Day: October 2, 2024

Physicists: Non-Greenhouse Gases (O2 and N2) Are Mainly Responsible For The 33°C Greenhouse Effect

Chemical physicists Helmut Ullmann and Martin Bülow have published a new paper detailing the lack of meaningful or noticeable “specialness” that trace greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2, 0.042% of the atmosphere) and methane (CH4, 0.00018%) possess in determining Earth’s greenhouse effect heating.

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard

“The heat retention in the greenhouse Earth is caused by all gas components…mainly by nitrogen and oxygen. It is not permissible to exclusively assign the GH effect of 33° to water vapour, CO2, and the other trace gases.” – Ullmann and Bülow, 2024

Chemical physicists Helmut Ullmann and Martin Bülow have published a new paper detailing the lack of meaningful or noticeable “specialness” that trace greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2, 0.042% of the atmosphere) and methane (CH4, 0.00018%) possess in determining Earth’s greenhouse effect heating.

Image Source: Ullmann and Bülow, 2024

The imagined 33°C greenhouse effect thought experiment

The popularized greenhouse effect thought experiment requires imagining what temperature the Earth would be if there were no atmospheric greenhouse gases (water vapor, CO2, CH4). It is believed these trace (less than 0.1% of the atmospheric composition combined) heat-absorbing gaseous agents, combined with water vapor (up to 4% of the atmosphere in tropical areas), are the only gases capable of restricting heat loss to space. Thus, greenhouse gases are thought to ultimately keep the Earth’s land and ocean surface temperature 33°C warmer (288 K vs. 255 K) than it would otherwise be in their imagined absence.

It is simultaneously imagined that even though oxygen (O2, 21%), nitrogen (N2, 78%), and argon (Ar, 0.9%) together account for 999,000 ppm (99.9%) of the atmosphere’s gaseous composition, none of these gases absorb and re-emit heat, and thus they cannot slow cooling or count as contributors to the imagined 33°C warmer Earth atmosphere. Only the trace gases and water vapor – the so-called greenhouse gases – can slow cooling, or retain heat.

That’s what the thought experiment says, anyway. Physics say otherwise.

The O2 and N2 greenhouse effect

Ullmann and Bülow point out that the greenhouse effect is not only not exclusively determined by trace greenhouse gases like CO2 or CH4, but these trace gases play such an unimportant role that they’re not even noticeable. Only water vapor has the capacity to absorb heat to a degree that is detectable. The primary gaseous determinants of Earth’s greenhouse effect are not trace gases like CO2 and CH4, but, consistent with their atmospheric abundance, N2 and O2.

“The basic constituents of the atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen, are the main contributors to heat storage in the Earth’s GH [greenhouse effect].”

“The heat retention in the greenhouse Earth is caused by all gas components…mainly by nitrogen and oxygen. It is not permissible to exclusively assign the GH effect of 33° to water vapour, CO2, and the other trace gases.”

Non-greenhouse gases absorb heat too

There is good reason to conclude O2 and N2 are the primary greenhouse effect determinants. Contrary to popular belief, real-world experiments show that N2, O2, and Ar actually do absorb heat, albeit about 20% less effectively than the so-called greenhouse gases do. A mere 20% dropoff is not significant when the abundance (99.9%) of these gases is considered relative to the abundance (less than 0.1%) of greenhouse gases.

“The heat capacities of polyatomic gases, H2O and the trace gases such as CO2, CH4, and SO2 are a further approx. 20% greater than those of O2 and N2 molecules. … Multiplied by the low concentration of trace gases, they cannot noticeably increase heat storage in the air. Only H2O…is able to store great amounts of heat.”

As mentioned, this phenomenon has been observed experimentally. For example, when air (99% O2 and N2), pure (100%) CO2, and pure (100%) Ar are warmed in experimental conditions, they all absorb heat to nearly the same degree.

Image Source: Allmendinger, 2016

Scientists agree: O2 and N2 are greenhouse gases

An earlier work published in Geophysical Research Letters (Hopfner et al., 2012) also clarifies that O2 and N2 should be considered “natural greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.” Although O2 and N2 absorb heat (infrared radiation) more weakly than CO2 and CH4, they do indeed absorb heat, and they do not have a negligible role in Earth’s greenhouse effect because of their relative abundance when compared to CO2 and CH4.

“This work challenges a common perception on the negligible role of O2 and N2 as natural greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere…”

“It is in fact the large abundance of oxygen and nitrogen which compensates for their only weak interaction with infrared radiation…”

“Due to the atmospheric concentration of atmospheric N2 (O2) that is about 2000 (550) times higher than that of Co2 and about 4.4 x 10⁵ (1.2 x 10⁵) times more abundant than CH4, even the weak infrared absorption of N2 (O2) can become radiatively important.”

“Thus, we object to the view that the radiative forcing of N2 increase operates only indirectly by broadening the absorption lines of other gases.”

Image Source: Hopfner et al., 2012

CO2 is nothing special

Finally, Drs. Ullmann and Bülow emphasize just how non-special CO2 is as a greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere. As noted above, they point out that CO2’s contribution to the greenhouse effect is not even noticeable. They also assert that the laws of physics require there is no so-called “hotspot” in Earth’s atmosphere due to the conglomeration of CO2 molecules. There is nothing CO2 does that is thermally “special” relative to other gases.

“According to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, heat is distributed from hot to cold molecules; there are no hotspots among molecules or types of molecules in the atmosphere. A special role of carbon dioxide cannot be confirmed.”

State Courts Should Not Be Writing US Climate Laws

Earth’s climate has changed numerous times over the past half-billion years. But activists claim any recent or future changes result from fossil fuel use and agricultural practices.

From Watts Up With That?

Judges shouldn’t write laws that anti-fossil fuel factions can’t get Congress and People to enact

Paul Driessen

Earth’s climate has changed numerous times over the past half-billion years. But activists claim any recent or future changes result from fossil fuel use and agricultural practices.

Those activities raise still minuscule levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (0.04, 0.0002 and 0.00003 percent of the atmosphere, respectively), allegedly altering climate and weather. Water vapor, Earth’s complex and chaotic climate system, and powerful solar and cosmic forces that combined to bring the Carboniferous Period (coal age), ice ages, a Little Ice Age, warm periods, and fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are supposedly no longer relevant.

