Commission of ‘high-powered’ climate head-scratchers gathers as 1.5C overshoot looms

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

A Climate Overshoot Commission (COC?) will try to dream up ways of altering nature’s carbon cycle. The mind boggles at the futility.
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Fifteen former leaders and ministers are set to address sensitive questions on the role of CO2 removal and geoengineering in climate action, reports Climate Home News.

The chances of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5C, the toughest goal of the Paris Agreement, are increasingly slim. “Well below 2C” is a stretch.

Yet there has been little discussion at an international level on how to handle “overshoot” of those goals. A high-powered commission due to launch in May aims to break the silence.

Climate diplomats are finalising a 15-strong lineup of former presidents, ministers and representatives of international organisations to explore options for deep adaptation, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and geoengineering, Climate Home News can reveal.

Tesla on autopilot crashes into $3 million jet

Tesla Model 3 [image credit: Vauxford @ Wikipedia]

EVs can at least offer accidental entertainment, except to their victims of course. “There’s still plenty of idiots to go around”.
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A new Reddit clip shows a Tesla using the Smart Summon feature at a Cirrus event crash into a small private jet worth millions.

Autopilot didn’t work, says Futurism.

Antarctic sea-ice expansion in a warming climate confounds model predictions

Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC]

The obvious conclusion would be that the climate models are wrong, due to application of incorrect climate theory. As usual, researchers cast around desperately for other alternatives, only to find natural variation preventing warming from being global.
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Antarctic sea-ice has expanded over the period of continuous satellite monitoring, which seemingly contradicts ongoing global warming resulting from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses, says Phys.org.

In a study, published in Nature Climate Change, an international team of scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and South Korea shows that a multi-decadal swing of the tropical sea surface temperatures and its ability to change the atmospheric circulation across large distances is in large part responsible for the observed sea-ice expansion since the late 1970s.

Ireland’s climate targets problem: livestock numbers need to be reduced, say analysts

Irish farm [image credit: climatenewsnetwork.net]

Yet another climate folly induced by arbitrary targets. As usual they conveniently forget that most of their so-called ‘greenhouse’ gas is water vapour, which depends on the temperature. There’s so little methane in the atmosphere it has to be measured in parts per billion, but alarmism has taken over.
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In order for legally binding climate targets to be met, and agricultural subsidies to be granted, the number of livestock on the island needs to go down says Buzz.

The size of herds both North and South of the border is being scrutinised. It is likely both cow and sheep herds on both sides of the border will need to be cut – and soon.

Powering Down: Wind & Solar ‘Transition’ Mean End of Reliable & Affordable Power

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The affordable part’s already on the way out, or gone for some.

STOP THESE THINGS

Once upon a time, governments strived to ensure their citizens had access to reliable and affordable electricity. That was then. This is now.

A cabal of wind and solar rent-seekers and their political enablers are determined to control every aspect of your daily life, by preventing you from having electricity, as and when you need it.

If you think that the Great Green Reset is not a work in progress, we suggest you read on.

Examining California’s Renewable Energy Plan
California Globe
Edward Ring
8 March 2022

If you live in California, by now you’ve probably seen the ads, either on prime time television or online, exhorting you to “Power Down 4 to 9PM.” These ads are produced by “Energy Upgrade California,” paid for by “investor-owned energy utility customers under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission.”

According to the mission of Energy Upgrade…

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Boris Johnson accused of misleading the public on the rising cost of green energy levies

Our Boris misleading? Where have we heard that one before? The government likes to pretend ‘green’ subsidies are doing people a favour and somehow saving the climate, but they aren’t.
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Net Zero Watch has accused the Prime Minister of being economical with the truth about the cost of renewable energy levies.

Speaking during his visit to India, Mr Johnson rejected growing calls for scrapping green levies on energy bills, claiming that renewable energy “has helped to reduce bills”.

‘More wind, more solar, more nuclear’, says Kwasi Kwarteng – costing how much?

Offshore wind project in North Wales [image credit: northwales.com]

Even more expensive electricity, in pursuit of mythical net zero targets. The planned 25% contribution of nuclear power doesn’t give much confidence about where the other 75% should come from when it’s dark and not windy. Why the claimed ‘cheap renewables’ need not-cheap subsidies is not explained, and hydrogen isn’t cheap either.
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The Energy Security Strategy announced by government just under a fortnight ago “provides a clear, long-term plan to accelerate [the UK’s] transition away from expensive fossil fuel prices set by global markets [it] cannot control.”

That’s according to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who delivered a speech explaining his views on the new strategy and how he believes it can help shift the British energy market, reports Energy Live News.

“More wind, more solar, more nuclear – while also using North Sea gas to transition to cheaper and cleaner power,” was his succinct summary of the new strategy.

Exxon Values Carbon Capture Market At $4 Trillion By 2050

A trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money – or not? Where is this finance supposed to come from, and how is so-called ‘carbon’ capture supposed to be an investment opportunity? Try making an oil tanker without fossil fuels.
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Exxon made a bold announcement on April 19th, 2022 says the Carbon Herald.

The oil major estimates that the carbon capture and storage market would be valued at $4 trillion by 2050.

The figure comes to 60% of the $6.5 trillion market for the oil and gas sector the company predicts by mid-century.

World’s biggest carbon removal machine ‘freezes over’ in Iceland

Priceless!
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Enormous device to halt global warming brought to heel by unusually cold weather, reports The Independent.

Alternative source: World’s Largest Carbon Removal Facility Designed to Fight Global Warming Suffers Major Setback After Arctic Blast Freezes Machinery.

Rolls-Royce expecting UK approval for mini nuclear reactor by mid-2024

Rolls-Royce’s revised reactor building design.

If anyone mentions nuclear waste, let’s remember the toxic waste from rare earth mining and from used batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.
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A Rolls-Royce design for a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) will likely receive UK regulatory approval by mid-2024 and be able to produce grid power by 2029, Paul Stein, chairman of Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactors, told Reuters (via Euractiv).

The British government asked its nuclear regulator to start the approval process in March, having backed Rolls-Royce’s $546 million funding round in November to develop the country’s first SMR reactor.

Policymakers hope SMRs will help cut dependence on fossil fuels and lower carbon emissions.

Former minister warns Britons of risk of energy rationing

Lord Frost was unimpressed by the UK’s newly announced energy plan. Government bluster about hydrogen and biomass has minimal credibility. They believe the climate guff and all decisions flow from that. Expensive and risky.
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A former Cabinet Minister has warned people could face the rationing of energy as a result of the implementation of the recent Energy Security Strategy, reports Energy Live News.

Lord Frost said: “I was not massively convinced that the energy security paper really changed anything much. I think it does not deal with the problem that it’s all very well to build a lot of wind power but it needs a backup by other power for when the wind does not blow and I did not see that problem really addressed in the security paper.”

Frozen birds and flooded towns: How Britain grappled with climate change 500 years ago

Frost fair

Natural climate variation has always been, and still is, a fact of life, regardless of minor changes to trace gases in the atmosphere.
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Extreme weather not just a modern phenomenon as study reveals how British towns experienced drastic climate during ‘Little Ice Age’
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Extreme weather caused by global warming is one of the biggest threats facing the world today, claims the Daily Telegraph.

However, a research project has thrown light on the catastrophic climate shift endured by England just a few centuries ago, which brought snowstorms that lasted weeks, flooding which washed away entire villages and winds that sank flotillas of ships.

From the 1500s to the 1700s, England went through an unusually cold and stormy period, nicknamed the Little Ice Age, which was possibly caused either by reduced activity from the sun, volcanic eruptions or atmospheric changes.

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.

Germany’s global hydrogen plans could accelerate climate change, UK government study suggests

German hydrogen train [image credit: Euractiv]

The issue is leakage. In any case the notion of part of the supposed cure for ‘climate change’ being worse than the supposed disease is ironic. Germany imagines a future of so-called climate neutrality, a concept lacking any real-world meaning.
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German Economy Minister Robert Habeck plans to import hydrogen from all over the world to satisfy Germany’s hunger for energy despite a new study questioning the climate-friendliness of hydrogen transport, EURACTIV Germany reports.

One thing is clear to all politicians and experts: Germany is an energy importing country.

To move towards climate neutrality, the German government wants to rely primarily on importing hydrogen molecules from all over the world – efforts which have been further accelerated due to the war in Ukraine and Germany’s dependence on Russian energy imports.

