December 6, 2011
Met Office Panic Forecast Climate Change Will Make It More Of The Same
Spain will be arid, with all of its agricultural land degraded. India will face a near-tripling of its flood risk. Virtually the whole population of Egypt will be hit with water shortages. But British farmers will find their crops much easier to grow – while their French counterparts will find it harder.
Such will be the varying fortunes of different countries by the end of the century if climate change is not brought under control, according to a new study by the Met Office
But Spain is already arid with goat ruined land, most of Egypt is a desert with not a lot of drinking water and parts of India flood, so what is new? The French farmers feel hard done by, quelle surprise!, and the British farmer gets more productive, situation normal.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 AM
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November 2, 2009
Damning the Deniers
The Pedant: How to avoid being in denial - Times Online
Oliver Kamm
...Holocaust denial is a distinctively mendacious proposition. But “denial” is rightly applied in other cases where there is no legitimate debate about facts. Deniers are those who refuse to accept the evidence.
Denial is not a synonym for heterodoxy. Because some claims fall outside the bounds of genuine debate, it is a valuable term for distinguishing among minority positions and an apt label for the claims of pseudoscience and pseudohistory. To reject the evidence that Aids is a medical condition caused by a virus is that type of position. So is rejection of the evidence of global warming caused by human activities. These claims have costs, in persuading people to reject evidence-based science. No other succinct term describes them as effectively as denial.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:24 AM
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RSPCA wants POCA rights
Wildlife crime soaring in Britain, driving some species close to extinction - Telegraph
Detective Inspector Brian Stuart, head of the NWCU, the National Wildlife Crime Unit, a police-led, multi-agency unit, said the principal motivation appeared to be financial.
"There is an increase in wildlife crime in general. We are seeking to use wider policing powers, such as the Proceeds of Crime Act, to target criminals where it hurts them most – in their pocket," he said.
Conservations (sic) including the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts believe that police are failing to be consistent in their handling of offenders, meaning many feel they can act with impunity. A government review into how wildlife crime is tackled is under way and will report in spring next year.
So the RSPCA wants the power to seize your assets as well, any bets they won't get it, especially as Labour scrabbles for donations before the election?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
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October 30, 2009
Green Nutters Undermine Greenery
Exaggerated claims undermine drive to cut emissions, scientists warn - Times Online
Exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the threat from global warming risk undermining efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and contain climate change, senior scientists have told The Times.
Environmental lobbyists, politicians, researchers and journalists who distort climate science to support an agenda erode public understanding and play into the hands of sceptics, according to experts including a former government chief scientist.
Excessive statements about the decline of Arctic sea ice, severe weather events and the probability of extreme warming in the next century detract from the credibility of robust findings about climate change, they said.
Such claims can easily be rebutted by critics of global warming science to cast doubt on the whole field.
About time there was some slapping down of the Al Gores of this world by the real scientists. For too long the headline grabbing alarmists have been silently supported by reasonable men afraid of appearing to side with the Deniers, when they should have been seizing the middle ground.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:57 AM
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This is the Greenmail Crossing the Border
Race to spend £27bn on Scotland to England rail link 'without knowing facts' - Scotsman.com News
MINISTERS are dashing headlong towards paying for a £27 billion high-speed rail link from Scotland to England with only "shaky" evidence that it will get people out of cars and planes, a major report will claim today.
The study, commissioned by the RAC Foundation, says there will be only modest environmental benefits from a new line.
The foundation said "evangelical" politicians of all colours were being too hasty in backing a new high-speed link before the hard facts were known.
But sources at the Department for Transport said the claims were "nonsense", insisting that a new link would take thousands of people off polluting planes.
Hard facts? Investment in railways? Don't make me laugh. The great God of Choo-choos demands our monetary sacrifice at all times, don't mix up religion and reason.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:51 AM
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Science Museum - PROVE IT Update
It looks like the Science Museum's Poll has now settled down and presumably all the votes have been verified by an email bounce - not foolproof but as fair as any of these online polls get.
The results are convincingly onesided...
Science Museum - PROVE IT!
823 counted in so far 5631 counted out so far
If you haven't visited the site - "All the evidence you need to believe in climate change" - then please do and cast an informed vote after reviewing their case.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:12 AM
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October 28, 2009
A Noble Cause that Lord Stern should adopt
First change the pig’s diet, then change ours
One big obstacle to producing meat sustainably is the EU ban on feeding food waste to livestock. Since the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001 it has been illegal to feed swill to pigs, even though swill can be rendered safe simply by heat-treating it. The UN has calculated that if we fed livestock with food waste and agricultural residues, we could feed three billion additional people. Feeding food waste to pigs could also save millions of tonnes of carbon emissions by avoiding the need to produce conventional feed.
From Lord Stern's remarks about meat eating and the divided comments on them let us find one common cause:
British Swill Feeders and Coptic Pigs did an excellent job in producing food from waste, until banned. I'll let His Lordship point out the carbon friendliness of such recycling practices, I will stick to my inborn hate of waste. A few simple regulations and millions of tons of rubbish can be safely turned into bacon. Is there anything nobler than that?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:53 AM
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Is this the most evil product you can buy?
Salt, hand picked on some foreign shore, probably by minimum waged workers and shipped to Blighty, with added carbon - delicious and pretty on my mashed potatoes last night.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:42 AM
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Copenhagen Inflation
£18 a pint – 'the price of global warming'
SOARING food prices could leave UK consumers forking out almost £6.50 for a loaf of bread and more than £18 for a pint of beer by 2030, unless urgent action is taken to avert dangerous climate change.
A study for Friends of the Earth by Oxford University lecturer Ray Hammond examining how warming temperatures could affect food supplies said the prices of basics such as bread, rice and pasta could all spiral in the next two decades, leaving millions hungry in the UK. Yields of staple crops are predicted to fall as global temperatures rise, while climate change will put extra pressure on land and resources such as water, with more droughts, floods and extreme weather events expected.
Projected prices of other staple foods in 2030 include: · £6.48 for a 800g loaf of white bread (now 72p, would be £1.44 with normal inflation) · £17.91 for a 1 litre corn oil (now £1.99, would be £3.98 with normal inflation) · £15.21 for 1 kg of basmati rice (now £1.69, would be £3.38 with normal inflation) · £7.20 for 500g corn flakes (now 78p, would be £1.56 with normal inflation) · £16.02 for 24 Weetabix-style biscuits (now £1.78, would be £3.56 with normal inflation) · £18.45 for a pint of Pilsner lager (now £2.05, would be £4.05 with normal inflation) As pressure mounts ahead of the United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen, the report is a reminder that global warming will hit ordinary Britons hard, as well as causing storms, droughts, famine and floods that will affect the developing world.
How long have we got until the Conference, how many more of these alarums will we have to read?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:30 AM
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October 27, 2009
Science Museum Prove It - you need to vote again
Science Museum - Home - PROVE IT!
They are rerunning the vote - I guess they didn't like the answer! - It now has an email verification step.
Since I snapped the page a couple of minutes ago the vote has changed to 2 in 8 out.
Time to stand up and be counted.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:29 PM
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Stern Brentford Nonsense
People will need to consider turning killers if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford Nylons said: “Wild animals are a wasteful use of water and create a lot of greenhouse gases. They put enormous pressure on the world’s resources."
He said that he was deeply concerned that popular opinion had so far failed to grasp the scale of the changes needed to address climate change, or of the importance of the UN meeting in Copenhagen from December 7 to December 18. “I am not sure that people fully understand what we are talking about or the kind of changes that will be necessary,” he added.
I think that is what he said anyway, so I'm off out to kill as much local wildlife as possible today...
Just because it is better than an old Brentford Nylon's Advert or anything from the noble Lord...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:30 AM
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October 25, 2009
The Cost of Green Dreams
British business faces a £370 billion bill by 2020 to meet the cost of fighting climate change, according to estimates to be published ahead of December’s Copenhagen climate-change summit.
The amount would mainly cover the cost of building renewable-energy capacity, smart grids and high-speed rail links. About £40 billion would finance upgrades to Britain’s water distribution and treatment networks.
This is only part of the picture, said the report’s author, Andrew Raingold of Aldersgate Group, a coalition of business and environmental groups.
“These are conservative estimates and don’t include the costs attached to deploying low-carbon vehicles and supporting infrastructure such as charging stations. This could add another few billion to businesses’ total liability,” he said. “Businesses will end up footing the vast majority of the costs of combating climate change because the Treasury doesn’t have the money.”
Governments and many experts argue that the economic impact of a warmer climate and the costs industry will bear if the carbon price increases will be much greater if businesses do nothing. “There is actually a big opportunity to make money if we don’t drag our feet,” said Sir Brian Hoskins of the Committee on Climate Change, the government ’s green watchdog.
Has anyone got his number as I've got a bridge I think he might like to buy....
Posted by The Englishman at 10:49 AM
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Estate Agent or Climate Scientist - Who is more trustworthy?
...experts warn increasingly severe weather conditions and rising sea levels could soon see the spit of land at the entrance to Poole harbour – parts of which are already two metres below sea level – swallowed up by the ocean.
Dr Edward Coombe, a consultant in geomorphology and former lecturer at Oxford University, said: “Sandbanks is a wave-created landform, waves created it and waves will destroy it with rising sea levels.
“This is the question of the inevitable. We are getting more storms because of climate change now. I don’t want to sound alarmist but we have got to face facts.
“The point is that storms can be expected to increase in the foreseeable future – in 15 to 20 years we will probably see some extremely alarming incidents. I would expect the sea level to rise two or three feet in the next 50 years.
“I am not attempting to decry people’s choices of buying land but they need to think about it.”.
Keith Fensom, of Savills, who is selling the site, said: “This flooding argument comes up every now and then and certainly the land is low-lying to the sea but there are defence systems in the sea to stop the beaches from washing away.
“I have worked in the area for 33 years and in that time the beaches have not changed and there has never ever been any breaching of the properties by the sea.”
At this hour of the morning I haven't been able to find an up todate graph of storm frequency so we can "face the facts". The latest I can see on the Met Office site is this:
Recent research on climate change science from the Hadley Centre
December 2003
There's a rigorous argument for you, I would love to see it updated. I recently reported that on digging around the Met Office files I came across this.
nao_djf_barplot_jones_green.gif
So should I spent the £7.5 miilion on the plot or not? Should I trust an estate agent or a climate scientist?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:38 AM
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October 24, 2009
Search online for "Act on CO2"
Posted by The Englishman at 11:32 AM
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October 23, 2009
The Evidence That Doesn't Convince
Miliband's lap-dog museum's poll isn't going to plan...
Science Museum - Home - PROVE IT! is your chance to check out the evidence and decide if you want to back a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen.
349 counted in so far 1505 counted out so far
Do go and vote and keep an eye on the numbers because Milipede is beginning to blub...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:18 PM
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October 22, 2009
Science Museum Fails to Prove It - but ignores your vote anyway.
Science Museum - Prove it! is presenting the evidence for human caused climate change and why we should support Copenhagen.
I've looked through it and I still can't see the evidence - yes the climate is changing, the long term average temperature for the last couple of hundred years is a gentle increase, yes humans have pumped CO2 in to the atmosphere, yes there is a linkage (they are careful not to say what) between CO2 levels and global temperature but none of that is the evidence they claim for CAGW.
Here is what they have to say about the effects we are already feeling:
Earth's rising temperature is causing knock-on effects. Rainfall patterns are changing. After three centuries of stability, sea level is now rising. Ice in the Arctic is melting further back year on year. Extreme weather, such as droughts and hurricanes, is becoming more common or more intense.
No evidence that rainfall patterns are altering more than they ever have done before, the sea level rise has not accelerated, the arctic ice hasn't melted more for the last two years - not more year-on year - (and what about Antarctic ice?) and hurricanes and droughts aren't increasing. A pretty poor showing for the best they can produce.
Luckily they allow you to say if you are convinced or not.
PROVE IT! is your chance to check out the evidence and decide if you want to back a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen.
Vote No and this is what you get...
"...thanks for being part of PROVE IT! By adding your voice, you're supporting a strong, effective, fair deal at Copenhagen."
That's modern consultation for you...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 PM
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October 21, 2009
Sceptics are Flat-Earthers
CLIMATE-change sceptics are as ignorant as people who believe the earth is flat, according to one of Scotland's most influential conservationists, Professor Colin Galbraith, director of policy at Scottish Natural Heritage.
Of the sceptics, Prof Galbraith said: "They also believe the world is flat. I'm absolutely scathing of them. The more people that ignore this, the worse it will be. They should open their eyes. There is evidence all around us. "It's not about climate change happening in 20 years' time. It is happening now."
A Cardiff University survey earlier this year suggested one in five people were "hard-line sceptics". Men, people who lived in rural areas, older people and high earners were the most sceptical.
Professor Des Thomson, policy and advice manager at SNH, said he thought it was "dangerous" that people were continuing to question the evidence.
How very dare you question the evidence we say is all around you!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:19 AM
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October 20, 2009
Cause and Effect in the Classroom
British children are the worst in Europe for switching out lights and saving electricity, despite knowing the most about climate change, according to a new study
Joan Ruddock, the Energy and Climate Change minister, also called on families to take action.
“With climate change on the national curriculum, British children will get a better understanding as to why it’s important to switch off lights and computers when they’re not in use. Considering around 40 per cent of carbon pollution is a result of personal choices, there is huge potential for everyone to start bucking the trend," she said.
I'm always happy to hear teachers preach on with their stupid trendy ideas because kids react against them. The hippy kids had despised the tweedy old buffers banging on about how they had fought the war for them; the yuppies against the tie-die drips in the staff room in the seventies; the crusties against the "enterprise curriculum" the Tories introduced and now the greens rule the roost the next generation will despise their vacuous ideas.
But Joan Ruddock, could you resist her appeal? Gordon can't!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
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October 19, 2009
Maldives - Latin for Ill Gotten Gains? Again
If you were as annoyed as I was by BBC and other reports on the Maldive Government underwater cabinet meeting publicity stunt (to highlight the threat from rising sea levels) you might like to read this: Sea Level Scam - Buy the Truth or this from Watts Up
My own contribution to this naked attempt to mulct our money by greenmail is to continue to propagate the equally scientific etymology that Maldives means "ill gotten gains" - mala, feminine of malo, bad (from Latin malus): dives, rich, opulent, wealthy
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
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Tally Ho!
Climate change protesters bitten by police dogs - Telegraph
Chief inspector Linda McCarthy of Nottinghamshire police said on Sunday: ''There have been reports of some protesters receiving dog bites and other injuries as a result of a concerted effort to pull down fences and enter the site.
One protester, Laura McFarlane-Shopes, 23, wore a bandage on her arm to cover a bite she had received from one of the dogs.
She said: "We were near the fence and some people were trying to get over. I was just in front of them.
"Horses and dogs started charging down. Police shouted that they were coming.
"They let the dogs on to me and one leaped up and bit my arm."
And in other news:
The Press Association: Tories pledge to repeal hunting ban
Ecoprotestors sound even better sport than foxes....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:42 AM
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Brownian Scareware
PM warns of climate 'catastrophe'
"In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods," Mr Brown is expected to tell delegates.
"The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.
"On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades' time. And within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe."
The other top story on the BBC this morning is: Millions tricked by 'scareware'
Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM
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October 16, 2009
Met Office Storm Graph
Digging around the Met Office files I came across this.
nao_djf_barplot_jones_green.gif
I hadn't seen it before, but I swear I had heard them warn us of increasing storminess due to Climate Change....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
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October 15, 2009
Met Office Precipitation Figures - More Questions
The Met Office produces two monthly records of precipitation for the England and Wales (they also do subsets):
The first one is ;
England & Wales Rainfall (mm) - Areal Series, starting from 1914
Allowances have been made for topographic, coastal and urban effects where relationships are found to exist.
The 30 year averages have been derived from 1km grids, whereas the rest of the values have been derived from 5km grids.
Seasons: Winter=Dec-Feb, Spring=Mar-May, Summer=June-Aug, Autumn=Sept-Nov. (Winter: Year refers to Jan/Feb).
Data is provisional from May 2008 & Spring 2008.
This is the data that has the curious properties discussed in the post below;
I haven't found the raw data or the adjustments that have been done to the raw data to produce it. But the Met Office also publishes the HadEWP data
Monthly England & Wales precipitation (mm). Daily automated values used after 1996.
Wigley & Jones (J.Climatol.,1987), Gregory et al. (Int.J.Clim.,1991)
Jones & Conway (Int.J.Climatol.,1997), Alexander & Jones (ASL,2001). Values may change after QC.
This goes back to 1766 and maybe is closer to the raw data.
Rainfall measuring is pretty basic stuff and adjustments for the factors mentioned above would be thought to be fairly long term and steady.
As we are looking at the summer and winter rainfall I thought it would be interesting to see the difference between the two sets of figures for the two seasons. The graph below is simply the Areal figure taken away from the corresponding HadEWP figure (My simple spreadsheet is downloadable here Precip Diff txt)
Both sets of figures are meant to be measuring the same thing, do they both rely on the same raw data? Why do they vary so much in their difference from year to year? Is that due to different adjustments being applied? Why is the Areal series making winters drier on average recently? What is the real figure for rainfall? And why is it so difficult to know?
UPDATE
Let us assume that there is an annual adjustment to the raw data which gives the difference between the Areal and the HadEWP figure (it is more complicated than that but that is close enough for a thought experiment) The difference of the summer and winter figures for each year should be the same or similar not as shown above.
Eyeballing the graph it seems the figures for the summer and winter differences recently are becoming out of sync.
If you muddled up your Decembers you can get a much better fit.
Winter 1996 should be Dec 1995 + Jan 1996 + Feb 1996 If you make Winter 1996 be Dec 1995 + Jan 1995 + Feb 1995 and then you compare it to Summer 1996 and so on until the 2008 you get this graph.
That looks a better fit - but it isn't the only way to get a better fit. Other ways of doing year shifts give similar results. Just swapping the sign of the winter difference from 1990 also works And maybe a better fit isn't logically needed. It is a mystery to me.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:07 PM
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+++ Concerns with Met Office Precipitation Data +++
UPDATE - Tim Legg of the Met Office has kindly provided an explanation - see below.
(This is a guest post from a scientific reader)
The UK Meteorological Office has a file summarising average UK precipitation available on its website at: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/seriesstatistics/ewrain.txt
This file gives average precipitation, month by month from 1914 until 2008. The data is presumably calculated from spot measurements at a number of weather stations, which are combined using assumptions about the rainfall etc over the whole country rather than just at the weather stations. Such a combination and averaging seems reasonable.
In addition, the Met Office displays on its website the following plot: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/CR_data/Monthly/EWP_seasonal1.gif
This plot seems to be making some sort of climate change case. It raised some concerns in my mind, including: averaging over a 4-month winter, including March, and a 2-month summer, rather than the usual 3-month periods; normalisation with respect to the average for each 'season' over the period 1961-90, which introduces a zero re-basing and a scaling. Having looked at the input data, there is also clearly some heavy smoothing in time, which is not mentioned, described or justified.
Investigation seemed appropriate, on whether the effects shown in the Met Office plot were as obvious with 3-month seasons and with absolute values for precipitation.
The simpler presentation is shown here:
Click for larger ewrain_w01_plot5.jpg
Which shows precipitation for winter (Dec-Feb) in red and for summer (Jun-Aug) in green. The changes obvious in the Met Office plot are not nearly so obvious in this plot of the less processed data, though there is some lowering of summer rainfall from around 1975 to around 2000.
More importantly, the winter and summer plots overlap almost exactly for the last 5 years: 2004 to 2008. It stretches credulity that such an effect is really present in the average UK rainfall.
Extraction of some of the data file ewrain.txt, with some extra values, shows the following, which confirms that the problem is not with calculation or display of my plots:
| Year | Winter Precip (mm) | Summer Precip (mm) | Absolute Difference (mm) | Ave (mm) of Winter & Summer | Difference as %age of Average |
| 2004 | 283.1 | 275.9 | 7.2 | 279.5 | 2.58% |
| 2005 | 187.1 | 182.4 | 4.7 | 184.75 | 2.54% |
| 2006 | 160.0 | 158.8 | 1.2 | 159.4 | 0.75% |
| 2007 | 341.3 | 342.2 | 0.9 | 341.75 | 0.26% |
| 2008 | 288.6 | 289.6 | 1.0 | 289.1 | 0.35% |
This problem is of some concern, especially if this data is relied upon in using recent weather trends for meteorological forecasting and for significant policy on national water management and emergency planning for flooding. There are also implications for forecasting of climate change.
[ends]
Coincidence or cock-up?
More data from the Met Office is available here and is waiting to be crunched...
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/CR_data/Monthly/HadEWP_act.txt which is also Monthly England & Wales precipitation (mm) gives a different picture ...hmmmm
UPDATE - more in newer post
UPDATE - From the Met Office:
I have just spent a little time looking at the monthly and seasonal
rainfall data which you were talking about in your email yesterday.
I have looked at the monthly totals, and the seasonal totals for DJF and
JJA calculated from these. The monthly totals themselves are all quite
different, but my calculations of the seasons (as the sum of three
individual months for each) do agree with yours, and I have to agree
that the similarity between each winter and the following summer for the
last 4 years or so is uncanny. But I can see no way that, given the way
things are calculated and the checks I have just made, the seasonal
totals can be incorrect. So as far as I can see it is just a
coincidence.
I also have access to monthly rainfall totals for 2009 so far for
England & Wales, from which I can tell you that I calculated DJF (last
winter) to have had a total of 207.5 mm, and for JJA (this summer) the
total was 263.7 mm, so the apparent correlation has now broken down.
Regards,
Tim Legg National Climate Information Centre (NCIC)
Scripts below:
# File: ewrain_gplot01.txt
# Last modified: 2009/10/14
# Author: xxx
#
# GNUPLOT script to plot various data in Met Office file 'ewrain_w01.txt',
# which is an edited version of the file available at
# http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/seriesstatistics/ewrain.txt
# Edits just render comments onto '#' lines, repeat column label comments
# and put dummy value into column 14 of first plot line (for year 1914).
#
#
cd "~/Desktop/ewrain_091014a"
#
#
set title "UK Absolute Precipitation (Dec-Mar and Jul-Aug)"
set key left top
set xlabel "Year"
set ylabel "Millimetres Annual Precipitation"
plot [1900:2010][0:1200] \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:18 with lines title "Total", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:($14+$4) with lines title "Dec-Mar", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:($16-$7) with lines title "Jul-Aug", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:($18-$2-$3+$14-$13) with lines title "Total (from Dec)"
pause -1 "Plot 1: UK Absolute Precipitation (Dec-Mar and Jul-Aug)"
#
#
set title "UK Absolute Precipitation (Standard Winter and Summer)"
set key left top
set xlabel "Year"
set ylabel "Millimetres Annual Precipitation"
plot [1900:2010][0:+1200] \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(($18)) with lines title "Total", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(($14)) with lines title "Winter", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(($16)) with lines title "Summer", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:($18-$2-$3+$14-$13) with lines title "Total (from Dec)"
pause -1 "Plot 2: UK Absolute Precipitation (Standard Winter and Summer)"
#
#
set title "UK Precipitation Proportional Change (%) WRT 1961-90 (Dec-Mar and Jul-Aug)"
set key left top
set xlabel "Year"
set ylabel "Percentage Change from\nAverage Annual Precipitation 1961..1990"
plot [1900:2010][-100:+100] \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*($18-906.5)/906.5) with lines title "Total", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*(($14+$4)-323.7)/323.7) with lines title "Dec-Mar", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*(($16-$7)-139.0)/139.0) with lines title "Jul-Aug", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*(($18-$2-$3+$14-$13)-906.5)/906.5) with lines title "Total (from Dec)"
pause -1 "Plot 3: Precipitation Proportional Change (%) WRT 1961-90 (Dec-Mar and Jul-Aug)"
#
#
set title "UK Precipitation Proportional Change (%) WRT 1961-90 (Standard Winter and Summer)"
set key left top
set xlabel "Year"
set ylabel "Percentage Change from\nAverage Annual Precipitation 1961..1990"
plot [1900:2010][-100:+100] \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*($18-906.5)/906.5) with lines title "Total", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*($14-250.5)/250.5) with lines title "Winter", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*($16-202.8)/202.8) with lines title "Summer", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(100*(($18-$2-$3+$14-$13)-906.5)/906.5) with lines title "Total (from Dec)"
pause -1 "Plot 4: Precipitation Proportional Change (%) WRT 1961-90 (Standard Winter and Summer)"
#
#
set title "UK Absolute Precipitation (Standard Winter and Summer)"
set key left top
set xlabel "Year"
set ylabel "Millimetres Annual Precipitation"
plot [1900:2010][0:+500] \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(($14)) with lines title "Winter", \
'ewrain_w01.txt' using 1:(($16)) with lines title "Summer"
pause -1 "Plot 5: UK Absolute Precipitation (Standard Winter and Summer)"
#
#
# File: ewrain_w01.txt
# Last modified: 2009/10/14
# Author: XXX
#
# GNUPLOT data file, which is an edited version of the file available at
# http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/seriesstatistics/ewrain.txt
#
# Edits just render comments onto '#' lines, adds line of column numbers,
# repeat column label comments, and put dummy value into column 14 of
# first plot line (for year 1914).
#
#
#England & Wales Rainfall (mm)
#Areal Series, starting from 1914
#Allowances have been made for topographic, coastal and urban effects where relationships are found to exist.
#The 30 year averages have been derived from 1km grids, whereas the rest of the values have been derived from 5km grids.
#Seasons: Winter=Dec-Feb, Spring=Mar-May, Summer=June-Aug, Autumn=Sept-Nov. (Winter: Year refers to Jan/Feb).
#Data is provisional from May 2008 & Spring 2008.