UN, US and EU climate activists, politicians and bureaucrats then blame fossil fuels for heat waves, cold spells, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, droughts and even abusive husbands. Kamala Harris says manmade climate change forced millions of illegal migrants to cross our borders since 2021.

Despite all this, the climate consortium has failed to get enforceable, workable international treaties that compel all countries to reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It’s failed to get the US Congress to enact national legislation – or make a convincing, robustly debated case that reducing a few GHGs can stabilize planetary temperatures and climate conditions that have never been stable.

So the consortium employs other devious strategies: regulating fossil fuel technologies and agricultural practices into oblivion; ignoring the 63% of global GHGs that come from China, India and a hundred other developing countries; and censoring and silencing experts and talk show hosts who present inconvenient facts, data and analyses.

Climate activists are also filing lawsuits in state courts against eight US oil companies whose products together account for a tiny fraction of the 11% of global GHGs emitted by the United States.

Nearly three dozen ultra-progressive jurisdictions want friendly in-state judges to decide complicated issues that arise from and affect every family, business, city, state and country on Earth. Instead of scientific and legislative debates and processes, they want one judge punishing energy companies for causing “dangerous climate change.”

The litigants claim they’re trying to save our planet from climate cataclysms. Their real goal is reducing our driving, flying, household heating and cooling, red meat consumption, living standards and free speech rights, even if doing so has minimal or no effect on emissions or the climate.

They want to avoid higher-profile federal courts that would more likely examine their far-fetched claims from national, international, scientific and economic perspectives. They’re worried that the US Supreme Court may decide whether far-left cities or states can circumvent legislative processes and instead use state courts to impose radical environmental and social agendas.

There is nothing ethical, legal or constitutional about this crony forum-shopping and backroom dealing. That’s another reason the plaintiffs panicked about the Supremes’ potential intervention, and argue that state judges can competently litigate the matter.

To ensure judicial “competence,” the Environmental Law Institute launched a parallel effort, the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP), to ensure that judges receive an “authoritative, objective and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law.”

Of course, as Humpty Dumpty would have told Alice, when the CJP uses a word (like authoritative, objective, trusted, science or justice), it means just what they choose it to mean, neither more nor less, because the ultimate question is who is to be master – activist litigators and judges, or We the People and our elected representatives.

Raising even more questions, the CJP is funded by the same outfits that finance these climate lawsuits. The JPB Foundation gave $1 million to the CJP and $1.15 million to the far-left Tides Foundation’s Collective Action Fund, which pays the Sher Edling law firm to file lawsuits like these. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $500,000 to the CJP and $150,000 to the Action Fund. And so on.

The left knows their political ploy will tumble if the highest court in the land reviews the cases. That would be bad for them but good for our system of checks and balances, for common sense, and especially for reliable, affordable energy, jobs, healthcare and modern living standards.

Over 80% of our energy still comes from oil, gas and coal. Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable, require expensive backup power, and need a dozen times more raw materials per unit of electricity than natural gas generators. They cannot provide petrochemical products, including clothing, cosmetics, fertilizers, paints, plastics, pharmaceuticals and wind turbine blades.

“Renewable” energy is not clean, green, renewable or sustainable. Manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles and grid backup involves mining for numerous metals and minerals, in energy-intensive processes that destroy habitats, pollute air and water, and injure and poison miners and their families.

Much of that mining occurs in countries with corrupt governments and desperately poor families, like Congo and Myanmar where child and slave labor are pervasive. Ships haul the materials to China, the world’s largest polluter, which monopolizes the global battery production market and uses more coal, slave labor and pollution-intensive processes to produce “clean, green” energy products.

The EVs get marketed as “zero emission” vehicles, because there is no exhaust – and people don’t know this sordid history or that the electricity charging their batteries comes mostly from coal- or gas-fired power plants. And battery fires are furious and toxic.

Wind turbines also depend on oil, gas and coal for the metals and minerals in their towers and generators, fiberglass-and-epoxy blades and concrete-and-rebar bases. Solar panels blanketing hundreds of square miles of former cropland and wildlife habitat cause similar impacts. Sea-based wind turbines harm and kill wildlife, including endangered whales; land-based turbines kill millions of birds.

Pleadings and briefs in lawsuits brought in carefully chosen liberal state courts can ignore inconvenient facts like these, often preventing judges and juries from considering them.

They can target a few American oil companies for alleged climate cataclysms, while ignoring all other oil and coal companies worldwide, and countries that emit 89% of greenhouse gases. The state court lawsuits essentially and preposterously assert that production and refining processes used and products sold by these few oil companies are causing climate changes unprecedented in Earth and human history.

Recent Supreme Court decisions reveal why climate alarmists and rent-seekers are alarmed that the Court might intervene. West Virginia v. EPA held that, in the absence of clear legislative authority, government agencies cannot unilaterally issue regulations that have “major” economic or political significance.

Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo reversed the “Chevron deference” rule. Silent or ambiguous statutory texts no longer give administrative agencies unfettered power to interpret laws in ways that let them increase control over people’s lives and livelihoods.

Liberal state court decisions in these climate cases would have monumental consequences – for our environment, economy, lives and nation – despite Congress never having given any agency or court any such authority.

The Supreme Court should definitely intervene here – to ensure that these complex scientific, economic and political issues are fully studied, debated, vetted and voted on – not relegated to biased courtrooms.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.

Note to Australian Broadcasting Corporation News, Pacific Island Sea Level Projections Are Wrong

A September 26th article on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website, titled “Sea level rise inevitable for Pacific Islands despite future greenhouse gas emissions reduction, NASA finds,” suggests that small island nations are doomed to disappear beneath the waves regardless of any actions to prevent climate change. The claim is both erroneous and irrelevant.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

A September 26th article on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website, titled “Sea level rise inevitable for Pacific Islands despite future greenhouse gas emissions reduction, NASA finds,” suggests that small island nations are doomed to disappear beneath the waves regardless of any actions to prevent climate change. The claim is both erroneous and irrelevant. Erroneous because actual data show sea level rise (SLR) on Kiribati and other island nations to be far lower than the projections from NASA. Irrelevant because it has been documented that many Pacific Islands have actually been growing in size and adding land mass over time.

