Iveco CEO says Euro 7 vehicle emissions regulation is ‘plain stupid’

European Commission HQ, Brussels [image credit: Em_Dee @ Wikipedia]

The motor industry gets sandwiched between climate obsession and clean air fanaticism.
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The CEO of Italian truck and bus maker Iveco has condemned as “plain stupid” the Euro 7 standards which tighten vehicle emission limits for pollutants including nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide in the European Union from 2025, reports Euractiv.

Iveco Group’s Gerrit Marx said the regulation as currently drafted by the EU required cuts in emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulates which are “technically unfeasible”.

“The effort to get there is huge. And there is no real payback,” he said.

EU countries and lawmakers are due to negotiate the proposed legislation, which is designed to apply to cars and vans from July 1, 2025 and to buses and trucks two years later, this year.

Scientists evaluate Earth-cooling strategies with geoengineering simulations

Layers of Earth’s atmosphere

Q: What could possibly go wrong? A: Even the sky’s not the limit.
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A group of international scientists led by Cornell University is—more rigorously and systematically than ever before—evaluating if and how the stratosphere could be made just a little bit “brighter,” reflecting more incoming sunlight so that an ever-warming Earth maintains its cool, says Phys.org.

Their work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Solar radiation modification—or solar geoengineering, as it is sometimes called—is a potential climate change mitigation strategy that involves injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, so more sunlight bounces off the Earth’s atmosphere.

NOAA study finds reducing particulate air pollution in N America & Europe increases hurricanes in N Atlantic

The theme here is that aerosols have to some extent been having the opposite of the alleged effect of so-called greenhouse gases. This study, based on climate modelling, suggests at least some recent warming is linked to reductions in atmospheric aerosol content.
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A new NOAA study covering four decades of tropical cyclones found that reducing particulate air pollution in Europe and North America has contributed to an increase in the number of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic basin and a decrease in the number of these storms in the Southern Hemisphere, says Green Car Congress.

The open-access study, published in Science Advances, also found that the growth of particulate pollution in Asia has contributed to fewer tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific basin.

While a number of recent studies have examined how increasing greenhouse gas emissions are impacting global tropical cyclone activity, Hiroyuki Murakami examined the less studied and highly complex area of how particulate pollution in combination with climate changes is affecting tropical cyclones in different areas of the planet.

If That Tesla Battery Could Talk

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Replacing combustion with combustibility doesn’t make EV batteries as clean or green as is claimed.

Science Matters

Let’s imagine what an EV battery could tell us about its reality. A short story.  H/T Graeme Weber

The packed auditorium was abuzz; nobody seemed to know what to expect. The only hint was a large aluminum block sitting on a sturdy table on the stage.

When the crowd settled down, a scholarly-looking man walked out and put his hand on the shiny block, “Good evening,” he said, “I am here to introduce NMC532-X,” and he patted the block, “we call him NM for short,” and the man smiled proudly. “NM is a typical electric vehicle (EV) car battery in every way except one; we programmed him to send signals of the internal movements of his electrons when charging, discharging, and in several other conditions. We wanted to know what it feels like to be a battery. We don’t know how it happened, but NM began to talk after we…

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Clean energy’s dirty secret: How push for modern technology has made Chinese pond toxic

Image credit: researchgate.net

The report says ‘Water is still leaching from the tailings pond towards the nearby Yellow River – China’s “mother river”, its basin home to 160 million people’. Are climate obsessives and those in renewables-hungry governments content to look the other way?
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There is an open wound in Baotou, says Sky News.

This city in Inner Mongolia, northern China, is home to more than two million people.

A lake lies on the west of the city, one filled with a black grey sludge of toxic and radioactive material.

This is a tailings pond, a quaint name for what is really a dumping ground.

Scientists map Arctic aerosols to better understand regional warming

Arctic sea ice [image credit: Geoscience Daily]

Funny how climate science is so insistent on its dogma without knowing enough about aerosol effects, or cloud cover effects for that matter. Talk of ‘better understanding climate change’ is fine, but all we hear in the media is that the debate is over and it’s all cut and dried as far as alarmists are concerned?
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Scientists at EPFL and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have studied the chemical composition and origin—whether natural or anthropogenic—of aerosols in a region spanning from Russia to Canada, says Phys.org.

Their findings provide unique insights for helping researchers better understand climate change in the Arctic and design effective pollution-mitigation measures.

The work was made possible thanks to the joint effort of scientists from three continents.

NotZero: just 3% of air passengers use voluntary tuppence for ten miles miles carbon offset scheme.

We’re told that the majority of people in the UK are very concerned about global warming and climate change. But only 3% are so concerned that they are willing to pay even a trifling sum to offset their air miles. The Sunday Times carried a story about this and told us:

The airline offers all customers who are about to buy a ticket the chance to “fully offset your CO2 emissions for this flight” by paying a fee. The 730km journey from Dublin to Paris can be offset for €1.20, while a 486km journey from Dublin to London, one of the world’s busiest air routes, can be offset for 78c. Ryanair said: “The 3 per cent of customers that chose to go greener in 2019 has yet to substantially increase, with the impact of the pandemic on air travel potentially playing a part. To date, these customers have contributed €3.5 million to support environmental projects.”

NOT Zero: Less than 3% of Ryanair flyers willing to pay carbon offset
The Sunday Times, 6 February 2022

All of which begs two questions:

Firstly, why have polling organisations not asked consumers how much they’re will to pay to alleviate global warming before? Is it because the answers would reveal how unconcerned the large majority actually are?

Spain’s rare earths pit greens against tech security—and profit

Green blob [credit: storybird.com]

Messing up the local environment for whatever reason is always best done somewhere else. As government-mandated pursuit of renewable [sic] technologies ramps up, ever more industrial dirt-digging aka mining to meet demand is obviously inevitable. 
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Spain’s untapped rare earths are stoking tensions between mining companies and environmentalists and farmers who fear the devastating impact from extracting the minerals considered as essential for a high-tech and low-carbon economy, says Phys.org.

The group of 17 minerals are—despite their name—widely distributed across the globe, but exist in such thin concentrations that extracting even small quantities requires the processing of enormous quantities of ore.

Still, they are key ingredients in a range of high-tech and cutting-edge products, from wind turbines and electric vehicles to smart phones, medical devices and missile-guidance systems.

Heat pumps may cause dangerous water pollution, report warns

Domestic Air Source Heat Pump [image credit: UK Alternative Energy]

Forcing householders to replace gas boilers that release the harmless and vital trace gas CO2 with expensive heat pumps, to conform to curious and unproven climate-related ideas, may be an even worse plan than originally thought.
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Heat pumps are widely regarded as a silver bullet to the problem of decarbonising heating systems, but a new report from the German government suggests the refrigerants used in many units may have serious environmental impacts, particularly on water, says Renew Economy.

The findings do not spell doom for the heat pump revolution many climate activists want to see, but they would require a significant overhaul in the way many air conditioner and heat pump manufacturers build their systems.

The report, the result of a two year study by the German Environment Agency, concerns the use of halogenated refrigerants – known in the English speaking world as hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) – in air conditioners and heat pumps.

It concludes that their use is already adding significant amounts trifluoroacetate acid (TFA) to the atmosphere, contaminating rain and water supplies, and potentially causing health problems such as liver and kidney damage.

Climate spies: Has new MI6 boss read the Paris Agreement?

Another climate job creation scheme gets launched at public expense. Not understanding the clear difference between climate and pollution issues is a poor start.
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Richard Moore, the new chief of the UK’s secret service, suggests countries such as China will be watched to ensure climate commitments are kept, says The Daily Telegraph (via The Global Warming Policy Forum).

What climate commitment? Has nobody at MI6 informed Mr Moore about the Paris Agreement?

After all, under international law, China, India, and all emerging and developing nations are exempt from any CO2 emission cuts until 2030 or later.

MI6 is placing the climate emergency at the forefront of its international espionage with “green spying” on the world’s big polluters, its new chief has revealed.

Richard Moore, head of the UK’s foreign intelligence service, described climate change as the “foremost international foreign policy item for this country and for the planet”.

It means the big industrial countries will be monitored by MI6 to ensure they are upholding their commitments to combating rising global temperatures.

Mr Moore, known as ‘C’, took charge of the intelligence agency in October and has become the first head of the service to ever give a broadcast interview.

He indicated that British spies will make China the focus of much of their climate-related espionage by pointing out that Beijing is “certainly the largest emitter” of carbon.

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Continued here.

Aerosol particles cool the climate less than we thought

Another pillar of ‘settled’ climate science trembles. It’s described as ‘one of the largest uncertainties faced by climate scientists.’ Is there a list of these uncertainties somewhere?
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The impact of atmospheric aerosols on clouds and climate may be different than previously thought, reports Phys.org.

That is the conclusion of cloud researcher Franziska Glassmeier from TU Delft. The results of her study will be published in Science on Friday, January 29th.

Cloud decks cover vast stretches of the subtropical oceans. They cool the planet because they reflect incoming sunlight back to space.

Air pollution in the form of aerosols—particles suspended in the atmosphere—can increase this cooling effect because it makes clouds brighter.

The cooling effect of pollution offsets part of the warming effect of greenhouse gases. How much exactly, is one of the largest uncertainties faced by climate scientists.

Ship tracks

A striking illustration of clouds becoming brighter as a result of aerosols, is provided by shipping emissions in the form of “ship tracks.” These are visible as bright lines within a cloud deck that reveal the paths of polluting ships that travel beneath the clouds.

“Such ship tracks are a good example of how aerosol effects on clouds are traditionally thought of, and of how they are still represented in most climate models,” says Glassmeier.

But according to the cloud researcher, ship tracks do not tell the whole story.

Continued here.

Biden Should Help Clean Up The Developing World’s Exotic Mining Tragedy

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Cobalt was declared as ‘reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen’ in 2016.

PA Pundits International

By Ronald Stein ~

Reducing America’s emissions (if that’s your thing) is a major goal of President Elect Biden’s platform, but it should not be implemented by “leaking” environmental degradation and human atrocities to foreign countries that are supplying the exotic minerals and metals to support green electricity. Biden has an opportunity to follow the lead of the United Nations and Amnesty International as the efforts to achieve net zero emissions must not be built on human rights abuses or on non-existent environmental regulations in foreign countries.

Biden’s “war on pollution”, will require worldwide transparency of supply chains, and environmental and labor protection laws and standards to control the environmental degradation and humanity atrocities occurring around the world from the mining in the foreign countries that dominate the supply chain of the exotic minerals and metals to support wind turbines, solar panels and EV battery construction.

The dark side of…

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France plans to jail ‘ecocide’ offenders for up to 10 years under new laws

CO2 is not pollution

A selected handful of the citizens of France have spoken, so the die is cast. No-one wants pollution, but do they intend to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant (like the USA), or even as a ‘danger to the environment’? Tell it to the plants and vegetation that rely on CO2 from photosynthesis to produce glucose, essential to survival.
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Environmental offenders could be handed a fine of up to €4.5 million, or 10 years in prison. The law is meant to punish those who commit a “general crime of pollution” or “endanger the environment”, says DW.com.

France is set to make serious intentional damage to the environment punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of a planned “ecocide” law, government ministers said in remarks published on Sunday.

The law was proposed following a recommendation made by the Citizens’ Convention for the Climate, an environmental committee of 150 people, created by the government a year ago.

Brexit: Ireland’s land bridge to the continent boosts UK ’emissions’

Dublin-Holyhead ferry link [image credit: Stena Line]

The report below refers to air pollution but ignores carbon dioxide emissions, which are *supposed to be* a much bigger problem according to climate obsessives.
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A no-deal Brexit could cost up to 5,000 jobs in Ireland’s fisheries, but it’s not just access to the UK’s coastal waters that the country is hoping to hold on to in any post-Brexit arrangement, says The Conversation @ Phys.org.

Perhaps more important to Ireland is the UK’s motorway network.

Every year, more than 150,000 trucks transport over 3 million tons of freight to and from Ireland to the rest of the single market across the UK land bridge.

One route involves goods being shipped from Dublin to Holyhead by ferry and then by road to Dover before being shipped to Calais.

It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of this land bridge for Ireland.

Ian Plimer: The Australian Press Council is a hive of climate zealots

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

Truth-starved climate propaganda and its backers get a good going-over from the ever-robust Professor.

H/T Climate Change Dispatch
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As a result of an activist campaign, the Australian Press Council took exception to my article in The Australian on November 22, 2019, says Ian Plimer @ Spectator AU.

They claimed that my statement that there “are no carbon emissions. If there were, we could not see because most carbon is black. Such terms are deliberately misleading, as are many claims” was false.

Journalists in the Press Council should know basic English and the difference between an element (carbon) and a compound (carbon dioxide).

This is elementary schoolkid’s science. For the Press Council to claim that this is factually incorrect shows breathtaking ignorance.

Road plans will scupper CO2 targets, report says

Image credit: RAC

Hardly a day goes by without a climate propaganda item from the BBC, and here’s another one, laced with pollution claims as well. Now it’s claimed even electric cars are bad for the environment, if not for the climate. No mention of trucks, buses, taxis, tractors, vans and the like, which can’t work from home or switch to cycling. The madness never ends.
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The vast majority of emissions cuts from electric cars will be wiped out by new road-building, a report says.

The government says vehicle emissions per mile will fall as zero-emissions cars take over Britain’s roads.

But the report says the 80% of the CO2 savings from clean cars will be negated by the £27bn planned roads programme, reports BBC News.

It adds that if ministers want a “green recovery” the cash would be better spent on public transport, walking, cycling, and remote-working hubs.

And they point out that the electric cars will continue to increase local air pollution through particles eroding from brakes and tyres.

Cities with worst air pollution have bigger coronavirus outbreaks, say scientists

Correlation is not necessarily causation of course. People in cities are likely to come into close contact with higher numbers of other potentially-infected people, by the very nature of things. There’s also an attempt to link coronavirus problems to fuel burning in this article: ‘Long-term exposure to air pollutants from car exhaust fumes or burning fossil fuels can put people at risk of these health conditions, and can also increase the risk of infection by viruses that affect people’s airways.’
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Higher air pollution has been linked to coronavirus as a study by Cambridge University says cities with the worst air have bigger outbreaks of cases, says the Daily Telegraph.

An analysis by the Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit compared regional data on total Covid-19 cases and deaths, against levels of three major air pollutants.

Almost half of UK drivers ‘consider EV switch in the wake of Covid-19’

How many were aware of the likely costs compared to fuel powered vehicles, before answering the questions? Improving urban air quality is no doubt a sound idea, but attempting to link EVs to climate – not so much.
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A quarter of people say they will become an EV driver in the next five years, according to a new survey, reports Energy Live News.

Coronavirus is convincing people to buy electric vehicles (EVs) with 45% of UK drivers claiming they would consider swapping their current car for an EV in the wake of the pandemic.

That’s according to a new poll conducted by Venson Automotive Solutions, which reports the current lockdowns around the world and the radical improvement on air pollution as a result of the demobilisation of transport have a positive impact on people’s awareness of the benefits to the environment.

We need health warning labels on points of sale of fossil fuels – The BMJ

Schemes to ramp up climate alarm propaganda with ‘warming’ [sic] labels are already in the pipeline e.g. in Sweden. They try to claim a health risk from the warmer weather they feel sure lies ahead, while pointing the finger at humans for this supposed problem and equating it to tobacco smoking. If the pollution doesn’t get you, the climate emergency will…type of thing. Crude stuff loosely based on dodgy climate models.
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Mike Gill and colleagues explain how the implementation of of fossil fuel labelling could have a significant impact on the awareness of climate change, says The British Medical Journal blog. This article is part of The BMJ’s Health in the Anthropocene collection.

The use of fossil fuels should be rapidly reduced to keep the global mean temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels—a core goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Emphasising the risks to health of fossil fuel use, now and in the future, could motivate action.

Emissions Analytics finds pollution from tire wear can be 1,000x worse than exhaust emissions

Credit: carsdirect.com

As Green Car Congress points out, weight is a major factor for vehicles and EV batteries are heavy. Time to look at real issues instead of non-existent ‘carbon pollution’.

Pollution from tire wear can be 1,000 times worse than a car’s exhaust emissions, Emissions Analytics has found.

Emissions Analytics is an independent global testing and data specialist for the scientific measurement of real-world emissions and fuel efficiency for passenger and commercial vehicles and non-road mobile machinery.

Harmful particulate matter from tires—and also brakes—is a growing environmental problem, and is being exacerbated by the increasing popularity of large, heavy vehicles such as SUVs, and growing demand for electric vehicles, which are heavier than standard cars because of their batteries.

Vehicle tire wear pollution is completely unregulated, unlike exhaust emissions which have been rapidly reduced by car makers due to the pressure placed on them by European emissions standards.

New cars now emit very little in the way of particulate matter but there is growing concern around non-exhaust emissions (NEEs).

Non-exhaust emissions are particles released into the air from brake wear, tire wear, road surface wear and re-suspension of road dust during on-road vehicle usage.

No legislation is in place to limit or reduce NEEs, but they cause a great deal of concern for air quality. NEEs are currently believed to constitute the majority of primary particulate matter from road transport, 60% of PM2.5 and 73% of PM10.

In the 2019 report ‘Non-Exhaust Emissions from Road Traffic’, the UK Government’s Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG), recommended that NEEs are immediately recognized as a source of ambient concentrations of airborne particulate matter, even for vehicles with zero exhaust emissions of particles—such as EVs.

Full report here.