Video Credit : Journeyman Pictures
Big green energy news of the month : President Barack Obama of the United States of America has announced direct investment into solar :-
https://climateprogress.org/2010/07/04/obama-solar-pv-csp/
https://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jul/04/obama-hands-solar-firms-2bn
Let there be light in the soul, and solar energy in the land.
This looks like a tipping point. Let’s flip some more trip switches in our personal networks and get the oil-producing bloc in the Middle East to see the value of going wind and solar (instead of expensive, risky Nuclear) :-
https://www.arabianbusiness.com/591358-qatar-awaits-new-solar-wind-tech-before-investment
https://www.gizmag.com/shams-1-concentrated-solar-power-plant/15389/picture/116110/
“The largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the Middle East is to be built in Madinat Zayed, approximately 120 km (75 miles) southwest of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). When it becomes operational in 2012, the plant, dubbed Shams 1, will feature some 6,300,000 square-feet of solar parabolic collectors, cover 741 acres of desert and will produce enough electricity to power 62,000 households.”
What ? That soon ?
Video Credit : Gasland the Movie
The ever-vigilant and fair Rowena Mason at the Daily Telegraph dives deep into the Shale Gas (Gas Shale) story with a piece featuring a trailer for the new Gasland film :-
“Shale gas pollution fears leave Americans with another energy headache : By Rowena Mason Energy Last updated: June 23rd, 2010 : Still politically scorched from BP’s giant Gulf of Mexico spill, it couldn’t be a worse time for America’s oil giants to find themselves roasting in another environmental firestorm. But new flames of controversy are on the horizon – in fact, literally emanating from the drinking water of US citizens living near so-called “shale gas” fields. A controversial documentary, Gaslands, which was aired on television channel HBO this week, shows one Colorado homeowner bending over his tap, holding a lighter with outstretched arm and igniting his chemical-laden water…”
I’m sorry to say that my general opinion of Fred Pearce’s work has taken a sharp tumble. I found his latest New Scientist piece disappointing, and for me he has continued to be uninspiring today in The Observer newspaper, Sunday sister to The Guardian :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/04/climatechange-hacked-emails-muir-russell
“Climategate was ‘a game-changer’ in science reporting, say climatologists : After the hacked emails scandal scientists became ‘more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties’ : Fred Pearce : Sunday 4 July 2010”
His style is robustly “journalistic” and suffers from a basket of semantic fuzziness, but I’m just going to highlight a few phrases and words here.
Image Credit : The Climate Change Committee
The Economic Recession has had a clear impact on the rate of British Carbon Dioxide Emissions.
However, peoples’ individual behaviour change has not been an additional factor :-
https://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=13675
Hat tip goes to Paul Mobbs for his note :-
“Have a look at Chapter 11/Chapter 12 for some eco-gems — e.g. “Domestic energy consumption for lighting and electrical appliances in the UK between 1970 and 2007 increased by 155 per cent…”Between 1989–91 and 2008, the proportion of children in Great Britain of
primary school age travelling to school by car rose steadily, from 27 per cent to 43 per cent…”
Asking people to curb their energy enthusiasm simply isn’t working.
After several key projects to alert the general public to the melting of the Arctic, some have concluded that pictures of unusual calving icebergs, sea ice scans and time lapse series of glacier disappearance are not enough, not sufficient, to make the case.
Nuclear Power is on the rocks – hot radioactive rocks.
There have been a string of accidents, fires and outages in the last couple of years, probably due to cost-cutting and lack of investment in new equipment.
Nuclear Power stations are ageing. Many of them are due to be completely shut down by 2020. But some of them might not survive that long, judging by the catalogue of incidents racking up.
Does this kind of event make the national or international news ? Sometimes. Nobody wants to be sensationalist about it. It doesn’t get much commentary or opinion following.
Here’s only the very latest happening :-
“Fire breaks out at nuclear power station : Sunday, 4 July 2010 : An overnight fire at the Sizewell B nuclear power plant near Leiston on the Suffolk coast was brought under control by eight fire crews after more than six hours. The blaze, in a building housing a charcoal absorber which filters gases, was the second incident this year. In March, 50 firefighters spent almost seven hours tackling a similar blaze which resulted in the plant being closed. Jim Crawford, the station director, said the latest fire had posed no danger to the public.”
And that’s it – the entire report. It’s quite astonishing that there is no further investigation, exploration or explanation.
As one of the commenters, Jason Brown wrote “And The “Independent” devotes precisely TWO paragraphs to this story? Ah, hallo? Chernobyl anyone?”
