Day: September 18, 2024

“People, Planet, Peace”: Green Party 2024

The Green Party’s candidate Jill Stein is taking climate more seriously than Kamala Harris. In the Presidential debate, Harris did not dare pronounce the climate-change issue as an “existential threat” as done by her boss, Joe Biden. No mention of a domestic CO2 tax; border tariffs to prevent “leakage”; or global climate governance either. No reference to California, the leading climate state with gasoline prices 50 percent higher, electricity rates double, the national average. And Harris even bragged out the increase in domestic oil and gas production, even though this positive development occurred despite, and not because of, Biden-Harris policy.

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“A Jill Stein Administration will advance the ecosocialist Real Green New Deal that the Green Party made its signature issue in the 2010s.” (Green Party Platform, below)

The Green Party’s candidate Jill Stein is taking climate more seriously than Kamala Harris. In the Presidential debate, Harris did not dare pronounce the climate-change issue as an “existential threat” as done by her boss, Joe Biden. No mention of a domestic CO2 tax; border tariffs to prevent “leakage”; or global climate governance either. No reference to California, the leading climate state with gasoline prices 50 percent higher, electricity rates double, the national average. And Harris even bragged out the increase in domestic oil and gas production, even though this positive development occurred despite, and not because of, Biden-Harris policy.

As it was, the debate indicated that “Climate change is no longer a standalone issue in politics.” But to one candidate it is, giving a choice to climate activists a choice in the upcoming election. Back-peddling Harris or front-peddling Stein?

“Today we face a worsening global climate crisis that threatens the future of human life on Earth,” the Green Party platform reads. Continuing:

2023 was the hottest year on record. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred in the past decade. This accelerating global heating is wreaking havoc on ecosystems, leading to bigger and deadlier fires, floods, megastorms, droughts, and heat waves. Environmental and climate injustice are disproportionately harming Black, brown, low-income, and Indigenous communities across the country and around the world.

Yet despite this existential emergency, the last few years have seen massive expansions in fossil fuel planning, infrastructure and production, with 2023 breaking the record for US oil production. The Wall Street parties, funded by corporate polluters, are driving us over the climate cliff.

Continuing:

We all have a human right to a livable planet with a stable climate, healthy food, clean air and water, and living soil. We need a real Green New Deal to transition rapidly from an economic system that is destroying our only home to a sustainable society built around human needs and protecting life on Earth. We need to act now so that our children and future generations can not only survive, but thrive.

Take this with a bag of salt. The record warming year was not predicted by climate models nor explained by greenhouse gas physics. The abrupt change is explained by natural factors that mainstream scientists are listing and trying to figure out. The “control knob” of CO2 on global climate change has, once again, fallen into uncertainty. In fact, the control knob is natural variability for weather statistics that may or may not set records.

Here is the Green Party platform in detail, and “ecosocialism” it is.

The Real Green New Deal

A Jill Stein Administration will advance the ecosocialist Real Green New Deal that the Green Party made its signature issue in the 2010s. 

It is imperative to distinguish the Real Green New Deal from the nonbinding “Green New Deal” resolution proposed in recent years. For instance, the nonbinding “Green New Deal” does not call for a ban on fracking or a prohibition of new fossil fuel infrastructure. Moreover, the inadequacy of the nonbinding “Green New Deal” to address climate and ecological crisis is further demonstrated by the following:

  • Extends the timeline for zero emissions by 15-20 years to 2050 
  • Redefines zero emissions to “net zero” to enable the continued burning of fossil fuels with false climate solutions like carbon capture and sequestration and direct air capture
  • Replaces tenet of democratic public ownership and planning in the energy, transportation, manufacturing, and housing sectors with unreliable market-based incentives featuring public subsidies for private corporations
  • Does not stipulate the phase-out of nuclear power – a scam which is dirty, dangerous, unaffordable, uninsurable and has no solution to the problem of toxic nuclear waste
  • No mention of the need for deep cuts in military spending and operations to help pay for the Green New Deal and slash emissions in the process

In short, we need the economic democracy of an ecosocialist Real Green New Deal to plan and coordinate the complicated transition to 100% clean energy and zero emissions on the rapid timescale required to save our climate. An ecosocialist approach is also necessary to fairly compensate and center people – primarily, Black, Indigenous, and the poor, who were systematically excluded from the original New Deal – as well as redress the lasting impacts of profoundly racist policies that derived from it including, but not limited to, redlining – which acted as a catalyst for the legacy of environmental racism.  

