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.
Europe is losing and will continue to lose competitiveness and jobs if it doesn’t tackle its high energy costs compared to other regions, Morten Wierod, chief executive of Switzerland-based engineering giant ABB, told Bloomberg.
“The cost for energy intense industries like chemical, steel production, cement is a challenge, and investments will go elsewhere than Europe if this continues,” Wierod told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday.
Europe is losing and will continue to lose competitiveness and jobs if it doesn’t tackle its high energy costs compared to other regions, Morten Wierod, chief executive of Switzerland-based engineering giant ABB, told Bloomberg.
“The cost for energy intense industries like chemical, steel production, cement is a challenge, and investments will go elsewhere than Europe if this continues,” Wierod told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday.
This predicament would hinder job creation in Europe, which, the executive said, “is a clear concern.” Bureaucracy is also weighing on the industry and job creation, Wierod said.
Major European companies are already moving to cut costs and retain their competitive edge.
For example, Thyssenkrupp, Germany’s largest steelmaker, said on Monday it would slash 11,000 jobs in its steel division by 2030, in a major corporate reshuffle.
“Urgent measures are needed to improve Thyssenkrupp Steel’s own productivity and operating efficiency, and to achieve a competitive cost level,” the German industrial giant said.
As Europe is bracing for the winter, wholesale electricity prices have jumped in November to the highest level in 20 months, additionally burdening the key industries in major economies that had just started to recover from the 2022 energy crisis.
The highest spot-based electricity prices in Europe since February 2023 threaten industrial production in key economies and loom large over business sentiment.
Earlier this month, falling wind power generation tightened power markets in Europe, with electricity prices in Germany hitting their highest since the peak of the energy crisis in 2022.
The rising energy costs threaten major European economies, just as Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, narrowly avoided a recession in the third quarter of the year. Eurozone GDP grew by 0.4% in the third quarter, Eurostat’s flash estimate showed earlier this month. That was higher than expected as the two top economies, those of Germany and France, outperformed forecasts.
“… fly less, eat less meat and use public transport more often …”
Now Keir Starmer’s climate advisers say we will need to change diets and fly less – after PM insisted climate goals wouldn’t hit Britons
By COLIN FERNANDEZ PUBLISHED: 09:30 AEDT, 28 November 2024 | UPDATED: 10:09 AEDT, 28 November 2024
Britons will have to fly less, eat less meat and use public transport more often to hit Net Zero goals, the Government’s main climate-change advisers have insisted.
The stipulations outlined to MPs today directly contradict promises by Sir Keir Starmer earlier this month that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would not involve people in Britain having to change their lifestyles.
New targets mean the UK’s emissions should be cut to 81 per cent of 1990 levels by 2035.
Speaking at the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan a fortnight ago, the Prime Minister said he would not be ‘telling people how to live their lives’ by reducing air travel or changing their diets.
But today leading members of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) spelled out that hitting the target would involve widespread ‘behaviour change’.
Texas and 10 other US States have pressed the radioactive Antitrust legal button and filed against BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. The states claim the money managers bought up large stakes in coal companies and then colluded to promote ESG and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) goals that reduced coal output. The decreased supply of coal, in turn increased the cost of electricity to consumers. It was fundamentally anti-competitive behaviour. These three companies together have $26 Trillion dollars of assets under management. That’s only one trillion smaller than the entire US GDP.
Texas and 10 other US States have pressed the radioactive Antitrust legal button and filed against BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. The states claim the money managers bought up large stakes in coal companies and then colluded to promote ESG and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) goals that reduced coal output. The decreased supply of coal, in turn increased the cost of electricity to consumers. It was fundamentally anti-competitive behaviour. These three companies together have $26 Trillion dollars of assets under management. That’s only one trillion smaller than the entire US GDP.
In this case, some of the collusion hidden in clear view. The three money managers said they were trying to save the world and to protect the people, and they joined groups like the GFANZ and Net Zero alliances like Climate Action 100+. But in the end, these three financial giants had collectively acquired close to 30% of most US Coal companies, and even though they claimed to have good intentions, the 11 State Attorney Generals argue that any extraneous claims of social benefits are irrelevant. These three companies have profited immensely while customers have been denied access to a free and open market and have paid higher electricity bills.