“Pacific Island nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Fiji will experience at least 20 centimeters of sea level rise in the next 30 years regardless of whether greenhouse gas emissions change in the short term, according to new research from NASA,” says ABC.

A quick inspection of Kiribati’s tide gauge data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows this to be false.

Simple math shows what the value will be in 30 years: 2.34mm/year X 30 years = 70.2mm or 7.02 centimeters, about a third of the NASA projection of 20 centimeters in 30 years. Based on tide gauge data for Tuvalu and for Fiji, estimated SLR for 30 years is also far lower than what NASA predicts, a prediction uncritically parroted by ABC.

The reason for the disparity is that the scientific tool NASA used to make its projection is the Pacific Flood Analysis Tool, using model projections instead of actual data. The website says this:

The latest generation of global climate models are used to account for the global-mean thermosteric and ocean dynamic regional sea level rise and similar methods are used for assessing vertical land motion contributions as in past reports. The IPCC AR6 incorporates multiple methods of projecting future ice-sheet changes, which are the major sources of future sea level rise and pose the biggest source of uncertainty in projecting the timing and magnitude of future possible rise amounts. (emphasis mine)

Clearly, NASA used the climate models from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). However, it is telling that when you first visit the Pacific Flood Analysis Tool website, there’s a pop-up message with this disclaimer:

Disclaimer: The NASA Pacific Flooding Analysis Tool provides a scientific assessment of potential flooding frequency and extent due to sea-level rise based on peer-reviewed techniques. The results are provided without warranty of any kind.

Of course, the fact that NASA must put such a broad caveat of “no warranty” on the highly uncertain SLR projections was lost on ABC, who wrote about it as if it were fact.

Climate Realism has written multiple times about the fact that the sixth generation of climate models (CMIP6) used in AR6 are erroneous because they run too hot, creating future projections that have no reasonable basis when compared to actual data.

These climate models produce “implausibly hot forecasts of future warming,” resulting in SLR projections that are wildly erroneous.

But all of that is irrelevant, because Climate Realism has regularly exposed false claims about Pacific islands sinking due to SLR. As far back as October 2020, articles such as New Climate Summary: Islands Not Losing Land or People to Sea Level Rise clearly show such claims to be wrong.

For example, climate activists often claim the island nation of Tuvalu is shrinking due to rising seas. However, a recent peer-reviewed study found eight out of Tuvalu’s nine coral atolls have grown in size during recent decades, and 3/4ths of Tuvalu’s 101 reef islands have similarly grown in size.

Additional peer-reviewed studies (see here, here, and here) confirm the same processes are allowing – and will continue to allow – other Pacific islands to keep up with rising seas. A full summary of this island growth in the face of rising seas is posted at climateataglance.com in: Islands and Sea Level Rise.

ABC failed miserably when it comes to doing basic journalistic research for this story. The fact that no fact check was even attempted is so egregious, one must wonder if it is purposeful, rather than just an indication of incompetence. A paragraph at the very bottom their story suggests it may be purposeful.

“While scientists say rising sea levels will bring significant impacts to Pacific Island nations, some research has shown hundreds of islands in the Pacific are growing in land size due to sediment, corals and other debris being washed ashore,” ABC grudgingly acknowledges.

There it is. ABC evidently trusts computer model outputs over real world data. It seems that ABC, just like many other media outlets, downplays any good news about climate and focuses almost exclusively on the bad news to further the climate crisis narrative.

Eco Complaints at Climate Week NYC

“The climate movement is dealing with a host of problems of its own making. The anti-CO2 crusade will have fewer and fewer defenders as reality continues to strike back.”

From Master Resource

By Robert Bradley Jr.

“The climate movement is dealing with a host of problems of its own making. The anti-CO2 crusade will have fewer and fewer defenders as reality continues to strike back.”

The Climate Industrial Complex wants to tax, regulate, and subsidize, not debate (“report, block, don’t engage,” says Michael Mann). But Climate Week NYC, hosted by Climate Group, allowed (a precious few) alternative voices to alarmism and forced energy transformation at its more than 600 advertised events and activities.

The hard core was upset. “Fossil Fuel Presence at Climate Week NYC Spotlights Dissonance in Clean Energy Transition,” complained Inside Climate News. “Blah, Blah, Blah,” wrote Liza Featherstone in TNR. She noted:

… instead of being an urgent call to action, it is now the closest thing the climate movement has to a trade show, a week of fancy lunches and private drinks and flashy presentations announcing new investment funds, new green pledges from businesses and states, and thought leaders taking the opportunity to show their climate bona fides.

AP described the event as a “money-focused fight ….” Time magazine called the confab “a Corporate Greenwashing Bonanza.” Remember what Enron CEO Jeff Skilling told his coal executive about the company’s interest in green energy and causes? “Mike, we are a green energy company, but the green stands for money.”

Anya Kamenetz, “award-winning journalist, former NPR correspondent, author of five nonfiction books, speaker, and consultant,” complained.

The The New York Times should be so embarrassed about platforming an oil executive during climate week, as well as Kevin Roberts of the The Heritage Foundation, the architects of Project 2025. This CEO told the reporter she wants to burn every drop of oil and gas left in the ground. She holds up the bullshit, unscaled and unscalable technology of direct air capture as her indulgence. This is textbook predatory delay. Why should it deserve a public airing? I applaud Climate Defiance and everyone working to revoke the social license of the fossil fuel industry.

She added in a comment:

To be clear, in the name of journalism, I have no problem with the New York Times interviewing oil company executives, preferably in the context of accountability stories about their lies, their persecution of their enemies, and greenwashing. Putting someone on a stage at a fancy event with finger foods during climate week is not journalism, though. It’s journalism-adjacent, at best.

Secondly, yes we all use plastic and gasoline and jet fuel today and we will probably be using it next year too. My idea would be to nationalize the oil companies and commit to a strong program of ratcheting down production, while pouring resources into real, promising alternatives. Many uses of plastic can be banned immediately. Commercial air flights could get a lot more expensive and schedules can be reduced. Etc.