Climate and Energy

  • Declare a climate emergency utilizing presidential powers associated with the National Emergencies Act, Defense Production Act, and the Stafford Act, and issue executive actions to expedite national and international climate action. This would release $650 billion per year to support the manufacture of renewable energy and clean transportation technology, jump-starting the Green New Deal by generating millions of good-paying union jobs that green the economy – while improving the health of workers, ecosystems and communities. It also enables the reinstatement of the crude oil export ban overturned in 2015, comparable to closing 42 coal plants. It also enables suspension of the operations of all offshore leases and reduces fossil fuel exports, imports and investments in overseas fossil fuel projects.
  • Create an Office of Climate Mobilization to coordinate policy changes and other needed interventions to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately achieve climate justice
  • Achieve 100% clean renewable energy and zero-to-negative carbon emissions by no later than 2035
  • Ensure all climate solutions are global in scope
  • Fund full climate reparations to developing nations as part of a Global Green New Deal
  • Reduce the size and budget of the military, as hyper-militarized foreign policy and military-dependent domestic economy are major contributors to the climate emergency, while also ensuring the military transitions to green energy
  • Codify and implement the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice and require all federal agencies to be trained in, and implement  the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing 
  • Ensure a Just Transition for workers shifting from the fossil fuel and other extractive and polluting industries to alternative work of their choosing
  • End all forms of subsidies to the fossil fuel industry
  • Prioritize disadvantaged and other environmental justice communities with 60 percent of green investments and climate justice projects
  • Take the energy industry into public ownership using a democratic federated structure, with municipal and regional utilities
  • Take all railroad systems into democratic public ownership, including freight, commuter, and high-speed rail
  • Build an electrified coast to coast high-speed rail and local Solutionary Rail
  • Provide clean baseload power using responsibly sourced energy storage technologies that capture renewable energy surpluses
  • Fully fund and strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior and superfund site cleanup
  • Support a Constitutional Green amendment to guarantee the right of all people to clean air, land, and water
  • Invest in renewable energy infrastructure across the nation, including wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, battery and energy storage, and green hydrogen for limited uses where appropriate
  • Build a nationwide, publicly-owned smart electricity grid
  • Ban all forms of fracking, mountaintop removal, tar sands mining, and new fossil fuel infrastructure
  • Establish a moratorium on funding, constructing, and operating false climate solutions including carbon capture and sequestration, carbon offsets, cap and trade, biofuels, hydrogen combustion, “renewable natural gas”, waste incineration, and other forms of geoengineering
  • Phase out nuclear power, a dirty, dangerous, expensive, and uninsurable unneeded technology, and ensure no new nuclear energy facilities are constructed
  • Incentivize circular economies and zero-waste manufacturing 
  • Invest in geothermal energy infrastructure
  • Prioritize energy efficiency and conservation, require new buildings to demonstrate zero emissions by 2035 and retrofit existing buildings as part of a larger plan to phase out all existing gas hookups
  • Subsidize installation of heat pumps to replace fossil fuels for heating and cooling
  • Expand and transform the American Climate Corps into a public agency that employs millions for ecosystem restoration, climate damage mitigation, and renewable energy development
  • Rescind toxic provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act including those that provide subsidies, direct payments, and other forms of financial assistance to the fossil fuel industry, and provisions to fast-track the Mountain Valley Pipeline
  • Rescind permits for the Line 3, Line 5, and Dakota Access Pipelines, and implement an immediate and permanent ban on all Liquefied Natural Gas exports and infrastructure projects
  • Establish a Federal commission to deliver justice for residents of Cancer Alley, including recompense for all residents impacted by decades of environmental racism
  • Address the crisis of contaminated water supplies with national efforts to remove lead, PFAS, and other toxins from our water

So will the Green Party figure in this year’s election? They are on the ballot (below) in most states with others expected to follow.

Wind turbines are a blight on Rhode Island

Even if only a small percentage of these turbines are damaged, with any one storm, what if the wear and tear of numerous noreasters and a cluster of storms in upcoming years like we would expect to return SIMPLY BECAUSE OF NATURE, NOT CO2, would lead to the destruction of the northeast beaches. Do you realize what it takes to clean up all the material from these things? Look at what has been going on with the one turbine that, even without a storm, has failed off Nantucket. Who knows the underwater damage already caused to marine life?

From CFACT

By Joe Bastardi

The recent typhoon in China shows exactly what can happen in the American northeast with wind turbines.

The amount of damage turbines may are already be causing to marine life ( you only see what is washing up on shore; what do you think is going on with the natural habitat below?) shows total disregard for the environment.

Rhode Islanders are proud of the way they have made their beaches and bays the envy of the Northeast. The Save the Bay project cleaned up Narragansett Bay. Well, that is in jeopardy now.

I am a native Rhode Islander whose late father ensured I knew every detail about every Rhode Island hurricane. Apparently, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is clueless on this matter. If he understood what can happen here with the history of Cat 2,3 and borderline 4 hurricanes over the years, 1938,1944,1954,1960,1985,1991 that have come through the coastal waters of the northeast, combined with the wear and tear of many noreasters, he would change his position on energy.  Do you think for one second that the people running China care about what happens when their so-called storm proof wind turbines go down? Why would they put them up in a place that gets hit by typhoons? Because they don’t give a damn. Neither does Whitehouse.

Whitehouse wrongly claims that New England hurricanes are getting worse.  New England, however, has actually been in a hurricane drought since 1991. If hurricanes are supposedly growing worse, and you understand that hurricanes can tear up turbines, why would you support them?  Because you don’t care about the people of the state. Can you imagine what the hurricanes illustrated below would do to the wind turbine fields off the northeast coast?

Look at this track

Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in 1938

How about 1944

Category 4 Atlantic hurricane in 1944

Carol 1954. Cat 3

Edna, 11 days later

Donna 1960

Gerda, in 1969, went right through The Nantucker turbine fields.

Belle, though weakened, would have had an impact.

Gloria

Bob

Even if only a small percentage of these turbines are damaged, with any one storm, what if the wear and tear of numerous noreasters and a cluster of storms in upcoming years like we would expect to return SIMPLY BECAUSE OF NATURE, NOT CO2, would lead to the destruction of the northeast beaches. Do you realize what it takes to clean up all the material from these things? Look at what has been going on with the one turbine that, even without a storm, has failed off Nantucket. Who knows the underwater damage already caused to marine life?

What kind of hypocrisy is it when elected officials tell people hurricanes will be worse than ever, then advocate erecting vulnerable turbines in their path?

What’s even more insulting is that they apparently lack knowledge or appreciation of what has happened before. Given what we just saw in China, and with the recent turbine failure off the East Coast this year, I think people had best wake up.

The Biggest Little State in the Union has the chance to lead the way to responsible energy policy.

Why Are Renewable Equipment Companies Such Poor Investments?

Headlines promote renewable energy equipment companies as part of efforts to transition to Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Wind and solar system providers, electric vehicle manufacturers, green hydrogen producers, and other green equipment firms form a growing share of world industry. But renewable equipment firms suffer poor market returns, so investors should beware.

From Watts Up With That?

By Steve Goreham

Originally published in RealClear Energy.

Headlines promote renewable energy equipment companies as part of efforts to transition to Net Zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Wind and solar system providers, electric vehicle manufacturers, green hydrogen producers, and other green equipment firms form a growing share of world industry. But renewable equipment firms suffer poor market returns, so investors should beware.

The Renewable Energy Industrial Index (RENIXX) is a global stock index of the 30 largest renewable energy industrial companies in the world by stock market capitalization. Current RENIXX companies include Enphase Energy, First Solar, Orsted, Plug Power, Tesla, and Vestas.

IWR of Germany established the RENIXX on May 1, 2006, with an initial value of 1,000 points. This month, the RENIXX stood at 1,013 points, essentially zero value growth over the last 18 years. In comparison, the S&P 500 Index more than quadrupled over the same period. The RENIXX is down three years in a row from 2021, losing about half its value.

Wind turbine manufacturers faced serious financial challenges over the last three years, even with rising sales. Rising costs, high interest rates, and project delays continue to impact the profitability of wind projects and equipment suppliers. The stock of Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest supplier, rose only 7% over the last 16 years, and its stock price has fallen 58% from a high in 2021. Vestas struggled to make a profit in 2022 and 2023 and suspended dividends to shareholders.

Other major wind suppliers have also been poor investments for shareholders. The stock of Siemens Gamesa, the number two turbine maker, is down 65 percent since a peak in 2021. Gamesa reported a loss of €4.4 billion in 2023 and received a €7.5 billion bailout from the German government that same year. Other top wind suppliers suffered major stock price declines since 2021, including Goldwind of China (down 77%) and Nordex of Germany (-36%).

Eighty percent of the world’s solar panels are manufactured in China and the top six suppliers reside in China. The solar panel industry is beset by overcapacity and severe competition. Stock prices of the top seven suppliers have all declined by more than 50 percent since 2021. The stock of US firm First Solar has risen since 2021 but remains below its all-time high price reached in 2008.

Tesla, which was founded in 2003, remained the only pure-play, publicly traded EV stock until 2018. By the end of 2021, Tesla’s value had soared to over $1 Trillion, boasting a market value more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Ford, BMW, and Honda combined. But Tesla is the exception.

But in most cases, electric vehicle (EV) companies have been very poor investments. Between 2020 and 2024, 31 EV companies went public on US stock exchanges. Only one of these 31 companies, the Chinese firm Li Auto, saw its price rise since the initial public offering (IPO). Thirty EV firms saw their stock prices fall, most precipitously.

EV company price declines from the IPO price include Fisker (-99%), Nikola (-94%), NIO (-50%), Lucid Group (-75%), and Rivian (-88%). Six others of the 31 companies went bankrupt. Tesla and Chinese firms BYD and Li Auto are the only EV firms profitable today.

ChargePoint is the world’s largest dedicated EV charger company (behind EV manufacturer Tesla), with over 25,000 charging stations in the US and Canada. ChargePoint went public in 2021 by merging with Switchback Energy Acquisition Corporation, valued at $2.4 billion. The firm’s value today is about $585 million, down 76% since 2021.  For fiscal year 2024, ChargePoint lost $458 million on revenue of $507 million.

It’s not clear that any charging company can make money. High-speed, 50-kilowatt EV chargers cost about five times as much as traditional gasoline pumps. Eighty percent of EV charging is done at home, reducing the demand for public charging. ChargePoint, EVgo, Wallbox, Allego, and Blink Charging are all valued today at small fractions of their original IPO price. No EV charger firm is profitable, even after continuing to receive large government subsidies.

Plug Power is a leading supplier of hydrogen energy systems, including battery-cells for hydrogen vehicles and electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen fuel. Founded in 1997, the company went public in October 1999 at a split-adjusted price of about $160 per share.

But during its 27-year history, Plug Power has never turned a profit. According to financial reports, the firm lost $1.45 billion in 2024, up from a loss of $43.8 million in 2018. Its current stock price is under two dollars per share.

Traditional established firms are finding that renewable equipment can be poor business. In 2023, Ford lost $4.7 billion on sales of 116,000 electric vehicles, or over $40,000 per vehicle. General Electric’s wind turbine business lost $1.1 billion in 2023.

The US federal government provided subsidies to renewable equipment companies of between $7 billion and $16 billion per year between 2010 and 2022. But the Cato Institute estimates that because of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, subsidies will skyrocket to about $80 billion in fiscal year 2025.

Without the fear of human-caused climate change and a rising level of government subsidies and mandates, many of these green companies would not exist. It’s doubtful that carbon dioxide pipelines, heavy electric trucks, offshore wind systems, green hydrogen fuel equipment, and EV charging stations would be viable businesses in unsubsidized capital markets.

During this last year, leading financial firms pulled back on their climate change pledges. Bank of America, JP Morgan, State Street, and Pimco withdrew from Climate Action 100+, which seeks to force companies and investment funds to address climate issues and adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies. But it’s difficult to invest in renewable equipment companies when they are losing money.

Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and author of the bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure.