In a democracy, the people are supposed to decide the policies, not the Oligarchs.
Look at the grip the three supermassive money managers had on the coal industry:
No wonder coal companies were so pathetic at standing up for themselves, and fighting back against the climate propaganda. They were captured by the Blob and held hostage to larger goals:
The defendants were accused of exploiting their market power and involvement in climate advocacy groups to pressure coal companies to slash output and reduce carbon emissions from coal by more than 50% by 2030, driving up consumers’ utility bills.
“Competitive markets — not the dictates of far-flung asset managers — should determine the price Americans pay for electricity,” the states said in the complaint.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office filed the lawsuit, in a statement accused the defendants of promoting an “illegal weaponization of the financial industry in service of a destructive, politicized ‘environmental’ agenda.” The lawsuit aims to stop these companies from voting on shareholder resolutions or acting in a way to undermine coal output and competition. The Attorney Generals also want money — calling for fines to be paid for the antitrust violation.
For the past four years, America’s coal producers have been responding not to the price signals of the free market, but to the commands of Larry Fink, BlackRock’s Chairman and CEO, and his fellow asset managers. As demand for the electricity Americans need to heat their homes and power their businesses have gone up, the supply of the coal used to generate that electricity has been artificially depressed—and the price has skyrocketed. Defendants have reaped the rewards of higher returns, higher fees, and higher profits, while American consumers have paid the price in higher utility bills and higher costs.
The three financial giants have violated the Clayton Act (Antitrust legislation)
Defendants are three of the largest institutional investors in the world. Each Defendant has individually acquired substantial stockholdings in every significant publicly held coal producer in the United States. Each has thereby acquired the power to influence the policies of these competing companies and bring about a substantial lessening of competition in the markets for coal. And each has used its power to affect a substantial reduction in competition in coal markets. Considered alone and in isolation, each Defendant’s acquisition and use of producers has violated Section 7 of the Clayton Act.
… Defendants have immense influence over these companies on their own, but collectively Defendants possess a power to coerce management that is all but irresistible.
They have made their goals public
But Defendants have not just acted alone and in isolation. In 2021, they went further. In that year, Defendants each publicly announced their commitment to use their shares to pressure the management of all the portfolio companies in which they held assets to align with netzero goals. Those goals included reducing carbon emissions from coal by over 50%. Rather than individually wield their shareholdings to reduce coal output, therefore, Defendants effectively formed a syndicate and agreed to use their collective holdings of publicly traded coal companies to induce industry-wide output reductions.
And even though they have pulled out of these Net zero alliances, (or Monster Banker Clubs), that doesn’t change the fact that they did engage in anticompetitive behaviour and still continue to threaten the free market.
Pretending to save the world while profiting from collusion is not OK
Defendants have publicly defended their anticompetitive scheme with appeals to environmental stewardship. But acquiring shares of common stock, “the effect of which ‘may be substantially to lessen competition’ is not saved because, on some ultimate reckoning of social or economic debits and credits, it may be deemed beneficial.” … The nation’s antitrust laws “reflect a legislative judgment that ultimately competition will produce not only lower prices, but also better goods and services.” … Defendants’ belief that concern for the climate confers a license to suppress competition is “mistaken.
The antitrust laws don’t permit [the enforcers of America’s antitrust laws] to turn a blind eye to an illegal deal just because the parties commit to some unrelated social benefit.”1 Under the antitrust laws, full and open competition must dictate domestic coal production.
In addition to joining with the other two major institutional asset managers to bring about a reduction in the output of coal, Defendant BlackRock went further—actively deceiving investors about the nature of its funds. Rather than inform investors that it would use their shareholdings to advance climate goals, BlackRock consistently and uniformly represented its non-ESG funds would be dedicated solely to enhancing shareholder value. But as detailed below, BlackRock routinely violated its pledge to investors, using all its holdings to advance its climate goals and—as most relevant here—promote the objectives of its output-reduction syndicate.
The States that may save us all are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Other countries should be following suit and looking hard at their own competition laws. We may not have antitrust laws, but most of the West have some kind of competition laws against cartels who misuse their market power.
