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.
Amongst Ben’s revelations is that this so-called independent commission has been using the ECIU as its secretariat – in layman’s terms, that means writing the report. The ECIU, of course, are the Net Zero lobby group, originally founded by the BBC’s Richard Black, who have been regularly spewing misinformation for years.
I took a brief look at the Energy Crisis Commission report the other day, which, guess what, told us we needed more renewable energy!
Ben Pile however has a really excellent analysis in the Daily Sceptic:
Another day, another green report. This time, in response to rising energy prices, a report has been published by something calling itself the Energy Crisis Commission. But the report flies in the face of sound economics when it tries to address the hardships faced by millions of individuals and businesses due to shy-high energy prices by calling for “a clear strategy for shifting away from fossil fuels, particularly gas”. Well, guess what: that’s because the “Commission” is just another bog-standard Green Blob front! Who could have guessed?
Amongst Ben’s revelations is that this so-called independent commission has been using the ECIU as its secretariat – in layman’s terms, that means writing the report. The ECIU, of course, are the Net Zero lobby group, originally founded by the BBC’s Richard Black, who have been regularly spewing misinformation for years.
They are funded by the Green Blob, in particular the notorious European Climate Foundation, who amazingly occupy the same offices as the ECIU!
Other members of the commission are also paid up members of the blob, including Energy UK, whose CEO, Emma Pinchbeck, is leaving to run the Committee on Climate Change.
Most disgraceful of all are Gillian Cooper from Citizens Advice and Adam Scorer of National Energy Action, the “national charity working to end fuel poverty”. Both moan about the energy price spikes in 2022, which have since largely disappeared. But where were these two do-gooders, when electricity prices were going through the roof because of obscene subsidies paid to wind farms?
Ben Pile sums it up nicely when he says:
It would seem that the British Establishment, of which Citizens Advice and NEA are a part, is as good as the ECF at spawning off-the-shelf blob-fronts, populated by individuals who are naturally happier occupying such positions than challenging the Establishment they are part of. Millions of people are facing cold and rising bills this winter, and the “Citizens Advice” to Government is apparently to close down more oil and gas fields and create more weather-dependent renewables without regard for reality.
You might think that a self-proclaimed climate advocate would be thrilled to see an announcement of more clean, reliable energy on the grid. But, you’d be wrong.
You might think that a self-proclaimed climate advocate would be thrilled to see an announcement of more clean, reliable energy on the grid. But, you’d be wrong.
Last month, Constellation Energy announced a deal with Microsoft to reopen a reactor at Three Mile Island, now called the Crane Clean Energy Center. Expected to open by 2028 and operate for at least 20 years, the reactor is a promise of not only energy security amidst exploding energy demand, but an economic boon for Pennsylvania as well. According to a report completed by the Brattle Group, reopening the reactor is expected to create more than 3,000 jobs and add $16 billion to Pennsylvania’s GDP.
Yet, actor and activist Jane Fonda took to the pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer to proclaim that “Nuclear power at Three Mile Island is no climate solution.” Fueled by her decades-long hatred of the energy source, Fonda makes a bizarre and convoluted argument that America’s single largest source of clean energy is not what we need to tackle climate change.
Even worse, she misleads readers by conflating the two reactors at TMI. Unit 2, owned by Energy Solutions, was the site of the partial meltdown in 1979 and has not operated since. Unit 1 is owned by Constellation and was one of the most reliable nuclear power plants in the country until it closed in 2019 for economic reasons. Having grown up just an hour south of the facility in southern York County, I remember hearing about the ramifications of the accident. Nuclear power was seen as “scary” and “dangerous” by Pennsylvanians who simply cared about their family’s health and safety. Unlearning this perspective has been no easy feat, but it was necessary.
After all, nuclear energy is one of the safest sources of energy we have at our disposal. The “radiation” argument is incoherent, as the average radiation exposure from simply living in Denver, Colorado is higher than for those working at nuclear plants. Running up to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, reactors are “baseload” energy, which means we can rely on them to power our lives no matter the weather conditions.
While Ms. Fonda is right that nuclear energy does have high upfront costs and long timelines, these costs and time delays are due to, in no small part, overregulation of the industry that prevents us from fully unleashing nuclear energy. The more nuclear energy projects we pursue, though, the faster the construction process will be. For instance, Georgia Power decreased costs by 30% between Plant Vogtle Units 3 and 4 through lessons learned in real-time earlier this year.
As a young person who cares about climate change, I know that nuclear power absolutely is part of the solution. Contrary to Ms. Fonda’s assertion, “Like two people trying to get through a narrow doorway at the same time, there isn’t room for both nuclear and renewables in our energy future,” I believe that we need an all-of-the-above energy approach with an emphasis on clean, reliable nuclear power. For those of us who actually believe climate is an urgent issue in need of solutions, this isn’t an either-or conversation. Those, like Ms. Fonda, who refuse to embrace nuclear energy as part of the energy mix simply aren’t serious.
Importantly, my generation and Pennsylvanians agree with me. A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that 56% of Americans support new nuclear power, and an August poll of Pennsylvania voters found that 70% support nuclear power and 56% support reopening TMI Unit 1, more than double those who oppose. The consensus is clear: nuclear energy will be a key part of reducing emissions, increasing energy security, and creating American jobs for years to come.
Branding nuclear energy as dangerous and unrealistic for our climate goals is an outdated, out-of-touch argument. The choice is obvious, Ms. Fonda, but somehow, you’ve made the wrong one.
Karly Matthews is the vice president of communications at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC). She was born and raised in central Pennsylvania, and she graduated from Temple University in 2020. Follow her on X @Karlymatthews_.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
There is news from this part of Russia that goes through the roof in the media. It is worth remembering forest fires or extraordinary summer temperatures. Then follow posts on X, if only we had set up a speed limit in Germany or at least more wind turbines, then it wouldn’t be so bad…
There is news from this part of Russia that goes through the roof in the media. It is worth remembering forest fires or extraordinary summer temperatures. Then follow posts on X, if only we had set up a speed limit in Germany or at least more wind turbines, then it wouldn’t be so bad…
We have already recommended Ventusky here a few times. The site visualizes weather data in an excellent way. This allows the snow cover to be displayed and there is interesting data from Siberia. In mid-October 2024, the occultation is greater than it has been in all of the last few years. Ventusky himself thinks an impact on the winter weather in Europe is possible because such large areas are already covered in snow. At the westernmost border, a line was laid in 2024, so you can see how the expansion has been in recent years.
