Tag: Climate Change

Categories
Climate Change Media

“What’s Nuked, Pussycat ?”

[ NOTE FROM JOABBESS.COM : ALL UNEXPLAINED QUOTATIONS ARE TAKEN FROM TRANSCRIPTS OF THE SIMPSONS EPISODE “FRAUDCAST NEWS”, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. ]

[ AS AN INTERESTING ASIDE, IT’S CURIOUS THAT THE SIMPSONS CARTOON MAKES MORE SENSE THAN A GREAT DEAL OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA JOURNALISTS WHEN THEY ATTEMPT TO WRITE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. ]

“I’m going to change this town’s accurate impression of me – I’m going to buy every media outlet…It’s time to win back the love of those hateful morons.”

Amy Turner at The Sunday Times (“yeah ! I’m a feeeeeature cooooolumnist”), in my humble opinion, makes a really poor show of comprehending what’s really going on in the “Blogosphere” (“now there’s a thousand freaks xeroxing their worthless opinions”) :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article7043753.ece

As the Blogger Tim Lambert (“the pen is mightier than the flaming bag of poop”) at the Deltoid makes clear, her article could easily be criticised as a blatant attempt to frame the whole Blogging world with her own narrative (or probably that of her ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch), seemingly deciding on her readers’ behalf who to accept as the “big fish” in the Blogosphere, and who to dismiss as “the amateurs”; and then quoting one of her trusted “big fish” Roger Pielke Jr :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article7043753.ece

“…Among these minnows are controversialist bloggers like Tim Lambert, who are professionally unqualified to engage in the substance of most debates (certainly the case with respect to my own work)..”

Continue reading ““What’s Nuked, Pussycat ?””
Categories
Climate Change Regulatory Ultimatum

The Great Coal Bailout

As predicted in some parts, the Coal-burning electricity generation sector is going to get a bailout, to the (hope you’re sitting down) tune of milliions, no, billions :-

https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e191774-2647-11df-aff3-00144feabdc0.html

“Coal-fired power to win carbon capture grants By Fiona Harvey and Ed Crooks : Published: March 2 2010 : Two coal-fired power plants, including Eon’s controversial Kingsnorth project, are to be given government support that could be worth tens of millions of pounds to develop technology for storing carbon dioxide emissions, the Financial Times has learnt…Although much of the technology needed to capture carbon dioxide from power plants and store it underground is already available, there are questions over whether it can be developed for widespread use, and over its expense. A provision of the energy bill passing through parliament would allow for a levy on consumer bills to pay to install the technology. The levy could raise £9.5bn, Ed Miliband, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, said. CCS development would “require the right combination of private sector and government investment”, he added…”

So, Carbon Capture and Storage is not fully tested, and will take a long time to be sure it can be implemented. Meantime, all that Coal is being burned to make electron juice, and the emissions are fouling up the skies, locally and globally warmingly.

It’s time we put our collective foot down, loudly, and demanded an end to Coal combustion.

It’s 19th Century dirty, smoking technology, and we really have to give it up.

In other news…Members of Parliament have refused to regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the major power plants in the UK. What a sorry, sorry mess :-

https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/content/hackney/gazette/news

Categories
Climate Change Media

The Times : Leakey Bucket

Writing about Climate Change Science, attempting to navigate the complexities of the communication of Climate Change, plus dealing with the torrent of disinformation out there, can take people to some strange places in their minds.

Yet again, I have been challenged that I am being too negative, and too down on the Media kids (instead of “down with”). There has been an inordinate level of bad journalism about Climate Change, particularly in the last few months, and I am not the only person whose internal sense of wrongness has been stirred.

But how to express it ? How to constructively make a contribution towards the betterment of the Media ? I do not know the way. All I can do is pick holes and light beacons. Are there any journalists we can trust any more – trust to treat Climate Change Science and the Climate Change Scientists correctly ?