Nationalization? Making transportation more expensive? What about consumers? Taxpayers? Energy freedom? My comment on all this was deleted by Ms. Kamenetz. But note how the climate movement is dealing with a host of problems of its own making. The anti-CO2 crusade will have fewer and fewer defenders as reality continues to strike back, the subject of tomorrow’s post.

Gergis Accuses Aussie Government of Emissions “Trickery”

Joëlle Gergis, who had an erroneous hockey stick climate paper spectacularly withdrawn in 2012, has accused Aussie politicians of using “trickery” to conceal climate policy failures.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Joëlle Gergis, who had an erroneous hockey stick climate paper spectacularly withdrawn in 2012, has accused Aussie politicians of using “trickery” to conceal climate policy failures.

Joëlle Gergis
Exposing net zero’s climate delusions

Denial is a funny thing. We have to find slippery ways of trying to live with high levels of cognitive dissonance: the discomfort we feel when faced with the reality that our thoughts and actions are contradictory. We must somehow rationalise the ways in which we fool ourselves. In the words of Seinfeld’s George Costanza: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

…

The truth is Australia is still not on track to meet its legislated target of a 43 per cent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. Australian governments have a long history of relying heavily on the land sector to demonstrate progress towards reducing emissions while continuing to export enormous quantities of coal and gas to the rest of the world. The safeguard mechanism, Australia’s signature climate policy, allows the largest industrial polluters to buy carbon credits to balance out their impact on the environment, allowing them to achieve “net zero” emissions. Scientific and legal experts have criticised Australia’s carbon offset scheme as being very low integrity: people are receiving carbon credits for not clearing forests that were never going to be cleared, for growing trees that already exist and for growing forests in places that will never sustain them in the long term. Instead of requiring heavy polluters to actually reduce the huge volume of carbon they are dumping into the atmosphere for free, they can pay to offset their emissions by planting a few trees. Therein lies the fatal flaw in the net zero logic: no matter how the continued exploitation of fossil fuels is justified, real zero is the only way we can genuinely pull back from planetary disaster.

This trickery of using the land sector to mask the negligible reductions in total emissions has allowed the government to claim that Australia’s emissions have fallen 28.2 per cent per cent since 2005. Excluding land use from the latest data shows that total emissions, across industrial processes, transport, electricity and other sectors, have declined by just 1.8 per cent.

…Read more: 

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topic/2024/09/28/exposing-net-zeros-climate-delusions#mtr

For once Gergis and I agree on something, at least about the land use trickery. There appear to be a number of questionable practices when it comes to using alleged enhancements to land’s ability to absorb CO2 to balance the books on emissions reduction claims, some of which have been exposed by WUWT.

“Carbon Colonialism”: Four Corners Exposes Alleged Carbon Farming Exploitation in New Guinea
Study: Aussie Outback Carbon Offset Tree Planting “… not reducing emissions as promised …”
BBC: Kenya’s Ogiek People are Being Evicted for Carbon Credits
Aussie Bushfire Madness: Fuel Load Not an Issue, All Climate Change

Australia is especially prone to bushfires, so any attempt to accumulate carbon biomass in arid woodlands goes up in smoke whenever a fire sweeps the region. The apparent policy of allowing the accumulation of dry, flammable plant litter in poorly managed Aussie woodlands, instead of conducting regular low intensity burnoffs, makes the fires more ferocious when they do occur.

As for the rest of Gergis’ climate belief system, I believe a little healthy skepticism is in order. Just look at how she reacted when flaws were discovered in her scientific work.

American Meteorological Society disappears withdraws Gergis et al paper on proxy temperature reconstruction after post peer review finds fatal flaws

Gergis’ 2012 paper (which eventually got withdrawn) got shredded pretty badly by Steve McIntyre. Instead of accepting she made a mistake by mis-describing and mishandling the data used in her analysis, she tried to argue it didn’t matter, and smeared people who objected to her methodological error as amateurs – “… Just to clarify, there was an error in the words describing the proxy selection method and not flaws in the entire analysis as suggested by amateur climate skeptic bloggers. …”.

It didn’t stop in 2012, Gergis returned with another paper in 2016, which was again eviscerated by Steve McIntyre, in McIntyre’s article Joelle Gergis, Data Torturer. McIntyre even suggests Gergis used a form of “Hide the decline”.

Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes big mistakes. The right thing to do in my opinion would have been to show a little grace and immediately accept she had stuffed up – this would have settled the matter quickly and cleanly. But to arrogantly dismiss people who pointed out the mistake as “amateurs”, to try to claim the “mistakes” were just an issue with wording, then to apparently make similar mistakes in a later paper, lets just say I’m not going to be losing any sleep over her climate warnings.

Update (EW): Nick Stokes points out he was the first to explain what went wrong on the Gergis 2012 paper on Climate Audit (Acknowledged by Steve McIntyre).

Climate Complexities: Recent Solar Storms May Have Promoted Cloud Formation

In a conversation with the EIKE editorial team, our reader Garik Müller noted that recent solar storms have promoted cloud formation – which would contradict the Svensmark-Shaviv effect and the Forbush effect.

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin 

Sun, clouds and climate – a post from an EIKE reader

Image: NASA (public domain)

Posted by AR Göhring

In a conversation with the EIKE editorial team, our reader Garik Müller noted that recent solar storms have promoted cloud formation – which would contradict the Svensmark-Shaviv effect and the Forbush effect.

But the Earth’s atmosphere is known to be much more complicated than the computer models of climate researchers – solar radiation can also have a different effect under different circumstances.

A discussion article by Garik Müller

Question from EIKE:

When there is a lot of solar wind, the particles from space are deflected away from the earth, the Forbush effect. If there are fewer particles, there are fewer cloud nuclei. The recent solar ejections should therefore have reduced the clouds, nnless certain solar events produce particles that can penetrate the van Allen belt.

Garik Müller:

It is high-energy radiation that comes both from the cosmic realm and is emitted towards the Earth during certain solar activities. Usually the starting point on the sun points away from the Earth. This time, however, the Earth was directly in focus. Due to the cascade effect, the ionizing radiation reaches the troposphere.

The Forbush effect actually only works if the “solar storm” points towards the Earth at the same time.
If it is offset in time, it does not have such a strong effect.

