Obsessing Over Global Temperatures

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The idea that humans can ever know exactly what the temperature is or was, everywhere on Earth – including the vast oceans – all the time, is amusing but not much else.

Science Matters

Reification is the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. It is a mental process by which someone comes to believe that an abstraction (idea or concept) is a material, physical object in the real world. Mike Hulme observes that many people are obsessing over global temperatures, not realizing they are abstractions and not things to be feared. He provides calm and sensible views regarding global temperature reporting. The post at his blog is Climatism and the Reification of Global Temperature. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Over the last 40 years global-mean surface air temperature – ‘global temperature’ for short – has gained an extraordinary role in the science, politics and public discourse of climate change. What was once a number crudely calculated through averaging together a few dozen reasonably well-spaced meteorological time series, has become reified as an objective entity that simultaneously measures Earth System behaviour, reveals the future, regulates…

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George Melloan: The Yellow Jackets Are Right About Green Policies

When folk are told they need to pay ever-rising ‘carbon’ taxes, based on guesswork, to somehow control the climate, many aren’t impressed and may take their discontent to the streets.
H/T The GWPF

Seek out the most basic cause of the French riots and you’ll come to a bizarre answer: carbon dioxide.

More specifically, the demonization by political activists of that vital element of the earth’s atmosphere. French President Emmanuel Macron stirred popular rage by trying to raise the gasoline tax by about 25 cents a gallon.

UN Authorizes Protesters To Silence Americans At COP 24

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Anti-democratic UN using rent-a-mob.

PA Pundits - International

By Craig Rucker ~

Does the United Nations serve any purpose at all if it will not guarantee the right of participants to speak undisturbed when taking part in its process?

The United Nations gave explicit permission to left-wing youth groups to disrupt a presentation by the American delegation on energy issues at COP 24, the UN conference on climate change in Katowice, Poland.CFACT’s Marc Morano reports, “officials from the U.S. delegation told Climate Depot on Monday that the UN informed the U.S.  that the environmental activists would be authorized by the UN  to disrupt the U.S. event for at least “7 minutes” and the green protesters would be granted the floor, halt the event, and give speeches during the U.S. event.”

Thank you to everyone whose generous support made CFACT’s work at this year’s UN climate conference possible!  Will you make a gift right now and help…

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Delingpole: Ten Years of the Climate Change Act – History’s Most Expensive Virtue Signal

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It’s hard to tell if MPs are unaware the CCA is doing its best to undermine the UK economy, or if they are too blinded by imaginary virtue-signalling to be interested.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby

It is now the tenth anniversary of what, by any account, is by far the most expensive piece of legislation ever enacted by the UK Parliament.

Dellers celebrates in style:

If you want to loathe and despise the political class even more than you do already, I heartily recommend a read of the damning report that Rupert Darwall has compiled for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Keep a bottle of whisky and your service revolver handy for when you’re done.

Darwall describes the Climate Change Act (CCA) as “history’s most expensive virtue signal.”

Unlike, say, the Paris Climate Accord — all of whose carbon emissions targets are entirely voluntary — the CCA imposes on Britain a legally binding commitment to ensure that its CO2 emissions in 2050 are at least 80 per cent lower than in 1990. (Originally the target was just 60 per…

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Batteries Not Included In Renewable Fantasy Plans

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Some home truths for renewable energy worshippers, especially those in power, to grapple with. But they probably won’t.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

The political fantasy of 100% renewable electricity is sweeping the nation. Governors and mayors, towns and cities, and whole States are vying for who can get there first. California’s 2045 target date was recently topped by Colorado’s incoming Governor’s announced target of 2040, just 21 short years from now.

This 100% goal sounds so good politically that it is irresistible. Clean energy for everyone. Unfortunately, converting America to 100% renewable energy is completely unrealistic as engineering, which means we are headed for big trouble. Committing to the impossible is a truly bad plan.

The problem is batteries, which we never hear about when these grand plans are announced. Batteries are not included, even though they will be needed in impossible quantities. Here are the simple facts which dare not be mentioned.

While there are “utility scale” battery systems, their national total is virtually zero compared…

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Cobalt – a potential bottleneck in the transition to electric mobility

Typical electric car set-up

We keep hearing this, but the suspicion is that only a fraction of vehicle users are at all bothered, as most don’t want an expensive range-limited electric car with uncertain charging options anyway. Notions of slaying phantom emissions dragons won’t be enough to make them popular, as sales to date show.

The coming electric vehicle boom will significantly increase the demand for cobalt in the EU and globally, says Phys.org.

As a result, demand is expected to exceed supply already in 2020 and the EU must take steps to boost supply and curb demand without hindering the growth in electric vehicles, according to a new report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), presented at the EU Raw Material Week in Brussels.

Life as a skeptic is summed up in this parody documentary

Join the fake David Attenborough for a brief sardonic tour of the little-known but fascinating – maybe – world of the skeptic (US)/sceptic (UK).

This parody documentary skewers both the skeptic and the superstitious, and accurately shows what issues skeptics face, says The BigThink.

== A video from QED 2018 has made the rounds on the internet, poking fun at skeptics and the credulous alike.

Hybrid powertrain innovations set the bar higher for the sector

Fiat 500X hybrid

Tinkering with electric and hybrid vehicle technology is one thing, but getting today’s buyers to willingly pay for it is another, as shown by weak sales despite the already widespread use of hefty subsidies.

Pan-European efforts under the ECOCHAMPS project have led to the development of five hybrid vehicles boasting reduced CO2 emissions, higher efficiency and powertrains with reduced weight and volume, says the European Commission’s CORDIS News.

The current focus on electric vehicles as the cornerstone of future urban mobility shouldn’t make us forget that their hybrid counterparts have a future too – and that this future is now. With electric vehicle range and a lack of charging infrastructure still being a problem, hybrid vehicles are likely to become the preferred solution for travelling beyond city limits, but on one condition: the development of easy to integrate, cost-efficient hybrid powertrain technology.

The ECOCHAMPS (European COmpetitiveness in Commercial Hybrid and AutoMotive PowertrainS) project was created with this requirement in mind. Since May 2015, the 25-strong consortium – which includes light- and heavy-duty vehicle manufacturers FIAT, Renault, Daimler, Iveco, MAN and DAF Trucks – has been working on solutions to improve powertrain efficiency by up to 20 %, reduce powertrain weight and volume by up to 20 % and, broadly speaking, make hybrid vehicles more cost-effective.

The results of the project, which include a modular system and standardisation framework for hybrid electric drivetrain components and auxiliaries for commercial vehicles (available on the project website), a set of electric components for hybrid powertrains, and optimised drivelines, have been demonstrated in two light-duty and three commercial vehicles at TRL 7. These vehicles are a FIAT 500X, a Renault Megane, a medium-duty commercial truck, a city bus and a heavy tractor.

Guus Arts, coordinator of the project on behalf of DAF Trucks, discusses its outcomes and importance for the future of mobility in Europe.

Continued here.

Media extrapolating a trend from a single data point: 2018 Heatwave Edition

Image credit: BBC

Warren Meyer writes: ‘The implicit plea in this post goes beyond climate — if you are claiming a trend, show me the trend data. I can be convinced […] but so often the actual data never matches the arm-waving in these media sources.’

This article in something called Inside Climate News seems to be typical of many I have seen this year.

Because we have had much attention in the media on heat waves this year, there must be an upward trend in heat waves and that is a warning signal that man-made global warming is destroying the planet.

Typical of these articles are a couple of features

Breaking the climate spell

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Industrial economies can never be run on part-time low output power sources, no matter how much money is wasted on them at the expense of much more reliable and powerful alternatives. However, stating the obvious and expecting many of today’s political leaders to understand it are two different things, it seems.

Getting out of the Paris Agreement was just the first step on the road to a realist global energy policy, writes Rupert Darwall.

Thirteen years ago, a Republican president who had pulled the United States out of an onerous climate treaty faced isolation at the annual gathering of Western leaders.

Hothouse Earth

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The usual climate alarmists were bound to exploit the opportunity of summer heatwaves to push their agenda, but as climate sceptic Robert Walker points out here: ‘The article is mainly about things that could happen centuries to thousands of years into the future. … There are no dates in it, and there is no new fundamental research.’

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Latest crap from the warmist establishment, gleefully blown up by the BBC

Climate change: ‘Hothouse Earth’ risks even if CO2 emissions slashed

It may sound like the title of a low budget sci-fi movie, but for planetary scientists, “Hothouse Earth” is a deadly serious concept.

Researchers believe we could soon cross a threshold leading to boiling hot temperatures and towering seas in the centuries to come.

Even if countries succeed in meeting their CO2 targets, we could still lurch on to this “irreversible pathway”.

Their study shows it could happen if global temperatures rise by 2C.

An international team of climate researchers, writing in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says the warming expected in the next few decades could turn some of the Earth’s natural forces – that currently protect us – into our enemies.

Each year the Earth’s forests, oceans and land…

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Economists propose use of dynamic road fees for traffic control

This appears to be based around the same technology as used in car insurance tracking devices. In effect every road would potentially be a toll road, with variable charges according to whatever factors are applied.

In the current issue of Nature, economists Peter Cramton, Axel Ockenfels (both University of Cologne) and R. Richard Geddes (Cornell University) propose having drivers pay a dynamic fee for the use of roads, reports Green Car Congress.

This would contribute to avoiding traffic jams and protecting the environment, the researchers argue.

Frivolous climate change lawsuits could leave cities in ruin

Whether it’s budget cuts or ‘ruin’, the financial consequences of using the courts to promote their so-called climate policies have so far not been as desired by the US city authorities concerned. As the writer points out: ‘The risk that municipal plaintiffs will have to pay defendants’ cost of the trial, plus a penalty, depends on whether courts find the lawsuits to be frivolous.’

As much as we hear nowadays about making America great again, it’s worth asking what made America great in the first place, writes Bob McClure in the Washington Times.

Wind energy’s big disposal problem

German wind farm

Optimism – or is it wishful thinking? – may not be unusual among so-called greens, but merely hoping for solutions after creating the problems doesn’t look like much of a strategy.

Germany has more than 28,000 wind turbines — but many are old and by 2023 more than a third must be decommissioned. Disposing of them is a huge environmental problem.

Expert Jan Tessmer (coordinator on wind energy research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR)) tells DW he’s optimistic.

Gerald Marsh, A Theory of Ice Ages

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An interesting contribution to the ice age debate here. Problems with Milankovitch and CO2-related theories are discussed.

Thongchai Thailand

Gerald Marsh, retired Argonne National Laboratories Physicist, challenges the usual assumption that ice age cycles are initiated by Milankovich Cycles and driven by the Arrhenius effect of carbon dioxide. He says that the key variable here is “low altitude cloud cover” driven by cosmic rays. A paper worth reading.

ABSTRACT

1. The existing understanding of interglacial periods is that they
   are initiated by Milankovitch cycles enhanced by rising atmospheric
   carbon dioxide concentrations. During interglacials, global temperature is
   also believed to be primarily controlled by carbon dioxide concentrations,
   modulated by internal processes such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation
   and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Recent work challenges the
   fundamental basis of these conceptions.
2. INTRODUCTION
   The history of the role of carbon dioxide in climate begins with the work of Tyndall 1861 and later in 1896 by Arrhenius. The concept that carbon dioxide controlled climate fell into disfavor for a variety of reasons until…

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Nature Unbound IX – 21st Century Climate Change

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A wide-ranging discussion of climate scenarios here, including the likely efficiency of global carbon sinks and the pros and cons of a forthcoming solar grand minimum.

Climate Etc.

by Javier

A conservative outlook on 21st century climate change

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How Long Do We Have To Wait For Global Warming to be Proved? Is Thirty Years Enough?

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Since climate scares were first sponsored by governments, neither the theory of man-made causality nor the evidence for it have improved. Models have failed to predict what actually happened. Time’s almost up for alarmists.

American Elephants

Fool Me Once Shame on You,
Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me.

It was just 30 years ago this week that James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during a prolonged heat wave, which” he described as a climate event of cosmic significance.” Just to be sure he arranged for the meeting room to be warmer than usual. He expressed to the senators “his high degree of confidence” in “cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”

There was an accompanying paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research, and it ignited a world wide panic that continues today about the energy structure of the entire planet. So 30 years on we can pause and take a look at just how well his predictions have turned out, and check on how we are doing.

Mr. Hansen’s testimony described three possible…

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New study: The Sun and volcanoes caused the pause

Has the media been trying to bury bad news here? Embarrassingly bad news for its enthusiasm for supposed man-made global warming, that is.

Last week a team of researchers from the UK Met Office, the University of East Anglia, the University of Gothenburg, the University of Southern Queensland and the Sorbonne published in the journal Science Advances an interesting paper showing that the recent much debated and researched 21st century “slowdown” in global surface temperatures was real and could be explained by reduced solar activity and increased volcanic counteracting climate forcing from greenhouse gases.

It achieved almost no media coverage despite being published in a high profile journal, writes Dr David Whitehouse @ The GWPF.

Germany pours cold water over EU’s green energy ambitions

‘The donkey goes on to the ice until it breaks’ – German proverb [image credit: evwind.es]

A few political home truths get attacked by climate obsessives, but will voters see to it that some semblance of reality takes over from unrealistic ideologically motivated targets?
H/T The GWPF

Voters across Europe have lost faith in politics partly because of “unachievable targets” on renewable energy, said German Energy Minister Peter Altmaier, rejecting calls from a group of other EU countries to boost the share of renewables to 33-35% of the bloc’s energy mix by 2030.

Altmaier made the comments during an on-the-record exchange between the 28 EU energy ministers, who are gathered in Luxembourg today (11 June) for a meeting of the Energy Council.

Charles Moore: Trump has broken the spell of climate change mania

Climate crisis? [credit: BBC]

Not before time. Global temperatures haven’t been co-operating much with negative climate obsessions either.
H/T Daily Telegraph @ The GWPF.

Since Mr Trump walked out of the Paris agreement one year ago, it has been fascinating to watch the decline of media interest in “saving the planet”.

Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs on steel imports exactly a year after he announced that the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. The two decisions are unrelated, except that both reflect the character of his presidency.