tendency of consumers to revert to traditional modes of propulsion shows that market mechanisms can ultimately overcome policy planning requirements if they are not in line with consumer interests.
The latest figures on the slump in sales in electromobility raise fundamental questions about the effectiveness of political control attempts.
Hundreds of ‘ghost’ climate stations are no longer operational; instead they are assigned temperatures from surrounding stations.
This article in the Epoch Times is behind half a pay wall depending on whether or not you’ve used up your free subscription. It is a summation of issues we’ve talked about on this site for years.
“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” said United Nations secretary-general António Guterres on March 19. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink.
“Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts. Sirens are blaring across all major indicators: Last year saw record heat, record sea levels, and record ocean surface temperatures. … Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting.”
President Joe Biden called the climate “an existential threat” in his 2023 State of the Union address. “Let’s face reality. The climate crisis doesn’t care if you’re in a red or a blue state.”
In his 2024 address he said, “I don’t think any of you think there’s no longer a climate crisis. At least, I hope you don’t.”
When recalling past temperatures to make comparisons to the present, and, more importantly, inform future climate policy, officials such as Mr. Guterres and President Biden rely in part on temperature readings from the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN).
The problem, say experts, is that an increasing number of USHCN’s stations don’t exist anymore.
Shewchuk goes on to describe the problem.
“NOAA fabricates temperature data for more than 30 percent of the 1,218 USHCN reporting stations that no longer exist.”
He calls them “ghost” stations.
Mr. Shewchuck said USHCN stations reached a maximum of 1,218 stations in 1957, but after 1990 the number of active stations began declining due to aging equipment and personnel retirements.
NOAA still records data from these ghost stations by taking the temperature readings from surrounding stations, and recording their average for the ghost station, followed by an “E,” for estimate.
The addition of the ghost station data means NOAA’s “monthly and yearly reports are not representative of reality,” said Anthony Watts, a meteorologist and senior fellow for environment and climate at the Heartland Institute.
“If this kind of process were used in a court of law, then the evidence would be thrown out as being polluted.”
…
Mr. Shewchuk said the USHCN data is the only long-term historical temperature data the United States has.
“In these days of apparent ‘climate crisis,’ you would think that maintaining actual temperature reporting stations would be a top priority—but they instead manufacture data for hundreds of non-existent stations. This is a bizarre way of monitoring a climate claimed to be an existential threat,” he said.
Emphasis mine in the following quotes from the article.
“For various reasons, NOAA feels the need to alter this data instead of fixing equipment problems they think exist,” Mr. Shewchuk said.
“Fixing temperature reporting stations is not rocket science. If we can go up to space to fix the Hubble telescope, we can surely come down to earth to fix a few thermometers.”
NOAA’s use of ghost temperature stations isn’t a recent phenomenon. In 2014, Mr. Watts raised the issue of ghost stations and bad data with NOAA’s chief scientist at the National Climatic Data Center, Tom Peterson, and Texas’ state climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon, who confirmed there was an issue.
“Anthony – I just did a check of all Texas USHCN stations. Thirteen had estimates in place of apparently good data,” Mr. Nielsen-Gammon wrote in an email to Mr. Watts, according to a report on the latter’s website.
“It’s a bug, a big one. And as Zeke [Hausfather] did a cursory analysis Thursday night, he discovered it was systemic to the entire record, and up to 10 percent of stations have ‘estimated’ data spanning over a century.”
At the time, Mr. Watts reported on his climate website, “Watts Up With That,” that NOAA was taking the issue seriously and expected them to issue a fix shortly.
That fix never materialized. “They’re still doing it, and it’s even worse” he said.
Anthony is quoted further in the article.
NOAA’s Cooperative Observer Program, which includes the USHCN stations, is a network of daily weather observations taken by more than 8,500 volunteers, its webpage states.
Mr. Watts said the process for volunteers is “labor intensive.”
(L–R) Philippe Papin, hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, and Richard Pasch, senior hurricane specialist, work on tracking unsettled weather over the eastern Gulf of Mexico in Miami on May 31, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“It requires people to record high and low temperature, rainfall, the temperature at the time of observation, and do it at a very specific time, every day. And this has to then be recorded and sent to the National Climatic Data Center in Nashville, now known as the National Center for Environmental Information,” he said.