The period between 1250 and 1860 is also known as the Little Ice Age. We have already reported on them here a few times. The Little Ice Age was the undoing of the Franklin Expedition, among others. In the search for the Northwest Passage, the crew failed on the ice, although they had set off in the summer. Franklin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He paid with his death.
The period between 1250 and 1860 is also known as the Little Ice Age. We have already reported on them here a few times. The Little Ice Age was the undoing of the Franklin Expedition, among others. In the search for the Northwest Passage, the crew failed on the ice, although they had set off in the summer. Franklin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He paid with his death.
But what was the climate like at that time and what were the climate drivers? Volcanoes played a major role, but also a minimum of solar activity. However, the summers were by no means consistently wet and cool.
A 2022 study addresses this topic. From the translated summary.
The Little Ice Age (LIA), which lasted from about 1250 to 1860 AD, was probably the coldest period of the last 8000 years. Using new documentary data and analyses of alpine glacier fluctuations, the complex transition from the medieval climate anomaly to the LIA and the resulting high variability of seasonal temperatures for Europe are described and interpreted. The onset of LIA was likely different in both hemispheres. The low average temperature of the LIA is primarily due to the high number of cold winters. Conversely, many summers were warm and dry.
Important triggers of the lower temperatures were primarily the numerous clusters of volcanic eruptions and the weak solar radiation during the four prominent Great Solar Minima: Wolf, Spörer, Maunder and Dalton. The temperature drop triggered the sea-ice-albedo feedback and led to a weakening of the Atlantic orbital circulation, possibly associated with a trend towards negative North Atlantic Oscillation indices.
The statistics of extreme events show a mixed picture. Correlations with forcing factors are weak and can only be found in the context of the “years without a summer”, which very often occurred after large volcanic eruptions.
We must always keep in mind that in the middle of the 19th century, several factors came together. After one of the coldest periods of the last 8,000 years, a climatic countermovement followed. In addition, the industrialization of the world and the massive use of coal began. Landmasses were reshaped on a large scale, such as during the settlement of North America. In addition, the time was also the birth of modern meteorology. In the Crimean War, France had lost large parts of its fleet due to a storm for which it was not prepared. As a lesson from this, weather forecasts were made on the basis of data, of course in no comparison to today. However, warnings of severe weather were still possible at that time due to the use of telegraphy. So a lot came together.
A recent study on the topic finds volcanism “responsible” (51% involved), but also a participation of the “North Atlantic Oscillation” (NAO), which particularly influences the winters in Europe and even a participation of the “IPO” (Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation at the other end of the world) to 28%. In any case, we would do well to remember that nothing in nature is constant and romanticized images from the period before the middle of the 19th century are to be viewed critically. So the next time we hear the phrase “before industrialization”, please remember this article.
From the University of East Anglia and the “has anyone told Al Gore?” department comes this finding that speaks to the huge complexity of Earth’s atmosphere and it’s systems.
Oceans emit sulfur and cool the climate more than previously thought.
From the University of East Anglia and the “has anyone told Al Gore?” department comes this finding that speaks to the huge complexity of Earth’s atmosphere and it’s systems.
Oceans emit sulfur and cool the climate more than previously thought.
Researchers have quantified for the first time the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern Ocean.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that the oceans not only capture and redistribute the sun’s heat, but produce gases that make particles with immediate climatic effects, for example through the brightening of clouds that reflect this heat.
It broadens the climatic impact of marine sulfur because it adds a new compound, methanethiol, that had previously gone unnoticed. Researchers only detected the gas recently, because it used to be notoriously hard to measure and earlier work focussed on warmer oceans, whereas the polar oceans are the emission hotspots.
The research was led by a team of scientists from the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) and the Blas Cabrera Institute of Physical Chemistry (IQF-CSIC) in Spain. They included Dr Charel Wohl, previously at ICM-CSIC and now at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK.
Their findings represent a major advance on one of the most groundbreaking theories proposed 40 years ago about the role of the ocean in regulating the Earth’s climate.
This suggested that microscopic plankton living on the surface of the seas produce sulfur in the form of a gas, dimethyl sulphide, that once in the atmosphere, oxidizes and forms small particles called aerosols.
