Day: January 2, 2025

The errors and misstatements in “Climate Denialism”

There are 20 clearly false statements and three additional problematic statements in Tinus Pulles’ “Climate Denialism.” Most of them stem from disagreements on how to interpret existing data. However, some are due to his lack of understanding of what we wrote or, intentional distortion of what we wrote.

From Watts Up With That?

By Andy May

The featured image is by Josh, used with permission.

There are 20 clearly false statements and three additional problematic statements in Tinus Pulles’ “Climate Denialism.” Most of them stem from disagreements on how to interpret existing data. However, some are due to his lack of understanding of what we wrote or, intentional distortion of what we wrote. What is puzzling is I was asked to peer review this paper months ago and I sent in the review in October. Nearly all the errors you will see in the list below were pointed out then, yet they remain in the paper. To nearly everyone familiar with climate science literature and our paper, these errors are obvious. I find it more than a bit alarming that even the grammatical errors I pointed out in the paper last October are still in it. Why such a flawed paper was published is a mystery. Peer review is not working as intended.

Pulles appears to believe that dangerous human-caused climate change is an undisputed fact. He also repeatedly conflates “climate change” with “dangerous man-made climate change.” Human-caused global climate change has never been observed, either directly or statistically, only modeled. The paper is critical of our paper from earlier in the year (May & Crok, 2024), but that paper makes it clear that human-caused climate change is not an existential threat, and the incidence and magnitude of recent extreme weather events have not exceeded expected natural variability as shown in the recent IPCC AR6 WGI report on page 1856 and elsewhere.

Two citations in Pulles, (Hoofnagle & Hoofnagle, 2007) and (Diethelm & McKee, 2009), are editorials and not academic articles. Further both are slanderous attacks on climate skeptics and compare them directly to people who deny the Holocaust occurred and other similarly abhorrent groups. In fact, Hoofnagle mentions the World War II Holocaust five times. The Holocaust is a historical fact, I have visited Auschwitz/Birkenau personally and know its horrors, I defy anyone to take a tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau and leave without tears in their eyes, I don’t think it is possible. On the other hand, the hypothesis that climate change is mostly man-made and potentially dangerous is based entirely on theoretical considerations and model projections, these are research topics that Hoofnagle and Hoofnagle admit they do not “understand … worth a damn.” It is disingenuous in the extreme to conflate denying the Holocaust to climate skeptics who are simply challenging a popular scientific hypothesis in a time-honored traditional way.

I normally have no problem with the phrase “climate denier,” if it is clearly defined as one who is skeptical of the idea of dangerous man-made climate change but citing editorials that directly compare May & Crok to denying the Holocaust is beyond the pale of normal civil discourse and has no place in a respectable academic journal.

If alternative views on climate change are simply dismissed thoughtlessly as “denialism,” then normal scientific discourse is no longer possible. May & Crok make a good case that climate change is not a grave threat for mankind. It would have been more interesting if Pulles had made a similar argument for the opposite viewpoint. Readers of both could then make up their own minds. Instead, Pulles only attacks May & Crok with vacuous ad hominem arguments and says little of substance.

Climate skeptics acknowledge that dangerous human-caused climate change is possible but see no observational or statistical evidence supporting such an assertion. The currently available evidence tends to dispute the idea as explained in May & Crok. To skeptics, or “deniers,” if you prefer, the idea is clearly open to scientific debate.

The authors claim our article belittles scientific evidence by saying “AR6 claims,” “they believe,” or that “we need evidence.” These phrases are hardly belittling and fairly normal and respectful language when challenging a new scientific idea. In a debate one must establish that they understand the opposing view and restate it in a clear way. They claim May & Crok ignore thousands of pages of evidence. That many pages wouldn’t be needed if real evidence of dangerous man-made climate change existed.

It seems to me the author bears the burden of proof and has not delivered. His clearly false statements do not help his case.

This is just a quick summary of the most egregious problems in “Climate Denialism.” The detailed description and documentation of each error and problem, plus a bibliography is in a separate document. I peer reviewed “Climate Denialism” and wrote a detailed critique of the paper very similar to this one. The errors I point out below were nearly all in my October 2024 review. After the paper was published, I downloaded the final version and updated my review document to match the published version, very few changes to the October original were needed.

Key problems in “Climate Denialism.”

  1. Climate change “deniers” are directly compared to deniers of the Holocaust and other abhorrent groups in the two main sources used in the paper to define “Climate Denialism.” The Holocaust is a historical fact and dangerous man-made climate change is a hypothesis; they are not comparable.
  2. Pulles claims “deniers,” and May & Crok, specifically, deny science or climate science. I know of no man-made climate skeptics who deny science and certainly May & Crok do not deny science or climate science. Pulles conflates “science” and “climate science” with a popular climate change hypothesis that he never really defines. This confirms my opinion that the “consensus on climate change” means whatever it is needed to mean at the time.
  3. Pulles claims that denialists try to disprove “a scientific consensus.” Science is the methodology civilization invented to challenge a consensus opinion, quite the opposite of the author’s meaning. What is the purpose of science, other than as a methodology for challenging a consensus opinion?
  4. Pulles claims “denialism” is a “weapon of war against climate policies.” Scientific debate is not a war or a weapon. Scientific debate is a healthy thing.
  5. Pulles claims the peer review of May & Crok was weak, but all proper procedures were followed and the paper passed peer review three votes to one.
  6. Pulles erroneously claims denialists perform no work in the field of climate science. Judy Curry, Dick Lindzen, Willie Soon, Ole Humlum, and many others would be very surprised to hear this. This is an egregious error and insulting to the hundreds, perhaps thousands of climate skeptic peer-reviewed papers.
  7. Pulles erroneously claims the imbalance of net radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is known to be 0.7 W/m2. He further claims that the global average imbalance does not change. That is the “distributional effects [changes in Earth’s surface due to weather] will not disturb the global averages” due to the law of conservation of energy. This unsupported assertion has several problems, first the satellite data shows an imbalance of 4.3 W/m2, which is clearly impossible. The various TOA imbalances in the literature (0.6, 0.7, 0.9, etc.) are all assumed because the data are not accurate enough to determine a value, although since the world is warming, recent values (since 1980) are likely positive. Second since Earth’s surface has considerable heat storage capacity, just changing the energy residence time in the climate system a small amount can have a huge impact (see here and here for more details). In reality the energy imbalance must change continuously, how much is anyone’s guess. The ocean oscillations, like the PDO, the AMO, El Niño, and La Niña (ENSO), testify to this constantly changing quantity of stored energy. The “global averages” are indeed affected by changing heat storage, look at 1945 to 1976 in figure 1 of May & Crok for an example and compare to figure 2 of May & Crok (download the complete final submitted version here). While the incoming solar radiation has varied very little recently, the outgoing longwave radiation from Earth’s surface varies with temperature refuting Pulles’ assertion about an unchanging imbalance.
  8. Pulles erroneously claims that current warming is clearly due to anthropogenic GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, but this has not been established except in climate models. The basis for the statement is a correlation between CO2 and warming (his figure 3), yet earlier Pulles admits that correlation is not causation.
  9. Pulles claims that a disputed paper, Chen, et al., shows that McKitrick’s criticisms of the atmospheric fingerprint are incorrect. In fact, Chen, et al. mostly confirm McKitrick’s conclusions, but try and say they don’t matter and can be assumed away. For Ross McKitrick’s detailed criticisms of Chen, et al. see here.
  10. Pulles claims that if McKitrick is correct, it does not disprove that human activity is the main cause of global climate change. There is nothing to disprove, no one has proven that humans are the main cause of climate change. The human impact on climate has not even been detected.
  11. Pulles admits that climate models are inaccurate, relative to observations, in the tropical middle troposphere (see here) but erroneously claims that the “extra” heat must be somewhere else. Why? There may be no extra heat, the radiation imbalance at the top of the atmosphere is clearly unknown and constantly changing, we don’t even know if it is positive or negative. Further, as noted above, outgoing longwave radiation is increasing in a manner consistent with warming, and there is little change in incoming solar radiation, there is no “extra” heat that we can detect.
  12. Pulles erroneously claims that May & Crok state that the AMO is purely due to natural causes. In fact, we say that human-caused warming from 1976 to the present day might have been boosted by a natural AMO cycle. If true, this invalidates the IPCC idea that humans have caused all the warming since 1976.
  13. Pulles erroneously claims that Mann (2020 & 2021) provide evidence that the AMO is not a natural phenomenon. Mann conducted a climate model study that showed the AMO might be a result of volcanic activity and anthropogenic emissions, but he provides no evidence other than model runs. Mann et al., 2020 admits that internal variability contributes to the AMO.
  14. Pulles erroneously claims that the residuals after detrending the AMO and HadCRUT4 have no structure and may be due to random noise. Both sets of residuals not only show structure in figure 2 of May & Crok, the residual structures match each other. This statement is clearly false.
  15. Pulles writes “they conclude that the “detrended” data show no trends.” This is false, there is no such conclusion or statement in May & Crok.
  16. Pulles erroneously claims that ocean oscillations go up and down and can never contribute to warming trends. That depends entirely on the period of the oscillation and the beginning and ending dates chosen. This is false.
  17. Pulles erroneously claims that Pielke Jr. and Lomborg have been debunked but provide no evidence. I do not know of any articles written by them that have been debunked, they both receive a lot of criticism because they are skeptical of the dangers of man-made climate change, but they’ve not been debunked.
  18. Pulles erroneously claims that modern warming is unusual in Earth’s history. There are many examples of much more rapid and severe warming in the past, especially the very well documented rapid warming ~11,700 years ago.
  19. Pulles claims that the Little Ice Age was regional, as if that means it doesn’t matter. All climate changes are regional, including the current “global” warming. The Little Ice Age caused glaciers to advance nearly everywhere in the world except in Antarctica, but the advances were not synchronous. While this claim is true in the strictest case, it does not matter in the intended way.
  20. Pulles erroneously claims that plants evolved in an environment of around 250 PPM CO2. Modern vascular plants evolved during the Devonian Period, ~400 million years ago when CO2 was 1,000 to ~4,000 PPM, many times higher than today. It appears this error stems from a misunderstanding of his primary source Ort, 2015.
  21. Pulles erroneously claims that more CO2 will not result in improvements in plant growth, numerous controlled experiments have shown this is false. Especially C3 plants, such as rice, soybeans, wheat, most trees, and grasses, thrive in more CO2 than we have today.
  22. Pulles erroneously claims that May & Crok were “given permission” to publish their article in AJES, but in fact, they were invited to write a paper explaining the scientific basis for denialism.
  23. Pulles erroneously claims that the peer reviewers of May & Crok were “clearly not familiar with the existing science.” This is not true and not documented in the paper.
  24. Finally, this assertion, “The many flaws and misrepresentations in the paper should have resulted in rejection” has no foundation. No flaws or misrepresentations in May & Crok are identified in “Climate Denialism.”

It is a shame that the institution of peer-review has been corrupted to the extent that papers filled with obvious falsehoods can pass simply because of ideological bias. I was a peer reviewer for this paper and pointed out all the above problems to the editor in October, but the paper was published anyway, with the falsehoods left in. My full review of the paper, slightly updated, can be downloaded here.

It is amazing that papers like this get published (see other examples here and here) when all-to-often serious and carefully researched papers are rejected. Pulles and May & Crok interpret the same facts differently in many cases, but in many of the points listed above, Pulles is clearly in error. It is shocking that these obvious errors were pointed out in detail months ago, but the editors of AJES still published the paper as is.

Hoofnagle and Hoofnagle, who admit they do not understand climate models “worth a damn,” write “Global Warming denialists like Richard Lindzen [try] and explain why mainstream scientists won’t publish their BS.” Science is clearly taking a backseat to bias and misinformation. This is to the detriment of scientists everywhere.

These problems with Climate Denialism are discussed in more detail, along with additional problems not listed here, in a downloadable detailed critique here that contains a full bibliography. The detailed critique is extremely similar to what I sent in to the editors of AJES in October. For a list of other critiques of May & Crok and our responses, see here.

It’s a win: Bankers are backing away from the Monster Banking Climate Cartel

It’s a good start to 2025 — just quietly, the money is exiting the Monster Banker Climate Cartel. Since the Trump win, the bankers are running away suddenly from the United Nations “Net-Zero Banking Alliance” (NZBA) which is a sub-part of GFANZ (the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero) — the world’s largest and richest climate activists club.

From JoNova

By Jo Nova

It’s become a flood

It’s a good start to 2025 — just quietly, the money is exiting the Monster Banker Climate Cartel. Since the Trump win, the bankers are running away suddenly from the United Nations “Net-Zero Banking Alliance” (NZBA) which is a sub-part of GFANZ (the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero) — the world’s largest and richest climate activists club. GFANZ is the public face of every kind of global financial-bullying-to-save-the-world. Economically, the monster collective could eat whole nations for breakfast. At one point the collective assets-under-management were as valued at the fantastical conglomeration of $130 trillion. It is the hydra-head hissing at superannuation funds and national treasurers that don’t comply with sacred green goals. Who cares what the voters want?

The latest round of quiet banker departures started with Moody‘s and Goldman Sachs, a month ago. Only two days ago RealClear Energy took heart that ” U.S. behemoths Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo were still in the NZBA”. But Wells Fargo quit a week ago, and under the cover of New Years Eve parties, the Bank of America, and Citigroup have jumped ship too. No one seems to be saying why they are leaving, probably because there is no good way to admit they were colluding with other bankers in anti-competitive acts, to limit the choices of businesses and voters. Likewise, there is never a good time to say it was a mistake to join a club that put their clients’ interests second, after the pet obsessions of UN apparatchiks.

Credit for these successes goes to the Republican State Governors and their anti-trust and fiduciary duty legal suits. Their threats are unravelling the giant financial marshmellow man — especially now that the bankers have lost any “protection” the Biden – Harris  Presidency may have offered.

Citigroup leaves climate coalition

  • Bloomberg

    Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp said they are leaving a global climate-banking group, becoming the latest Wall Street lenders to exit the coalition in the past month.

    In a statement, Citigroup said while it remains committed to achieving net zero emissions, it is exiting the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). Bank of America said separately on Tuesday that it is also leaving NZBA, adding that it would continue to work with clients on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    The bankers just want to save the world — and sell green bonds…

    Citigroup has been the world’s No. 4 underwriter of green bonds since the start of the decade, trailing BNP Paribas SA, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Credit Agricole SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bank of America ranks eighth.

    As I’ve explained — these banker bullies can force first world economies to pick up Net Zero policies, even when their voters don’t want it, but their power hinges on a bluff made with other people’s money which the US Republican’s have called them on. Larry Fink doesn’t hold $10 trillion in personal assets, he manages $10 trillion of other people’s investments:

    The climate banker cabal called GFANZ — was set up in 2021 by the UN and Mark Carney (former governor of the Bank of England). At one point GFANZ grew to an obscenely unbelievable $130 trillion in “funds under management”, giving it the financial power equivalent to a black hole. The largest 20 national economies in the world have a combined GDP of $87 trillion. So when a collective managing $130 trillion says “jump” there are not many Presidents or Prime Ministers inclined to say “No”. In October 2020, the CEO of BlackRock told the Australian government he wanted them to shut coal plants faster and three weeks later, Scott Morrison and the treasurer signed us up for Net Zero, even though the voters had picked them to do less climate action rather than more.

    …it was all a big bluff…  all the giant funds use other people’s money to bully and cajole boards, ministers, and global leaders into doing things that none of them might want. They were supposed to be investing pension funds to earn money for workers to retire on, instead it looked and smelled a lot like they were squandering the returns in order to prop up socialist ideologies, dodgy companies, and to coerce governments to legislate policies that the voters didn’t vote for.

    Larry Fink the CEO of Blackrock, and his pals, turned our pension funds into a leftist activist machine. Thankfully 19 US States fought back by asking the legal bombshell questions about whether these funds were cooperating in a way that breached antitrust laws and neglected their fiduciary duty.

    — from  ESG comes undone — BlackRock, JP Morgan abandon “Climate Action 100+”

    Appropriately the GFANZ logo is an empty hole. You only think you can see the “zero”.

    It’s a big set back for the UN and the bankers

    GFANZ and the UN banker cartel was an obscene grab for power. It is an unholy alliance of big money and big government — looking acting and smelling like the start of a World Government machine to take power away from the voters and command their energy, investment, pensions, and freedom from Geneva or London.

    The psychopaths and colluding bankers won’t stop colluding, but this is, at least, the beginning of the end for the brazen, naked part of the gambit. Now they will have to go back to meeting at Davos for skiing trips to plot their self serving goals. They have to pretend to compete, which will slow them down. They can’t be seen to “set national policy”, and they must not use their clients funds against them, at least not obviously.

    We don’t need all the bankers to shift, we just need a few so we have some competition.

    Which banks serve the UN?

    Conveniently the bragging UN has made the list of member-bankers searchable by country.

    The only big US bankers left in the NZBA are JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley. The US member list is looking decidedly empty…  On the other hand, practically every Australian bank has signed on to obey the United Nations “NZBA” club —  the ANZ, Comm bank, NAB, Westpac, Macquarie and BoQ.   Which banks did not?  Bendigo Bank? Please search among the wiki list of Australian banks. Let us all know if you know of one that serves Australians rather than the UN.

    The Bank of NZ is also a fully fledged member. For Canadians, like Australians, seemingly every bank is a Bank of the UN —  the CIBC, the BMO, Coast Capital, NBC, RBC, Scotiabank, TD Bank and Vancity too.  (Forgive me if I screwed up the acronyms.)

    The UK bankers include too many to name, but Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, PBS, TSB, Standard Chartered, and Virgin Money for starters.

    While the US has the well known “anti-trust” laws which the Republicans are using to frighten the bankers, the rest of the West has fiduciary duty rules, and regulations that prohibit anti-competitive collusion. Hopefully this is just the start of the great climate unravelling.

    ___________

    Related posts:

    The dark bubble: There’s a reason everything seems to be going off the rails simultaneously

    Can State Lawfare Contain the Fictional Methane Crisis?

    A former army officer is leading a green lawfare attack on gas extraction companies.

    Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré (Ret.)

    From Watts Up With That?

    Essay by Eric Worrall

    A former army officer is leading a green lawfare attack on gas extraction companies.

    Methane leaks are supercharging the climate crisis — here’s what we must do, now 

    BY RUSSEL L. HONORÉ, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR   – 12/31/24 12:00 PM ET

    In the fight against climate change, the focus is usually on carbon dioxide, or CO2 — and for good reason. It’s a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for years, trapping in heat for generations to come. Yet there is an even more potent planet-warming gas whose destructive powers have long gone hidden — until now. 

    …

    The fossil fuel industry has been drilling and refining oil and its byproducts for over 150 years, and it has left behind a legacy of pollution and dodged accountability. So-called “orphaned” wells, or wells that have been abandoned by the oil companies that originally drilled them, litter the United States, including my home state of Louisiana. When these wells aren’t abandoned outright, ownership is transferred to a shell companywithout the funding to clean them up. They can remain uncapped for generations, leaking carcinogens and other toxic chemicals into the surrounding area and unleashing plumes of methane into the atmosphere. 

    …

    The industry’s process for extracting gas through fracking, moving it through pipelines, liquefying it and shipping it overseas is an energy intensive and wasteful process. From the well head through the pipeline to the export terminal and beyond, methane is leaked into the atmosphere. To regulate pressure along the pipeline and in the liquefaction plant, companies flare, or burn off the excess, just above ground level, releasing methane along with any other particulate matter.  

    Here too, the fossil fuel industry needs to be held to account. Sending a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere while marketing it as a “green” alternative to oil is dishonest.  

    …

    Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré (Ret.) is a former commanding officer of the U.S. First Army. He led Joint Task Force Katrina in New Orleans following the devastating Category 5 hurricane. He is currently head of The Green Army; an organization dedicated to finding solutions to pollution. Read more: 

    https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5060288-methane-emissions-climate-change/

    There are a few parts to unpack in this article.

    Lt. Gen Honoré is someone with a serious commitment to serving his country. He served his country in the military, he led a major part of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, and I believe he now sincerely believes he is still serving his country by his participation in The Green Army. We have to respect this is someone who has given a great deal to his country, and who still believes he is serving his country.

    What about the gas companies?

    There appear to be two parts to Lt Gen. Honoré’s grievance with gas companies.

    1. The suggestion gas companies are using legal tricks to avoid having to clean up old well sites.
    2. The suggestion gas companies need to be held to account for their contribution to global warming.

    Part 1, the suggestion gas companies are using sharp practices to avoid cleaning up pollution. Looking at Lt. Gen Honoré’s Green Army website this mostly appears to relate to grievances over local issues in Louisiana. I don’t know the situation on the ground in Louisiana, so I’m not going to pass judgement on this issue.

    Obviously, I have a big problem with the second part of Lt Gen. Honoré’s concerns about global warming, because that concern is false. There is no evidence low level methane leaks are or will in the future cause any measurable harm to human health.

    Methane: Much Ado About Nothing

    But there is plenty of evidence an unnecessary regulatory crackdown on gas company emissions would do great harm to poor people.

    In Europe the impact of green policies on poor people is nothing short of horrific.

    Net Zero is condemning more Brits to energy poverty-Ross Clark

    The USA is not immune to green lawfare messing up people’s lives;

    Extreme Poverty USA: The True Cost of Climate Madness

    Lt Gen. Honoré, I believe you are sincere, over your life you have demonstrated a deep commitment to helping people and serving your country. On your website I saw a mention of your Katrina experience. I can only imagine how horrible that was.

    But shutting down the gas industry, or even heavily regulating gas emissions, would have a devastating impact on poor people.

    Energy poverty is a real issue in the USA, and a far worse issue in Britain and Europe. Any intensification of environmental regulation of energy has to be weighed against the possible consequences of driving up the cost of energy.

    Lt Gen. Honoré, I urge you to please re-check your case, make absolutely sure that you are doing the right thing. Because if you succeed in your lawfare attack against gas companies for their insignificant methane emissions, if you contribute to unnecessarily driving up the cost of energy in the USA, the very people you want to help could suffer adverse consequences from your actions.

    Brazil’s Paris Pledge Lies in Tatters

    Brazil adopted the Paris Agreement and submitted its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UNFCCC in 2016 and its Updated NDC in 2020 in support of its adaptation commitments and continued economic and social development agendas. Through its NDC, Brazil has committed to reduce its GHG emissions by 37% below 2005 levels, by 2025. Brazil has also committed to address climate change impacts to the country’s sectors environment, forestry, agricultural and livestock, energy, and health sectors. Brazil submitted its Fourth National Communication to the UNFCCC in 2020.

    From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

    By Paul Homewood

     The World Bank Portal analysis of Brazil also includes details of the NDC, the emissions pledge made by the country as their contribution to the Paris Agreement:

    https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/brazil

    I wonder how that worked out?

    BP Energy Review

    We don’t have data for other GHGs, as they are not measured annually. But emissions of CO2 were 30% higher in 2023 than in 2005.

    And they have barely dropped at all since the NDC was formally registered in 2016.

    Yet the delusional Miliband still believes that the rest of the world follow our lead and wreck their own economies as well!

    2025 Looks Bleak for Germany…Energy the Most Expensive in Europe …Growing Speech Tyranny

    2025 in Germany will be a year more energy inflation and loss a free speech rights

    Effective today, Germany’s CO2 surcharge will rise from 45 euros a tonne to 55 euros, which will further fan inflation and social discontent.

    From NoTrickZone

    By P Gosselin

    2025 in Germany will be a year more energy inflation and loss a free speech rights

    Effective today, Germany’s CO2 surcharge will rise from 45 euros a tonne to 55 euros, which will further fan inflation and social discontent.

    Already Germany’s electricity prices are among the highest in the world, and the most expensive in Europe:

    Chart: strom-report.com/ 

    Germany clamps down on dissenters, free speech

    But 2025 will not be an easy year for dissenters and critics of the government, as this is increasingly being criminalized in Germany thanks recently passed laws and acts that aim to suppress free speech in Germany.

    The former head Germany’s Constitution Protection Authority (Bundesverfassungsschutz), Thomas Haldenwang (CDU Party), suggested last February when presenting measures to fight right-wing extremism, that human thoughts and speech patterns need to be under surveillance and become the business of the government: “It’s also about shifting verbal and mental boundaries. We have to be careful that thought and language patterns don’t become embedded in our language.”

    Mocking the state now verboten

    Haldenwang’s boss, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD Party), wants to treat vocal conservative protesters in the same way as organized crime groups: “Those who mock the state must deal with a strong state.”

    “We want to take account of the fact that hate on the internet also occurs below the threshold of criminal liability,”said Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus (Greens) at her press conference on February 13 on the topic of ‘Hate on the Internet’. “Many enemies of democracy know exactly what falls under freedom of expression on social media platforms,”

    Meant by “enemies of democracy” here are opposition forces, even when democratically elected.

    Unwanted election results may be annulled

    In response to comments in favor of the conservative made by Elon Musk, German President Frank Walter Steinmeier hinted he would annul the results of the upcoming February 23 national elections if he doesn’t like the results.

    So in Germany, it’s watch what you say and, if the old parties don’t like the election results, then they might just well annul them. Germany is slipping back quickly to darker times.

    Happy New Year to the rest of you!

    BBC Extreme Weather Lies Exposed

    Even by their own standards, the BBC’s latest climate report, “A year of extreme weather that challenged billions”, is shockingly dishonest.

    It’s the same load of lies they peddle every year – the world’s weather is getting more extreme, and it’s all due to global warming. And every year they trot out a handful of weather events to “prove” it.

    From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

    By Paul Homewood

    h/t Ian C

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg8dg3ke40o

    Even by their own standards, the BBC’s latest climate report, “A year of extreme weather that challenged billions”, is shockingly dishonest.

    It’s the same load of lies they peddle every year – the world’s weather is getting more extreme, and it’s all due to global warming. And every year they trot out a handful of weather events to “prove” it.

    They never, of course, provide any actual data to prove that these events are anything other than random, natural occurrences, which have always occurred. Nor any evidence that such events are getting more frequent or extreme over time.

    This year’s review claims that:

    “Climate change has brought record-breaking heat this year, and with-it extreme weather, from hurricanes to month-long droughts.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg8dg3ke40o

    It goes on to list a heatwave in northern India, drought in the Amazon, six typhoons in the Philippines and floods in Sudan.

    The Indian heatwave in May and June was covered by the BBC at the time here, when they called it unprecedented. It will come as no surprise to you that it was nothing of the sort.

    Daily temperatures in Delhi never got near the record set in May 1944, whilst the monthly averages for May and June were not unusual at all.

    https://data.giss.nasa.gov/tmp/gistemp/STATIONS_v4/tmp_IN022021900_15_0_1/station.txt

    As for the Amazon drought, as an earlier BBC report explained, one of the major factors in low river levels is deforestation.

    As far as the climate is concerned, the World Bank Climate Portal states that rainfall in the Amazon basin has been increasing in the last 30 years:

    https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country-profiles

    The Philippines may have had more typhoons last year than average, but globally the number of tropical cyclones was lower than average.

    https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?arch&loc=global

    And extreme rain in Chad and Sudan?

    The World Bank Portal also highlights the catastrophic droughts in the 1970s and 80s – the Sahel Droughts, which directly resulted from global cooling.

    To arid countries like these, you can never have too much rain.

    https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/sudan/climate-data-historical

    And as the World Bank country profile for Nigeria pointed out, floods have been exacerbated by deforestation, watershed degradation, land use, urbanisation and building on flood plains:

    What particularly stands out about this latest BBC review, however, is its constant referencing to weather attribution models, which have long been debunked as unreliable, biased, unscientific and designed to garner headlines. There is no attempt to back up any of their assertions with hard data.

    Actual facts are of no interest whatsoever to the BBC now, as far as climate is concerned. They live in their own little bubble, where fraudulent computer models reinforce their ideology.

    Three Cheers for the IPCC

    Oh no, wait…

    From Climate Scepticism

    By John Ridgway

    Oh no, wait…

    It doesn’t matter how many people agree with you; it doesn’t matter if there’s some poll to back you up, it doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have on YouTube. The only thing that matters is whether you have a good argument.

    Thus says the physicist Professor Sabine Hossenfelder in a recent podcast, in which she lambasts a paper written by a team of sociologists and philosophers who seem to have got it into their heads that science should be conducted as a popularity contest. Being the outspoken lady that she is, Hossenfelder wastes no time in putting them in their place. I like that. In fact, I am having a whale of a time until about halfway through the video when she says this:

    That’s why the IPCC does NOT write their reports by a consensus mechanism. It’s not how science works. What they do, or at least try to do, is to go through all scientific claims and look at the evidence for them. Yes, the IPCC process has problems, but at least it’s not consensus based.

    The emphasis in the above quote is actually not mine; ‘NOT’ appears in the subtitles that accompany the podcast. It’s Hossenfelder’s way of showing how confident she is in the workings of the IPCC. Which is important, because if she were to be wrong, the condemnation she directed at those sociologists and philosophers for obsessing over scientific consensus would have to be levelled equally at the IPCC. If, as Hossenfelder correctly points out, science is not supposed to work by consensus, and if the IPCC did in fact write their reports by a ‘consensus mechanism’, then Hossenfelder would have to conclude that the IPCC is not doing science. But hey, that’s no problem, because Hossenfelder is one hundred percent sure that the IPCC is NOT ‘consensus based’.

    Let’s put Hossenfelder’s confidence aside for one moment and look at what the IPCC itself says on this matter. Specifically, this is what climate scientists and IPCC Lead Authors Gary Yohe and Michael Oppenheimer said in a paper written way back in 2011 when discussing the IPCC’s approach to report writing:

    Achieving consensus is, to be clear, one of the major objectives of IPCC activities. Paragraph 10 of the amended Procedures Guiding IPCC Work, for example, states that “In taking decisions, and approving, adopting and accepting reports, the Panel, its Working Groups and any Task Forces shall use all best endeavors to reach consensus”.

    Whichever way you read the above, the inescapable conclusion is that contrary to Professor Hossenfelder’s understanding, the IPCC is most emphatically consensus based. And just in case you needed any more persuading, there is also this from an IPCC guideline document on the consistent evaluation and communication of uncertainties:

    Use the following dimensions to evaluate the validity of a finding: the type, amount, quality, and consistency of evidence (summary terms: ‘limited’, ‘medium’, or ‘robust’), and the degree of agreement (summary terms: ‘low’, ‘medium’, or ‘high’).

    This time the emphasis is all mine; if it is okay for Hossenfelder to use capital letters then it must be fine for me to use bold. The only difference is that she was inadvertently emphasising her ignorance, whilst I am emphasising the facts.

    But it gets worse. Not only is the IPCC very much consensus based, for years it tirelessly resisted proposed improvements that would at least have mitigated the worst impacts of its obsession with consensus. As Yohe and Oppenheimer explain:

    Two proposals have been advanced repeatedly for beginning to address the problem of creating, defending and communicating consensus results as well as departures from the consensus. The degree to which IPCC, through its working group leadership structure, resisted these proposals during the AR4 process is unsettling, given that the scientific communities from which IPCC authors are drawn are supposed to think analytically about the world as a whole. Apparently, this dictum does not extend to reflexive consideration within the IPCC process as it performs its assessments.

    Not only is the IPCC most definitely consensus based — in a way that Professor Hossenfelder would recognise as being unscientific — it has also failed in the past to abide by dictums of ‘reflexive consideration’ that would be considered the norm by any self-respecting scientific community. And that’s not just me saying that it’s a pair of former IPCC Lead Authors who, I might add, are far from being climate change sceptics. But let’s be honest here. The real reason the consensus approach worries the likes of Yohe and Oppenheimer is not because it is unscientific. Their concern is that it fails to give sufficient weighting to the more extreme pessimists within the climate science community (no one is concerned about ignoring extreme optimists; they were removed from the system years ago).

    Honestly, I have no idea where Hossenfelder gets her ideas from regarding the workings of the IPCC. By saying “the IPCC process has problems” she would have you believe that she has some detailed knowledge. But in insisting that the IPCC is NOT consensus based, she betrays that her position hasn’t been informed by reading any of the IPCC documents that actually specify its processes! And this matters to me because Hossenfelder is one of many intelligent and influential scientists who comment approvingly on the scientific rigour of the IPCC and hence perpetuate falsehoods that have the effect of giving climate change sceptics a very hard time. Even worse, they embolden the Millibands of this world in a way that the world could really do without.

    Hossenfelder’s convenient ignorance regarding the IPCC is both disappointing and perplexing. It’s an ignorance that, no doubt, plays a part in her insistence that climate science sceptics are just anti-science deniers who use ‘sceptic’ to deceive both the public and themselves. But why she can’t recognise the overtly political purpose of the IPCC is a mystery to me. Is she really that naïve, or is there more than a little of her own self-deception going on here? And if it is the latter, is there any reason to assume that she is the only expert who suffers from this expedient but damaging blind spot?

    Hochul’s senseless $75B climate cash grab will only speed New York’s decline

    Gov. Hochul last week signed a new climate bill forcing fossil-fuel companies to pay $75 billion in “recovery” assessments over the next 25 years for their alleged role in causing “extreme weather.”

    From CFACT

    By Peter Murphy

    Gov. Hochul last week signed a new climate bill forcing fossil-fuel companies to pay $75 billion in “recovery” assessments over the next 25 years for their alleged role in causing “extreme weather.”

    “It’s time for large polluters to pay their fair share,” she declared.

    But the claim is an unscientific joke — and the law, passed by some of the nation’s most obtuse and know-nothing legislators, means the political class in Albany just hit the gas pedal on the Empire State’s economic demise.

    Under this law, New York will “impose cost recovery demands” for extreme weather events “on responsible parties,” or fossil fuel companies, which “shall be strictly liable, without regard to fault” (emphasis mine).

    Each company will be assessed a share of the $75 billion pot equal to its “applicable share of covered greenhouse gas emissions” — that is, carbon dioxide resulting from the fuel and power they have sold.

    But it’s a colossal money grab based on junk science, so arbitrary and capricious that court challenges are certain.

    Perhaps the discovery process will provide the opportunity to discredit this extreme-weather canard once and for all.

    The law will supposedly mitigate storm damage and pollution — yet no reputable scientist not feeding at the UN or government trough would claim such absurdities. 

    Carbon dioxide emissions simply do not cause “extreme weather,” as we at CFACT and other experts have documented countless times.

    Just what “extreme weather” has affected New Yorkers lately? “Superstorm” Sandy (not a hurricane) a dozen years ago, in 2012? An ordinary lake-effect snowfall of several feet in Buffalo?

    Historically, the worst storms to hit New York came 90 and 70 years ago.

    The New England hurricane of 1938 reached category 3 on Long Island and killed 60 people, and Hurricanes Carol and Hazel in 1954 each brought winds that exceeded 110 miles per hour. Hurricanes Donna and Esther hit New York in 1960 and 1961 with winds over 100 mph.

    If rising CO₂ emissions worsen storms, how is it that storms have decreased?

    In other words, Hochul is decades behind the times in seeking this compensation.

    And in reality, carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth, not a “pollutant.”

    CO₂ comprises just 0.04% — that’s four one-hundredths of one percent — of the planet’s atmospheric gases.

    Minuscule changes to these levels are not melting Arctic ice or causing hurricanes.

    New York’s policies on carbon emissions, however, are directly harming the state’s residents.

    New Yorkers now pay some of the highest electricity rates in the nation, up by 13.6% in the last year alone. Gas prices here are seventh-highest nationally, currently averaging $3.13 per gallon.

    These costs will surely increase with the state’s new climate assessments on energy companies, which will inevitably pass them on to consumers.

    New York’s politicians also for years have refused to access the state’s abundant natural gas through hydrofracturing (fracking), as adjacent Pennsylvania and other states do.

    Those plentiful interstate deliveries mean the political class has been living in a fantasy world, pretending to “lead the nation” in addressing the “climate crisis” without suffering power outages and other ill effects.

    But their coming $75 billion climate slush fund takes such virtue-signaling to new extremes, imposing costs on New York’s residents and employers that won’t easily be offset from elsewhere.

    Among the ripple effects will be the further exodus of people, investment and jobs to saner states.

    Since 2020, New York’s net population has declined by 336,500, a 1.7% percent drop, the largest of any state both numerically and percentage-wise. The illegal immigration influx has brought billions in taxpayer costs without stabilizing those losses.

    So far, New York’s political class hasn’t paid a price for such economically reckless policies.

    The absence of a viable two-party system makes a primary challenger the biggest political threat to a Democratic incumbent, resulting in extremist policies like this to preclude one.

    As important, huge interest groups like public-employee unions and environmental nonprofits also feed off of government largess. This new climate “Superfund” provides a massive new piggy bank they can raid for years to come.

    What do you think? Post a comment.

    Hochul signed this climate fund fiasco not for reasons of science or fairness, but as another suck-up to special interests for her 2026 reelection campaign.

    The resulting fiscal and economic harms to New Yorkers matter not at all.

    Her ongoing weakness and credulity have made her the worst governor in New York’s modern history.

    This article originally appeared in The New York Post

    Hurricane Data For 2024

    CSU have already updated their global hurricane database to include 2024

    From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

    By Paul Homewood

    CSU have already updated their global hurricane database to include 2024:

    https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?arch&loc=global

    There was nothing unusual at all about last year’s numbers, and the long-term trends speak for themselves, either in total hurricane numbers or major hurricanes.

    Clean Energy Benchmark Is Natural Gas: Today and for the Future

    Much has been said in recent months about America’s energy production and consumption. Specifically, which types of energy are optimal for today and — perhaps more importantly — for our needs tomorrow is a subject from town halls to coffee shop conversations and kitchen tables.

    From Watts Up With That?

    By The Empowerment Alliance

    Much has been said in recent months about America’s energy production and consumption. Specifically, which types of energy are optimal for today and — perhaps more importantly — for our needs tomorrow is a subject from town halls to coffee shop conversations and kitchen tables.

    Bloomberg Intelligence’s research shows data centers, buildings filled with servers and other computing equipment for data storage and networking that supports operations and artificial intelligence (AI), could be responsible for as much as 17% of all U.S. electricity consumption by 2030. 

    One data center can require 50 times the electricity of a typical office building, according to The Department of Energy.

    As America wrestles with its future energy needs, this indisputable fact remains: Natural gas is the affordable, reliable and clean energy source that should serve as the benchmark by which all other energy sources are measured.

    Consider:

    • Carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation have declined 61% due to increased use of natural gas over other sources like coal, according to The American Gas Association.
    • The restarting of coal plants underscores the real issue, which is the need to build more gas-fired power plants fairly soon.
    • U.S. utilities and investors plan to add 133 new natural gas-fired power plants to the nation’s grid, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data, by 2030.
    • Renewable energy sources can’t keep up with our growing energy needs.

    A tale of two Heartland states

    One community in Omaha, Nebraska, is considering restarting an old coal power plant. We understand the urgency here, but the neighborhood that has had some of the worst air pollution in the region should consider other options. 

    The fact that they’re bringing a coal plant online in Nebraska illustrates the dire situation facing officials and energy companies with AI and the growing need for affordable, reliable energy for decades to come.
    Here’s a better example from the neighboring state of Kansas, which is what The Empowerment Alliance (TEA) advocates should be happening nationwide.

    Evergy, which serves 1.6 million customers in Kansas and Missouri, will construct combined-cycle natural gas plants — each with a 705-megawatt capacity — in 2029 and 2030.

    A key takeaway comes from Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly, who said the plants would ensure reliable energy, including in emergencies or periods of high demand, like hot summer days. “As Kansas continues to transition to more sustainable energy, we’re doing it responsibly. These plants are much cleaner than traditional coal plants.”

    We agree with Gov. Kelly’s rationale and we encourage other states with growing data center footprints, such as Ohio and Virginia, to follow suit.

    Energy Security ARC

    At TEA, we have a plan for our energy future called the Energy Security ARC. Natural gas is the obvious solution to our clean energy needs.

    The two examples above underscore the crossroads that many communities, large and small, are facing regarding energy choices. The decisions made affect local jobs (165 new jobs in this city), and will have a direct impact on consumer costs for decades. 

    So they shouldn’t be taken lightly, based on these facts:

    • The U.S. is the world leader in lowering carbon emissions, largely because of increased use of natural gas for electricity generation.
    • Increased use of natural gas for electricity generation is the top reason for power sector emissions reductions over the past 17 years — almost double the impact compared to renewables.
    • In 2022 alone, the shift to natural gas provided an emissions reduction equivalent to 156 coal-fired power plants operating for a year.

    There are various practical options for energy, and those may include nuclear and coal. But natural gas is the clear choice when discussing affordable, reliable and clean energy. This pertains to millions of households, small businesses, family farms, factories and technologies still being developed.

    Natural gas is America’s trusted energy choice — past, present and future.

    The Empowerment Alliance was formed in 2019 to offer common-sense energy solutions that promote production and consumption of Affordable, Clean, Reliable natural gas. We believe that our nation’s energy independence is essential for America’s independence.

    This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.