Solar Cycle 25 is here, says NASA

The Sun from NASA’s SDO spacecraft

Solar Cycle 25 has begun, according to this NASA press release.

During a media event on Tuesday, experts from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discussed their analysis and predictions about the new solar cycle – and how the coming upswing in space weather will impact our lives and technology on Earth, as well as astronauts in space.

The Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel, an international group of experts co-sponsored by NASA and NOAA, announced that solar minimum occurred in December 2019, marking the start of a new solar cycle.

Hitachi ‘withdraws’ from £20bn nuclear project

Proposed new nuclear plant, Anglesey [image credit: walesonline]

Unless this scheme is revived, the UK government is putting even more pressure on its ridiculous and damaging ‘net zero’ energy policy. The likely gap between future electricity supply and demand seems wider than ever.

H/T Hatter Eggburn
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Plans for a £15-£20bn nuclear power plant in Wales have been scrapped, reports BBC News.

Work on the Wylfa Newydd project on Anglesey was suspended in January last year because of rising costs after Hitachi failed to reach a funding agreement with the UK government.

Isle of Anglesey council said the company had now confirmed in writing it is withdrawing from the project.

Council leader Llinos Medi said: “This is very disappointing, particularly at such a difficult time economically.”

Hitachi shelved the scheme, the biggest energy project ever proposed in Wales, over funding issues.

Green apartment blocks are a hit – with mosquitos

Chengdu green apartment block [image credit: yahoo news]

Another green dream turns out to be a disaster.
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An experimental green housing project in a Chinese megacity promised prospective residents life in a “vertical forest”, with manicured gardens on every balcony, says TechXplore.

All 826 apartments were sold out by April this year, according to the project’s estate agent, but instead of a modern eco-paradise, the towers look like the set of a desolate, post-apocalyptic film.

The problem? The mosquitoes love the plants too.

Only a handful of families have moved into Chengdu’s Qiyi City Forest Garden because of an infestation, state media have reported.

The project in the southwestern city was built in 2018, with every private balcony designed to provide space for plants to grow, according to local media reports.

Without any tenants to care for them, the eight towers have been overrun by their own plants—and invaded by mosquitoes.

Plants have almost entirely swallowed up some neglected balconies, with branches hanging over railings all over the towers, footage shot this month showed.

Full report here.

Record global crop projections destroy media lies and gloom

Wheat [image credit: Phys.org]

Habitual climate miserablists should take a look around at the real world now and again. This year’s poor UK wheat harvest, reported by the BBC with a ‘climate change’ tag, looks like the exception not the rule.
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The International Grains Council (IGC) is reporting that global corn, wheat, and rice production is on pace to set new records this year, destroying an incessant parade of media claims that global warming is devastating crop production.

Here at Climate Realism, we have documented and debunked many of the ridiculous media claims that climate change is decimating crop production, some in the last month.

Global crop production, as well as crop production in most of the world’s nations, sets new records virtually every year as our planet modestly warms.

UK National Lottery fund jumps on climate change bandwagon

Lottery balls

Not many organisations can resist the pressure to resort to imagined virtue signalling in the era of the fake human-caused climate emergency, but there’s no jackpot from this losing bet.
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The first grants as part of a ten-year £100m National Lottery-funded Climate Action Fund have been rolled-out to communities across the UK to help tackle climate change, reports Casino Beats.

The National Lottery Community Fund has announced an initial £14m in grants as it aims to reduce the carbon footprint of communities and support movements that can demonstrate what is possible when people take the lead in tackling climate change.

Financial aid from The National Lottery Community Fund will support these projects to work together, share learning and be catalysts for broader and transformative change.

Massive Shetland wind farm plan runs into peatland protest

Shetland peat bog [image credit: Shetland Times]

There’s over £1 billion at stake here, as construction is about to start and a subsea cable project costing more than £600m has been approved, if the project goes ahead. It would be the UK’s largest onshore wind farm in terms of annual electricity output.
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OVER 20 people from across the isles have signed a petition expressing concern that Shetland Islands Council’s (SIC) recognition of a global climate emergency has not taken into account current evidence on the carbon value of peatland, reports Shetland News.

The petitioners say that since the original approval was given to the Viking Energy wind farm from the Scottish Government in 2012 “much of the science has fundamentally changed and we now indisputably recognise peatland as a store of carbon equal to or greater than that of rainforest”.

The petition seeks that the council considers a motion to cease immediately any entity involved in the “destruction of peatlands”.

It points to the current work taking place at Upper Kergord as peat is extracted to make way for an access track to a planned converter station.

Hottest August day for 17 years in UK – or south-east England at least

Fine summer weather [image credit: BBC]

So there was at least one higher temperature recorded in England in August 2003. Seventeen more years of increasing ’emissions’, which are supposed to be so dire according to a popular climate theory, haven’t made any difference to the peak figure so far. In fact July 2020 was noticeably cooler than average, but now a southerly wind has blown in some Saharan heat for a few days, most strongly to the near-continent regions. Not before time!
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The UK has seen its hottest day in August for 17 years, as temperatures reached more than 36C (96.8F) in south-east England, reports BBC News.

Crowds headed to the coast to enjoy the weather, but people have been urged to adhere to social distancing.

Warm weather will continue over the weekend for much of the UK, according to the Met Office.

The highest temperatures are expected in England and Wales, with fresher weather forecast for Scotland and NI.

Rupert Murdoch’s son James quits News Corp in climate change row

Someone else who can’t believe the climate can change naturally. But it always has done so.
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He resigns from the influential media company’s board, citing “disagreements over editorial content”, reports BBC News.

In a filing to US regulators, he said he also disagreed with some “strategic decisions” made by the company.

The exact nature of the disagreements was not detailed.

But Mr Murdoch has previously criticised News Corp outlets, which include the Wall Street Journal, for climate change coverage.

Chris Packham loses appeal against HS2 rail project

‘Environmentalists say the impact of the project will lead to irreversible damage’ reports newsdevelops.com. But what about the ‘damage’ of not building it – shortage of goods train capacity, lack of seats forcing people on to other modes of travel, etc.? Trying to put the brakes on modern life via the courts has failed this time, but it surely won’t be the last attempt.
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The broadcaster Chris Packham has lost his case against HS2 in the Court of Appeal.

Environmentalists say the high-speed rail project is leading to irreversible destruction of ancient habitats and woodlands.

Packham said the case for HS2 should be revisited despite Friday’s ruling against him.

EU Embroiled In €24 Billion Bogus Climate Accounting Scandal

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

The EU is no stranger to audit problems and accounting stories, let’s say, and this one maintains the tradition. Pretending to ‘tackle climate change’ can be expensive of course.
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Brussels has been dragged into a bogus accounting scandal after it was claimed climate change spending had been overblown by at least €24 billion, reports the Daily Express.

The European Court of Auditors has questioned the European Commission’s claims about its climate-change programmes.

It was found the European Union’s powerful executive had substantially overestimated the amount it spent on preventing global warming through the use of clever-accounting.

Move over, Golf: Volkswagen ID.3 EV sales open to public in Europe on 20 July

VW ID.3 [image credit: Alexander Migl @ Wikipedia]

The car is about the same size as VW’s Golf model but weighs 200 kilograms more due to the battery, which has an 8 year guarantee. What is guaranteed is not clear. List prices for most versions are well in excess of 30,000 euros, but subsidies are on offer. Don’t all rush at once…
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Volkswagen ID.3 latest news

Even before the Volkswagen ID.3 goes on sale, it has managed to pick up an award – from carwow!

The ID.3 collected the Most Wanted award at the 2019 carwow Car of the Year awards, says Green Car Congress.

This award is given to the brand that has the most-read news story here on carwow – and the ID.3 scooped that accolade by some margin.

Trump Order Confronts Big Tech Bias

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Social media getting its wings clipped? Lawyers should do well out of it.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

President Trump finally issued an Executive Order targeting viewpoint discrimination by Big Tech social media companies. The Order grows out of Trump’s summit on this thorny issue last July. Topping the list of targets are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Google, but there are many other possibilities.

This form of discrimination is very much uncharted legal territory. The chosen central concept for Big Tech wrongdoing is “censorship”, as the EO is titled “Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship”. This choice in itself is a strategic legal decision.

The Order is basically a hunting license for federal agencies. There are two distinct parts. The first is basically laying out a number of legal arguments. If you are not familiar with the legal issues this may seem like empty rhetoric, but it is actually the opposite. The lawyers who wrote this order are preparing to…

View original post 750 more words

UK court allows Drax gas power station appeal

Drax power station [credit: drax.com]

The climate-obsessed BBC frames this as a hard luck story for a charity. But for energy consumers it will be the biggest gas power station in Europe if/when built, providing on-demand power to help replace the many coal-fired plants closed in recent years.
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An environmental charity has lost a High Court challenge against a government decision to approve a new gas-fired power plant, reports BBC News.

ClientEarth had argued the decision did not take enough account of environmental targets at the Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire.

But the judge Mr Justice Holgate, said the targets were outweighed by other “public interest issues” involved.

The charity is now considering an appeal against the decision.

Heathrow gets permission for Supreme Court appeal over block to third runway

Heathrow airport

Coronavirus has obviously reduced the pressure on the airport for quite a while, at least. Restricting Heathrow capacity would mean some flights going somewhere else, but little likely effect on total air miles.
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The case will now be heard by the UK’s highest court as the airport tries to overturn campaigners’ earlier victory, reports Sky News.

Heathrow airport has been given permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against a block on its plan for a third runway.

Judges said Heathrow could appeal against a February ruling which said the government’s airports policy was unlawful as it failed to take into account climate change commitments.

Mexico stops renewable energy projects

[image credit: beforeitsnews.com]

Postponed might be a better word than stops in this case. But maybe not so surprising in a country where the President has called wind turbines “fans”. So he’s definitely not a fan.

It sounds like a news report out of yet another dystopian novel: Mexico is halting grid connection for new solar and wind power projects, says Oilprice.com (via The GWPF).

In a world rushing to produce clean energy, Mexico has suddenly stood out like a sore thumb.

But, as usual, there’s more to the story.

Mystery ’empty loch’ is now fullest in 20 years

Loch Vaa, Scotland

Despite an unusually dry April in the notoriously rainy Scottish Highlands, an unpredictable local loch is now way above normal levels, baffling experts and locals.
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The level at a loch that mysteriously lost millions of gallons of water a year ago has risen to one of its highest in years, reports BBC News.

Loch Vaa, near Aviemore in the Cairngorms, is fed by a spring.

In May last year, its lease-holders reported the water level had dropped by 1.4m (4.5ft) for unexplained reasons.

However, after returning to normal levels later in 2019, it has now risen by an extra 2.5m (8ft), the highest level in decades.

NASA satellite ends 17-year mission measuring the sun’s impact on climate

NASA claims humans now have 50 times more influence on temperatures than the Sun, according to this report. But they don’t link to any supporting evidence so we’re back to alarmist assertions and numbers pulled out of the sky, as usual.

NASA has shut down a spacecraft that measured the amount of solar energy entering Earth’s atmosphere for 17 years, more than three times the mission’s original design life, reports Spaceflight Now.

The Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment, or SORCE, mission ended Feb. 25 after the spacecraft labored through battery problems for years until NASA could launch a replacement.

Coronavirus forces postponement of COP26 meeting in Glasgow

Predictable, as most other mass gatherings this year have been busy cancelling themselves recently for the same reason. It won’t be missed.

A key climate conference due in November is delayed over disruption caused by the coronavirus, reports BBC News.

The announcement was made in a joint statement from the UK and UN after a “virtual” meeting of officials.

Dozens of world leaders were due to attend the COP26 gathering that was set to run in Glasgow from November 9 this year.

Self-isolation proves a boon to rainfall project

OCR software isn’t up to the job apparently. Let’s hope they don’t resort to data ‘adjustments’ after all the public’s efforts. Rain is a popular topic in the UK.

Scientists have been amazed at the public’s response to help digitise the UK’s old rainfall records, reports BBC News.

Handwritten numbers on documents dating back 200 years are being transferred to a spreadsheet format so that computers can analyse past weather patterns.

The volunteers blitzed their way through rain gauge data from the 1950s, 40s and 30s in just four days.

Project leader Prof Ed Hawkins had suggested the work might be a good way for people to use self-isolation time.

“It’s been incredible. I thought we might get this far after three or four weeks, not three or four days,” he told BBC News.

Rare Ozone Hole Opens Over Arctic — And It’s Big

One for the ‘planet on fire’ crowd to ponder, as the long solar minimum continues.
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Cold temperatures and a strong polar vortex allowed chemicals to gnaw away at the protective ozone layer in the north, says The GWPF.

A vast ozone hole — likely the biggest on record in the north — has opened in the skies above the Arctic. It rivals the better-known Antarctic ozone hole that forms in the southern hemisphere each year.

Record-low ozone levels currently stretch across much of the central Arctic, covering an area about three times the size of Greenland (see ‘Arctic opening’).