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.
Professor Mike Hulme: “… There’s going to be a lot of work done to reconstruct a narrative …”
Was the world’s most influential climate target doomed from the start?
As the world passes 1.5 degrees C of warming, a Cambridge scholar argues that putting a deadline on climate action was the wrong way to frame it.
…
A pair ofnew studies in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at historical data and came to the conclusion that the record heat last year — the first year to surpass 1.5 degrees C — wasn’t a temporary fluke, but a sign that the world is now soaring past this influential climate target over the long term. The new year continued that upward trajectory. Even as a natural cooling pattern called La Niña took hold recently, January managed to be hotter than ever, clocking in at a record 1.75 degrees C warmer than the preindustrial average.
…
… So is the world now at the edge of disaster?
Mike Hulme, a professor of human geography at the University of Cambridge, asserts that it isn’t. “There’s no ‘cliff edge’ that emerges from any of the scientific analyses that have been done about these thresholds,” he said. “They are, in many senses, just arbitrary numbers plucked because they are either integers or half of an integer.”
…
Of course, the thing that’s going to happen is, “Well, if 1.5 is now in the back mirror, what’s in the front mirror now?” There’s going to be a lot of work done to reconstruct a narrative for those people who think that 1.5 was the be-all and the end-all. There’s now going to have to be very significant work in reeducating and reframing what the future actually holds, if 1.5 is no longer the benchmark.
The Grist article is long, so it covers a lot of ground not mentioned in the quotes above.
But the fortuitously early arrival of 1.5C warming, and the lack of any accompanying climate disasters, will likely hasten the demise of the climate movement.
Because unlike the 1970s global cooling scare, the internet age has abundant digital records of how alarmists tried to frighten people with “arbitrary numbers” like 1.5C global warming.
I look forward to enriching attempts to “rebuild the narrative” by replaying lots of ridiculous 1.5C scare campaign material.
A recent CNN article, “How a ‘cow fart’ vaccine could help tackle climate change,” discusses a vaccine under development to be given to cows to reduce the amount of methane their digestive processes produce. The hope is that the vaccine will significantly reduce livestock emissions, thereby slowing down climate change. It won’t. Methane from livestock contributes little, if anything, to global warming. As a result, attempting to change these animals’ biological processes seems to carry risks far exceeding any possible benefits.
A recent CNN article, “How a ‘cow fart’ vaccine could help tackle climate change,” discusses a vaccine under development to be given to cows to reduce the amount of methane their digestive processes produce. The hope is that the vaccine will significantly reduce livestock emissions, thereby slowing down climate change. It won’t. Methane from livestock contributes little, if anything, to global warming. As a result, attempting to change these animals’ biological processes seems to carry risks far exceeding any possible benefits.
CNN explains that methane is produced as grass ferments in the rumen and claims that it is more “potent” than carbon dioxide but does admit that it is comparatively very short-lived in the atmosphere. The author, Jacapo Prisco, goes on to claim that “livestock accounts for about a third of human-related methane emissions, which are collectively responsible for about 30% of global warming.”
Here the CNN author either misunderstands claims made about methane, or is intentionally misleading readers. The author cites the International Energy Agency (IEA) as the source of his claim concerning livestock methane emissions. The IEA does say methane is estimated to be responsible for 30 percent of global warming, a point it admits is open to debate. What it does not say, however, is that livestock emissions of methane are responsible for 30 percent of warming, which is what Prisco’s claim implies. Livestock emissions are only a small part of methane emissions attributable to human causes, much less global methane emissions as a whole. It is also important to note that the IEA’s estimates of anthropogenic (human-caused) methane emissions are much higher than most official government assessments calculate. To be clear, the IEA is not a scientific organization but rather an institution created to assess global energy supplies, stocks, and future needs – in recent years, it has strayed from its mission to become an advocate for climate activism and legislation.
Data from the EPA show that beef production only accounts for 2 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., with only part of that coming from methane from cows’ digestive processes. This is notable, especially since the United States produces more beef and veal than any other country. Agricultural crop production, in contrast, produces 10 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It is not unreasonable to assume the same is true for the rest of the world.
A recent paper written by physicists William Happer, Ph.D., of Princeton University and W. A. van Wijngaarden, Ph.D., of Toronto’s York University, explains that contrary to claims methane is some super-warmer in the atmosphere, “the contribution of methane to the annual increase in forcing is one tenth (30/300) that of carbon dioxide.” Based on that fact, the scientists conclude that “[p]roposals to place harsh restrictions on methane emissions because of warming fears are not justified by facts.”