“Some of it’s still done on paper, some of it’s still done with touchtone over the telephone. It requires a lot of dedication and effort on the part of the observer. It’s a thankless job. And as a result, observers have been disappearing. A lot of them have left due to attrition by death. And then there’s no one to take on that job.”
Mr. Watts explained that when that happens, instead of subtracting the unmanned station from the overall number of USHCN stations, NOAA creates a number from surrounding stations.
“As a result, we end up with this milkshake of data that is basically a hot mess, and isn’t real in most cases,” Mr. Watts said.
And further down.
The Bigger Issue
According to Mr. Watts, ghost stations are problematic but are only part of a much bigger problem.
He explained that several different entities—such as the European Commission’s Copernicus, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), Berkeley’s Earth Surface Temperatures (BEST), and NOAA—publish monthly and yearly climate data and advertise themselves as having “independent data.”
“That is a lie,” Mr. Watts said about the independent data claim.
“The USHCN data set and the [new] nClimDiv climate division data set [which uses the same stations and has the same problems] comes from the Cooperative Observer [Program] in the United States.
“Similarly, in the rest of the world, there is a Cooperative Observer [Program] that suffers from the same problems of attrition and incompetence. And it’s called the GHCN; the Global Historical Climatology Network.
“All these different entities out there, like NOAA, GISS, BEST, all the entities I listed, use the same data from GHCN. And they all apply their own set of ’special sauce’ adjustments to create what they believe is true.
“It’s almost like each of these entities is creating their version of the real, true God. You know, it’s like a religion. They’re using different mathematical and statistical techniques to produce their version of climate reality.
“And it all goes back to the same original, badly-sited, badly-maintained ghost station dataset around the world. USHCN and GHCN are the same stuff. So, there is no independent temperature dataset. It’s bogus that anyone claims this.”
This article draws upon narratives and information in the author’s book Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure, and Our Future, Stairway Press, 2020.
Consider some inescapable self-inflicted scenarios from hell that government “experts” never warned you about regarding utopian visions of carbon-free vehicles powered by friendly breezes and sunbeams.
** FILE ** Cars try to navigate their way through New York City during a blackout that hit U.S. and Canadian cities in this Aug. 14, 2003, file photo. A year after the nation’s worst ever blackout, utilities have made improvements and New York has spent millions of dollars on new high-tech gadgets to avert the chaos that followed. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)
Color scale with arrow from red to green. The measuring device icon. Risk level indicator. Colorful infographic gauge element. 3D rendering
This article draws upon narratives and information in the author’s book Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure, and Our Future, Stairway Press, 2020.
Consider some inescapable self-inflicted scenarios from hell that government “experts” never warned you about regarding utopian visions of carbon-free vehicles powered by friendly breezes and sunbeams.
So, imagine it’s one of those warm, beautiful days when the first news breaks about a big hurricane or tropical storm heading your way.
You immediately begin thinking about stocking up on food supplies that don’t require refrigeration and charging up your electric plug-in to get out of town in a hurry if necessary … just like, it seems, everyone else is doing.
Or maybe, with no warning, “poof,” all power goes off because the grid is down for suspicious reasons no one fully understands or can inform you about.
As it turns out, a foreign adversary cyberattack precludes either of those previous options, plus an added problem.
Along with knocking out all power transformers, the malign hackers also took remote control of both autonomous and operator-controlled electric vehicles, jamming exit highways with colossal human and metal crash wreckage.
In both cases, it’s already too late.
In the first scenario, there isn’t enough available electrical power to serve the broad hurricane zone. It has been in dangerously short supply since millions of EV cars and trucks have been added to an ancient grid that has depended upon natural gas turbines to balance fluctuating wind and solar loads.
It seems that shutting down those fossil companies through “net-zero” carbon policies didn’t prevent extreme weather after all.
Instead, extreme ideological EPA policies such as imposing costly, useless carbon capture requirements on those natural gas producers prevented energy companies from economically competing with heavily government-subsidized “green” fantasies.
A March 2024 ruling adding heavy-duty trucks to its original all-electric light vehicle mandate dealt another crushing drain on already slim power margins: each one of them consuming seven times as much electricity on a single charge as a typical daily home.
Sadly, your plug-in has no plug with any juice due to emergency rationing necessary to support medical care facilities and other critical services. And forget about any hopes of using municipal or commercial recharging stations, which have the same problem.