Christopher Booker, opinion-former, and seemingly bad-tempered seeming curmudgeon at the Daily Telegraph newspaper, has issued what looks like a threat to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in his weekly highly unsubstantiated rail against Climate Change science :-
“‘Climategate’, ‘Amazongate’ – when will the truth be told? : By Christopher Booker, 03 Jul 2010 : …Meanwhile, there has been a further twist to that other IPCC scandal, “Amazongate”, on which I reported last week. This centred on the claim in its 2007 report – attributed only to a paper from green activists at the WWF – that a slight reduction in rainfall caused by climate change could kill up to 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest. After exhaustive analysis by my colleague Dr Richard North of every document cited by the WWF to back its claim, it seems clearer than ever that there is no good evidence. I have given the WWF one more chance to come up with that evidence, and will reveal its response next week. If it is unable to do so, the IPCC will again be convicted of having made a wildly alarmist claim it cannot justify. Yet this is the body on whose allegedly unimpeachable scientific authority our Government and others propose to land us with the biggest bill in history.”
Eurgh. I’m quaking in my boots. What a terrible threat. Who will fear this peerless man ?
The strongest ever professional criticism so far levelled at Michael Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University, has emerged this week.
A formal investigation into his research conduct found that his treatment of other scientists’ unpublished work was “careless and inappropriate” :-
https://openparachute.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/final_investigation_report.pdf
“The Investigatory Committee considers Dr. Mann’s actions in sharing unpublished manuscripts with third parties, without first having received express consent from the authors of such manuscripts, to be careless and inappropriate. While sharing an unpublished manuscript on the basis of the author’s implied consent may be an acceptable practice in the judgment of some individuals, the Investigatory Committee believes the best practice in this regard is to obtain express consent from the author before sharing an unpublished manuscript with third parties.”
I’m still waiting for some notable reporters, web loggers and commentators to retract, to take it all back on Climategate, which was a “pseudo-scandal”, according to Chris Mooney, in reviewing “The Climate Files”, a book on the stolen University of East Anglia e-mails, written by Fred Pearce :-
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727671.300-the-climate-scandal-that-never-was.html
There has been a dramatic reversal in global temperatures since El Nino has collapsed in the Pacific Ocean, leading to the remarkable result that the UAH satellite record shows an amazing reversal – the global average temperature at Surface Level yesterday was a whopping 529.66 degrees Fahrenheit below the same day last year ! Amazing ! Unbelievable ! The Earth must be heading for an Ice Age now…
Or maybe not. Maybe they’re just tinkering with the website to remove the “20 year average” lines which would show that the Earth is undeniably warming up :-
Video Credit : Lighting Africa
Unpicking Kyoto
Jo Abbess
20 June 2010
PART 4
CONTINUED FROM PART 1, PART 2 AND PART 3
Linking Climate Change to Poverty
There will be no global treaty on Climate Change without a solution for the poor.
The poor in every country are generally low emitters, and models of Low Carbon lives; yet because they are poor, it’s easy for their economic concerns to be swept aside in the global efforts to revive the big Energy systems.
One thing is clear, imposing a “dollar economy”, and thrusting international markets traded in American Dollars on the world’s poor is not the same as creating an environment for true social and sustainable development.
Following the BBC Panorama “investigation” into Climategate, broadcast yesterday evening, scientists are being advised not to be interviewed alongside Climate Change sceptics and deniers.
“It was extremely ill-advised for Bob Watson to agree to appear in the same programme as Bjorn Lomborg” was one opinion voiced, “it creates the illusion that Bjorn Lomborg might be right. Whereas, of course, he is not.”
Bob Watson was effectively tricked. He was asked to give an authoritative opinion, which was then presented side by side with the views of the discredited Bjorn Lomborg and John Christy.
As for Bob Ward, he should never, ever have agreed to appear alongside Bjorn Lomborg. He should have realised he could not get his message across properly.
The BBC risk ending up with yet more egg on its face after broadcasting a Panorama “investigation” with more errors than you can shake a pepper grinder at at :-
https://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/default.stm
But it’s worse than merely embarrassing.
Entitled “How ‘climate-gate’ turned nasty”, it was a genuinely nasty piece of work in my view, showing images out of place, endorsing the work of non-experts, overlaying poor and inaccurate narration and editing interview comments inappropriately.
I feel that some of the mistakes made by the reporter, Tom Heap, were laughable.
I will mention just one thing here, out of all those that riled me. Several times during the programme, the “reporter” mentioned that Renewable Energy was expensive. At one point the film showed an offshore wind turbine and said that the electricity produced by wind power was three times more expensive than conventional sources.
He did not mention that the price of onshore wind power is comparable in price to fossil fuel generation but blocked by recalcitrant Planning authorities.