#
#Col1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
#Year JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC WIN SPR SUM AUT ANN
1914 50.9 87.0 115.8 32.3 47.1 56.6 97.1 63.9 48.1 62.4 110.3 190.8 328.7 195.2 217.6 220.8 962.3
#1914 50.9 87.0 115.8 32.3 47.1 56.6 97.1 63.9 48.1 62.4 110.3 190.8 --- 195.2 217.6 220.8 962.3
1915 105.3 129.0 36.2 37.3 64.3 33.3 123.0 76.2 39.4 71.4 73.5 182.7 425.1 137.8 232.5 184.3 971.6
1916 58.6 129.4 97.9 47.9 70.7 63.7 51.3 89.2 54.8 142.1 110.1 90.4 370.7 216.5 204.2 307.0 1006.1
1917 58.2 30.9 67.0 55.0 61.7 65.7 64.3 172.8 54.8 130.7 61.7 43.1 179.5 183.7 302.8 247.2 865.9
1918 90.1 67.8 39.2 56.0 57.7 31.5 110.1 60.7 186.2 72.1 67.3 123.2 201.0 152.9 202.3 325.6 961.9
1919 117.7 71.4 122.1 62.6 26.6 37.0 58.3 79.1 53.7 65.4 71.2 143.9 312.3 211.3 174.4 190.3 909.0
1920 111.3 49.9 91.0 119.0 75.2 61.9 133.1 48.0 69.0 67.8 45.3 91.4 305.1 285.2 243.0 182.1 962.9
1921 110.5 8.7 64.5 32.6 47.8 10.3 31.0 98.2 38.5 51.7 65.2 80.4 210.6 144.9 139.5 155.4 639.4
1922 107.2 95.0 69.6 77.4 33.2 39.6 119.0 96.6 80.6 33.1 47.1 118.7 282.6 180.2 255.2 160.8 917.1
1923 62.4 153.5 48.3 67.9 67.3 20.5 76.7 95.0 82.9 137.2 92.5 96.8 334.6 183.5 192.2 312.6 1001.0
1924 91.3 24.3 36.2 73.0 122.0 63.1 110.4 96.3 111.9 126.9 73.0 123.3 212.4 231.2 269.8 311.8 1051.7
1925 79.2 124.0 31.2 71.0 100.5 4.0 69.3 86.7 95.1 106.0 70.3 94.8 326.5 202.7 160.0 271.4 932.1
1926 110.6 78.3 24.5 65.4 67.1 73.0 73.6 71.5 53.9 86.6 162.1 23.3 283.7 157.0 218.1 302.6 889.9
1927 90.8 76.8 86.8 56.8 35.8 98.7 96.2 135.0 142.3 76.0 100.5 77.2 190.9 179.4 329.9 318.8 1072.9
1928 160.7 81.3 76.7 39.0 37.1 98.4 56.9 93.1 32.7 142.2 121.4 84.9 319.2 152.8 248.4 296.3 1024.4
1929 46.4 28.4 10.7 30.8 57.7 46.5 67.1 73.9 27.6 125.2 196.7 184.8 159.7 99.2 187.5 349.5 895.8
1930 131.4 23.7 64.7 71.3 57.0 37.7 108.6 108.4 109.0 98.8 125.1 100.0 339.9 193.0 254.7 332.9 1035.7
1931 78.9 81.3 21.9 89.9 87.6 95.2 108.9 115.7 72.2 35.4 137.0 46.7 260.2 199.4 319.8 244.6 970.7
1932 93.1 8.4 59.7 83.0 122.2 33.9 101.0 47.1 92.5 154.6 61.6 51.4 148.2 264.9 182.0 308.7 908.5
1933 69.3 96.5 74.1 35.4 53.2 57.4 60.0 31.7 53.2 105.0 44.8 25.7 217.2 162.7 149.1 203.0 706.3
1934 81.5 11.6 71.5 72.1 44.3 43.6 42.3 81.1 69.5 84.9 56.9 177.8 118.8 187.9 167.0 211.3 837.1
1935 43.3 102.6 25.4 98.6 33.1 95.5 23.3 58.1 136.2 131.7 143.2 90.8 323.7 157.1 176.9 411.1 981.8
1936 122.1 71.8 60.1 50.4 30.2 94.9 135.4 33.2 90.8 62.7 102.3 95.4 284.7 140.7 263.5 255.8 949.3
1937 125.9 135.9 87.3 77.3 71.5 41.6 64.1 39.1 61.9 80.0 49.6 93.9 357.2 236.1 144.8 191.5 928.1
1938 110.7 34.0 18.9 6.9 70.8 60.0 86.6 84.6 58.6 131.5 122.8 108.9 238.6 96.6 231.2 312.9 894.3
1939 154.3 60.5 57.9 64.0 31.0 62.8 133.1 72.9 31.9 111.3 154.6 60.1 323.7 152.9 268.8 297.8 994.4
1940 70.3 74.0 76.4 59.1 40.7 21.2 109.2 16.8 52.2 107.1 184.0 74.0 204.4 176.2 147.2 343.3 885.0
1941 83.8 97.1 86.4 39.9 59.8 33.3 70.8 116.8 19.8 83.7 79.9 53.8 254.9 186.1 220.9 183.4 825.1
1942 102.8 29.7 63.8 41.7 99.7 18.5 74.8 87.3 68.3 95.7 40.0 104.7 186.3 205.2 180.6 204.0 827.0
1943 148.7 49.1 25.9 36.8 82.8 62.1 55.8 85.7 88.6 86.4 67.9 51.4 302.5 145.5 203.6 242.9 841.2
1944 85.2 41.0 12.0 56.1 39.3 63.6 71.3 75.4 106.0 116.2 153.3 73.5 177.6 107.4 210.3 375.5 892.9
1945 80.5 82.0 34.8 43.7 80.2 81.6 65.5 69.1 64.1 105.9 17.9 99.1 236.0 158.7 216.2 187.9 824.4
1946 90.4 87.6 37.3 44.7 71.1 84.3 75.1 136.1 126.7 37.4 158.3 97.4 277.1 153.1 295.5 322.4 1046.4
1947 80.4 50.1 163.5 79.6 57.7 64.9 69.6 12.9 50.6 19.4 81.7 78.4 227.9 300.8 147.4 151.7 808.8
1948 176.7 50.2 39.3 51.9 65.5 92.1 46.0 114.2 75.4 75.0 57.3 114.2 305.3 156.7 252.3 207.7 957.8
1949 44.2 42.5 41.8 68.2 64.8 19.1 53.5 54.3 47.2 152.9 111.3 88.7 200.9 174.8 126.9 311.4 788.5
1950 38.1 141.6 41.8 73.3 50.9 46.9 98.5 124.8 132.7 46.7 143.5 69.2 268.4 166.0 270.2 322.9 1008.0
1951 92.8 109.8 111.6 71.6 78.3 32.4 48.7 128.7 83.7 31.5 179.8 103.8 271.8 261.5 209.8 295.0 1072.7
1952 86.5 25.5 71.5 58.9 66.1 54.9 34.9 103.2 87.2 106.3 90.3 86.8 215.8 196.5 193.0 283.8 872.1
1953 32.4 51.7 30.2 73.4 58.8 63.3 97.4 84.8 84.5 70.2 74.2 35.0 170.9 162.4 245.5 228.9 755.9
1954 63.6 81.8 76.1 16.6 77.2 88.7 88.7 120.4 93.8 129.5 169.1 93.0 180.4 169.9 297.8 392.4 1098.5
1955 81.5 60.8 54.5 35.9 101.3 85.1 27.8 28.2 51.4 71.4 61.4 107.8 235.3 191.7 141.1 184.2 767.1
1956 117.6 24.7 32.7 39.2 24.4 68.7 101.7 152.9 90.4 56.3 33.5 105.0 250.1 96.3 323.3 180.2 847.1
1957 78.0 93.8 71.0 9.9 46.5 49.1 108.4 105.2 127.5 78.0 60.9 79.3 276.8 127.4 262.7 266.4 907.6
1958 89.7 119.7 43.7 29.3 81.7 107.2 96.8 97.0 123.5 83.9 55.1 100.3 288.7 154.7 301.0 262.5 1027.9
1959 101.0 11.2 68.3 80.2 28.3 45.8 66.4 34.4 8.4 89.1 123.3 166.0 212.5 176.8 146.6 220.8 822.4
1960 127.0 83.1 49.1 48.1 42.0 49.5 111.7 106.5 110.0 166.9 150.9 111.9 376.1 139.2 267.7 427.8 1156.7
1961 112.9 69.6 15.3 95.4 37.9 37.8 66.2 80.7 76.4 116.6 60.6 95.5 294.4 148.6 184.7 253.6 864.9
1962 110.0 37.8 42.5 69.5 65.2 19.6 56.4 110.1 100.2 37.2 68.3 71.3 243.3 177.1 186.1 205.7 788.2
1963 28.1 32.1 101.9 78.4 51.8 81.0 53.2 98.2 68.7 59.5 155.2 28.6 131.5 232.2 232.4 283.4 836.8
1964 27.1 30.9 87.5 63.2 58.2 72.1 52.6 52.2 34.9 61.9 59.6 105.3 86.7 208.9 176.9 156.4 705.5
1965 100.2 15.9 69.9 60.6 61.0 71.6 96.2 70.3 131.3 34.3 104.2 165.4 221.4 191.5 238.1 269.8 981.0
1966 55.5 121.5 37.7 100.7 69.9 81.6 73.9 99.5 51.5 121.1 80.9 113.2 342.4 208.3 254.9 253.5 1007.0
1967 62.5 91.4 54.6 44.0 133.7 38.9 63.3 74.8 100.5 172.7 71.7 76.7 267.1 232.4 176.9 344.9 984.8
1968 81.8 44.1 61.2 64.2 73.0 82.9 97.1 65.3 141.5 93.1 67.6 78.1 202.6 198.3 245.3 302.2 949.9
1969 96.1 66.8 70.1 56.3 110.2 56.1 63.2 71.6 41.3 19.5 130.2 87.1 241.1 236.6 190.9 191.0 868.7
1970 108.8 83.9 62.1 86.3 23.7 43.4 70.5 79.2 66.6 62.8 167.6 50.7 279.8 172.2 193.1 297.0 905.5
1971 107.1 36.3 65.4 49.9 46.5 96.2 42.7 108.2 25.2 73.8 91.2 39.1 194.1 161.7 247.1 190.1 781.5
1972 100.9 74.3 76.4 69.0 74.0 77.2 55.1 37.0 39.3 34.9 103.2 109.1 214.3 219.4 169.3 177.4 850.5
1973 45.7 43.0 25.1 65.5 78.2 56.1 85.9 65.8 77.9 53.0 53.9 69.6 197.9 168.8 207.8 184.8 719.7
1974 129.2 104.7 44.7 13.2 40.4 63.0 75.9 88.6 143.1 90.0 122.8 81.3 303.5 98.3 227.4 355.9 996.9
1975 123.2 30.2 75.0 67.6 42.4 19.9 65.4 51.0 102.0 35.5 73.2 50.0 234.7 184.9 136.3 210.7 735.2
1976 61.3 41.9 46.5 20.1 62.0 18.1 30.6 25.3 147.9 148.3 81.9 87.8 153.2 128.5 74.0 378.1 771.7
1977 96.4 134.6 73.5 51.6 48.8 82.4 24.8 93.5 42.5 69.7 105.1 92.5 318.7 174.0 200.6 217.3 915.3
1978 109.3 79.1 81.9 48.4 40.4 59.8 83.8 64.7 55.2 18.8 62.3 161.7 280.9 170.7 208.2 136.2 865.3
1979 81.1 59.1 122.9 64.2 113.6 36.1 32.8 90.8 42.5 75.1 91.0 159.6 301.9 300.7 159.8 208.5 968.8
1980 75.9 90.7 98.8 16.7 29.0 117.4 64.2 88.6 65.9 128.1 90.5 81.5 326.2 144.5 270.2 284.5 947.3
1981 58.8 53.6 156.2 56.6 87.8 47.0 52.4 41.4 140.9 124.6 70.9 90.1 193.9 300.6 140.8 336.5 980.3
1982 76.3 48.6 100.6 22.4 42.3 117.2 34.4 83.9 78.7 117.4 126.1 104.9 215.0 165.4 235.6 322.1 952.9
1983 103.7 38.8 65.6 101.6 110.3 35.6 34.7 32.9 99.5 84.3 49.6 111.2 247.4 277.5 103.2 233.5 867.9
1984 142.7 56.6 58.5 10.4 58.3 42.7 25.9 56.9 114.8 98.8 142.8 79.2 310.5 127.1 125.4 356.4 887.4
1985 71.3 28.4 65.5 68.9 64.6 93.8 71.2 115.9 44.8 47.7 76.1 126.5 178.9 199.0 280.9 168.6 874.6
1986 119.8 16.5 78.5 82.7 85.2 42.0 54.1 115.8 24.1 95.2 122.4 142.0 262.8 246.4 212.0 241.6 978.2
1987 29.7 58.6 89.0 63.1 45.3 104.3 72.1 66.4 64.6 165.0 79.3 64.3 230.3 197.4 242.7 308.9 901.6
1988 153.0 63.4 101.8 40.2 58.9 38.4 127.5 84.1 62.7 88.8 47.8 45.1 280.6 200.9 250.0 199.3 911.7
1989 46.0 87.5 90.7 81.9 20.1 54.9 37.2 57.0 40.6 96.8 60.1 132.9 178.7 192.7 149.1 197.5 805.7
1990 131.3 140.7 22.7 38.1 24.2 70.7 34.2 46.2 52.2 101.0 65.9 99.5 404.9 85.0 151.1 219.1 826.7
1991 91.1 63.7 74.2 69.2 13.9 92.7 67.7 30.4 61.9 76.1 93.2 48.9 254.3 157.3 190.8 231.2 783.1
1992 47.8 46.3 83.5 72.3 48.0 38.2 81.6 127.7 90.9 83.1 136.8 82.3 143.1 203.7 247.5 310.7 938.5
1993 110.4 15.2 25.3 91.2 86.5 64.0 80.6 53.1 110.2 87.0 71.7 162.7 207.9 203.1 197.8 268.9 958.0
1994 119.8 79.7 93.4 72.1 59.8 35.5 45.1 69.8 102.5 94.7 83.7 137.9 362.2 225.4 150.5 280.9 994.2
1995 156.0 110.9 65.5 26.2 47.5 22.4 39.0 10.3 109.8 55.8 80.5 81.5 404.8 139.1 71.6 246.1 805.2
1996 62.1 81.6 42.1 49.3 56.0 29.1 40.6 78.7 33.7 88.3 124.5 51.7 225.2 147.4 148.4 246.4 737.6
1997 13.8 116.6 30.7 24.2 72.9 123.8 47.3 91.9 35.0 66.7 113.5 105.0 182.1 127.8 263.0 215.1 841.2
1998 116.0 22.7 96.5 121.8 32.5 124.3 58.5 50.2 92.3 161.1 83.9 90.9 243.7 250.8 232.9 337.3 1050.6
1999 133.9 51.3 70.9 74.9 57.6 82.0 24.1 103.0 119.0 81.9 64.2 151.1 276.0 203.4 209.1 265.1 1013.9
2000 54.5 96.1 38.0 132.5 83.8 47.6 62.3 66.4 121.5 180.1 174.8 136.6 301.7 254.3 176.3 476.4 1194.3
2001 74.2 96.3 91.3 98.1 42.5 41.9 74.0 86.1 81.3 131.6 67.7 44.3 307.0 231.9 202.0 280.6 929.2
2002 95.1 140.7 49.3 53.7 93.7 57.4 83.3 67.3 34.8 133.3 154.1 128.5 280.1 196.8 207.9 322.2 1091.3
2003 86.1 38.8 38.9 45.4 74.6 67.2 75.6 17.6 36.7 57.7 100.1 100.3 253.4 158.9 160.4 194.5 739.1
2004 124.0 58.8 53.9 78.5 45.8 58.5 68.5 148.9 65.9 148.5 52.6 69.2 283.1 178.3 275.9 267.0 973.1
2005 67.6 50.3 52.0 74.5 47.6 56.6 66.3 59.5 68.4 121.9 90.0 68.7 187.1 174.1 182.4 280.3 823.3
2006 35.0 56.3 93.5 46.0 109.5 25.6 43.1 90.2 74.9 117.7 110.2 129.8 160.0 249.0 158.8 302.8 931.8
2007 110.5 100.9 62.7 12.6 110.1 149.0 136.0 57.2 50.6 47.3 73.1 99.7 341.3 185.3 342.2 171.0 1009.7
2008 145.2 43.6 99.3 68.0 67.1 63.1 107.1 119.3 104.8 111.8 87.8 63.9 288.6 234.4 289.6 304.4 1081.1
#
#MIN 13.8 8.4 10.7 6.9 13.9 4.0 23.3 10.3 8.4 18.8 17.9 23.3 86.7 85.0 71.6 136.2 639.4
#MAX 176.7 153.5 163.5 132.5 133.7 149.0 136.0 172.8 186.2 180.1 196.7 190.8 425.1 300.8 342.2 476.4 1194.3
#6190 90.3 64.6 73.2 60.1 63.4 63.7 62.3 76.7 78.3 86.5 91.8 95.6 250.5 196.8 202.8 256.5 906.5
#7100 94.5 67.5 73.8 60.8 59.3 66.1 57.5 72.2 80.3 93.2 93.6 101.8 263.8 193.9 195.8 267.1 920.7
#
#Year JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC WIN SPR SUM AUT ANN
#Col1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Posted by The Englishman at 10:22 AM
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The Arctic Ice Is Still All Going To Melt Real Soon - Consensus
The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as ten years' time, a top polar specialist has said.