However, the Svensmark-Shaviv effect, which I believe to be conclusive and correct after having studied it for a long time, is only the first stumbling block in events like this year and is far more strongly influenced by the sun. There was still little cloud cover until the beginning of June. As a result, we had higher global surface temperatures, which subsequently fell, as the evaporation rate over the oceans increased considerably, which in turn led to a partial fall in sea surface temperatures, especially in the Atlantic and Pacific.
After that, there was a period of increased solar activity, as I was able to learn from observations of a friend in Frankfurt. Whenever large-scale cloud formation began, the number of sunspots were considerably higher. This has also been the case recently. It has also been interesting to observe that the processes were always congruent in time.

If you then take the work of Zharkova, it seems striking that such events seem to accumulate towards the end of a solar maximum, which then often coincides with local weather phenomena such as the current one, which again raises many questions. It becomes unpleasant when the flow systems intensify the whole thing together with the topographical conditions.

The reactions from the climate hysterics are neither helpful nor appropriate. BBut then it becomes so mathematically complex that 99.9% of scientists can hardly describe it. Meticulous work would be necessary. This cannot be done using existing algorithmic models because the models would then crash.
This is the point where mathematics catches up with conventional theory. There is some work on this, but you won’t find anything about it without targeted research.

The idea came to me when I thought of my work on meson passages in this context. The theoretical foundations from this are very helpful for this topic.

More literature on this:

[1] Review of Particle Physics, C. Amsler et al., Physics Letters B667, 1 (2008)

[2] O.C. Allkofer, H. Jokisch, A survey on the recent measurements of the absolute vertical cosmic­ray muon flux at sea level, Il Nuovo Cimento A (1971-1996), Volume 15, Number 3, 1973, Pages 371-389.

[3] Thomas Hebbeker, Charles Timmermans, A compilation of high energy atmospheric muon data at sea level, Astroparticle Physics, Volume 18, Issue 1, August 2002, Pages 107-127.

[4] M. Fuidl, Kosmische Myonen in Schulversuchen, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz, Institut fur¨ Physik, September 2003.

[5] C. Wiebusch, Astroteilchenphysik -Vorlesungsskriptum, RWTH Aachen, III. Physikalisches Insti­tut, Sommer 2010.

[6] S. Schael, Teilchen und Astrophysik -Vorlesungsskriptum, RWTH Aachen, I. Physikalisches Insti­tut, Winter 2008.

[7] W.R.Leo: Techniques for Nuclear and Particle Physics Experiments, Springer Verlag 1987

[8] J.Krieger, GNU Public License / wikimedia Commons http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Photomultiplier_schema_de.png

[9] J.N. Crookes, B.C. Rastin, An investigation of the absolute intensity of muons at sea-level, Nuclear Physics B, Volume 39, 1 April 1972, Pages 493-508.

[10] B76D01 Photomultiplier Tube, ADIT.

[11] Christophe Dang Ngoc Chan, Angle solide definition, Wikicommons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angle_solide_definition.svg

[12] R. Haeusler, A. F. Badea, H. Rebel, I. M. Brancus, J. Oehlschlager, Distortions of experimental muon arrival time distributions of extensive air showers by the observation conditions, Astroparticle Physics, Volume 17, Issue 4, July 2002, Pages 421-426.

[13] Allkofer, O. C., Grieder, P. K. F., Cosmic Rays on Earth, Physik Daten, ISSN 0344-8401, 1984.

[14] Helios Dr. Bulle GmbH & Co. KG, Tea Boy Nr. 3334 -002 http://www.helios-wertheim.com/Sitemap/Tea_Boy/

[15] S. Sciutto, COSMUS work group, AIRES Simulations http://astro.uchicago.edu/cosmus/projects/aires/

[16] Auger Engineering Array Group, Pierre Auger Observatory http://www.auger.org/observatory/animation.html

[17] F. Schmidt, CORSIKA Shower Images http://www.ast.leeds.ac.uk/~fs/showerimages.html

[18] K.-H. Kampert and A. A. Watson. Extensive air showers and ultra high-energy cosmic rays: a historical review., European Physical Journal H 37:359-412 (August 2012). doi:10.1140/epjh/e2012-30013-x

[19] I. Allekotte et al., The Surface Detector System of the Pierre Auger Observatory , Nucl. Inst. Meth., vol. A586, pp. 409-420 (2008), arXiv:astro-ph/0712.2832

[20] J. de Mello Neto (for the Pierre Auger Collaboration), Studies of Cosmic Rays at the Highest Energies with the Pierre Auger Observatory, EPJ Web of Conferences(2014), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20147100036

[21] J. Bl¨ orandel, Cosmic rays from the knee to the highest energies, Progressumer, R. Engel and J.R. H¨ in Particle and Nuclear Physics, vol. 63, p. 293-338 (October 2009),http://arxiv.org/abs/0904. 0725

[22] M.G. Aartsen et al., Observation of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos in Three Years of IceCube Data, IceCube Collaboration, Phys.Rev.Lett., Volume 113, 2014 http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.5303

[23] Anne Schukraft, Search for a diffuse flux of extragalactic neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, Dissertation, Rheinisch-Westf¨alische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, June 2013

[24] IceCube Collaboration, Evidence for High-Energy Extraterrestrial Neutrinos at the IceCube Detec­tor, Science, 22 November 2013, Vol. 342 no. 6161, DOI: 10.1126/science.1242856

Wind Power Pollution and Hypocrisy in New England

A fractured turbine’s blade in Nantucket is causing
ongoing problems and frustrating local residents.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Emmett Hare reports in City Journal Wind Power Debacle in New England.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

A fractured turbine’s blade in Nantucket is causing
ongoing problems and frustrating local residents.

In mid-July, a blade from an offshore wind turbine operating 15 miles southwest of Nantucket fractured. A large amount of fiberglass, foam, and plastic debris fell into the ocean and began washing up on the island’s shores. The incident led to the closure of several beaches and a suspension of operations and construction for the massive Vineyard Wind project, a joint venture of Avangrid and foreign-owned Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners that has installed and operated ten of 62 planned turbines in the country’s largest wind farm.