He didn’t mention that it is to be expected that Wind Power will be somewhat expensive at present – the investment phase in the new infrastructure is still ongoing.
He neglected to mention the high levels of return on investment, and solid asset base with continuing value, that a fully operational Wind Power network would provide, as outlined by the Offshore Valuation study :-
https://www.offshorevaluation.org
And he also neglected to mention that ongoing research and developing into Wind Power is dragging the prices down.
From this, I take it that the BBC can clearly not be trusted to provide accurate and complete information on the development of Renewable Energy.
As for the Science, I’ll probably get round to digging into this mess at some point, but one thing needs to be emphasised here : the views of John Christy and Bjoern Lomborg (a non-scientist) are at the very end of the spectrum.
Bjorn Lomborg’s work has been discredited, and he cannot be trusted in my view :-
https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/06/the_lomborg_deception_1.php
John Christy has had to retract some of his scientific claims :-
https://climateprogress.org/2008/05/22/should-you-believe-anything-john-christy-or-roy-spencer-say/
They are in no way representative of the main caucus of Climate Change Science, and I feel it is extremely poor of the BBC to allow its viewers to be propagandised into believing that there is a serious debate about how significant and serious Climate Change is.
There isn’t. The governments of the world have invested public money in trying to find out the problems that could arise from Global Warming and the Climate Change it can cause, and the results are that we are at serious risk.
I think it is immoral and unethical to leave Panorama viewers with the idea that Climate Change might not be happening, or might not constitute a major threat to their way of life and the lives of those they care about.
In summary, I think the BBC cannot be trusted to relay Climate Change Science to us.
This bumbling attempt to cover all bases as if they were all relevant is going to confuse the public even more than they are already. The BBC is therefore complicit in mass deception, according to my analysis.
Oh, and Tom Heap, people breathing out Carbon Dioxide doesn’t add to the sum total of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere – it merely recycles it. On the other hand, digging up Fossil Fuels from the ground and burning them, they do increase the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the air. How little you know about the basic science. You are in my humble opinion entirely unqualified to broadcast on Climate Change.
Once again, the Media have failed to communicate the facts.
Image Credit : Gilbert & George, “Nettle Dance”, White Cube
I’m in the Climate Union. Are You ?
Soon we could all be, if the expansionist plans of a group of social campaigners come to fruition.
Taking in the unions, faith communities and the usual rag-tag bunch of issues activists, the Climate Union aims to establish itself as a political force for Low Carbon.
First of all, however, it has to tackle the uneasy and prickly problem of the exact name of the movement, and the principles under which it will operate.
The flag has been flown : a set of principles has been circulated for discussion amongst the “Climate Forum”. I cannot show you the finalised document yet, but I can offer you my comments (see below).
If you want to comment on the development of this emerging entity, please contact : Peter Robinson, Campaign against Climate Change, mobile/cell telephone in the UK : 07876595993.
Comments on the Climate Forum Principles
Jo Abbess
28 June 2010
I am aware that my comments are going to be a little challenging. I made similar comments during the review of the ClimateSafety briefing, which were highly criticised.
I expect you to be negative in response to what I say, but I think it is necessary to make sure the Climate Forum does not become watered-down, sectorally imprisoned and politically neutered, like so many other campaigns.
Unpicking Kyoto
Jo Abbess
20 June 2010
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 AND PART 2
PART 3
Linking Climate Change to Trade
America and China are both “Carbon Intensity” first-movers – competing to make commitments that their economic production has falling associated Carbon Dioxide Emissions. The United States, China and Canada all continue to claim that their commitments on Climate Change amount to reductions in “carbon intensity”, rather than actual reductions in levels of emissions. This is a piece of policy propaganda, as proposed by linguistic strategists. A reduced carbon intensity of production would still allow countries to follow a path of economic growth, and increase carbon emissions overall. What is clear is that lower carbon intensities is not enough.
Behavioural economists, who look at both individual behaviour and collective social responses, have concluded a number of useful facts about humankind and its uses of resources. A good summary of what we know is provided by John Gowdy, writing in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 68 in 2008, “Behavioral economics and climate change policy” :-
Some of his policy “clues” point the way.
I’ve been letting my peers know of my displeasure regarding the article in New Scientist by the BBC journalist Roger Harrabin :-
=x=x=x=x=x=
Hi Guys,
Just thought I’d run the flag up for the fact that an allegedly sceptical journalist, Roger Harrabin, has written a poor opinion piece in the popular science magazine New Scientist.
Annoyed ? We could perhaps be :-
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/06/25/roger-harrabin-two-degrees-short-of-accuracy/
jo.