"It's like man is taking the lid off the northern part of the planet," said Professor Peter Wadhams, from the University of Cambridge.
Professor Wadhams has been studying the Arctic ice since the 1960s.
He was speaking in central London at the launch of the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey.
Professor Wadhams said: "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view - based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition - that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.
"That means you'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean."
A new "consensus" view...Campaigners are taking this latest research to the Copenhagen climate conference in December in hope that the evidence will convince world leaders to take action in cutting carbon emissions.
I looked at the Catlin Website and only found their July report, is this an update since we now know that there was a "rebound" in ice area this summer. For the record here is their conclusion back in July.
Catlin Arctic Survey 2009 Ice Report – June 09
Some science partners of the Catlin Arctic Survey have suggested that the 2009 summer minimum ice extent may make a slight recovery on 2008. This is hinted at in the prediction of multi‐year ice extent ... And the seemingly thicker First Year Ice measured by the Catlin Arctic Survey team may also be connected to this.
If this is the case, it would be evidence against the tipping point theory and the more short term predictions of ZIC. It may be a rebound after a below average decline, but it should not be mistaken for the start of a long‐term recovery in Arctic Sea Ice.
The latest conclusions from the OUTLOOK group in 2008 suggest that the ice extent will decline in irreversible steps after each warmer summer, rather than following a tipping point, or exponential decline. If there does prove to be a summer minimum recovery in 2009, it should be considered in this context.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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October 14, 2009
Global Warming Causes New Type of Rain
'Monsoon style' floods to hit Britain - Telegraph
Lord Smith, Chairman of the Environment Agency, said Britain is experiencing a "new kind of rain" in the summer that is putting cities at increasing risk, especially London.
More details of this type of rain are available here or if you want to play with a set of numbers go here
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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October 13, 2009
The Cost of Green Motoring
UK Government: Per Mile Tax Would Solve Global Warming
A UK government group today released a proposal that would impose a per-mile tax on motorists to rescue the planet from an imagined catastrophe.
"Evidence in this report suggests that road pricing would result in a significant emissions reduction (e.g. around 6 MtCO2 in 2020) if there were no offsetting reductions in other aspects of transport pricing (i.e. fuel duty, vehicle excise duty)," the report explained. "The committee recommends therefore that the government should seriously consider road pricing."
.. In addition, the group proposed reducing the national 70 MPH highway speed limit to 60 MPH and using GPS-enabled devices to cut off power to engines attempting to exceed existing limits.
"Given that the 70 mph speed limit is an existing policy, the committee believes that the government should seriously consider enforcing this, either through the current enforcement mechanism, or through rolling out Intelligent Speed Adaptation technology to both new and existing cars," the report explained.
Another 4.6 million drivers would be forced to go through "eco training." Taxpayers would also heavily subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles and the new infrastructure that would be required to recharge them. The report explained that batteries for an electric vehicle with an 80-mile range cost $13,000, while those of a vehicle with a 200-mile range cost $42,000. As most consumers would refuse to spend such a premium, the report recommended £9.8 billion (US $15 billion) in subsidies to promote the technology.
"Implementation of the required measures to achieve budgets would in some instances save people and businesses money and in total cost less than one percent of GDP," the report explained.
In other words, the whole suite of CCC proposals would cost the British economy a total of $26,800,000,000. Chapter six of the report is excerpted in a 4mb PDF file here.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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He made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate.
Dr Rowan Williams: 'Dig for victory over climate change and grow your own food
Dr Williams said he recognised that many jobs in developing countries depended on exports of fresh produce, but it was a mistake to encourage those countries to base their economies on unsustainable practices.
“I don’t want to create an instant crisis in those economies but that’s the direction, a steady move away from it. You want to ask what is it doing long term to a Kenyan economy that becomes dependent on what are effectively cash crops for export.”
He said that Britain had to get back in touch with the “natural rhythms of the seasons ... the fact that the Earth turns, things grow here and not there, now and not then”. He added: “More people ought to have allotments. It’s part of reconnecting — the sense of connectedness to natural processes.”
The Archbishop was playing his part, he said, by consuming vegetables from a plot in Lambeth Palace. His family also received regular deliveries of locally grown produce.
That's nice, The Bishop in his Palace has his food delivered to him but the serfs should scrabble in the mud for their turnips through the winter. A return to the natural order of things. And of course we don't want those brown chappies to get used to selling stuff for cash and raising themselves out of poverty when we have a stockpile of Christian Aid goats to send them do we?
And today's hymn is:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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October 11, 2009
Larry Moran defends The Faith
Sandwalk: Average Annual Global Temperatures and IDiots
Larry Moran Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto.
Here's a chart of the average annual global temperature change over the past 150 years. I don't know about you, but to me there seems to be a bit of a trend.
The highest recorded temperature was in 1998 and last year the temperature was 0.08ｰ lower than the year before. Nobody with an IQ over 50 thinks that the temperature has to increase every single year in order to demonstrate global warming.
Speaking of IQ, the BBC "climate correspondent" just wrote an article for BBC News: What happened to global warming?.
....
It's actually not quite as bad an article as it sounds. There's some interesting discussion about short-term trends and how to predict them. Unfortunately the author leaves the impression that global warming may not be caused by humans. In seven of the past eight years the global temperature has been higher than it has ever been except for 1998. Isn't that worth mentioning?
The interesting thing about this is that the exact quotation above is presented on Uncommon Descent (a creationist website) under the same scary title: What happened to global warming?. There's no additional information to put the headline into context.
Why is there a correlation between the rejection of evolution and the rejection of other scientific discoveries? Isn't it obvious? The IDiots are not in the business of promoting the scientific theory of Intelligent Design Creationism. Their goal is to discredit science and they'll try anything at all to advance that goal.
I hope Prof Moran is better at Biochemistry than he is at logic. I know it is slightly different on the left side of the pond but I don't see much correlation between creationist IDiots and Sceptics over here. Over here there is more of a correlation between people who reject faith based creationism and those who demand to see the evidence of Man Made Global Warming. But even if there is a 100% correlation over in Toronto it is not relevant as to whether it is unfortunate to question whether Global Warming is man made.
And his graph is one of the pieces of evidence that opens up that question. How does the pattern of that graph correlate to CO2 emissions? Very poorly. Others may argue it correlates better with sun spots or hem lines. Or maybe it is just a natural warming that is going on? Maybe the human influence on a natural process is only marginal?
The scientific position is to always be sceptical and question and reject faith led pronouncements.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:42 AM
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October 9, 2009
Scare tactics to push for higher prices
Climate change sceptics are to be targeted in a hard-hitting government advertising campaign that will be the first to state unequivocally that Man is causing global warming and endangering life on Earth.
The £6 million campaign, which begins tonight in the prime ITV1 slot during Coronation Street, is a direct response to government research showing that more than half the population think that climate change will have no effect on them.
Ministers sanctioned the campaign because of concern that scepticism about climate change was making it harder to introduce carbon-reducing policies such as higher energy bills.
The advert is here, don't blame me if you punch the screen.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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Costless Green Jobs
Cost of going green: £7,000 a home - Scotsman.com News
IT WILL cost £16 billion to make homes in Scotland energy- efficient over the next decade, according to a new report....
Elizabeth Leighton, senior policy officer at WWF Scotland, said: " Scotland's homes account for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore making them low-carbon is key to Scotland achieving its 42 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.
"Improving home energy efficiency is a win for not only for carbon savings but for lifting people out of fuel poverty and creating thousands of green jobs.
"The £16 billion price tag sounds a massive sum, but it would be spread over a decade and the cash will come from a mix of sources including energy companies and householders as well as the public purse."
Create lots of new jobs and the poor old householders won't have to pay for them because the money will come from the energy companies and the public purse!
Stick to the wrestling love until you grasp the simplest basics of how the economy works.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
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October 8, 2009
The Green Religion
Climate change beliefs 'like religeon' (From Oxford Mail)
An executive sacked from one of the UK's biggest property companies began his defence today of an employment tribunal decision that he can claim he was unfairly dismissed because of his belief in climate change.
Tim Nicholson, 42, from Oxford, says his views on the environment are so strong that they led to clashes with other senior staff at Grainger plc.
But the ruling is being challenged by Grainger on the grounds that green views are not the same as religious or philosophical beliefs.
Representing the company, John Bowers QC said: "A philosophical belief must be one based on a philosophy of life, not a scientific belief, not a political belief or opinion, not a lifestyle choice, not an environmental belief and not an assertion of disputed facts."
Mr Nicholson claims that his views on climate change affect his whole lifestyle.
In a witness statement to the previous hearing, he said: "I have a strongly held philosophical belief about climate change and the environment.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:11 AM
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The Times Green Lies
Watts Up picks up on the Northeast passage story
One newspaper is making the most of this “first ever event”, according to a story in the UK Register:
The Times has liberally papered London underground carriages with a fascinating new ad campaign. One poster shows a ship navigating some treacherous icy waters, with the accompanying copy reading:
Climate change has allowed the Northeast Passage to be used as a commercial shipping route for the first time.
According to the ad copy:
To help you navigate the changing world we have more dedicated science and environment correspondents than the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail or Independent.
Only one problem: The Northeast Passage has been opened for commerce since 1934 – and never ‘closed’.
Readers, especially those in the UK, I’d like to make a suggestion. Let the Times know they screwed up, not only for the journalistic failure, but also for the touting of the failure as advertising. Letters to the editor, letters to the managements, and to the advertising office might be a good start. If nobody calls them on it, they’ll never learn.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/services/contact_us/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/services/advertising/
There’s also the UK Advertising Standards Authority, that works to keep advertising legal, decent, honest and truthful. The ad being run by the Times is failing most of those points. Here’s where you can complain:
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/
What I find interesting is that none of the other papers have picked up on their competitors ignorance, obviously staying within the green camaraderie is more important than humiliating your rival...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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In the dark is green still green?
Environmental activists claimed a major victory last night when plans for Britain’s first new coal-fired power station for 30 years were shelved after a sustained campaign.
An E.ON spokeswoman admitted that the delay meant the existing plant at Kingsnorth would stop generating electricity before a new one alongside it could open. She said: “The recession will buy everyone a lot of time to iron out details. The plant was going to open around 2012-13 but we are not going to make a decision on whether to open it for two to three years and it would then take around four years to build.” She said that the future of carbon capture and storage CCS, which is extremely expensive and has yet to be shown to work commercially anywhere in the world, partly depended on the price of permits to emit carbon.
A green victory - it might not have been their naked stunts that stopped it but it is their stupid theology that ramped up the costs. When the lights go out we know who to blame.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
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October 5, 2009
Arctic Ocean Litmus Test
Arctic Ocean acid 'will dissolve shells of sea creatures within 10 years' - Telegraph
Waters around the North Pole are absorbing carbon dioxide at such a rate that they will soon start dissolving the shells of living sea creatures.
The potentially disastrous consequences for the food chain have been highlighted by Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso of the National Centre for Scientific Research in France.
Their forecasts suggest that by 2018, 10 per cent of the ocean will be corrosively acidic, rising to 50 per cent in 2050. By 2100 the entire Arctic Ocean will be inhospitable to shellfish, they predict.
"Over the whole planet, there will be a threefold increase in the average acidity of the oceans, which is unprecedented during the past 20 million years,"
"corrosively acidic" "dissolving the shells" "threefold increase in the average acidity" - It's going to turn into battery acid!
I can't find his research but an article he is lead author of updated on 3rd October 2009 says the pH of the Oceans was 8.18 in pre industrial times, 8.09 in 1990, projected to be 7.93in 2065 and 7.84 in 2100. So not quite Haighian Acid Bath that the Telegraph science writer suggests.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:13 AM
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October 4, 2009
Smart Meter's Dumb Idea
Smart energy meters in homes could be hacked - Telegraph
Experts say the compulsory monitors, designed to reduce energy consumption, could be programmed to cripple the national grid or to steal valuable household data, breaching the privacy of millions.
They also pave the way for a national 'smart grid', backed by David Cameron's Conservatives, which would use the data to manage national demand more efficiently and advise households when it is cheapest to switch on appliances.
However, smart meters can be infected with a 'worm'...
And the worm's name is Miliband - remember the purpose of these meters is to enable the man in Whitehall to control your electricity usage "advising you when to switch on appliances", that's advice with their finger on the switch, turning down the juice when the wind turbines don't work, rationing you to one bar on your fire...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
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September 30, 2009
Breaking Hockey Sticks
- Bishop Hill blog - The Yamal implosion
There is a great deal of excitement among climate sceptics over Steve McIntyre's recent posting on Yamal. Several people have asked me to do a layman's guide to the story in the manner of Caspar and the Jesus paper. Here it is.
