Exclusive Footage: Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett On UK Energy Bill

I’ve been promising this for a while and finally got around to recovering my youtube account details. When I was down in London a while ago to meet Benny Peiser, I happened across a small demo taking place on the corner of Horse Guards Parade. I pulled out the camera and tooks some stills and short video clips. At the time, I didn’t realise this was the leader of the green party, as she’d taken over recently from the pixie (Caroline Lucas).  So without more ado, see what you make of the logic in the video below the break:

Meet the New Boss: Bye-Bye Beddington – Hello Sir Mark Walport

Some seat shuffling is imminent as Sir John Beddington finishes his time as the Government’s chief scientific advisor. Not a moment too soon, this alarmist buffoon has had his day. Next up, Sir Mark Walport, fresh from the world of BIG MEDECINE. He is finishing a 10 year stint as director of the Wellcome Trust, where he controlled BIG BUDGETS for medical research. This BBC page has a short interview

Clive Best: Evidence that Marcott’s up-tick is an artefact

I have calculated from scratch the global averaged temperature anomalies for the 73 proxies used by Marcott et al. in their recent Science paper. The method used is described in the previous post. It avoids any interpolation between measurements and is based on the same processing software that is used to derive Hadcrut4 anomalies from weather station data. Shown below is the result covering the last 1000 years averaged in 50-year bins. I am using the published dates. Re-dating is a separate issue discussed below.

Figure 1: Detail of the last 1000 years showing in black the global averaged Proxy data and in red the HADCRUT4 anomalies. The proxies have been normalised to 1961-1990. Shown in blue is the result for the Proxies after excluding TN05-17.

There is no evidence of a recent uptick in this data. Previously I had noticed that much of the apparent upturn for the last 100 year bin was due to a single Proxy : TN05-17 situated in the Southern Ocean (Lat=-50, Lon=6). The blue dashed curve shows the 50 year resolution anomaly result after excluding this single proxy.

Letter to MP’s: Lobby the Government to Modify Climate Change Act Targets

Following a good bit of legislation sleuthing by Roger Andrews, Talkshop contributor ‘mitigatedsceptic’ has written this sensibly pitched letter to his MP and offered it for general use. You can do this very easily at They Work For You, a website which enables you to send communications to your MP with a few mouse clicks. Please consider doing this.  As ‘mitigatedsceptic’ says, with the fuel crisis and cold weather in the news, now is the moment.

mitigatedsceptic says:

March 25, 2013 at 10:34 am

TB and Roger A., thanks to you I was able to write to my MP, who is also a Cabinet Minister, in the following terms. I am sure that this could be much improved upon and I hope that others following this thread will do just that and write to their MPs right away while the snow is bringing the country to a standstill and many elderly and infirm are at serious risk. A response by Gov’t now might reduce the risks of power cuts and save many lives.

______________________________________________________________________________

Salutation

I understand that the Climate Change Act permits the Minister to alter the emissions target in the light of new scientific evidence. It is not necessary for Parliament to repeal the Act in order to relieve the energy crisis. The Introductory Text reads:

1 (1) It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline.
2 (1) (a) The Secretary of State may by order amend the percentage specified in section 1(1);
2 (2) (a) if it appears to the Secretary of State that there have been significant developments in scientific knowledge about climate change.

Surely fifteen years of zero warming and the coldest March, since goodness knows when, is evidence enough to justify relaxing the burden of this target, especially as we face an energy crisis caused almost entirely by efforts to meet it? Remember, if the evidence changes to show that warming is still on the cards, it will be possible increase the target again. This seems a much more flexible policy than rescinding the CCA altogether and it would placate the concerns of those who have invested so much in trying to reduce emissions.

2013 Bloggies: Talkshop Makes Finals for ‘Best Science or Technology Weblog’

It’s happened, we’re going head to head with the BIG GUNS. This really is an honour, thanks to all of you who nominated us.

JoNova is liked by very many, for its excellent political  and science dialog. It is so large discussion becomes difficult sometimes in the torrent of comment. Well done Jo!

The Talkshop is the David, the smallest site in the running, but active, category relevant, and pretty good with a slingshot. Yeah!

Penguin thinks the ice is melting, all that ice they go on about, soon to be gone. It’s not very bright. (Antarctic ice is at a satellite record high)

Watts Up With That, also nominated for Best Overall Weblog, as always a worthy finalist.  Well done Anthony!

ClimateAudit has been a place of leading edge science statistics discussions, these days mostly about FOI and climate politics. Steve deserves recognition for his years of effort, yup, kick ass, he’s a damn good sport.

