Environmentalists lose new Norway lawsuit over Arctic oil

Norway’s Goliat oil platform [image credit: T3n60 @ Wikipedia]

Another attempt to use the courts to impose the will of climate alarmists bites the dust, at least until the next and final appeal, if it happens. When are they going to take Russia to court over Arctic drilling? Too risky perhaps.

A Norwegian court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by two environmental groups which had sued Norway for granting new oil licenses in the Arctic, reports Phys.org.

A Norwegian court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by two environmental groups which had sued Norway for granting new oil licenses in the Arctic.

Greenpeace and Natur og Ungdom (Nature and Youth) had called for the cancellation of exploration licenses granted in May 2016 to 13 oil companies in the fragile Arctic region, saying the concessions violated the Norwegian constitution which since 2014 guarantees the right to a healthy environment.

They argued that new oil activities in the region would be contrary to the 2016 Paris climate accord, which seeks to limit average global warming to under two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and which Norway has signed.

Mission to reveal ‘Truths’ about climate change

‘Truths’ is an acronym* but it helps with the publicity. The satellite ‘will be sensitive to light in the visible and near-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum’.
[*Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial- and Helio- Studies]
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The UK is going to lead a space mission to get an absolute measurement of the light reflected off Earth’s surface, reports BBC Science.

The information will be used to calibrate the observations of other satellites, allowing their data to be compared more easily.

Called Truths, the new spacecraft was approved for development by European Space Agency member states in November.

Proponents of the mission expect its data to help reduce the uncertainty in projections of future climate change.

Climate change: Ozone-depleting substances may have caused half of Arctic warming during 1955 – 2005

Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]

The headline is straight from the research press release. Of course that suggests alarmists can only hope to blame human-caused ‘carbon emissions’ for the other half of any recent warming, by invoking their own version of a planetary ‘greenhouse effect’.
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Ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) may be responsible for nearly half of Arctic warming from 1955 – 2005, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change.

These findings highlight an unrecognized source of twentieth-century Arctic climate change.

ODSs – halogen compounds that destroy the protective layer of ozone in the upper atmosphere – were used as propellants, refrigerants and solvents during the twentieth century.

Since the 1987 Montreal Protocol, ODS emissions have been curbed, and the ozone layer is now in slow recovery.

Night train to Brussels

Austria’s ‘nightjet’ train

All aboard the virtue signallers’ express! In nuclear-free Austria that is – possibly the only country to fully build a nuclear plant and never operate it.
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The first night train to set off for Belgium in 16 years departed from Vienna Sunday, carrying Austrian and European politicians who hope the new route can set an example as the continent tries to meet its climate targets, reports Phys.org.

The carriages of the “OBB Nightjet” pulled out of Vienna’s main station punctually at 8:38 pm to the strains of a live band playing the EU anthem “Ode to Joy”, the slogan #loveyourplanet emblazoned along their sides.

Scheduled to arrive in Brussels at 10:55 am on Monday, the rail journey emits less than a tenth of the CO2 per passenger than the equivalent flight.

GAME OVER! This Madness has to end!

Earth and climate – an ongoing controversy

Regular Talkshop contributor and climate expert Ian Wilson highlights the lack of scientific logic in the idea that carbon dioxide (CO2) somehow controls climate variations in the modern era. This has led to such absurdities as claims of a ‘climate emergency’ and demands to stop using oil, gas, and coal, with many countries actively pursuing policies along those lines.

Climate scientists insist that rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations (measured in parts per million or ppm) are forcing the Earth’s atmospheric and oceanic temperatures to increase, writes Ian Wilson.

They base their claim on the premise that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that prevents infrared light from escaping the Earth’s atmosphere.

They propose that the trapped infra-red radiation results in a net gain in the energy that is stored in the Earth’s atmosphere (~ 2 %) and oceans (> 90 %).

COP26: Climate summit may cost UK ‘several hundred million pounds’

This candidate for the UK’s most expensive non-event ever is already hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons. We’re informed ‘that COP26 attendees will peak at 15,000 on the busiest day, but the overall figure could rise to 90,000 over the period of the conference’. Don’t mention the ’emissions’ – which are what it’s supposed to be all about – as they all fly in and out again.

The cost of a UN climate change conference in Glasgow could be “several hundred million pounds”, police say.

Up to 90,000 people – delegates, observers, heads of state and media – are expected to attend COP26, over 12 days in November, says BBC News.

A Scottish Police Authority report says it will be the largest mobilisation of police officers in the UK.

Scottish ministers say they expect the UK government to cover the “core costs” including emergency services funding.

Light Bulbs Disprove Global Warming

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To go to the technical discussion, search for ‘Overview’.

Science Matters

Dr. Peter Ward explains at The Hill Greenhouse gases simply do not absorb enough heat to warm Earth Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Science is not done by consensus, by popular vote, or by group think. As Michael Crichton put it: “In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”

The drive to demonstrate scientific consensus over greenhouse-warming theory has had the unintended consequence of inhibiting genuine scientific debate about the ultimate cause of global warming.

Believers of “the consensus” argue that anyone not agreeing with them is uninformed, an idiot or being paid by nefarious companies. The last thing most climate scientists want to consider at this point, when they think they are finally winning the climate wars, is the possibility of some problem with the science of greenhouse-warming theory.

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Teachers Union Wants Climate Based Social Revolution Taught In English Classes

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When all their forecasts of doom fail to happen they’re going to look extremely silly.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

I am not making this up. The National Federation of Teachers is promoting the teaching of Action Now! climate radicalism in America’s English classes. They basically claim that climate change hysteria should be part of our culture and it requires a social revolution. Apparently English classes are the proper place to train social revolutionaries.

No wonder the children are terrified of their future. The radical premise of the Action Now! movement is that we are all going to die from climate change unless we rapidly restructure our social and economic systems.

In this case the message is delivered via a long article in the latest issue of NFT’s magazine American Educator, titled “Climate Change in the Classroom: A Natural Part of English Language Arts.” https://www.aft.org/ae/winter2019-2020/beach_share_webb

For those who haven’t kept up, English Language Arts is what used to be called English class, where cool stuff…

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Australian Bushfires Much Worse In 1974/5

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Note to climate doomers: weather can, and does, vary without assistance from humans.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

An important and, as usual, forensic contribution from Roy Spencer:

Summary Points

1) Global wildfire activity has decreased in recent decades, making any localized increase (or decrease) in wildfire activity difficult to attribute to ‘global climate change’.

2) Like California, Australia is prone to bushfires every year during the dry season. Ample fuel and dry weather exists for devastating fires each year, even without excessive heat or drought, as illustrated by the record number of hectares burned (over 100 million) during 1974-75 when above-average precipitation and below-average temperatures existed.

3) Australian average temperatures in 2019 were well above what global warming theory can explain, illustrating the importance of natural year-to-year variability in weather patterns (e.g. drought and excessively high temperatures).

4) Australia precipitation was at a record low in 2019, but climate models predict no long-term trend in Australia precipitation, while the observed trend has been upward…

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How did life survive in the Snowball Earth? Scientists might have cracked the mystery

The researchers do admit that ‘Snowball Earth is just a hypothesis’, but that period seems to have been an era of the most extreme long-term cold spell(s) ever detected on Earth.

There is very little life in Arctic tundras and glaciers. However that was the situation in a big portion of the world during Ice Ages, says Technology.org.

How did life survive these difficult periods? How didn’t everything just die, being cut off from any kind of sources of nutrition and oxygen?

Scientists examined the chemistry of the iron formations in Australia, Namibia, and California to get a window into the environmental conditions during the ice age. They selected rocks left there by the ice age, because they are representative of the conditions during that difficult period for life.

By analysing these rocks scientists from the McGill University were able to estimate the amount of oxygen in the oceans around 700 million years ago.

Automakers face tough new standards in EU, starting now

Typical electric car set-up

Welcome to the EU’s plan to strong-arm its way to victory in the electric car game, in the name of imaginary climate benefits. What happens if the manufacturers all start posting heavy losses due to poor EV sales, as a result of this coercion, is not yet clear. As the article says, tens of billions of euros are at stake.

Long-awaited light-duty vehicle emission rules will hit light-duty vehicle makers working in EU member countries on January 1, and automakers will soon have to deal with the consequences, says OilPrice.com.

Vehicle manufacturers will have to sell many more hybrid and electric vehicles or pay costly fines, a situation similar to China’s rules.

For automakers with product lineups with few EV offerings, they’ll need to sell lots of conventional cars and trucks, and use the profits to pay the fines.

Industry analysts expect plug-in hybrid, battery electric vehicle, and hybrid vehicle sales to soar in the near future.

What happened to Cahokia Mounds, the largest ancient city in North America?

This extract from an article at Historic Mysteries looks at the demise of the city, linked to major climatic changes that happened centuries before the arrival of the modern industrial world. Cahokia Mounds is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
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In Southern Illinois, situated along the Mississippi River in Collinsville, an ancient settlement that we call Cahokia rose to great power between 800-1200 CE.

Nicknamed America’s Forgotten City or The City of the Sun, the massive complex once contained as many as 40,000 people and spread across nearly 4,000 acres.

The most notable features of the site are hand-made earthen mounds which held temples, political buildings, and burial pits.

Cahokia Mounds are a testament to the highly organized culture of the early Mississippian people who built the largest city in pre-Columbian North America.

DoD study: climate change will destroy us… in 2020

This was a scenario rather than a prediction, but the two are easily confused in today’s alarm-oriented world. Interestingly they expected climate trouble ‘regardless of human activity’.

Read the DoD’s terrifying 2004 study and gain perspective about today’s warnings of Climate Emergency, says Larry Kummer @ Fabius Maximus.
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The DoD (US Department of Defense) says:

Are we prepared for history to repeat itself again?

There is a debate in newspapers around the globe today on the impact of human activity on climate change. Because economic prosperity is correlated with energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, it is often argued that economic progress leads to climate change. Competing evidence suggests that climate change can occur, regardless of human activity as seen in climate events that happened prior to modern society.

It’s important to understand human impacts on the environment – both what’s done to accelerate and decelerate (or perhaps even reverse) the tendency toward climate change. Alternative fuels, greenhouse gas emission controls, and conservation efforts are worthwhile endeavors. In addition, we should prepare for the inevitable effects of abrupt climate change – which will likely come regardless of human activity.

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Source: An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United
States National Security [October 2003 – 23 pages]

A Year Of Ineffective Climate Madness Looms

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Climate obsessives risk drowning in their own fanaticism and absurdity, while the rest of us look on in bemusement at their pointless antics.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

The year 2019 saw the rapid rise of climate hysteria, but as the saying goes: “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.” Now that the hysteria is firmly established and well organized, it is sure to get bigger and louder. But I see very little coming from it except the noise, as long as skeptics keep up the good fight.

This is especially true in the U.S. Presidential race, which is climate policy-wise by far the biggest thing going on in the world. Many of the Democrat candidates are going to try to ride the hysterical wave to victory. Their winning is not likely.

My take is the further left you go the fewer votes you get, and these folks are going far left on climate. In my view the only viable candidate in the pack is Biden and he may not be crazy enough to get…

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Jetsetters at the Davos World Economic Forum to demand global climate action

Davos

Many of the usual suspects of high finance and politics will be flying in by private jet to scope out the financial opportunities and rub shoulders with fellow power brokers. More hyped-up climate fear equals more potential profit, and never mind the ’emissions’.

An impatient demand for the world to work harder to counter “climate change” will top the agenda at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting next month in Davos, Switzerland, says Breitbart News.

Organizers expect some 3,000 corporate and government representatives to fly in from around the world to broach climate issues at the luxury ski resort, with a squadron of some 1700 private jets providing transport for the bulk of the attendees.

Munich Climate Conference 2019

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Open-minded independent scientists, not wedded to theories of man-made climate warming by minor trace gases, present some of their ideas.

Science Matters

Antifa thugs outside Munich Conference Center.

Thanks to Andreas Müller for writing at his blog hintermbusch on four key presentations at the EIKE Climate Conference on Nov. 23, 2019. As many have read, eco-terrorists forced the sessions out of the scheduled venue, but the gatherings went on elsewhere.  So much for dialogue in search of scientific truth. Here are some excerpts in italics with my bolds to encourage readers to read his informative report. (link in red above).

In this blog post, I summarize these lectures and add links to the video clips for you to follow the lectures on your own and in full detail (Only the first talk was in German and is not easily accessible for most of the international public).

Christian Schlüchter, Switzerland

Prof. em. Christian Schlüchter is a geologist and has studied the glaciers of the Alps in great detail. He reports the findings of…

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Australia fires: PM rejects ‘reckless’ calls to limit coal industry

Lots of coal in Australia

Evidence that at least one national leader understands that winding down the economy to impress shouty ‘activists’ is not a sensible policy, despite the current emergencies.

Australian PM Scott Morrison says he will not make “reckless” cuts to the nation’s coal industry, despite criticism of his response to climate change and a deadly bushfire crisis.

Australia is being ravaged by bushfires which have killed nine people and razed hundreds of homes since September, reports BBC News.

As the crisis escalated last week, Mr Morrison faced a backlash for deciding to take a family holiday to Hawaii.

On Monday, he reiterated he would not adjust his policies through “panic”.

Netherlands told by court to cut greenhouse gases further

Dutch Parliament buildings [credit: Wikipedia]

The descent into a climate fantasy world continues apace. Who’s next?

The highest court in the Netherlands has upheld a ruling requiring the government to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% of 1990 levels by the end of next year, reports BBC News.

The case was brought six years ago by the Urgenda environment group in a bid to force ministers to go well beyond EU targets.

However, the chances of the government reaching the target look slim. By the end of 2018, emissions were down only 15% on 1990 levels.

Ice sheet melting: estimates still uncertain, experts warn

Rinks Glacier, West Greenland
[image credit: NSIDC]

Estimates are always uncertain to some degree – that’s why they’re called estimates. So an uncertain estimate can’t be all that useful. They admit ‘there are still key deficiencies in the models’ — but these are usually ignored when alarmist climate predictions are headlined. As ever, ice-related sea level claims should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Estimates used by climate scientists to predict the rate at which the world’s ice sheets will melt are still uncertain despite advancements in technology, new research shows.

These ice sheet estimates feed directly into projections of sea-level rise resulting from climate change, says Phys.org.

They are made by measuring how much material ice sheets are gaining or losing over time, known as mass balance, to assess their long-term health.

Snowfall increases the mass of an ice sheet, while ice melting or breaking off causes it to lose mass, and the overall balance between these is crucial.

Although scientists now have a much better understanding of the melting behaviour of ice sheets than they did in previous decades, there are still significant uncertainties about their future melt rates, researchers found.

Update Dec. 2019 Yes PM Pokes Fun at Climatism

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No chance of the BBC repeating these episodes making light of climate nonsense.
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Link to third video: “A Tsar is Born”

Science Matters

GWPF published today a letter from the late Sir Antony Jay, co-creator of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minster, attacking the BBC for its blatant bias on climate change 8 years ago.  It seems timely to repost the final episode from the last season addressing the topic of global warming/climate change.  As you see, climate politics have not changed very much.

Part 1 of the program is here:

Part 2

Previously I posted this:

A humorous look at why the global warming campaign and the triumphal Paris COP make sense.

Yes Minister explains it all in an episode from 2013.

h/t to Peter S.

This is an all-too-realistic portrayal of political climatism today.

Then I realized that BBC had blocked the viewing of the video.  So I sought and found the subtitles for Yes Prime Minister 2013, Episode 6, “A Tsar is Born”.  That final episode for the series began with…

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