The situation soon becomes more expansive and dangerous as high winds have downed long transmission lines connecting remote wind and solar sites to the grid, sparking massive fires and extending regional power outages.
Deluges of rain have flooded metropolitan centers and small lowland communities, making them inaccessible for emergency rescue by now-useless electric ambulances, fire trucks, and police vehicles with depleted batteries.
Downed trees collapse local power lines, further blocking access and operations of similarly stranded maintenance crews.
Even then, circumstances could have been much worse with cyber scenario two.
Neighbors and friends with battery backup radios finally inform you that one of three power grids serving the entire nation has been disabled by hackers of unknown geographic origin, with transmission connections to the other two intentionally switched off to prevent universal overload collapse.
Darkness soon descends everywhere around you except where backup energy generators temporarily powered by batteries and purloined natural gas provide isolated pockets of light that are soon extinguished as well.
Hospitals are rapidly losing limited generator-supplied electricity to operate life-critical equipment. Meanwhile, primary power can’t be restored any time soon due to melted power transmission lines and damaged turbines at the few remaining conventional fossil and nuclear power plants.
Supplies of clean water are being depleted as well.
Whereas metropolitan areas with high water towers atop high-rise buildings will have enough gravity flow to supply most basic living needs for, at best, a few days, when that runs out, taps will go dry, toilets won’t flush, and emergency supplies of bottled water will become exhausted.
Mountains of uncollected waste, including human biological material, soon create a previously unimaginable unsanitary health crisis.
If you are fortunate enough to live within walking distance of a nondepleted grocery, plan to use cash because the credit card system won’t be operative. Ditto, any ATM machine.
In any case, those stores can’t be restocked because of stranded EV long-haul and local delivery trucks.
Meanwhile, police and fire responses who are busily engaged in rescuing people trapped in elevators and other emergency services have also become overwhelmed by widespread store looting by desperately hungry individuals and families.
As tens or hundreds of millions of others over many states share such chaotic dilemmas, there is no way of predicting when power will be restored. And whereas present weather and temperature conditions may be moderate, many of these regions – including yours – anticipate a coming winter home heating crisis that will put countless lives at risk.
There are few opportunities for people to leave for warmer climes. Personal EVs are useless, as are commercial EV buses and moving vans.
Contemplating either of such avoidably catastrophic scenarios might provide cause to seriously doubt those government experts who continue to warn us of climate change and extreme weather being our greatest threat, with the solution being to load our ancient, cyberattack-prone power grids with weather-dependent energy systems overloaded with voracious EV electricity consumption.
No, climate change isn’t nearly as great as the threat presented by their own policies, with the best solution of all…powerful winds of regime change sanity blowing through November voting booths before it is too late.
Issac Newton was the greatest scientist. The calculus, mechanics, gravity, thermodynamics, astronomy, optics, the binomial theorem, even theology! You name it, Newton was there, looming over all of us.
Issac Newton was the greatest scientist. The calculus, mechanics, gravity, thermodynamics, astronomy, optics, the binomial theorem, even theology! You name it, Newton was there, looming over all of us.
“No way, Briggs. I checked. Newton only has an h-index of 70, whereas the great Richard Dawkins has an index of 83, and 83 is greater than 70, even without calculus.”
H-index?
“Yes. It’s a quantification of the amazingness of scientists. It’s a hard number, a solid metric, beloved of scientists and hiring committees, that quantifies their worth. Think of it like IQ.”
How’s it calculated?
“For any scientist, count the number of his papers that have been cited by other papers at least h times. An h-index of 10 means a scientist has at least 10 papers that have been cited at least 10 times each.”
So Dawkins has 83 papers that have been cited at least 83 times, whereas Newton has 13 fewer. And that makes Dakwins the superior scientist?
“It does. Numbers do not lie, as they say.”
Anybody better than Dawkins?
“Oh, many. I only picked him because everybody knows him and he’s been in the news recently. Dawkins is ackshually pretty low. There’s an Official List, you know. Or you should have known before you went spouting off about who was the Best Evah. It’s called the AD Scientific Index, and ranks all scientists by their h-index.”
Naturally, I’m curious, and of course always willing to be corrected. Who do they say is the top scientist, if not Newton?