As Climate Realism has discussed on other occasions, here, here, and here, for example, methane has a limited ability to meaningfully contribute to warming by the fact that much of the energy absorption bands affected by the gas are already covered by water vapor, which makes up a massive proportion of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
As a result, methane is virtually inconsequential with regards to global warming. Current concentrations are around 1.9 parts per million (ppm). For comparison, the atmosphere contains 18 ppm of Neon, and 426 ppm CO2.
The vaccine discussed in the story does not exist yet, it is being researched by the UK’s Pirbright Institute, and has been a decade-plus effort from various research organizations, with no “tangible results as of yet,” CNN reports.
Side effects for the animal have already been hypothesized, such as “a reduction in the amount of feed that the rumen can absorb, meaning cattle might require more food, increasing costs to farmers.” Making livestock less efficient at processing food into energy and mass is a poor idea in a world where hunger is still all too common.
It seems that livestock’s digestive processes, and methane production’s role in it, is still poorly understood. Considering the fact that methane production is possibly a fundamental step in the digestive processes of rumen animals, including livestock such as cattle, sheep, and goats, it is critical to understand methane’s importance in the digestive process before tampering with it in the vain effort to mitigate climate change. This is especially true considering that the effort to control livestock emissions is a solution in search of a problem, with no tangible benefit to the world, and unknown consequences for the animals involved.
CNN misleads readers by hyping the influence methane emissions have on global temperatures, as well as the amount that animal husbandry contributes. Data show that agriculture as whole, and livestock production more particularly, have little if any impact on global climate.
Every year – at least for the last three, I haven’t looked further back – they produce a report that is a glossy, broad-brush, almost unreadable, partisan, hysterical fantasy tale of present and future climate-related risks.
Thesis: The risk of Planetary Insolvency looms unless we act decisively. Without immediate policy action to change course, catastrophic or extreme impacts are eminently plausible, which could threaten future prosperity.
Thesis: The actuarial approach can be used for climate change. It begins by outlining how actuaries deal with extreme, ruinous risks, what this means for climate change, what we do and don’t know about the physical impacts, tipping points and social knock-on effects of climate change, and what actions we can take to manage the risk.
Thesis: Climate tipping points are a growing threat, and the solution to climate change has to be equally discontinuous. We need to “operationalise” positive tipping points.
All three are a fricassee of pretty diagrams and alarmist nonsense. You might expect actuarial science to be as dry as old bones, for numbers to be crunched unemotionally, rigorously, for data to tell all, and fantasy to tell nothing. Well, the things they put in their shop window show otherwise.
Take this comment from “Planetary Insolvency”:
For example, in The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios a methodology based on a technique known as reverse stress testing suggests to ‘expect 50% GDP destruction – somewhere between 2070 and 2090’.
Does anybody seriously expect >50% GDP destruction? It is a ludicrous suggestion.
The source they refer to, their own Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios, says:
Put another way, at what point do we expect 50% GDP destruction – somewhere between 2070 and 2090 depending on how you parameterise the distribution.
Parameterise? Distribution?
This is the relevant figure from Emperor’s:
Not, in fact, used by permission.
Where do these lines come from you ask? Here is their explanation:
A relatively simple log damage function could be used that assumes 100% GDP loss at a certain level of warming, say 6˚C, 5˚C, or 4˚C, although some may argue that even 3˚C would be extremely challenging to adapt to, and certainly sensitivities should be undertaken at all of these. Figure 9 above, adapted from analysis undertaken by Carbon Tracker, illustrates this, as well as comparing the output with the current quadratic damage function used by economists.
So, the answer is: you create a logistic function that hits 100% at 4C and then use that to show that in 2070 the world should expect a 50% GDP destruction. The curve itself has no basis in anything: it is a line plucked unceremoniously from an unmentionable orifice.
Why logistic? Why not exponential? I fear our actuarial alarmists are missing a trick here. Why should the damage slope start to level off after it reaches 50%?
Yes, Jit, I hear you say in your most soothing voice, desperately trying to gently calm the agitated patient. But this is just an illustration. It’s a scenario, just put there to facilitate discussion. It’s not an actual attempt to model anything. No-one really believes it.
Except the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries do, as they made clear in the press release accompanying this year’s dose of claptrap:
The global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090, unless immediate policy action on risks posed by the climate crisis is taken.
I’m not going to dwell on these reports – I don’t think they deserve it. But I will pull out a few things from the most recent. Ya know, things that caught my eye as I skimmed down the page, waiting for it to get better.
Word of the report: “polycrisis,” which has four uses, apparently none of them ironic.
Their Figure 9 shows that under a tipping point of AMOC collapse and 2.5C of warming, the Antarctic Peninsula will be suitable for growing wheat:
However, it looks as if nowhere else in the world will be. The magic of tipping points! Crank up that alarm, go on. Ah, but it’s just a scenario. Just an illustration. No-one really believes it might happen. But they do, as the report makes clear:
Some scientists estimate there is a 45% chance of a collapse in key ocean current circulations, possibly as early as 2040, which is ‘unignorably high’. Impacts would include significant reductions in the northern hemisphere in staple crop-growing capability.
For Climate, the risk matrix they provide gives a “highly likely” chance of “limited” to “severe” impacts in 2025 – i.e., now.
Highly likely means >90% chance; as to the impacts themselves, see their risk matrix:
So, it’s terrible now. But by 2050, we’re into >50% mortality fantasy apocalypse land. I know! I exaggerated in the title. We’re not all doomed. Only half of us are.
And finally, especially for our resident Black Swan aficionado John R, I present a figure (from 2024’s “Scorpion”) that seems to imply that the tails of a parametric distribution are Black Swans.
Featured image: the webcam at Longyearbyen Harbour this morning. The BBC were today telling us how worried they were that Svalbard has been so unseasonably warm this early February. [In a story about record-low sea ice extent globally.]
Forestry experts have long known that wildfire burn in the US was much more extensive pre-European settlement.
Now a new study has attempted to quantify the changes:
Abstract
Rapid increases in wildfire area burned across North American forests pose novel challenges for managers and society. Increasing area burned raises questions about whether, and to what degree, contemporary fire regimes (1984–2022) are still departed from historical fire regimes (pre-1880). We use the North American tree-ring fire-scar network (NAFSN), a multi-century record comprising >1800 fire-scar sites spanning diverse forest types, and contemporary fire perimeters to ask whether there is a contemporary fire surplus or fire deficit, and whether recent fire years are unprecedented relative to historical fire regimes. Our results indicate, despite increasing area burned in recent decades, that a widespread fire deficit persists across a range of forest types and recent years with exceptionally high area burned are not unprecedented when considering the multi-century perspective offered by fire-scarred trees. For example, ‘record’ contemporary fire years such as 2020 burned 6% of NAFSN sites—the historical average—well below the historical maximum of 29% sites that burned in 1748. Although contemporary fire extent is not unprecedented across many North American forests, there is abundant evidence that unprecedented contemporary fire severity is driving forest loss in many ecosystems and adversely impacting human lives, infrastructure, and water supplies.
The 20thC trends correlate closely with the official US wildfire acreage data, published by the US Forest Service, but since taken off their website by the Biden administration:
During President Trump’s inauguration speech, he promised to unlock the “liquid gold” beneath Americans’ feet and ramp up fossil fuel production. Doing so, he suggested, would lower gas prices and lead to cascading American wealth. In his executive order declaring a “national energy emergency,” he directed the Department of Energy to resume processing LNG export authorizations and prioritizing the development of LNG in Alaska.
During President Trump’s inauguration speech, he promised to unlock the “liquid gold” beneath Americans’ feet and ramp up fossil fuel production. Doing so, he suggested, would lower gas prices and lead to cascading American wealth. In his executive order declaring a “national energy emergency,” he directed the Department of Energy to resume processing LNG export authorizations and prioritizing the development of LNG in Alaska.
There is no actual “energy emergency”—at least not in the sense Trump means. Under former president Joe Biden, the United States was already pumping out record amounts of oil and gas. And growing evidence suggests that Trump’s plan to maximize LNG exports will actually achieve the oppositeof his stated goal: Two January reports show that increased US LNG exports will drive updomestic gas prices, with most of those LNG profits winding up overseas in the coffers of foreign investment firms, with particular advantages for China.
Money from LNG goes to foreign investors
The first report, from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, found that a startling proportion of US LNG profits go to foreign investment firms. Researchers found that 14 investment firms, from eight foreign countries, have financed 11.5 billion cubic feet per day in US LNG export capacity—about 78 percent of peak US LNG export capacity in 2023.
Note to Ms. Nolan: That’s how private equity works. I don’t have the time or inclination to verify exactly who financed the construction of the seven currently operational LNG export facilities or the five that are currently under construction. However, whoever financed the construction usually reaps much of the profits until the financing note is paid off. Irrespective of the Bravo Sierra Club’s misinformed opinions, North American LNG export capacity will more than double during President Trump’s second term in office.
The vast majority of this export capacity will be along the US Gulf Coast and will be exporting natural gas produced from oil & gas fields located in the United States and Gulf of America. If LNG exports drove up prices, it would have already done so.
From 1997-2012, the US consumed more natural gas than we produced and the average price was $4.76 per thousand cubic feet (mcf). Since 2013, we’ve produced more natural gas than we consumed and the price averaged $3.35/mcf. If we take out the anomalously high prices in 2022, it would have averaged about $3.00/mcf.
