The unstoppable rise of the SUV

Electric SUV concept car [image credit: motorauthority.com]

The report headline also claims this ‘is terrible news for the planet’, because they are obsessing about harmless trace gases in the atmosphere. But the motoring public don’t seem to share their misplaced concerns, as ever-popular SUVs outnumber electric vehicles by about 40 to 1 worldwide.

Sales of hefty and heavily-polluting SUVs have doubled in the last decade – outweighing the progress made from electric vehicles, says WIRED. Can cleaner SUVs offer a way out?

The phenomenal rise of the SUV all started with a squabble over chicken.

It was 1963 – the height of the Cold War – and US president Lyndon Johnson was fuming over a tax that France and West Germany had imposed on cheap, intensively-farmed US chicken flooding European supermarkets.

In December 1963, after months of failed negotiations, Johnson retaliated.

Opinion – Carbon capture and storage: Hasn’t Alberta learned its lesson?

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) [credit: cnet.com]

The author points to a recent report on CCS in a science journal which found “that it reduces only a small fraction of carbon emissions, and it usually increases air pollution.” Or in layman’s terms, it’s a waste of time and money even for greenhouse gas theory devotees.

Politicians tend to use CCS as a distraction when they don’t have a workable plan, says Graham Thomson @ CBC News.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

An Alberta cabinet minister walks into a news conference and praises the merits of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a way to significantly reduce the province’s emissions of greenhouse gases.

Not much of a joke, I know.

It wasn’t funny when on October 8, 2009 Alberta Energy Minister Mel Knight declared of CCS, “This, ladies and gentlemen, is action, action that will have immediate results locally as it markedly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”

Claim: fossil fuel divestment will increase CO2 emissions, not lower them

So what, you may say. But it shows up some of the woolly thinking of so-called climate activists. Lacking viable alternatives, the major role of fossil fuels in the global economy is bound to continue so suppliers will have their market. Believing that trace gases can somehow disturb the climate in a negative way isn’t going to change that.

A global campaign encouraging individuals, organizations and institutional investors to sell off investments in fossil fuel companies is gathering pace. According to 350.org, US$11 trillion has already been divested worldwide.

But, while it may seem a logical strategy, divestment will not lower demand for fossil fuels, which is the key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In fact, it may even cause emissions to rise, argues The Conversation @ Phys.org.

No, Venice isn’t flooding due to climate change

Another Venice flood

H/T Climate Change Dispatch

A similar flood in 1966 gives the lie to the latest alarmist claims. In any case, everyone knows Venice has been sinking for centuries.
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Venice is flooded – again – and its mayor Luigi Brugnaro is blaming climate change.

Except that’s rubbish, says James Delingpole.

This has become the standard dog-ate-my-homework excuse for desperate politicians and administrators who want to dodge their responsibilities while simultaneously attracting media sympathy and aid money.

Legacy of Climategate – 10 years later

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Interesting reading especially for teenage ‘climate activists’ who won’t remember the uproar at the time.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

My reflections on Climategate 10 years later, and also reflections on my reflections of 5 years ago.

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Prof. Ian Plimer: Earth is ‘not in a period of extinction’

‘Belief is in politics and religion, not science…follow the money’, says Professor Plimer.

Geologist and earth scientist Ian Plimer says the globe is not facing a climate emergency, telling Sky News Australia that “we are actually still living in an ice age.”

Professor Plimer’s comments come after Extinction Rebellion protesters have been calling on the government to declare a climate emergency – something the scientist said isn’t necessary.

“We live in horribly boring times,” he said.

A Call To Arms: Can This World Survive Without Fossil Fuels?

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One for the climate hotheads (and others) to ponder: ‘From one 42-gallon barrel of oil only about half is for fuels while the rest is used to manufacture the chemicals and by-products that are part of our daily lifestyles.’

PA Pundits - International

By Ronald Stein ~

“God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the Courage to change the things I can change; and the Wisdom to know the difference.”

The afore-quoted Serenity Prayer came to mind while I was writing this because it seems applicable to the world’s citizens who are trying to attain the leadership roles in the save the environment movement before understanding the complexities of the energy picture depicted in the book Energy Made Easy and the advantages energy as a whole has provided humanity for the last couple of centuries.

Because developed countries have accomplished much in the last few centuries, they have a responsibility as caretakers for the only planet we live on right now. Understandably, it’s hard to imagine the billions of people in underdeveloped countries who have yet to experience anything like the industrial revolution and who are surviving without…

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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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The Climate Cult

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At least carbon dioxide can take comfort from its popularity in real greenhouses, as opposed to alarm-filled imaginary ones.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr and Burt Prelutsky ~

It is a phenomenon of modern life that as membership in the old established religions wane, cults continue to sprout up like toadstools. Most of them have a very limited number of adherents and unless 75 people are killed at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, or 900 are killed or commit suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, we don’t hear about cult leaders like David Koresh or Jim Jones.

Occasionally, a smaller cult manages to make the news when they commit mass suicide in order to board a spaceship that will take them to Cloud Cuckooland.

But when it comes to sheer numbers and influence, there’s nothing to match the doomsday cult that has sprung up in the wake of Al Gore’s warning us about the imminent threat of global extinction. What makes the longevity of…

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The Green Paradox: Why Europe’s climate policies increase global CO2 emissions

German coal operation

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Government attempts to interfere in power generation markets can and do have unintended consequences, including undermining their own intentions. The expert interviewed here says ‘eight times as many wind and solar power plants as today’ would be needed in Germany by 2050, to meet policy targets. Many of the obstacles that lie in the way also apply to other countries that want to pursue the ‘CO2 controls climate’ delusion.

German economist Johannes Bachmann explains the so-called ‘Green Paradox’ — when unilateral climate policies accelerate the worldwide extraction of fossil fuels and global CO2 emissions.
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Yesterday, 20 September, the so-called “Climate Cabinet” of Germany’s federal government met to set the course of German climate policy for the coming years. Christoph Kramer spoke with Johannes Bachmann about the so-called Green Paradox and the economic concepts that fuel it.

Dr Bachmann is an economist and a member of the Hayek Society. Two years ago he received his doctorate from Michael Bräuninger, a Hamburg economist and former research director of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI). In his dissertation Bachmann dealt with the effect of climate policy measures on CO2 emissions.

Christoph Kramer: Mr. Bachmann, if one looks into your dissertation as a layman it’s all Greek to me. Could you please briefly explain exactly what the thesis is about and what methodology you used?

Johannes Bachmann: I can well understand that. On the one hand, there are quite a few technical terms in the work, and on the other, there are many formulas. It is a typical dissertation: a work by an academic for academics.

The aim of the thesis was to examine the effects of climate policy measures on the supply side of fossil fuels. To this end, I calculated how owners of raw materials adjust their production quotas as a result of CO2 taxes or subsidies for renewable energies in order to continue generating as much revenue as possible. Why did I focus on the supply side of all things? The answer is: the quantity of fossil fuels that is extracted from the earth is also consumed.

E-bike grumbles echo in the Bavarian Alps

In the Bavarian Alps

Are power-assisted e-bikers on walking trails ‘cheating’ and/or a hazard to walkers? How many is too many?

Robert Werner and his wife Ursula usually make time to say a friendly hello to hikers as they ride their gently whirring e-bikes up trails in the Bavarian Alps, reports TechXplore.

But more often than not, their greetings are met with frowns.

“The first thing they look at when they see us are our bikes,” says hotelier Robert, 46, of his electric-powered bicycle.

“If we have an engine, they respect us less.”

While the Werners are convinced of the virtues of e-bikes which have pedals but also an electric motor that can assist the rider’s pedal power, others are less enthusiastic about the new revolution in cycling.

On their e-bikes, the couple powers up the 800-metre (2,600-foot) ascent to the summit of Herzogstand mountain in half an hour—without breaking a sweat.

Many purists believe exploits into nature should be powered by muesli bars, not the electricity grid, and regard the assisted cycling boom as another hi-tech intrusion into the great outdoors.

Former National Grid director says Britain should impose limits on new wind and solar farms to avoid blackouts

Image credit: thecount.com

H/T The GWPF / The Sunday Telegraph

Is this really the main problem? On a windless or low-wind winter evening shortly after dark, little output can be expected from wind – and none from solar – sources. This is where the power cuts seem most likely to happen due to demand exceeding supply, if too much ‘traditional’ power generation (coal, gas, nuclear) is closed down in favour of so-called renewables, which may need renewing every 15-20 years or so. Blind pursuit of misguided climate-related ideologies ignores, or tries to play down, these issues.

Ministers should impose limits on the construction of new wind and solar farms to help avoid a nationwide blackout, according to a former director of National Grid.

Colin Gibson, who was power network director of Britain’s electricity system, claimed that some existing turbines and solar panels may have to be disconnected, and new developments restricted, to “secure” the system after major power cuts earlier this month.

In an analysis co-written by Dr Capell Aris, a former grid engineer, Mr Gibson states that the system failure revealed several “serious problems” with the operation of the national electricity network, which require an “immediate, independent, expert review”.

Their intervention comes amid a government inquiry into the outage, which occurred after the Little Barford gas-fired power station in Cambridgeshire and a major wind farm off the Yorkshire coast both temporarily stopped producing electricity.

According to the Financial Times, a provisional report by National Grid suggested that the wind farm may have tripped offline seconds before the Little Barford power station.

The blackout affected a million people in London and the South East, the Midlands, the South West, Yorkshire, the North East, Cornwall and Wales.

National Grid, the firm that operates the country’s power network, has insisted that unpredictable wind power generation was not to blame.

Full article here.

Roy Spencer – July 2019 was not the warmest on record

Image credit: livescience.com

A way of getting around some of the questionable data manipulations in vogue at present is proposed. Whether it would appeal to the ‘offenders’, so to speak, is another matter.

July 2019 was probably the 4th warmest of the last 41 years, writes Dr. Roy Spencer.

Global “reanalysis” datasets need to start being used for monitoring of global surface temperatures.

We are now seeing news reports (e.g. CNN, BBC, Reuters) that July 2019 was the hottest month on record for global average surface air temperatures.

One would think that the very best data would be used to make this assessment. After all, it comes from official government sources (such as NOAA, and the World Meteorological Organization [WMO]).

But current official pronouncements of global temperature records come from a fairly limited and error-prone array of thermometers which were never intended to measure global temperature trends.

Alan Carlin: Unilateral US Decarbonization Could Have Serious Economic Consequences

Credit: chicagotribune.com

As the energy policies of various countries sink ever further into the realms of fantasy over the imagined role of minor trace gases in the atmosphere, what will the US do – or not do?

The current unilateral US decarbonization proposals by various Democrats promoting the Green New Deal (GND) climate schemes suffer from two particularly crucial assumptions that they have made, says Alan Carlin.

One is the extremely doubtful assumption that CO2 levels determine temperatures as opposed to temperatures determining CO2 levels. The assumption being made is that it is the atmospheric CO2 level that is the critical determinant of temperatures.

If this is wrong, as I believe it is, any dollar spent on decarbonization will provide no benefits in terms of global temperatures.

Response to Roy Spencer Regarding His Support of Flat Earth

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Readers can comment on this disagreement/misunderstanding/debate here at The Talkshop and/or at Joe Postma’s own website (link below).

Roy Spencer’s post that kicked it off is here.

[UPDATE: follow-up video to the one shown below – here.]

Climate of Sophistry

Roy Spencer published an article today stating that I am incorrectly ranting about the fraud of flat Earth theory making its way into modern physics via climate science.  I analyze his statement and expose that climate science truly is indeed flat Earth theory: it is baked into the mathematics!

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CO2 Exonerated

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Man-made climate alarm? No – nothing to see, move along please.

Science Matters

Vijay Jayaraj makes the case for carbon emissions in relation to the question: Will My Carbon Footprint Benefit or Harm the Environment? May 28, 2019 at Cornwall Alliance. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and images. (Follow the title link to the article for many supporting reference links)

My cousin in California is excited about buying a Tesla. “It is environmentally friendly” he says. Maybe you agree. My friends in India, too, are excited about buying electric cars. They think doing so will help them prevent global warming.

But the evidence suggests otherwise.

Almost every environmental policy now makes reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the only way to “go green.” Advocates have even persuaded school children to strike against fossil fuels.

But as a climate scientist, I’ve researched the pros and cons of CO2. What have I found? That our CO2 emissions will actually benefit the planet, not harm…

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Feel Free To Exhale

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Once more: CO2 is not a pollutant.

PA Pundits - International

By Craig Rucker ~

Global warming campaigners aren’t very good at being green.

There’s their bird and bat chopping wind turbines, lifeless fields covered over by solar panel silicone, and generating electricity by grinding trees into pellets and burning them as “renewable” biomass.

Then there’s their demonization of CO2, the gas you just exhaled.

CO2 is the gas of life.  Plants are green because they use chlorophyll to convert CO2 and water into glucose and oxygen.  That’s where food comes from.

CFACT senior policy analyst Bonner Cohen posted a thoughtful meditation on the benefits of CO2 at CFACT.org:

What if manmade CO2 isn’t the villain deep-thinking elites say it is? What if rising levels of atmospheric CO2 are instead fighting the scourge of malnutrition in the world’s poorest regions? A new White Paper, “What Rising CO2 Means for Global Food Security,” published by the CO2 Coalition points out that…

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Alan Carlin: The weird reality of world climate policy

Maybe one day enough people will discover that, as the author says: ‘The major effect of decarbonization is higher energy costs and lower reliability of energy supplies, particularly electricity.’ Buying a climate is not a realistic or sensible notion.

Climate policies vary greatly by country says Alan Carlin.

For convenience I will characterize a move towards greater government-imposed “decarbonization” as a move to the left; and I will call less such decarbonization or fewer climate government regulations or fewer market-distorting subsidies to be a move towards the right.

The current optimal climate policy is to take no current actions unless and until it is clearly shown that adverse changes in global temperatures are occurring and it is worthwhile in terms of benefits and costs to take effective actions to reduce global temperatures.

Since this has never been shown, no action is justified until it is.

Carbon Is Not A Synonym For Carbon Dioxide

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As the author says: Deceit is the name of the game. To further the aims of propagandists with a political agenda, the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide gets branded as ‘pollution’ despite being essential and beneficial to plants, trees etc.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr ~

From the very day that Al Gore signed his name to the well known book, An Inconvenient Truth, the general population was told that carbon emissions were going to destroy our planet. Gore, more or less, coined the term “carbon footprint” (while always hiding the enormity of his own footprint). Gore and his cohorts were never actually talking about carbon. They were talking about carbon dioxide.

Initially they understood that most people recognize that they exhale carbon dioxide and plants absorb it in order to live. Not a dark thought. So in a universally evil desire to scare the populace, they seized on using the term carbon as a synonym for carbon dioxide knowing it would conjure up visions of soot, lamp black and coal dust none of which were warm and fuzzy. Carbon is a solid. Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas…

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Big Green, Inc. : The money fuelling the environmental left

H/T The GWPF.
A database listing $4.2 billion worth of grants represents a small fraction of the total financial investment and is just the tip of the iceberg, says the Institute for Energy Research.

Today’s environmental movement is fueled by a group of interconnected, left-leaning foundations that are seeking to disrupt the development of America’s energy resources.

In order to understand how these groups work together and where the environmental movement’s funding originates, IER developed Big Green, Inc., a database that tracks environmental grants stemming from 14 foundations and directed to over 1,900 grassroots activists groups and totaling more than $4.2 billion.

Our key findings include: