Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Hurricane kinematics don’t care about the atmospheric CO₂ level — at least not significantly. Therefore, taxing carbon is not going to reduce their occurrence nor severity.
Hurricane kinematics don’t care about the atmospheric CO₂ level — at least not significantly. Therefore, taxing carbon is not going to reduce their occurrence nor severity.
The estimated cost to achieve “net zero” emissions in the U.S. by the year… https://t.co/LuJYh2PoKZ
Hurricane Wilma’s pressure dropped 54 hPa in 6-hours on October 19, 2005. That was nearly 20-years ago. So, no, I’m not convinced Milton’s smaller pressure falls are evidence of there being a “climate emergency.”… https://t.co/PXwhR73SgQ
Investors are preparing to write off nearly the entire value of their stakes in Swedish battery giant Northvolt as a crisis at the troubled European green technology champion deepens.
Investors are preparing to write off nearly the entire value of their stakes in Swedish battery giant Northvolt as a crisis at the troubled European green technology champion deepens.
Once valued at more than $12bn (£9bn), Northvolt is scrambling to raise hundreds of millions of euros to shore up its finances after a global downturn in demand for electric cars.
Northvolt had been building one of Europe’s biggest battery plants, close to the Arctic circle, which would have produced home-grown cells for the continent’s carmakers.
However, one of Northvolt’s biggest shareholders has already marked down its stake in the business by as much as 85pc amid the cash crunch.
The London-listed Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, one of Northvolt’s biggest shareholders, has scratched hundreds of millions of pounds from the value of its holdings, according to filings published this month.
The fund, which is managed by Baillie Gifford, values its shares in the business at just £57m, compared to £380m in 2022, when investors valued Northvolt at $12bn. The write-down suggests investors expect Northvolt’s value to plunge by more than $10bn.
Investors often revalue their stakes in privately held companies based on their “fair value” – or what they believe would be paid for them.
The Swedish business is racing to find fresh cash to survive. On Friday, Reuters reported that Northvolt was in the process of raising around $200m in short-term funding from customers and lenders.
Northvolt, founded by former Tesla executive Peter Carlsson, has raised billions of euros in debt and equity to build more environmentally friendly EV batteries, which it says have 90pc lower carbon emissions than those of rivals.
Its backers include investment giants such as Blackrock, and it has attracted state support from the European Investment Bank and the German and Swedish governments.
The company has built one of Europe’s biggest battery factories in the far north of Sweden, which is powered by a hydroelectric plant, while its cells make use of recycled materials.
However, it has struggled with production delays, and over the summer BMW cancelled a multibillion-euro deal to buy its batteries.
Since then, Northvolt has announced it will lay off 1,600 staff and scale back its expansion plans, cancelling a project to dramatically increase its factory’s capacity.
Last week, the company was forced to insist it had enough cash to pay an upcoming tax bill, due on Monday.
James Frith, the European lead at Volta Energy Technologies, a green investment firm, said: “Given that Northvolt has lost some of its early orders [and] is facing significant delays to its revenue … the size of the business and its valuation have decreased, which will be reflected in its investor mark-downs.”
Demand has suffered as persistently high prices steer consumers toward petrol-powered vehicles.
Meanwhile, an influx of cheap Chinese car brands powered by their own home-grown batteries has threatened the market share of Europe’s traditional carmakers.
In September, Volkswagen, a Northvolt customer and a major investor in the Swedish company, warned it expected to sell 500,000 fewer vehicles in Europe per year.
On Friday, the German car giant reported a 10pc fall in all-electric car deliveries globally.
Reuters reported last week that Scania, the Swedish truck maker that is part of Volkswagen, was among the companies in talks with Northvolt over a funding lifeline.
The Lake Placid Solar Power Plant is located in Highlands County, Fla., and suffered damage during Hurricane Milton. The facility opened in December 2019 and is 45 megawatts, which is enough to power more than 12,000 homes at peak production.
The Lake Placid Solar Power Plant is located in Highlands County, Fla., and suffered damage during Hurricane Milton. The facility opened in December 2019 and is 45 megawatts, which is enough to power more than 12,000 homes at peak production.
It was the warning Ed Miliband didn’t want to hear.
Days after the Energy Secretary pledged low-carbon power for all at Labour’s annual conference, energy giant EDF discussed plans to close four of the UK’s five remaining nuclear power stations.
We all knew it was going to happen, but the green blob turned a blind eye:
It was the warning Ed Miliband didn’t want to hear.
Days after the Energy Secretary pledged low-carbon power for all at Labour’s annual conference, energy giant EDF discussed plans to close four of the UK’s five remaining nuclear power stations.