“Alberto Ruiz Jimeno. Has an h-index of a whopping 348, putting your Newton to shame.”
Well, I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of Jimeno, God bless him, who, I take at your word, must be a great scientist.
That I remember. That CMS is the Compact Muon Solenoid detector at CERN. Those CERN guys are always churning out papers. Many have dozens, even hundreds, of authors. Makes you wonder who’s doing the actual writing.
And—hang on—I notice at the top of the Index site you tout there is a button to “List without CERN…” Maybe they know about CERN’s paper factory.
“Doesn’t matter. Ignore CERN. There are still an enormous number of scientists better than your Newton. Take Ronald C Kessler, who has an h-index of 336. He’s a psychiatrist, has nothing to do with CERN. His top paper is ‘Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication’, cited by over 36,000 other papers.”
Ah, the National Comorbidity Survey, another paper generator, maybe even more efficient than AI. How about more ordinary brilliance. Not just paper count, but the work itself. Who else has h-index values around Newton’s?
“I have to admit I don’t know. That AD Index lists 1,604,605 scientists, but they stop displaying the database at an h-index of 100. Those below don’t show.”
A hundred? That’s still higher than Newton, even Dawkins. Who’s the last in the list that does show?
“Horace Loh, from the University of Minnesota. He has an h-index of 100. His most cited paper, which only has three authors, is ‘Molecular mechanisms and regulation of opioid receptor signaling’.”
Sounds like it could be of interest. To somebody, anyway. Yet would you say it ranked right up there with the invention of The Calculus?
“Well, maybe not.”
According to that AD Index there’s something like 8,250 or so scientists with h-indexes of 100 or greater, all better or more worthy to be called The Best than Newton. If we decide h-index is a useful metric of worthiness.
“I guess so.”
If the criterion of goodness is money, which is not a bad argument to make, given science is now an enterprise, then h-index is the way to go. The h-index still has low correlation with real value about knowledge of the world, though. But even if we accept money, the h-index doesn’t account for the number of working scientists, which only seems to increase, thus boosting everybody’s index through time.
The small, independent man who publishes little but with each work being a gem would score low. Ignoring the absolute bottom tier of scientists, the h-index functions more like an inversion of real value.
But it does account for this curious paper Anon suggested to me. “Google Scholar is manipulatable“, by Hazem Ibrahim and others. Some unscrupulous scientists are now buying citations to boost their h-indexes.
From the Abstract:
Citations are widely considered in scientists’ evaluation. As such, scientists may be incentivized to inflate their citation counts. While previous literature has examined self-citations and citation cartels, it remains unclear whether scientists can purchase citations…Intrigued by a citation boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations. These findings provide conclusive evidence that citations can be bought in bulk, and highlight the need to look beyond citation counts.
You have to laugh.
Subscribe or donate to support this site and its wholly independent host using credit card click here. Or use the paid subscription at Substack. Cash App: $WilliamMBriggs. For Zelle, use my email: matt@wmbriggs.com, and please include yours so I know who to thank.
I was at John Brewer reef earlier in the month, and so I checked the AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science) water temperature data for this location. The most up-to-date information is to February 7, 2024, and has been measured at 9 metres. It begins February 1, 2016, thus giving us some information on the last 8-9 summers.
I was at John Brewer reef earlier in the month, and so I checked the AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science) water temperature data for this location. The most up-to-date information is to February 7, 2024, and has been measured at 9 metres. It begins February 1, 2016, thus giving us some information on the last 8-9 summers. This location specific temperature data indicates that this last summer has not been particularly warm at John Brewer reef considering the last few summers and it does not show temperatures increasing. Temperatures cycle within a relatively narrow band from 23C to 30C with the seasons.
This is just one location, and one relatively short data series. And it is consistent with what I observed when I visited this and four other coral reefs in the central Great Barrier Reef earlier this month. There was some coral bleaching, but overall corals in the central region of the Great Barrier Reef appear to have been more impacted by Tropical Cyclone Kirrily, than warmer than average water temperatures this summer.
Australian Institute of Marine Science temperature data recorded at Davies reef at a depth of 4 metres. This data indicates that temperatures cycle with the seasons. This data, through to the end of March, does not show global warming.
Given all the negative media about widespread bleaching from unusually elevated water temperatures I was expecting to jump-in and see lots of stark white corals.
The first reef that I dived was Wheeler reef, some distance to the south of John Brewer. When I did jump in and looked down, the first thing that I saw was a large stand of dark brown branching Acropora some many metres below the boat. It was so heartening to see those corals, to see they were replete with zooxanthellae.
Damage from cyclone Kirrily has been devastating in the shallower sections of some of these mid-shelf reefs offshore from Townsville, and I have written about this previously, CLICK HERE.
It is nevertheless possible to find beautiful corals, and so many fishes, once you do get down below about 7 metres, and even at the reef crest at Wheeler reef that does not appear to have been impacted by the cyclone.
The photograph featured at the top of this blog post is from about 9 metres, from the reef front at John Brewer taken when I visited on April 4, 2024.
I decided to post this photograph with the water temperature data from about the same depth, and the same reef, at my official Facebook page.
Well, some of my many Facebook friends liked it and shared it, but others posted very critical comment suggesting I had cherry-picked data, that I should admit that the oceans are warming.
I have written at length explaining why I prefer location specific data. I went through some of the issues with global average temperatures last year, you may remember my blog post considering location specific data for Mawson in Antarctica versus what could be considered a contrived global average, CLICK HERE.
How can we know if the oceans are warming from location specific data? This is a question some have asked me.
It could be the case that some parts of the ocean are warming, and others are cooling. If this is the case, then global averages are not useful, even misleading.
One of my favourite books is titled ‘The Oceans and Climate’ by Grant R. Bigg, published in 1996 by Cambridge University Press. It includes a chart of sea level pressure differences near Iceland, and showing how there is some correspondence with sea surface temperatures. They don’t show a linear increase for the period shown that is 1870 to 1990. Rather there are cycles.
This may not be an accurate representation of global temperatures. But it may be an accurate representation of temperatures for that part of the world for that period.
This chart is from my book ‘The Oceans and Climate’ by Grant R. Biggs showing sea surface temperatures near Iceland that is a long way from the Great Barrier Reef, and likely affected by different circulation systems and processes.
Books nowadays tend to reproduce remodelled ocean and land temperatures to be sure they show trends that are consistent with expected narratives and with as little regional variation as possible. It is global trends that are fashionable. (Of course fashion is not politically neutral and some claim it to be the lowest form of ideology.)
The equatorial Pacific Ocean – the region far to the east of the Great Barrier Reef and a little further north – has been unusually warm this last year. At least that is what the satellite data indicates, presented to us as coloured maps. I prefer time series data. And even if much of the Pacific has been very warm this does not mean it has been unusually warm at the Great Barrier Reef.
Credible time series data that I have sourced for the Great Barrier Reef does not show a warming trend.
Just this afternoon I had a look for the temperature data for Myrmidon to the east of John Brewer reef and it shows this last summer to be unusually mild, at the three different depths for which there is up-to-date AIMS temperature data.
The available temperature data for Myrmidon reef at 4.7 metres.The available temperature data for Myrmidon reef at 7.3 metres.The available water temperature data for Myrmidon reef at 14.7 metres.
I am not holding up this data as evidence the entire world is cooling, or that our cities are cooling, but this data is certainly inconsistent with what the Climate Council and others are claiming, even just this morning and even just for the Great Barrier Reef.
There is no climate crisis, even if politicians, climate institutes, and the media would have you believe there is. Climate change is a fact, but it is a change as in everything changes, both inside and outside our atmosphere. No surprise! We will show that we should not turn climate change into a drama. On the contrary, we should take advantage of it. An encouraging message by emeritus professors Guus Berkhout and Kees de Lange.
There is no climate crisis, even if politicians, climate institutes, and the media would have you believe there is. Climate change is a fact, but it is a change as in everything changes, both inside and outside our atmosphere. No surprise! We will show that we should not turn climate change into a drama. On the contrary, we should take advantage of it. An encouraging message by emeritus professors Guus Berkhout and Kees de Lange.
In Part I, we urge politicians, climate researchers and journalists to stop fearmongering and stop citing results of flawed climate models. Our leaders must tell citizens the honest story.
By climate, we do not mean the fickle daily weather, but the average weather over a few decades (more than thirty years is the common definition). The climate represents an extraordinarily complex physical system and responds to all kinds of external influences from inside and outside our atmosphere. This has been happening for 4.5 billion years. We call these external influences the causes of climate change. The great scientific challenge is to know and understand the principal causes of past and present climate change. This scientific knowledge forms the basis of effective climate policy.
Mitigation and adaptation
If climate change can be shown to be dangerous, and the principal causes can be controlled by humans, then climate policy will have to focus on eliminating those causes. This is known as mitigation policy. But if humans are powerless against the dominant causes, then climate policy will have to focus on adaptation, the adaptation policy.
The drama begins when, for ideological reasons and/or dubious scientific research, mitigation is chosen, when adaptation is the correct route.
A critical look at the mainstream climate research as it has been conducted in recent decades, as well as a look at the geological history of the earth over 4.5 billion years, indicates that we are now heading in the wrong direction with our climate policy. As a result, we will spend hundreds of billions on policies that deliver nothing and do a lot of damage. That is exactly what experience has shown for decades.
Serious science
It is good to first recall how serious scientists do work. Science starts with making reliable observations. Today, satellites can collect an unimaginable number of valuable measurements about the properties of the climate system, such as temperature, pressure, and humidity. These observations tell the story of climate change. Hence, analysing those measurements is the first big step. This analysis yields important empirical relationships, such as temperature as a function of space (x, y, z) and time (t). The analysis also reveals relationships between system properties, such as between temperature and humidity. These relationships are empirical because they are derived directly from measurements and involve no theoretical foundation.
Illustration 1: Over the centuries we have seen that people with new ideas, even if they were based on reliable observations, have been silenced. It is sad that this phenomenon is still flourishing in the 21st century.
Explaining Observations
Then the second scientific phase begins: provide a scientific explanation of why the observations are the way they are. This is done through the development of theories, in which computer models play an important role in modern times. If a computer model can reproduce all relevant observations – and therefore all empirical relationships – we are on the right track with the theory. If that is not the case, all that remains for the theory is the wastepaper basket.
This is a ruthless test. Precisely this tough approach has brought natural science to its current level in just a few hundred years, since the work of prominent scientists such as Galileo Galilei (see illustration 1). Selling a theory or model by selecting only observations that are convenient is scientifically a mortal sin. Changing measurements to ensure that those measurements match model results is scientific fraud. Universities should teach their students these basic principles of science.
Reliable observations
So, everything starts with making reliable observations. That’s no mean feat! Astronomy is a good example. What is happening in the Universe is so complex that only the very best telescopes can provide humans with reliable observations that will help us understand all the wonderful things that are happening in outer space. The successor to the Hubble telescope, the James Webb telescope, produces images that amaze us every day. These images enable man to reject old assumptions and bring existing models of the origin of the universe closer to the truth.
Temperature measurements
Back to Earth’s climate. Temperature measurements are of great importance in climate research. Simple, you would say, you stick weather stations with thermometers in the ground and archive the results in a spreadsheet every day. This has indeed been the case in the past, but the question is: ‘Are these results reliable and representative?’ If only that were true. Scientific professionalism is also needed when it comes to measuring.
First of all, the surface of the planet is 70% water, so you don’t place a weather station in the ground in the oceans. Also, in the past, measuring stations were scarce, and some parts of the earth were much better covered than others. Moreover, measuring stations that used to be in the middle of nowhere are now in the suburbs of large cities, or right next to a factory or an airport, due to increasing urbanization. Due to the so-called Urban Island Effect, these locations are far from ideal. It was only slightly more than forty years ago that satellite measurements made it possible to measure the temperature worldwide in a way that is much more consistent, reliable, and representative.
Climate models and satellite measurements
The climate models have been telling us for many decades that Earth is warming to alarmingly high temperatures and that the CO2 gas is the main culprit. UN chief António Guterres puts it this way: “We are on a highway to climate hell” if we don’t stop emitting the ‘evil’ CO2 gas. It is also popular to add to this statement that 97% of the scientists agree. However, is that story true?
Illustration 2: UN boss Antonio Guterres warns the global community, “We are on a highway to climate hell” if humans do not stop emitting the evil CO2-gas.
Nonsensical scenarios
Even worse, to reinforce that panicky message from UN chief Guterres, nonsensical scenarios are used that are impossible in practice. For example, the infamous RCP 8.5 scenario was put into the climate models (an extreme CO2 emission scenario) to scare people on a large scale. That scenario, which predicts a warming of more than 6°C by 2100, is still used today, while it is well known that these predictions are based on nonsensical assumptions.