The US can afford to be a net exporter of natural gas because we produce more than we consume. This works to keep prices lower. If LNG exports were restricted or prohibited, it would temporarily crash natural gas prices. Drilling would be curtailed, production would decline and prices would rise again.
What makes natural gas prices go up? It’s not increased production or consumption.
The average prices of both crude oil and natural gas in the United States were the highest since 2008. Proved reserves of crude oil and natural gas hit record highs for the United States in 2022.
U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves, Year-end 2022
With Data for 2022 | Release Date: April 29, 2024 | Next Release Date: April 2025
Oil highlights
U.S. crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves increased 9% from 44.4 billion barrels to 48.3 billion barrels at year-end 2022 (Table 1).
U.S. crude oil and lease condensate production increased 6% in 2022.
In Texas, which has more proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate than any other state, proved reserves increased 9% in 2022 (1.7 billion barrels), the largest net increase in any state (Table 6).
In New Mexico, crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves increased 26%, the second-largest net increase (1.3 billion barrels). In North Dakota proved reserves increased 14%, the third-largest increase (0.6 billion barrels).
The largest net decrease, 13%, in proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate in 2022 was in California (225 million barrels) (Table 6).
The 12-month, first-day-of-the-month average spot price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil at Cushing, Oklahoma, increased by 43%, from $66.26 per barrel in 2021 to $94.54 per barrel in 2022.
Natural gas highlights
Proved reserves of U.S. natural gas increased 10%, from 625.4 Tcf at year-end 2021 to 691.0 Tcf at year-end 2022, establishing a new record for natural gas proved reserves in the United States for a second consecutive year (Table 8).
Natural gas proved reserves in Alaska increased 25% in 2022, raising that state’s total from 99.8 Tcf to 125.2 Tcf—the largest increase of all states in 2022.
Texas had the second-largest increase in proved reserves of natural gas in 2022 (21.2 Tcf, or 14%), and New Mexico had the third-largest increase (9.9 Tcf, or 27%).
The 12-month, first day-of-the-month average spot price for natural gas at the Louisiana Henry Hub increased by 71% in 2022, from $3.67 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2021 to $6.29/MMBtu in 2022, which was the highest annual average price since 2008.
Operators in Pennsylvania reported the largest net decrease in proved reserves of natural gas in 2022 (652 billion cubic feet, or 0.6%).
In 2022, U.S. natural gas exports were 6.9 Tcf, the highest volume on record.
Proved reserves are estimated volumes of hydrocarbon resources that analysis of geologic and engineering data demonstrates with reasonable certainty are recoverable under existing economic and operating conditions. Reserves estimates change from year to year because of:
Price and cost changes
New discoveries
Thorough appraisals of existing fields
Existing reserves production
New and improved techniques and technologies
To prepare this report, we collect independently developed estimates of proved reserves with Form EIA-23L from a sample of U.S. operators of oil and natural gas fields. We use this sample to further estimate the portion of proved reserves from operators who do not report. This year, we received responses from 397 of 404 sampled operators, which provided coverage of about 90% of proved reserves of oil and 93% of proved reserves of natural gas at the national level. We develop estimates for reserves located in the United States, each state individually, and some state subdivisions. States and regions with subdivisions are:
As many readers know, the GB electricity grid narrowly missed a blackout at the start of January. As was widely reported that the time, it looks as though we were down to our last half a gigawatt of spare capacity. After that, the only option available to grid managers is to switch people off, either through voluntary arrangements (so-called ‘demand-side response’) or through compulsion – rolling blackouts, in other words.
As many readers know, the GB electricity grid narrowly missed a blackout at the start of January. As was widely reported that the time, it looks as though we were down to our last half a gigawatt of spare capacity. After that, the only option available to grid managers is to switch people off, either through voluntary arrangements (so-called ‘demand-side response’) or through compulsion – rolling blackouts, in other words.
It is beyond doubt, therefore, that the system is very fragile. When all is said and done, the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of renewables, our 45 gigawatts of which delivered just 2.6 gigawatts of actual output during the evening peak of 8 January 2025. In some ways, we got lucky – at other times this year, renewables output has fallen to 0.5 gigawatts. If that had happened on 8 January, grid managers would simply not have been able to find the extra capacity required.
In the event, we had just enough reliable generation – gas and nuclear – to fill the gap. They ran pretty much flat out, and the lights stayed on.
However, there’s a problem, and it’s a big one.
Very few gas-fired power stations stay open for longer than three decades, and much of the GB fleet is now very long in the tooth. The Medway power station will hit age 30 this year, and Little Barford, Connah’s Quay and Keadby will follow in 2026. To make things even worse, the Hartlepool nuclear power station is scheduled to close next year too, while Heysham will close in 2027.
At the moment, the grid is making reassuring noises. The Capacity Market, which subsidises power stations to “be there” when renewables decide not to deliver, has booked “firm” capacity of 43 gigawatts for winter 2027–28, and they will expect to top that up nearer the time.
But look a little closer, and the picture becomes less rosy. For example, more than 1 gigawatt of the total is batteries, which will probably only be able to deliver for two hours. By counting them as firm capacity, grid managers are essentially crossing their fingers and hoping that stress events are very brief. Another gigawatt is “unproven” demand-side response – people who say they are willing to switch off when supplies are tight. Will they do so in practice? Nobody can be sure.
Nearly 7 gigawatts of the total is interconnectors, the “firm” nature of which is increasingly open to question. As we know from previous grid crises, when there is a shortage of electricity here in the UK, there is usually a shortage across Western Europe, because wind speeds are highly correlated. The result is a bidding war for the limited supplies of electricity. Those with surplus firm power – notably Norway and France – are increasingly asking why their consumers should have to put up with sky-high prices because the rest of Europe runs its electricity system in a completely irresponsible way. Oslo in particular seems likely to cut the interconnectors in future, rather than endure the economic pain.
But the bulk of the UK’s firm capacity is gas-fired, and much of this is shaky, rather than firm. Nearly 2 gigawatts of the total is represented by a proposed new unit at Eggborough. However, a few weeks ago, the developers relinquished the capacity contract for one of the two units and, with a building contractor apparently yet to be appointed, it remains unclear whether the other will go ahead either.
Also in the gas-fired segment are all those decrepit units mentioned above. Their advanced ages means that their status as firm capacity is open to question. It’s all very well a rusting old power station saying it will be there to help out in 2027, but when the engineers try to switch it on, will it actually deliver? There are fines for failing to do so, but not so onerous as to discourage operators from taking the subsidy and crossing their fingers.
On the face of it then, it is quite possible that a large chunk of our 43 gigawatts of firm capacity for winter 2027-28 may not materialise. There are a few scraps of hope around. EDF have apparently indicated that the lives of Hartlepool and Heysham might be extended, which would certainly help things. It is possible that some of the older gas-fired units might take new capacity market contracts to convert to single-cycle power stations (OCGTs) – more suited to running at low-capacity factors. But OCGTs deliver much more costly power than CCGTs, so hard-pressed consumers should expect even more pain. Finally, grid managers will be hoping that electricity demand doesn’t rise as quickly as forecast over the next few years. That might give them a little more breathing space.
But a mixture of quick fixes and Hail Marys only to adds to the already worrying impression of a grid that resembles (to misquote the eighteenth century diplomat George MacCartney) “an old, crazy, first-rate Man of War, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these thirty years past”.
How much longer it can be kept from sinking remains to be seen.
President Donald Trump has spent another day reversing Biden’s efforts to limit consumer choices over products that limit their options and hinder their quality of life.
In the name of efficiency, Biden’s bureaucrats banned incandescent light bulbs, normal-flowing toilets, and effective shower heads. Trump has just instructed his Environmental Protection Agency administrator to bring them all back.
“I am hereby instructing Secretary Lee Zeldin to immediately go back to my Environmental Orders, which were terminated by Crooked Joe Biden, on Water Standards and Flow pertaining to SINKS, SHOWERS, TOILETS, WASHING MACHINES, DISHWASHERS, etc., and to likewise go back to the common sense standards on LIGHTBULBS, that were put in place by the Trump Administration, but terminated by Crooked Joe,” Trump posted online Tuesday.
Zeldin is the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Energy Department — not EPA — is responsible for establishing efficiency standards for consumer products and appliances.
Still, the post echoes Trump’s long-time criticism of efficiency standards put in place for products, like shower heads and light bulbs.
LED bulbs have been a standard replacement for the incandescent bulbs. There is myriad of reasons to deride the blue light that LED bulbs emit.
Blue light suppresses melatonin production, disrupting circadian rhythms and making it harder to fall asleep. This is particularly problematic when exposed to blue light in the evening or at night.
Blue light does affect the body’s circadian rhythm, our natural wake and sleep cycle. During the day, blue light wakes us up and stimulates us. But too much blue light exposure late at night from your phone, tablet or computer can make it harder to get to sleep.”
Prolonged exposure to blue light can cause eye strain, resulting in tired, sore, and dry eyes. This can lead to blurred vision and headaches.
So, once again, Trump is right. And many Americans are thrilled with the news.
Holy cow! Am I really getting my incandescent light bulbs back? Yeehaw. https://t.co/gxdjYQz1U9
Low-flow toilets often struggle to flush away all waste due to the reduced water used per flush. This can lead to incomplete waste removal, requiring multiple flushes, defeating water conservation’s purpose.
Insufficient water flow can cause waste to accumulate in sewer lines, leading to backups and unpleasant odors. Cities like San Francisco experienced significant sewer system issues due to the widespread adoption of low-flow toilets.
The city of San Francisco is dealing with its lack of flow with $100 million in system upgrades, and a controversial $14 million plan to pour bleach into the sewer system to neutralize the odor and disinfect the water.
Trump, again, is proven correct.
Who’s happy that Trump just gave us back the freedom to actually use our sinks, showers, and toilets like normal people?
No more trickle showers, no more weak toilet flushes, and finally—your washing machine doesn’t take two hours per load. pic.twitter.com/db1pt4DPDq
Finally, “high efficiency” dishwashers are ironically named. These dishwashers use less water, which can result in dishes not being cleaned properly. High-quality dishwashers may run up to 2-3 hours per cycle to compensate for lower water usage. Lower operating temperatures in eco-friendly cycles can lead to dishes not drying completely, requiring the use of rinse aid to promote water runoff.
I’m a fucking retard if I’d waited another month, I could have gotten a dishwasher that doesn’t take THREE HOURS to run
I’m rather annoyed with the National Farmers Union (NFU). A week or so ago, I emailed two people in the NFU media department with details of a story which I first featured in a Daily Sceptic article. I have also emailed the story to three or four NFU regional offices.
I’m rather annoyed with the National Farmers Union (NFU). A week or so ago, I emailed two people in the NFU media department with details of a story which I first featured in a Daily Sceptic article. I have also emailed the story to three or four NFU regional offices.
In the article, I showed how the inheritance tax on farmers wasn’t really intended to raise much money to cover the supposed £22 billion black hole in the public finances which Starmer and Reeves apparently discovered about five minutes after Labour had been elected, forcing Labour to raise the taxes which five minutes earlier Labour had promised not to raise.
In the article, I explained how investment company Aberdeen (also known as the capital-letter-free, vowel-free ‘abrdn’) had launched its FLAG (Forestry, Land and Agriculture) strategy to spend hundreds of millions of pounds buying up forests and farmland. But Aberdeen had been frustrated in its attempts to buy agricultural land due to much of the land being owned by family farmers. So Aberdeen paid for a report on Britain’s tax system by Left-wing think tank Demos. Surprise surprise, one of the key recommendations of the Aberdeen-sponsored Demos report was to impose inheritance tax on farmers. Given that many farmers are ‘asset rich but cash poor’, this would have forced many farms to sell off land to pay the inheritance tax, thus allowing what Aberdeen called “purely financial owners” like Aberdeen to buy up the land. To help push through this policy, Aberdeen managed to get its head honcho onto a taskforce of business leaders invited in October 2023 to advise Rachel Reeves on what she should be doing when Labour inevitably won the July 2024 General Election.
I had imagined that the media geniuses at the NFU could pick up the story, get a few great quotes from outraged farmers – in particular Jeremy Clarkson – and launch a blitzkrieg on Reeves leading to widespread public fury and to her having to cancel the tax and possibly even resign.
I don’t consider myself anyone special. But, as I have had more than 10 current affairs books published covering such topics as politics, economics, charities, the psychology of selling, universities and non-existent anthropogenic climate change, the least I expected from the NFU media heroes was an acknowledgement of my email to them and of the story. But there has been nothing, zilch, no answer apart from two automated email responses informing me that the person I had contacted was on annual leave. The NFU gets an (astonishing to me) £36 million a year, or thereabouts, mostly from farmers. About £26 million of this goes on NFU staff costs. So I started to wonder whose interests the NFU actually serves – those of farmers, who pay almost £36 million a year to the NFU, or those of NFU employees whose lifestyles are supported by the apparent generosity of Britain’s farmers.
There are many wonderful theories about organisational behaviour. One very simplistic one I have developed is that in any non-commercial organisation – healthcare, charities, government departments, regulators, local councils etc – there are two main types of person:
the servers – those who see their role as providing whatever services that organisation is set up to provide
the self-servers – those who see the organisation as a way to advance their own careers, increasing their own importance, power and financial well-being
Given that the first group, the servers, will spend much of their time and effort delivering the service which the organisation should be delivering, this often means that the second group, the self-servers, the group using the organisation to advance its own interests, inevitably accrues power and influence. And the more power and influence the self-servers manage to appropriate, the less likely it is that the organisation will actually do what it was originally set up to do.
