I took in the cool breeze of The Thames from the Terrace Pavilion – it seemed at high tide as there was lots of debris sloopily bobbing past. A Good Year blimp buzzed like a jar of wasps overhead – “Safety Together”, it read. I questioned, as a matter of national security, whether anything was supposed to be flying directly over the Houses of Parliament. It was pointed out to me that the wind was quite strong up there and the dirigible motors probably couldn’t keep it on a straight course over the river. Whilst I was supping my iced orange juice, I was buttonholed by Jimmy Devlin of the North West Tenants and Residents Assembly. We discussed a number of things, including : revolution (he thinks people are going to rise up and get their share, and I think people are too poor and busy to get political); fuel poverty and carbon savings (I agree with him that carbon taxation is going to create extra expenses for the poor, but I disagree with him over climate change, because I’ve studied the science); non-hierarchical community leadership (the old models are failing) and Freemasonry in the Police (he’s ex). We did agree that democracy is suffering from a lack of engagement, and that social breakdown in some cases is becoming violent. We also agreed that it seems that the Occupy movement has been infested or even misdirected (he said fragmented) by covert agents of the state. He indicated that a number of former environmental activists that he’s known are now strongly protagonist for the social justice agenda. He became scathing about UK Government policy on renewable energy, saying that it was astonishing that it had been recently announced that all subsidies for wind power and solar power would be gone by 2020.

Anyway, then we were both buttonholed by Geoffrey Beacon of Beacon Dodsworth. He’d been earwigging, and he wanted to know why I was against carbon pricing and taxation. I said, well, carbon dioxide is a virtual, negative commodity that nobody wants to pay for, so it will always get paid by the most vulnerable – so we would be better spending money in a positive, economy-stimulating way, such as investing in renewable energy and energy conservation. He said that a carbon tax of £400 per tonne would do the trick. I said that carbon will never be permitted to be priced at £400 a tonne – there are too many forces against it.

Well then, before any further debate could take place we were called in for the speeches. Up at the podium is Alan Whitehead MP. He says he’s not going to give a speech, but then outlines his support for the campaign in a number of points, which he then admits was rather like a speech, in fact, and then introduces Caroline Lucas MP (everybody has to keep biting their lips to stop themselves from saying “Leader of the Green Party”). As usual, Caroline cuts the situation down to the bones – the social elements of the Energy Bill are going to be the Green Deal (cheap loans for householders to do energy efficiency and renewable energy, financed by the new partly state-funded Green Investment Bank) and the Energy Company Obligation (ECO – an obligation on energy companies to enable transformation of “hard to treat properties” and provide affordable warmth, which will be funded out of energy consumers’ bills).

She said that the ECO Carbon Saving Obligation (CSO) will quite probably benefit rich property owners – and yet be paid for by bill increases for the poor.

Next up was Dr Hilary Emery, Chief Executive Officer of the National Children’s Bureau (NCB), and she talked about the impact of fuel poverty on the young poor – as this is not often mentioned – whereas older people in fuel poverty often are. She said it wasn’t right that people have to choose between “eat” and “heat”. She invited two children from the NCB to speak – they were amazing.

Then we got to hear from Adam Scorer of Consumer Focus. He said that the Carbon Price Floor proposed for the Energy Bill (Electricity Market Reform) was “not my favourite choice of policy”, but that with the extra billions of revenue it could generate, a lot could be done to truly tackle Fuel Poverty.

Then, up last, was “Mr Energy Bill Revolution” Ed Matthew, who tried not to be too technical, but laid out a vision of energy efficiency being the basis on which the British economy could be resurrected – through addressing energy cost increases and providing employment. Ah, the sweet smell of new jobs.

I spoke to Adam Scorer after the speeches, and tried to clarify what he meant by showing distaste for the Carbon Floor Price proposals. I asked how realistic it was to ask the Government to give up all that juicy carbon revenue to social projects – given that a range of organisations and causes will be after the same pot of money – including the nuclear power bunch. He said that everything is impossible until it happens – and that despite support, the Energy Bill Revolution could be blocked so easily by a “Treasury says no” statement. He did say though, that without “wilful bloodyminded individuals” like Ed Matthew, “nothing would ever happen”.

I spoke to Ed Matthew – ex Friends of the Earth, and now with his own group Transform UK. He’s done some stuff on the Green Investment Bank and now he’s pushing the Energy Bill Revolution. We agreed that if we’re going to have carbon taxation or pricing of some sort, then we do need to make sure that we speak up for using at least some of this money for Fuel Poverty alleviation. With approximately (depending on how you count it) 11.5 million people in poverty (and approximately 2.5 million children), putting a carbon tax or price in place will only hurt the poor harder by increasing energy costs. There needs to be a mechanism that stops this from depressing economic activity any further than it is already squelched – a mechanism to address energy demand, create jobs and solve social issues is what’s required. He said that if there’s no carbon price floor, we would have to rely on revenue from the Emissions Trading Scheme – which will fluctuate more – and jeopardise investment confidence. We should be demanding carbon revenue for the right purposes – there’s a report they did with Cambridge Econometrics saying the same kind of thing.

I then went on to speak with people from Carillion – who were quite sceptical about the Green Deal – that many people could be ripped off by the fact that there will be multiple agencies involved in any one project – with each firm wishing to do their own assessments and possibly doing work the householders don’t need. The view was expressed that what needs to happen is that the Government stops wasting money on consultations, reports and consultancy and just invests in energy efficiency and energy conservation projects directly. We discussed how Local Authorities are expected to be handling the social aspects of the new Energy Bill – but that with shrinking budgets and ever-smaller staffing, energy conservation – such things as the Green Deal and fuel-saving Combined Heat and Power projects – are likely to never make it off the ground.