Continue reading “The Times : Leakey Bucket”
Categories
Climate Change Media

Fred Pearce : Still Crucifying Phil Jones

[ CORRECTIONS FROM JOABBESS.COM : ON THE ADVICE OF inel CERTAIN INFORMATION PREVIOUSLY GIVEN ABOUT THE INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS HAS BEEN REMOVED. ]

I’m sorry to note that Fred Pearce, writing for The Guardian newspaper is still hanging Phil Jones out on a crucifix to bake in the burning Sun :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/01/phil-jones-commons-emails-inquiry

Fred Pearce quotes the withering “coruscating” evidence submitted by one or more members of the Energy sub-group of the Institute of Physics, and demands us to accept that it is adequate commentary on Phil Jones’ behaviour (behaviour that we don’t accurately know, but has been described to us by people misinterpreting his e-mails, which were stolen).

Continue reading “Fred Pearce : Still Crucifying Phil Jones”
Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Non-Science Public Relations Social Change The Data

The Truth-Tellers Collective

There appears to be a group of reliable truth-tellers building, out there in Web Log Land. The YouTube at the top is from Peter Sinclair and his “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” series. Always worth watching. A calming breath of fresh sane air for the mind :-

https://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610

Continue reading “The Truth-Tellers Collective”
Categories
Climate Change Divide & Rule Social Change

Recession Kills Dissent

The Economic Recession has been an excellent excuse to stop funding Charities, Aid and Development agencies and other Non-Governmental Organisations.

Whether or not there is still money in the pot for “campaigns” and other kinds of communicating with the public on subjects of philanthropic interest, funders (which include Government bodies) have been finding reasons to cut off the lifeblood of groups with large memberships.

Continue reading “Recession Kills Dissent”
Categories
Advancing Africa Climate Change Extreme Weather

Copenhagen Discord (3)

Yes, according to the major Aid and Development Agencies in the UK, Climate Change is a problem for poor people in countries all over the undeveloped World.

“So”, I asked, “are you going to include the facts of Climate Change happening in Europe in your presentations, so that people can connect with this ?”

It’s really hard to empathise with the plight of some person you can’t even communicate with on the other side of the Earth who is losing their crops to both drought and extreme flooding all in the same year.

Your sense of philanthropy might rise up and motivate you, but you still do not grasp the reality of Climate Change.

You need some way of buying into the message.

Continue reading “Copenhagen Discord (3)”
Categories
Big Picture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Emissions Impossible Growth Paradigm Unutterably Useless Utter Futility Vain Hope

Copenhagen Discord (2)

“I don’t think you should be so critical”, the young NGO drone chided me in a public meeting.

And I thought I had the right to express my opinions – I think the Kyoto Protocol was a deeply flawed global compromise with deliberately low ambitions and compromised policy and framework proposals.

Enforce a market in a negative commodity ? How ridiculous !

Continue reading “Copenhagen Discord (2)”
Categories
Climate Change Emissions Impossible

Copenhagen Discord

The Copenhagen “Accord”, dated 18 December 2009, reasserted a target of a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius of Global Warming. It didn’t say whether that means 2 degrees C above today’s temperatures or 2 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, but the Science for a safe Climate means 2 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures :-

Continue reading “Copenhagen Discord”
Categories
Climate Change Growth Paradigm Political Nightmare Social Change Technological Sideshow Utter Futility Vain Hope

Sidetracked

Sidetracked
by Jo Abbess
19 February 2010

A number of prevalent ideological frameworks employed for constructing policy to address Global Warming appear to have faulty foundational analysis and are therefore ineffective in addressing Carbon Dioxide Emissions. Politically implementable options that could lead to effective action to combat Climate Change are being kicked into the long grass at every turn, in policy, in investment and in society.

Reasonable proposals are being made over-complex to implement, or delayed by every means possible. The dominant memes of economics hinder good decision-making; for example, not all natural capital can be valued as a commodity, and yet Carbon markets and Carbon tax regimes are the most ubiquitous proposals.

The cheapest options for efficiency are overlooked for subsidy-attracting large-scale projects; and wholescale sustainability approaches are being discarded in favour of focus on obsessional marginal issues such as recycling.

The imperative to deliberately orient investment towards Low Carbon energy is lost in the haze of planning based on non-solutions such as the renaissance of Nuclear Power and Carbon Capture and Storage in the pursuit of so-called “Clean” Coal.