Here is my letter to New Scientist magazine, complaining about Roger Harrabin’s opinion piece, debunked here :-
https://www.joabbess.com/2010/06/25/roger-harrabin-two-degrees-short-of-accuracy/
Dear New Scientist,
Thank you for the refreshingly challenging opinion article about Climate Change scepticism authored by Roger Harrabin (“Take the political heat out of climate scepticism”, 18th June 2010, Issue 2764).
Your publication of this piece demands me complain about Roger Harrabin’s tactics of attempting to undermine Climate Change science by his careful insertion of fudged arguments into his writing.
A journalist with a history of Climate Change scepticism writes an opinion piece for a poplular science magazine. The result ? The propagation of error.
Now, I have spoken to Richard Black at the BBC and offered to try to be more conciliatory towards Roger Harrabin in future, but I can’t let this one pass me by.
Here he is, writing in New Scientist, about his trip to the Heartland Climate Change sceptics conference :-
There are some statements of unquantifiable waffliness, and some dubious conclusions, but the one sentence that stood out for me as pernicious enough to comment on was this one :-
“Most [sceptics] agree with the scientific consensus that basic physics means [Carbon Dioxide] CO2 will warm the planet by about 1 degree C above pre-industrial levels.”
It is to be welcomed that Climate Change sceptics are finally beginning to accept that the world is warming, and that mankind’s activities are the majority factor.
What I don’t like is Roger Harrabin’s assertion that the “consensus” on Global Warming is that the planet will warm by “about 1 degree”.
Long before the world recovers from one major extreme weather disaster, another has started :-
https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/17/taiwan-natural-disasters
It’s time to stop thinking in terms of discrete events, and start looking at the synergy of these bouts of excessive precipitation.
Changes in the patterns of heavy rainfall are turning into a rolling disaster, on and on.
Newshounds look for survival stories, tales of recovery. But what if flooding comes repeatedly, year after year, season after season, every couple of years after every couple of years ? If there’s no “getting over it all”, or “getting back to normal”, will the mainstream media have to readjust their spectacles ?
I thought I’d seen enough Climate Change denial-sceptic tactics to be able to spot a payload, but no. I’ve just been sucked into the maelstrom again, by taking the time and trouble to reply to somebody that wrote a couple of e-mails – someone who appeared to be asking genuine questions – only to find that as the exchanges continued, my correspondent became increasingly agitated, incoherent and threatening.
Was it something I said ? I don’t think so. I was trying to be as helpful and polite as possible. I think the person had an agenda. So, not evil, but wrong, and sad, and quite possibly a little brainwashed.
Fortunately, we are separated by a large expanse of salt water, and differing legal systems, so I don’t regard the threats as holding any substance. And anyway, I’ve done nothing wrong, just tried to paraphrase and summarise where we are with the Science.
I checked out Ms Catherine French, using that fine search engine that is Google, and discovered her pattern of attack – rather like that of a mosquito – whining, buzzing, irritating and painful.
A lot of the things she wrote to me she has written to other people in the past, just adding the latest Climate Change denier-sceptic arguments in as they get invented/fabricated.
Baiting Climate Change web loggers is fine sport for some, but I can’t see the funny side of it. It wastes time and personal energy and it doesn’t move the public discourse forward.
Just remember this, Catherine French – you’re wrong. Wrong about the science and wrong about your tactics. Personal abuse, emotive language, false accusations and threats are not the way to conduct rational debate.
Climate Change “scepticism” is being washed away, and so you’d better be prepared to have your vision and perspective altered. You can have all the opinions you want, but you’re not entitled to contradict the facts. You are not believable, and your position is losing ground by the second.
Do not resuscitate the Climate Change denier-sceptic body of non-science – do not even attempt to. That is the message from a major study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the United States of America :-
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract
The report heavily critiques the role of the mainstream media in keeping the undead, zombie Climate Change denier-sceptic arguments alive and in the public realm :-
“Despite media tendencies to present both sides in ACC [Anthropogenic Climate Change] debates, which can contribute to continued public misunderstanding regarding ACC, not all climate researchers are equal in scientific credibility and expertise in the climate system. This extensive analysis of the mainstream versus skeptical/contrarian researchers suggests a strong role for considering expert credibility in the relative weight of and attention to these groups of researchers in future discussions in media, policy, and public forums regarding anthropogenic climate change…”
There were some in two minds, some vehemently on one side of the argument or the other, but now, the debate is finally over : on the question of whether they have been reporting Climate Change science accurately, the mainstream media have shown themselves to be incapable :-
https://climateprogress.org/2010/06/21/pnas-study-climate-science-media-balance-deniers/
https://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/study-scientific-consensus-climate-change-411.html
As of this second, the report from the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences is not yet available to the public. But it will be, it will be…