I went on to speak to Karen Klomp, Energy Strategy Officer at the London Borough of Lambeth. We discussed the primeval problem – that energy companies want to sell as much energy as they can, whilst climate change legislation requires effectively (until renewable energy is more prevalent) that total energy demand is reduced. We talked about which energy companies are evolving into Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) – which are training their own insulation, draught-proofing and renewable energy installers, and which are contracting this out (with all the problems this could entail).

I took the opportunity to mention to her that I am researching Renewable Gas (whilst being in the in-between phase of having completed a Masters degree and now wondering what to do with the rest of my life). I said I’m about to launch a survey to engineering and energy firms asking them about how much Renewable Gas they are making, and the trends. I said I was trying to raise this subject because some people are discussing the upcoming UK Government “Gas Strategy”. We disussed where gas in the UK economy is going to come from in future.

She spoke of various projects she is running – how they are trying to make the best use of various schemes and grants before they run out. She projected that she would be selling the idea of the benefits of the Green Deal to her local authority and related organisations. She and I agreed that policy as a whole was quite weak and compromised – but that this is what we’ve got to work with – so we need to run with it (or ice-skate – she is originally from The Netherlands, after all).

As I was leaving, I exchanged a wave and a nod with Jim Devlin. I asked him what he was going to do to promote the Energy Bill Revolution and his answer was : “wind 6.8 million residents up – and let them do the work”.

This is the briefing from The Energy Bill Revolution :-

“Families are suffering huge financial hardship, and one in four households can’t afford to heat their homes. Cold homes are damaging the health of our most vulnerable citizens, including children and older people. The Energy Bill Revolution is an alliance of more than 80 children’s charities, environment groups, unions, health & disability groups, consumer groups and businesses, calling on the Government to use the money it gets from carbon taxes to make our homes super-energy efficient. This is the only permanent solution to end fuel poverty and drive down energy bills. The Energy Bill Revolution could quadruple carbon emission savings compared to the Government’s new energy efficiency policies, and create up to 200,000 more jobs – exactly what we need to support the UK’s economic recovery.”

I am fully aware that this campaign could have been launched by Coalition empathisers to prop up the Energy Bill – which is widely being criticised (Greg Barker MP was supposed to attend but I don’t think I saw him. Maybe he was avoiding me. However, Chris Huhne MP did flit past at one point, and I saw John Prescott MP (with a walking stick) on the baize-green carpet stairs on the way out.)

Considering that some of the people in the room supporting the Energy Bill Revolution campaign could stand to benefit from the success of the Green Investment Bank, their motives might not be entirely charitable.

On the other hand, Fuel Poverty is a genuine social need, and addressing it could avoid people being driven further into deprivation. So, despite the fact that I think carbon pricing and taxation is entirely the wrong thing to do (instead we should invest positively in renewables and conservation), if this is the card we are dealt in the Energy Bill, then I think we should definitely “hypothecate” some of the revenue towards the alleviation of economic depression – for the sake of the kids.

More of a grudging acceptance to work with what we’re given rather than a “revolution”, though.

The UK Government appear to have seen the light about their, frankly, rubbish plan to covertly invest in (by hidden subsidies) a spanking new fleet of nuclear power reactors.

Dogged by Electricite de France (EdF) as they have been, with Vincent de Rivaz continuing to proffer his begging bowl with outstretched pleading arms, it just might be that before the Energy Bill is finally announced –

After all, there are plenty of reasons not to support new nuclear power – apart from the immense costs, the unclear costs, the lack of immediate power generation until at least a decade of concrete has been poured, and so on (and so forth).

Gas is Laughing

It appears that reality has bitten – and that the UK Government are pursuing gas. And they have decided not to hatch their eggs all in one basket. First of all, there’s a love-in with Statoil of Norway :-

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_072/pn12_072.aspx
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9316935/French-president-Francois-Hollande-cuts-retirement-age.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18344831
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-praises-uknorway-energy-linkup-7826436.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/jun/07/energy-uk-norway-oil-gas-renewables

Then, there’s the new “South Stream” commitment – the new Azerbaijan-European Union agreement, spelled out in a meeting of the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) on 12th June at King’s College, London :-

http://www.eucers.eu/2012/06/07/5-eucers-energy-talk-the-southern-gas-corridor-at-the-home-stretch/
http://abc.az/eng/news/65475.html
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Azerbaijan-Turkey-Deepen-their-Energy-Ties.html
http://euobserver.com/19/116394
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/NC23Ag02.html

Meanwhile, the “North Stream” gas pipeline is going to feed new Russian gas to Europe, too (since the old Siberian gas fields have become exhausted) :-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15637244
http://www.nord-stream.com/pipeline/
http://www.gazprom.com/about/production/projects/mega-yamal/
http://www.gpilondon.com/index.php?id=325

And then there’s the amazing new truth – Natural Gas is a “green” energy, according to the European Union :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/29/gas-rebranded-green-energy-eu

The UK will still be importing Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from our good old friends in Qatar. Never mind the political interference in the nearby region and the human rights abuses, although NATO could be asked to put a stop to that if Europe needed to bust the regime in order for their energy companies to take ownership of the lovely, lovely gas. I mean, that’s what happened in Iraq and Libya, didn’t it ?

A Fossilised Future

So, despite all the green noises from the UK Government, the underlying strategy for the future (having batted away the nuclear buzzing insects around the corpse of British energy policy), is as Steve Browning, formerly of National Grid says – “gas and air” – with Big Wind power being the commercialisable renewable technology of choice. But not too much wind power – after all, the grid could become unstable, couldn’t it, with too much wind ?