Aerosols reflect part of the solar radiation back into space and therefore reduce the heat retained by the Earth. Their cooling effect is magnified when they become involved in making clouds, with an effect opposite to, but of the same magnitude as, that of the well-known warming greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide or methane.
The researchers argue that this new work improves our understanding of how the climate of the planet is regulated by adding a previously overlooked component and illustrates the crucial importance of sulfur aerosols. They also highlight the magnitude of the impact of human activity on the climate and that the planet will continue to warm if no action is taken.
Dr Wohl, of UEA’s Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences and one of the lead authors, said: “This is the climatic element with the greatest cooling capacity, but also the least understood. We knew methanethiol was coming out of the ocean, but we had no idea about how much and where. We also did not know it had such an impact on climate.
“Climate models have greatly overestimated the solar radiation actually reaching the Southern Ocean, largely because they are not capable of correctly simulating clouds. The work done here partially closes the longstanding knowledge gap between models and observations.”
With this discovery, scientists can now represent the climate more accurately in models that are used to make predictions of +1.5 ºC or +2 ºC warming, a huge contribution to policy making.
“Until now we thought that the oceans emitted sulfur into the atmosphere only in the form of dimethyl sulphide, a residue of plankton that is mainly responsible for the evocative smell of shellfish,” said Dr Martí Galí, a researcher at the ICM-CSIC and another of the main study authors.
Dr Wohl added: “Today, thanks to the evolution of measurement techniques, we know that plankton also emit methanethiol, and we have found a way to quantify, on a global scale, where, when and in what quantity this emission occurs.
“Knowing the emissions of this compound will help us to more accurately represent clouds over the Southern Ocean and calculate more realistically their cooling effect.”
The researchers gathered all the available measurements of methanethiol in seawater, added those they had made in the Southern Ocean and the Mediterranean coast, and statistically related them to seawater temperature, obtained from satellites.
This allowed them to conclude that, annually and on a global average, methanethiol increases known marine sulfur emissions by 25%.
“It may not seem like much, but methanethiol is more efficient at oxidising and forming aerosols than dimethyl sulfide and, therefore, its climate impact is magnified,” said co-lead Dr Julián Villamayor, a researcher at IQF-CSIC.
The team also incorporated the marine emissions of methanethiol into a state-of-the-art climate model to assess their effects on the planet’s radiation balance.
It showed the impacts are much more visible in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is more ocean and less human activity, and therefore the presence of sulfur from the burning of fossil fuels is lower.
The work was supported by funding from organisations including the European Research Council and Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
‘Marine emissions of methanethiol increase aerosol cooling in the Southern Ocean’, Charel Wohl, Julián Villamayor and Martí Galí et al, is published in Science Advances on November 27.
Cattle have long been accused of being among the top enemies of the climate. Despite the fact that creatures resembling our favourite Sunday dinners have been roaming the surface of the planet in their countless numbers for millions of years, climate warriors cannot distinguish between a cow, a car and a coal-fired power plant. Eating beef is destroying the planet, they claim. Some have demanded that livestock farming be abolished altogether and that governments intervene to force us into veganism by legislation.
Cattle have long been accused of being among the top enemies of the climate. Despite the fact that creatures resembling our favourite Sunday dinners have been roaming the surface of the planet in their countless numbers for millions of years, climate warriors cannot distinguish between a cow, a car and a coal-fired power plant. Eating beef is destroying the planet, they claim. Some have demanded that livestock farming be abolished altogether and that governments intervene to force us into veganism by legislation. Others think that we can be ‘nudged’ into lentil-eating by re-branding it as a ‘plant-based lifestyle’. At the softer end of climate wars, however, are the innovators, who claim to have found a way to stop cows burping and farting ‘planet-destroying’ gases. The problem for them is that people aren’t buying that claim.
This week, Arla Foods U.K. announced a trial of dairy cow feed additive Bovaer. The additive is marketed by dsm-firmenich – a decapitalised “purpose-led company”, which despite DSM starting out as a coal firm, now claims to be a supplier of “science-based products, services and groundbreaking innovation fundamental to the health, well-being and sustainability of farm animals”. The trial will see milk produced from cows fed with Bovaer being sold in Morrisons, Tesco and Aldi supermarkets. According to Arla, the additive “can reduce emissions from cows by 27%” – which amounts to about a tonne of methane per cow per year.