(Image: Screenshot Ventusky)
It can be assumed that this anomaly does not make it into the media. Yet it is good evidence of more moisture in the atmosphere. However, one that can also have an impact on weather and temperatures in the opposite direction. But that doesn’t click so well.
As we gaze at the verdant fields of Saskatchewan or the salmon-rich waters of British Columbia, it’s easy to forget that merely 12,000 years ago much of Canada lay under miles of ice.
The Canada we know today—a mosaic of thriving ecosystems and bountiful farmlands—is the product of a remarkable transformation that began as the last glacial ice advance waned and the warm embrace of the Holocene’s interglacial period took hold.
As we gaze at the verdant fields of Saskatchewan or the salmon-rich waters of British Columbia, it’s easy to forget that merely 12,000 years ago much of Canada lay under miles of ice.
The Canada we know today—a mosaic of thriving ecosystems and bountiful farmlands—is the product of a remarkable transformation that began as the last glacial ice advance waned and the warm embrace of the Holocene’s interglacial period took hold.
Birth of Canadian Agriculture
Beginning about 11,000 years ago, the warmth of the Holocene and the receding of massive continental glaciers enabled people to farm. Humans transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to more sustainable lifestyles with permanent settlements.
North America was no different, with Canadian flora and fauna thriving in the newfound warmth. Studies on the spatial and temporal pattern of climate change through the Holocene in Arctic Canada show the temperature profile to be quite complex, following changes at the global level.
The 20th century in particular saw considerable warming that has had profoundly positive impacts on Canada’s landscape and agricultural potential.
This recent rise in temperature has pushed the boundaries of arable land northward, extending growing seasons and opening new possibilities for cultivation. Crops like corn that were once considered impossible to grow in many parts of Canada are now thriving.
“Warmer temperatures and longer frost-free seasons could increase productivity across the board, but especially in northern regions and southern and central Prairies,” reports Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) of the Canadian government. Additionally, it ensures higher rates of survival for young animals while reducing the cost of energy and livestock feed.
This climatic shift — combined with man-made increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations that boost plant photosynthesis and with advances in agricultural technology — has contributed to a doubling of the size of the average Canadian farm in the last 50 years.
Better Growing Conditions Allowed for Diverse Crops
While traditional staples like wheat barley, and canola remain important, they’re now joined by an impressive array of products like world-class apples, cherries and wine grapes in the Okanagan Valley and melons in Newfoundland.
According to the data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Canada is now the world’s largest producer and exporter of lentils — a niche crop made popular in agrarian Canada by South Asian migrants. Experimentation with new crops and techniques has been a driving force behind Canada’s growing agricultural diversity and productivity.
The latest AAFC report says, “Production of all principal field crops (in 2024-2025) is estimated to have increased 1.8% year-over-year, which would be 2.4% above the previous five-year average.”
Higher rates of crop production mean more efficient animal husbandry. Despite the disruption of exports due to the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) between 2003 and 2015, the export value of Canadian beef and veal more than tripled between 2013 and 2022.
The gross production value from agriculture is expected to almost double between 2018 and 2028. The annual growth of agricultural production value in the five years will be one of the highest.
Even those who subscribe to a fallacious apocalyptic vision of climate change acknowledge that “Canadian regions that were previously limited by shorter growing seasons may find new opportunities for agriculture, such as double cropping or cultivating crops that were not viable before.”
That human civilization has benefited immensely from warming of the last century and in earlier Holocene periods is undeniable. This reality is quite noticeable in Canada as areas once unsuited for farming are now some of the most productive in the world.
Canadian farmers are thankful for the longer growing season and the greater abundance of atmospheric carbon dioxide that better feeds plants. So should the rest of us. After all, Earth is nearing the end of its current interglacial period and the resurrection of mile-thick glaciers in coming millennia, according to the pattern of geological history.
This commentary was first published at Toronto Sun on October 13, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:
The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
Major El Ninos have been the dominant climate feature in recent years.
The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:
The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
Major El Ninos have been the dominant climate feature in recent years.
HadSST is generally regarded as the best of the global SST data sets, and so the temperature story here comes from that source. Previously I used HadSST3 for these reports, but Hadley Centre has made HadSST4 the priority, and v.3 will no longer be updated. HadSST4 is the same as v.3, except that the older data from ship water intake was re-estimated to be generally lower temperatures than shown in v.3. The effect is that v.4 has lower average anomalies for the baseline period 1961-1990, thereby showing higher current anomalies than v.3. This analysis concerns more recent time periods and depends on very similar differentials as those from v.3 despite higher absolute anomaly values in v.4. More on what distinguishes HadSST3 and 4 from other SST products at the end. The user guide for HadSST4 is here.
The Current Context
The chart below shows SST monthly anomalies as reported in HadSST4 starting in 2015 through September 2024. A global cooling pattern is seen clearly in the Tropics since its peak in 2016, joined by NH and SH cycling downward since 2016, followed by rising temperatures in 2023 and 2024.
Note that in 2015-2016 the Tropics and SH peaked in between two summer NH spikes. That pattern repeated in 2019-2020 with a lesser Tropics peak and SH bump, but with higher NH spikes. By end of 2020, cooler SSTs in all regions took the Global anomaly well below the mean for this period. A small warming was driven by NH summer peaks in 2021-22, but offset by cooling in SH and the tropics, By January 2023 the global anomaly was again below the mean.
Now in 2023-24 comes an event resembling 2015-16 with a Tropical spike and two NH spikes alongside. There was also a coinciding rise in SH, and the Global anomaly was pulled up to 1.1°C last year, ~0.3°C higher than the 2015 peak. After several months of cooling in SH and the Tropics, now NH and the Global anomaly resume starting down.