There are several problems with this. First, the commitment to fossil fuels – even Natural Gas with its half the emissions profile of coal – is a risky strategy, despite making sure that supplies are secure in the near term. The reasons for this are geological as well as geopolitical. Natural Gas will peak, and even the UK Government accepts that unconventional gas will not keep fossil gas going forever – even with the “18 years” ultimate recoverable from under Lancashire of shale gas (that’s “18 years” of current gas annual demand – but not all drilled at once – perhaps amounting to about 1.5% of current UK gas supply needs per year, stretched out over 40 years) , and the billion tonnes of coal that can be gasified from under the sea off the east coast of England. As long as Carbon Capture and Storage can work.

Not only will Natural Gas peak and start to decline in the UK, it will also peak and decline in the various other foreign resources the UK is promising to buy. By simple logic – if the North Sea gas began depletion after only 30 years – and this was a top quality concentrated resource – how soon will poorer quality gas fields start depleting ?

Whilst I recognise the sense in making Natural Gas the core strategy of UK energy provision over the next few decades, it can never be a final policy. First off, we need rather more in terms of realistic support for the deployment of renewable electricity. People complained about onshore wind turbines, so the UK Government got into offshore wind turbines, and now they’re complaining at how expensive they are. Then they botched solar photovoltaics policy. What a palaver !

Besides a much stronger direction for increasing renewable electricity, we need to recognise that renewable resources of gas need to be developed, starting now. We need to be ready to displace fossil gas as the fossil gas fields show signs of depletion and yet global demand and growth still show strength. We need to recognise that renewable gas development initiatives need consistent central government financial and enabling policy support. We need to recognise that even with the development of renewable gas, supplies of gas as a whole may yet peak – and so we need to acknowledge that we can never fully decarbonise the energy networks unless we find ways to apply energy conservation and energy efficiency into all energy use – and that this currently conflicts with the business model for most energy companies – to sell as much energy as possible. We need mandates for insulation, efficient fossil fuel use – such as Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and efficient grids, appliances and energy distribution. Since energy is mostly privately owned and privately administered, energy conservation is the hardest task of all, and this will take heroic efforts at all levels of society to implement.

This article was written by M. A. Rodger and was originally posted at DeSmogBlog and is syndicated by an informal agreement and with the express permission of both the author and DeSmogBlog, without payment or charge.

GWPF Briefing Paper No1 – The Really Inconvenient Truth' will be a good test for this because “the GWPF is proud to publish this dispassionate but devastating critique of UK climate change policies, and of the alleged basis on which those policies rest.”

So says the foreword written by Lord Lawson of Blaby, the founder of the GWPF. Such a statement pretty much overrules the disclaimer that appears on the cover of these Briefing Papers (that views expressed are those of the author not the GWPF).

So will GWPF pride come before a fall?

REALLY INCONVENIENT AND REALLY TRUE?

The author of Briefing Paper No1 is Lord Andrew Turnbull, a retired senior civil servant and a GWPF Trustee. Turnbull has a “unique authority” for the task according to Lord Lawson. But a “unique authority” may not be adequate because the subject of Briefing Paper No1 encompasses not just UK climate change policy, but also the entirety of the work of the UN IPCC. Now that is a whole lot of subject-matter!

The Really Inconvenient Truth which Turnbull attempts to convey is that the basis for UK climate policy is shaky because it rests solely on the IPCC's findings. “The propositions of the IPCC do not bear the weight of certainty with which they are expressed,” he says.

However Turnbull is at pains to describe what he is attempting in Briefing Paper No1. He wishes only to point out the doubts and flawed procedures that exist. He does not seek to “replace“ the IPCC “propositions” with alternative propositions.

That is what he says. But what does he then do?

The gargantuan task Turnbull tackles in Briefing Paper No1 requires a seriously focused analysis but there is none of that here. Briefing Paper No1 is a sweeping account of the subject that strongly advances alternative “propositions.”

In essence, Turnbull's message is that “the IPCC view is a narrowly-based and over-simplified one … downplaying the role of natural forces.” The alternative view he advances sees a less dramatic climate change that would allow the world to adapt without reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Turnbull concludes (quoting the GWPF's inaugural lecture) that the IPCC view “is impossible to accept.”
Logic dictates this is a call for its “replacement.”

As already mentioned, Briefing Paper No1 analyses IPCC work in its entirety. It thus covers the science, the climatic impacts and the policy responses.

These will be examined here in reverse order – kind of upside-down.

1 POLICY RESPONSES

Turnbull argues at some length for what he calls “no regret” mitigation policies to reduce CO2 emissions, policies which would not impact greatly on the UK economy. Yet Turnbull is entirely disinterested in the CO2 reductions that such minimal policies would achieve. It really does beg the question why he argues for any mitigation policies at all.

Indeed he talks briefly of preferring “adaptation” policies, pointing to the Institute of Civil Engineers who allegedly think that too little attention is paid to “adaptation.” Confusingly, Turnbull gives no source for this allegation. So is he referring to the UK's Institute of Civil Engineers? It is strange if he is. Their policy statements on climate change are unequivocal and wholly opposite to Turnbull's allegation. This is true even in their 2008 statement Adapting the UK to Climate Change (whose title may have given rise to Turnbull's confusion, perhaps a new take on 'judging a book by its cover.').

2 CLIMATIC IMPACTS

Turnbull deals quickly with the IPCC work on climatic impacts. He calls it shabby and quotes twice the Inter Academy Council (IAC) Report 2010 on the IPCC. This time Turnbull's source is referenced so there is no mistaking Turnbull's misinterpretations.

Turnbull makes here two accusations.

Firstly he says the IAC strongly criticise the IPCC WG2 for using non-peer-reviewed material. On this Turnbull is wrong. The IAC say using such “gray” literature is “relevant and appropriate” and is only criticising particulars of how it is used!

Turnbull's second quote (from the IAC Executive Summary) is about the IPCC's use of unsupported or unclear probability assessments within the WG2 Summary for Policy Makers. Any reader of this WG2 Summary will see it is only a summary. It's probability statements are shoddy work but not the shabby underhand work of deception that Turnbull describes.

This second IAC quote is used to back up Turnbull's otherwise unsupported accusations of “a consistent pattern of cherry-picking, exaggeration, highlighting extremes and failure to acknowledge beneficial effects.” Here Turnbull is entirely at odds with the IAC report which never makes any such comment or anything remotely in this vein.

Indeed the IAC begins its conclusions “The Committee concludes that the IPCC assessment process has been successful overall and has served society well” showing Turbull's intemperate tirade against the IPCC WG2 is entirely preposterous!

3 THE SCIENCE

On the science, Turnbull concludes that the IPCC “sees calamity just around the corner, producing calls for dramatic and early CO2 reduction.” This is a blunt but fair assessment.

Yet Turnbull goes on to make many strong but largely unsupported accusations against the IPCC science. He says it ignores 'huge controversy', relies on 'unproven assumptions' since it ' ignored' certain possibilities. He says its findings have been 'strongly challenged' and cites “some scientists … many scientists” who hold alternative views. And for good measure Turnbull also rounds on the Hockey Stick curve, as did GWPF Briefing Paper No3.

None of this has any substance to it. The “many scientists” (in fact one misguided scientist working outside his specialism) was debunked  in Part 5 of this series.

As for the “some scientists,” again only one of these is named – climate 'skeptic' Professor Richard Lindzen (who is a member of the GWPF's Academic Advisory Council). It is difficult to support the idea that Lindzen's work has been ignored by the IPCC. Lindzen's work contributed to the 2007 IPCC report within two different chapters and he was even a Lead Author in the 2001 IPCC report on the very chapter relevant to Turnbull's comments.

While Turnbull makes no reference to any particular piece of work by Lindzen (and there continues to be a lot of that), it is safe to say that the available work relevant to Turnbull's discussion had been already shown as entirely flawed scientifically well before Briefing paper No1 was published.
 

THE REALY INCONVENIENT TRUTH FOR TURNBULL & THE G.W.P.F.

Be it in the science, the climate impacts or the policy responses, there is but one good word that can be said about GWPF Briefing Paper No1 – it is consistent.

It is consistent in being always wrong!

The same appears to be the case generally with GWPF Briefing Papers which have all now been reviewed by this series – consistently wrong and entirely flawed.

The 'debunking' process could be continued to other GWPF publications, searching for the merest hint of some improvement in its reporting, some publications that might show at least some merit. But enough is enough.

GWPF is a UK-registered charity. If a UK charity uses controversial material “such material must be factually accurate and have a well-founded evidence base” (emphasis added). Yet all GWPF Briefing Papers have been shown to be riven with controversial material that is in no way factual or well-founded in evidence.

This is made worse because the charitable “purpose” of the GWPF is to “advance the public understanding of global warming and of its possible consequences, and also of the measures taken or proposed to be taken in response to such warming” (emphasis added).

For an educational charity to be spreading so much untruth and error is surely unacceptable, even scandalous. It is evidently a significant non-compliance that impacts on the public trust in UK charities generally. On this basis, a formal complaint will now be made and pursued with the UK Charity Commission.

There does also remain one as-yet unasked question.

Why would a bunch of respected and otherwise sensible people make such fools of themselves in this manner?

The deep question is : why didn’t the UK Government just ban the tobacco companies outright at the start or tell them to diversify out of selling cancer sticks in order to keep their retail licences ? Well, the simple answer is that companies like British American Tobacco (BAT) are privately-owned capitalised companies, with many pension and other major funds heavily invested. The UK Department of Business, Trade, Enterprise, Industry, Information, Skills, Services and Manufacturing or whatever it’s been variously called over the last few decades, simply couldn’t tell shareholders to pull their investment out of death-by-inhalation stocks.

Everyone sees a return on investment in the industries of death generally, such as the arms trade, the junk food industry, and petrochemicals (ask yourself : how many people have suffered and died because of diesel particulate-provoked asthma ?) It takes a certain amount of time to reach the logical conclusion that wars do not need to be fought, making armaments redundant; for healthy food to become seen as essential to beat off diabetes and obesity epidemics; and for urban transport to be electrified to save lungs and hearts.

No, you just can’t ban an entire product range overnight because, finally, the science has broken through the doubt barrier and shown beyond reasonable scepticism that tobacco smoking causes cancer, emphysema and other serious and fatal conditions. No, you have to go at it step by painful step, reducing availability, changing the rules on presentation at the point of sale, putting up signs in public places.

And it all takes time, this gradualist approach. The tobacco industry may now wind down to a dribble in Britain (although it will continue to do well in Asia and Africa), and peoples’ savings for retirement will have soon all moved out of fag ends into something else.

Yet, we don’t have the luxury of time when it comes to the climate change and energy crisis. We simply don’t have the 25 to 50 years it could take to adopt a gradualist approach to energy sector change. Anything that takes longer than 10 years to begin to displace carbon out of the energy economy is too slow to be useful.

People are slowly beginning to wake up to the fact that their money is invested in climate change, and are making demands on their pension fund and bank account managers – but this is all happening too slowly – despite the keen interest in ethical investment.

The energy sector has got to change – and change fast. Changing the energy sector so radically and so quickly is not something that can be done by applying small changes to the costs of energy – particularly as the wider costs of energy are so volatile anyway. Gradually introducing renewable energy technologies with subsidies and grants and special tax breaks is not going to displace carbon fast enough.

Governments may not like the thought – but maybe they will consider starting to ban things – and not be shy about being explicit. However, this kind of action will generate significant resistance and dissent.

How then to rapidly alter the world’s entire energy sector ?

Start telling the truth about how the energy sector is scraping the bottom of the barrel in a number of fuels and fields ? Could this approach cause a run at the investment bank ? Could it tip the balance in energy systems deployment towards the less-intensive options – green energy – the only possible area of growth in the energy sector – which becomes the only possible logical conclusion ?

I would like you to consider the proposition that disbelief in climate change science is nothing more than an exercise in public mind-bending gone very, very wrong.

In the 1970s, climate change science began to accumulate some serious evidence and intelligent students. It became clear to a number of powerful players that the policy implications of global warming included a drastic reassessment of oil and gas dependence in the global economy.

Defence and national governance institutions all over the Free World, but most significantly in the United States of America, began to discuss the security implications of policy to combat global warming. The energy companies realised that the game was up if they didn’t act – they had their business profits to lose if carbon dioxide emissions became regulated.

Academics and researchers such as Naomi Oreskes and James Hoggan have documented what happened as a result – connivance from the oil, gas and coal companies to launch public relations exercises to qualm apocalyptic fear amongst the general population.

Certain scientists and engineers in the pay of the energy sector, and also close to the American federal administration, and some even in the US Department of Defense, took it as their personal mission to undermine confidence in climate change science, using tried-and-tested techniques from the public relations industry, sowing doubt in science.

Universities were targets for this psychological operation – the early versions of the Internet were ideal pathways for communicating the disinformation. Even very intelligent people became suspicious of climate change science, using the same route by which some environmentalists were invited to become suspicious of microwave ovens – but that’s a whole other story.

We all know what happened next – governments became shy of carbon policy : the result was a promotion of economic consumption at the expense of precaution. Developed economies around the world abandoned energy conservation for more extreme fossil fuel use.

An uneasy international balance was achieved by the USA devoting significant diplomatic effort to their relationship with Saudi Arabia, and protecting energy supplies by sending young white (and black) Christian martyrs into unholy wars on oil and gas producer nations.

It must be hard for some entrenched positions to hear that climate change is actually really serious, after all. We can end the conversation with these sceptics – there are other issues we need to focus on, such as the risks from the militarisation of the melting Arctic.

Climate change “dissenters”, “dismissers” and “deniers” might find it hard to listen to the US Department of Defense trying to be upbeat and re-capture the agenda and the platform. Here’s Leon Panetta outlining some of the new story :-

“Panetta: Environment Emerges as National Security Concern : By Nick Simeone : American Forces Press Service : Washington, May 3, 2012 : Climate and environmental change are emerging as national security threats that weigh heavily in the Pentagon’s new strategy, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told an environmental group last night. “The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security,” Panetta said here at a reception hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund to honor the Defense Department in advancing clean energy initiatives. “Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” Panetta said. Panetta cited the melting of Arctic ice in renewing a longstanding call for the Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea. More than 150 nations have accepted the treaty, which has been in force since the early 1990s, and a succession of U.S. government administrations have urged ratification. Among other things, the convention would guarantee various aspects of passage and overflight for the U.S. military. Panetta urged his audience to use their influence to push for treaty ratification. “We are the only industrialized nation that has not approved that treaty,” he said…”In the next fiscal year, we are going to be investing more than a billion dollars in more efficient aircraft and aircraft engines, in hybrid electric drives for our ships, in improved generators, in microgrids for combat bases and combat vehicle energy-efficient programs,” he said. “We are investing another billion dollars to make our installations here at home more energy-efficient, and we are using them as the test bed to demonstrate next-generation energy technologies.”

So, how will the international defence and intelligence communities take down the Frankenstein’s monster of opposition to climate change science that in effect they spawned themselves ? How are they going to bust the barricades of intransigent denial of the temperature and sea level gauges ?

You will find that the major meteorological research institutions in most developed countries are closely allied with their ministries of defence and intelligence. For example, the Met Office in the UK. There are competing issues at stake – the scientists cannot get too loud about climate change, because national security depends on economic stability – which rests partly on the profit and loss accounts of their energy sector businesses.

One or two scientists in the extended national security apparatus speak out – like James Hansen at NASA. But most people just keep their heads down.

This is where independent voices are so important to roll back the decades of climate change science scepticism. I hope knowledgable journalists and activists really rip to shreds the latest Heartland advertising campaign.

Few, if any, really consider the pragmatic likelihood of their proposals being taken up.

I’d like to offer the first in a series of totally made-up statistics to show my view on the likelihood of some of these proposals being implementable (or is that “implementible” ?) and efficacious (effective).

I honestly don’t know why the media continue to discuss and discuss the merits and/or disbenefits of new nuclear power and geoengineering (which includes Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS).

They are not likely to be able to help in the next few decades, and so they might as well not be on the proposals table or board.

Image Credit : Eliasson Family

Walking out to buy a few household essentials from the corner shop, I ran into somebody I’ve known since my childhood, practically, returning from the drycleaners with two trailing kids in tow.

“Happy Spring !” I said, and smiled, and pointed out the lovely blossom on the urban street tree. Eldest child grumbled about hayfever. Parent mentioned April Showers.

“It’s been the wettest drought, ever !”, proclaimed eldest child, who I noticed was wearing a Team GB tracksuit and therefore probably up to speed with current events. “It has been rather damp”, I admitted, “and yet the drought’s not over yet. If you look at the Met Office records, you can see we’re still not up to normal levels of rainfall. And it was like this last year.” “And the year before that”, added parent, “although I expect for this month it might show we’ve had quite a lot more than normal.” (Select “Rainfall”)

Read the rest of this entry »

Image Credit : Skeptical Science

This is a record of a short email exchange.

I feel it encapsulates some of the difficulties of communicating climate change science when there are a large number of people in the conversation who have a destructive agenda.

They may have different reasons for attacking the process of science learning by the general population, but they unite on strategies that belittle people and spread doubt.

We need to get our act together and form a united front, surely ?

Read the rest of this entry »

Image Credit : Global Warming Policy Foundation

AN IMPOSSIBLE HOCKEY STICK AVERSION

In Briefing Paper No3, perhaps the strongest accusation made by the author Professor William Happer concerns the IPCC who allegedly “rewrote the climate history” by deleting the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age (MWP & LIA) from the climate record.

Happer tells us that both MWP & LIA were “clearly shown in the 1990” first IPCC report. Then eleven years later, according to Happer, they were both simply expunged from the climate record for no valid reason.

Indeed, within the 2001 third IPCC report, the MWP & LIA are entirely absent from the graph that according to Happer is “not supported by observational data”. This is the dreaded “Hockey Stick” curve.

Can the IPCC really be responsible for such skullduggery ?

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Image Credit : Carl-A. Fechner, fechnerMedia

The Social Engineer : “Everybody should be playing their part in acting on climate change.” The Audience : “This story is too heavy – you’re trying to make us feel guilty. You’re damaging your message by accusing people of being responsible for causing climate change.”

The Post-Economist : “Climate change is caused by consumption. We need to reduce our consumption.” The Audience : “We don’t want to be told to live in cold caves, eating raw vegetables by candlelight, thanks.”

The Defeatist : “It’s already too late. There’s nothing we can do about it. All I can do is sit back and watch it happen.” The Audience : “Isn’t that being a little too negative ? If you think there’s nothing that can be done, what hope have we got ?”

The late, great Hermann Scheer said that “Today’s primary energy business will vanish – but it won’t give up without a fight…the greatest and the worst environmental pollution of all is when countless so-called energy experts keep on trying to talk society out of even contemplating this scenario [of 100% renewable energy] as a possibility for the near future – because that is what makes society apathetic and unmotivated…”

So who or what is making us passive and unmoved ?

Is climate change really our fault ? Or is it something we’ve inherited because of the irresponsible energy companies ?

Are we responsible for responding to climate change or is it somebody else’s responsibility ?

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Image Credit : Carl-A. Fechner, fechnerMedia

Some commentators, government leaders, energy companies and representatives of international institutions are keen to show that not only is the renewable energy deployment glass half empty, the water hasn’t even wet the bottom of the glass yet.

What do experts say ? Here’s the belated Hermann Scheer from the film “The 4th Revolution : Energy Autonomy” :-

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I think that within a short space of time, it will become admitted, even by Friedman-onomists (and other assorted Freak-onomists) that marginal pricing strategies on high carbon energy are not producing a major shift to a low carbon energy economy.

Nobody wants to buy carbon permits, so they will all duck the quotas, and buck the system.

Policies to create a carbon “market” by implementing varieties of “Cap and Trade”, and the so-called Clean Development Mechanism – a “flexible” approach permitted under Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, are showing a residual inefficacy – that means they are failing – an inability to cause widespread change.

That would be OK if we only expect carbon markets to provide some equilibrium in disparate progress towards carbon emissions reduction. If carbon markets were recognised as only being able to enable a small tranche of the overall changes required.

Carbon trading can be a useful mechanism if it’s used as a vehicle for “technology transfer”. By that, I don’t mean selling shale gas technology to China, Oman or Saudi, but creating a flow of useful Renewable Energy technology from industrialised world to under-developed world.

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Image Credit : Taproot

Many scientists express that their aim in their work is to offer a good foundation for Government decision-making. Our gathering and processing of data and evidence is to be offered to the lawmakers to enable them to choose a way forward, and design a strategy to get there. This is a noble ambition – to be a useful servant of the facts (or at least a disciple of statistics with plus and minus margins of error).

And then there’s the question of which organisations influence elected governments on a day-to-day basis – who has the ear of leaders and their senior staff ? The public relations budget lines of large companies and corporations can be kept trim and tidy – politicians are easy to get access to if you have a lot of capital to invest (or make out that you do).

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Image Credit : Michael Sterner

Carbon dioxide is a fuel. And I don’t mean plant food.

As petroleum oil and Natural Gas production hit peaks that cannot be surpassed, and the world begins to realise that depletion is inevitable, the world’s energy producers will turn to alternatives, including various forms of fuel and gas made from carbon dioxide, chemically adjusted with hydrogen derived from renewable resources.

From a personal perspective, I find the argument for public financing of Carbon Capture and Storage particularly toxic when it is proposed to raise the revenue by placing an artificial price or tax on carbon. This would mean that the taxpaper-consumer pays for the emissions burden of hydrocarbon fossil fuel energy, and then gets to pay again for alternative energy, produced using the stored waste gases that they already paid for.

Charge energy customers twice. What a great bailout for fossil fuels !

I suspect that the only reason that Royal Dutch Shell and BP admit to climate change is so they can push their Carbon Capture and Storage schemes – bid tendering for public subsidy.

Forget the subsidies currently in place around the world for wind and solar power. Global carbon finance pushed at Carbon Capture and Storage will be of a much higher order of expenditure.

If the oil and gas companies want to build Carbon Capture and Storage facilities – let them pay for them themselves. After all, in many cases, they have been able to economically justify them by using carbon dioxide pumping to increase oil production – what’s known as Enhanced Oil Recovery.

Or if they insist on public finance for geo-sequestration of carbon dioxide in Carbon Capture and Storage projects, let them give us the carbon dioxide back for free when we need it for Renewable Gas production in the coming decades.

Energy policy in the United Kingdom is a constant battle. A number of environmental commentators and campaign groups are up in arms about the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Again.

Personally, I think the strategy of building new Natural Gas-fired power plants is rather good. Yes, I will explain why. But first I will cover some of the complaints.

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Image Credit : Orin Langelle GJEP-GFC

The nations send delegations – hardly ever sending their premiers, presidents and primes. What bargaining powers do these delegations have ? They have the authority to offer small percentages in emissions reductions, just to show willing. They have the mandate to refuse policies their nations do not like.

These same economists advise that the Holy Ghost of Innovation will inspire Research and Development – which will mean that new technologies will curtail greenhouse gas emissions. We only have to invest in new engineering. This Cult of the New is the fable on which most advanced nations hang their hope.

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Even if there is a way to construct a treaty with wording that all the country delegations can agree to (or at least not bitterly fight tooth and nail to their early graves), the basic premise of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is faulty.

I’m not calling for environmental fines. Environmental fines don’t work. They don’t stop pollution, they don’t prevent polluting activities, and they don’t provide enough monetary resources to clean up pollution.

I’m not calling for carbon tax, or other forms of carbon pricing. Those responsible for selling polluting energy would never pay the full carbon price – they always delegate extra costs to their consumers.

Carbon pricing and carbon taxation can never provide an incentive for meaningful de-carbonisation of the energy supply that we need. Cap and Trade does not appear to have altered the course of any region’s energy infrastructure development. The price of carbon always remains too low to stimulate real change.

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Image Credit : Global Warming Policy Foundation

GWPF BRIEFING PAPER No2 – SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SUBJECT
Mueller explains what this Briefing Paper No2 is about in the first three sentences.

“Global warming has both positive and negative impacts. However, very often only the negative consequences are reported and the positive ones omitted. This article will show an example of a positive effect of warming.” 

Mueller then sets out to show how the Sahel is enjoying a “positive impact” of global warming.

Yet already here is a glaring omission. Despite this being an ideal opportunity to list out all the other “positive impacts”, Mueller fails even to hint at what any of the others might be. Never mind. We still have the Sahel. Or do we?

THE GREENING OF THE SAHEL – MUELLER”S VERSION
Mueller”s account can be summarised thus:

Between the 1950s and 1980s reducing rainfalls across the Sahel (the region of Africa immediately South of the Sahara Desert) caused severe drought and famine. But, according to Mueller, since the early 1980s this process has gone into reverse with the Sahel greening, harvests more plentiful and the Sahara shrinking.

The reason for this improvement is more than simply increasing rainfall. The climate of the Sahel region is delicate. Additional rainfall results in higher levels of vegetation. This induces yet more rain while reducing soil erosion. However, there is more at work than just this one “feedback” mechanism. Mueller says the extra factor that might be responsible is “the rise of atmospheric CO2 levels.” It seems the elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 let plants grow better, especially in arid regions. Clever stuff, that!

Mueller does not leave it there. He discusses the cause of the underlying increase in rainfall citing papers that suggest the rainfall was due to a warmer climate in the Sahara or a warmer North Atlantic, a process “partially caused by greenhouse gas emissions.”

Mueller”s shrinking Sahara is not unprecedented. In the past the Sahara, far from being a desert, was once a grass-covered savannah. This was over 6,000 years ago during the Holocene Climate Optimum (when temperatures were 2-5 deg C hotter than now according to Mueller but not according to others) and also during two other times in last 120,000 years.

Mueller says the future isn”t certain. The Sahel may become wetter or it may become drier. But, he concludes, today the Sahel is undoubtedly wetter and suddenly Mueller becomes far more certain about those speculative causes of the greening of the Sahel.  “The increase in rainfall, which was probably caused by rising temperatures, and rising CO2 concentrations, might even – if sustained for a few more decades – green the Sahara. This would be a truly tremendous prospect.”

This account makes bold statements but can it all be true?

DO PIGS FLY?
Mueller”s account contains many omissions and misrepresentations. The list is so long that the full account of Mueller”s errors are appended to the bottom of this post and just a summary is presented here.

After droughts end, things grow greener. That is natural. The Sahel has a delicate climate and research shows that increased human emissions were more likely the cause of the initial drought rather than the cause of the re-greening. The recovery is also very patchy. Drought and famine, declining crops as well as encroaching deserts continue to plague parts of the Sahel, to the point that the description “greening” remains a subject for debate. Mueller”s rosy account fails to tell us any of this.

It is wild speculation to assert that any recovery in the Sahel is a result of global warming and to dangle the prospect of a future green Sahara is the exact opposite of the message provided by Mueller”s reference on the matter. However welcome the re-greening of parts of the Sahel, it cannot be relied on.

Mueller does mention this in passing but he fails to mention the confident scientific finding that any re-greening will eventually be reversed in the future. So if this greening of the Sahel is the prime example of the “positive impacts” of global warming, it is no surprise that Mueller fails to list any of the others.

CONCLUSION
GWPF Briefing paper No2 is an entirely flawed document. The views it expresses are those of the author (as the disclaimer on the cover says), not those views of the GWPF. Yet the author works with a “distinguished team of GWPF Academic Advisors.” Further, it remains a wonder that a registered charity whose task is to educate the public on global warming could ever put its name on such a report. If this is representative of GWPF Briefing Papers as a whole, it would be a cause of grave concern.

A second GWPF Briefing Paper will be the subject of the next post in this series. Hopefully it will prove to be more factual in nature than Briefing Paper No2.

APPENDIX – Details of Omissions & Misrepresentations within Mueller”s paper.

A1 – OMISSION
Mueller”s account began with mention of a drought between the 1950s & 1980s. This drought requires greater consideration than just a mention. Would we not expect a region to become greener in the period following a drought? Strangely, while Mueller discusses theories for the greening, he fails to mention the causes of the initial drought and its continuing legacy. This is not some minor event. The drought has been described as “…among the most undisputed and largest recent climate changes recognized by the climate research community.”

The causes of the drought have slowly become better understood. Rising population and over-grazing by livestock was the first theory but studies now show the drought resulted from changes in ocean surface temperatures Folland et al (1986) Giannini et al (2003)which are likely due in part to the sulphate aerosol pollution of Europe and North America Rotstayn & Lohmann (2002) Biasutti & Gainnini (2006) and thus it is the cleaning of emissions from power stations that has likely allowed the rains to return.

Mueller remains entirely silent about the potential role of sulphate aerosols in causing the drought and the subsequent greening. It is difficult to understand his silence as these findings are well known. Perhaps the potential role of human pollution in causing a “devastating drought” sits too uncomfortably with the intended message of “positive impacts” from global warming.

A2 – OMISSION
To emphasis his “positive impact”, Mueller tells us the greening is “a very welcome and very beneficial development for the people living in the Sahel.” What Mueller omits to tell us is that conditions have yet to return to the levels seen in the 1950s and that drought and famine still stalk the Sahel. His rosy reporting is even used by one sceptical commentator as proof that the continuing drought in the Sahel is but a “pseudo-catastrophe.”

Climatology may not provide the best reports of the events but the Sahel drought is reported in newspapers and the humanitarian aid networks. “In 2005, drought and famine hit the Sahel, claiming many lives. The pattern was repeated in 2010 with the crisis most acute in Niger. And now the early warning signs are there for problems again in 2012.” For Mueller to entirely miss such prominent reporting in the age of the internet is truly remarkable!

A3 – OMISSION
It is also remarkable how Mueller writes of improving agricultural outputs across the Sahel. Mueller cites the findings of Chris Reij in a small region of Burkina Faso and also Olsson (2008), from where he quotes half a sentence about improved agricultural output in Burkina Faso and Mali.

What Mueller totally misses in Olsson”s paper is the preceding sentence and the following half sentence which says – “After many years of dwindling food production in the Sahel, only two countries show signs of improved agricultural performance. …while the other Sahelian countries show decreases in their production.” So Mueller omits to mention the situation in the other nine countries of the Sahel, instead concentrating on the two countries where the evidence doesn”t directly contradict his theorizing.

A4 – MISREPRESENTATION
To reinforce his greening Sahel message Mueller strays geographically. He embellishes part of a Heartland Institute report that quotes a second-hand report from geologist Stephan Kropelin.

This concerns greening within the deserts of Western Sahara, a much-troubled country that is in Africa but definitely not part of the Sahel! It is from the same Heartland report that Mueller times the start of the greening as “since the early 1980s” when if he had read the other more reliable references he cited he would have known the greening began in 1994.

The entirety of the Sahel is not greening as Mueller would have us believe. It is patchy and there remains enough areas still suffering encroaching desert to make the term "greening" debatable. Somehow Mueller fails to notice.

A5 – MISREPRESENTATION
Mueller does manage to notice that there are signs of greening even in some areas where rainfall is still decreasing. Mueller asserts this might well be due to increased levels of atmospheric CO2. To support his CO2 claim Muller cites Sherwood Idso who has long espoused such theories and claims certain forest studies show evidence of it. 

But when it comes to the greening of the Sahel, Idso makes clear the CO2 link is only speculation and makes do with pointing out where researchers fail to mention his brave theorising.
There is one logical problem with Mueller”s claim which may be why Idso does not pursue a similar argument. It is difficult to reconcile patchy Sahel greening with a widespread (indeed worldwide) phenomenon like rising CO2 levels. The most likely reason for patchy greening (other than patchy rainfall) is very, very, widely discussed and observed on the ground. It is farmers changing their methods of cultivation, something Mueller fails to even mention, preferring instead to advance his ridiculous CO2 claim

A6 – MISREPRESENTATION
The prehistoric green Sahara of the mid-Holocene with its lakes and rivers is used by Mueller to reinforce his argument that global warming may trigger a return to such conditions and so provide a truly tremendous “positive impact” from global warming. Again he manages to misrepresent the words of others. On this matter Mueller concludes “(Professor Martin) Claussen has considered the likelihood of a greening of the Sahara due to global warming and concluded that an expansion of vegetation into today”s Sahara is possible as a consequence of CO2 emissions.”

This is an exceedingly bizarre interpretation of the source document! Claussen”s quote actually says “some expansion of vegetation into today”s Sahara is theoretically possible”,(end quote, emphasis added) words too pessimistic for Mueller so he changed them.

Not only does Mueller misquote Claussen, he wholly ignores the explicit warning that Claussen makes against any belief in a future green Sahara. “But he(Claussen) warns against believing the mid-Holocene climate optimum will be recreated.” This source document continues by pointing to the continuing tree-loss in the Sahel and the shrinkage of Lake Chad; this despite the improved levels of rainfall.

Indeed, Claussen is not alone in dismissing a green Sahara.  Yet Mueller”s report concludes that a green Sahara is a distinct possibility, the exact opposite of the very authority that he claims is supporting his conclusions.

A7 – OMISSION
Finally, Mueller is silent about one “negative impact” of a greening Sahel. He intimates that any greening due to global warming will be permanent but this is incorrect. Climatology shows that the Sahel has a very sensitive climate such that it can be stated “with confidence” that “any greening of the Sahel and Sahara in the near future will eventually be reversed.”  The greening is unreliable. It is thus hardly an encouraging example of a “positive impact” from global warming.

Image Credit : Global Warming Policy Foundation

The GWPF believes it has made a difference, saying of itself “The key to the success of the GWPF is the trust and credibility that we have earned in the eyes of a growing number of policy makers, journalists and the interested public.” Yet the GWPF has also been criticised for being secretive, misinformed, wrong and perverse.

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