At local meetings, Nantucket residents expressed concerns about officials’ handling of the turbine breakage and the environmental hazards of enormous fiberglass blades tumbling into the sea. In the past, they have also cited the project’s impact on marine wildlife and its visual impact on the town’s scenic beaches. A CNN report describing this “unusual and rare” event noted that the Coast Guard had retrieved a 300-foot piece of the shattered blade from local waters. The outlet reported that a spokesperson for GE Vernova, the wind-blade manufacturer, “couldn’t provide officials with the precise number of times something similar has happened at other wind farms around the world.”

Environmental groups, realizing the potential political implications of the fractured blade, downplayed the episode. The National Wildlife Federation (NWF), which avidly supports offshore wind farms, insisted that the damage was minor. “Compared to other energy disasters in the ocean like oil spills, this incident is fairly contained and easily cleaned up to prioritize the safety of marine life,” said Amber Hewett, senior director of offshore wind energy for the NWF. The Sierra Club emphasized that “the failure of a single turbine blade does not adversely impact the emergence of offshore wind as a critical solution for reducing dependence on fossil fuels and addressing the climate crisis.”

Whether the incident is “contained” remains in question. Debris from the broken turbine has been reported beyond Nantucket—in Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod, Rhode Island, and off the coast of Montauk, Long Island. The debris is breaking up into smaller pieces resembling shattered glass, with yet-unknown effects on Nantucket’s marine habitat. Vineyard Wind cautioned that “[m]embers of the public should avoid handling debris” and promised to “bag, track, and transport all debris to proper storage as soon as possible.” It remains to be seen whether simple avoidance will suffice, especially given the possibility of debris entering the human food chain through area fish.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) Wind Technology Testing Center in Boston has taken delivery of a 107-meter wind turbine blade designed for GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade-X offshore wind turbine.

While this event may be “unusual and rare” in an absolute sense, many wind farms have seen broken turbines, fires, and sea-floor damage. And Nantucket’s situation is particularly dire, given that Vineyard Wind’s turbines are by far the largest ever constructed in the United States: the blade that fragmented on July 13 was over 350 feet long and weighed 57 tons.

Even when functioning as intended, wind farms can negatively affect the surrounding environment. Wildlife advocates have claimed that sonic and subsonic vibrations from the construction and operation of turbines disrupt the navigational senses of marine mammals like whales and dolphins and can cause beachings. Turbines are also responsible for the deaths of countless birds. Clammers and fishermen are wary of working in areas close to wind farms, out of concern for equipment snags on buried power lines and risks to their vessels of navigating between the turbines in bad weather.

French Fishermen Join U.S. Fishermen in Fighting Offshore Wind – IER

The Nantucket residents questioning the safety of wind turbines generally support alternative energy. Indeed, in an FAQ post on the town government’s webpage, officials made the point that allowing wind projects to avoid scrutiny might allow traditional fossil fuel producers to evade similar oversight: “If [the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] guts the provisions of these longstanding federal laws protecting culturally and environmentally significant places to facilitate expedient green energy projects, fossil fuel developers will exploit the bad precedent to undercut regulation of harmful projects for decades to come.”

Nonetheless, the Nantucket residents have seen themselves branded as tools of the fossil-fuel industry by well-financed lobbyists and promoters of richly subsidized wind power. They have also been subject to physical attacks. At a city council meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, a field director for Climate Jobs Rhode Island, David Booth, was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct after accosting a speaker and seizing a bag of turbine fragments that she had brought for her testimony. Booth allegedly appeared prominently in a photo on the campaign website of Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which was subsequently removed without comment.

Debris in the water from Vineyard turbine blade

The wind-power industry has seen some of its planned projects cancelled in recent years due to swelling production costs and local opposition to the environmental and aesthetic impact of the colossal windmills. A report published by Brown University’s Climate and Development Lab in early 2024 suggested that much of the opposition to offshore wind was rooted in “misinformation,” “[c]onspiracy theories,” and cherry-picked information supplied by “right-wing think tanks.” It might prove beyond the powers of an academic paper to convince the residents of New England and coastal states that the fiberglass and foam washing up on their beaches is nothing more than a conservative talking point.

The Short Lives of Wind Turbines

The Great Hurricane Of 1896

Helene has been declared as the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida’s Big Bend region.

But what about the unnamed 1896 hurricane, which demolished Cedar Keys?

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Helene has been declared as the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida’s Big Bend region.

But what about the unnamed 1896 hurricane, which demolished Cedar Keys?

This image shows the devastation caused by the Great Hurricane of 1896 that struck the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida. With its 2,200-kilometer coastline, Florida is the U.S. state most vulnerable to these storms. More than 450 recorded tropical storms and hurricanes have reached its shores since European exploration began. The hurricane of September 1896 destroyed most of the residential area of the town of Cedar Key on the upper west coast of the Florida peninsula, killing dozens of residents and destroying most of Cedar Key’s industries. Before making landfall, the storm and its tidal surge overwhelmed more than 100 sponging boats, killing untold numbers of crewmen. The hurricane then crossed the peninsula, leaving a wide swath of destruction until it reached the Atlantic coast at Fernandina, before heading north to Virginia. This image shows survivors, both white and black, in Fernandina, standing atop mounds of rubble, still seemingly shocked by the destruction

https://www.loc.gov/item/2021669942

By any standards the 1896 Cedar Keys hurricane was a monster. This is Wikipedia’s summary:

The 1896 Cedar Keys hurricane was a powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that devastated much of the East Coast of the United States, starting with Florida‘s Cedar Keys, near the end of September 1896. The storm’s rapid movement allowed it to maintain much of its intensity after landfall and cause significant damage over a broad area; as a result, it became one of the costliest United States hurricanes at the time. The fourth tropical cyclone of the 1896 Atlantic hurricane season, it formed by September 22, likely from a tropical wave, before crossing the Caribbean Sea just south of the Greater Antilles. It entered the Gulf of Mexico as the equivalent of a major hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale, and struck the Cedar Keys—an offshore island chain that includes the island and city of Cedar Key—early on the morning of September 29 with winds of 125 mph . The area was inundated by a devastating 10.5 ft  storm surge that undermined buildings, washed out the connecting railroad to the mainland, and submerged the smaller, outlying islands, where 31 people were killed. Strong winds also destroyed many of the red cedar trees that played an important role in the economy of the region. No hurricane would hit this region of Florida with a similar strength until 2023.