Comment:
The climatists have seized on this unusual warming as proof their Zero Carbon agenda is needed, without addressing how impossible it would be for CO2 warming the air to raise ocean temperatures. It is the ocean that warms the air, not the other way around. Recently Steven Koonin had this to say about the phonomenon confirmed in the graph above:
El Nino is a phenomenon in the climate system that happens once every four or five years. Heat builds up in the equatorial Pacific to the west of Indonesia and so on. Then when enough of it builds up it surges across the Pacific and changes the currents and the winds. As it surges toward South America it was discovered and named in the 19th century It iswell understood at this point that the phenomenon has nothing to do with CO2.
Now people talk about changes in that phenomena as a result of CO2 but it’s there in the climate system already and when it happens it influences weather all over the world. We feel it when it gets rainier in Southern California for example. So for the last 3 years we have been in the opposite of an El Nino, a La Nina, part of the reason people think the West Coast has been in drought.
It has now shifted in the last months to an El Nino condition that warms the globe and is thought to contribute to this Spike we have seen. But there are other contributions as well. One of the most surprising ones is that back in January of 2022 an enormous underwater volcano went off in Tonga and it put up a lot of water vapor into the upper atmosphere. It increased the upper atmosphere of water vapor by about 10 percent, and that’s a warming effect, and it may be that is contributing to why the spike is so high.
A longer view of SSTs
The graph above is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations. Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015. This post adds a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since. The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies. Despite the longer time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July. 1995 is a reasonable (ENSO neutral) starting point prior to the first El Nino.
The sharp Tropical rise peaking in 1998 is dominant in the record, starting Jan. ’97 to pull up SSTs uniformly before returning to the same level Jan. ’99. There were strong cool periods before and after the 1998 El Nino event. Then SSTs in all regions returned to the mean in 2001-2.
SSTS fluctuate around the mean until 2007, when another, smaller ENSO event occurs. There is cooling 2007-8, a lower peak warming in 2009-10, following by cooling in 2011-12. Again SSTs are average 2013-14.
Now a different pattern appears. The Tropics cooled sharply to Jan 11, then rise steadily for 4 years to Jan 15, at which point the most recent major El Nino takes off. But this time in contrast to ’97-’99, the Northern Hemisphere produces peaks every summer pulling up the Global average. In fact, these NH peaks appear every July starting in 2003, growing stronger to produce 3 massive highs in 2014, 15 and 16. NH July 2017 was only slightly lower, and a fifth NH peak still lower in Sept. 2018.
The highest summer NH peaks came in 2019 and 2020, only this time the Tropics and SH were offsetting rather adding to the warming. (Note: these are high anomalies on top of the highest absolute temps in the NH.) Since 2014 SH has played a moderating role, offsetting the NH warming pulses. After September 2020 temps dropped off down until February 2021. In 2021-22 there were again summer NH spikes, but in 2022 moderated first by cooling Tropics and SH SSTs, then in October to January 2023 by deeper cooling in NH and Tropics.
Then in 2023 the Tropics flipped from below to well above average, while NH produced a summer peak extending into September higher than any previous year. Despite El Nino driving the Tropics January 2024 anomaly higher than 1998 and 2016 peaks, following months cooled in all regions, and the Tropics continued cooling in April, May and June along with SH dropping. After July and August NH warming again pulled the global anomaly higher, September resumed cooling in all regions.
What to make of all this? The patterns suggest that in addition to El Ninos in the Pacific driving the Tropic SSTs, something else is going on in the NH. The obvious culprit is the North Atlantic, since I have seen this sort of pulsing before. After reading some papers by David Dilley, I confirmed his observation of Atlantic pulses into the Arctic every 8 to 10 years.
Contemporary AMO Observations
Through January 2023 I depended on the Kaplan AMO Index (not smoothed, not detrended) for N. Atlantic observations. But it is no longer being updated, and NOAA says they don’t know its future. So I find that ERSSTv5 AMO dataset has current data. It differs from Kaplan, which reported average absolute temps measured in N. Atlantic. “ERSST5 AMO follows Trenberth and Shea (2006) proposal to use the NA region EQ-60°N, 0°-80°W and subtract the global rise of SST 60°S-60°N to obtain a measure of the internal variability, arguing that the effect of external forcing on the North Atlantic should be similar to the effect on the other oceans.” So the values represent sst anomaly differences between the N. Atlantic and the Global ocean.
The chart above confirms what Kaplan also showed. As August is the hottest month for the N. Atlantic, its variability, high and low, drives the annual results for this basin. Note also the peaks in 2010, lows after 2014, and a rise in 2021. Then in 2023 the peak was holding at 1.4C before declining. An annual chart below is informative:
Note the difference between blue/green years, beige/brown, and purple/red years. 2010, 2021, 2022 all peaked strongly in August or September. 1998 and 2007 were mildly warm. 2016 and 2018 were matching or cooler than the global average. 2023 started out slightly warm, then rose steadily to an extraordinary peak in July. August to October were only slightly lower, but by December cooled by ~0.4C.
Now in 2024 the AMO anomaly started higher than any previous year, then leveled off for two months declining slightly into April. Remarkably, May showed an upward leap putting this on a higher track than 2023, and rising slightly higher in June. In July, August and September 2024 the anomaly declined and is now lower than the peak reached in 2023.
The pattern suggests the ocean may be demonstrating a stairstep pattern like that we have also seen in HadCRUT4.
The purple line is the average anomaly 1980-1996 inclusive, value 0.18. The orange line the average 1980-202404, value 0.39, also for the period 1997-2012. The red line is 2013-202409, value 0.69. As noted above, these rising stages are driven by the combined warming in the Tropics and NH, including both Pacific and Atlantic basins.
The oceans are driving the warming this century. SSTs took a step up with the 1998 El Nino and have stayed there with help from the North Atlantic, and more recently the Pacific northern “Blob.” The ocean surfaces are releasing a lot of energy, warming the air, but eventually will have a cooling effect. The decline after 1937 was rapid by comparison, so one wonders: How long can the oceans keep this up? And is the sun adding forcing to this process?
Space weather impacts the ionosphere in this animation. Credits: NASA/GSFC/CIL/Krystofer Kim
Footnote: Why Rely on HadSST4
HadSST is distinguished from other SST products because HadCRU (Hadley Climatic Research Unit) does not engage in SST interpolation, i.e. infilling estimated anomalies into grid cells lacking sufficient sampling in a given month. From reading the documentation and from queries to Met Office, this is their procedure.
HadSST4 imports data from gridcells containing ocean, excluding land cells. From past records, they have calculated daily and monthly average readings for each grid cell for the period 1961 to 1990. Those temperatures form the baseline from which anomalies are calculated.
In a given month, each gridcell with sufficient sampling is averaged for the month and then the baseline value for that cell and that month is subtracted, resulting in the monthly anomaly for that cell. All cells with monthly anomalies are averaged to produce global, hemispheric and tropical anomalies for the month, based on the cells in those locations. For example, Tropics averages include ocean grid cells lying between latitudes 20N and 20S.
Gridcells lacking sufficient sampling that month are left out of the averaging, and the uncertainty from such missing data is estimated. IMO that is more reasonable than inventing data to infill. And it seems that the Global Drifter Array displayed in the top image is providing more uniform coverage of the oceans than in the past.
USS Pearl Harbor deploys Global Drifter Buoys in Pacific Ocean
The marvelous mysterious Monarch Butterfly is at it again: baffling lepidopterists — a branch of entomology concerning the scientific study of moths and the two superfamilies of butterflies — with questions they can’t answer.
The marvelous mysterious Monarch Butterfly is at it again: baffling lepidopterists — a branch of entomology concerning the scientific study of moths and the two superfamilies of butterflies — with questions they can’t answer.
The observational evidence is this:
It is clear that [Monarch] winter colonies in Mexico are declining, yet some recent studies suggest that summer breeding populations are relatively stable and similar to historical abundances.
Here they are speaking of the Eastern United States Monarch population — the Monarch population that migrates from as far north as Canada every fall south to the mountains of central Mexico. If your are not already familiar with the mysterious nature of this phenomenon, read my primer on the Monarch Migration or any of my earlier Monarch essays here.
There exists a modern scientific controversy about the monarchs and their migration – such a big hullabaloo that I have named it The Monarch Wars. The basis of the Monarch Wars is:
2) Other scientists, groups and interests oppose the listing of this nearly ubiquitous species as endangered – showing evidence that it is not suffering population declines or fragmented populations.
3) There is a third view that proposes that the Monarch Migration itself, as a phenomenon, should be declared Endangered.
The evidence is unfortunately clear — for all sides in the controversy.
How is this possible?
The latest study is:
Dramatic Recent Declines in the Size of Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) Roosts During Fall Migration [ full pre-print .pdf ]
by Andrew K. Davis, Jordan R. Croy and William E. Snyder out of the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, USA.
Their Abstract starts with this line:
“The conservation status of monarch butterflies in North America is a topic of intense scrutiny and debate.”
For several years I have been calling this The Monarch Wars.
Let’s look at the evidence once more:
“It is clear that winter colonies in Mexico are declining”
Clearly winter colonies in Mexico are declining – in the first 20 years of the record, there were some boom years and some low years, less than 5 hectares, but the entire two decades show much larger roosting populations. The most recent decade has had very low roosting numbers.
And Summer Populations?
The above image, from Crossley et al. (2022) published in Global Change Biology clearly shows that the summer population of Danaus plexippus, the Monarch Butterfly, seen as the vertical orange line, has not shown radical declines over the last two decades, but, if anything, shows a slight increase of about 0.7% per year. Not a big increase, but certainly not a sharp, dangerous or worrying decline.
[Note: The Mexico overwintering population graph covers three more years than the summer Population study. Those three years were boom years for the overwintering population.]
The most recent study, Davis et al. (2024) is about the sizes of Monarch roosts that they form during their migration south, when they stop for the night. Davis et al. say:
“Observations of far fewer overwintering monarch butterflies, alongside apparent rebounds during the summer breeding season, have led to heated debate whether monarchs are truly endangered. We used ~2600 citizen scientist observations of monarch “roosts” – mass aggregations of fall-migrating monarchs – to assess whether they are struggling to reach Mexico.”
And this is an important and interesting question. Are there plenty of monarchs in the summer which then fail to reach the overwintering grounds in Mexico, and if so, for what reasons?
Their plain language summary:
“Positive effects of a warming and greening flyway were overwhelmed by unexplained declines in roost size of up to 80%, increasing all along the path of their arduous southern migration.”
They find that “a warming and greening flyway” — and feel free to label this CO2-enhanced atmosphere and maybe climate change — had positive effects on the annual migration. Yet there remained “unexplained declines in [in during-migration] roost size of up to 80%”, declines which increased along the southern route.
To this author’s dismay, they conclude:
“This suggests that to save monarchs, we should focus on avoiding well-meaning efforts such as planting non-native milkweeds that foster parasites, sicken monarchs, and disrupt migration.”
I do not think that that conclusion is warranted or supported based on the evidence of the study. It is a valid hypothesis – a possible explanation – but certainly not strongly supported. Like all hypotheses, it is a guess, based on some data.
They are correct when they say “This suggests that climate change might generally be benefiting monarch migration by creating milder flight conditions and enhancing nectar availability along the flyway (but see 24).”
Ah, yes, there is a but. You can read the but here. It is a complex calculation of “energy expenditure” that might be found true of migrating monarch butterflies under warmer temperatures, not of real butterflies actually migrating, of course.
The reasoning of Davis et al. goes like this:
“That is, while roost sizes were declining throughout the flyway, these declines grew increasingly severe further along the migration route. This latitudinal gradient in roost size declines would be consistent with increasing mortality during migration and/or monarchs increasingly abandoning migration as they move south. This apparent disruption of migration might be the missing puzzle piece that explains relatively stable summer populations in the Midwest and declining overwintering populations in Mexico.”
Alas, Davis et al., despite being a very well done investigation, offers no definitive or actionable findings. “Then what is driving the clear, dramatic declines in roost size seen in these data? We can only speculate,…”.
And speculate they do. While none of the speculations are new, they include:
1) Prevalence of the monarch parasite Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (“OE”) which has increased over the last decade, some say “ten-fold”.
2) The widespread planting of non-native milkweeds such as Asclepias curassavica and Calotropis gigantea by homeowners and even land managers. Some feel that this leads to more parasitisation. There have been some studies that suggested that monarch caterpillars feeding on these species might suffer stunting or weakening. Or that the longer growing season for these species might lure the monarchs to remain north later into the Fall.
3) The raising and releasing thousands of captive-reared monarchs each year. Some studies have implied that captive bred monarchs are weaker or have reduced navigational ability. There are worries that interbreeding of captive and wild monarchs will harm the species as a whole.
4) Finally, year-round resident populations of monarchs appear to be increasingly common and growing along the western and southern edges of the species range. Vague worries about interbreeding of non-migrating monarchs and migrating monarchs and thus genetic dilution are included. This is the “monarchs increasingly abandoning migration as they move south” hypothesis. Another possibility is that more-and-more monarchs migrate to the South, find it perfectly suitable, and settle down there for the winters.
All, as in every single one, of the monarch butterflies found in northern regions, where winters are freezing and below, are the offspring of monarchs that have migrated north from overwintering somewhere warmer in the south. Thus, stable or even growing summer populations in the north seems inconsistent with very small numbers of monarchs overwintering in Mexico. Yet it is the case.
West Coast Monarchs
A similar, but more profound, situation was found with the West Coast monarch population in the winters of 2020-2021 and into the next year, 2021-2022:
You see, that recovery is simply biologically impossible. Thus a mangled version of the Sherlock Holmes quote can be applied: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. For that recovery, which is a physical fact, we must eliminate the impossible and doing that requires that the monarchs were overwintering somewhere – just not where they were expected and thus uncounted.
This is one of the speculative explanations for the mystery of the Eastern Population as well – the monarchs may be overwintering in Mexico after all, just not at the usual or known locations where they are expected, thus failing to be counted.
Bottom Lines:
1) We simply don’t know how or why this situation is occurring: far fewer Monarchs overwintering in Mexico yet stable or even growing population in the summer in the north.
2) There are four or five good speculative answers, but none of them stand out or have stronger evidence. It is more probable that the situation is a combination of one or more of the suggested explanations; or the dreaded something else.
3) One thing is fairly certain now: the slight warming seen in continental North America over the last 20 years, of maybe 1.5 degrees F, commonly called climate change, is not the cause but rather more likely a mitigating factor benefiting the monarchs.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
In my part of the United States, I saw very few monarchs this last summer.
I am fascinated by the evidence about monarchs and the growing realization that so much of it driven by a “Save the Monarchs” bias. As in almost all fields of science, the desires of researchers lead directly to their findings. Those looking for disasters will find them, as has been the case with the monarchs. But those researchers are stymied by other evidence – stable summer populations.
In science, the evidence should lead to a proper framing of the situation, which, if it is deemed undesirable, then the evidence should suggest solutions that will correct or mitigate the discovered causes of the undesired situation.
Jumping the gun with solutions to problems for which the causes are only suspected lead us on a merry chase and often make the original problem even worse.
For monarchs, I still favor planting native milkweeds in your gardens (private and public), discouraging mowing of highways verges and the edges and space between corn fields, and, of course, admission that we still don’t understand what is going on with the monarchs which should lead to more and better research.
A sensational science paper has blown holes in alarmist claims that global temperatures are surging. Just published results in Nature show “limited evidence” for a warming surge. “In most surface temperature time series, no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected despite the breaking record temperatures observed in 2023,” the paper says.
A sensational science paper has blown holes in alarmist claims that global temperatures are surging. Just published results in Nature show “limited evidence” for a warming surge. “In most surface temperature time series, no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected despite the breaking record temperatures observed in 2023,” the paper says. Written by an international group of mathematicians and scientists, it is unlikely to be acknowledged in the mainstream media where general hysteria reigns over the anomalous 2023 experience. As we have seen, constant misinformation is published to scare the general public and this is exemplified by climate comedy-turn Jim ‘jail the deniers’ Dale forecasting almost daily Armageddon and exhorting people to “join up the dots”.
In science, one swallow does not make a summer and in climate science it is impossible to show a trend by picking on short periods or individual weather events. This paper is an excellent piece of climate science work since it takes the long statistical view and challenges the two-a penny clickbait alarmists looking for a headline on the BBC. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a biased body but it understands the importance of long-term climate trends by stating, much to the chagrin of Net Zero-promoting activists, that it can find little or no human involvement in most extreme weather events either in the past or in the likely immediate future. But these findings, along with the paper on the warming trend, are inconvenient to those promoting the unproven claim that humans control the climate thermostat by utilising hydrocarbons.
The paper is highly technical and mathematically-inclined readers can study the full workings out in the open access publication. It notes that global temperature datasets fluctuate due to short-term variability and this often creates the appearance of surges and slowdowns in warming. It is important to consider random noise caused by natural variation when investigating the recent pauses in temperature and the more recent “alleged warming acceleration”, it adds. In fact there have been a number of plausible explanations given for the recent spike, with attention focused on the massive Hunga Tonga submarine volcano adding 13% extra water vapour to the stratosphere, a strong El Niño and even the reduction in atmospheric particulates caused by recent changes in shipping vessel fuel. Several “changepoints” were used by the mathematicians and it was found that “a warming surge could not be reliably detected any time after 1970”.
While the focus was on whether there had been a continued acceleration in the rate of global warming, it was recognised how unusual the surface temperature anomalies were in 2023. Indeed they were, and it was widely argued that this showed the climate was breaking down, or in the silly words of the UN chief Antonio Guterres that the planet was “boiling”. Last year’s hysterics were useful for short-term alarmism but they help destroy the ‘settled’ science around CO2. If human-caused CO2 is responsible for the rise, why did the temperature pause from 1998-2012 when atmospheric levels of the gas were on the up. Does alarmism on the BBC and most other mainstream media only apply when the temperatures spikes upwards for a few months?
One of the key conclusions in the paper arises from considering two time series – 1970-2023 and 2013-2023. This of course includes the early 1970s when global cooling fears were all the rage and average temperatures were falling. Estimated temperature trends were said to be 0.019°C per year for the first time segment and 0.029°C for the second that includes the spike from last year. This 0.029°C estimated slope “falls far short” of an increase needed to point to a change in the warming trend in the recent past. This is because of short-term variability in the U.K. Met Office HadCRUT global database since 1970 and “uncertainty” of the 2012 changepoint. This uncertainty arises over speculation as to whether 2012 and the ending of the pause was a year marking an important change in the longer time series. ”The HadCRUT record is simply not long enough for the surge to be statistically detectable at this time,” they note.
Cliff Mass is the Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington. He has a golden rule of weather extremes: “The more extreme a climate or weather record is, the greater the contribution of natural variability, and the smaller the contribution of human-caused global warming.”
The mathematicians used changepoint statistical techniques which were designed to identify structural changes over time. Four global mean surface temperature records over 1850-2023 were used including HadCRUT. This of course is problematic since there is substantial evidence that these datasets hype the warming trend by their careless treatment of urban heat corruptions – the fact that urban areas become warmer through ongoing development. In addition, substantial retrospective adjustments are made, often cooling the past and warming the near present to increase the ‘trend’. Despite writing copiously about the 1998-2012 ‘pause’, the Met Office has now removed it from its own record by adding 30% retrospective warming. Perhaps the Met Office need not have worried, with the mathematicians noting that the pause was “not unusual” given the level of short-term variability present in the data. But these datasets are the best we have and nobody doubts that the planet has warmed a small amount over the last 200 years since the lifting of the little ice age. For want of anything better, using these datasets for scientific analysis is fair, although it could be suggested that overall warming is probably less than suggested by this paper.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
I have been tracking Covering Climate Now for some time now.
They were set up to influence journalism worldwide, in order to push the alarmist agenda by, basically, telling lies:
Covering Climate Now supports, convenes, and trains journalists and newsrooms to produce rigorous climate coverage that engages audiences.
Co-founded in 2019 by Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation magazine in association with the Guardian and WNYC, CCNow invites journalists everywhere to transform how our profession covers the defining story of our time. Unless news outlets around the world dramatically improve and expand their climate coverage, there simply will not be the public awareness and political will needed to tackle the crisis.
With hundreds of partner news outlets from over 60 countries reaching billions of people, CCNow helps journalists produce more informative and appealing coverage of the climate crisis and its potential solutions.
As the climate crisis accelerates and the journalism landscape rapidly evolves, we invite all journalists and newsrooms worldwide — newsletters as well as newspapers, social media as well as television, independent investigative sites as well as a reader-funded non-profits — to join the Covering Climate Now community and help your fellow journalists produce exceptional work that engages audiences, holds power to account, and inspires change.
Climate change often manifests as violence, and violence often amplifies climate change. Recent weeks have illustrated both sides of this grim coin. Amped by super-hot sea water, Hurricanes Helene and Milton inflicted death and destruction across the southeastern US. On the other side of the world, the massive amounts of oil burned by tanks, planes, and other equipment in wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and central Africa released yet more heat-trapping pollution.
Helping audiences understand the connections between climate change and war poses challenges for journalists. When hurricanes or missiles are killing people or demolishing houses today, describing those horrors understandably seems more urgent than explaining their underlying causes and ramifications. On October 7, Ukraine bombed a major Russian oil terminal in Crimea, unleashing towering black plumes of carbon-dense smoke. Israel expanded its war from Gaza into Lebanon and reportedly pondered a strike on Iran’s vast oil fields. Sudan’s military bombed a market in Khartoum, adding 23 fatalities to a war that has killed tens of thousands. Rebel attacks continued in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where years of conflict have displaced a staggering 8 or more million people.
In May, a Covering Climate Now press briefing explained that modern war carries an immense, though often hidden, carbon footprint. Neta C. Crawford, a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford, highlighted the role of direct emissions, such as the carbon dioxide released by the Russian oil terminal bombing. Indirect emissions, such as the loss of carbon sinks when forests or wetlands are destroyed, also matter. “War causes climate change more than the other way around,” Crawford said.
Destruction of urban areas causes both direct and indirect emissions. Rawan Damen, the director general of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, urged news organizations to make clear how the war in Gaza not only kills men, women, and children but also “uproot[s] the trees, the greenhouses, the farms… the whole ecosystem of the place is being lost in front of our eyes.” The reconstruction of areas destroyed by war is another source of emissions, which panelist Ellie Kinney of the Conflict and Environment Observatory added, makes green recovery plans critical.
Nevertheless, war’s role as a driver of climate change is obscured by a gaping loophole in international governance. As Chelsea Harvey reported in Politico’s E&E News following the CCNow press briefing, “Nations participating in the Paris climate agreement are not required by the United Nations to report the carbon emissions from their armies and aircraft or warships and weapons.” The US military, with hundreds of overseas bases and a budget larger than the military budgets of the next nine countries combined, is the world’s single largest annual carbon emitter, Crawford calculates. Journalism alone cannot stop either war or climate change. But our reporting can make clear how these two instruments of violence reinforce one another and, perhaps, how they might be defused.
In his 1968 book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe portrays LSD pioneer Ken Kesey as “seeking to create a new religion.” Fifty-three years later, President Joe Biden put his imprimatur, with equal religious fervor, on the battery-electric vehicle.
In his 1968 book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe portrays LSD pioneer Ken Kesey as “seeking to create a new religion.” Fifty-three years later, President Joe Biden put his imprimatur, with equal religious fervor, on the battery-electric vehicle.
Biden was hardly the first political leader to endorse a forced shift away from the internal combustion engine. Norway began the process in the l990s, with other nations soon joining in a European Union mandate that preceded the U.S. action.
Many see China as the biggest beneficiary of the electric vehicle mandates, and for good reason. Their heavily subsidized (including by forced labor) lithium battery and electric vehicle industries are, sans tariffs, undercutting almost every other nation’s auto industry, forcing many into seeking protections that cannot hold back the tide forever.
In the U.S., several states, led by California, have gone beyond the federal mandate to force electric vehicles – including heavy trucks – down the throats of an unwilling public. On the other hand, multiple automakers, notably Ford, have lost so much money trying to comply with Washington and Sacramento they are backing away from previous boastful commitments.
There are, we are learning, other ways to comply with ever-tightening carbon dioxide emissions rules. Both automakers and fuel experts are coming up with a myriad of “solutions” that would not require massive charging networks and an overtaxing of an already fragile electric grid.
Once again, government and the fawning media told us that “the science is settled,” and that the plug-in electric was the only path forward to prevent the entire planet from literally catching on fire and burning humanity alive. Yet people have uncovered multiple flies in this supposed ointment, including the sad propensity of lithium-ion batteries to catch fire and to be disabled during power outages or when submerged in water.
For whatever reasons, scientists and engineers have forged pathways to new fuels, new engines, and other innovative solutions to the presumed “carbon crisis” that is the driving force behind the desired abolition of gasoline and diesel fuels.
Despite the mandates issued by politicians and bureaucrats, the auto buying community, the automotive engineers, and even the automakers are saying there has to be a better way forward. Here’s a look at just a few of the emerging developments in auto engineering and fuels technologies.
Ferrari was one of the key drivers of Italy’s demand that the EU back off the “battery-electric only” mandate. Ferrari has an engine that runs on hydrogen as fuel. Hydrogen fuels also have zero carbon dioxide emissions, low nitrogen oxides emissions, and the potential to replace gasoline and diesel fuels. But they also retain the sound of a gasoline engine while not needing a battery (let alone a thousand-pound battery) while offering advanced performance capabilities for high-speed driving.
A curious thing about the Ferrari hydrogen engine is that its operating system is upside down. The cylinder head has its cams and valve at the bottom and the crankshaft is in the lower position. The pressurized lubrication circuit is based on the use of a dry sump and includes three oil pumps to ensure that oil is not trapped in the combustion chamber.
Porsche has filed a patent for a six-stroke engine – intake, compression, power, compression again, power again, and exhaust. While two-stroke engines complete a combustion cycle after one crankshaft revolution, and four-strokes need two revolutions, the six-stroke, says Porsche, functions with “six individual strokes that can be divided into two three-stroke sequences.”
Porsche’s objective is efficient and optimal use of power, as power is achieved on every third stroke and there is a more thorough utilization of the air-fuel mix. Porsche also seeks to galvanize the development of the combustion engine with vastly increased energy efficiency.
Meanwhile, Indiana-based Cummins, known for its diesel engines, has recently unveiled a new-design 15-liter, 500-horsepower hydrogen engine that runs on water, emits only steam, and can be refueled in seconds. The Cummins engine is revolutionary in the transport industry as it can replace the conventional diesel engine and is environmentally friendly.
The hydrogen fuel is stored in a tank and transformed into electrical energy via a fuel cell, which can convert up to 60% of the energy content of the hydrogen into electricity. The engine outputs up to 1,800 foot-pounds of torque for performance and towing capacity and has a fuel economy of up to 35% better than normal diesel engines, yet it produces zero emissions. Cummins hopes its hydrogen engine will succeed though other fuel-cell electric vehicles have failed.
Even Elon Musk has announced a strategic pivot towards hydrogen-powered Teslas. In a significant shift from prior skepticism over hydrogen as an energy source, Musk’s first hydrogen-powered model, tentatively named Model H, is expected to debut in 2026.
One likely reason for Musk’s change of course is the may well be recent advances in hydrogen fuel cell technology and the potential for much faster refueling (a key reason people eschew battery-electric vehicles). Another is the widely recognized shortcomings of battery-electric for long-haul trucking and industrial vehicles (including tow trucks).
Additional interest in hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles comes from the $7 billion federal commitment to establish regional hydrogen production hubs and tax incentives for clean hydrogen production and fuel-cell vehicles. Still, the only public hydrogen fueling stations are in California, and both a lack of access to refueling and high current hydrogen prices resulted in fewer than 225 hydrogen vehicles being sold last year.
Yet another company, Kansas-based Astron Aerospace, recently introduced the H2Starfire engine, a rotary configuration that defies current combustion engine theories and has been dubbed “a near-impossible engine.” The engine has neither cylinders nor pistons and can use hydrogen as fuel. It is also very lightweight at just 35 pounds and may be able to achieve higher efficiency and performance – generating 160 horsepower.
The H2Starfire can reach up to 25,000 rpm and functions according to a principle that substantially diverges from conventional piston engines and Wankel rotaries. It achieves these using two sets of counter-rotating rotors: the aluminum half does the intake and compression jobs, while the titanium half at the rear handles expansion and exhaust. As the gears turn, the air and fuel are admitted and burned to produce power via a revolving motion.
This is but a sampling of the myriad of new engine designs that differ widely from the long-favored and heavily subsidized battery-electric vehicles that Chinese can produce (with internal subsidies) and sell for far less than all other automakers. None of these engines require lithium mining, and none have heavy batteries that reduce load capacity and have other problems too numerous to recount here.
These hydrogen vehicles may never catch on unless the cost of hydrogen fuel drops dramatically and the number of hydrogen refueling stations increases dramatically. The public has tired of battery-electric vehicles as people realize that reselling older BEVs likely comes with buying a very expensive replacement battery. In the interim, automakers have continued to increase miles per gallon and reduce emissions from internal combustion gasoline and diesel engines.
All in all, those who long ago drank the battery-electric Kool-Aid may hope they are not living in Jonestown.
Another day, another green report. This time, in response to rising energy prices, a report has been published by something calling itself the Energy Crisis Commission. But the report flies in the face of sound economics when it tries to address the hardships faced by millions of individuals and businesses due to shy-high energy prices by calling for “a clear strategy for shifting away from fossil fuels, particularly gas”. Well, guess what: that’s because the “Commission” is just another bog-standard Green Blob front! Who could have guessed?
Another day, another green report. This time, in response to rising energy prices, a report has been published by something calling itself the Energy Crisis Commission. But the report flies in the face of sound economics when it tries to address the hardships faced by millions of individuals and businesses due to shy-high energy prices by calling for “a clear strategy for shifting away from fossil fuels, particularly gas”. Well, guess what: that’s because the “Commission” is just another bog-standard Green Blob front! Who could have guessed?
“A new report out today from the Energy Crisis Commission shows energy experts are backing the Labour Government’s mission for Clean Power by 2030”, tweeted Ed Milliband. Well, of course they do. For when one visits the Commission’s website, it is soon revealed that, “The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit [ECIU] is providing the secretariat for the Commission.” The ECIU is a well-connected but dysfunctional fake civil society organisation, which is wholly funded by green philanthropic outfits the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and the adjacent Meliore Foundation.