CO2-contribution
And 100% of scientists also agree that more CO2 contributes to warming, but only a minority really thinks that human CO2 is the dominant cause of current warming. That, too, is borne out by hard facts. In the first place, in the history of the Earth’s climate (long before there were humans) we see that there were periods with high CO2-concentrations and low temperatures, as well as periods with low CO2-concentrations and high temperatures. So, there were other causes at play, which had a major impact on the Earth’s temperature.
Saturation effect
But even more interesting are the modern satellite measurements that show that with more CO2 emissions there is a saturation effect, as we so often see in nature. The more CO2, the less the effect on temperature. The linear behaviour in the climate models does not correspond to reality. This partly explains the panicky predictions made by these models. A word for the connoisseurs about this. Le Chatelier’s law states that nature always strives to counteract disturbances (‘negative feedback’). This law explains, for example, that in climate history, glacial and interglacial periods have always remained within certain temperature limits, regardless of the CO2-concentration in the atmosphere.
Illustration 3: Nobel Laureate Dr. John Clauser, signatory of the Clintel’s World Climate Declaration, puts it this way: “Truth has the property of being in accord with reality and good science means observing reality in nature and reporting it accurately with no thought to the consequences.”
Molecule of life
In that light, we would like to say a few extra words about CO2. Laboratory measurements indicate that more CO2 does have a warming effect, but those measurements also indicate that this warming is modest and nonlinear. So, there is therefore no, we repeat no scientific evidence whatsoever for all those AGW scare stories. Moreover, measurements also show that CO2 is the molecule of life for all nature on Earth. The more CO2, the greener Earth becomes and the higher agriculture productivity becomes. If we compare both CO2 properties, nonlinear warming, and agricultural productivity, then the extremely expensive and disruptive “net-zero” climate policy being pursued is scientifically, economically, and socially irresponsible.
Cause and effect
Finally, the question of cause and effect in complex systems is one of the most difficult problems in science. For instance, there are also scientific indications that the warming of oceans causes more CO2 to be released into the atmosphere (Henry’s Law). So not only humans, but also nature influences the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The complete story should be taught in all schools. Not just the well-known fear story, but the complete story should be told. Why are our children so one-sidedly informed about climate?
Cooperation
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us an overly simplistic and alarmist story about climate change. In that story, anthropogenic CO2 is pointed out as the main cause (‘Science is settled‘). The consequence of this rigid statement is that a rapid phasing out of the use of fossil fuels is required. However, technical and economic realities will not allow this.
Apart from the practical impossibility, there are the scientific arguments. We have shown above that there are many indications that there is much more going on than anthropogenic CO2 (‘The science is not settled at all‘). We still know far too little about Earth’s climate to claim that humans can control it.
An appeal is made to both climate science worlds, alarmists and realists, stop fighting each other, and jointly build up more scientific knowledge about how climate changes, and do it more quickly. Here, reliable measurements should guide us. It is the only way to get closer to the truth with climate models.
In part II we will argue that we should work together on the opportunities that climate change offers, both scientifically, technologically, and economically. Mind you, a completely different approach to climate policy also means a completely different approach to the energy transition. The benefits will be large for everyone.
If green activists truly worried about atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide, they would bring back plastic shopping bags tomorrow. But they wouldn’t – the whipped up plastic scare has been too useful a tool to batter people into accepting the relentless drive to embrace inferior products and technologies.
If green activists truly worried about atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide, they would bring back plastic shopping bags tomorrow. But they wouldn’t – the whipped up plastic scare has been too useful a tool to batter people into accepting the relentless drive to embrace inferior products and technologies. The acceptance of reduced lifestyle choices, and the unlimited chance for middle class activists to virtue signal, is part of the all-important collectivisation under the planned Net Zero project. But now a recent science paper has revealed that in 15 out of 16 applications of plastic covering 90% of global volume, the alternatives actually produced more greenhouse gases.
And not just more, but significantly more. Over their lifetime cycle, paper bag substitutes produce at least four times more GHG emissions than their plastic counterparts. Paper bags are noted to weigh significantly more than plastic carriers leading to higher GHG emissions for production and transportation.