If you haven't, and even if you have, been following this on the more geeky sites go and read this. It is important/
Posted by The Englishman at 7:14 AM
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Dummkopf
Americans are 'illiterate' about climate change, claims expert - Telegraph
Prof Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change, "In a sense the US is climate illiterate. If you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate change even in Brazil, China you have more people who know about the problem and think deep cuts in emissions are needed," he said.
Prof Schellnhuber, who has played a key role in waking the world up to climate change through his work advising the German government, described the Copenhagen conference as "the most important meeting in the history of the human species".
If you don't agree with me you are stupid and we should ignore you until you have been re-educated...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
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September 25, 2009
Costa del Antarctica
Climate change accelerating – UNEP
Climate change is happening faster than previously thought, according to a new report from the UN Environment Programme.... because of increasing amounts of pollution in the atmosphere, speeding up of melting glaciers, collapsing ecosystems and acidification of the oceans.
The Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 looked at 400 scientific reports released ......
Unlike The Telegraph I provide a link to the actual report, and flicking through what is the first image that hits my eye?
Dear old Steig's paper makes an outing, that it has been sliced, diced and spat out by Climate Auditors as being less than robust is of course ignored.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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September 24, 2009
Modoki - Same But Different But Nothing New
El Niño ‘Modoki’ – a new kind of El Niño will increase with global warming
Research published today in Nature has identified a new type of El Niño climate anomaly that is occurring with more and more frequency as a consequence of human-induced global warming.
Obviously I haven't read the Nature paper which firmly points the finger at us for stirring up the Pacific - one outcome could be worsening droughts in India and Australia.
It could also cause more severe hurricanes in the Caribbean and US, since El Nino is known to hamper the development of tropical cyclones.
The changing ocean events may even have an impact on the UK and northern Europe, as there is a link between strong El Ninos and heavier than normal spring rainfall over central Europe and southern regions of the UK.
Luckily I don't have to as an excellent paper was published on Watts Up by Bob Tisdale about this a couple of months ago:
...Figure 2 is a short-term (1979 to 2008) times-series graph of the El Nino Modoki Index, using the calculation from Ashok et al. Ashok et al define a typical El Nino Modoki event as, “We call an El Nino Modoki event ‘typical’ when its amplitude of the index is equal to or greater than 0.7α, where α is the seasonal standard deviation.”
http://i31.tinypic.com/70dxsy.png
Figure 2
Figure 3 is a longer-term (1900 to 2008) times-series graph of the El Nino Modoki Index. As you will note, El Nino Modoki events as determined by the El Nino Modoki Index have occurred over the entire term of the data. There is nothing NEW about El Nino Modoki events.
http://i28.tinypic.com/2cyo57p.png
Figure 3
SOURCE
HADISST data is available through the KNMI Climate Explorer website:
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere
Posted by The Englishman at 7:21 AM
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Benn's Plans To Nationalise The Means of Production
A strategy to protect the health of England's soils and ensure they continue to store carbon dioxide, will be published by the government later.
Mr Benn said: "Soil is one of the building blocks of life. Good quality soils are essential for a thriving farming industry, a sustainable food supply, and a healthy environment.
"Britain's soils hold more carbon than all the trees in Europe's forests - and their protection is critical if we are to successfully combat climate change.
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spokesman said: "England's soil has suffered over the last 200 years from the impacts of intensive farming and industrial pollution, and today is under threat from erosion by wind and rain, a loss of organic matter and nutrients, and pressure for development."
The new strategy will set out plans to "halt and reverse" this degradation over the next 20 years.
The BBC's environment correspondent, Sarah Mukherjee, said although farmers are pleased the government is taking the issue seriously, some say this report is behind the times.
"Behind the times"? There is no evidence of any major degradation of top soil in this country, by any measure the vast majority of it is improving and is increasingly well cared for. It provides the livelihood for farmers so it is in their interest to do so.
All this report will do is increase the already onerous rules and regulations that farmers have to follow. Instead of being the best judges of what they can do on their own farms they have to follow Mr Benn's rules set in Whitehall.
(One result is pressure on the House Martin population - they need mud to build their nests and cattle tracks were a common source - farmers aren't allowed to let cattle puddle the ground now so their is less mud and so it is reported the nests fail more often.)
Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM
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September 23, 2009
EnviroStasi
Government officials track cars and trespass on private property, report shows - Telegraph
Reports from the Office of Surveillance Commissioners (OSC), a Government agency, found that staff from the Environment Agency investigating the illegal disposal of waste may have broken the law.
The reports suggested that the agency was considering specifically including evidence gained through trespass and vehicle tracking devices in an attempt to have a court rule on whether it was allowed to continue.
RIPA became law in 2000 and was intended to fight terrorism and serious crime. However, councils and other bodies have been criticised for using it to snoop on the public over minor offences including fly-tipping or misleading school applications.
The Environment Agency used its powers under RIPA to carry out 1,009 surveillance operations between 2004 and 2008,
Last night, the Environment Agency said that it was suspending use of the tactics pending a legal judgement on whether they were acceptable.
However, the agency is also trialling a register of secret informants who report suspected waste offences in the north east of England, and eventually plans a national spy network, the Commissioner reported.
Anyone think that all environmentalists are warm and cuddly still?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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September 22, 2009
Media Miss The Arctic Passage Story of The Year
Arctic ice meltdown greater than average again in 2009
The consistently severe retreats in recent years have prompted dire warnings from some scientists, who say ice-free Arctic summers may be just years away. That phenomenon, they say, would accelerate global warming and threaten the survival of polar bears, which feed primarily along ice edges.
The shrinking extent of Arctic ice is only part of the picture. U.S. scientists have released several studies this year pointing to a rapid thinning of ice cover even in areas where melting has been incomplete.
The Canadian Ice Service, an Environment Canada agency that monitors northern shipping conditions, confirmed the Northwest Passage has remained largely blocked by ice this summer.
The northern, deep-water route, which the service described as "rarely navigable," is "still choked with ice in Viscount Melville Sound" and impossible for normal ships to pass through, a spokesperson told Canwest News Service on Wednesday.
Despite all that ice having melted and whilst everyone looking at the North-East Passage it seems no one is reporting that the North West Passage didn't clear this year. But let's not let facts get in the way of a good story...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM
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September 21, 2009
Consensus Forecast On Climate Change - Hocus Pocus.
AFP: Kenya rainmakers called to the rescue
Long vilified as sorcerers, Kenya's Nganyi rainmakers -- with meteorological equipment consisting of trees, pots and herbs -- are being enlisted to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The croak of the frog, the movement of the termites, the leafing of certain trees all carry information, the interpretation of which the Nganyi have transformed into a ritual art hovering between legend and science.
Modernisation slowly eroded the community's aura but the Nganyi have recently been offered a way of reviving their traditions through a project aimed at using indigenous knowledge in disaster prevention.
Funded by Britain and Canada, the programme brings the Kenya Meteorology Department (KMD) and traditional rainmakers together to produce more accurate forecasts and disseminate them to a wider number.
Ouma explains that traditional prediction methods have their limitations and that the project's main goal is to produce a consensus forecast that can be disseminated through indigenous channels.
"This project is part of an early warning system... We are helping people to adapt to climate change," Ouma says.
But Ouma, a PhD meteorologist, doesn't dismiss the Nganyi's art altogether and argues that what may seem to some like primitive hocus-pocus contains a wealth of untapped scientific information.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:45 PM
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What are jobs?
Tony Blair says climate change fight can create millions of jobs - Telegraph
Countries can make massive cost savings and create millions of jobs by signing up to global climate change initiatives, a new report backed by Tony Blair will argue.
The report, titled Cutting the Cost, will focus on the economic advantages of a global response to rising temperatures caused by the growth in greenhouse gas emissions.
Analysis in the report shows that an international global deal over climate change could create as many as 10 million new jobs in green energy by 2020.
In a foreword to the report, Mr Blair attempts to head off criticism of the proposals. ''The overall message is clear: even ignoring the costs of climate change itself, the world benefits economically from action to cut emissions.''
Grade A Economic Fuckwittery Creating costs doesn't promote economic revival.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:05 AM
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September 19, 2009
Climate Change, the debate is over.
The amount and quality of available scientific data on the global impact of climate change, I rediscovered at a seminar organized by the Danish Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen this week, is staggering. The debate that swirled around the issues of climate change and global warming just two or three years ago has vanished. There is much more certainty now on the nature and extent of the changes to the Earth’s climate that can be attributed to the impact of human activity, mainly the burning of fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases.
He has leafed through the Synthesis Report then, put his fingers in his ears and hummed "La La La I can't hear you" as he enjoyed the juicy cherries they had picked for him.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:04 AM
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Arctic Sea Ice - More is Less
A CAMBRIDGE professor has given a fresh warning about the climate change-hit Arctic region.
Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at Cambridge University who is on a research expedition on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, said: "We’re entering a new epoch of sea ice melt in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change.
"In five years’ time, most of the sea ice could be gone in summer with just an ’Alamo of ice’ remaining north of Ellesmere Island.
"In 20 years’ time, that will also be gone, leaving the Arctic Ocean completely ice-free in summer."
Melanie Duchin, Greenpeace expedition leader on board the Arctic Sunrise, said the extent of the melting sea ice was "another deafening alarm about the state of the world’s climate".
Imagine what they would have said if 2009 hadn't had had a lot more ice than 2008 which had more ice than 2007....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:57 AM
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Mr Toad on the Road, Blame Global Warming
Britain's toads get new protection from the Department for Transport - Telegraph
Global warming has led to a change in their breeding and migrating patterns and this has forced the Department for Transport into a rethink on the rules which governing temporary road signs.
As the law stands councils can only put up "migratory toad crossing" signs between February and May.
But under the changes announced by the DfT these signs will go up in January giving the toad – officially a "biodiversity priority species" – an extra month's protection.
Put that one down to adaptation being cheaper and more sensible than mitigation, as so often would be the case.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
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September 16, 2009
Oxfam gets it right, a bit.
More than 4.5m children will die if money for aid is diverted to climate change - Oxfam - Telegraph
A new Oxfam report has warned that at least 4.5 million children could die, more than 75 million fewer children are likely to attend school and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/Aids treatment if aid is diverted to help poor countries tackle climate change.
Prioritization, isn't that what Bjørn Lomborg was lambasted for talking about. We only have finite resources and getting the best bang for our buck means that shovelling money at Climate Change whatevers is low on the list compared to schools, food and medicines.
But the answer that we just need to increase spending to cover everything isn't the right one.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:49 PM
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September 15, 2009
Winter Draws On
Today is known as “the big switch-on” — the day on which the majority of homes in Britain are expected to turn on their central heating for the first time this autumn.
I'm waiting until Friday before I start withdrawing the graphite rods from the core of the AGA to set the beast in action, at least I will be able to do it this year - I really worry in ten years time it will neither be warm enough not to want to nor unrationed to be allowed to. But then I'm not completely reassured by;
There is "no danger" of mass power cuts in the UK during the next decade, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said.
He told the BBC it was possible to meet the country's energy needs while using more "sustainable" sources such as wind farms and nuclear stations.
And if you believe that then have a got a bottle of Cure-all to sell you.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
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September 14, 2009
Norman Borlaug - The Times craps on him
Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives from starvation. But decades on, his farming methods threaten the health of the planet
Graham Harvey
...Though the Green Revolution has undoubtedly given the world more food, it has brought with it worrying consequences. An investigation into agriculture funded by the World Bank concluded that the benefits have been unevenly distributed.
And that is the fault of politicians and their fellow travellers in Africa preventing farmers taking up modern ideas.
.....Growing annual grain crops such as wheat over lengthy periods inevitably leads to soil damage.....
No - I farm on the open fields of Wiltshire which have never been enclosed for livestock, probably been growing continuous crops for 2000 years, maybe twice as long. The soil has never been in better condition, because it is improved scientifically every year.
But there is another more pressing reason for turning away from Borlaug’s grains and making more use of the world’s neglected grasslands. The shift to industrial grain production has added hugely to the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. ...
For all the high hopes of the 1960s, it is hard to see Borlaug’s system as more than a partial success...
Oh just fuck off, a system saves a billion people from death and the Archer's Agricultural Story Editor knows better so he declares it is only a partial success because of he has some unproven worries about the future and a book to sell. Twat.
As Norman Borlaug said himself: They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals, and be outraged that fashionable elitists were trying to deny them these things.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:18 AM
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Northeast Passage - The Times leader full of more crap than a goose.
The mystery of the Northeast Passage has been broken, but at a terrible price...
Blah, blah, bollocks.
A couple of blogs have been kind enough to credit me with being first to suss out the essential crapness of this breakthough, when all I did late on Friday night full of beer, in fact very full of beer, was manage to look something up on Wikipedia. That feat seems beyond the best of Fleet Street now, whereas bloggers such as Richard at EU Ref can produce a comprehensive smackdown, with pictures and political analysis without the backup of a multimillion pound news machine.
Do read his update.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM
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September 12, 2009
Organic Gardening Leaves a Nasty Taste in The Mouth
German organic gardening guru Alwin Seifert took tips from Dachau experiments
Now it emerges that at least some of Seifert’s useful tips in his bestselling book Gärtnern, Ackern-ohne Gift, (Gardening, Working the Soil without Poison) may have been gleaned from his observation of the experimental gardens set up on the grounds around Dachau concentration camp.
Tended by half-starved slave labourers, at least 400 of whom were killed, drowned in the carp pond or trampled into the mud of the latrine trenches, the Dachau gardens were established at the behest of Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s security chief, and stretched to 211 blossoming hectares....
The Dachau complex was supposed to solve some riddles, such as why potatoes had become so vulnerable to pests and early decay, and to build a more or less scientific basis for an alternative “biological-dynamic lifestyle”....
