Trillions being wasted on climate emergency – reader’s letter to local paper

Commonsense from a citizen objecting to the vast sums being frittered away on futile and unachievable dogma-driven objectives in the name of somehow ‘correcting’ the global climate.
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With reference to your article Sit For Climate Protests At Station, I would like to point out an alternative view.

So begins a reader’s letter in the Newark Advertiser.
. . .
The reader concludes:
By focusing on C02 we are spending trillions on inefficient renewables and EV vehicles rather than using the money for real environmental issues and adapting to changing climatic conditions.

Source: Reader’s letter [pdf].

Met Office Storm Gerrit warnings for Scotland ‘were not strong enough’

Met Office in the doghouse. Too busy hyping up warmer than normal Christmas weather in parts of England and Wales perhaps, in support of their woeful greenhouse gas obsessions, while snow was blocking the main road into and out of northern Scotland and trees were toppling onto power lines?
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The Met Office has pledged to review its weather alerts after people in Scotland claimed they were blindsided by the ferocity of Storm Gerrit, says The Telegraph.

Yellow warnings issued by the UK’s weather service had suggested a low chance of severe impacts from the storm, which has battered much of the country with 80mph winds, blizzards and heavy rain.

In the wake of travel chaos caused by snow, flooding and fallen trees, the Met Office has been challenged over whether amber alerts should have been issued.

Researchers use new 3D global climate model to test runaway greenhouse theory, with odd results

We quote the last part of this Phys.org article, headed: ‘A planet Earth in a fragile equilibrium.’ Somehow the model finds that once the oceans have eventually evaporated ‘we would even reach 273 bars of surface pressure and over 1,500°C’. This seems a bit unlikely on the face of it as it’s three times the surface pressure, and temperature [note the link between those two] of Venus despite being nearly 40% further away from the Sun. We note that it’s not unheard of for climate models to over-predict temperature effects.
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Talkshop note – the article earlier states:
One of the key points of the study describes the appearance of a very peculiar cloud pattern, increasing the runaway effect, and making the process irreversible. “From the start of the transition, we can observe some very dense clouds developing in the high atmosphere. Actually, the latter does not display anymore the temperature inversion characteristic of the Earth atmosphere and separating its two main layers: the troposphere and the stratosphere. The structure of the atmosphere is deeply altered,” says Chaverot.
. . .
A planet Earth in a fragile equilibrium.

With their new climate models, the scientists have calculated that a very small increase of the solar irradiation—leading to an increase of the global Earth temperature, of only a few tens of degrees—would be enough to trigger this irreversible runaway process on Earth and make our planet as inhospitable as Venus.

The Moon’s Far Side Is Inexplicably More Conductive, Korean Lunar Orbiter Reveals

Far side of the Moon [image credit: NASA]

The Nature article on this says: ‘Perhaps the most baffling of Danuri’s measurements was of the magnetic fields on the Moon’s far side.’ Open season for theorists!
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There’s something odd about the far side of the Moon, scientists have concluded based on data from the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter.

The results are yet to be published, but suggest a discrepancy between the conductivity of the near and far sides, which so far lacks a plausible explanation, says IFL Science.

Lunar exploration is becoming a global affair. Along with missions from the United States, China, India and Japan, the Korean Aerospace Research Institute has had an orbiter around our satellite for a year. Nicknamed Danuri, the mission is proving there is plenty the larger nations have missed.

More records tumble as China cold snap persists

Climate alarmists resort to the *extreme weather* excuse whenever it suits them, for example when unusually cold weather arrives somewhere. In this case a vast area of China has ‘all-time December lows’. What empirical evidence is there that supports the idea of trace gases in the atmosphere being capable of having such effects?
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More low temperature records tumbled across China on Thursday, as the country endures a persistent cold snap that has crowned a year of extreme weather, says Phys.org.

The national weather office said in a social media post that more than 20 stations posted all-time December lows in the early hours of Thursday.

They included Hohhot, capital of the northern Inner Mongolia region, where a reading of -29.1 degrees Celsius (-20.4 Fahrenheit) broke a nearly 70-year record.

Early start for seasonal polar stratospheric clouds

An Outbreak of Polar Stratospheric Clouds

An unusual temperature drop in the polar stratosphere.
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NASA (2008) said:
Scientists recently discovered that polar stratospheric clouds, long known to play an important role in Antarctic ozone destruction, are occurring with increasing frequency in the Arctic. These high altitude clouds [which] form only at very low temperatures help destroy ozone in two ways.
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NASA Ozone Watch (Images, data, and information for the Northern Hemisphere).

WMO’s missing CO2-climate correlation?

The alarmist WMO has put out a graphic on X/Twitter (Talkshop copy here) showing hardly any global warming increase (in blue) between 1940 and the 1970s, followed by a clear transition (to red) since then. This doesn’t correlate with the monotonic CO2 rise during that period. Weather expert Joe Bastardi is delighted: ‘Merry Christmas from the World Meteorological Organization’.

Another one from the WMO – “off the charts” – showing September-November temperature anomalies right back to 1850, agrees:

Where does that leave greenhouse gas theories? Joe Bastardi has a few ideas.
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Update: Net Zero Watch wades in to the debate —
2023: Global temperature, statistics and hot air

Another ‘net zero’ tax: UK to implement carbon tariff on imports by 2027

The government’s war on a vital trace gas in the atmosphere ratchets up yet again, burdening everyone with more pointless bureaucracy and costs. That includes importers of renewables and electric vehicles.
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Britain said on Monday (18 December) it would implement a new import carbon pricing mechanism by 2027, with goods imported from countries with a lower or no carbon price having to pay a levy as part of decarbonisation efforts, reports Euractiv.

The government said the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) would apply to carbon intensive products in the iron, steel, aluminium, fertiliser, hydrogen, ceramics, glass and cement sectors.

The charge applied will depend on the amount of carbon emitted in the production of the imported good, and the gap between the carbon price applied in the country of origin – if any – and the carbon price faced by UK producers.

The Sahara Desert used to be a green savannah : Research explains why – it’s a climate cycle

Sahara desert from space [image credit: NASA]

We’re informed that ‘scientists have identified more than 230 of these greenings occurring about every 21,000 years over the past eight million years.’ (Ice ages may account for the numerical shortfall). Climate models aren't able to simulate these greenings, or at least not their magnitude. The period they identify is the combined precession cycle, i.e. the beat period of the tropical and anomalistic orbits (years) of the Earth (when the difference between the number of each reaches 1). Inevitably it’s about the energy received from the Sun.
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Algeria’s Tassili N’Ajjer plateau is Africa’s largest national park, says The Conversation (via Phys.org).

Among its vast sandstone formations is perhaps the world’s largest art museum. Over 15,000 etchings and paintings are exhibited there, some as much as 11,000 years old according to scientific dating techniques, representing a unique ethnological and climatological record of the region.

Curiously, however, these images do not depict the arid, barren landscape that is present in the Tassili N’Ajjer today.

‘Weak tea’: dismayed climate scientists push back against COP28 cheer

No ‘meaningful progress’. Needless to say, climate alarmists wanted more alarm than was delivered. One wailed: “With every vague verb, every empty promise in the final text, millions more people will enter the frontline of climate change and many will die.” Shouldn’t that already have happened according to previous COP, and other, forecasts of doom? If not, the next claim is that ‘the window is closing’. The melodrama limps on.
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A UN climate deal that approved a call to transition away from fossil fuels has been hailed as a major milestone and a cause for at least cautious optimism.

But many climate scientists said the joyful sentiments of world leaders did not accurately reflect the limited ambition of the agreement.

‘Weak tea at best’
Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania, criticized the vagueness of the fossil fuel statement, which has no firm, accountable boundaries for how much countries should do by when.

“The agreement to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ was weak tea at best,” he told AFP.

‘Hydrogen village’ plan in Redcar abandoned after local opposition

Eco house with hydrogen heating technology. [Image credit: emergingrisks.co.uk]

People power 1, ‘net zero’ 0. Government attempts to browbeat the public into accepting even a trial based on its flaky climate obsessions prove fruitless, on this occasion at least. As for the ‘insufficient local hydrogen production’ excuse: who would want to produce large amounts of hydrogen on spec and then hope to find a buyer nearby?
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A plan to test the use of hydrogen to heat homes in a village in the north-east of England has been abandoned after months of strong opposition from concerned residents, reports The Guardian.

The government said the Redcar “hydrogen village” scheme, which had been expected to start in 2025, would not go ahead because of insufficient local hydrogen production for the trial to replace the home gas supplies with the low-carbon alternative.

The decision ends months of protest against the scheme locals feared could raise energy bills and prove unsafe.

Geminids mystery

The Geminids are Still a Mystery

– – – “Our work has upended years of belief about 3200 Phaethon, the source of the Geminids,” says co-author Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab. “It’s not what we thought it was.”

UK climate minister mocked for 6,313-mile round trip by plane for ‘crunch’ Rwanda vote

Airport scene
[image credit: Wikipedia]

From one so-called crisis to another. Net zero CO2 obsession takes a back seat to pressing political needs.
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The UK’s minister for climate will make a 6,313-mile round trip to take part in the government’s crunch vote on Rwanda, Number 10 has confirmed.

Graham Stuart has been in Dubai for the COP28 summit, where leaders from around the world have been discussing the best ways to tackle the climate crisis, says Sky News.

But key talks have stalled over commitments to phase out fossil fuels, with negotiations carrying on through the night to try and find agreement between different nations.
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NGOs (non-governmental organisations) at COP have accused the UK of going “AWOL” at a key time, claiming the British government had let millions of people down.

Confirming the decision to summon Mr Stuart, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Ministers have a number of roles, the negotiations continue and he will return to COP.”

The return flight is the equivalent of travelling from London to Edinburgh and back 10 times, and will emit around two tonnes of CO2, according to environmental charity Treedom.

Asked about the carbon emissions from the flights, the spokesman added: “This government is not anti-flying.” [Talkshop comment – especially if it’s illegal immigrants to Rwanda].

“We don’t lecture the public to that regard. The most important thing is the outcomes of COP, which minister Stuart is obviously leading for the UK on.”
. . .
The return of Mr Stuart was the subject of ridicule from shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper as the debate began on Mr Sunak’s bill.

She told MPs: “The climate minister called back from the Dubai COP before the vote?

“Well, I guess they can say at least one flight has taken off as a result of this legislation.”

Full article here.

‘Magical’ tech innovations a distraction from real solutions, climate worriers claim

Photosynthesis [image credit: Nefronus @ Wikipedia]

Real ‘solutions’ like degrading entire economies and reducing living standards? How many toytown ‘climate innovations’ does it take in order to grasp that such things are always a dead end, and often an expensive one? The tedium of COP meetings repeating the same worn-out themes grinds on and on.
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Machines to magic carbon out of the air, artificial intelligence, indoor vertical farms to grow food for our escape to Mars, and even solar-powered “responsible” yachts: the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai has been festooned with the promise of technological fixes for worsening global heating and ecological breakdown, says Yahoo News.

The UN climate talks have drawn a record number of delegates to a sprawling, freshly built metropolis, which has as its centrepiece an enormous dome that emits sounds and lights up in different colours at night.

The two-week programme is laden with talks, events and demonstrations of the need for humanity to innovate its way out of the climate crisis.

Oil-rich Azerbaijan tipped to host COP29 climate talks

The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline (green) is one of several pipelines running from Baku.

Azerbaijan is one of the birthplaces of the oil industry (Wikipedia). It was part of the Soviet Union from 1922-1991. EU countries were unsurprisingly blocked as hosts by Russia. Maybe there aren’t too many ‘renewables-rich’ countries (if such a category even exists) elsewhere, seeking to be the host next time.
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DUBAI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Azerbaijan is tipped to host next year’s U.N. climate summit, after striking a late deal with longtime adversary Armenia over its bid.

While some diplomats said other countries including Russia – which has blocked other host candidates – were expected to back Baku’s bid, there was no official confirmation from Moscow on Friday.

The issue is still being negotiated at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

The Oil Demand Outlook COP28 Leaders Would Hate

The 28th UN-sponsored attempt to reduce global ’emissions’, in line with its pet climate theories, stares its own failure in the face as emissions keep going up. The renewables industry is running fast to stand still in terms of making a global dent in oil usage, for example. Imposition of ‘net zero’ policies may impact some countries, but oil marches on as demand from the many aspiring – but less developed than the ‘net zero club’ – countries boosts business.
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->> The International Energy Agency said in its recent oil report that oil consumption is close to peaking, thanks to transition efforts and energy efficiency gains.
->> Goehring and Rozencwajg: In 12 of the past 14 years, the IEA has underestimated oil demand by an average annual of 820,000 barrels per day.
->> Goehring and Rozencwajg: “If the IEA’s error were a country, it would be the world’s 21st largest oil consumer”.

This week, a report from a climate organization warned that emissions from the combustion of hydrocarbons are set for a record this year, says OilPrice.com.

Climate scare of the day: warming shown to cause methane to be released from the deep ocean

Burning hydrate [image credit: US Office of Naval Research]

This was found to have been going on ‘during past warm periods’ (what caused those?), so we may wonder what difference a bit more now is likely to make. It’s admitted that scientists need to ‘understand better the role of hydrates in the climate system’ – or if they have one worth getting agitated about?
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An international team of researchers led by Newcastle University found that as frozen methane and ice melts, methane – a potent greenhouse gas – is released and moves from the deepest parts of the continental slope to the edge of the underwater shelf, says EurekAlert.

They even discovered a pocket which had moved 25 miles (40 kilometres).

Publishing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this means that much more methane could potentially be vulnerable and released into the atmosphere as a result of climate warming.

Methane hydrate

Methane hydrate, also known as fire-ice, is an ice-like structure found buried in the ocean floor that contains methane. Vast amounts of methane are stored as marine methane under oceans.

Vast village heat pump tests one route to net zero for rural Britain

At £12 million per village, what would the national cost of such devices be for all the other villages that might want one? If it ‘shows how the costs of the energy transition can be made more manageable’, we could ask: more manageable than what?
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In a quiet field in eastern England a vast heat pump generates enough warmth to supply houses throughout a historic village, a pilot project is testing ways to spur renewable energy use in a country that is falling behind its net zero targets, says Reuters.

Resembling a large agricultural site, with gleaming silver water vats, the heat pump produces water hot enough to feed existing domestic systems, removing the need for costly home retrofits. A 60-year funding scheme removed upfront costs.

Supporters say the network, the first of its kind in rural Britain, not only shows one way for the UK to catch up with Europe on heat pump adoption, but addresses how it can fund the wider net zero transition when household finances are tight.

Himalayan Glaciers ‘fight back’ with cooling mechanism, researchers find

Himalayan glaciers [image credit: earth.com]

Time to dial down some over-excitable climate claims perhaps. The actual mechanism has been observed elsewhere before, but ‘not all downslope winds are katabatic‘. Effects can vary according to local conditions.
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Himalayan Glaciers fight back to preserve themselves, but for how long? — asks Eurekalert.

An international team of researchers, co-led by Professor Francesca Pellicciotti of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), explains a stunning phenomenon: rising global temperatures have led Himalayan glaciers to increasingly cool the air in contact with the ice surface.

The ensuing cold winds might help cool the glaciers and preserve the surrounding ecosystems. The results, found across the Himalayan range, were published in Nature Geoscience.

Rishi’s Empty ‘Net Zero’ Rhetoric – NZW

Photosynthesis [image credit: Nefronus @ Wikipedia]

Net Zero Watch summarises: ‘Rishi Sunak’s recent speeches on Net Zero are long on rhetoric, but the decarbonisation juggernaut rumbles on uninterrupted.’ — Pursuing climate obsession at a slightly slower rate still doesn’t work. Carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant.
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Over in the Spectator, Fraser Nelson is inviting us to welcome a change in Rishi Sunak’s tone on Net Zero, says Andrew Montford @ NZW.

His interest has been piqued by the PM’s speech at COP28, which he says shows that Sunak has “started the difficulty work of moving the UK climate agenda from fantasy to policy”.

There will be no more precautionary-principle daftness, we are told, and attention is drawn to the Prime Minister’s claim that from now on decarbonisation will be pursued “in a more pragmatic way, which doesn’t burden working people”.

Nelson is quite correct that the whole drive for Net Zero is a fantasy. It is the triumph of political posturing and bureaucratic trickery over rational decisionmaking.