Carbon Crossroads: Can Germany revive its stalled energy transition?

‘The donkey goes on to the ice until it breaks’ – German proverb [image credit: evwind.es]

Germany – where you can drive at twice the UK legal speed limit on the autobahns, burning fuel at a furious rate, but they still claim to be worried about ’emissions’. Why would a major industrial country want to transition to intermittent and largely unpredictable power sources? No-one can make the sun shine or the wind blow on demand, so unless there are going to be massive and extremely costly reserves of power from other sources cutting in every time the wind drops and/or it gets dark, it seems Germany’s energy problems can only get more acute as it retreats from both coal and nuclear power. Fear of imaginary climate hobgoblins is clouding their judgment.

Although Germany has been a global leader in moving to decarbonize its massive economy, the country’s ambitious clean-energy transformation is faltering, says YaleEnvironment360.

Now, a broad spectrum of energy experts are working to revitalize the effort to make Germany nearly carbon-free by mid-century.

COP24: Environmental groups criticise ‘morally unacceptable’ climate deal

Not everyone is welcome

The latest from folk who are locked in an imaginary greenhouse world where humans can alter and somehow control the climate, and who foresee Hollywood-style scenarios if they ‘fail’ to do so. A nebulous deal has been cobbled together, so all 20,000 plus of them can make their fuel-powered ways home.

Diplomats from around the world have agreed a major climate deal after two weeks of United Nations talks in Poland, reports The Independent.

But climate campaigners warned the deal – effectively a set of rules for how to govern the 2015 Paris climate accord – agreed between almost 200 countries lacked ambition or a clear promise of enhanced climate action.

See a passing comet this Sunday

Comet 46P/Wirtanen [image credit: NASA]

The comet can be found near the Pleiades star cluster, conditions permitting.

On Sunday, Dec. 16, the comet known as 46P/Wirtanen will make one of the 10 closest comet flybys of Earth in 70 years, and you may even be able to see it without a telescope, says Phys.org.

Although the approach will be a distant 7.1 million miles (11.4 million kilometers, or 30 lunar distances) from Earth, it’s still a fairly rare opportunity.

“This will be the closest comet Wirtanen has come to Earth for centuries and the closest it will come to Earth for centuries,” said Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

COP 24: Climate lunacy takes center stage in Poland

Climate meetings and the concerns they try to generate are not that big a deal to most people, despite the alarmist efforts of the media and the so-called activists. ‘Crisis tomorrow’ has worn thin after three decades of no-show, with fast-rising energy costs a bigger worry.

IPCC Poland conference presents fictional climate chaos and fake renewable energy salvation, reports CFACT.
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The unwritten rule seems to be that each successive climate report and news release must be more scarifying than any predecessors, especially during the run-up to international conferences.

The Latest on the Double-Dynamo Solar Model, and Dr. Zharkova’s Predictions of a Grand Minimum

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How ‘grand’ the predicted solar minimum could be is a popular subject for speculation. More analysis here.

The Next Grand Minimum

By Stephanie Osborn

The Osborn post is a lengthy explanation of Dr. Zharkova’s model, model updates and predictions, with some additional example of how the ‘barycentric wobble’ influences the earth’s temperature. For readers who found Dr. Zharkova’s GWPF Presentation confusing, this article will help with the understanding of her model’s significance, and the output is worth considering. Osborn’s bio is HERE.

Osborn’s evaluation of Zharkova’s model:

Zharkova’s model is supported not only by sunspot numbers and solar activity, but by other solar-studies fields: magnetohydrodynamics and helioseismology. In fact, the resulting data plots from these fields are so close to Zharkova’s model predictions, that the model could as well be based on either of those. So this model is not functioning in isolation from related science, but is in fact harmonizing quite well with it.

The Dalton extended minimum (1790-1830) is evidently an example of a Gleissberg minimum, while the…

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Are top climate ‘activists’ all talk and no action?

Are they really as concerned about ’emissions’ as they would like us to believe?

TheDCNF asked 31 businesses, foundations and individuals agitating for climate action if they’d support banning private jets.

Most didn’t respond, including representatives for Al Gore, the father of global warming activism.

The U.N. is calling for trillions to meet the Paris climate accord’s goals, so what’s a few thousand private jets?

UN Authorizes Protesters To Silence Americans At COP 24

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Anti-democratic UN using rent-a-mob.

PA Pundits - International

By Craig Rucker ~

Does the United Nations serve any purpose at all if it will not guarantee the right of participants to speak undisturbed when taking part in its process?

The United Nations gave explicit permission to left-wing youth groups to disrupt a presentation by the American delegation on energy issues at COP 24, the UN conference on climate change in Katowice, Poland.CFACT’s Marc Morano reports, “officials from the U.S. delegation told Climate Depot on Monday that the UN informed the U.S.  that the environmental activists would be authorized by the UN  to disrupt the U.S. event for at least “7 minutes” and the green protesters would be granted the floor, halt the event, and give speeches during the U.S. event.”