Here’s a nice picture of the NFU HQ:
It looks like quite a relaxing place to work. Though there aren’t many cars outside. Perhaps many of the 817 hard-working NFU employees are hard-working from home?
Working from home can be, I realise, quite challenging. By the time you’ve got the kids to school, walked the dogs, read a few emails, browsed some of your favourite websites, had lunch, walked the dogs again, answered a few emails, browsed a few more of your favourite websites, picked up the kids from school and taken them to their various after-school activities – well, there’s not much time left to do the job you’re paid to do. Of course, I have no idea if many or even any NFU staff do actually work from home. But I do know that any serious, professional organisation which understood its original purpose would have acknowledged my email, read the article on the Daily Sceptic website and sent me some form of reply. So my question for Britain’s farmers is: do you really think you’re getting good value for the almost £36 million you fork out to the NFU each year? Or is it time to do a Trump-Musk – admit the NFU is not fit for purpose and that it’s just a self-serving bureaucracy like so many other organisations in Britain today – civil service departments, police, charities, border control, NHS, regulators and so on – scrap the NFU, fire all its employees and start again building a new organisation costing you considerably less money and staffed by people who are genuinely interested in service rather than self-service? Then perhaps we could extend the Trump-Musk treatment to so many other useless, costly, ineffective British bureaucracies?
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
BOEM is taking comments on a draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for its five floating wind offshore leases off the California coast. This is BOEM’s second offshore wind PEIS. The first was for a set of leases off New York which featured fixed bottom turbines. This is the first PEIS for floating wind turbines which are very different from the fixed turbines being built along the Atlantic coast.
BOEM is taking comments on a draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for its five floating wind offshore leases off the California coast. This is BOEM’s second offshore wind PEIS. The first was for a set of leases off New York which featured fixed bottom turbines. This is the first PEIS for floating wind turbines which are very different from the fixed turbines being built along the Atlantic coast.
Floating wind is still an immature technology with a large number of proposed designs none of which has been tested at commercial utility scale. There are just a handful of small demonstration scale projects in the world.
There are at least two useful things about this PEIS. First is a pretty good tutorial on floating wind with a focus on the California case. This is Appendix A, done by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. They rule out a number of design options including the most popular that has been demonstrated, the spar floater. The huge range of options they present shows the immaturity of the technology
Second the PEIS includes an encyclopedic discussion of numerous potential adverse impacts of a generic floating wind project. These impacts are limited to just what is contemplated for each of the five leases so when combined for all five leases it is clear that this Program will be environmentally destructive. These adverse impacts cannot be mitigated so the correct decision is that the Program should not proceed. The No Action Alternative is the proper choice.
Here is just a short list of some of the major flaws in the PEIS
1. By far the biggest flaw is that there is no cumulative multi-lease impact assessment. The whole point of a PEIS is to do such an assessment for the entire Program. Cumulative impact can be much greater than the sum of individual project impacts especially where two or more projects are closely clustered as in this case. Thus merely listing individual project impacts is completely inadequate.
2. In many cases an adverse impact is merely mentioned with no assessment of the potential harm. This is supposed to be an impact assessment not just a list of impacts.
3. The systematic harassment of large numbers of endangered and protected species of whales and other animals is certain to occur but it is not discussed. In fact the term “harassment” only occurs twice in the entire main report. Death due to noise harassment causing deadly behavior is one of the top adverse impacts of offshore wind.
4. Moreover floating wind introduces a major non-acoustic form of harassment. This is the 3D web of potentially thousands of mooring cables each of which could be on the order of a mile long. We are talking about hundreds of square miles of deep ocean literally filled with webs of cables. Harassment is defined by the Marine Mammal Protection Act as causing behavioral change on a protected animal’s part and these monstrous webs will certainly do that. This very large scale continuous harassment should be carefully assessed.
5. The PEIS does briefly mention the threat of “secondary entanglement” in the nets, lines and other debris that are caught on the cables over time. The potential adverse effects of this deadly accumulation needs to be assessed in detail.
6. Lastly there is an extensive economics section but no mention of cost. Development of these five leases will likely cost ratepayers and taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, possibly hundreds of billions. The entire Program should cost over a trillion dollars but these staggering sums are never quantified. Job creation is treated in detail as a benefit when jobs are in fact a cost. The total cost needs to be estimated.
It is clear that this PEIS is woefully inadequate. In fact it specifically avoids those issues that justify cancelling the Program. The cumulative impact threat is treated in more detail below.