Seifert joined the Nazi party in 1937. He even had the title Reichslandschaftsanwalt — advocate of the Reich’s Landscape. He became a professor at Munich technical university, head of the nature preservation league (a forerunner organisation to the Greens) and before his death in 1972, influenced a whole generation of organic garden planners throughout Germany and Europe.
The passion for organic gardening gripped Germany and has never let go. Whether it will survive the horrific images that emerge from Ms Seidl’s research, the imprisoned priests who were strapped to ploughs, the inmates killed for taking a bite of raw rhubarb, the overseer who received a cash bonus for shooting his 100th Jew among the gladioli, is another matter.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:17 AM
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September 11, 2009
BiPolar Reporting
Arctic thaw brings boom in reindeer population - Times Online
Climate change may be bad for polar bears but one type of reindeer and several other species are thriving in the rising temperature, according to a comprehensive study of the impact of global warming in the Arctic.
The loss of snow cover has resulted in a booming population of wild reindeer on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, with numbers doubling in the past 30 years. Other species, including muskox, sockeye salmon, pink-footed goose, grey whale and alpine pika, are also benefiting from the warmer Arctic climate or adapting well to it.
Polar bears are particularly vulnerable to the reduction in sea ice because that is where they catch the seals on which they feed. In the past two decades the number of polar bears in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea has halved and around Hudson Bay has fallen by 22 per cent.
Two populations of polar bears falling, where have I heard that before?
Polar bear expert barred by global warmists - Telegraph
Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.
But The Telegraph has a different slant:
Polar bears caught on camera - Telegraph
Dr Tom Arnbom, 50, from Stockholm, Sweden, thinks the bears in these images could be part of only two growing populations in the world.
He said: "There are 19 populations of polar bears on the planet. At present we know that eight are decreasing, three are stable, seven we are not sure about, and the only one we know for sure that is growing is in Canada.
"But it is my personal opinion that the bear numbers in Svalbard are increasing. Compared with the last 20 years we are getting many more reports of sightings and it could be a sign that their numbers are up.
"Monitoring populations is extremely difficult because they are very hard to find and very expensive to follow so it is difficult to get hard data.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:37 PM
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Nor, nor,east my hearties.
German ships blaze Arctic trail
Two German merchant ships are sailing from Asia to Europe via Russia's Arctic coast, having negotiated the once impassable North East Passage.
...the once impenetrable ice that prevented ships travelling along the northern Russian coast has been retreating rapidly because of global warming in recent decades.
The passage became passable without ice breakers in 2005.
This route is usually frozen but rising temperatures in the region caused by global warming have melted much of the ice allowing large ships to go through.
Wow! All that warming - but don't they even click on Wikipedia (let alone do some real research)
Northern Sea Route - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
in 1878 that Finland-Swedish explorer Nordenskid made the first successful attempt to completely navigate the Northeast Passage from west to east during the Vega expedition. The ship's captain on this expedition was lieutenant Louis Palander of the Swedish Royal Navy. In 1915 a Russian expedition led by Boris Vilkitsky made the passage from east to west.
One year before Nordenskid's voyage, commercial exploitation of the route started with the so-called Kara expeditions, exporting Siberian agricultural produce via the Kara Sea. Of 122 convoys between 1877 and 1919 only 75 succeeded, transporting as little as 55 tons of cargo. From 1911 steamboats ran from Vladivostok to Kolyma (the Kolyma steamboats) once a year.
Nordenskid, Nansen, Amundsen, DeLong, Makarov and others ran expeditions mainly for scientific and cartographic reasons.
After the Russian Revolution Introduction of radio, steamboats and icebreakers made running the Northern Sea Route viable. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union was isolated from the western powers, which made it imperative to use this route. Besides being the shortest seaway between the West and the Far East of the USSR it was the only one which lay inside Soviet internal waters and did not impinge upon that which belonged to nearby opposing countries.
In 1932 a Soviet expedition led by Professor Otto Yulievich Schmidt was the first to sail all the way from Arkhangelsk to the Bering Strait in the same summer without wintering en route. After a couple more trial runs in 1933 and 1934, the Northern Sea Route was officially open and commercial exploitation began in 1935. Next year, part of the Baltic Fleet made the passage to the Pacific where an armed conflict with Japan was looming.
A special governing body Glavsevmorput', the Administration of the Northern Sea Route, was set up in 1932 and Otto Schmidt became its first director. It supervised navigation and built Arctic ports.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union commercial navigation in the Siberian Arctic went into decline in the 1990s. More or less regular shipping is to be found only from Murmansk to Dudinka in the west and between Vladivostok and Pevek in the east. Ports between Dudinka and Pevek see next to no shipping at all. Logashkino and Nordvik were abandoned and are now ghost towns.
So in fact it was regularly being used until the USSR broke up and chaos reigned, and now it is back working again...
Posted by The Englishman at 11:30 PM
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September 10, 2009
Scepticism winning war of ideas
The British public has become more sceptical about climate change over the last five years, according to a survey.
Twice as many people now agree that "claims that human activities are changing the climate are exaggerated".
Four in 10 believe that many leading experts still question the evidence. One in five are "hard-line sceptics".
Half of the people surveyed believed the media was too alarmist.
And a third said there was too much conflicting evidence to know what is actually happening.
Cardiff's Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh added: "We need to make it clear to people what is due to climate change and what is not.
"It is time we made it real to people."
Other surveys have shown that people in the UK are more sceptical than those in Europe, but less than those in the US.
WHO IS THE MOST 'SCEPTICAL'?
Men more than women
Rural more than urban
Older people
High earners
Conservative voters more than Lib Dem voters; Lib Dem voters more than Labour voters
So only poor young urban Labour voting idiot women are convinced, way to go!
Posted by The Englishman at 10:37 PM
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The real cost of peasant farming spelt out
Green Central - Times Online - WBLG: True confessions of guerrilla arable farmer
I broadcast the grains of spelt (an old wheat variety) at the very end of last year, over a patch of maybe 1.5 square yards. The grew up before anything else, much, and thus largely smothered any weeds. For months I watched and occasionally watered, but that's not been necessary recently.
Then when everything looked rather yellow I cut off the heads with a pair of secateurs (not many wheat farmers use those!) and bunged the lot into a thick linen bag and gave it a jolly good pummelling till the seeds had mostly come away from the chaff.
It took a while to winnow the chaff away, which I achieved by grabbing odd handfuls and gently tossing them in the air while blowing - this scattered the chaff but left the grain to fall back into my hands.
Took about two hours
By the end, I weighed just under 700 grammes of grain - more than enough for a loaf of bead, but I have no idea how to turn it into flour...
Not too bad a yield (4840/1.5*0.7) 2.25 tonnes per acre, he should be happy with that, though it was hand tended. Labour costs? Two hours threshing, maybe another two planting, tending, and harvesting? What would you value JPs time at? £5.73 an hour - he should get the minimum wage even though he is unskilled.
£32,000 for a tonne of Spelt - 100 times the market price, so it turns out his labour was only worth 5 pence an hour
And that is why industrialisation of farming is at the heart of prosperity, because he should have been doing else rather than growing spelt with his time, if it isn't to be just a rather interesting hobby.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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Giving the bird to Organic farming
Fresh blow to organic as study says organic farms bad for songbirds - Times Online
The latest research, funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, suggests that an increase in farmers shifting to organic production could reduce the numbers of songbirds that depend on seeds to survive the winter. Organic farms plough up their fields after the cereal harvest in the autumn so there are no fields of stubble where birds can feed on seeds from weeds and other plants.
Their findings are a blow to organic champions who are still reeling from a study this summer which found that there were no health benefits to be gained from eating organic food.
Expect a dawn chorus of Lesser Spotted Melchetts tweeting that no one understands organic farming....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
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September 9, 2009
Make Money, Bury It
Storing carbon dioxide could be Britain’s new oil industry
Mark Henderson, Science Editor
The North Sea will provide Britain with a natural resource worth as much as £10 billion a year if the Government exploits it as a store for carbon dioxide (CO2 ) captured from power stations, scientists have said.
The market for storage technology could be worth another £3 billion to £5 billion, and the industry could support up to 240,000 jobs — almost as many as currently employed in the North Sea oil and gas industries.
Urgent government investment is needed, however,.....
Lots of lovely jobs, lots of lovely cash, so why do I have a niggling feeling that jobs are a cost not a benefit and rather than creating wealth this is literally pouring money into a hole in the ground. We might be lucky and get the Germans to pour their money into our holes but in the larger scheme of things I can't see a bonanza here.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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Cash for Carbon
Tens of billions of pounds will have to be raised through flight taxes to compensate developing countries for the damage air travel does to the environment, according to the Government’s advisory body on climate change...the revenue generated should be given to developing countries to help them to adapt to climate change — for example, by building flood defences to cope with rising sea levels.
In a letter to the Government published today, the committee says that an increase in global temperatures is inevitable and that developed countries must pay for the consequences.
Seems a bit arse about face to me, they are suggesting we mulct billions and pour it into Africa because we know we are causing damage to other people's property. Fair enough, if we are damaging some one else's property we should pay up. But I don't go thrusting tenners under window wipers in carparks in case I crash into the cars later, I require them to make a claim and prove I caused the damage. Same for this I suggest.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
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September 7, 2009
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
Scientist Lord May attacks BBC’s rejection of Planet Relief day
Lord May blamed a “ludicrous report on impartiality”, which had suggested that the BBC ought not to be seen to take sides on climate change issues. The science of climate change, he said, was now so well established that the BBC ought not to see it as a political issue on which it had to be neutral.
The BBC denied that the decision had been based on impartiality. A spokeswoman said: “We explained at the time the reasons why we didn’t go ahead with Planet Relief and that this wasn’t about concern about impartiality but because we had found that audiences responded better to documentaries and factual programming about the issue of climate change.
“We regularly cover this subject in our news and online output as well as in factual programmes, for example showing a definitive history of climate change, Earth — The Climate Wars, on BBC Two last year.
Though Lord May is not religious, he believes that religions can help such co-operation because the idea of a deity can serve as a “punisher” who encourages people not to cheat on their obligations to society. Religions, however, can also be part of the problem because they are often authoritarian and resistant to change.
Not religious? It sounds like he has got a great big dose of EcoReligion Fever...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:26 AM
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September 6, 2009
Volksaufklärung und Propaganda für Klimaänderungen Ausfall
Two-thirds of Britons admit to 'not doing enough' to protect environment - Telegraph
Only 23 per cent said that climate change is not caused by man, with 71 per cent accepting human activity is the main cause.
However, just over half (52 per cent) said climate change would take place regardless of what individuals do, with 46 per cent believing they could make a difference.
"Only 23%"? Our Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Ed Miliband must try harder...
Posted by The Englishman at 4:31 PM
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Met Office vs Tesco forecast.
Revealed: how Tesco's weathermen are predicting what you will want for tea - Scotsman.com News
Many big companies, including the BBC but excluding Tesco, buy their weather forecasts from the government- funded Met Office, which has acquired a chequered reputation for accuracy over the years.
Supermarket chain Tesco has employed its own team of weather experts to pinpoint changes in the weather so it can use its twists and turns to its own advantage.
The spokesman said: "In recent years the unpredictability of the British summer – not to mention the unreliability of British weather forecasters – has caused a massive headache for those in the retail food business deciding exactly which foods to put out on shelves.
"Getting this right means we do a good job for customers... and for our shareholders.
Tesco or the Met Office, private vs public, who would you trust to get it right?
Posted by The Englishman at 4:08 PM
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September 2, 2009
Miliband Green Poverty Warning
Ed Miliband warns of 'climate change poverty' - Telegraph
He should know as he is working hard to push us into it with his idiotic actions and inactions.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:57 AM
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Dangerous Tinkering
Royal Society warns climate engineering 'could cause disaster' - Times Online
Giant engineering schemes to reflect sunlight or suck carbon dioxide from the air could be the only way to save the Earth from runaway global warming, according to a group of leading scientists. But they say that these schemes could have their own catastrophic consequences, such as disrupting rainfall patterns, and should be deployed only as a last resort if attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fail.
Or what about if CAGW continues to fail to show up? It isn't the extra bit of CO2 or methane in every breath we take that worries us, it's catastrophic warming taking place. And that just isn't evidencing itself.
The problem about these schemes is also the best argument for reducing CO2 emissions, we just don't understand the climate system. We are like toddlers playing with a chronograph, we might be sprinkling a bit of sand into the works now but to give us a hammer and chisel to "mend" it with is even crazier.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM
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August 20, 2009
Carbon Credit Scam?
Seven arrests in suspected £38m carbon credit fraud - Telegraph
Officers said further arrests are likely, adding that the proceeds of this alleged crime have been "used to finance lavish lifestyles and the purchase of prestige vehicles".
In other news: Al Gore Hits the Waves with a Massive New Houseboat
Posted by The Englishman at 7:08 AM
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Steamy Nights
Weather eye: Warmer than average summer
...even though most of us think this has been an appalling summer. ...it has been warmer than average; this month so far temperatures in England and Wales were 1C (1.8F) above the norm,... So why do we feel so cheated by this summer? Perhaps it was because daytime temperatures were not very exciting. In fact, it was the nights that were warm — when most of us were asleep.
As has been pointed out before the rise in the recorded average temperature in England is nearly all due to the rise in the minimum rather than the maximum temperatures that the thermometers pick up.
Minimum Central England Temperature
We are all tucked up under a warm wet cuddly cloudy blanket every night sweating in the stored heat from all the concrete around us, rather than enjoying the clear blistering days we are hoping for, and warned against.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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Ed the Horse can talk the talk, but not walk the walk.
Climate Change department keep air-conditioning rather than open windows - Telegraph
The trial was abandoned after three days because staff at the department complained about noise from construction works, "the wrong kind of breeze" and the potential security risk.
Wow, all that saving energy and returning to pre-industrial times stuff is not as nice as enjoying the fruits of our labours is it? Now will you kindly shut the fuck up about how everyone else should do it and put up with it.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:34 AM
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August 19, 2009
Denier! Unclean! Kill Him!