New Study: 21st Century Megadrought In The SW USA Caused By 45 Years Of East/Central Pacific Cooling

Climate models failed to simulate the observed 1970-2014 Pacific Ocean cooling. The 21st century southwestern US megadrought has been linked to this cooling, which “may have been caused by a forced response to greenhouse gas emissions.”

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard

Climate models failed to simulate the observed 1970-2014 Pacific Ocean cooling. The 21st century southwestern US megadrought has been linked to this cooling, which “may have been caused by a forced response to greenhouse gas emissions.”

A new study provides a fresh look at the circular, self-contradictory reasoning that proponents of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) narrative routinely employ.

The authors acknowledge that the Central and East Pacific region has been cooling since 1970, and that climate models failed to simulate this cooling. The modeling failure stems from the assumption that rising greenhouse gas emissions lead to warming, not over four decades of cooling.

“While AO-GCMs [climate models] predicted a warming SST trend in the Central and East Pacific, the region instead experienced a cooling SST trend from 1970 to 2014…”

After insisting that “internal atmospheric variability has a larger role than SST forcing in explaining SWUS [Southwestern United States] precipitation variance,” and that “most historical droughts are unrelated to SST [sea surface temperature] forcing,” the authors nonetheless pivot, explaining that only during recent decades is the SWUS megadrought causally linked to SST forcing.

“In this study, we confirmed the connection between the Equatorial Pacific SST trend pattern and SWUS precipitation trends with Green’s function approach, which allows us to establish a causal link between SST and precipitation.”

But the SST forcing that suddenly explains recent SWUS drought trends (after not explaining these trends historically) is not the sign expected with rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. No, drought has not been caused by warmer SSTs, but cooler SSTs. They say warmer SSTs will lead to a wetter climate, or less drought.

“…a cooling SST trend from 1970 to 2014…which potentially led to the observed megadrought in the SWUS due to a decrease in precipitation.”

“If the Central and East Pacific continue cooling, a prolonged period of drought is more likely to continue in the SWUS.”

However, in the future, warmer East and Central Pacific SSTs due to rising GHGs are expected (according to modeling) to cause less precipitation, or more SWUS drought. So over 40 years of cooling explains drought now, but sometime in the future warming will explain drought…even though neither warming or cooling SSTs explained SWUS drought historically.

“At least part of the megadrought was related to a lack of precipitation from the cooling Central and East Pacific, rather than due to a significant increase in evapotranspiration from global warming, which will likely cause droughts in the future as anthropogenic climate change worsens.”

But it’s worse than we thought. The authors assert the cooling SSTs causally linked to the 1970s-to-present SWUS megadrought – but that may not be the cause of drought in the future – may be explained by – yes, indeed – rising GHG concentrations. GHG forcing leads to warming SSTs – which, again, may not cause drought now, but may in the future. And yet the recent decades of cooling SSTs may be a response to the rising GHGs too. Rising GHG concentrations may simultaneously cause warming SSTs and cooling SSTs.

“The cooling of the Central and East Pacific not simulated by AO-GCMs [climate models] may have been caused by a forced response to greenhouse gas emissions.”

So let’s review what the authors found with a “Plain Language Summary” of own.

Until recent decades, internal atmospheric variability explained historical trends in drought. Warming or cooling SST trends did not. Then, in recent decades, a cooling SST trend (1970-2014) has been “confirmed” as the causal link to the SWUS megadrought. In the future, however, warming SSTs may cause SWUS megadrought. And both the warming and cooling trends in the SWUS are (and have been) caused by the same mechanism: rising GHGs.

It would appear the modern version of what constitutes peer-reviewed “climate science” has devolved into something resembling more of a creative writing exercise than actual science.

Image Source: Alessi and Rugenstein, 2024

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

,Geophysical Research Letters – 2024 – Alessi – Potential Near‐Term Wetting of the Southwestern United States if the EasternHerunterladen

Green Lawfare Is Destroying British Jobs

Last week, the U.K. took two new plunges towards purging its industrial wealth-creating capacity. On Thursday, Petroineos confirmed its plans to close the Grangemouth oil refinery. Then, on Friday, and after years of wrangling, the High Court ruled that the Whitehaven coal mine could not go ahead. The latter is more than mere negligence from the Net Zero fanatics running the country, who seem more interested in wind farms and clubbing in Ibiza than oil refineries; this is another expression of green spite.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Ben Pile

Last week, the U.K. took two new plunges towards purging its industrial wealth-creating capacity. On Thursday, Petroineos confirmed its plans to close the Grangemouth oil refinery. Then, on Friday, and after years of wrangling, the High Court ruled that the Whitehaven coal mine could not go ahead. The latter is more than mere negligence from the Net Zero fanatics running the country, who seem more interested in wind farms and clubbing in Ibiza than oil refineries; this is another expression of green spite.

The Whitehaven coal mine project has long been the subject of green lawfare. The hearing ultimately reached a conclusion because the new Government, in the form of Angela Rayner, decided not to continue the previous Government’s commitment to the project. Though the project to produce coal for steel production has support in an area that has a need for the jobs, has willing private investors backing it, has a domestic and international market, and had, most controversially, government backing, it was Green Blob funding of opposition organisations and legal challenges to planning decisions that took control away from democratically elected politicians in a series of hearings. The plan was incompatible with the Climate Change Act 2008 (CCA), found the judge, Justice Holgate, according to the Guardian. This echoes the point made by Peter Lilley when the legislation was being debated in Parliament (such as it was), that “the sole effect of enshrining the targets in statute will be that the Government’s policies will be open to judicial review”. 

