The Road to Grenfell Hell was clad with Green Intentions

Report written by commenter ‘stickywicket’ at Spiked online

Everyone has been shocked to the core by the images of the inferno that engulfed the Grenfell Tower, killing 79 people. Most were horrified by the suggestion in the Times that the cause of the fire might have been penny-pinching on the type of cladding used in the recent refurbishment of the building. It seems unbelievable that they didn’t spend an extra £5,000 for fire resistant cladding.

This is probably not the whole story. The revelation that a further 70+ tower blocks have failed fire safety tests tells us that there is an endemic problem. We don’t know the precise reasons for the fire yet, but we should certainly look at the influence of slavish devotion to green regulations.

Is science publishing bad for science?

A long and interesting article about science publishing in the Guardian is largely about the history of Robert Maxwells involvement in science publication, but contains much else of interest besides. A few excerpts:

Many scientists also believe that the publishing industry exerts too much influence over what scientists choose to study, which is ultimately bad for science itself. Journals prize new and spectacular results – after all, they are in the business of selling subscriptions – and scientists, knowing exactly what kind of work gets published, align their submissions accordingly. This produces a steady stream of papers, the importance of which is immediately apparent. But it also means that scientists do not have an accurate map of their field of inquiry.

Hinkley Point nuclear deal ‘risky and expensive’

Planned nuclear power station at Hinkley Point

For some reason the UK has chosen to pay a lot more for its new nuclear power than anywhere else, using untried and complex technology, and now even the country’s own auditors are complaining about it. The fear seems to be that it could prove to be a vastly expensive pig in a poke.

UK government plans for a new £18bn nuclear power station have come under fire from public auditors, who call it “a risky and expensive project”, BBC news reports.

The case for the Hinkley Point C plant in Somerset was “marginal” and the deal was “not value for money”, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). The NAO said the government had not sufficiently considered the costs and risks for consumers.

The government said building the plant was an “important strategic decision”. The report comes nine months after the government granted final approval for the project, which is being financed by the French and Chinese governments.

Study: Tesla car battery production releases as much CO2 as 8 years of driving on petrol

Tesla Model S – this is the only way you’ll keep warm in one during winter.

 

From NyTeknik:

Huge hopes tied to electric cars as the solution to automotive climate problem. But the electric car batteries are eco-villains in the production. Several tons of carbon dioxide has been placed, even before the batteries leave the factory.

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Energy Agency investigated litiumjonbatteriers climate impact from a life cycle perspective. There are batteries designed for electric vehicles included in the study. The two authors Lisbeth Dahllöf and Mia Romare has done a meta-study that is reviewed and compiled existing studies.

The report shows that the battery manufacturing leads to high emissions. For every kilowatt hour of storage capacity in the battery generated emissions of 150 to 200 kilos of carbon dioxide already in the factory. The researchers did not study individual bilmärkens batteries, how these produced or the electricity mix they use. But if we understand the great importance of play battery take an example: Two common electric cars on the market, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S, the batteries about 30 kWh and 100 kWh.

Clive James: Climate alarmists will never admit they’re wrong

Via GWPF, an abstract from a brilliant essay by the evergreen Clive James.

When you tell people once too often that the missing extra heat is hiding in the ocean, they will switch over to watch Game of Thrones, where the dialogue is less ridiculous and all the threats come true. The proponents of man-made climate catastrophe asked us for so many leaps of faith that they were bound to run out of credibility in the end.

Now that they finally seem to be doing so, it could be a good time for those of us who have never been convinced by all those urgent warnings to start warning each other that we might be making a comparably senseless tactical error if we expect the elastic cause of the catastrophists, and all of its exponents, to go away in a hurry.

I speak as one who knows nothing about the mathematics involved in modelling non-linear systems. But I do know quite a lot about the mass media, and far too much about the abuse of language. So I feel qualified to advise against any triumphalist urge to compare the apparently imminent disintegration of the alarmist cause to the collapse of a house of cards. Devotees of that fond idea haven’t thought hard enough about their metaphor. A house of cards collapses only with a sigh, and when it has finished collapsing all the cards are still there.

#ParisAgreement gets setback as Trump heads for the exit

As predicted here a few days ago, U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to end involvement in the Paris Climate Accord.

A tweet from the well informed Tony Heller around 4.20pm GMT today indicated the administration’s direction of travel.

I hear from insiders that @realDonaldTrump will be an American hero and cancel the illegal and fake Paris treaty today.

— Steve Goddard (@SteveSGoddard) June 1, 2017

British Airways blames ‘power surge’ for IT meltdown & travel chaos

Airport chaos for BA passengers

BA moves in mysterious ways, its blunders to perform – but with dire results for a lot of unlucky customers.

BA chief executive Alex Cruz says the airline’s flight disruptions had nothing to do with cutting costs but were caused by a power surge that “only lasted a few minutes”, reports BBC News via the GWPF.

BA chief executive Alex Cruz says he will not resign and that flight disruption had nothing to do with cutting costs.

He told the BBC a power surge, had “only lasted a few minutes”, but the back-up system had not worked properly.

Viv Forbes: Kill the Paris Climate Treaty and rip out its roots

By Viv Forbes,
Secretary of the Clexit Coalition

The Clexit Coalition today called on President Trump to keep his election promise to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty and stop US payments to all UN global warming programs.

The Clexit (ClimateExit) Coalition, comprising over 175 representatives from 25 countries, aims to prevent ratification or local enforcement of the UN Paris climate treaty.
See: http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf

The Secretary of Clexit, Mr Viv Forbes of Australia, said that all nations will suffer from the destructive energy policies being promoted in the UN’s war on cheap, reliable hydro-carbon fuels and the backbone industries that rely on them – mining and smelting, farming, fishing, forestry, processing and manufacturing.

He was supported by Professor Will Happer, Professor of Physics at Princeton University who said today:
“Americans never felt compelled to sign up to international folly in the past. I hope the United States once again shows the common sense of its people and walks away from the Paris Agreement.”

Climategate email revisited: Ed Cook throws the tree ring circus under the bus

Just a little reminder of the science still championed by Al Gore, Barack Obama, the UN IPCC, the UK parliament’s climate change committee and all those august institutions of science such as the Royal Society, the AAAS, and the rest. Ed cook offered to put a bomb under it in 2003 by telling the truth (in bold), but none of the Hockey Jockeys at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit wanted to know.

From: Edward Cook <drdendro@xxxx.columbia.edu>
To: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxx.ac.uk>
Subject: An idea to pass by you
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 08:32:11 -0400
Hi Keith,

After the meeting in Norway, where I presented the Esper stuff as
described in the extended abstract I sent you, and hearing Bradley’s
follow-up talk on how everybody but him has fucked up in
reconstructing past NH temperatures over the past 1000 years (this is
a bit of an overstatement on my part I must admit, but his air of
papal infallibility is really quite nauseating at times), I have come
up with an idea that I want you to be involved in. Consider the
tentative title:

“Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Over The Past Millennium: Where Are
The Greatest Uncertainties?”

Authors: Cook, Briffa, Esper, Osborn, D’Arrigo, Bradley(?), Jones
(??), Mann (infinite?) – I am afraid the Mike and Phil are too
personally invested in things now (i.e. the 2003 GRL paper that is
probably the worst paper Phil has ever been involved in – Bradley
hates it as well), but I am willing to offer to include them if they
can contribute without just defending their past work – this is the
key to having anyone involved. Be honest. Lay it all out on the table
and don’t start by assuming that ANY reconstruction is better than
any other.

Here are my ideas for the paper in a nutshell (please bear with me):

James Delingpole: An energy policy for Theresa May

Future UK energy policy under the green tories

As a followup to the commonsense stuff UKIP’s Roger Helmer suggested yesterday, here’s James Delingpole’s take on what is likely to happen. Reposted from Breitbart

Suppose you were a Conservative leader hoping to win a stonking majority in your general election campaign, which of these two manifesto propositions do you think would win the most votes?
a) Our energy policy will remain in the clutches of a cabal of vested interests – rent-seeking, crony capitalist shysters; green ideologues with junk-science degrees in Gaia Studies from the University of East Anglia; eco-fascist lobby groups and NGOs; compromised scientists with their snouts in the trough; goose-stepping technocrats; really, really, really dim MPs – ensuring that the landscape continues to be blighted by an ever-greater-proliferation of shimmery solar panels and ginormous bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes.

We remain committed to the Climate Change Act which will cost the UK economy over £300 billion by 2030, costing each household £875 per annum; and also to the Levy Control Framework (LCF) which, combined with carbon taxes, cost the UK £9 billion in 2016 alone. Then we’ll pretend it’s the fault of the greedy energy companies by hammering them with a price cap – thus driving their share prices down (bad luck pensions and investors!), reducing competition and innovation, and signalling that we intend to be a meddling, interventionist government which has no truck with free market principles.

Tony Heller: Extreme weather of 1936 and Hiding the warmth of early C20th

Tony Heller, AKA Steve Goddard, has published two short videos on youtube covering the topics of the extreme weather of 1936 compared to today, and the way temperature data has been manipulated to hide the 1940s-1970s cooling trend. Well worth 15 minutes of your time.

Harvard Engineers Plan New “Real World” Geoengineering Experiment

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Who gets a say in deciding whether to interfere with nature on a global scale?

Sting operation reveals science’s insane fake news problem

H/T Sott.net

If someone applied to a top position at a company, you’d hope a hiring manager would at least Google the applicant to ensure they’re qualified.

A group of researchers sent phony resumes to 360 scientific journals for an applicant whose Polish name translated to “Dr. Fraud.” And 48 journals happily appointed the fake doctor to their editorial board.

This sting operation was the first systematic analysis on editorial roles in science publishing, adding concrete evidence to a problem past stings have shed light on.

IEA: Brexit provides real opportunity to bring down electricity bills

The institute for Economic Affairs has published a report calling for a reduction in electricity bills.

Brexit provides real opportunity to bring down electricity bills for low-income households

Executive Summary:

• Electricity charges for households in England and Wales have risen by 50 per cent in real terms since 2001, partly as a result of policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• The decarbonisation policies adopted have been complex and inefficient, and have also been contradicted by other measures such as the reduced rate of VAT imposed on domestic fuel. Emissions reduction objectives could be achieved at much lower cost.

• The government should phase out the Climate Change Levy, the Energy Company Obligation, the Warm Homes Discount and the Carbon Price Floor.

• Utility bills should be taxable at the full VAT rate (20 per cent) rather than the reduced rate (5 per cent). Any help to vulnerable households should be in the form of electricity vouchers.

• If the goal is to reduce emissions, decarbonisation should be undertaken under a single market-based mechanism such as a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon tax, which would apply to all CO2 emissions.

• Climate-change policy should be technology-neutral. The government should establish a decarbonisation target and allow energy markets to adjust to it in the most efficient way.

Carlisle Floods Due To Poor River Maintenance, Not Climate Change

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Once again the ‘climate change’ card is played by authorities to excuse their own failings.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

cflagfloodreport_12monthson

It is just over a year since Storm Desmond brought devastating floods to Carlisle.

Soon after the Carlisle Flood Action Group was formed, and they have now published a very full and highly technical account of the floods.

This is the first part of the Executive Summary:

Although Storm Desmond was severe by any account (and the report later accepts that it may have been exacerbated by global warming), the real problem was lack of river maintenance and poor management. This of course is a rerun of the Somerset floods in 2014.

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UK ‘need not fear electricity blackouts’ says ex-National Grid boss–But it will cost you £3bn

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It’s OK ‘says ex-National Grid boss’. Well, let’s hear that from the current boss, and if it turns out he’s wrong he can be the next ex-boss.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38791572

Roger Harrabin, who is apparently now an energy analyst as well as an environmental one, writes:

The UK has enough energy capacity to meet demand – even on the coldest days when demand is highest, says Steve Holliday, the man who ran National Grid for a decade.

He said news stories raising fears about blackouts should stop.

His optimism is based on the government’s latest auction of capacity for power generation, which starts later today.

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Irish High Court Finds Wind Turbine Maker Liable for Noise Nuisance – 7 Irish Families to Get Millions in Punitive Damages

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In which the law catches up with one of the wind turbine industry’s many excesses, not before time.

STOP THESE THINGS

The Irish High Court has just handed down a decision holding German wind turbine manufacturer, Enercon liable in noise nuisance in a claim pursued by 7 families whose lives and livelihoods have been thoroughly and mercilessly destroyed by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

A report on the decision follows below, but first we’ll start where it all started back in 2013.

Families bid to sue wind farm operator
Irish Examiner
Michael Clifford
19 March 2013
By Michael Clifford

A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a wind farm operator in a landmark case, claiming the huge turbines are adversely affecting their health.

The seven families from Banteer claim they have been severely impacted, particularly through noise pollution, since the turbines began operating in Nov 2011.

If the action is successful, it is expected to lead to a number of others on similar grounds. Already…

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Nigel Farage lambasts media for one-sided coverage of the wind industry

From 3 mins in (but listen to all of it anyway) 🙂

Marc Morano: Climate report confiscated by armed UN fascists in Marrakech

 

 

Breaking: 

Breaking: Armed UN security confiscates Morano's printed press releases on UN treaty shredding.

— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) November 16, 2016

 

Climate Depot’s 43 Page Report Presented To UN Climate Summit in Marrakech, Morocco – Trump is correct to be skeptical of ‘climate change’ claims

‘All of the so-called ‘solutions’ to global warming are purely symbolic when it comes to climate. So, even if we actually faced a climate catastrophe and we had to rely on a UN climate agreement, we would all be doomed!’

University of London professor emeritus Philip Stott: “The fundamental point has always been this. Climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically selected factor (CO2) is as misguided as it gets.” “It’s scientific nonsense,” Stott added.

Trumped!

Nice one Josh. 🙂