Man-made climate change is a myth – and economic crash is good news, says Tory guru
DAVID Cameron's latest political guru plunged the Tory leader into an embarrassing controversy yesterday after saying he did not believe in man-made climate change.
Former Wall Street trader turned author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who penned the book The Black Swan about the perils of high-impact and unpredictable events, and politicians' failure to deal with them, shared a stage with Mr Cameron in London yesterday....
Mr Taleb waded into controversy by making a series of pronouncements about climate change, and that he liked market crashes.
He said: "I'm a hyper-conservative ecologically. I don't want to mess with Mother Nature. I don't believe that carbon thing is necessarily anthropogenic (derived from human activities]."
Mr Taleb, who is a professor of chance theory, also said of the economic crisis: "I like crashes. I just like the world to be robust about them."
The contentious remarks were seized on by Mr Cameron's opponents. Liberal Democrat MP Willie Rennie said: "David Cameron can get pulled around by huskies all he wants, but by cosying up to climate change deniers, he shows his true colours."
He is not of the true faith, all good Liberals know that any questioning is banned, even a hint of dissent is too dangerous to be allowed.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:23 AM
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August 18, 2009
Why Sceptics should encourage AGW engineering solutions.
The need to promote geo-engineering as a solution to AGW.
There may not be be a Global Warming Crisis about to happen, but politicians have invested too much political capital to suggest this. Politicians need to be "doing something". Let them plan all sorts of shiny new toys, such as cloud ships, which ill solve the problem if it comes but can remain largely unbuilt if it doesn't. This would be a far cheaper displacement activity for them than letting them tax and control "carbon".
I think that sums up the argument
UPDATE - See article on WUWT for more.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:59 AM
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August 17, 2009
Here Comes The Summer....
Summer back... for a few days | The Sun |News
BRITAIN'S elusive "barbecue summer" will briefly appear this week - with parts of the country basking in 29°C (84°F) sun.
The warmest weather is predicted to hit London and the South East on Wednesday.
But the heatwave is not expected to last. By Thursday it will be back to the low 20s (around 70°F) as a cool front moves in from the West.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:04 AM
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Water woes
Green and confused: How can I convince my family to save water? - Times Online
Living in a rural area, we don’t have our water metered but I’m always telling my menfolk not to leave taps on. They say there’s plenty of rain and I shouldn’t badger them. Do you have some ammuntioon (sic) to convince them?
....we waste water — flushing needlessly large amounts down the toilet, leaving taps running, literally throwing it away. We should all visit a village in northern India or Central Asia where people have to walk miles for just one container of precious water. Climate modellers predict that the high temperatures experienced in the summer of 2003 could be the norm by 2040. Rainfall patterns will alter: while little change is likely in the North of Scotland, the South of England could experience a 40 per cent decline in summer precipitation, meaning aquifers would dry up, rivers become a trickle and crops and gardens wither. The average consumption of water a person in the UK is 150 litres a day. But add in the “virtual water” content used to produce and transport food, clothing, computer chips and other items in the UK and that figure comes to a 4,600 litres a person a day.
We live in an interdependent world in which water resources are under severe strain. So tell your family to keep quiet — and shut off that tap.
I hadn't realised I was wasting all that water. We are going to run out in 2040 and then I will wish I hadn't poured it all away for it never to be seen again. Where is it all going? How can we get it back to recycle it? If only millions of us had descended on the thirsty and drank their water we would have known better.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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August 12, 2009
Bombay Mix up on Global Warming
Global youth pool climate ideas
Five hundred teenagers are meeting in Denmark for a competition to design new products to help tackle climate change.
Many of the teenagers at the camp have already experienced the impact of climate change first hand.
Yashvardhan Gusani, 15, lives near Mumbai in India.
He says: "The cities are getting hotter all the time. I feel like we have hardly even had a winter".
The wisdom of youth - you wouldn't expect him to remember back very far but last year shouldn't be a problem for him, should it?
Temperature lowest in Mumbai in 45 years Saturday, January 26, 2008
New Delhi: Chilly conditions continued to prevail in north India today with some cities recording sub-zero temperatures while the mercury plummeted in Mumbai to a record low in 45 years.
Mumbai and Global Warming March 30th, 2009
This year, winters in Mumbai set new records for being the coldest the city had ever witnessed, or say, for past 40 to 50 years. The temperature set new lows everyday, where a normal winter would record a temperature of 18-25 degrees, this year the temperatures descended to as low as eight degrees. It just took one year, in fact only some months, for global warming to give an evidence of what it is capable of. This winter brought about chaos in the lives of almost everyone concerned. Not that winters with eight degrees have never been witnessed elsewhere; but, for a place like Mumbai, it is sure an exception.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:50 AM
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Global Warming causes...
Global warming causing birds to shrink - Telegraph
First it was the fish, then the sheep, now the birds, the horror of it!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:23 AM
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August 11, 2009
Organic Food an attack on Civilisation
Organic food is just a tax on the gullible | Dominic Lawson - Times Online
There are two reliable ways of telling if you have won an argument. The first is if your disputants switch from discussion of the facts to accusations about motives; the second, more obviously, is if they descend to mere abuse.
Ben Goldacre, an NHS doctor and author of the acclaimed book Bad Science, remarked: “In my experience the [comments of the] organic food, antivaccine and homeopathy movements are unusually hateful and generally revolve around bizarre allegations that you covertly represent some financial or corporate interest. I do not; but I do think it reveals something about their own motives that they can only conceive of a person holding a position as a result of financial self-interest.”
His linking of the organic movement with homeopathy is telling. They are cults masquerading as science, rather like the creationists of America’s Bible Belt – but at least the latter have the self-awareness to acknowledge their opinions are based on faith. The organic movement, philosophically, is based on an inchoate faith in nature, seeing any human interference with nature as in some way bad and destructive of the “roots” of creation.
As Luc Ferry, the French philosopher, wrote in The New Ecological Order: “The hatred of the artifice connected with our civilisation... is also a hatred of humans as such. For man is the antinatural being par excellence... This is how he escapes natural cycles, how he attains the realm of culture, and the sphere of morality, which presupposes living in accordance with laws and not just with nature.”
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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Gross Stats
Food standards chief calls for flapjack ban
Research has found that, without action, about 90 per cent of today’s children will be overweight or obese by 2050
I could do that research, you take how much a child weighed last year and how much it weighs this year and plot that on a graph. Extend the line out to 2050 and blooming heck they are all really really heavy. Where do I pick my research grant up from?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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Food Security - Veggie Rations The Answer
Two-for-one supermarket deals face the axe - Times Online
Rationing and vegetarianism – taste of things to come - The Scotsman
Local olives: what we'll be eating in 2030 - Times Online
etc. - Google News
Even to begin to analyse this effluvia would, however, be a waste of time and effort, EURef tells us The only thing that this initiative tells us is that we have a government in denial. This is nursery government, with about as much relevance to reality as kiddies playing doctors and nurses.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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August 10, 2009
Indulgences to pay for absolution
Government's green energy plan may cost 17 times more than its benefits - Telegraph
The Government's plans to increase the proportion of Britain's energy generated by "green" sources is set to cost between 11 and 17 times what the change brings in economic benefits.
The figures are buried deep in the Government's Renewable Energy Strategy paper produced last month.
According to the document, while the expected cost will total around £4bn a year over the next 20 years, amounting to £57bn to £70bn, the eventual benefit in terms of the reduced carbon dioxide emissions will be only £4bn to £5bn over that entire period.
The figures make up part of the Government's impact assessment of the policies, which include plans to raise the proportion of British electricity produced by renewable sources from 5.5pc today to 30pc.
It is the Government's assessment that the non-monetary benefits of the policies will compensate for the possible £65bn shortfall, but economists are sceptical as to how much of this sum such factors can make up.
It is enough to make Trappist Worstall break his vow of silence and pronounce Ed Miliband is an incompetent, ignorant, waste of space fuckwit if he’s actually bothered to read the report put out under his name.
It is certain that when the penny jingles into the money-box, gain and avarice can be increased, but the result of the intercession in the Climate is in the power of God alone. Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences
Posted by The Englishman at 8:24 PM
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Give us today our daily bread
The government is consulting on how it can ensure that the UK's food supply remains secure in the future.
"It is to stimulate a debate within the UK on what a food policy should be, and how do we define and look at food security more broadly," said Defra's chief scientific adviser Professor Robert Watson.
"Food is absolutely essential, and over the past few years we did see a food price increase - not only in the UK, but across the globe," he told BBC News. "So the [test] for us will be, as the Earth's climate changes, what will be the challenges not only in the UK but throughout the world?"
In July, the Sustainable Development Commission - the government's environmental watchdog - warned that the current food system was failing. The report's author, Professor Tim Lang - a member of the UK government's Food Council, said the system had to radically change.
"We are going to have to get used to less choice, and we are going to have to eat differently," he told BBC News.
"For climate change; for water; for energy; for all sorts of reasons our diet is going to change. Consumers are not going to like it, although it is probably going to be healthier and definitely more sustainable.
Food Council, Sustainable Development Commission, Defra investigation, lots of taxpayer's money being splashed about to produce this rubbish. There will be more choice, more food and more handwringing as long as food producers are allowed to get on with it.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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August 9, 2009
Turned out nice again
It’s raining bonuses at the Met Office
The government-owned body has already awarded £1.1m. More than 1,700 staff are getting a “forecast accuracy” bonus of about £650 each — after a series of bungled predictions.
I wonder how much they would have got if their forecasts had turned out right?
Met Office: Comparing forecast accuracy
...we have verified our forecasts by comparing forecasts of mean sea-level pressure with subsequent model analyses of mean sea-level pressure. These comparisons are made over an area covering the North Atlantic, most of western Europe and north-eastern parts of North America....
So as long as your subsequent model analyses agrees with the forecast for air pressure all is well. Am I wrong in wondering how the forecasts agree with actual reality? Or even how they agree with actual weather we get, which is rather more important than how high the mercury is.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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Beetle Problems
Shooting season hit by plague of beetles - Scotsman.com News
THOUSANDS of acres of grouse moor have been stripped bare by a plague of heather beetles ahead of the Glorious Twelfth.
Some estates in the north of Scotland may now have to cancel planned shoots as a result of being infested with millions of the beetles per square acre earlier this year.
A mild winter followed by a warm and wet early summer has provided ideal conditions for heather beetle larvae to thrive....
Dr Adam Smith, spokesman for the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, said "They erupt like this for reasons probably related to climate."
Climate change, producing mild wintebrs and wetter summers, is making periodic heather beetle outbreaks more likely, experts say.
Something must be done!
But Scotland had an absolutely average winter in terms of temperature - here - is someone blaming warming for other causes?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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Eagle Dicers that the RSPB Supports
Deadly blades; death toll mounts as wind farms massacre birds of prey
It seems that the best locations for profitable wind farms are the same open, windswept scenic areas needed by wildlife. In this case, why doesn’t the wind industry just come out and say that this is NOT an ecologically friendly alternative, but they think it’s important enough/produces enough energy, to be worth sacrificing our wildlife and wild lands for?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM
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August 5, 2009
Stiffing the Tax Payer for Minister's Hot Air
Taxpayer may pay for green failures - Scotsman.com News
The failure of Government departments to cut emissions could leave the taxpayer facing large bills under a new carbon trading scheme coming into force next year, MPs have warned.
The CRC will require around 5,000 organisations to buy "allowances" costing £12 per tonne for all the CO2 they emit each year, and be judged on how much they are doing to cut their emissions.
Under the scheme, the money for purchasing allowances will go into a central pot and those cutting their emissions the most will get their original payment back plus a bonus, while those doing worst will be penalised by getting less back than they paid in.
MPs are concerned that if the Government does not cut emissions enough, the taxpayer will end up contributing "large sums" to companies who have done more.
Good news for those companies giving up all that nasty dirty making stuff in this country, they will now get a bung for doing so.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:24 AM
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August 4, 2009
Let them eat turbines
Climate change protesters glue themselves together - Telegraph
...students backing the workers' sit-in...union took legal advice about the treatment of the workers after claiming they were being denied access to adequate supplies of food...."we are calling on the police to take urgent action against their private security company to stop this outrageous affront to basic human rights".
So you illegally occupy a factory, lock yourself in and then whine that you are missing out on your takeaway curries which is an "outrageous affront to basic human rights". They should have packed some sandwiches.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:03 AM
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August 2, 2009
The Global Temperature Graph that is "Unacceptable"
If you swing by Wikipedia to look at global satellite temperature readings you won't see this graph.
Mid-tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperature data processed by the Global Hydrology and Climate Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) through 2008
It has been removed by the self appointed guardians of Climate Change truth Reverted to revision by William M. Connolley; "Sorry, graph is unacceptable."
Not wrong, not inaccurate, "unacceptable".
Posted by The Englishman at 8:47 AM
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August 1, 2009
The Cost of The Spy in the Meter
Smart meters in every home will cost each household more than £300 - Telegraph
At the moment the Government expects the consumer to pay the £11 billion cost by paying £15.78 extra per annum on electricity bills over the next 20 years, or a total of £315.60.
...Once the meters have been fitted, households could save £1.43 per annum because they will be better able to monitor energy use.
Bargain!
Posted by The Englishman at 10:30 PM
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July 31, 2009
The Carbon Police Are Coming Knocking
£15m home energy efficiency advice boost - Scotsman.com News
Experts will knock on all doors in each of ten chosen areas of Scotland, to offer to carry out an audit of how efficiently energy is being used, and means tested free or discounted insulation will be offered.
Green groups warned yesterday the initiative did not go far enough.
"We are from the Government and are only here to help", yes sweetie and of course it got lost in the post and I will pull out in time. What do the Greens want, compulsory cotton wool wrapping round crofts?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:31 AM
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July 30, 2009
Bin Bugs - The Latest Plan
Recycling your rubbish correctly could earn £150 a year - Times Online
Householders will earn up to £150 a year from recycling their rubbish under a scheme designed to reward those who put waste in the correct bins.
Microchips will be installed on wheelie bins, which will be scanned and weighed automatically as they are emptied into refuse lorries.