Thank you to everyone whose generous support made CFACT’s work at this year’s UN climate conference possible!  Will you make a gift right now and help…

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UN chief returns as climate talks teeter closer to collapse

Not everyone is welcome

The desired ‘dramatic’ reductions in fossil fuel use are not going to happen. If they were, the process would have started a long time ago, but 20+ years of climate conferences have had no noticeable effect on consumption, which only ever increases. They’re chasing their own tails on that one. Meanwhile all dire climate forecasts show little or no sign of coming true.

The United Nations secretary-general flew back to global climate talks in Poland Wednesday to appeal to countries to reach an agreement, as some observers feared the meeting might end without a deal, says Phys.org.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres opened the talks last week, telling leaders to take the threat of global warming seriously and calling it “the most important issue we face.”

Peter Ridd: Crying wolf over The Great Barrier Reef

Great Barrier Reef, Australia [image credit:BBC]

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
Dr. Ridd points out that coral bleaching damage ‘looks terrible at first, but it quietly and rapidly grows back ready for the scientists to peddle their story all over again.’ Bad news is headlined, good news ignored.

The scare stories about the Great Barrier Reef started in the 1960’s when scientists first started work on the reef. They have been crying wolf ever since.

Scientists from James Cook University have just published a paper on the bleaching and death of corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and were surprised that the death rate was less than they expected because of the adaptability of corals to changing temperatures. It appears as though they exaggerated their original claims and are quietly backtracking.

Why Phi? – a luni-solar link

This was a surprise, but whatever the interpretation, the numbers speak for themselves.

‘Richard Christopher Carrington determined the solar rotation rate from low latitude sunspots in the 1850s and arrived at 25.38 days for the sidereal rotation period. Sidereal rotation is measured relative to the stars, but because the Earth is orbiting the Sun, we see this period as 27.2753 days.’ – Wikipedia.

What happens if we relate this period to the lunar draconic year?

Is El Niño to blame for the big Southern storm?

Credit: NASA climatekids

The official view of US experts on the current status of El Niño will be delivered on Thursday.

Heavy rain in California and piles of snow in the Southeast may be signs another El Niño weather phenomenon is upon us, says CBS News.
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Heavy rain and mudslides in California, flooding in Texas, and up to 2 feet of snow in North Carolina — all these recent weather events are symptoms of the infamous climate phenomena called El Niño.

For months now we have been on the verge of an official El Niño, but so far the climate community has not pulled the El Niño trigger.

Ian Wilson: Is the Next Big Westerly Wind Burst On Its Way?

‘I am really sticking my neck out on this one!’ – IW. Indeed – good luck, results next week.
Note: El Niño link added, includes short video.

Information on the progress of the latest MJO that started on 02/12/2018
[As of 09/12/2018]
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/ – last accessed at 7:00 P.M. EAST 09/12/2018

Hypothesis: During periods leading up to the onset of El Niño events, nascent Typhoon/Cyclone pairs associated with the active phase of Madden Julian Oscillations are reinforced either at or 1-2 days after the maxima or minima in the Earth’s rotation rate that are induced by the monthly lunar tides.

Climate talks pause as battle over key science report looms

Gateway to the COP24 climate conference in 2018

Reality is trying to get a word in edgeways at the climate talks in Poland, but it’s not easy. Overblown disaster scenarios, unrelated to any facts on the ground, shouldn’t impress anybody but at least fail to impress everybody.

A diplomatic standoff over a single word could set the stage for a bigger showdown during the second half of this year’s U.N. climate summit, says Phys.org.

Negotiators took time out Sunday to rest after the first week of talks ended on a sour note the previous night, when the United States sided with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in blocking endorsement of a landmark study on global warming.

Climate-modeling illusions not based on reality

A different view – source: ARGO marine atlas [credit: climatedepot.com]

Basing government energy policy on inaccurate, failing models is getting ever harder to justify. Predictions of severe climate problems have not materialised.

The US government has funded more than 100 efforts to model our climate for the better part of three decades; none have come close to actual results, says ClimateChangeDispatch.

They are exercising precisely what prominent writer H.L. Mencken described as “the whole point of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”.

Over a dozen ‘climate activists’ denied entry to Poland amid crackdown

Not everyone is welcome

Several people including a ‘climate ambition project coordinator’ have been sent home. It seems Polish hospitality has its limits.

Civil society says the Polish government is violating human rights and undermining the global climate negotiations by denying entry or deporting climate advocates.

At least 12 members of civil society groups and at least one member of an official delegation to this year’s United Nations climate conference have been denied entry to Poland or deported, reports Pacific Standard.

Some were stopped at airports, others pulled from trains, and several were given paperwork to sign in languages they didn’t understand. So far, only one person, Zanna Vanrenterghem, Climate Action Network Europe’s climate ambition project coordinator, has been allowed re-entry after the Belgian embassy intervened.

Vanrenterghem was on a direct train from Vienna when, 30 miles outside of Katowice, border patrol officials entered her car [carriage] and scanned her passport. Soon, four officers sat in the seats around her and told her she was being denied entry into Poland.

She was escorted off the train and taken to what she believes was a border patrol facility, where she was able to call CAN officials and the Belgian embassy to ask for help. The Polish officials who detained her were unable to tell her why she was being turned away.

Nugzar Kokhreidze, a member of the Georgian delegation, arrived at the Katowice airport last night and was stopped at passport control, where officials told him his name was on “a list of dangerous persons.” Officials at the airport told him if he flew back to Georgia on Tuesday, he could return eventually, because “this measure was only for the COP,” but if he refused and challenged them in court, he could be deported and banned from Poland for five years.

These denials and threats of deportation appear to be related to a sweeping new surveillance law passed by the Polish government earlier this year, specifically related to the U.N. climate conference. The law banned unplanned protests within the city of Katowice, and included provisions that allowed Polish authorities to gather data on conference attendees.

It was immediately criticized for putting undue pressure on activists and human rights defenders, according to Chiara Liguori with Amnesty International.

Even before the conference began, Liguori says, the new law was already exerting a “chilling effect” on potential participants, with many activists from the Global South, who had to apply for visas, electing not to participate.

According to Liguori, Polish authorities’ enforcement of the law and efforts to turn away COP participants at the border violate the Aarhus Convention—an international agreement ensuring the general public has access to environmental negotiations.

Continued here.

German farmers sue government over missed climate targets

German coal: back to the future
[image credit: BBC]

This is what can happen when climate models that don’t even reflect reality are used as an excuse to push the myth of ‘climate protection’, meaning humans should somehow manage the Earth’s climate – or prepare to face nightmarish problems if they don’t. Yet another attempt to get the courts to dictate national energy policy.

Dismayed by the German government’s failure to meet climate protection targets, dairy farmer Heiner Luetke Schwienhorst has filed a lawsuit against Berlin to force it into action, reports Phys.org.

“Some describe this as a fight between David and Goliath. To me, that’s besides the point,” said Schwienhorst, who suffered his poorest harvest in three decades after a record drought.

Magnetic reconnection in space: Experiment and satellite sightings

Field lines of the bar magnet [image credit: brilliant.org]

A magnetic field line is more a trajectory than an actual entity, despite being discussed as though it really exists. But they are ‘found’ in space just as they are in bar magnets.

New research describes striking similarity of laboratory research findings with observations of the four-satellite Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission that studies magnetic reconnection in space, reports ScienceDaily.

As on Earth, so in space.

A four-satellite mission that is studying magnetic reconnection — the breaking apart and explosive reconnection of the magnetic field lines in plasma that occurs throughout the universe — has found key aspects of the process in space to be strikingly similar to those found in experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

Brendan O’Neill: In praise of the Gilets jaunes

At last, a people’s revolt against the tyranny of environmentalism. Paris is burning. Not since 1968 has there been such heat and fury in the streetsThousands of ‘gilets jaunes’ stormed the capital at the weekend to rage against Emmanuel Macron and his treatment of them with aloof, technocratic disdain. And yet leftists in Britain and the US have been largely silent, or at least antsy, about this people’s revolt. The same people who got so excited about the staid, static Occupy movement a few years ago — which couldn’t even been arsed to march, never mind riot — seem struck dumb by the sight of tens of thousands of French people taking to the barricades against Macronism.

Wintertime Arctic sea ice growth slows long-term decline: NASA

Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]

Yes, it does say ‘slows’. There’s some rather convoluted logic about the present and future of Arctic sea ice going on here. Good luck to readers who think they can unravel it. But NASA does have to concede there’s a winter negative feedback going on, while doing its best to downplay possible consequences so as to keep the usual warming obsessions afloat.

New NASA research has found that increases in the rate at which Arctic sea ice grows in the winter may have partially slowed down the decline of the Arctic sea ice cover.

As temperatures in the Arctic have warmed at double the pace of the rest of the planet, the expanse of frozen seawater that blankets the Arctic Ocean and neighboring seas has shrunk and thinned over the past three decades.

Storm Diego blasts California, will roar across southern US with snow, ice, rain, floods

Smoke from a California wildfire [image credit: BBC]

From huge wildfires to cold stormy weather in a matter of a few weeks in California.

A powerful storm will crawl across the southern tier of the U.S. over the next several days, delivering snow, ice, rain, floods and even a few tornadoes, says USA Today.

A powerful storm that slammed southern California Thursday will crawl across the southern tier of the United States over the next several days, delivering a nasty mix of snow, ice, heavy rain, floods and even a few tornadoes.

Ahead of the storm, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for all 77 counties in her state.