Day: February 17, 2025

London’s Blade Runners: Climate, Class War and the Corruption of Science

The UK papers carried stories recently about the punishing penalties that London’s drivers have paid under Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ulez (ultra-low emission zone) scheme. Under this scheme, a daily fee of £12.50 is charged on older petrol and diesel cars which enter the zone. The GB News headline reads: ‘Sadiq Khan’s Ulez sees motorists fork out millions in penalties despite pleas it’s “not about making money”.’ A Freedom of Information request revealed that more than £70 million has been raised through Ulez penalties from drivers living in London.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Tilak Doshi

The UK papers carried stories recently about the punishing penalties that London’s drivers have paid under Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ulez (ultra-low emission zone) scheme. Under this scheme, a daily fee of £12.50 is charged on older petrol and diesel cars which enter the zone. The GB News headline reads: ‘Sadiq Khan’s Ulez sees motorists fork out millions in penalties despite pleas it’s “not about making money”.’ A Freedom of Information request revealed that more than £70 million has been raised through Ulez penalties from drivers living in London.

The Ulez scheme was introduced in 2019 covering Central London. The increase in Ulez penalties followed the expansion of the scheme in 2021, to include both the North and South Circular roads covering an area of 3.8 million people. Ulez coverage then grew further in 2023 to include the whole of Greater London. It now covers over 1,500 square kilometres and approximately nine million people.

A search on X – the least censored of social media outlets by far — on ‘Blade Runners’ yields many entries with videos of activists in London, who sabotage, vandalise or remove Ulez cameras, sometimes in broad daylight. Gadfly social media commentator Katie Hopkins made a parody that went viral on YouTube about how people are using cheap filling foam to vandalise Ulez cameras.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1687766409168764928

https://twitter.com/i/status/1721518338369581447

Sadiq Khan claims that he is fighting for climate justice, Londoners’ health and a better future for everyone.

Do you believe him?

Follow the Science

The Nobel Laureate for Physics in 2022 John Clauser said that “[t]he popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people. Misguided climate science has metastasised into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience”. With Elon Musk’s DOGE revelations, the corruption of science by USAID and other agencies channelling US taxpayers’ money for climate agencies and NGOs is now documented with receipts.

In an increasingly technocratic age, policies under governments get justified by the mantra of ‘following the science‘. The most drastic public policies in the West, curtailing civil rights ranging from the right to travel to the right to free speech, were imposed only a few short years ago. This was for the ‘novel’ Covid virus pandemic, which caused not much harsher fatalities than a severe flu, with a median infection fatality rate of 0.24% (0.05% for people under the age of 70).

Mayor Sadiq Khan is an avowed environmentalist and co-chair of C40, an organisation that “has consistently prioritised the support for cities in the Global South, which are often most acutely affected by the climate crisis”. In the ‘fight against climate change’, a similar posture of ‘following the science’ is taken against all criticism by sceptical constituents and dissident experts who are vilified as climate deniers.

The war on private cars is in keeping with the World Economic Forum’s ambitions for governments to reduce the number of automobiles in the world by 75% by 2050 to reduce carbon emissions from the transport sector. In the WEF’s deep green agenda, there is little if any recognition of what the loss of affordable private transport entails for ordinary people. Tradesmen like plumbers and electricians who depend on their vans for work, mothers who drive their children to and from school or go shopping, disabled or older people who need to visit their loved ones or go to hospital matter little in the elite’s war on cars.

Claiming global climate change and an alleged impending climate catastrophe was too broad and amorphous it seems for the introduction of London’s anti-motorist policies that put such an onerous burden on the little people of Greater London. The London Mayor’s office required a more effective and plausible public relations approach in justifying its Ulez and other urban transport regulations. The public relations approach of the Mayor’s office in pushing for the Ulez expansion along with all the other secondary anti-car actions have focused on the health effects of polluted air.

It’s not just Ulez but the entire repertoire of actions in the war against working- and middle-class motorists that needed justification. This includes the imposition of low traffic neighbourhoods, raising the cost of parking, the narrowing of roads for bicycle lanes, the putting up of bollards and planters to restrict car traffic altogether and experimenting with zoning restrictions for ‘15-minute cities‘. These regulations are now ubiquitous across towns and cities in England such as Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Canterbury, Glasgow and Oxford.

The average speed of cars in London during a typical weekday averages eight miles per hour in central London, 12 in inner London and 20 in outer London. According to AI ChatGPT, “based on historical accounts and estimations”, the speed of a Roman chariot was likely around 20 to 25 miles per hour on well-maintained roads in ancient Londinium. Would it be unfair to blame Mayor Khan and his fellow climate alarmists for the lack of progress in the speed of London urban transport over two millennia?

The Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model is used by the World Health Organisation (WHO), an agency of the United Nations, as a guiding principle in setting urban air pollution limits. The model assumes that any exposure to a pollutant, no matter how small, carries health risks that require a public policy response. The model accords with the deep ecology instincts of the Church of Climate according to which the only tolerable ‘sustainable’ environment is one which is pristine and free from the cancer that is human civilisation. 

The LNT model is commonly applied in radiation protection and toxicology, but it also influences air quality regulations, particularly for pollutants that allegedly have no known safe threshold. The model undergirds the WHO fact sheet which lists the policies recommended to reduce air pollution such as making us walk, cycle or use public transport instead of cars and cramming us into compact ’15-minute’ cities and high-rises.

For Mayor Khan, urban air pollution is a social justice issue: “For me the issue is very simple: it’s one of social justice. … It’s the poorest people, least likely to own a car, least likely to cause the toxic air problems, who are most likely to suffer the consequences.” Khan’s office claims that since 2019, there has been a fall of 46% in nitrogen oxides and a 41% reduction in PM 2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres in diameter).

Yet this comparison is based on questionable counterfactual modelling of what “would have occurred” if there were no Ulez in operation. Ross Clark of the Spectator “smells a rat” here and refers to a study by Imperial College which examined air pollution data for 12 weeks before and 12 weeks after the original Ulez was implemented in 2019. It found that there was no significant reduction in PM 2.5 pollution and nitrogen oxides fell by a mere 3%.

A report by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants claimed that air at Hampstead station, the deepest Tube station in London, had a particulate matter concentration 30 times worse than that of standing by a busy road in the capital. A 2017 estimate of the social costs of air pollution from cars in the UK found that it amounted to £25 a year or less for each car. In other words, just two entry fees for the Central London Ulez would cover the social cost of this pollution for a whole year.