Ice shards in Antarctic clouds let more solar energy reach Earth’s surface

Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

It’s noted that ‘Getting clouds right…is important for calculating how much solar radiation reaches Earth.’ A difference of 10 watts per square metre could be involved in some zones, the researchers found.
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Clouds come in myriad shapes, sizes and types, which control their effects on climate, says Phys.org.

New research led by the University of Washington shows that splintering of frozen liquid droplets to form ice shards inside Southern Ocean clouds dramatically affects the clouds’ ability to reflect sunlight back to space.

The paper, published March 4 in the open-access journal AGU Advances, shows that including this ice-splintering process improves the ability of high-resolution global models to simulate clouds over the Southern Ocean—and thus the models’ ability to simulate Earth’s climate.

Mid April Arctic Ice Above Average

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Looks normal enough. What was that desperate climate emergency again?

Science Matters

Drift ice in Okhotsk Sea at sunrise.

Previous posts showed 2022 Arctic Ice broke the 15M km2 ceiling in February, staying above that level the first week of March, then followed by typical melting in March. As the chart below shows, mid March the overall ice extent was ~400k km2 below the 16 year average, before returning to the mean day 89 and tracking the average since then.

Note the much higher ice extents in 2022 compared to 2021 or 2007.  The green lines show that the above normal ice this year is despite low extents in Sea of Okhotsk.  The averages in dark green (excluding Okhotsk) are below 2022 in light green (excluding Okhotsk) by nearly 200k km2.  IOW everywhere in the Arctic except Okhotsk ice extents are well above average.  Remember also that Okhotsk basin is outside the Arctic circle, has no Polar bears, and is among the…

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Researchers reveal variations in Arctic amplification effect during past millennium

Arctic sea ice [image credit: cbc.ca]

The researchers find ‘a significantly declining AA effect on the millennial time scale’ — but then attempt to link that to anthropogenic forcing in recent times, according to the article at least. That seems illogical if the argument is that humans are playing a part. In any case if the effect has been shown to occur over at least a millennium, that in itself casts doubt on claims that humans must be the prime (or any) cause of the most recent observed changes.
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The recent amplified warming in the Arctic during the last decades has received much attention, says Phys.org.

But how Arctic amplification (AA) has varied on longer time scales and what drives these variations remain unclear.

Recently, a study has provided a new perspective on the AA effect during the past millennium based on the best available paleoclimate data and novel data assimilation methods.

Government’s Net Zero plan for tree planting may increase global warming, climate scientists find

Tree planting

Hapless climate botherers barking up the wrong tree again? Carbon dioxide capture should be left to nature.
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In a new paper published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change the scientists look at the climate effects of deforestation at different latitudes, says Net Zero Watch.

The researchers find that at latitudes 50°N to 60°N – in other words essentially all of the UK – and above, deforestation contributes to global cooling, so afforestation (which has opposing effects to deforestation) will contribute to global warming.

Welsh family farms threatened by corporates pursuing ‘carbon offsetting’ schemes

Sheep farming in Wales [image credit: BBC]

Another example of unintended consequences caused by the irrational pursuit of climate obsessions by governments.
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A fifth of Welsh farms are running at a loss and there is a risk that farmers will be priced out of agriculture by big corporations buying up farmland for carbon offsetting schemes, according to a new report on family farms in Wales.

The findings of an inquiry by the Welsh Affairs Select Committee published today (7 April) paint a concerning picture for Welsh agriculture, an industry where the average farm size is just 48ha, compared to 87ha in England, says TW News.

From pressure on incomes and land availability to a lack of opportunity for new entrants, the report highlights some of the key concerns and sets out a series of recommendations to governments to address the issues.

Ban fracking, rock concerts and football matches!

Image credit: Iridescent @ Wikipedia

And heavy vehicles – or armies – from bridges, obviously.
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If the government is banning fracking for producing imperceptible tremors then it should be consistent and not allow the seismic carnage caused by rock concerts or football matches for that matter, jokes Net Zero Watch.

When many members of the public think about fracking their very next thought is likely to be “earthquakes.”

That’s because in the public’s perception fracking is a danger – nobody wants an induced earthquake just as nobody would want an induced volcanic eruption or tidal wave.

Nature is capricious enough to be threatening if you live in certain parts of the world. We don’t want earthquakes near Blackpool or Burnley, do we?

That’s the problem with the word earthquake. A better term is micro-seismicity and when viewed that way such events are everywhere.
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Now, have you ever wondered why armies break step on a bridge?

Full article here.