Two are currently scheduled to close in 2026, followed by another two in 2028.
“They can’t go on forever,” said Rachael Glaeving, commercial director at EDF’s UK business.
“Any life extension of these power stations is going to be measured in months.”
The decision, announced after thorough engineering reviews, is set to make Miliband’s dream a lot harder. He has promised to deliver a net zero power grid by 2030, although in practice this is expected to mean 95pc green energy – with the remainder coming from burning gas.
As Britain’s reactor fleet shrivels, the amount of nuclear capacity will fall from six gigawatts (GW) today to just 1.2 GW by 2028 or soon after. Along with rising demand from power-hungry data centres and technologies of the future, it will make it even harder to keep the lights on when wind and solar generation is low.
Against this backdrop, the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the newly nationalised body overseeing the electricity grid, is turning to households and businesses to help balance the system.
The so-called demand flexibility service has been billed as a forward-looking way to manage an increasingly complex and “smart” system, as we move from using a small number of large coal and gas-fired plants to relying on a plethora of intermittent sources of wind and solar power – backed up by batteries, energy-storing giant flywheels, interconnectors and other gadgets.
Yet some critics warn this all looks strikingly similar to rationing, especially coming at a time when electricity production continues to fall.
The Seattle Times had a startling revelation on its front page last Sunday: the top of Mount Rainier is shrinking due to global warming.
According to this article, the frozen ice cap at the summit is melting “as the atmosphere warms.” Unfortunately, this claim is false and can easily be shown to be untrue. Another error-filled article by the Seattle Times Climate Lab, a journalistic enterprise funded by climate activists.
Reflection of Mount Rainier, Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.
The Seattle Times had a startling revelation on its front page last Sunday: the top of Mount Rainier is shrinking due to global warming (see below).
According to this article, the frozen ice cap at the summit is melting “as the atmosphere warms.” Unfortunately, this claim is false and can easily be shown to be untrue. Another error-filled article by the Seattle Times Climate Lab, a journalistic enterprise funded by climate activists.
Why is this claim obviously false?
Because the top of Mount Rainier is so high that temperatures at the crest are consistently below freezing, even with a warming planet.
In addition, the added moisture associated with global warming would tend to INCREASE the amount of snow at that elevation (warm air can contain more water vapor than cooler air).
Let me demonstrate that the top of Rainier is not melting from global warming.
The crest of Mount Rainer is 14,410 ft above sea level. The nearest upstream upper-air observation location is the NOAA/NWS radiosonde launching site at Quillayute, located on the northern Washington coast. Below is the climatology of the melting level at this location, with the melting level being the elevation at which the temperature falls to freezing. Above the melting level, temperatures are below freezing. The red line is the elevation at the top of Mt. Rainier. This graph is based on over 50 years of data and is the quality controlled data provided by the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center. Some data is rejected by the quality control algorithms.
Notice something in the figure? The freezing level is virtually always below the top of Mt. Rainier (the crest is below freezing nearly all the time).
Has the freezing level ever reached the top of Rainier? Yes, but not recently.
The following figure shows the daily climatology of the freezing level of the air approaching western Washington (again based on the radiosonde sounding at Quillayute). The horizontal red line shows the elevation of the top of Mt. Rainier. The light red line shows the daily highest freezing level. The black line is the daily average freezing level, which is around 2000 ft during the winter and 6000-8000ft in summer.
Between November 1 and April 1, the snow accumulation season, the freezing level has only reached the crest of Mt. Rainier twice. Over the summer about 20 times.
Now the key point, All these above-freezing temperatures at the creest were in the historical past, with NO RECENT cases. Let me prove this to you.
Here are all the dates when the freezingly level at Quillayute ascended above the top of Mt. Rainier.
Twenty-six dates. The most recent was 2006, 18 years ago.
Most of the “warm” events were in the 1950s and 1960s. There is no trend toward more above-freezing temperatures at the top of Mt. Rainier. In fact, this data suggests just the opposite. There is the potential that the NOAA quality control software could have rejected a few extreme outliers. This may have happened during the June 2021 event.
Even at lower elevations, the temperature changes on Mt. Rainier are not impressive. Let’s consider the situation at Paradise Ranger Station, at around 5500 ft.
The annual highest temperatures had had little trend upward over the past century.
What about the annual average temperatures? The same thing.
Snowfall at Paradise during the global warming periods since 1980? Perhaps a very slight decline.
Thus, warming temperatures are not the cause of reduced snow at the top of our favorite mountain.
Furthermore, global warming will tend to increase the precipitation (snow) at the top of Mt. Rainier, since warmer air “holds” more water vapor.
My group is doing regional climate simulations to study these effects. Assuming large increases in CO2 (the RCP 8.5 scenario), precipitation increases at the top of Mt. Rainier by the end of the century (see map showing precipitation change below). That means more, not less, snow.
The claims of the Seattle Times front-page article are demonstrably false. Global warming is NOT causing loss of snow at the top of Mt. Rainier.
Now, let me be clear, warming lower down on Mt. Rainier (say at 6000 ft) is happening and that could impact snow and glaciers well down the mountain. BUT NOT THE CREST AS DESCRIBED IN THE ARTICLE.
If snow/ice is being lost at the top of Rainier it has to be for other reasons, such as less precipitation, strong winds, or human impacts.
The Seattle Times Climate Lab repeatedly publishes climate-related articles that are incorrect. Articles that hype or misinform about climate change. The Seattle TimesClimate Lab is supported by outside money, groups with a climate advocacy agenda.
Our region deserves factual, rigorous journalism on this important subject. Climate Lab is failing to provide it.
Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney lobbied ministers to relax rules on heat pump subsidies to benefit the asset management business he chairs, it has been claimed.
Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney lobbied ministers to relax rules on heat pump subsidies to benefit the asset management business he chairs, it has been claimed.
Mr Carney, a Labour adviser who has helped Rachel Reeves with the creation of the National Wealth Fund, raised the idea of changing the cash for heat pump installations scheme with the Chancellor, according to Richard Harpin.
Mr Harpin is the founder and former chief executive of HomeServe, now its chairman. The plumbing and heating company was bought by Brookfield Asset Management, which is chaired by Mr Carney, for £4.1bn in 2022.
Discussions with Ms Reeves are said to have revolved around changes to the Government’s £450m Boiler Upgrade Scheme so that companies could claim taxpayer subsidies to install heat pumps in homes. Such a change would benefit HomeServe, which specialises in home plumbing and heating cover for homes plus boiler installations.
Mr Harpin said: “Mark is working on our behalf in Government and he did have a meeting on this with Rachel Reeves. It was covering some other issues and the role of Brookfield as a trillion-dollar investor in the UK. And so it wasn’t just this issue, but he did mention it.
“We want to make sure that there’s some money allocated to this, that we’ve got a clear direction of travel when the Budget comes out on Oct 30.”
HomeServe sees heat pump installation and management as a huge potential new market – but only if the Treasury can be persuaded to relax the rules around subsidies.
At the moment such grants – typically worth £7,500 each – can only be claimed by householders when they replace boilers with heat pumps or similar low-carbon heating systems. HomeServe wants to introduce a rental model for households who can’t or won’t pay the upfront cost of installing a heat pump.
Mr Harpin said: “We want to offer a heat pump rental model over 15 years.
“The number one hurdle that we’ve got is persuading the Government to change the wording of the legislation around heat pump subsidies.
“That’s the £7,500 available for replacing domestic gas boilers with a heat pump. But the letter of the law says the grant is only available if you own the heat pump, meaning householders, so our rental model wouldn’t work.”
Mr Harpin said Mr Carney had used his access to seek a change in the law and had also co-signed an open letter to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero setting out the proposal and its benefits for the UK’s attempts to reach net zero.
Alright, let’s break this down: a study concludes that people lying out in the street—most of whom are drug addicts—are more likely to die on a hot day than those who are inside with air conditioning. Well, stop the presses! Who could have guessed that baking on asphalt like an egg on a skillet might not be conducive to longevity?
High and low daily ambient temperatures are associated with higher mortality in the general population. People experiencing homelessness (PEH) are thought to be particularly vulnerable, but there is almost no direct evidence available. We examined the temperature-mortality association among PEH in 2 populous, urban counties in hot-climate regions of the United States, focusing on heat effects. Study setting was Los Angeles County, CA, and Clark County, NV, which encompass the cities of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, respectively. Outcomes were 2015-2022 deaths among decedents categorized as homeless in county administrative records. We used quasi-Poisson distributed lag nonlinear models to estimate the association of mortality with daily temperatures and with 7-day lagged temperatures, adjusting for day of week, seasonality, and long-term trends. We estimated the minimum mortality temperature and fraction of mortality attributable to temperatures above and below minimum mortality temperature. The association between daily temperature and PEH mortality was skewed towards greater risk at higher temperatures, especially in Clark County. Temperature-attributable mortality equaled 50.1% of deaths in Clark County (95% CI, 29.0-62.8) and 7.0% in Los Angeles County (95% CI, 1.4-12.1). In both counties, most temperature-attributable deaths were attributable to heat rather than cold. In these hot-climate urban counties, our estimates of heat-attributable mortality among PEH were orders of magnitude greater than those reported in prior research on the general population. These results indicate that temperature vulnerability, particularly heat vulnerability, requires stronger public health and policy responses.
Alright, let’s break this down: a study concludes that people lying out in the street—most of whom are drug addicts—are more likely to die on a hot day than those who are inside with air conditioning. Well, stop the presses! Who could have guessed that baking on asphalt like an egg on a skillet might not be conducive to longevity?
This kind of study is a prime example of the mind-bending banality that passes for scientific insight these days. Our elite academic institutions, seemingly incapable of grappling with real problems, give us these groundbreaking revelations. Next up, perhaps they’ll inform us that people are more likely to drown in water than on dry land.
What makes this situation truly absurd isn’t just the waste of time and money on such a blindingly obvious conclusion. No, it’s the fact that these “findings” will inevitably be spun into policy recommendations. Cue the sanctimonious cries for more taxpayer dollars to fund air-conditioned safe spaces for those suffering from addiction. Because that’s the real solution, right? Just give the government more control and money to fix the problem, as if bureaucrats are going to solve the complex, entrenched issues of homelessness, addiction, and mental illness with central air conditioning and sun hats.
There’s a more serious issue here, though, and it’s one the media won’t touch: why are people lying in the streets in the first place? Could it be that decades of permissive policies, under the guise of “compassion,” have only exacerbated the homelessness and addiction crises? We’ve effectively normalized drug use, failed to enforce laws, and allowed cities to deteriorate into open-air homeless encampments. But instead of addressing those uncomfortable truths, we get another ivory tower study reminding us that it’s hot outside.
Let’s be real here. The tragic deaths of people sweltering in the streets are a symptom of a much larger problem. These individuals aren’t victims of climate change—they’re victims of societal breakdown, enabled by politicians who refuse to enforce laws and by a culture that increasingly rejects personal responsibility. But instead of confronting that, we get a study that hand-wrings about the obvious: heat kills.
What’s next? Perhaps we’ll get a follow-up study: “Drug addicts lying in snow are more likely to freeze to death than those who are inside with central heating.” It would be funny if it weren’t so tragically stupid.
By nature of their living situation, people experiencing homelessness (PEH) are considered one of the most vulnerable populations to the health impacts of extreme weather.
PEH are particularly vulnerable to heat, and the impact of heat on mortality in this group is substantially greater than for the general population, according to a new study by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH).
Published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the study examined mortality rates in two hot-climate US counties—Clark County in Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, and Los Angeles County in California—and found that daily heat played a significant role in mortality among PEH.
This association was especially notable in Clark County, where nearly 50 percent of deaths during the study period were attributable to higher daily temperatures. Although LA County observed a smaller percentage of heat-attributable deaths, at 5.2 percent, daily heat appeared to contribute to many more deaths than daily cold in both counties.
The study is the first to examine heat-attributable mortality among PEH, providing valuable public health insight as the West Coast reels from an unprecedented October heatwave that has prompted numerous heat alerts in parts of LA and Las Vegas, where temperatures soared to 111 degrees and 104 degrees, respectively, in recent days. Both cities also continue to grapple with persistently high homelessness rates that far exceed the national average. Quantifying the impacts of extreme heat on PEH can inform new interventions and policies that reduce illness and mortality rates among this largely unsheltered population.
“It wasn’t a surprise that our team found an association between heat and mortality for unhoused people, but the magnitude was staggering,” says study senior and corresponding author Dr. Jonathan Jay, assistant professor of community health sciences at BUSPH. “Our estimates are 10 to 100 times greater than the known associations between daily heat and mortality for the general population in LA and Las Vegas, and this finding highlights the moral imperative for our systems to do more.”
He says the new findings also show that heat exposure is an important factor amplifying the vast health inequities for PEH, and highlight the need to center the most marginalized populations in research on climate and health.
For the study, Dr. Jay and colleagues from BUSPH and the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles utilized mortality and daily temperature data for Clark and Los Angeles counties from January 2015 to August 2022 (for Clark County) and November 2022 (for LA County). The team analyzed deaths from all causes, rather than just deaths that were acutely heat- or cold-related (such as fatal heat stroke or hyperthermia), to ensure that the analysis captured all external causes of death as a result of high temperatures. Hot weather was defined as daily temperatures above the minimum mortality temperature (MMT)—the temperature at which mortality risk is lowest in each area—which was 11.6 Celsius (52.8 degrees Fahrenheit) for Clark County and 19.3 Celsius for LA County (66.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
After accounting for long-term and seasonal trends, days of the week, and cumulative effects of consecutive days’ temperatures, the researchers found that mortality risk among PEH increased in both hotter and colder temperatures. The heat was especially harmful in Clark County, where 15 percent of deaths were due to acutely heat-related causes, compared to 0.2 percent in LA County. Extremely hot days accounted for nearly 25 percent of all deaths in Clark County and 2.2 percent of all deaths in LA County.