The cyclone continued inland over the Suwannee River valley, causing widespread destruction in dozens of communities across interior northern Florida; in the hardest-hit settlements, intense winds left few trees or buildings standing. The hurricane razed 5,000 sq mi (13,000 km2) of dense pine forests in northern Florida, crippling the turpentine industry. Crops and livestock were destroyed, and thousands of individuals were left homeless. The storm killed at least 70 people in mainland Florida, while inflicting approximately $3 million (equivalent to $110 million in 2023) in property damage across the state. Speeding north, the hurricane ravaged southeastern Georgia and the Sea Islands. In Savannah, a 45-minute onslaught of fierce winds unroofed thousands of structures. Parks, cemeteries, and streets in the city were littered with fallen trees, and the Savannah River saw dozens of wrecked boats. At least 37 people in Georgia died. Strong winds and high tides battered southeastern South Carolina, ruining rice crops and peeling off roofs. The storm then tracked through mostly rural sectors of North Carolina and did significant wind damage in the Raleigh–Durham area.

Although the hurricane was weakening and transitioning into an extratropical cyclone late on September 29, its rapid forward movement contributed to high wind velocities across parts of the Mid-Atlantic states, with gusts approaching 100 mph (160 km/h). Additionally, torrential rains fell west of the storm’s track. In Virginia, cities and agricultural districts alike suffered extensive damage. Flash flooding in the Shenandoah Valley culminated in the failure of an earthen dam upstream from Staunton, unleashing a torrent of water that swept houses from their foundations and ravaged the town’s commercial district. In Washington, D.C., thousands of trees were uprooted or snapped, communications were severed, and localized streaks of violent gusts damaged many public and private buildings. The White House grounds were left in disarray. High tides in the Chesapeake Bay triggered flooding in coastal cities. In Pennsylvania, flooding rains and powerful wind gusts produced widespread destruction. Railroads in western parts of the state were plagued by washouts and landslides, while in southeastern areas, hundreds of barns were destroyed. The storm demolished a 5,390 ft (1,640 m) bridge over the Susquehanna River, while the Gettysburg Battlefield lost hundreds of trees, a few of which struck and damaged historical monuments. Strong winds extended as far east as Long Island. Heavy rainfall reached west into Ohio, and the hurricane’s extratropical remnants wrought havoc on shipping in the Great Lakes. The storm caused at least 202 deaths and wrought more than $9.6 million (equivalent to $352 million in 2023) in damage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Cedar_Keys_hurricane

Just as with Helene, Cedar Keys rapidly intensified over the Gulf, and then proceeded to cause massive devastation inland, through Georgia, the Carolinas, and up to New York. There were 115 deaths and 12000 left homeless in Florida alone. Cedar Keys was hit by a 10.5 ft storm surge, bigger than anything recorded during Helene. Nearby Yankeetown had an even bigger surge of over 12ft.

Unsurprisingly most of the Cedar Keys’ residential area and industry was destroyed. Helene by contrast left nothing like this sort of damage, something that cannot simply be explained away by more robust buildings.

Georgia also bore the brunt of the storm, with damage to plantations and rice crops, widespread destruction of homes and the complete clearing of dense pine forests east of Folkston. The storm was still wreaking havoc when it reached Virginia, and produced what still stands as the most severe windstorm in Richmond’s history.

Catastrophic flooding followed the storm on its pathway north, even as far as Ohio.

In total there were reckoned to be 202 fatalities.

Yet despite all of this, the 1896 hurricane was only rated as Cat 3, with winds of 125 mph. Remember that Helene supposedly had winds of 140 mph.

So how did the authorities arrive at their estimate of 125mph? Remember that in those days anemometers were useless for measuring hurricane speeds winds, even if you actually had one at the exact centre of the storm. Below is the Hurricane Research Division’s record of how they arrived at their conclusions. I have highlighted the part relevant to landfall:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110604063810/http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/metadata_master.html

Hardly scientific!

The analysis by Partagas, which is referred to and which the latest analysis is based on can be read here, and is no better, mainly referring to newspaper reports.

Nowhere in any of their or the HRD analysis is there any mention of actual recordings of wind speed or central pressure. Hardly surprising, given that all happened in 1896.

Yet we are expected believe that Helene, with considerably less damage, both in Florida and inland, was a much stronger storm.

Sorry, I just don’t believe it.

Wrong, Associated Press, New Short Corn Variety Is a Marketing Ploy, Not a Response to Climate Change

The Associated Press (AP) released a story claiming climate change is causing windstorms to worsen, threatening corn production, leading farmers to consider a new short corn variety. This story is false on almost every front. If farmers are considering a newly developed corn variety, its due to clever marketing by the company developing the crop, not changing climate conditions. Wind speeds and storms haven’t been increasing, aren’t forecast to at any time in the foreseeable future, and corn yields and production continue to set records with existing corn types.

From ClimateRealism

By H. Sterling Burnett

The Associated Press (AP) released a story claiming climate change is causing windstorms to worsen, threatening corn production, leading farmers to consider a new short corn variety. This story is false on almost every front. If farmers are considering a newly developed corn variety, its due to clever marketing by the company developing the crop, not changing climate conditions. Wind speeds and storms haven’t been increasing, aren’t forecast to at any time in the foreseeable future, and corn yields and production continue to set records with existing corn types.

The AP story, titled, “‘Short corn’ could replace the towering cornfields steamrolled by a changing climate,” the news agency writes:

Taking a late-summer country drive in the Midwest means venturing into the corn zone, snaking between 12-foot-tall green, leafy walls that seem to block out nearly everything other than the sun and an occasional water tower.

. . .

But soon, that towering corn might become a miniature of its former self, replaced by stalks only half as tall as the green giants that have dominated fields for so long.

The short corn developed by Bayer Crop Science is being tested on about 30,000 acres (12,141 hectares) in the Midwest with the promise of offering farmers a variety that can withstand powerful windstorms that could become more frequent due to climate change. (emphasis mine)

The facts tell a different story, however. Long corn is in no way being “steamrolled.” Corn yields and production continue to set new records, with some regularity, and there is no evidence that windstorms are becoming more frequent, or that wind speeds are increasing.

