Tourists shun Scottish regions hit by wind turbine ‘blight’

Whitelee wind farm, Scotland [image credit: Bjmullan / Wikipedia]

Wherever onshore wind turbines are built there will also be networks of electricity pylons to carry the power away. Tourism is big business in windy Scotland.

A survey carried out on behalf of the John Muir Trust (JMT) found that 55% of respondents were “less likely” to venture into areas of the countryside industrialised by giant turbines, electricity pylons and super-quarries, reports The Times (via GWPF).

Just 3% said they were “more likely” to visit such areas, while 26% said such large-scale developments would make “no difference”. The poll has rekindled calls for Scottish ministers to increase protection for wild and scenic areas that, it is argued, will protect rural tourism businesses.

Switzerland’s carbon capture plant is a giant waste of money

Trees ‘remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues.’ – Wikipedia

If absorbing carbon dioxide is the idea, which is better value for money: big technology, or plain old-fashioned trees?

On May 31, 2017, the world’s first commercial atmospheric carbon-capture plant opened for business in Hinwil, Switzerland, reports Climate Change Dispatch.

The plant, designed and operated by a Swiss company called Climeworks, is different from existing carbon-capture facilities because it filters carbon dioxide out of the ambient atmosphere using proprietary technology, rather than from industrial exhaust, which is quite common.

Climeworks claims their facility will be able to remove 900 tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. Furthermore, its modular design will allow it to be scaled up as the demand for carbon dioxide increases.

What do they plan to do with said carbon?

Alan Carlin: A particularly lunatic week for climate alarmism

The Climate Industrial Complex (CIC) cannot be accused of thinking small, as Carlin Economics and Science explains.

At the state level, the approval of California bill SB52 by both houses of the state legislature means carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must be lowered to levels 40% below levels measured in 1990.

This is expected to necessitate the development of massive numbers of new regulations and policies that will allow the state government to control and dictate virtually every aspect of Californians’ lives in the opinion of one observer, including:

You’re Calling Me “Anti Science?”

Credit: BBC

A brief run-through of some of the problems with ‘man-made warming’ theories, which so often get swept under the carpet and treated as unmentionable.

One of the main accusations launched by climate activists is that anyone arguing against man-made global warming is “anti-science.”

They tell us that the science is “settled,” and that anyone who objects is ignoring a blindingly obvious set of facts.

But what to do about someone like me, asks Steven Wright in Climate Change Dispatch?

Climate of unintended consequences – NYT

Bret Stephens at The New York Times delves into the erroneous ‘climate-friendly’ image of biofuels, and questions the claimed success of renewables in general. Not new criticisms, but new for the NYT at least.

A few extracts from the piece:
“Converting biomass feedstocks to biofuels is an environmentally friendly process. So is using biofuels for transportation. When we use bioethanol instead of gasoline, we help reduce atmospheric CO2.”

These confident assurances come from “Biofuels: A Solution for Climate Change,” a paper published in 1999 by the Clinton administration’s Department of Energy. Feels a little dated in its scientific assumptions, doesn’t it?

New Study Confirms: The Warming ‘Pause’ Is Real And Revealing

Credit: concernusa.org

GWPF Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse takes a close look at some recent developments in the long-running global temperature ‘pause’ controversy.

A new paper has been published in the Analysis section of Nature called Reconciling controversies about the ‘global warming hiatus.’ It confirms that the ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ is real. It is also rather revealing.

It attempts to explain the ‘Pause’ by looking into what is known about climate variability. They say that four years after the release of the IPCC AR5 report, which contained much about the ‘hiatus’ it is time to see what can be learned.

One could be a little sarcastic in saying why would Nature devote seven of its desirable pages to an event that some vehemently say never existed and maintain its existence has been disproved long ago.

Now, however, as the El Nino spike of the past few years levels off, analysing the ‘pause’ seems to be coming back into fashion.

Alan Carlin: Second edition of path-breaking research report shows the Orwellian nature of the “March for Science”

Despite Saturday’s so-called “March for Science,” the almost simultaneous release of a Second Edition of a Research Report showing the exact opposite of what some of the marchers claim to be the conclusions of climate science, has brought home the Orwellian reality that the marchers have gotten their claims concerning what the science says exactly backwards, as Alan Carlin explains.

The Climate March website says their forces of “The Resistance” won’t tolerate institutions that try to “skew, ignore, misuse or interfere with science.”

If the marchers really support science, they should be supporting climate skeptics, not the climate alarmists. How Orwellian can you get? The science is clear.

Steven Koonin: A ‘Red Team’ exercise would strengthen climate science

H/T GWPF

Put the ‘consensus’ to a test, and improve public understanding, through an open, adversarial process, says Steven Koonin in the Wall Street Journal.
– – –
Tomorrow’s March for Science will draw many thousands in support of evidence-based policy making and against the politicization of science.

A concrete step toward those worthy goals would be to convene a “Red Team/Blue Team” process for climate science, one of the most important and contentious issues of our age.

The national-security community pioneered the “Red Team” methodology to test assumptions and analyses, identify risks, and reduce—or at least understand—uncertainties.

Discussion thread: reactions to House Hearing

.
.
The more open discussion of actual climate issues, the better for everyone.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

Climate Feedback has interviewed a number of scientists regarding the recent House Hearing on climate science.

View original post 1,305 more words

Harvard Engineers Plan New “Real World” Geoengineering Experiment

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

How the recent El Niño saved climate models

Credit: livescience.com

Once the El Niño crutch is kicked away, what have climate models got left in terms of warming apart from ‘the pause’? Not a lot, according to this analysis.
H/T GWPF

El Ninos can be used to make computer climate models look better than they are, for a short time at least, says Dr. David Whitehouse.

The message one is trying to get across when communicating science can depend much on what one doesn’t say. Leaving something vital out can make all the difference and when it’s done it can make scientists look like politicians, although not sophisticated ones.

As an example of what I mean consider the El Niño phenomenon – a short-term oceanographic weather event. The El Niño can be used to make computer climate models look better than they are, for a short time at least.

James Delingpole Dumps on the Great Wind Power Fraud

.
.
The tide is starting to turn, in America at least.

STOP THESE THINGS

James Delingpole has been slugging it out with lunatics from the Greenblob for more than a decade. Now, as the world wakes up to the scale and scope of the great wind power fraud, Slim Jim finds himself on the right side of history. Here he is letting the world know about it.

Why Renewables Are Doomed and Fossil Fuels Are the Future
Breitbart
James Delingpole
9 February 2017

We’re on the verge of a new energy revolution. Except it’s the exact opposite of the one the “experts” at places like BP, the International Energy Agency and – ahem – the Guardian are predicting.

For years we’ve been assured by politicians, energy industry specialists and green advocates that renewables such as wind and solar are getting more and more cost-competitive while dirty fossil fuels are so discredited and wrong and evil we’ll soon have to leave them in the ground.

But…

View original post 2,001 more words

Diesel cars under attack in UK air pollution row

Image credit: carmagazine.co.uk

The predictable war on diesel cars is underway. The days of promoting them as ‘climate-friendly’ are over, in the UK at least. Diesel trucks, vans and buses are overlooked.

London’s air pollution problem is so bad that just five days into 2017 Brixton had already used up its traffic fume allowance for the year, reports iNews.

Brixton has since been overtaken by Knightsbridge as Britain’s most polluted district so far this year. The wealthy west London suburb has exceeded the EU nitrogen dioxide (NO2) limit for a total of 52 hours already this year, nearly three times the legal annual allowance of 18 hours, according to the latest figures from Dr Gary Fuller at King’s College London.

But traffic pollution is by no means confined to these London hotspots.

Are Climate Alarmists Glassy-Eyed Cultists?

If not, then certainly mildly irritating to some people anyway. 😎
H/T GWPF

The word “cult” may be a little over the top, but whatever it is, it sure isn’t science, says The Manhattan Contrarian.

Will Happer is an eminent physicist at Princeton who has chosen (along with his colleague Freeman Dyson) to plant a flag on the skeptic side of the climate debate. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Happer on a couple of occasions.

Recently his name has been floated as a potential candidate for the position of Science Advisor to President Trump. (This is the position that has been held by eco-fanatic John Holdren during the Obama presidency.)  Although it is not final, and others remain in the running, Happer has said that he will take the position if offered.

Yesterday Happer gave an interview to the Guardian newspaper. When it came to the issue of “climate change,” Happer didn’t pull any punches.

David Whitehouse: Data, Deflection And The Pause

The arguments stirred up by the NOAA’s ‘pausegate’ whistleblower rumble on. A UK Met Office expert asserted ‘the slowdown hasn’t gone away’. This one could run and run.

David Rose’s splendid and significant article in last week’s Mail on Sunday certainly caused a stir. The initial reaction, mostly distractions, have been easily dealt with by David Rose in this week’s installment.

One of the points raised concerned a paper submitted to the Journal of Climate by Huang et al. It is about the new ERSSTv5 sea surface temperature dataset.

It is an interesting paper that claims that ERSSTv5 shows a lower rate of warming than the previous ERSSTv4 which was used by the now famous Karl et al paper in 2015 which claimed that — contrary to the IPCC — there had been no slowdown in the rate of temperature increase in the past 15 years or so – the so-called Pause.

One persistent activist said the paper was stolen and it was unethical to comment on it. In reality the preprint was obtained from a public webpage, anyone could have downloaded it. It has been in circulation for weeks.

The new ‘climate denial’

.
.
In a world of soundbites a two-word label is about the limit before people mentally switch off.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

Interesting article in The Atlantic, but I’m still trying to figure out what is being ‘denied.’

View original post 1,032 more words

Planning permission for Scottish wind farm refused due to ‘significant’ visual harm

Windfarm objection in Galloway

Galloway has some great landscapes and doesn’t need to be disfigured any further by such intrusive monstrosities.

A Scottish government reporter has refused planning permission for a 12-turbine wind farm in Galloway, reports BBC News. He ruled the Shennanton project north of Kirkcowan would have a “significant adverse impact” on the landscape.

Brookfield Renewable had appealed over Dumfries and Galloway Council’s failure to determine its application. The reporter said the significant local support and boost for renewable energy targets did not outweigh the harm to the character of the area.

Wood burners or diesel vehicles – what’s behind London’s air pollution ?

Bad air day in London [image credit: BBC]

At one time diesel vehicles were given tax concessions in the UK due to lower emissions of CO2 than petrol equivalents, but that tide is turning now.

London’s pollution problem worsened this week – so much so that it briefly overtook Beijing in the filthy-air department for the first time – an alarming development widely attributed to the rapidly growing use of household wood burners, as iNews reports.

Readings on Monday afternoon showed that the air in parts of London contained 197 micrograms per cubic metre of ‘particulate’ matter, compared to 190 in the Chinese capital.

Politicizing Science at the US Dept. of Energy

.
.
Changing rules just before leaving office does seem a bit – let’s say – strange.

Big Picture News, Informed Analysis

Liberating scientists to talk about their research is sensible. Inciting them to criticize government policy does nothing to enhance scientific integrity.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) describes itself as the “largest federal sponsor of basic research in physical sciences.” It consumes $32 billion in federal spending annually, funding numerous projects connected to climate change and renewable energy.

Earlier this month,the DOE decided itsscientific integrity policy, last updated in 2014, was wholly inadequate. With nine days remaining inthe Obama administration, energy Secretary Ernest Moniz unveiled a brand new policy at the National Press Club.

The old policywas three pages long. The new one runs to seven pages, and represents a dramatic departure from what had been the status quo.

Under the old policy, DOE-affiliated scientists were only permitted to speak about scientific matters to the media or at public events after they’d received permission from “their immediate supervisor and…

View original post 1,074 more words

Vahrenholt rails against the ‘climate priests’

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

Grasping the nettle of reporting the views of leading German climate sceptic Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, PEI magazine airs several awkward issues arising from Germany’s ambitious – he says reckless – energy policies.

At a mid-January meeting in parliament buildings in London, Professor Fritz Vahrenholt provided a very detailed monologue on the motivations behind Germany’s energy transition, and why he feels it’s misguided and potentially disastrous, writes Diarmid Williams.

Had the lecture been delivered by somebody from the coal power sector, they might have been written off as a ‘climate denier’, but given Vahrenholt’s background and pedigree as a backer of renewable energy, he is not so easily dismissed and his position must cause some unease for those so adamant that climate change is man-made.