“It was important to see that deaths increased as daily temperatures increased, from cool days to warmer days, and they spiked on hotter days, starting around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and higher,” Dr. Jay says. “That’s hot, but it’s not even close to the hottest temperatures these cities experience,” he adds, which suggests that public health advocates should be extra vigilant in providing heat-related support beyond the summer season, as climate change continues to extend the number and length of heat waves each year.
Public health strategies that can mitigate heat impacts among PEH in communities include cooling centers, water stations, greening, and reflective painting, the researchers say. But, ultimately, these strategies should embrace a “Housing First” approach, as the primary cause of homelessness is a lack of affordable housing. California, in particular, is consistentlyranked as one of the most expensive states to live in the US. Policies that promote stable housing and other financial support for PEH are even more critical following the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that permits cities to ban people from sleeping and camping in public places.
“Too much of our policy is driven by the impulse to hide homelessness from view, rather than to recognize people’s dignity, protect their health, and improve our systems,” says Dr. Jay. “The idea that policing is key to solving this problem is false, and it’s a miscalculation we make over and over again as a society.”
The lead author of the study is Dr. Zihan Lin, a BUSPH postdoctoral fellow at the time of the study and a current assistant professor of biological, geographical and environmental sciences at Cleveland State University.
**
About Boston University School of Public Health
Founded in 1976, Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top ten ranked schools of public health in the world. It offers master’s- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populations—especially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable—locally and globally.
With Arctic ice melting season winding down, warmists again stoked fears about ice disappearing in the North. In fact, the pattern of Arctic ice seen in historical perspective is not alarming. People are over-thinking and over-analyzing Arctic Ice extents, and getting wrapped around the axle (or should I say axis). So let’s keep it simple and we can all readily understand what is happening up North.
With Arctic ice melting season winding down, warmists again stoked fears about ice disappearing in the North. In fact, the pattern of Arctic ice seen in historical perspective is not alarming. People are over-thinking and over-analyzing Arctic Ice extents, and getting wrapped around the axle (or should I say axis). So let’s keep it simple and we can all readily understand what is happening up North.
I have noticed at some other blogs people complain about my monthly Arctic ice updates focusing on extents starting in 2007. This post will show why that time period is entirely reasonable as a subject for analysis. I will use the ever popular NOAA dataset derived from satellite passive microwave sensors. It sometimes understates the ice extents, but everyone refers to it and it is complete from 1981 to present. Here’s what NOAA reports (in M km2):
We are frequently told that only the March maximums and the September minimums matter, since the other months are only transitional between the two. So the graph above shows the mean ice extent, averaging the two months March and September. The data comes from Sea Ice Index (SII).
If I were adding this to the Ice House of Mirrors, the name would be The X-Ray Ice Mirror, because it looks into the structure of the time series. For even more clarity and simplicity, here is the table:
NOAA NH Annual Average Ice Extents (in M km2). Sea Ice Index v3.0 (here)
Year
Average
Change
Rate of Change
1981
11.385
1997
11.077
-0.308
-0.019 per year
2007
9.405
-1.672
-0.167 per year
2024
9.626
+0.221
+0.013 per year
The satellites involve rocket science, but this does not. There was a small loss of ice extent over the first 16 years, then a dramatic downturn for 10 years, 9 times the rate as before. That was followed by the current 17-year plateau with a slight gain comparable to the beginning loss. All the fuss is over that middle period, and we know what caused it. A lot of multi-year ice was flushed out through the Fram Strait, leaving behind more easily melted younger ice. The effects from that natural occurrence bottomed out in 2007.
Kwok et al say this about the Variability of Fram Strait ice flux:
The average winter area flux over the 18-year record (1978–1996) is 670,000 km2, ;7% of the area of the Arctic Ocean. The winter area flux ranges from a minimum of 450,000 km2 in 1984 to a maximum of 906,000 km2 in 1995. . .The average winter volume flux over the winters of October 1990 through May 1995 is 1745 km3 ranging from a low of 1375 km3 in the 1990 flux to a high of 2791 km3 in 1994.
Some complain it is too soon to say Arctic Ice is recovering, or that 2007 is a true change point. The same people were quick to jump on a declining period after 1996 as evidence of a “Death Spiral.”
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