To the latter point first. The AP and other mainstream media outlets usually treat reports and pronouncements of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as authoritative on climate change. The IPCC’s latest report is clear concerning the impacts of climate change on wind speeds and damaging windstorms: no change has been detected at present; and, under the even the most extreme climate scenario, no change is anticipated in the foreseeable future, through 2100 at least. (see the figure, below)

So much for the AP’s claim that worsening winds pose a threat to corn production.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also show no climate change impacts on corn yields or production in the United States or globally.

A recently updated USDA report says that corn yields are expected to set a new record in 2024, increasing by 0.5 bushels per acre over the previous estimate, and by a full six bushels per acre of the previous record set in 2023. (See the graph, below)

Data from the FAO confirm the USDA’s findings concerning U.S. corn production and also determine that corn production and yields are regularly setting records around the world as well. Between 1990 and 2022 (the last full year of FAO records), spanning the three decades climate alarmists commonly assert have been the warmest on record:

  • Corn yields in the United States have increased by nearly 60 percent’
  • Corn yields globally have increased by more than 54 percent.

On record yields, crop production has similarly set new records repeatedly as well between 1990 and 2022. (See the graph, below)

Even if, contrary to the AP’s suggestion, corn production is not being harmed by worsening climate conditions, Bayer’s short corn variety may prove beneficial for farmers. It seems that, per the AP, “[t]he smaller plants also let farmers plant at greater density, so they can grow more corn on the same amount of land, increasing their profits.” The shorter corn may also use less water. Both conditions should, in theory, make corn production more profitable, regardless of climate change, so there is a bit of good news in the AP’s otherwise unjustifiably foreboding climate change tale.

ONS Reveals the Pitiful Number of New Green Jobs Being Created in the U.K. Economy

The problem with the green U.K. economy, and its associated destruction of the hydrocarbon environment, is that there are very few jobs being created. The few remaining ‘workers’ in the ruling Labour party are starting to rumble all the luxury boondoggles that are set to further decimate well-paid jobs in their communities. The figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), trying to estimate the actual number of green jobs, are always a highly creative hoot, and the latest batch are no exception.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Chris Morrison

The problem with the green U.K. economy, and its associated destruction of the hydrocarbon environment, is that there are very few jobs being created. The few remaining ‘workers’ in the ruling Labour party are starting to rumble all the luxury boondoggles that are set to further decimate well-paid jobs in their communities. The figures compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), trying to estimate the actual number of green jobs, are always a highly creative hoot, and the latest batch are no exception. Many jobs identified are simply displacement activity, with one repair or maintenance occupation taking over from another. Around 6% of the total are to be found in ‘environmental charities’, an interesting way to describe elite billionaire political funding to push the Net Zero fantasy. Such is the seeming desperation to rustle up a green job, the ONS even includes repairing home appliances, controlling forest fires and separating hydrogen by carbon dioxide-producing electrolysis.

The latest ‘estimates’ from the ONS cover 2021 and 2022, and they are said to show an increase in both years. But as the graph below reveals, the rises are pitiful over a decade, and the 2022 estimate of 639,000 is less than 2% of jobs in the economy as a whole.

As can be seen, environmental charities employ 40,000 people, almost as many as the 47,000 that work in renewable energy. But the charities figure does not include all those make-work jobs in environmental consultancy and education or what is described as in-house environmental activities. If all the displacement, invented or re-badged jobs in repair, electric vehicles, waste disposal, water treatment, energy efficiency, Net Zero promotion, teaching and the ubiquitous bureaucracy are rightly ignored, it is unlikely that more than 150,000 new jobs have been created. Fairly small pickings, it might be thought, from all the cash sprayed at subsidy-hunting chancers over at least two decades. Even worse, any new jobs are easily offset by the occupations being destroyed in steel making, refining hydrocarbons, coal mining and oil and gas exploration. Fracking for gas would transform a number of deprived areas in the U.K. at little environmental cost, as it has done in the U.S. Energy security would likely be achieved, and the tax take would be considerable. But fracking is anathema to the major political parties in the U.K., except the emerging Reform party.

Last week saw some real push back on the madness of Net Zero and the so-called green economy. The boss of GMB, the third largest trade union in the country, told the annual Labour party conference that its plans to decarbonise the energy network by 2030 will cost up to one million jobs, decimate working communities and push up bills for the poorest. According to Smith, Government’s plans for Net Zero were “bonkers” and “fundamentally dishonest”. In a week when it was revealed that British consumers, both industrial and private, had some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world, he charged that current energy policy amounted to virtue signalling by politicians. He accused them of exporting jobs and importing virtue because the jobs were being created abroad rather than in the U.K.

Meanwhile, a recent paper published in Science came to a damning conclusion that will not surprise sceptics, namely that 96% of climate policies over the last 25 years, ultimately designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, have been a waste of money. “That’s where green spin has got us,” writes George Monbiot, although these days the Guardian’s extremist-in-chief seems to have given up on all life enhancing processes that run the risk of disturbing anything on the planet. “Finally, 15 years and a trillion dollars too late, George Monbiot says what sceptics have been saying all along,” observes the sceptical journalist Jo Nova. “Nearly every single carbon reduction scheme is a useless make-work machination that creates the illusion that the government is doing something,” she says.

As we can see, the ONS survey is full of these make-work schemes providing jobs that can only exist by rigging free markets and providing eye-watering subsidies from consumers and taxpayers. As the more concerned trade unionists can see, much of the cost of these fantasy ventures falls on the poorest members of society forced to pay higher prices for many of the basic essentials of life. In addition, as we have observed, most green schemes make mugs of the wider investing public, with the RENIXX, a stock capitalisation global index of the 30 largest renewable industrial companies, showing near zero growth since it was started in 2006. None of this matters, of course, to the Mad Miliband and his weird wonks at the U.K. Department of Energy, who are ramping up ideological plans to hose cash at daft ideas like carbon capture, battery energy storage and hydrogen production.

But all is not lost on the jobs front – opportunities must be taken when they occur. Earlier this year, Gary Smith was able to point to some new employment clearing away the animal casualties of wind farm blades. “It’s usually a man in a rowing boat, sweeping up the dead birds,” he observed.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor