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.

UK’s clean car goal ‘not ambitious enough’, says professor

Credit: carsdirect.com

One of the sub-headings to this BBC News story is ‘Push and go faster’. That really would be a fuel saver if it worked 😉

The government’s ambition to clean up motor vehicles by 2040 is not ambitious enough, a leading energy expert says.

Professor Jim Watson, head of the prestigious UK Energy Research Centre, said the target should be at least five years earlier, as in Scotland.

Green Europe may be on the verge of blackouts

We’re supposed to believe that coal-hungry Germany and forest-clearing biomass-burning Britain are impressively ‘green’. Their obsessive renewables bias has made new gas-fired power stations hard to justify for energy firms.
H/T The GWPF

Europe is facing power generation capacity shortages and may even risk blackouts without additional use of natural gas, one of the continent’s biggest producers of the fuel said.

“A severe shortage” in generation capacity is expected in the U.K., Germany, and Belgium, Tor Martin Anfinnsen, senior vice president for marketing and trading at Statoil ASA, said in an interview at a conference in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

There Is No Unprecedented Global Modern Warming

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A lay person’s view of the global warming furore. When we hear ‘unprecedented’ it usually turns out to mean ‘since about 1979’, which obviously leaves out most of Earth’s history.

American Elephants

You have heard the wailing and screaming about President Trump’s exit from the Paris Climate Accords, but do you understand that the agreement, never ratified by the U.S. government (NOT a treaty) accomplished nothing at all to modify or change the climate. The climate of the earth has been changing mildly for millions of years, and there is no unprecedented Global-Scale modern warming. The “Accords” were designed to transfer large amounts of wealth from the rich nations to the poor nations, ostensibly to allow them to save themselves from that non-existent unprecedented warming.

There are two kinds of climate science that we are dealing with. One is based on satellite measurements and thermometer readings and recorded history. The other is based on computer programs, based, I believe on computer programs that were designed to forecast what the financial markets were going to do. They took what they knew about the…

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New subsidies for ageing European wind farms, or death spiral?

German wind farm

Good luck dismantling and trying to recycle redundant end-of-life wind turbines and their massive concrete bases.

New academic research on whether to repower or extend the lifetime of an obsolescent wind farm in Europe reveals that without new subsidies for repowered sites, low cost lifetime extensions focused on maximising return before decommissioning are more probable, with a potential to affect about half the wind turbine fleet in Germany, Spain and Denmark.

In the absence of new subsidies, we could be looking at the beginning of the end for the wind industry in Europe, says The GWPF’s energy editor.

Alan Carlin: Both sides ignore the major finding of recent climate research

Image credit: livescience.com

The author poses what he calls the ‘major question’: why does CO2 have no significant effect on temperatures in the real world?
(See also this Press Release).

The major development in climate science in the last year or two is something almost no one talks about, says Alan Carlin – strong evidence that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have no significant effect on global temperatures in the real world over recent decades.

The studies involved conclude that the minor increases in global temperatures during this period can be entirely explained using natural factors.

Alan Carlin: Why Pruitt’s decision to end EPA “Secret Science” is so important

Who needs secrecy when public bodies are making important decisions that directly affect people – except for things like personal data, national security etc.? Censorship arouses suspicion, so showing evidence does matter.

This week EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt banned the use of “secret science” in EPA regulatory decision making. The Washington Post immediately cried foul, of course, by arguing that this would mean that important evidence would be ignored.

I argue, on the contrary, that it is very important that only evidence that is confirmed by the scientific method should ever be used.

Lawmaker torches Macron on Paris deal

Factory in China [image credit: Wikipedia]

As the Senator says of the Paris climate agreement: ‘It has no teeth’. But if it did have teeth there would surely be far more resistance to signing it.

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy noted one obvious problem Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent clarion call for the U.S. to stay connected to the Paris Climate agreement, reports The Daily Caller.

Exempting China and India from abiding to the non-binding deal is one of the main reasons why greenhouse gas emission are pitching upward, Cassidy said in an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade.

Environmental rules in the U.S. are causing companies to shift production to countries not tethered to the accord’s strict provisions.

No ‘Comparison’ Between Part-time Wind Power & Full-time Fossil Fuel

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Promoting public awareness of the high cost and lack of reliability of weather-dependent power generation is important. Once fortunes have been spent and national grid systems are creaking under the strain of on-off power, it’s much harder to change course.

STOP THESE THINGS

Renewables rent seekers keep telling us how cheap wind and solar are, compared to those ‘evil’ fossil fuels, coal and gas.

But ‘price’ and ‘value’ are not the same animals. What we pay for something, and what it’s worth depends entirely upon what we get. And, in relation to the consumption of electricity, whether or not we get it, at all.

Wind power might be ‘free’, but try purchasing it, at any price, when the wind stops blowing.

Comparing weather dependent wind generation with sources available, around-the-clock, irrespective of the weather, is a game played by intellectual pygmies. There is, of course, no comparison.

So when you’re faced with a pile of numbers said to show how wind stacks up against the big boys, the obvious retort is, ‘when’? When I need it, or when the wind is just right?

Donn Dears picks up that thread quite neatly in this…

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