Talk about an inconvenient conclusion. The scientists found that in the 15 applications covering the five key sectors of packaging, building and construction, automobiles, textiles and consumer durable, plastic products released 10% to 90% fewer emissions across the product life cycle. “Furthermore,” the scientists observe, “in some applications, such as food packaging, no suitable alternatives to plastics exist.”
If carbon dioxide is your thing, and, of course, it is the crucial part of the reason for pursuing insane Net Zero policies, plastic needs to make a big comeback. But of course it will not. Despite revolutionising modern industrial life, it has the misfortune to be a hydrocarbon. Most plastics are a by-product from natural oil and gas production. Thus plastic bad, anything else good. The same blinkered thinking justifies the mass slaughter of any flying animal that is caught up in wind turbines, and the industrialisation of the seas at the expense of aquatic life such as whales and dolphins. In Germany, the hypocritical greens have even been in favour of tearing down parts of the forest setting for the mythical Brothers Grimm fairy tales. And we must not get started on road and bridge chomping EV cars. These are a true ecological disaster zone with a manufacturing requirement to turn over vast tracts of the Earth’s crust, and a small problem of insufficient children available to mine all the required cobalt in the Congo.
Of course, much play is made of the harmful disposal of plastic, but this is largely a waste management problem. There are plenty of ways to prudently recycle or dispose of plastic safely, but they come with some financial cost. If rich countries don’t want their plastic to end up in the oceans, they shouldn’t send it to poor countries who, out of sight, dump it in local rivers on their behalf. The scientists note that better disposal of plastics is an urgent challenge given the “threats to biodiversity and ecosystem health worldwide”.
The key table in the paper is reproduced below. It shows that the GHG emission impact in switching from plastic shopping bags to paper, the next best alternative, is 80% higher. The other 15 switches are also detailed with a note of the mostly much higher GHG impacts. The detailed methods used to calculate the plastic versus non-plastic alternatives are laid out in the paper, which is written by three scientists with expertise in sustainability and chemical and biological engineering from Sheffield and Cambridge Universities.
In arriving at their results, the authors considered many indirect impacts such as fuel saving in lighter cars, lower energy consumption in houses insulated with polyurethane and reduced food spoilage when using plastic packaging instead of butcher paper. Many advantages for the use of plastics were identified. Insulating with polyurethane is better than the alternatives and therefore reduces heating fuel consumption, while plastic tanks cut vehicle weight and thus are more fuel efficient. Meanwhile it is said that there are few alternatives to plastics in food production due to high levels of spoilage when using the alternatives. It might be noted that milkshakes and paper straws give an obvious illustration of the problems in using inferior substitutes.
It is reasonable to ask where all the virtuous green solutions to a politically-claimed ‘climate emergency’ will take us. Almost everything that is being forced through, whether it be demonising plastic to blanketing the land and seas with giant wind turbines, makes little sense. They often cause more ecological harm than good, while the fudged finances backing many of the projects might shame Charles Ponzi. It is becoming obvious that modern industrial society will collapse if the Net Zero tyranny is ever enforced.
Extremist greens from George Monbiot to Sir David Attenborough seem only too aware of the many inconsistencies in making changes to any human activity that has an ‘impact’ on the planet. Best, it seems, to have no impact at all, perhaps not be on the planet in the first place. At the moment their views seem to be shared by many influential elites pressing ahead with any number of decadent plans to drive those less well-off than themselves into abject poverty and depravation.
In 1999, Monbiot said flying across the Atlantic, “is now as unacceptable as child abuse”. The rhetoric has hardly diminished over 25 years with Monbiot recently ramping up his doomsday prose to call for an end to animal farming. Eating meat, eggs and milk is an “indulgence” the planet cannot afford, he claimed. How this Guardianista weirdo expects humans to survive on what is often a hostile planet is anyone’s guess.
Perhaps there ought to be fewer people on the planet for a start. This seems to be the opinion of the supreme middle class embodiment of green virtue, Sir David Attenborough. Supporting the neo-Malthusian Optimum Population Trust, he said in 2009 that he hadn’t seen a problem that “wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people”. In 2013, he was reported to have observed that sending food to famine-ridden countries is “barmy”. Using the example of Ethiopia, he said the famine there was caused by “too many people for too little piece of land”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
You must be logged in to post a comment.