The constant refrain from the London mayor’s office that the city has a toxic air quality ’emergency’ that is dangerous to people’s health is questionable. Like much of the propaganda that pervades mainstream media coverage of the ‘climate emergency’” it is unconvincing. London’s air pollution levels have dramatically declined over the past few decades, along with that of other major cities such as Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York, which were known for their smog-filled skies in the 1950s and 1960s.

The reduction of coal burning in households and old power plants, more efficient vehicles using better quality diesel and petrol and the use of natural gas for power generation, home heating and cooking are among some of the factors that have led to far cleaner air in most cities in the developed OECD countries. These cities have cleaner air now than ever before in their histories. This is in keeping with the broader generalisation that never has the world’s population lived longer or healthier or been less poor than now (with the exceptional blip caused by the hysteria-induced Covid lockdowns).

London’s Class Warfare

It would seem that some sort of urban class war has been waging in London over the past few years. This includes both passive resistance in the form of the non-payment of fines by penalised drivers and active sabotage and vandalism of Ulez cameras by activists across the boroughs of London. Political opposition to virtue-signalling green schemes has been growing across Europe and London’s motorists are leading the country’s first real anti-green citizen’s revolt. 

According to a report by the BBC, TfL had installed 1,900 cameras in outer London and there were some 3,400 cameras across the Ulez in August 2023. A FOI request reported that there were more than 3,700 Ulez cameras in London as of July 2024. The SWLondoner reported in May 2024 that “There have been more than 4,500 counts of vandalisation of Ulez cameras in little over a year, according to data crowd-sourced by the minds behind one of Facebook’s biggest anti-Ulez groups.” According to an anonymous spokesman of ‘Julie’s map’, an anti-Ulez group, “he feels he was forced to retire when Ulez’s expansion would have forced him to buy a new van in order to avoid fines for work related travel”.

A more passive form of resistance is in the form of non-payment of Ulez fines. A recent story by the Express cites critics of Mr Khan, who “has not listened to sense or reason as he faces a backlog of nearly half a billion pounds in unpaid Ulez fines”. According to the paper, new research suggests that only one in five drivers are paying the fee on time. Keith Prince, the Conservative Group’s transport spokesperson on the London Assembly, told the Express that “By the time you finish reading this quote, TfL will have issued another fine to a Londoner struggling to afford to upgrade their car, who is four times more likely to not be able to pay it on time”.

Joe Couglin of MyLondon reports that a single car has been fined over 1,000 times since the Ulez expansion was introduced in 2023, racking up a massive bill for the driver. He cites recent data that show that over 100,000 cars have garnered five or more unpaid fines since the expansion of Ulez. Sir Sadiq Khan, it seems, has little time to listen to his middle- and working-class constituents about the onerous burdens imposed by Ulez and other anti-motorist regulations.

The Robin Hood of legend used superior archery and detailed knowledge of local forests to rob from the rich to distribute to the poor against the depredations of the ruling class and its representative, the corrupt and tyrannical Sheriff of Nottingham. The common folk of London today seem to face a similar oppression, this time under an environmentalist sheriff (Mayor). The contexts are vastly different — one from medieval England, the other from contemporary London — but the fight against perceived injustices is universal.

Dr Tilak K. Doshi is the Daily Sceptic‘s Energy Editor. He is an economist, a member of the CO2 Coalition and a former contributor to Forbes. Follow him on Substack and X.

Science Escapes Them, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship

They are successfully creating a story that is unifying the conservative message on a range of issues, I am referring to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship that will be meeting in London this week.  They include so many influential politicians even Mike Johnson the 56th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.   Donald Trump mentioned him by name second, or was it third, in his inaugural address on becoming President.  Johnson is on the advisory board of ARC and spoke at the first ARC conference in London in November 2023.  I was there.

From Jennifer Marohasy

By jennifer

They are successfully creating a story that is unifying the conservative message on a range of issues, I am referring to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship that will be meeting in London this week.  They include so many influential politicians even Mike Johnson the 56th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.   Donald Trump mentioned him by name second, or was it third, in his inaugural address on becoming President.  Johnson is on the advisory board of ARC and spoke at the first ARC conference in London in November 2023.  I was there.

They claim to be working to “re-laying the foundations of our civilisation”, but there will be no mention of science.

The conference will be in London the home of the Royal Society, that has more recently been captured by much that is fashionable. And fashion is of course the lowest form of ideology.   Founded on 28 November 1660, the Royal was granted a royal charter by King Charles II and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world.

Then there is the British Museum of Natural History, also in London.  This, and so many other science institutions, including Australia’s science agency the CSIRO, now take their lead from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC sits under the United Nations.   It was established under the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), ostensibly with the aim of measuring the impact from humankind on the Earth’s climate, to the extent that the FCCC have instructed the IPCC to only consider the human component of climate change. For simplicity, this would mean that if there was for example 100 mechanisms of action and interaction driving changes in climate, and the category of human action was one of those mechanisms, the FCCC has instructed the IPCC they are only allowed to talk about that one mechanism and must ignore the other 99. This kind of myopic directive is how you get nonsense claims like the one on the front page of the CSIRO website that “90% of the world’s emissions of carbon dioxide are from the burning of fossil fuels”.

What they might mean is that 90% of human emissions are from fossil fuels, but the way it is written most people would assume that 90% of the carbon in the atmosphere is from us – you and me, our cars, factories and plastic bags.   That is a nonsense!  When all the natural sources are considered, emissions from combustion of oil, gas and coal are a small percentage and impossible to separate from other plant sources including all the carbon dioxide breathed out by forests and phytoplankton, not to mention forest fires.  Carbon dioxide is indeed a well-mixed gas, and very soluble in the ocean.

Meanwhile, at the conference this week, in London, ARC will likely also continue to promote the policies of one of the darlings of the heterodox climate consensus community, political scientist Bjorn Lomborg.

Lomborg will likely tell the delegates that global warming is real, human caused, but he will say, it is just not an emergency.  It will speak nonsense, and he will be applauded by all the conservatives and the hangers-on.  He will tell them what is fashionable or what could be fashionable never mind the facts.

Lomborg and one of his funders, Bill Gates, now see an advantage in an energy transition to nuclear.  That was something Margaret Thatcher first spruiked back in the 1980s, only to be told by Nigel Lawson that nuclear could only be competitive with North Sea gas etcetera if there was government intervention, subsidies, and on it goes.

When I attended the first ARC conference, I was dismayed by all that I heard, especially the penultimate closing address that was by Lomborg. As well as assuring us that carbon dioxide was responsible for climate change, he mentioned the advantages of vaccines.  Almost in the same breath, and without context, certainly without acknowledging the role of big pharma in the Covid fiasco of mandates and adverse events denied at the time and at the first ARC conference, and it is not on the agenda for discussion this week.

At the conference this week a book will be launched, ostensibly bringing together the sharpest minds of our times in history, economics, philosophy, as well as artists and statesmen.   So, their story goes.  There is no mention of science or women.   There is mention of this new book uncovering the best that our civilization has given us, but again no mention of science.

I put some effort into a series of blog posts when I attended ARC in 2023.  I explained how I was dismayed at how many conservative Australian politicians were there, all agreeing vigorously with everything that was said that did not include any discussion of the direction of science that has been critical to western civilization.

There is ARC Research that claims to be a not-for-profit company which exists to renew social fabric, develop a pro-human vision of energy, business, and governance, and ultimately, tell a better story for our future.  But how can any organisation undertake research if it does understand the fundamental principles of evidence and method.  If it will use words as the IPCC does to quarantine discussion to a minuscule component of the natural world, of the natural order of things.

For sure science has been abandoned by today’s conservatives, who are on the political ascent, and this should be of concern to us all.

My blog posts from November 2023 with a focus on climate are here:

Reconciling with Nature, God and Qantas, Part 1, https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/10/reconciling-with-nature-god-and-qantas-part-1-arriving-london/

In Denial about the Science, ARC Part 2, https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/11/04/

The second half of Part 3 gives something of an overview of who attended and what they said, once you get past my short history of how the Thames and Europe used to freeze over,  https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/11/political-and-natural-hazards-arc-part-3/

In Part 4 ( https://jennifermarohasy.com/2023/12/2024-carbon-dioxide-warming-part1/ , that I wrote from Seattle, I included comment that:

“ … at the ARC conference in London, there was this assumption that everyone knows carbon dioxide causes warming of the Earth and the oceans and that as atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide rise we risk even more warming, but no-one was prepared to engage in any detail or explain the physical mechanisms. Certainly, no-one wanted to explain to me how the spike that was occurring in global temperatures while I was in London, how it had been caused by carbon dioxide.”

I wrote back in December 2023 in my final blog post about ARC, that I wanted to begin some discussion about the science, about carbon dioxide and climate change.  It has taken me some time to get going, and I thank you for your patience.

It was a year later, in December 2024 that I interviewed Bill Kininmonth, and next Tuesday I will be interviewing Ivan Kennedy – a professor at Sydney University.

We will be discussing both the surprising history of how it is that carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa has come to define global trends, and the chemistry of carbon, it being so soluble in seawater.  Kennedy is quite the expert when it comes to carbon chemistry, especially issues of acidification and calcification.

It is likely that we will hypothesise that what is being measured at Mauna Loa is almost certainly degassing from the ocean, I am going to suggest from the equatorial Pacific Ocean, rather than emission from the combustion of coal, gas or oil – and certainly not uneven respiration from northern hemisphere forests that is so often proposed to explain seasonal trends in carbon dioxide concentrations at Moana Loa.

If you are so inclined to come down this rabbit hole with us, you will need to register for what will be my first Zoom webinar!

When: Feb 25, 2025 12:00 PM Brisbane
Topic: Oceans Breathe Out Carbon Dioxide. Part 2/Towards a New Theory of Climate Change

Register in advance for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NfQkdaPZR46zfrKSxrKTBQ

After registering, you should receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Part 2 follows on from Part 1, that was my discussion with Bill Kininmonth about convection and how the tropical oceans don’t overheat because of the hot towers/the massive anvil cumulonimbus clouds that transport energy from the bottom to the top of the troposphere at the equator.  There is a summary of this meeting, also as a blog post, 

https://jennifermarohasy.com/2024/12/oceans-warm-atmosphere-with-meteorologist-william-kininmonth-audio-and-summaries/

Sun Rules Earth Climate

Today we’re talking again about Grand solar minimum, but I also speak about a little bit of solar radiation and verification of the new solar activity index we discovered with the existing one which is derived by average Sunspot number.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

On February 12, 2025, Tom Nelson conducted the above interview with solar physicist Valentina Zharkova: Grand solar minimum is underway. Below is my synopsis of lightly edited transcript excerpts from the closed captions along with key graphics in her presentation. H/T Chiefio

The full content of the video is:

Timeline of segments:
0:00 – Introduction to Valentina
0:35 – Understanding the Solar Cycles
4:25 – Challenges In Measuring Sun
5:10 – Discovering The Background (magnetic fields)
6:00 – Analyzing Magnetic Waves
7:50 – Predicting Solar Activity
14;45 – Grand Solar Minimum
27:25 – Implications of the Grand Solar Minimum
37:55 – CO2 and Temperature Correlation
39:10 – Solar Cycles and Earth’s Temperature
42:45 – Solar Inertial Motion and Climate
48:30 – Future Climate Predictions
1:05:20 – Volcanic Activity and Climate
1:07:30 – Earth’s Magnetic Field
1:12:10 – Concluding Thoughts

Transcript Excerpts

Today we’re talking again about Grand solar minimum, but I also speak about a little bit of solar radiation and verification of the new solar activity index we discovered with the existing one which is derived by average Sunspot number.

Understanding the Solar Cycle and Sunspots

The solar activity cycle is about 11 years and on the Sun, it occurs that in the start of the cycle on the left image the sun has Southern polarity.  And during the cycle this polarity slowly migrates in the opposite direction and so the next solar minimum you have polarity changed and this happens approximately every 11 years. so basically, what is happening the loops appear in the Solar surface and the occurring as the active region for forming coronal mass injections flares and different fluxes towards the Earth and other planets.

So, in the past we were dealing with the sunspots.  In the 18th century Wolff discovered that this Sunspot appears on this latitude 30° and migrates slowly towards the equator and basically this is the basic Solar activity index using daily average Sunspot numbers.

Why we love sunspots and why we support this for a couple of centuries is because sunspots actually are Roots which are embedded into the Photosphere (the surface layer of the Sun that gives off light).  And we see them from outside with the naked eye but basically, they are the places where magnetic Loops are embedded.

The problem with Sunspots is that we see only a few of them.  Even with this Solar maximum there’s only a small part of the solar surface covered with them. Whatever we use to detect them, always the Sunspot index is defined by people manually.  They agree from different observatories what number of sunspots which configuration Etc.  So, the Sunspot number changes during 11-year cycle.

Discovering The Background (magnetic fields)

So, we decided to look at the background field in which these sunspots are embedded so on the top is the B is the background magnetic field measured at solar observatory in Stanford with orange. So you see clearly that the leading polarity of Sunspot always opposite to the polarity of the background magnetic field in that hemisphere.  It was not only us who detected this it was others as well, so it was very encouraging. We decided we can detect solar activity with much better accuracy.

The black curve is our summary modulus summary curve, and the red is a sunspot number, and you see that a Vector summary Eigen vector will represent this Solar, remembering that our index represents the magnetic field of the background Sun. In 2022 we added Cycle 24 and discovered that our curve still represents Sunspot index.  At the bottom is the summary curve modulus summary curve cycle 25 where we are now. Here we see our prediction that the maximum will be actually year 23-24 and now there will be a very sharp drop of the activity, and we have two little Maxima before the minimum between cycle 25-26.  Cycle 26 will have very low amplitude, 70% lower than the previous two cycles.

So how it works.   If you have two waves on the top two black waves which are running with the same amplitude but if the face difference is zero you have constructive interference.   In the cycle 26 we can see the amplitudes are going opposite with the resulting amplitude becoming zero.   This is what we observe on the sun, and I teach my first-year physics students how they interact.   There’s no miracle, just basic physics of the waves and this effect called beat effect.

Implications of the Grand Solar Minimum

Now we come back to solar radiance and climate so first we now know that we entered into a grand solar minimum, the temperature started decreasing.  But the problem with the grand solar minimum is that during previous Grand solar minimum, which was the Maunder minimum in 17th century, the Solar Radiance reduced by 3 watts per square meter approximately. But the temperature during Maunder minimum decreased approximately by one degree maximum.

Different investigations show slightly different variations but mostly they all reconstruct temperatures during and after the minimum to find where the surface temperature was reduced on the globe. So, this is what you see for Northern Hemisphere, this is Europe, very dark blue is reduction of temperature by one degree.   And it is mostly all Europe, Russia and Siberia, and also all Northern America and Canada.

So basically this is probably we are heading towards now.  We have noticed the cold flashes from the drop of the temperature that occurred because drop of abundance of ozone created by solar ultraviolet light in the stratosphere.  If the solar radiation is reduced, this layer abundance of ozone is reduced, and it affects planetary atmospheric waves.

In the left image Globe, the stable just stream flows somewhere in this path and separate middle latitude from the north Northern latitude, but when ozone layer is reduced it causes giant Wiggles in just stream shown in the right plot called wind from arctics can now penetrate to the southern latitudes as shown on the picture.  It kicks off North Atlantic oscillation and balance between permanent low-pressure system near Greenland and permanent high-pressure system and the South into Negative PH. It was reported 24 years ago go and it works now.

We are trying now to say that the temperature will be increasing because the sun become closer to us but the sun is very humane it gives us this grand solar minimum for 30 years to sort out our understanding how the heating comes through and then prepare for the next stage of heating which come does no matter what we do on Earth; if we stop using fuels, we crawl to the caves and start using I don’t know what energy.   All people will die still the temperature will increase; it doesn’t matter what we do.

So, this prediction of the anthropogenic global warming people is not working.  The temperature will be increasing no matter what we do with CO2 because the increase of the temperature comes from the solar inertial motion.   So, this my conclusion: We had this global warming–it is real; it is not caused by humans because human only contribute 6% maximum of all CO2.  And CO2 is a very good gas because it is mostly absorbed by the plants and not by humans.

Global warming is caused by this Solar inertial motion and gravitation of large planets which drag the Sun from the center Body Center closer to the planets and this causes the increase of the  temperature.  And the temperature as I shown in my book will increase by 2.5-3° by 25-2600 years. This is the end of the story.

TN: Thank you it sounds like we’re due for some cooling between now and 2053 but warming in general between then and 2600.  I’m curious, do you think we’re going to see the temperatures freeze over at all?

Yes, I’m confident it will be freezing from 2031 to 2042 for sure.  This will be the worst period of cold air and cold temperature and not only temps.  Rivers and the ponds will be freezing all right and other dramatic things that might happen.  It’s going to be a lot harder to grow wheat in Canada for example, I would guess during that time absolutely.  In 17th century people heated their houses with their own fireplaces, now we have central heating.  If we don’t have electricity even our Central heating is not working, so you need to have the portable generators run from fossil fuel or have a wood stove in your house.  At that time people grew up something in their Gardens, now people don’t know how to grow up anything, so it will be really really difficult.

The Great Antarctic Sea Ice Flipflop

It’s not unreasonable to wonder how, if the planet is warming, Antarctic winter sea ice can set record highs.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

In 2014 NOAA blamed record high sea ice on global warming. Now NSIDC blames record low sea ice on global warming.

World’s sea-ice falls to record low

Mark Poynting and Erwan Rivault

BBC Climate & Verify data journalism teams

The world’s frozen oceans, which help to keep the planet cool, currently have less ice than ever previously recorded, satellite data shows.

Sea-ice around the north and south poles acts like a giant mirror by reflecting much of the Sun’s energy back into space.

But as rising temperatures cause this bright layer to shrink, the dark ocean below can absorb more heat, warming the planet further.

This latest sea-ice low appears to have been driven by a combination of warm air, warm seas and winds breaking apart the ice.

…

“Every year, every data point that we get suggests that this isn’t a temporary shift, but something more permanent, like what we’ve seen in the Arctic,” Walter Meier, senior research scientist at NSIDC, told BBC News.

“It is indicating that the Antarctic has moved into a new regime of lower ice extents.“

…Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgeydkz08go

Back in 2014, melting glaciers making sea water less saline was blamed for record HIGH Antarctic sea ice.

Antarctic winter sea ice extent sets new record in 2014

BY MICHON SCOTT  REVIEWED BY TED SCAMBOS
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 7, 2014

DETAILS

…

It’s not unreasonable to wonder how, if the planet is warming, Antarctic winter sea ice can set record highs. As the NSIDC release explains, Antarctica’s sea ice growth spurt may be down to stronger winds and slightly fresher sea surface water around the margins of the continent’s melting ice shelves.

…

Winds probably did not act alone to spur so much sea ice growth, melting land ice may have played a role. Most of Antarctica’s ice lies in the ice sheets that cover the continent, and in recent decades, that ice has been melting. Along the coastline, ice shelves float on the ocean surface, and much of the recent melt may be driven by warm water from the deep ocean rising and making contact with ice shelf undersides.

How does the melting of land ice matter to sea ice formation? The resulting meltwater is fresher than the seawater. As it mixes with the seawater, the meltwater makes the nearby seawater slightly less dense, and slightly closer to the freezing point than the ocean water below. This less dense seawater spreads out across the ocean surface surrounding the continent, forming a stable pool of surface water that is close to the freezing point, and close to the ice onto which it could freeze.

So as counterintuitive as expanding winter Antarctic Sea ice may appear on a warming planet, it may actually be a manifestation of recent warming. “Both the Arctic and the Antarctic are responding to climate change, and both have areas that are warming rapidly,” explains NSIDC lead scientist Ted Scambos. “But Antarctic Sea ice is responding to wind shifts and ocean changes in an unexpected way, and we’re still trying to fully understand it.”

References:

2014 melt season in review

Melting in the North, freezing in the South

Read more: 

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/antarctic-winter-sea-ice-extent-sets-new-record-2014

Sea Ice scientists should come clean and admit they have no idea which direction sea ice will move next, instead of placing each way bet, and blaming any change on global warming.

There is plenty of evidence Antarctic sea ice has varied wildly for at least the last century.

In 2013, the “Spirit of Mawson” Ship of Fools expedition got stuck in sea ice, while trying to relive a small part of Mawson’s Antarctic adventures.

Saving the Antarctic scientists, er media, er, activists, er tourists trapped by sea ice

The Antarctic Sea ice got so bad there was talk of relocating the Mawson base.

Record Antarctic ice: Mawson base might have to relocate

What was Antarctic Sea ice like in Mawson’s day? While a lot of bad things happened during the Mawson expeditions, in 1911 and 1929, and his other visits to Antarctic, Mawson managed to reach Antarctica on at least three occasions, unlike the Ship of Fools.

Arctic sea ice has also proven highly variable over the years, with long periods of sustained melt and freeze, many of which occurred well before anthropogenic CO2 could have become a significant factor.

What do we know about Arctic sea ice trends?

What can we conclude from all this?

It seems pretty obvious that declaring a “new regime” of lower sea ice extent on the strength of a decade of sea ice retreat is premature, given the history of extreme natural variability. In addition, the confused global warming “explanation” for the 2014 record extent of Antarctic Sea Ice in my opinion suggests present day claims that global warming is now driving sea ice decline are just speculation.

AI Data Centres to Rapidly Expand in London

hey miss the point however. Having a PPA is purely a financial arrangement, where the Data Centre agrees to buy the output of, say, a solar farm. But the electricity it actually uses still comes from the grid.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

The latest quarterly Data Centre Update is out:

https://cushwake.cld.bz/emeadatacentresupdate-02-2025-emea-regional-en-content-datacentres

The report highlights the explosive growth in AI centres, for instance in London:

Across Europe as a whole, about 11 GW is either under construction or planned.

With a large hub planned in Cardiff/Newport, Britain could add an extra 2 GW in the next five years, adding demand to a grid which is already stretched to the limit.

Cushman & Wakefield write a lot of nonsense about how “clean energy” will come to the rescue, for instance:

They miss the point however. Having a PPA is purely a financial arrangement, where the Data Centre agrees to buy the output of, say, a solar farm. But the electricity it actually uses still comes from the grid.

Data Centres, needless to say, work 24/7. Regardless of that PPA, the grid still only has so much capacity, and increasingly that won’t be enough to supply the burgeoning AI industry as well as the rest of the country.

Nobody foresaw the phenomenal growth in digital technology, and I suspect the same will be true of AI.

Texas takes giant steps toward nuclear energy dominance

Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp last week announced that his university has surpassed even the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now has the nation’s largest nuclear engineering research department.

From CFACT

By Duggan Flanakin

Is everything bigger in Texas?

Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp last week announced that his university has surpassed even the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now has the nation’s largest nuclear engineering research department.

And just in time, because Sharp also announced that Texas A&M is offering land near its RELLIS Innovation and Technology campus, located on 2,400 acres in Bryan, Texas, to several nuclear reactor companies to build small modular reactors (SMRs).

“Plain and simple,” said Sharp, a former State Comptroller and former member of the Texas Railroad Commission, “the United States needs more power. And nowhere in the country, other than Texas, is anyone willing to step up and build the power plants we need.”

Chief executive officers from Kairos Power, Natura Resources, Terrestrial Energy, and Aalo Atomics have all agreed to work with the Texas A&M system to bring reactors to the RELLIS campus as part of a project dubbed “The Energy Proving Ground.”

Their common goal is to work toward building and testing commercial-ready technologies that within five years can bring more nuclear energy to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT, which manages the Texas grid) and eventually to an energy-hungry nation.

According to Sharp, the RELLIS campus is the first suitable location in the nation where reactor manufacturers and power-dependent companies in Big Tech can build clusters of small modular reactors to supply the power needed for artificial intelligence endeavors, data centers, and the electric grid.

The Texas A&M System is ready to do what is necessary for the country to thrive, Sharp added, thanks to the leadership of Governor Greg Abbott and others in Texas state government. Doubtless, the “Energy Proving Ground” project will also redirect top talent to the university.

Last November, Gov. Abbott announced the release of the final report of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group. Just days later, he proclaimed that, “Texas is the energy capital of the world, and we’re ready to be No. 1 in advanced nuclear power.”

The Working Group, created by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) at Abbott’s direction, had been tasked with evaluating the state’s plan to build “a world-leading advanced nuclear power industry to enhance electric reliability and energy security, promote economic development, and unleash new opportunities for the growing Texas workforce.”

The Working Group report said that advanced nuclear reactors will provide enhanced energy security by augmenting Texas electricity generation. Nuclear energy will provide power for urban centers, ports, oil and gas regions, industrial facilities, data centers, and military bases. Nuclear also improves ERCOT’s reliability, as nuclear is more reliable than coal, wind, or solar.

Because advanced SMRs can co-locate with data centers and support heavy industries, they can help create new, good-paying jobs, increase productivity, and bring revenues to households and the state treasury as they provide process heat, power desalination plants, and electrify oilfields.

A Bureau of Better Business report says that by 2055, deployment of SMRs in Texas could provide over $50 billion in new economic development and $27 billion in wages for Texas workers through employment of an average of 148,000 people directly or indirectly in construction, operations, and manufacturing.

Another outcome of this push for nuclear energy research and development is the potential for Texas to lead the nation in advanced nuclear power generation. Establishing Texas as the preferred supplier for U.S.-based ANR technology would open international opportunities especially to those who prefer an alternative to Chinese and Russian nuclear reactor technology.

The Working Group also made several recommendations for legislative actions to shore up the state’s ability to attract ANR projects, beginning with creation of a Texas Advanced Nuclear Authority, a nonregulatory entity to coordinate the state’s strategic nuclear vision and implement ANR policy.

Other recommendations included creation of:

  • A Texas Nuclear Permitting Officer, a single point of contact for permitting.
  • A workforce development program for community colleges and universities to support creating a homegrown nuclear workforce.
  • A Texas Advanced Manufacturing Institute to help foster a nuclear ecosystem in Texas.
  • A Texas nuclear public outreach program to inform and educate Texans about the benefits of advanced nuclear reactor technology through communications and public engagement.
  • A Texas nuclear energy and supply chain fund that would be a direct-grant, cost-sharing program to incentivize early development and siting and to support supply chain and domestic manufacturing capacity.
  • A Texas nuclear energy fund, modeled after the Texas Energy Fund, to overcome the funding valley project developers face in Texas.

To streamline the regulatory process to allow the four participating companies to quickly get their reactors operational, Texas A&M officials have already begun the application process with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an Early Site Permit for potential development of commercial electrical and thermal power generation facilities. The site can accommodate multiple SMRs with a combined electrical output of more than 1 gigawatt.

Terrestrial Energy CEO Simon Irish hopes to develop an integral molten salt reactor (IMSR) at the Bryan site. Kairos Power CEO Mike Laufer plans to bring one or more commercial deployments to the site.

Natura Resources CEO Douglass Robison, whose company worked with the university for five years to develop its Natura MSR-1 demonstration system, will now concentrate on deployment of its commercial Natura MSR-100 system. And Aalo Atomics CEO Matt Loszak hopes to build up to six Aalo Pods at the site.

Another Texas-based nuclear power plant project is underway at Abilene Christian University, where Natura Resources is constructing a novel nuclear reactor that will generate reliable “carbon-free” energy while also desalinating water. In 2023, Natura built ACU’s new Science and Engineering Research Center, the first advanced reactor research facility outside a national laboratory in the United States.

Natura had already conducted a feasibility study at the Texas Produced Water Consortium, based at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. They found that, by operating the molten salt reactor at 600 degrees Celsius, it can generate up to 250 megawatts of electricity that can be used for desalination of produced water, other brackish water, or even sea water.

Reactor construction is expected to be completed by 2027, after which the Natura team will begin work on integrating systems to start water desalination. The molten salts, a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride or thorium fluoride salts, act as both a fuel and a coolant.

Gov. Abbott believes that “by utilizing advanced nuclear energy, Texas will enhance the reliability of the state grid and provide affordable, dispatchable power to Texans.”

Building a Texas ANR industry will ensure that Texas remains a leader in energy, but Texas is hardly the only state working in that direction. Perhaps Texas’s biggest rival is based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, home to Project Ike, a new nuclear energy development boosted by the new Tennessee Nuclear Energy Fund.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee says the fund, created by the Tennessee General Assembly with a $60 million budget in its inaugural year, was highly successful in recruiting nuclear energy projects, with four announced over a six-month period. Like Gov. Abbott, Gov. Lee wants to make Tennessee “the number one state for nuclear energy companies to invest and thrive.”

Power for the people – what a novel idea!

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

Wrong, Earth.com, Cocoa Production Is Not ‘Under Extreme Climate Pressure’ It’s Improving

Earth.com published a story claiming climate change is causing cocoa production to fall in West and Central Africa. This is false. Data show that cocoa production has increased during the last few decades of modest warming, rather than falling. Part of the reason for this is improved growing conditions in those regions and carbon dioxide fertilization.

From ClimateRealism

By H. Sterling Burnett

Earth.com published a story claiming climate change is causing cocoa production to fall in West and Central Africa. This is false. Data show that cocoa production has increased during the last few decades of modest warming, rather than falling. Part of the reason for this is improved growing conditions in those regions and carbon dioxide fertilization.

In the Earth.com story, “Cocoa production in Africa is under extreme climate pressure,” writer Andrei Ionescu, references a study published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, which claims that climate change may result in a 50 percent drop in production across West and Central Africa, a region which accounts for 70 percent of global cocoa production. Ionescu goes further claiming, “Climate change is substantially affecting cocoa production in West and Central Africa.” The problem is the data falsifies this claim, and the projections are based on the worst-case scenario projections from flawed climate models.

Climate Realism and Climate at a Glance have written multiple times previously concerning the admission by climate modelers that the models run way to hot. Accordingly, projections of impacts dependent on the models and their high emission scenarios cannot be trusted. Neither scientific research nor public policies should be built upon assumptions and projections that are known to be fatally flawed.

Leaving this aside, data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization show that, like crops everywhere, cocoa production varies from year. But accounting for interannual ups and downs, over the recent period of modest climate change, cocoa production has generally increased in West and Central Africa.

The research in particular focuses on cocoa production in Cameroon, the Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), Ghana, and Nigeria. FAO data for those countries show that since 1990:

  • In Cameroon cocoa bean production has grown by more than 157 percent;
  • In the Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) cocoa bean production increased by more than a 194 percent (nearly doubling, and setting a new record in 2023);
  • In Ghana cocoa bean production expanded by just over 122 percent;
  • And in Nigeria cocoa bean production grew by almost 17 percent.

Each of these countries experienced multiple years of record setting production over the past three and a half decades of climate change. (See the figure below).

With these facts in mind, there is no evidence whatsoever that climate change is putting cocoa production under extreme pressure, except perhaps in the imagination of Earth.com’s Ionescu.

Globally carbon dioxide has resulted in a general greening of the Earth with significantly improved crop production. There is good reason to believe that rising carbon dioxide concentrations have significantly contributed to West and Central Africa’s improved cocoa production, as well. There is no good reason found in botany, agronomy, or climatology – outside of climate model projections– for thinking growing conditions in the region will change for the worse.

Even the researchers themselves noted that under the various scenarios they projected, some areas in the region might see little or no change in yields going forward, others might see increased production, and still others decreases. In general, the “[r]esults from the mixed-effects models indicated that effects of climate variability on both and (with and without CO2, for all GCMs [general circulation models]) were not very strong, but that effects depended on the selected climate scenario.”

In fact, the study’s authors honestly admitted that as a result of a number of factors their findings were extremely uncertain. Among those limiting factors were the spatial scale of climate models, a lack of data availability, insufficient knowledge of potential land use changes, unknown interannual climate variability, and more. In addition, they acknowledged that the cocoa simulation model they used “has not been validated in the context of climate change or CO2 rise studies.”

These important admissions were entirely absent from Ionescu’s Earth.com story, which might lead one to believe there is more certainty in the projections than, in fact, there is.

Ionescu noted that the researchers said deforestation due to burgeoning populations expanding into tropical forests and land conversions could also result in a decline in cocoa production. This may be true, it has happened elsewhere for other forest dependent nuts and fruits when land was converted to row crops or urban expansion, but that has nothing to do with climate change.

In the end, the Earth.com story was long on alarming speculation pushing the catastrophic climate change narrative, and short on detailed analysis. The author showed no evidence of reading the report that he cites carefully and in full, or that if he did, that he understood its nuance and caveats related to its results – at least if he did, he didn’t discuss it in his story. There is also no evidence in the story that the writer checked any real-world data before asserting climate change is harming and will threaten cocoa production. That’s sloppy journalism any way you cut it.

Waking Up to Harsh Reality: Airbus Abandon’s Hydrogen Powered Airplanes

Like communism did in the 20th century, the green revolution has produced an infinite number of fantasies, promises and unrealistic dreams. Amateurish plans that look wonderful on paper are turning out to be complete nonsense when put to the test of reality.

From NoTrickZone

By P Gosselin

Green pie-in-the-sky dream crash lands on the runway of reality.

Like communism did in the 20th century, the green revolution has produced an infinite number of fantasies, promises and unrealistic dreams. Amateurish plans that look wonderful on paper are turning out to be complete nonsense when put to the test of reality.

Blackout News reports on the latest green wake-up call: European aviation giant Airbus has halted the development of hydrogen-powered aircraft, which originally had been slated to be introduced by 2035, has been canceled. The major reason for the halt is reported to be the lack of necessary hydrogen infrastructure. In short: planners realized that it isn’t financially feasible, and it isn’t going to work.

And as is the case with almost every pie-in-the-sky green project, the cancellation always gets followed by a statement that the project is simply being put off temporarily and that it still remains the target for the future.

“The company still wants to develop a marketable hydrogen aircraft and make a contribution to the decarbonization of aviation. The industry is pursuing the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050,” reports Blackout News. “However, experts are increasingly questioning whether this goal is achievable.”

According to analysts, the focus remains on alternatives such as synthetic aviation fuels, but these face formidable technological and investment hurdles as well. That too probably will soon join the “it remains the target of the future” club.

Currently demand for air travel is increasing rapidly and is expected to continue on its current trajectory for the next two decades. Converting over to a completely new aviation infrastructure is far more daunting and complex than naive climate activists could ever understand.

“The focus will now be on the further development of sustainable fuels and increasing the efficiency of existing aircraft,” adds Blackout News. “The vision of a hydrogen-powered aircraft is a distant prospect for the time being.”

It Must Be Climate Change

Have you noticed that every extreme weather event is blamed on climate change formerly known as global warming?

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Prager U video can be seen at this link: https://www.prageru.com/video/it-must-be-climate-change

Transcript is below in italics with my bolds and some added images.

Have you noticed that every extreme weather event is blamed on climate change formerly known as global warming?

Every. . . Single. . .One. 

Can you think of an exception?

Too hot — climate change.    Too cold – climate change. 

Previously, cold spells were termed “Weather” in contrast to “Global Warming.” Now it’s all “Climate Change.”

Drought – climate change.   Too much rainfall – climate change. 

And there’s always a climate scientist at some university who’s willing to make a statement blaming the current catastrophe on our profligate use of fossil fuel. 

Some years ago, on The Late Show with David Letterman, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow made the definitive statement on this issue. She said, “I think global warming probably means extreme weather events of all kinds.” Naturally, Dave agreed.

What’s behind all these confident assertions? 

As a PhD in geochemistry, former member of the University of Alabama Department of Geological Sciences and someone who has written and lectured widely on the subject of climate and geology, I can tell you that it comes down to two things: 

Obscure metrics and highly speculative models.

Mix these ingredients together and voila! You can get any result you want. The scarier, of course, the better. “Torrential rain” makes a much better headline than “heavy rain.” 

To show you how this works, let’s look at a recent example. 

Here’s the assertion:   Climate change is making air turbulence more volatile and thus air travel more dangerous. 

Scary, right?   But is it true?  No. Not if we look at the observable data; that is, hard data we can easily verify. 

Here’s a chart of the number of turbulence-related accidents in the US from 1989 to 2018. 

Despite the rise in annual US airline passengers from about 400 million in 1989 to nearly one billion by 2018, turbulence-related accidents have remained constant. If climate change were indeed making turbulence significantly worse, we would expect to see a corresponding increase in these accidents.

Yet, the data does not support this assertion. Instead, it suggests that the relationship between turbulence and climate change is either negligible or nonexistent.

In fact, the co-author of the original study cited in a BBC article admitted as much.

“When we add [data back to 2002] to the previous results, the statistical significance assigned to the…North Atlantic winter jet stream…disappears.”

This was conveniently left out of the BBC article.

This disconnect between obscure metrics and highly speculative models, and observable data is not limited to turbulence. 

The broader climate crisis narrative is built on similar shaky foundations. 

Let’s look at three more examples. 

No Increase in Extreme Weather: The number of hydrological, meteorological, and climatological disasters has remained relatively flat since 2000. If climate change were causing more extreme weather events, we would expect to see a clear increase in these numbers. Instead, the data, again, reflects no such increase.

No Increase in Loss of Life: Deaths from meteorological, hydrological, and climatological disasters have not increased. This is a critical metric because it directly reflects the human impact of these events. Despite frequent claims that climate change is making weather more deadly, the data does not bear this out.

No Increase in Costs: Global weather losses as a percent of global GDP have not risen significantly. This is another crucial metric because it accounts for the economic impact of climate-related disasters. If climate change were truly making these events more severe, we would expect to see a rising trend in economic losses relative to global GDP.

We are left with this conclusion:

The reliance on obscure metrics and highly speculative models
to support the climate crisis narrative often serves
to cloud the truth rather than illuminate it. 

By focusing on projections and models rather than observable data, environmental activists, climate scientists, attention-seeking politicians and click bait media make claims that are difficult to verify and easy to manipulate. 

The fear that fuels the “climate crisis” is simply not justified by the data. That’s why — over and over again — end-of-the-world predictions don’t pan out. 

This does not mean that we should ignore environmental issues. We live on the same planet. We all want clean air and water. 

However, it does mean that we should approach claims of climate catastrophe with a healthy dose of skepticism and demand that assertions be backed up by observable, measurable data. Given that politicians and government agencies are spending tens of billions of our tax dollars every year to “save the planet” that would seem to be the least they could do: give us some hard facts, rather than unproven assertions. 

And the hard facts are, turbulence-related accidents have not increased despite a massive rise in airline passengers. Extreme weather events, loss of life, and economic costs have not shown the dramatic increases that alarmists would have us believe. 

By focusing on observable data we can have a more grounded, rational discussion about our environmental challenges and how best to address them.

That’s the way to practical, real-world solutions.  The blame game — “it’s climate change” — gets us nowhere. 

How Ed Miliband’s Net Zero Fantasy Is Deforesting North Carolina

As everyone must now know, it doesn’t matter where the energy comes from in the great rush to Net Zero, only that the source must preferably be invisible to British consumers and voters. It seems that hundreds of acres of forest are being torn down in North Carolina to produce wood-pellets that are then poured into the gaping hungry furnaces of the UK’s Drax power station. 

From The Daily Sceptic

By Sallust

As everyone must now know, it doesn’t matter where the energy comes from in the great rush to Net Zero, only that the source must preferably be invisible to British consumers and voters. It seems that hundreds of acres of forest are being torn down in North Carolina to produce wood-pellets that are then poured into the gaping hungry furnaces of the UK’s Drax power station. 

The Mail has the story:

Some 280 acres of once pristine and ecologically-important wetland forest – a mix of oak, maple, hickory, cypress and pine – have disappeared, torn out as if by a marauding monster. All that’s left is a bleak expanse of boggy pools of water and pulverised pieces of wood.

It’s eerily reminiscent of photographs of No Man’s Land at the Battle of the Somme – only with the addition of several large piles of logs that the men who harvested the lumber from this remote north-eastern corner of North Carolina in November 2023 couldn’t even be bothered to take with them and left to rot.

According to scientists and environmentalists, the idea that new trees will replace the old ones felled any time soon is a load of nonsense:

They point out that burning wood is even dirtier in terms of carbon dioxide than coal and, more important, that it takes decades – 60 or 70 years in the case of hardwood forests – for a new tree to absorb the CO2 lost by burning the old one. 

That’s precious time, they say, that a warming planet simply doesn’t have, and hardly anyone’s idea of ‘sustainable’ energy.

However, that hasn’t stopped successive UK governments, the world’s most enthusiastic convert to the wonders of wood pellets, from giving billions of pounds in renewable energy subsidies to biomass operators.

Needless to say, the heroic leader of the vanguard to turn Britain into a Net Zero paradise of impoverished and frozen people is out in front to help drive this ultimate example of greenwashing:

This week, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband became the latest politician to keep this astonishing arrangement – described by opponents as Britain’s “biggest green hoax” – on the road when he approved a new funding arrangement giving the vast Drax power station in North Yorkshire (the country’s largest) around £2 billion over four years to keep burning biomass.

Miliband, the architect of the Government’s drive to Net Zero, has been implicated in the Drax scandal since 2008 when he was appointed Secretary of State for the newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown. 

Although the new deal cuts Drax’s subsidies in half, given all the Starmer Government has promised about tackling global warming, environmentalists had been hoping for Drax to lose all its subsidy.

Drax, which ironically shares its name with a James Bond villain who set out to destroy the planet, burns the equivalent of 27 million trees every year and – because wood is much dirtier even than coal – is Britain’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, last year producing nearly 12 million tons of the planet-warming gas.

The cooling towers of the controversial Drax Group power station complex near Selby, UK

The Mail’s Tom Leonard inspected the site in person with a local guide:

There were no signs of new trees growing, or anyone trying to re-plant, even on one site that was logged three years ago. “This is ground zero for clearcuts – you see them appearing all the time and it’s really sad,” said my companion, who asked me not to use his name as “these people can be mean”. 

He used to go out regularly looking for new clearcut sites and then follow the lorries taking away lumber and chipped wood so that he could say with confidence that it had gone to an Enviva pellet plant.

Since it started importing huge quantities of pellets in 2012, Drax has relied on America’s South for most of them, not only because it has vast tracts of forest close to coastal ports for easy export but also because these conservative states impose few of the regulations that protect woodland in the UK and the rest of Europe.

Logging companies traditionally cut down only the biggest trees as they are most suitable for the building and furniture industries, leaving the smaller ones to keep growing. They also left the ecologically-precious ‘wetland hardwood’ varieties such as cypress because they were too gnarled to become planks or tables.

It doesn’t matter what your position on climate change is. The story here is the sheer hypocrisy:

Everyone I spoke to in North Carolina admitted they were slightly shocked that “tree-loving” and climate change-aware Britain, of all countries, had facilitated the biomass industry –adopting renewable energy accounting rules that didn’t account either for the forests being lost in the US or the carbon emissions from burning the wood.

Derb Carter, a senior lawyer at the Southern Environmental Law Centre, told me he had repeatedly visited the UK to explain the situation to government officials.

“There was this assumption that surely the US regulates how forests are managed to protect the public interest,” he said. The Brits were “surprised”, he said, when he explained that in southern states like North Carolina, there was nothing of the sort.

He was disappointed by Ed Miliband’s verdict on Drax this week, saying: “This is not a good decision for our climate and certainly not for our forests over here.”

“We had hoped that a new government would have taken a really hard look at this. When you’re basically cutting forests and hauling them across the ocean to burn instead of coal, it makes no sense.”

Mr Carter believes the fact that the environmental destruction happens out of sight – and therefore out of mind – has been very useful for Drax in winning British acquiescence.

“It’s a lot harder to burn your own forest than someone else’s,” he says. “People are going to be a lot more tolerant if the wood pellets just show up on a ship and you don’t see the trees being cut and don’t see the forest being lost.”

Just like buying solar panels and batteries from China, where the coal power stations providing the energy to manufacture them are conveniently out of sight, and allowing China to gain a chokehold on the UK renewables sector.

The North Carolina story is worth reading in full.