I feel that I write a lot about organisations that are wholly or mostly funded by the ECF, and it often feels that this is repetitive. But that is because most organisations active in the climate domain in the U.K. are funded by the ECF directly, or by one of the half dozen or so of the ECF’s grantor philanthropic foundations. The ECF is opaque about its sources of cash and its grantees, but it appears to be a green money-go-round – the Guardian would call it “dark money” – that puts distance between financial interests and corporate lobbying outfits styled as “civil society organisations”. What is remarkable is how many organisations that are seemingly distinct and “independent” are in fact operated under the strategic direction of their funders, whom they share accommodation with. The ECIU and the ECF are at the same “SE1 1LB” address of a virtual serviced offices – their footprints as entities being as vaporous as their output.
These aren’t real organisations; they are ghosts summoned by the will of money and ideology in some nebulous physical form to do their malign work before fading away. Green organisations – ECF grantees – have long campaigned for higher energy prices, and long attempted to distort the public discussion about how and why prices are going up, despite their false promises that renewables will be cheaper.
And so it is that the commission explains: “We consider this crisis to have started in August/September 2021, when gas prices started to rise, however the key tipping point for record prices was in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.” And I feel I am repeating myself, again, when I point out that the commission’s lazy analysis is false.
Energy traders had told me long before the Summer of 2021 that unusual price movements were signalling very high future prices. By Autumn 2021, European natural gas spot prices had reached nearly €100/MWh, way above the historical average of about €18. The immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion prompted a small spike to about €119, followed by a summer spike up to €240, which is when the ECF-funded Carbon Brief (also located at the phantom “SE1 1LB”) produced its “wind power is nine times cheaper than gas” claim. That is to say that the most significant rise occurs before the outbreak of war. This is shown more clearly when prices are viewed on a chart with a logarithmic axis, which better shows relative growth than a chart with a linear vertical axis.
In the 22 months between the slump in demand in May 2020, to the month following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, EU natural gas prices rose a staggering 2,753% – approximately 16% per month. Over the next five months to the August 2022 peak, the price rose a further 68%, at approximately equivalent to 11% per month. The evidence might just as well be made to show the converse of the commission’s claim: that the invasion in fact caused gas prices to collapse. The opposite conclusion is only obtained by misreading the linear chart, which appears to show a peak in the months following the invasion – a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The far more significant features of the price signal occurred before the event – though Russian reduction of supply and EU sanctions following the invasion undoubtedly tightened supply and pushed prices up further.
The price then fell precipitously over the months to May 2023. Speculation may have driven some of this volatility, but the biggest elephant in the room causing the big splash of high prices in 2022 was lockdowns, or more precisely recovery from lockdowns, including the extraordinary money-printing that had financed economic torpor. Gas production capacity had been slashed during this period, and recovery put pressures on supplies. Russia is largely a scapegoat for the catastrophic impact of Western climate and Covid policy failures.
A Green Blob outfit paying Potemkin commissions to write sympathetic reports about the problem of energy price rises strikes me as analogous to a drug cartel financing rehab centres. One only need to imagine the complaints from the Green Blob if it had turned out to be a “commission” funded by gas companies which found that the solution to energy price rises was to invest more in gas production. But the difference is that increasing gas production would at least close the gap between supply and demand, and therefore lower price. Histrionics from greens typically frame the problem of “interested parties” putting partial advice into the public sphere. But high prices benefit producers, whereas lower prices serve consumers. Ironically, greens and oil tycoons share interests here.
So, who are these commissioners who lack any grasp of basic economics, claiming to speak for the poor? Two of the panel, former MP David Laws and Dhara Vyas, hail from Energy U.K. – the industry lobbying outfit that the new Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee, Emma Pinchbeck has recently slithered from. Blob. Louise Hellem is Chief Economist at the Remain-fanatic, pro-lockdown Confederation of British Industry. Blob. Professor of Energy Policy at UCL, Jim Watson boasts many roles in advising Parliament, governments and intergovernmental agencies on energy security and emissions reduction among other things. Blob. These people have produced precisely the report you would expect them to. But they were joined by Gillian Cooper, Executive Director of Partnerships and Advocacy at Citizens Advice, and Adam Scorer, Chief Executive at National Energy Action (NEA), the “national charity working to end fuel poverty”. These are organisations who we would expect to put the interests of their clients before lofty agendas.
Not so, apparently. “We must pursue the twin aims of clean heat and warm homes in lockstep,” said Scorer on X. And once again, this virtue signalling arrives with no evidence of having been tested by basic arithmetic. Despite NEA being supported by countless energy companies, charities and local and national governments, U.K. domestic energy prices have tripled thanks to green policies – and foreign and Covid policies, too – without comment from NEA.
It would seem that the British Establishment, of which Citizens Advice and NEA are a part, is as good as the ECF at spawning off-the-shelf blob-fronts, populated by individuals who are naturally happier occupying such positions than challenging the Establishment they are part of. Millions of people are facing cold and rising bills this winter, and the “Citizens Advice” to Government is apparently to close down more oil and gas fields and create more weather-dependent renewables without regard for reality.
“Successive governments had the chance to lower the U.K.’s dependence on fossil fuels and avoid some of the worst of these impacts,” says the report. But that is simply false Green Blob mythology. As has been explained in previous posts, retrofitting houses with insulation and other energy efficiency measures capable of significantly reducing energy usage are simply not cost-effective from the consumer’s point of view. Even at today’s high energy prices, they would never “pay for themselves” in any reasonable time frame. And there are simply no technologies that could provide so-called “clean heat” to consumers at grid scale in the event of a dark and windless day or week. The commission is basing its claims on fantasies.
And what of the hapless consumer? He is ensnared by the phantom institutions that represent the green ideology-addled British Establishment rather than his own interests while being fed the story of that Russia is to blame for his predicament. The U.K. could be producing its own gas and exporting plenty too, and an independent commission of energy experts could be pointing this out. But that possibility has been ruled inadmissible by the flood of phantom ‘civil society’ organisations that surround Westminster. The phantom “Commission”, convened by that swarm of spectres, adds to the chorus. At some point the public is going to discover for itself that U.K. energy and climate policy is far worse than any climate change, and that its interests have been harmed more by the British establishment than by Russia. That experience is likely to be very painful.
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