Ordinary polar bear paper overblown by its authors in the press releases – Hilary Ostrov investigates another case of overhyped alarmism.

polarbearscience

A new paper out in the journal PLoS Genetics proposes that a hybridization event between female polar bears and male brown bears (aka grizzlies) occurred in Southeast Alaska at the end of the last ice age. I’ll get to a discussion of the paper itself (coming in a day or two) but first I have a few things to say about the global warming hyperbole generated by the people promoting the paper. I found it simply mind-boggling.

While the paper itself (Cahill et al. 2013: “Genomic Evidence for Island Population Conversion Resolves Conflicting Theories of Polar Bear Evolution”) contains only one short phrase that could possibly be interpreted as linking the results to future scenarios of catastrophic global warming, some of the co-authors have made statements (for the press release and in media interviews) that spin the global warming mantra right over the top.

This is the last sentence…

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A Personal Appeal to Britain’s Politicians: Wake-Up From Your Warm Dreams! Fuel Poverty is Killing People

“The most revolutionary thing one can do always is to proclaim loudly what is happening.”
Rosa Luxemburg

There are times when I find it hard to speak politely. I left school at sixteen and worked on the shop-floor of a large engineering works for ten years, gaining a higher national qualification in mechanical and production engineering along the way before getting the chance to study for a degree in the History and Philosophy of Science. While I worked in heavy industry, I learned some choice ways of expressing myself which are basic, direct, and hurt the sensibilities of those who have spent their lives in polite company, although they got the job done effectively. So I sometimes struggle to find the right tone at those times when a message needs communicating forcefully to people in a position to influence policy, but without having them recoil and ignore things they don’t want to contemplate.

But the time for niceties has passed. Britain’s people face a looming disaster of epic proportion. Britain’s political class needs to act swiftly to minimise the damage which cannot be wholly averted at this late stage. Successive governments have set the stage for the impending denouement, so this is not a partisan rant, but a cross-party appeal to common sense. People are dying by the thousand as a direct result of botched energy policy and we must act to save lives. Now.

Let’s clear some of the undergrowth so we can see the shape of the problem. Firstly, we’ll deal with the climate scare.

Major UK Newspaper Calls for Repeal of Climate Change Act

Via the GWPF:

Too Much Green Energy Is Bad For Britain
The Sunday Telegraph, 24 March 2013

It is time for the Coalition to tear up its energy policy before the lights go out. The first priority must be to repeal the Climate Change Act of 2008.

With the worst snow conditions in the country since 1981, it’s worrying, to say the least, that gas supplies are running low. A month ago, The Sunday Telegraph warned in this column of the problems of an energy policy that puts expensive, inefficient green power before coal-fired and nuclear power. There have been a few signs that the Coalition is at last turning its attentions to the issue but, still, not nearly enough has been done.

Christopher Booker: It’s Payback Time for Britain’s Insane Energy Policy

Another stinging column from Christopher Booker in the Telegraph, summarising several of the stories published recently at the Talkshop around taxation, energy policy, and the failure of a generation of politicians to get real about the needs of the British people who pay their comfortable salaries.

Christopher Booker: It’s Payback Time For Britain’s Insane Energy Policy
23/03/13 Christopher Booker, The Daily Telegraph

Drax powerstation, generating 7% of Britains needs, is being forced to convert to imported woodchips.

An obsession with CO2 has left us dangerously short of power as coal-powered stations are forced to close

As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us.

The grotesque mishandling of Britain’s energy policy by the politicians of all parties, as they chase their childish chimeras of CO2-induced global warming and windmills, has been arguably the greatest act of political irresponsibility in our history.

Another Wind Turbine Blows Over: In a 50mph Wind

After last week’s symbolic collapse of a wind turbine in Kyoto province, here’s news of another downed bird mincer in Donegal, Ireland. From the Donegal Daily:

DD EXCLUSIVE: An investigation is underway after a 80 ft wind turbine came crashing to the ground in strong winds near Ardara.

The windmill is one of nine located at Maas on the backroad near Ardara.

It is believed the wind turbine came down overnight when winds were gusting in the area to 80km/hr (50mph).

However the fact the turbine crashed in conditions it should otherwise have easily coped with has puzzled experts.

A worthy recipient I have donated to. Webcite is a handy place to put those documants in danger of being ‘disappeared’ as the story unravels.

Shub Niggurath Climate

You know how every now and then, Wikipedia runs ads asking for funding to keep their website running. Sometimes I am not sure I want to give them money. At others, I feel they deserve to stay on.

But here’s a service that is definitely, one-hundred percent useful and deserving of Internet users’ support: WebCite.

WebCite is in need of funds. I’m sure they’ll be happy if we help. As will anyone who uses an online archival service.

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Another Big Meteor: This time over the U.S.

Big Meteors are like London buses. You don’t see any for ages, then three roll up at once. There is an ongoing well informed and detailed discussion here at the talkshop about a possible connection between the Chelyabinsk meteor, which exploded over Russia last month, and a large asteroid which passed close to Earth on the same day.

Artists impressiona large asteroid passed near Earth. Now another big one has passed northeast-southwest over the U.S. with hundreds of  sightings ranging from New England to Florida.

Now another big meteor has entered Earth’s atmosphere, with sightings rangng from New England to Florida.

This from Sky News:

The US space agency says reports of a flash in the sky along much of the US East Coast appeared to be a “single meteor event”.

Social media sites have been buzzing with reports of the flash that streaked across the sky.

It was spotted as far south as Florida and as far north as New England, reports said.

Bill Cooke of Nasa’s Meteoroid Environment Office said it “looks to be a fireball that moved roughly toward the southeast, going on visual reports.”

“Judging from the brightness, we’re dealing with something as bright as the full moon,” Mr Cooke said.

Usoskin et al: 775AD Cosmic Event was of Solar Origin

A new paper just out at Astronomy and Astrophysics from Usoskin et al claims to show that the mysterious major cosmic event that took place in the 770’s AD was not of exotic origin, but solar:

Abstract

Aims. Miyake et al. (2012, Nature, 486, 240, henceforth M12) recently reported, based on 14C data, an extreme cosmic event in about AD775. Using a simple model, M12 claimed that the event was too strong to be caused by a solar flare within the standard theory. This implied a new paradigm of either an impossibly strong solar flare or a very strong cosmic ray event of unknown origin that occurred around AD775. However, as we show, the strength of the event was significantly overestimated by M12. Several subsequent works have attempted to find a possible exotic source for such an event, including a giant cometary impact upon the Sun or a gamma-ray burst, but they are all based on incorrect estimates by M12. We revisit this event with analysis of new datasets and consistent theoretical modelling.

Roger Helmer MEP: This is not a tax. This is EU theft with a fancy name.

Via Better Off Out: Roger Helmer MEP (UKIP) Tells Herman von Rompuy how it is:

Mr. President, The report on last week’s Council calls for “differentiated growth-friendly fiscal consolidation” — a contradiction in terms.

It wants to “restore normal lending”, to “promote growth and competitiveness”, to tackle unemployment and modernise public administration.

If there were a prize for clichés and wishful thinking, gentlemen, you would win it. These objectives are motherhood and apple pie, but you have no idea how to deliver them.

You should take a leaf from Konrad Adenauer’s book, and have a bonfire of the regulations. You are drowning Europe in a sea of red tape.

You need to promote a low-tax, growth-friendly Europe.

And you need to dismantle the €uro. Again and again you declare the crisis over, but it comes back to bite you.

Now it’s Cyprus. You talk of a Europe of values, with the rule of law and property rights. Yet you planned to confiscate the funds of savers and pensioners, while protecting senior bondholders.

Tamino loses the plot with new hockeystick

Over at the ‘Open Mind’ blog, Grant Foster, AKA ‘Tamino’ has put up an entertainingly ludicrous post on long term temperature trends. It’s a Baron von Richthofen flying circus of mish-mashed paleoproxy data (with creatively re-engineered core top dates), Hadley/CRU ‘adjusted’ instrumental data and climate model output for the next 90 years. The spliced up curve has a distinctive shape which he dubs ‘the wheelchair’.

The Wheelchair?  Grant? Does it need one because it doesn’t have a leg to stand on?

To me it called something else to mind, so at the risk of him getting all upset about me reworking his graph, here’s my take:

Ann Widdecombe: Climate orthodoxy enforced with all the rigour of communism or fascism

Recently retired MP and former minister under the Major government Ann Widdecombe comes right out and says it like it is. And gets it printed in a daily. Is the UK print media ‘coming over the wall’ in retaliation for Leveson?

Even scientists are cooling on climate change

Ann Widdecombe – Daily Express 22-3-2013

WHAT do Peter Lilley, Andrew Tyrie, Philip Davies, Christopher Chope and I have in common? We were the only MPs to vote against the 2008 Climate Change Bill, which is to say we had by then considered all the evidence and found it wanting.

For years we have endured insults. Behind the scenes Fiona Bruce, normally the most courteous of broadcasters, called me a “flat-earther” to my face. Others branded us “deniers” as if we were disputing the holocaust. The Al Gore film was accorded the status of Holy Writ. David Bellamy lost his job. Doubting scientists were scorned. Nigel Lawson found it difficult to get his book An Appeal To Reason published.

Roger Helmer MEP (UKIP) asks some pertinent questions at a global warming seminar given by Oxford Dons.

Roger Helmer MEP

(and a little genteel climate iconoclasm)

On March 18th I attended an unusual event: to celebrate its 750th anniversary, Balliol College, Oxford, is staging a series of “Master’s Seminars” around the world, on subjects of global interest. This one, in the European parliament in Brux, was — you guessed it — on Global Warming.  Appropriate that an old college should debate an issue that itself is rapidly starting to look like history.

There had been a minor contretemps in the planning.  Balliol had assumed that Charles Tannock, who was standing host to the event, would drum up interest among MEPs, while Charles thought the College was on the case.  So at the last minute Charles was calling round to rally support.  Not entirely successfully: the only MEP I spotted at the seminar, apart from Charles and myself, was Dan Hannan.  But there were many ex-Balliol folk from the area.

Because…

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Gerard Wynn: UK Carbon Tax to be levied from April Fools Day – Get Ready for More Fuel Bill Hikes

Despite the complete lack of evidence that human CO2 emissions cause any warming of the atmosphere, millions will be driven into fuel poverty as the snow continues to fall on chilly Britain. Even the MET Office has revised its five year forecast downwards to show almost no warming over the next five years, as revealed here at the Talkshop in early January. This unsound measure will cost jobs and drive industry abroad. We need some organisations with deep pockets to mount  a legal challenge to this madness. People will die as a direct result of this irresponsible and scientifically unsupported government climate policy.

Britain’s carbon tax: unfair and ineffective
Gerard Wynn – Reuters market analyst

The tax, called “carbon price support” by the British government, is [to be] levied on suppliers of fossil fuels to power plants and these will pass on the cost to electricity consumers.

It has uniquely united environmentalists and energy-intensive industries in opposition.

The tax will be applied when the price of European Union allowances (EUAs) is lower than a rising price floor per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) under the British scheme.

The idea is to send a clearer, long-term signal to investors in low carbon energy who may be deterred by the volatility of EUA prices.

The tax will be an important part of the British government’s support package to attract investment in new nuclear power.

By raising wholesale power prices by more than 10 percent by 2015, however, it will also provide an unmerited windfall for existing low carbon generation including nuclear power and wind farms.

Applying the tax inversely to the price of EUAs seemed to be a clever way to avoid charging polluters twice, as a flat-rate British carbon tax would have done.

But with the benefit of hindsight, it is also the scheme’s biggest weakness.

First, European carbon price have collapsed, making them far cheaper than the UK floor price and increasing the size of the tax.

Second, insofar as the scheme succeeds in cutting emissions by factories and power plants, it will decrease demand for EUAs, which can then be snapped up by other European polluters, simply displacing emissions in an effect called carbon leakage.

I hope this GCM is wrong, yet more cold weather

Meteox now forecasts hard morning frost the for entire UK and Ireland from Sunday 24th March 2013 through 29th with east winds throughout.

Image right is for 7am tomorrow morning, raining hard here, will be snow approaching Rog in Leeds, a weather front fighting cold air further north.

The notoriously difficult to forecast blocking conditions are now modelled as continuing probably into April.

Growing conditions continue to be bad, running about a month later than last year here in southern England.

Open Rights Group: Monday Deadline for UK Bloggers to Avert Internet Crackdown

We need to act quickly. Please visit this website and sign up: http://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/leveson

UPDATE 22/3

By the end of today we’ll know if press regulation Charter will affect blogs or not bit.ly/13i11rw

— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) March 22, 2013

Don’t clobber bloggers with Leveson

Lord Leveson’s regulations are being applied to UK websites – in ways that could catch more or less anyone who publishes a blog. Ordinary bloggers could be threatened with exemplary damages and costs. If this happens, small website publishers will face terrible risks, or burdensome regulation – and many may simply stop publishing.

We have until Monday to stop this happening.

Lord Leveson said he wanted to regulate print media. He proposed that judges be allowed to award exemplary damages and full costs against unregulated publishers. These are stringent and controversial measures, but he only envisaged them applying to large and powerful publishers. Not websites, unless they belonged to print publishers.

Last weekend, the proposals were agreed in a rush, without public consultation, and with no attention to the detail.

Outrageously, they have given the Lords until Monday to fix their mistakes.