Planetary Wave Supercharges Southern Noctilucent Clouds

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Unusual goings-on seen in the skies over New Zealand.

Spaceweather.com

Dec. 4, 2019: An atmospheric wave nearly half as wide as Earth itself is supercharging noctilucent clouds (NLCs) in the southern hemisphere. NASA’s AIM spacecraft detected the phenomenon in this series of south polar images spanning Nov. 27th through Dec. 2nd:

“This is a clear sign of planetary wave activity,” says AIM principal investigator James Russell of Hampton University, which manages the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere mission for NASA.

Planetary waves are enormous ripples of temperature and pressure that form in Earth’s atmosphere in response to Coriolis forces. In this case, a 5-day planetary wave is boosting noctilucent clouds over Antarctica and causing them to spin outward to latitudes where NLCs are rarely seen.

On Dec. 1st, Mirko Harnisch saw the clouds from Dunedin, New Zealand. “I was enjoying the late-evening sky over the Southern Ocean just after 11 pm local time when these wispy blue-ish clouds appeared,”…

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‘Stay put,’ officials warn: Winter storms slam US as 50 million people travel for Thanksgiving

Credit: BBC News

One minor problem with that Yahoo News headline – it isn’t even winter yet.

Two powerful winter storms hammered the West Coast and Midwest on Wednesday, shutting down highways and snarling travel plans on one of the nation’s busiest travel days.

Weather watches, warnings and alerts were posted across much of the western half of the nation after a storm that had been a “bomb cyclone” marched westward from the California coast, AccuWeather reported.

Hundreds of stranded cars were removed from Interstate 5 headed north from California into Oregon in the aftermath of the storm that dumped snow and created whiteout conditions on both sides of the California-Oregon border.

Labour abandons climate change plan for net zero carbon emissions by 2030

So the plan was only virtue signalling to try and impress gullible voters, not an actual belief that the climate needs saving any time soon. Does the UK really want inadequate, unreliable and expensive electricity in perpetuity?

Labour has dropped a radical plan to end the UK’s contributions to climate change by 2030 and will stick to a target of achieving it “well before 2050”, reports The Independent via Yahoo News.

Activists passed a motion at the party’s conference in September to dramatically speed up the date for net zero carbon emissions – pushing for inclusion in the general election manifesto.

Sale Of Indulgences Dominates Madrid Climate Summit

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The vast climate money market is gearing up for the Madrid doom-fest, with more than a hint of smoke-and-mirrors chicanery included.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

In Madrid the negotiators will be trying hard to finalize the Paris Accord emission trading scheme. The non-binding Paris Accord targets may have big bucks value for some developing countries and this has led to a paralyzing controversy.

Emission trading means any country that does better than their target can sell the difference as indulgences, called carbon credits.

This is potentially a huge market. The airlines are already promising to offset their enormous, jet propelled emissions, and most developed countries are not on track to hit their targets, so there are a lot of potential buyers.

Countries like China and India have a lot to sell, despite their coal mania, because their targets are based on emissions per GDP, not emissions per se. Industrialization increases emissions but it increases productivity even more, a lot more. Booming Brazil also has a pot full of indulgences to…

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Bristol Council votes to ban diesel cars from 2021

Bristol’s urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK, says Wikipedia. Diesel owners don’t have long to get rid of their cars, convert them to another fuel or find another method of transport if they need to get into town to work, shop or anything else during the day, after March 2021 – unless the next government decides to step in and save them.

Under the plan, all privately-owned diesel vehicles will be banned from entering it every day between 7am and 3pm by March 2021
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Bristol is set to become the first city in the UK to ban diesel cars as part of its efforts to improve air quality, reports Energy Live News.

‘Regret’ as US begins exit from UN climate accord

The pretence that humans have some kind of power over the global climate is put in the spotlight once again.

The US has begun the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, notifying the UN of its intention to leave, as other countries expressed regret and disappointment at the move, reports BBC News.

The notification begins a one-year process of exiting the global climate change accord, culminating the day after the 2020 US election.

The US government says the deal puts an “unfair economic burden” on Americans.

The agreement brought together 188 nations to combat climate change.

Chile climate pullout prompts tears from young activists sailing Atlantic

At least they won’t need to make the bus trip from Rio to Santiago – if Spain is confirmed as the new venue. The best laid schemes of mice and men…and all that.

News of Santiago summit’s cancellation reportedly came as heavy blow but youngsters decide to push ahead with boat trip, reports Jonathan Watts for The Guardian.

Chile’s decision to withdraw as host of the Cop 25 UN climate conference has prompted tears and frustration from a group of school-strike activists sailing across the Atlantic to attend the talks.

Global EV sales in September 2019 drop down 8%

Chinese electric car [image credit: scmp.com]

Sales of expensive electric vehicles predictably misfire as short-term subsidies inevitably slip. No signs of mass take-up despite endless climate hype.

Global sales are lower than a year ago because China lost incentives, while the U.S. is trying to overcome high Model 3 sales in 2018, reports Inside EVs.

The global plug-in passenger car sales were affected in September by a decrease in sales in China and in the U.S. Only the European market brings significant growth among the three biggest markets.

Chile cancels global climate summit amid mass protests

Somewhere has got about a month to arrange to receive 30,000 unexpected climate tourists – or whatever the absurdly bloated figure is. Sounds unlikely, so postponement beckons.

Chile has pulled out of hosting two major international summits, including a UN climate change conference, as anti-government protests continue, reports BBC News.

President Sebastián Piñera said the decision “caused him a lot of pain” but his government needed “to prioritise re-establishing public order”.

The COP25 climate summit was scheduled for December, while the Apec trade summit was due next month.

The UN said it was now “exploring alternative hosting options”.

Russian Oil Giant Prepares Massive $157 Billion Arctic Oil Project

Credit: ecologyway.info

Clearly Russia, China and India expect oil consumption to play a big part in their futures, even if some other countries claim to think otherwise due to their ill-conceived drive to demonise man-made carbon dioxide. Potential protesters may be aware that Russia tends to apply a robust response to any attempt to interfere with its commercial activities.

With the help of a tax relief package, Russia’s largest oil producer is preparing to dive into a $157 billion Arctic oil project, reports OilPrice.com.

Reuters quoted Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin as announcing the price tag of the Vostok Oil project to media last week, adding that the Kremlin had already agreed on a tax relief package that would help with the Arctic oil and gas push.

New gas-fired engine order aims to prepare UK for intermittent future

Image credit: steelguru.com

Already having to find ways to try and patch up the rickety electricity supply system being developed in the UK to take over from the previously reliable one, in the name of theoretical man-made climate change. Dozens more of these ‘back-up’ gas engines would seem advisable if current renewables-obsessed energy policies continue as planned.

Statera Energy has signed an agreement with MAN Energy Solutions for the supply of ultra-efficient natural gas reciprocating engines, reports Energy Live News.

The flexible energy company says the 24 engines, which it claims are the first of their kind to be deployed in Britain, will deliver 300MW of highly efficient back-up power to the UK’s grid.

Fire and gas explosion in battery room of Norwegian ferry prompts lithium-ion power warning

Another hybrid ferry

Anyone fancy a hybrid-electric cruise after reading this?

Norwegian authorities are warning shipowners and operators about the dangers associated with lithium-ion battery systems after a fire and subsequent gas explosion on board a diesel-electric ferry in Norway.

The small fire was reported October 10 in the battery room of the Norled passenger ferry MF Ytterøyningen, reports gcaptain.com.

The ferry returned to harbor under its own power where passengers and crew were evacuated to land.

Overnight, however, a serious gas explosion rocked the battery room causing significant damage.

Latest ‘green tech’ scheme: How liquid air could help keep the lights on

CRYOBattery plant (model) [credit: Highview Power]

The fact that this kind of thing gets touted at all says a lot about the state of electricity generation in today’s trace-gas-fearing climate obsessed world. They talk of a ‘carbon free future’, but ignore the reality that world demand for oil, coal and gas is rising year on year as prosperity spreads around the globe and populations continue to increase.

It sounds like magic but it is real – a plan to store cheap night-time wind energy in the form of liquid air, reports BBC News.

Here is how: you use the off-peak electricity to compress and cool air in a tank, so it becomes a freezing liquid.

When demand peaks, you warm the liquid back into a gas, and as that expands it drives a turbine to create more electricity.

The technology, created by a backyard inventor, is about to hit the big time.

The Excommunication of Susan Crockford

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The climate witch hunt against academics who don’t conform to the prescribed ideas continues.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t AC Osborn

Donna Laframboise brings shameful news from the University of Victoria:

Like geologist BobCarter before her, Susan Crockford has been stripped of her Adjunct Professor status by a university with which she has a long history. Why? Because she promotes facts and eschews climate activism.

In May, Canada’s University of Victoria (UVic) advised Crockford that an internal committee had voted to end her 15-year stint as an Adjunct Professor. Having undergone hip surgery in the interim, only now is she going public.

When the matter was last considered, the committee voted unanimously in her favour. What changed? Talks she was invited to give to schools apparently “generated concern among parents regarding balance.” That concern was “shared with various levels of the university,” according to an April 2017 e-mail from Ann Stahl, then chair of the Anthropology Department.

These vague accusations, leveled by an…

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Another Newsweek Conspiracy: ‘Greta Thunberg Snubbed For Nobel Peace Prize’ By Big Oil

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Well, there’s always next year or whenever. Arctic sea ice still doing OK despite all the false prophets of doom, including certain Nobel recipients.

PA Pundits - International

By Clay Waters ~

Newsweek reporter Rosie McCall offered a conspiracy theory as to how a 16-year-old environmental activist somehow failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize this year: “Greta Thunberg Snubbed for Nobel Peace Prize by Committee Run by Norway, One of the World’s Biggest Oil and Natural Gas Exporters.”

This new theory comes courtesy of a magazine fresh off breaking the news that opening tanning salons in urban neighborhoods were a plot to give gay men skin cancer, or something.

McCall wrote:

The Nobel Committee has surprised oddsmakers by not picking 16-year-old Greta Thunberg to win the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

The five-member Norwegian panel instead announced on Friday that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had won the award, “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and for in particular his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea,” a statement…

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Electric-Car Owners Hard Hit by Massive California Power Shutdown

Smoke from a California wildfire [image credit: BBC]

Drastic loss of mobility. Recharging directly from solar panels is not an option either.

Tesla’s Elon Musk promises battery and solar solutions for the many EV owners who can’t charge their cars, reports Yahoo News.
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From Car and Driver

— Nearly a million Californians are now without power as the electric company deliberately shut it off this week, fearing high winds would spark wildfire.

— The affected area in Northern California surrounds Fremont, home of Tesla, and a great many electric-car owners who can’t charge their vehicles as usual.

UN may run out of money by end of the month

Have they already paid in full for the COP 25 climate conference in Santiago in December? If not, the Chileans should be getting nervous as this report says: ‘To cut costs, Guterres mentioned postponing conferences and meetings.’

The United Nations is running a deficit of $230 million, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday, and may run out of money by the end of October, reports France24.

In a letter intended for the 37,000 employees at the UN secretariat and obtained by AFP, Guterres said unspecified “additional stop-gap measures” would have to be taken to ensure salaries and entitlements are paid.

Italy’s “Lord of the Wind” gets 9 years for financing mafia

[image credit: beforeitsnews.com]

Everything was definitely not clean about this major renewable energy operator. One report said that ‘crime and corruption crept in at several levels’.

Italy’s “Wind King”, or the “Lord of the Wind” Vito Nicastri has been sentenced to nine years in prison for channeling profits from his wind power business to the Cosa Nostra, says OilPrice.com.

The Guardian reports that Nicastri was stripped of his companies and property back in 2013 during an investigation into his ties with the Sicilian mafia. The assets that prosecutors seized were worth about $1.7 billion (1.3 billion euro).

Since then, the prosecution has established that Nicastri had “close ties to Matteo Messina Denaro” and other “high-level” contacts in the Sicilian mafia.

Trump strips California of power to set auto emission standards

Los Angeles, CA

California was effectively acting as the national lawmaker by forcing carmakers to adopt its standards – or lose the right to sell new models in the most populous US state. It was enjoying the power of the role, until…

The White House has stripped California of its right to set its own vehicle emissions standards and banned other states from setting similar rules, reports BBC News.

The waiver allowed the state – America’s most populous – to set stricter standards than the federal government.

President Trump says the move will cut car prices and the impact on emissions will be minimal.

Wind farm refused over Southern Upland Way impact

Windfarm objection in Galloway

Let’s hope this helps to put wind farm developers off the idea of ruining scenery for profit, as they may end up just wasting a lot of time, effort and money on pointless proposals and court battles.

A wind farm appeal has been refused amid concerns it would spoil the enjoyment of a stretch of a popular south of Scotland walking route, reports BBC News.

Developer Energiekontor wanted to build 11 turbines at Cornharrow east of Carsphairn in
Dumfries and Galloway.

It appealed to the Scottish government over the local authority’s failure to give a decision on the plans.