“The idea that judges should decide on policies costing billions of pounds, without being accountable to the electorate for the billions that they might decide need to be incurred, fills me with foreboding,” said Lilley. 

But Blob-funded lawfare is now only half the story. The other half is now economic strangulation.

Petroineos’s announcement cites the U.K.’s projected falling demand for fossil fuels, the high cost of energy in the U.K. compared with overseas and more modern plants as reasons for the closure. Scottish secretary Ian Murray told STV that the decision had nothing to do with Net Zero. But this seems unlikely, given Petroineos’s CEO Frank Damey also told STV that “the energy transition is happening now and it is happening here”, and that “with a ban on new petrol and diesel cars due to come into force within the next decade, we foresee that the market for those fuels will shrink further”. This reflects earlier comments from Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe that the U.K. and European chemical manufacturing sector had been destroyed by high energy prices. 

Ed Miliband, meanwhile, shared his crocodile tears on Twitter, claiming “It is deeply disappointing that Petroineos have confirmed their previous decision to close Grangemouth oil refinery”. But he has been clear that Labour intends to destroy the North Sea oil and gas industry through punitive taxation and a pledge to grant no new licences for exploration. This hostility to oil and gas production has obvious consequences for sites such as Grangemouth, but may end up causing an even greater blow to British industry. Whereas the loss of the refinery causes 400 job losses, there are fears about the risk to 200,000 jobs in the sector caused by the Government’s eco-virtue-signalling – and from an unexpected source. On Monday, the BBC reported that the TUC, Unite and the GMB had all voiced concerns, although some unions reportedly claimed that “there are no jobs on a dead planet”. 

This absurdly histrionic and wholly vapid rejoinder to concerns about jobs, industry and the economy highlights the broader Labour movement’s metamorphosis from representing the industrial working class to performative middle-class public-sector virtue-signalling. And it likely signals extremely serious tensions within the Labour movement caused by the Net Zero policy that have not been visible before now. As Unite’s executive council member Cliff Bowen told the BBC, the green agenda has been advanced with “false promises of green jobs which never seem to materialise”. 

These problems are to be mitigated in Grangemouth with a £100 million Government grant. And similar negotiations are taking place in Port Talbot about a £500 million subsidy, conditional on £750 million of investment from Tata. But on a per-job basis, such subsidies are poor value: £250,000 and £200,000 per job in Grangemouth and Port Talbot respectively. No government is able to sustain that level of palliative care for the industries that Miliband is manifestly intent on euthanising. At such rates, supporting the oil and gas sector would cost in the order of £50 billion. The soft-handed, soft-headed faction of the Labour Party would find itself on the wrong side of industrial disputes, without a Conservative government, or a Thatcher, to blame. 

Such tensions cannot be resolved with soundbites along the lines of “there are no jobs on a dead planet” because unemployment is a more real, more immediate and worse problem than climate change  (aka slightly different weather). And Bowen’s warning about false promises of “green jobs” should cause deeper reflection on the consequences of unchecked green ideology crashing through Britain’s economy. Notice that whereas Lilley’s predictions have come true, the promises of “green jobs” (and “green growth” and “green industrial revolution”) that were made by the proponents of the Climate Change Act have not materialised and are not legally enforceable.

The green agenda has been sold to us on a false prospectus. As I pointed out last week, the viciousness with which it has been advanced has been epitomised by its abandoning pensioners to the winter cold. Can we take Ed Miliband’s claim, made in the wake of the Grangemouth news, that “this is a Government that stands with workers, trade unions, and businesses to fight for jobs and investment”, seriously? Even if he meant it, does he or the Labour Government have a clue about how to reconcile the manifest contradictions between commitments to green ideology and the interests of working people? Given that Miliband and his cronies lack any obvious capacity for thought, I very much doubt it. 

2024 Arctic Ice Beats 2007 by Half a Wadham

Why is this important?  All the claims of global climate emergency depend on dangerously higher temperatures, lower sea ice, and rising sea levels.  The lack of additional warming prior to 2023 El Nino is documented in a post UAH June 2024: Oceans Lead Cool Down.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

The graph above shows September daily ice extents for 2024 compared to 18 year averages, and some years of note. Day 260 has been the lowest daily ice extent on average for the last 18 years.

The black line shows on average Arctic ice extents during September decline 358k km2 down to 4.5M Km2 by day 260. The average increase from now on is 490k km2 up to 5.0M km2 end of September.  2024  tracked a little lower than the 18-year average in the second week reaching a low of 4.49M km2 on day 255, before going above average on day 260. 

SII was reporting deficits as high as 0.5M km2 (half a Wadham) compared to  MASIE early in September.  For some reason, that dataset has not been updated for the last five days.  2023 bottomed out at 4.1M while 2007 daily minimum hit 4.0M, ended ~ 0.5M km2 in deficit to average and 535k km2 less than MASIE on day 260.  2020 ice on day 260 was ~740k km2 in deficit to average.

Why is this important?  All the claims of global climate emergency depend on dangerously higher temperatures, lower sea ice, and rising sea levels.  The lack of additional warming prior to 2023 El Nino is documented in a post UAH June 2024: Oceans Lead Cool Down.

The lack of acceleration in sea levels along coastlines has been discussed also.  See Observed vs. Imagined Sea Levels 2023 Update.

Also, a longer term perspective is informative:

The table below shows the distribution of Sea Ice on day 260 across the Arctic Regions, on average, this year and 2007. At this point in the year, Bering and Okhotsk seas are open water and thus dropped from the table.

Region2024260Day 260 ave2024-Ave.20072602024-2007
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere45813274524401569264045776535551
 (1) Beaufort_Sea304967491931-186963481384-176416
 (2) Chukchi_Sea36045616736119309522527337929
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea353456252958100498311353145
 (4) Laptev_Sea16079213557425218235869-75076
 (5) Kara_Sea031612-3161244067-44067
 (6) Barents_Sea014610-146107420-7420
 (7) Greenland_Sea165965191196-25230333181-167216
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence5312629745233812670326423
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago228869274428-455592255263344
 (10) Hudson_Bay16924595-29032270-578
 (11) Central_Arctic29508612929452214092665243.87285617

The overall surplus to average is 57k km2, (1.3%).  The major deficit is in Beaufort, offset by large surpluses in Chukchi and East Siberian seas. 

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring ice and snow extents.

Diving the North Wall, Myrmidon Reef, Part 4. Inaugural Megafauna Expedition, September 2024

Before the Megafauna Expedition they had never dived together, now they were a team: our ‘North Wall’ team; tasked with bringing back information about a location that had perhaps never been scuba dived before.*

From Jennifer Marohasy

By jennifer

Diving the North Wall, Myrmidon Reef, Part 4. Inaugural Megafauna Expedition, September 2024 

September 17, 2024 By jennifer 1 Comment

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I am yet to dive the North Wall at Myrmidon.  As part of the team onboard the MV Sea Esta I was deck hand on Friday, 6th September 2024.  I was holding Laura Boderke’s underwater camera, as she waited.  Leaning backwards from a rail at the back of the boat, waiting for First Mate Robert to yell the instruction, ‘Go. Go. Go’.  As the Skipper cut the engine, I passed the camera across and Laura simultaneously fell backwards into the big swell – into the South Pacific Ocean, on the outside edge of Myrmidon Reef that is beyond the Great Barrier Reef proper.

Down. Down. Down they went – Laura, with her scuba buddy Sebastian Falk, and also, another and more experienced diver and photographer, Stuart Ireland, with his scuba buddy David Armstrong.  There were four of them, leaning backwards from the same platform at the stern of the boat, falling together, as one, backwards into the swell and then turning, together as one, before kicking down and disappearing from our sight – under the waves.

Before the Megafauna Expedition they had never dived together, now they were a team: our ‘North Wall’ team; tasked with bringing back information about a location that had perhaps never been scuba dived before.*

So much thanks to Stuart for all these photographs – so we can know something of what they saw underwater and how the North Wall at Myrmidon Reef is for this moment in time.

Stuart Ireland is a truly awesome underwater photographer and cinematographer.  And as greedy as a boy in a sweet shop with a mouth full of jelly snakes he has posted so many of these magnificent photographs across at his Facebook page, ‘tis here: https://www.facebook.com/stuireland

Meanwhile I would like to organise an exhibition of the best photographs from our four days at sea – from the inaugural Megafauna Expedition to the still magnificent Great Barrier Reef.   It was not all steep walls of little corals in soft colours.  There are the monster corals – the single colonies of the giant golden Porites spp. in the back lagoon at Myrmidon with some more than three metres across; and of course, the clams saved by the Royal Australian Navy thirty years ago and now all grown up; and I am yet to show a photograph or write a single line about the Yongala as a dive site – where five of the nine winning photographs in the expedition’s photographic competition were taken and 122 people perished more than 100 years ago.

And there will be a documentary.

Charter of the MV Sea Esta was made possible by Sydney-based philanthropist Simon Fenwick.  Special thanks to owner of Adrenalin Dive and skipper of the MV Sea Esta, Paul Crocombe.   Next time it will be Simon, Paul and me diving the North Wall.

Stuart captured in a photograph by Laura, blowing bubbles, as Dave and Seb safety stop.

* Sure the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) do their manta tows with someone on snorkel making a subjective judgement.   Considering their record of 75-100% coral cover for this location, from their most recent survey, they have seen these corals albeit from a distance.  But there are no photographs, and nothing that could be considered of historical value as a useful record of the corals at this location even for that moment in time.  Meanwhile the director of AIMS, Paul Hardisty, has just published a book about how he is going to ‘save the Great Barrier Reef’ that is in terminal decline.   It is a long book, yet there is only one underwater photograph of him.  He is on snorkel at John Brewer Reef and even here he confused cyclone damage with bleaching.   His disregard, and the disregard more generally by AIM, for the reality of how it is underwater and the existence of natural climate cycles, while taking so much money from the Australian tax payer needs interrogation.   It is a disgrace.

Electric Car Values in Free Fall as Second-Hand Prices Halve in Two Years

Electric vehicles are losing value at an “unsustainable” rate as a slowdown in consumer demand causes used car prices to halve in two years, leasing companies have warned. 

From The Daily Sceptic

by Will Jones

Electric vehicles are losing value at an “unsustainable” rate as a slowdown in consumer demand causes used car prices to halve in two years, leasing companies have warned. The Telegraph has the story.

The British Vehicle Rental & Leasing Association (BVRLA) warned that so-called fleet operators, such as car leasing firms and rental companies, are having to swallow large losses when reselling EVs because of “accelerated, exceptional depreciation”. 

In most cases, these companies buy new cars and own them for three years before selling them. 

Consumers who lease cars during these three-year periods effectively cover the value of losses through monthly payments, which are calculated based on estimates of how much a vehicle is expected to depreciate.

But in the past two years, the typical amount of  “residual value” left over at the end of a car’s lease has plunged from 60% to 35%, the BVRLA said. 

This means a car worth £50,000 when new will now drop to £17,500 in value over three years, instead of £30,000. 

This leaves leasing companies facing unexpected losses.

Gerry Keaney, Chief Executive of the BVRLA, has warned the trend is “not sustainable”.

Speaking at an event in Parliament on Tuesday, he said: “The reality is that EV residual values in the last two years have dropped by 50%. 

“That is the evidence of the accelerated depreciation write-off that we’ve seen. And again, when we look forward two years, the rate of used EVs coming back to the market is about to double.”

Worth reading in full.

GROANER of the Week: Climate change-triggered landslide unleashes a 650-foot mega-tsunami

From the “anything and everything is caused by climate change” department comes this groaner of a press release from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

From Watts Up With That?

By Anthony Watts

From the “anything and everything is caused by climate change” department comes this groaner of a press release from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Some points:

1. Glaciers, melt, calve, and make local tsunamis. It’s what they do and have been doing for millennia. Same for rockslides. Nothing new here. No climate change needed.
2. Seismic waves from glacier calving are nothing new, in fact in Antarctic they happen “all the time” according to the University of Leeds. At best, this is a novelty because the signal lasted nine days.
3. The “mega-Tsunami” and seiche (with continued seismic waves) only occurred because the narrow fiord meant the kinetic energy had no place to go. If it were calving to the open ocean, it would have just been another normal blip on the seismic radar and likely not noticed at all.
4. Reading the press release, it is easy to spot where the story has been embellished to make it more drama and less science. Sheesh.
5. The IPCC says there’s no connection between landslides and climate change at all saying in their most recent scientific assessment that they could not find any emerging signal linking climate change to landslides, nor do they anticipate any emergence in the future.

Below is Table 12.12 from  Page 90 – Chapter 12 of the UN IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Emergence of Climate Impact Drivers (CIDs) in time periods. The color corresponds to the confidence of the region with the highest confidence: white colors indicate where evidence of a climate change signal is lacking or the signal is not present, leading to overall low confidence of an emerging signal.

Have a look at the before (left) and after (right) photos below provided in the press release.

This affects nobody. Just another doom-mongering headline grabber for the ignorant press. The only thing true in the press release is the detection of the seismic ringing signal for nine days. The remainder is pure speculation.

Climate change-triggered landslide unleashes a 650-foot mega-tsunami

Wave created a seismic signal that lasted for nine days Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of California – San Diego

image: ‘Before’ image of landslide site taken on Aug. 12, 2023 view more Credit: Søren Rysgaard

In September 2023, scientists around the world detected a mysterious seismic signal that lasted for nine straight days. An international team of scientists, including seismologists Alice Gabriel and Carl Ebeling of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography came together to solve the mystery.

A new study published today in Science provides the stunning solution: In an East Greenland fjord, a mountaintop collapsed into the sea and triggered a mega-tsunami about 200 meters (650 feet) tall. The giant wave rocked back and forth inside the narrow fjord for nine days, generating the seismic waves that reverberated through Earth’s crust, baffling scientists around the world. This rhythmic sloshing is a phenomenon known as a seiche. Fortunately, no people were hurt, but the waves destroyed some $200,000 in infrastructure at an unoccupied research station on Ella Island.

“When we set out on this scientific adventure, everybody was puzzled and no one had the faintest idea what caused this signal,” said Kristian Svennevig, a geologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) and the study’s lead author. “All we knew was that it was somehow associated with the landslide. We only managed to solve this enigma through a huge interdisciplinary and international effort.”

Climate change set the stage for the landslide by melting the glacier at the base of the mountain, destabilizing the more than 25 million cubic meters (33 million cubic yards) of rock and ice – enough to fill 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools – that ultimately crashed into the sea. As climate change continues to melt Earth’s polar regions it could lead to an increase in large, destructive landslides such as this one.

“Climate change is shifting what is typical on Earth, and it can set unusual events into motion,” said Gabriel, whose work on this study was supported by the European Research Council, Horizon Europe, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA.

When seismic monitoring networks first detected this signal in September 2023, it was puzzling for two main reasons. First, the signal looked nothing like the busy squiggle that earthquakes produce on seismographs. Instead, it oscillated with a 92-second-interval between its peaks, too slow for humans to perceive. Second, the signal stayed strong for days on end, where more common seismic events weaken more rapidly.

The global community of Earth scientists started buzzing with online discussion of what could be causing the strange seismic waves. The discussion turned up reports of a huge landslide in a remote Greenland fjord that occurred on Sept. 16, around the time the seismic signal was first detected.

To figure out if and how these two phenomena might be connected, the team, led by Kristian Svennevig of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, combined seismic recordings from around the world, field measurements, satellite imagery and computer simulations to reconstruct the extraordinary events.

The team, comprised of 68 scientists from 41 research institutions, analyzed satellite and on-the-ground imagery to document the enormous volume of rock and ice in the landslide that triggered the tsunami. They also analyzed the seismic waves to model the dynamics and trajectory of the rock-ice avalanche as it moved down the glacial gully and into the fjord.

To understand the tsunami and resulting seiche, the researchers used supercomputers to create high-resolution simulations of the events.

“It was a big challenge to do an accurate computer simulation of such a long-lasting, sloshing tsunami,” said Gabriel.

Ultimately, these simulations were able to closely match the real-world tsunami’s height as well as the long-lasting seiche’s slow oscillations.

By integrating these diverse data sources, the researchers determined that the nine-day seismic signal was caused by the massive landslide and resulting seiche within Greenland’s Dickson Fjord.

“It was exciting to be working on such a puzzling problem with an interdisciplinary and international team of scientists,” said Robert Anthony, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards program and co-author of the study. “Ultimately, it took a plethora of geophysical observations and numerical modeling from researchers across many countries to put the puzzle together and get a complete picture of what had occurred.”

The study’s findings demonstrate the complex, cascading hazards posed by climate change in polar regions. While no people were in the area when the landslide and mega-tsunami occurred, the fjord is close to a route commonly used by cruise ships, highlighting the need to monitor polar regions as climate change accelerates. For example, a landslide in western Greenland’s Karrat Fjord in 2017 triggered a tsunami that flooded the village of Nuugaatsiaq, destroying 11 houses and killing four people.

Gabriel said the results could also inspire researchers to comb back through the seismic record to look for similar events now that scientists know what to look for. Finding more seiches could help more clearly define the conditions that give rise to the phenomenon.

“This shows there is stuff out there that we still don’t understand and haven’t seen before,” said Ebeling, who co-authored the study with support from NSF and helped manage a network of seismic sensors that detected the seiche’s vibrations. “The essence of science is trying to answer a question we don’t know the answer to – that’s why this was so exciting to work on.” 

Journal: Science, DOI 10.1126/science.adm9247

Such is the aura: Citizen Trump stymies the UN climate talks without even trying

The annual UN junket-fest for climate troughers — called COP 29 — starts the week after the US election. But this year things are running behind schedule as countries sit on their hands.

The oceans are boiling, the clock of doom is five seconds from midnight, and “renewables are cheap”, but if the largest economy in the world loses enthusiasm, so does everyone else. For some reason, the same cannot be said about the second, fourth and fifth largest economies.

From JoNova

By Jo Nova

The whole world is waiting to see who wins the US Election

The annual UN junket-fest for climate troughers  — called COP 29 — starts the week after the US election. But this year things are running behind schedule as countries sit on their hands.

The oceans are boiling, the clock of doom is five seconds from midnight, and “renewables are cheap”, but if the largest economy in the world loses enthusiasm, so does everyone else. For some reason, the same cannot be said about the second, fourth and fifth largest economies.

No wonder they are so afraid of him.

Trump stalks global climate talks as COP29 draws near

By Nick Perry, The Japan Times

Paris – The prospect of Donald Trump returning as president is hanging over crucial U.N.-sponsored climate negotiations, with countries “holding back” their positions until they know who sits in the White House.

This year’s negotiations hope to increase money for poorer countries to handle climate change, but some governments have not proposed a concrete dollar figure, wary of committing too soon.

“Everybody is holding back until they know who gets elected,” said Mohamed Adow, a campaigner and head of research group Power Shift Africa.

Unlike most years, it’s two month ahead and the money is not on the table. The wheeling and dealing is not being done:

The months of lead-up sessions to COP29, which is being hosted this year in Azerbaijan, have been painfully slow even by the plodding standards of global climate diplomacy, participants say.

With just two months to go, there still isn’t an agreed definition of “climate finance” let alone how much should be paid, which countries should receive it and how, and who should be on the hook for it.

Some developing countries are demanding north of $1 trillion annually, a 10-fold increase on existing pledges.

If elected, Trump could slash funding for the climate and Ukraine, leaving the EU — which saw swings to the right in elections this year — footing the bill.

The EU are not so much worried that they might have to “foot the bill” — what scares them is that an unleashed United States will outcompete their own sabotaged economies, making them look like losers.  That will feed discontent and the rise of horrid far righty parties. (Those extremists that think men are men and fish don’t need wind turbines.)

We can take a tiny spec of comfort in this. It doesn’t mean Trump will win, but it means the Galactic Deep State Blob are still worried that he might. Democracy is not completely dead (yet).

Greg Sheridan explains the Australian situation, but it is the same in any Climate Patsy Land:

Why a Donald Trump White House spells disaster for Albanese [our Labor PM]

if Trump wins, suddenly Albanese’s energy policy will look even more unrealistic, and needlessly costly, than it does now. As it is, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, China, is increasing its fossil fuel use and not significantly reducing emissions. This is true, too, of fast-growing emitters such as India and Indonesia.

If the US at the level of national government turns against the climate action consensus, it will be extremely hard to argue that Australia must suffer vastly greater energy prices in order to keep faith with the allegedly global compact on climate change (which of course is not remotely global).

Just by running for office, Donald Trump is putting the brakes on some of the more flagrant climate payola, at least temporarily.   The Swamp Monsters don’t want to look too profligate lest he win, because when the brains, the factories and the profits all leave for The Land of The Free, it will make their own positions look so ridiculous.

___________________

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/#

PS: Aurora Watch Active –– The Sun let off a large X4.5 flare on Sept 12th which is due to arrive in the next few hours, but the best guess (plus or minus a lot) is 21:00 UTC, which is 7am this morning in Sydney (so no good) and 5am in Perth and 5pm in New York. Hopefully friends in Europe get a nice show, or if it’s later, America too. It is being discussed on SpaceWeatherLive. To get an email or alarm when it arrives, sign up for The Glendale App. Otherwise, keep checking the App screen, EPAM (Low energy Electrons and protons Monitor) or magnetometers for the earliest warnings, which will come from satellites about 1.5 million kilometres away. At best we only get 45 mins to one hour of warning. It’s not much time to drive to a dark park on a hill facing south, or to move the moon out of the way.

Frankly it’s a bit of a scandal we haven’t got any space-drones closer to the sun so we get a few hours planning time. Priorities!

Perhaps someone could ask Elon?