The entire Western Offshore Wind Energy Program must be assessed
A new federal report shows that these five leases are tiny compared to the yawning Programmatic EIS gap created by the Federal Action Plan for West Coast offshore wind development. To begin with the full California Program is huge compared to the measly five leases covered by the so-called California PEIS. The present PEIS document would be better called the Starter Kit EIS. Plus there is a lot of development off of Oregon and Washington.
As pointed out above the PEIS document does not address the cumulative impact of those five leases; it just looks at the generic impact of one lease. But what is really Missing In Action is an environmental impact assessment for the entire West Coast Program.
The new report bears the long title: “AN ACTION PLAN FOR Offshore Wind Transmission Development in the U.S. West Coast Region” (all caps in the original). The Action Plan is a conceptual design for transmission of offshore generation but in order to do that design you have to know where the generation is so that is included in considerable detail.
Instead of the just five leases considered in the present draft PEIS the Action Plan includes about one hundred leases by 2035. These typically occur in clusters of from 5 to 20 leases. Moreover while the total generating capacity for 2035 is 15,000 MW this grows to a massive 33,000 MW in 2050.
Each lease contains numerous huge floating turbines each anchored to the sea floor thousands of feet below with multiple mooring lines. So the environmental impact of each cluster is potentially enormous.
Even worse a series of these clusters basically line the coast especially in Northern California and Southern Oregon. Migrating species might encounter and be adversely affected by this entire series.
The list of endangered or protected species that are threatened is quite long. As pointed out above these massive 3D cable arrays are a new form of harassment under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. There are also endangered sea turtles, giant rays, etc., in jeopardy.
The PEIS Appendix A says a single turbine floater can require up to 12 mooring lines to keep it stable and in place in heavy weather. Assuming 15 MW turbines with a dozen lines each the 15,000 MW development would have 12,000 mooring lines. The 33,000 MW case would have a staggering 26,400 mooring lines, many over 4,000 feet long.
We are talking about thousands of square miles of deep ocean literally filled with webs of cables. Harassment is defined by the Marine Mammal Protection Act as causing behavioral change on a protected animal’s part and these monstrous webs will certainly do that. This very large scale continuous harassment should be carefully assessed.
The PEIS also describes the threat of “secondary entanglement” in the nets, lines and other debris that are caught on these cables over time. The potential adverse effects of this deadly accumulation needs to be assessed in detail before any offshore projects are approved. Note that this threat accumulates over time, throughout the entire life cycle of a project.
Capping harassment diminishes the adverse impact of this offshore wind development
The clear solution to these mooring line threats is to severely constrain the number of harassment authorizations. With these very limited authorizations very few new offshore wind projects can be built. Nor should they be since they are environmentally destructive. Each project requires a large number of authorizations so drastically reducing their number drastically reduces the number of offshore wind projects.
The simplest way to do this is to cap the total number of wind authorizations that will be issued throughout the Program for a given exposed population. This is analogous to capping the emission of dangerous pollutants. One could even have a cap and trade program where developers bid for authorizations just as they now bid for leases. The 1990 cap and trade program for power plant sulfur dioxide emissions is an obvious analog.
If the cumulative harassment were limited to say 10% of the exposed population of each threatened species this would severely constrain offshore wind development.
In summary the so-called California Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement is nothing of the kind. The full Offshore Wind Program needs to be assessed for the entire West Coast before any project is approved for construction. This required assessment is Missing in Action.
Based on this assessment the cumulative impacts then have to be minimized. Capping the authorized harassment of each threatened species may be the best way to avoid destructive impacts.
Oil giant BP has said it will “fundamentally reset” its strategy as profits dropped sharply last year.
It is widely expected to say later this month that it will scale back renewable projects and increase oil and gas production following similar moves from rivals including Shell and Equinor.
BP’s net income fell to $8.9bn (£7.2bn) in 2024, down from $13.8bn the previous year.
It said lower oil and gas prices, plus lower profits from its refineries, had dented how much money it had made.
Five years ago BP set a target of 50GW of renewables generation capacity by 2030.
That is expected to be abandoned on 26 February in a major change of strategy.
BP has already been scaling back on renewables.
In December it put the majority of its offshore wind assets into a joint venture with Japanese company Jera to separate them from the company’s core fossil fuel business.
It is expected to cut its previous $10bn commitment in renewables until 2030 by up to a half.
BP also froze new wind projects in June last year.
Activist shareholder Elliott Management hasbought a stake in BP to push for more investment in oil and gas, with investors anticipating board changes.
AJ Bell analyst Russ Mould said the sharp drop in profit “provided plenty of fodder” for hedge fund Elliott, with BP having done “little to reassure other shareholders that the current plan is working”.
He added that “a clear and credible plan is desperately needed if BP is going to remain the master of its own destiny”.
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