According to dsm-firmenich, Bovaer has been subject to “100-plus on-farms trials in 20-plus countries and more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific studies”. It was licensed for use by the EU in early 2022, and by the USA’s FDA in May this year. And it works by suppressing the production of the enzymes in the cow’s digestive system that help to produce methane.
The internet’s many and able sceptics were quick to wonder out loud what the ingredients of this additive – silicon dioxide, propylene glycol, and 3-nitrooxypropanol – are, and what effects they have on cows, and potentially our own bodies. The later component, known as ‘3-NOP’, turns out to affect the development of male reproductive organs of rats in experiments using relatively high doses compared to the recommended usage.
This effect seems not to have troubled regulators, who have since authorised its use. So, it must be assumed that they deem it safe. However, the word ‘safe’ in the context of interventions that are intended to serve the greater good has become much weaker in recent years, alongside its sister term, ‘effective’. Effective it may well be. But many do not think the risk of this having effects on humans has been excluded.
I am the last to argue for organic farming. I often bang heads with farmers who, though are broadly critical of Net Zero, seem to have nonetheless drunk a lot greener Kool-Aid than is good for them. And I have argued against the broader green trend in favour of GM technology and in defence of agricultural chemicals – fertiliser, pesticides, and fungicides. I argue we should not be squeamish about either our use of animals or technologies, and resist claims that mischaracterise ‘nature’. But such arguments are not claims that there exist no risks – it is that technologies produce very clear and important benefits. By some estimates, for example, half the entire human population of the world is dependent on synthetic fertiliser (manufactured from methane) for sustenance.
What is the benefit achieved by preventing cow burps? Some claim that it will help save the planet. But that claim seems far-fetched when we consider the counter claims that the world does not need saving anyway, that methane’s mode of action in the atmosphere is not well understood and has been overstated, that the atmosphere may already be saturated by methane, and that the action of hooves on the surface of the planet may well aid in the sequestration of greenhouse gases. We might therefore want to consider whether banning the burps of bullocks is worth risking our bollocks. Do we even need safety data to dissuade us from this pointless intervention? Even if we trusted the agencies responsible for ensuring the safety of foods and food technologies, are there sufficient benefits to offset the possibility that they have made an error? No, because there are no benefits to this product. In other words, Bovaer meets political ‘needs’. It’s a food additive that ticks policy boxes.
In response to Arla Foods announcement, some are now challenging the supermarkets involved in this trial and advising a boycott. Others are contacting the dairies they use, to check that their milk or milk products have not come from a farm involved in this trial. And some farms have been keen to point out that they will not be using this additive. Some are calling for labelling, reigniting the tropes of the wars over GM food and throwing the green arguments back to the greens. And some are sharing the details of farms where it is possible to buy unprocessed milk, produced to the highest standards, with the minimum chemical and process interference.
I can’t say I blame them. And I think I will be suspending my scepticism of the ‘nature knows best’ crowd to join them in resisting this completely unnecessary chemical intervention, whether or not it is functionally equivalent to castration. It will be the greenest thing I have done in my enter career as a climate sceptic.
First published JoNova – “… I have been low-key surviving off lunch and dinner date invites from my male global north friends who can afford it here. …”
A section of Kenyan delegates, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, say they’re not spared by hunger pangs.
“I know three people at COP who are sleeping hungry. They told me they are surviving on free biscuits from events happening around,” Doreen, a Kenyan journalist covering COP29, said.
…
A section of young delegates attending the world’s biggest climate meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, say they are trying to focus on the conference but are struggling to do so amid pangs of biting hunger.
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A section of Kenyan delegates, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, say they’re also not spared by hunger pangs.
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A female delegate from Brazil has also lamented how expensive Baku can be.
“Ever since I landed on Saturday and discovered things in Baku are extremely expensive, I have been low-key surviving off lunch and dinner date invites from my male global north friends who can afford it here. To be honest, it feels like they are ‘living’ around here while we merely ‘exist’” she said.
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