Continue reading “Sidetracked”
Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change

Christopher Booker : Lie Of The Land

Yet more apparently brazen disinformation from Christopher Booker, who seems to want to whip up such a sentiment of old schoolmasterly rage, that many a poor young sap will cower at his claims :-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7280369/What-the-weatherman-never-said.html

“What the weatherman never said : Might the beginning of Lent not be an appropriate time for a little repentance, asks Christopher Booker. : By Christopher Booker : Published: 20 Feb 2010 : As the roof continues to fall in on them, in an endless succession of scandals, the beleaguered defenders of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…”

Continue reading “Christopher Booker : Lie Of The Land”
Categories
Bait & Switch Big Picture Climate Change

Rising Trend

Here’s a general knowledge test for Climate Change deniers, ahem, self-styled “sceptics” : what does the graph above represent ? Is it global temperatures since 2006 ? Is it upper tropospheric temperatures ? Is it the Northern Hemisphere sea temperature in summer ? What could it be ?

Well, no, actually. If you click on the image you will find out the answer, and it’s definitely a rising trend, regardless of the dips along the way.

Funnily enough, it looks remarkably like the NASA GISS graph since 2006 :-

It’s no good pointing at one cold, snowless Vancouver winter or even one hot New York summer and saying that that determines the trend of global temperatures. You have to sample the data for a longer period, and globallly, and at all heights above the surface, and at all depths in the ocean.

Categories
Uncategorized

Steve McIntyre Spins Newsweek

Newsweek spins a heart-warming yarn about the “granddaddy of the global warming “denial” movement”, Steven McIntyre. You would be forgiven for adopting his point of view, he has such a homestead glow :-

https://www.newsweek.com/id/233887

“…he says, people tend to use hockey-stick graphs when they are trying to pull one over on you. “Reality usually isn’t so tidy.”…”

Er, no. Nobody could rightly assert that Climate scientists have been trying to trick anybody. Why does Newsweek not decline his argument ?

Continue reading “Steve McIntyre Spins Newsweek”
Categories
Media

Glenn Beck : Open Season

I trust that my devoted following of…a few…will be generally amused by this ‘tube.

It is to be hoped that Glenn Beck reflects on how ridiculous his position is.

Continue reading “Glenn Beck : Open Season”
Categories
Climate Change Media Public Relations

James Delingpole : “Little Wart”

It pains me to report that the American Energy Secretary thinks that James Delingpole’s favourite e-mail scandal is a “little wart”.

That’s “pains” as in “doubles me up in stitches, laughing” :-

https://climateprogress.org/2010/02/18/scienceenergy-secretary-steven-chu-interview-financial-times-ipcc-climategate/

https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a71cf176-1bff-11df-a5e1-00144feab49a,s01=1.html

“…The public polls go up and down on this, with Climategate and all these other things. But if you step back and dispassionately look at it, this is a little wart on the overall amount of information. It’s a little bump…”

To think that James Delingpole will be forever connected to the epithet of “little wart” is highly amusing, in the extreme.

Categories
Climate Change Emissions Impossible

Drax Backtracks

Proof that you can’t leave anything up to market forces or goodwill :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7032738.ece

“February 19, 2010 : Drax power plant suspends plan to replace coal with greener fuel : Ben Webster, Environment Editor : Britain’s biggest power station has suspended its plan to replace coal with greener fuel, leaving the Government little chance of meeting its target for renewable energy. Drax, in North Yorkshire, which produces enough electricity for six million homes, is withdrawing a pledge to cut CO2 emissions by 3.5 million tonnes a year, or 17.5 per cent…”

Categories
Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Public Relations

The Media Cannot Be Trusted

When the BBC’s Roger Harrabin arranged a set of questions recently for Phil Jones, the unjustly smeared head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), I just wish he had asked for advice from an expert on countering Climate Change denier tactics before answering :-

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8511670.stm

The questions made my Public Relations nerves twitch with embarrassment for Phil Jones. The trajectory of events was entirely predictable.

A friend or colleague with experience of having to face down the Climate Change deniers would have strongly advised Phil Jones to answer the questions with extreme care, especially the first one, and demand that anyone who quoted his answer quote him in full, in context.

Continue reading “The Media Cannot Be Trusted”
Categories
Climate Change Emissions Impossible

Are We Willing To Risk It ?

It transpires that Carbon Dioxide levels during some of the “hot house” periods of Earth history may have been relatively low.

Is it possible that hellish conditions could emerge from having a concentration of 1,000 ppm of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere ?

Some projections have residual airborne levels of Fossil Fuel and deforestation emissions reaching that kind of count by the year 2100.

Are we willing to risk it ?

Continue reading “Are We Willing To Risk It ?”
Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations Social Change The Data

The World Warms Up

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center in their monthly “State of the Climate”, state :-

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/index.php

“Selected Global Highlights for January 2010 : The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2010 was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F). This is the fourth warmest January on record…”

How can this be ? The newspapers have been saying that Global Warming is just a confused scare story, or perhaps a tax-begging scam, or a bunch of self-important technologists on a gravy train creating false alarm to justify their funding streams – nothing to worry about. And of course, we can believe the mainstream Media implicitly. There are rules about the quality and accuracy of reporting.

Are NOAA sure they’ve checked that their thermometers are calibrated properly ? It all seems rather worrying that such a large American Science agency should be claiming that January 2010 was so warm when there has been all that snow and rain and ice about. The Media tried to point out this bad weather, but the scientists just carried on measuring high temperatures.

Continue reading “The World Warms Up”
Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

The Faily Mail : Not To Be Trusted ?

It looks like the Daily Maul has messed up sufficiently this time to get a dishonourable mention on three major web logs (not including this one here, because this one is not a major web log).

You would have thought that after the poor coverage of Climate Change Science over the last couple of years and the disparaging put-downs by everyone from David King to George Monbiot that the newspapers would have realised by now that they need some proper, factual reporting from people qualified to do so. But not a shred of it.

My, my, how the newspapers are wasting our time and creating social division in spats between citizens around the watercooler and the schoolyard gate !

Continue reading “The Faily Mail : Not To Be Trusted ?”
Categories
Climate Change

Cowardy, Cowardy Custard

I received the following in one of my e-mail Inboxes, which, as you can imagine, I was tempted to completely ignore.

To be honest, I’m baffled why this fellow thinks I’m the right person to answer a bunch of Global Warming denier arguments that have had endless rebuttals already.

My advice to Climate Change sceptics everywhere : read the Climate Change Science before asking overly sceptical questions, then you won’t need to ask them.

Continue reading “Cowardy, Cowardy Custard”
Categories
Climate Change Media

That Way, Media Lies

Oh, you know the Press. It’s “statistically significant” to claim that they are always trying to set light to a story and make a conflagration of enormous preposterous proportions.

They’ve been at it again this weekend. You know, just when I thought we might have crawled our way through the burning embers of Climategate’s hellish hatred and made it out to the true sunshine of love and admiration for Phil Jones, back bounce the Daily Maul and the Daily Terrorgraph with apparent “misinterpretations of the facts”.

Continue reading “That Way, Media Lies”
Categories
Climate Change Media Public Relations Social Change The Data

The BBC : Relatively Scary

Take any subject you like, terrorism, bird flu, street crime, elder abuse, credit fraud, political corruption, and the BBC will give you a serious, in-depth and highly concerned feature article with professional photographs and solid headlines.

Everything, that is, apart from Global Warming.

Why is Climate Change so unscary for the BBC ?

Every other problem in the known universe is worthy of gravitas and graveyard intonation, but not Climate Change Science and the implications it has as risk to life, health, wealth and general contentment.

What could be going wrong ? Why the non-long faces when it comes to the most serious risks facing mankind since the Black Death ?

Why does Global Warming get “relativist” treatment when everything else gets the full shadowy-figure-in-a-cloak-with-a-scythe ?

Continue reading “The BBC : Relatively Scary”
Categories
Climate Change Public Relations Voluntary Behaviour Change

Boris Johnson Does Climate Change

It’s hard not to adore the man : all that blond hair and buffoonery, concealing a fairly intelligent personality, although he does have an unfortunate taste in Deputy Mayors :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/22/boris-deputy-resigns

Continue reading “Boris Johnson Does Climate Change”
Categories
Bad Science Big Picture Climate Change Media Non-Science

The Guardian : Intellectually Bankrupt ?

I would like to bring before the court of public opinion some evidence that indicates that the leadership at The Guardian newspaper could be said to have become partially intellectually bankrupt.

Specimen A

Simon Hoggart pronounces on Climate Change Science despite not knowing a thing about it. I do not understand how this piece of writing was published, as it contains a number of inaccuracies.

https://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/feb/06/climate-change-simon-hoggarts-week

Continue reading “The Guardian : Intellectually Bankrupt ?”