If you really have nothing better to do then down here in Wiltshire they have been kidnapping our rubbish and picking through it so we know how much glass Aspiring Singles are throwing away in each district....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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Local Food for Local Barons
Peter Robert Henry Mond, 4th Baron Melchett, heir to Sir Alfred Mond's ICI fortune is choking over his branflakes this morning.
EATING organic food does not provide any significant nutritional or health benefits, finds a study published yesterday.
"The LSHTM study was focused on nutrition, but we also point out that with organic food people know where their food has come from and how it is grown. We encourage people to connect with local producers and get involved with box schemes and farmers' markets," he said.
Ahh that's nice. He's a proper gent he is. The idea that one should be properly introduced before putting anything in your mouth is the hall mark of an English Gentleman. Not for us the glory holes of commercial foods but instead we will stand back trying to avoid any eye contact until our host comes across and does the whole "Peter, you know Wensleydale don't you, His family has estates up north. Didn't you gobble his brother when you were at Eton?" thing.
(The perplexing thing is why is he referred to as Peter Melchett - his name is Peter Mond, who happens to be Baron Melchett. Jonny Porritt could be Baron Porritt if he chose to be so he wouldn't have the same problem.)
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
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July 29, 2009
Problems with Met Office Data? - the Central England Temperature record is broken
Central England Temperatures welcome page
These daily and monthly temperatures are representative of a roughly triangular area of the United Kingdom enclosed by Bristol, Lancashire and London (view map). The monthly series, which begins in 1659, is the longest available instrumental record of temperature in the world. The daily series begins in 1772.
The Met Office have also been compiling Maximum, Minimum and Mean Daily Central England Temperatures data files since January 1878. The following stations are used by the Met Office to compile the CET data: Rothamsted, Malvern, Squires Gate and Stonyhurst and revised urban warming and bias adjustments have now been applied ....
Please note that the Met Office data sets are available for bona fide academic research only..
Luckily the data are available at Met Office Hadley Centre HadCET observations datasets
So let's look at Maximum Central England Temperature, 2009
The pale dotted line in the middle is this year (click to enlarge) - Phew what a scorcher! Look at that late June peak, way above average!
Where was it? We know this record is a blend of records from apparently three stations, and their records are also graphed on the same page:
Can you spot the problem? We've lost Pershore and Stonyhurst is disappearing. This leaves Rothamsted which is cool on the whole idea of a June heatwave...
The graphs for minimum and mean temperatures also show the same inconsistency.
I think I better ask Tim Legg what is going on, unless you have an idea.
UPDATE - And Tim kindly replies:
I can assure you that the CET software is running correctly. The graphs
you include on your blog page as "max Pershore - Gt Malvern" etc. are
there to explore any differences between the stations which comprise the
CET series. As time goes on, sometimes a station closes, for any of a
variety of reasons. One thing we wish to ensure is the continued
homogeneity of the long-standing CET series, so we are careful when
choosing a replacement station to ensure that it is representative of
the 'Central England' area, and to allow for any systematic biases
between that station and the one it replaces. Only then can we be sure
that any long-term trends in the data are real.
Tim Legg
Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 PM
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July 25, 2009
Air Con - Book Review
Iain Dale tonight bigs up pretty boy wannabe journalist Joshua Chambers.
Josh has some advice for us all for our summer reading, don't readHeaven And Earth: Global Warming - The Missing Science
I haven't read the book he damns but I am reading Air Con: The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming
And here's the promo..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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July 24, 2009
If they have nothing to hide....
Watts Up With That? requests:
For all of our UK readers, now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their country (and science). The Met Office refuses to release data and methodology for their HadCRUT global temperature dataset after being asked repeatedly. Without the data and procedures there is no possibility of replication, and without replication the Hadley climate data is not scientifically valid. This isn’t just a skeptic issue, mind you, others have just a keen an interest in proving the data.
My advice to UK readers, start sending an FOI request every week and complain loudly to your UK representatives and write letters to the editor.
Submit a Freedom of Information request to Phil Jones’ employer:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/is/foi
The FOI officers are: Met Office marion.archer [at] metoffice.gov.uk and CRU david.palmer [at] ues.ac.uk
Sample FOI request to david.palmer at uea.ac.uk:
Dear Mr Palmer,
I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involing the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested]
1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
2. the parties to such confidentiality agreement, including the full name of any organization;
3. a copy of the section of the confidentiality agreement that "prevents further transmission to non-academics".
4. a copy of the entire confidentiality agreement,
I am requesting this information for the purposes of academic research.
Thank you for your attention.
Yours truly,
yourname
If you do so, please post up a copy of your letter at Climate Audit so that we can keep track of requested countries.
And just for UK citizens.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CRUSourceCodes/
A petition asking for CRU source code.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:00 PM
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Windmill News
An aquarium in Devon has taken down two wind turbines after seagulls were killed when they collided with the blades.
The 15m (50ft) high 6kW turbines at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth were installed in 2006 for a £3.6m sustainable energies project.
But the Hoe-based attraction has taken them down after several birds died, it said.
The aquarium also said they had not produced as much electricity as hoped.
But but but Mr Miliband says we need two new ones every day, so have they built four today to make up for these?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:14 PM
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Oxford Green Proselytists Worries
Comment: Why people don't act on climate change - opinion - 23 July 2009 - New Scientist
George Marshall founder of the Climate Outreach Information Network in Oxford, UK
Scarcely 10 per cent of Britons regard climate change as a major problem.
I do not accept that this continuing rejection of the science is a reflection of media distortion or scientific illiteracy. Rather, I see it as proof of our society's failure to construct a shared belief in climate change....
Most regard climate change as an unsettled technical issue still hotly debated by eggheads...or they suspect the issue is a Trojan horse built by hair-shirted environmentalists who want to spoil their fun....
How, then, should we go about generating a shared belief in the reality of climate change? What should change about the way we present the evidence for climate change?
In the past years I have been delighted to observe a growing partnership between scientists and the creative arts, such as retreats for scientists, artists and writers.
It is clear that the cautious language of science is now inadequate to inspire concerted change, even among scientists. We need a fundamentally different approach. Only then will scientists be in a position to throw down the ultimate challenge to the public: "We've done the work, we believe the results, now when the hell will you wake up?"
Not the Creative Arts Retreat, no more improv street theatre please, haven't we suffered enough? Poor old George really believes we haven't been preached to enough (and his little outfit is there ready to help), I wonder if in the depths of the night he ever wonders if the reason we are deniers is because we have looked, listened and inwardly digested his message and then ignored it because it doesn't convince us, not because we haven't heard it enough.
H/T Lumo
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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Public Not As Green As They Are Cabbage Looking
BBC NEWS | Politics | Drivers 'distrust' road tax spend
Motoring taxes have been handled so badly that drivers no longer trust what ministers say the charges pay for, an MPs' report says.
Inconsistency over justification for green taxes "tarnished their image", according to the transport committee.
No? Really? Next they will discover we are not completely convinced that MPs are disinterested public servants only interested in our welfare...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM
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Green, the new Red
Blunt warning about greens under the bed | Antonia Senior - Times Online
Anthony Blunt talked of “the religious quality” of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today’s developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he would not be red; he would be green.
His band of angry young men would find Gore where once they found Marx. Blunt evokes a febrile atmosphere in which each student felt his own decision had the power to shape the future. Where once they raged about the fleecing of the proletariat and quaked at the march of fascism, Blunt and his circle, transposed to today’s college bar, would rage about the fleecing of the planet and quake at its imminent destruction. If you squint, red and green look disarmingly similar....Both the green and red positions are infused with overpowering religiosity. Dissenters from the consensus are shunned apostates....
We are at the early stage of the green movement. A time akin to pre-Bolshevik socialism, when all believed in the destruction of the capitalist system, but were still relatively moderate about the means of getting there. We are at the stage of naive dreamers and fantasists. Russia was home to the late 19th-century Narodnik movement, in which rich sons of the aristocracy headed into the countryside to tell the peasants it was their moral imperative to become a revolutionary class. They retreated, baffled, to their riches when the patronised peasants didn’t want to revolt. Zac Goldsmith and Prince Charles look like modern Narodniks, talking glib green from the safety of their gilded lives.
Indulge me in some historical determinism. We, the peasants, are failing to rise up and embrace the need to change. We will not choose to give up modern life, with all its polluting seductions. Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves. Ultra-green states cannot arise without some form of forced switch to autocracy; the dictatorship of the environmentalists.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
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July 23, 2009
Concrete them over - part 78
Six years of disruption under £1bn upgrade of Great Western Mainline - Times Online
I love going on the chuff-chuff when on holiday, steam trains and tunnels hits all the right spots but railways are a nineteenth century technology. Ever since someone invented the steering wheel they have been obsolete. Coaches can carry more people on the same track width, quicker, using less fuel and with the flexibility to drive round problems. Let's grow up and concrete them over and save us all some dosh.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:05 PM
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July 22, 2009
MoD surrenders to Green Army
THE Ministry of Defence – one of the key objectors to wind farms – has changed its stance, in a move that experts say will remove a major barrier to the development of green energy.
The MoD said it had made "significant advances" in resolving problems over the impact of wind farms and formed a "memorandum of understanding" with the energy industry.
The MoD and other aviation groups have in the past lodged objections to vast numbers of wind farms, because of fears over turbines interfering with radar used to detect potential enemy aircraft or monitor air traffic...
A spokeswoman for the MoD said: "We are fully committed to sustainable energy and wind-farm developments, but defence of the UK is a very serious business."
And what do you think the "technical solutions" are that mean the radar shadow formed by the windmills no longer matters? Nothing to do with the Mod budget and being promised some shiny new toys if they fall in line surely, compared to not being able to spot "incoming" which is more important?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:17 AM
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July 19, 2009
And the farming forecast is...
Global warming means continental crops could take root in Britain by 2030 - Telegraph
A report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), suggests there could be unexpected benefits to climate change with exotic fruits and vegetables thriving.
Rice, usually imported from Thailand, China and the Philippines could become a staple crop for British farmers while the south coast could even support olive and apricot trees.
The change could also help tackle the growing obesity problem in Britain. A Mediterranean diet is renowned for its health benefits and longevity.
But native species, such as potatoes could suffers as average temperatures rise by around 2C by 2030.
Potatoes - native species? About sums the scientific accuracy up. I think I will leave flooding the lower forty to turn it into a paddy field until I'm a bit more convinced.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:48 PM
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July 17, 2009
Windmills - The Economic (Basket)Case
The Government has announced today
the details of the proposed feed-in tariff for microgeneration from systems like small wind turbines and solar photovoltaics. The new tariff will pay for all energy generated by your system, irrespective of if you use it yourself or sell it back to the grid. The amounts paid are in addition to any saving you will make by purchasing less electricity from your supplier and any income you earn from selling your surplus power to your electricty supplier.
The key points of the announcement are:
- 36.5p/kWh for small solar photovoltaic systems up to 4kW and 28p/kWh for systems up to 10kW.
- 23.0p/kWh for small wind turbines between 1.5kW and 15kW.
Am I understanding this right? If I put up a windmill in my garden as well as any grants I get for doing so I get to use the electricity it produces and I'm paid for it as well. And people wonder if this is a sane energy policy!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
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Telling Noah Miliband it's only a fable
A Skeptic's Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism
I'm almost getting overwhelmed by these now but this is an excellent free pdf you can download and wave at Miliband's diminishing rent-a-crowd.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM
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July 16, 2009
Gorey Goo in Arctic Ocean
Arctic sea full of huge blobs of floating 'goo' - Telegraph
Hunters from the Alaskan coastal town of Wainwright first noticed the dark, shiny substance floating for miles in the icy Arctic waters of the Chukchi sea, according to reports in the Anchorage Daily News.
The odorous substance, which has been described variously as "goey", "gunky" and "hairy"
It's Al Gore's beard, I wondered where it had gone...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:40 AM
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Mandy's Green Jobs Claim Cobblers
Lord Mandelson’s claims of 880,000 ‘green jobs’ in UK a sham
Government claims that Britain already supports nearly one million “green-collar” jobs have been exposed as a sham after the figures were found to include North Sea gas industry workers as well as some petrol station attendants and skylight manufacturers.
The list also includes manufacturers of a bizarre array of products — from skylights to wooden pallets and noise insulation materials, on the basis that they use recycled materials.
Figures supplied by Innovas showed that the total included 207 jobs in the supply and manufacture of animal bedding, 90 providing equestrian surfaces and 164 in the recycling of footwear, “slippers and other carpet wear”.
Is there anything about "green jobs" claimed that is the truth?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
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July 14, 2009
John Holdren - by his words you shall know him
The Reference Frame: Obama's science czar's plans for mass genocide
The man in charge of the U.S. science policy is John Holdren. In the book "Ecoscience" co-authored by Holdren and two Ehrlichs, eugenics is subtly combined with some far-left ideas...
Toward a Planetary Regime
...
Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.
The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.
...
If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization.
...
Humanity cannot afford to muddle through the rest of the twentieth century; the risks are too great, and the stakes are too high. This may be the last opportunity to choose our own and our descendants' destiny. Failing to choose or making the wrong choices may lead to catastrophe. But it must never be forgotten that the right choices could lead to a much better world.
The last quote gives it away - this is what he co-authored last century when over-population was the global problem, now of course it is global warming and he has the ear of the President of The United States. Worried? You ought to be.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:42 AM
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July 13, 2009
Rara Avis Rings
Bird conservation hit by decline in public help to record the rings
The practice is dependent on the public posting rings found on dead birds, providing the date and location where the bird was found.
The drastic fall has been put down to people not spending as much time in the countryside or on remote beaches, an increasing reluctance to post letters, and simply being more squeamish than they were 50 years ago. “People are terrified of touching something that’s dead. And now bird flu has made it even worse,”
In the US a study suggested financial incentives helped to increase return rates. When a reward of $75 (£45) was promised, the return rate rose dramatically. However, this was not only expensive, but birds were shot for the rings.
Incentives matter... I suppose they don't want the pile of rings Mr FM "collected" last winter then..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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Blowing in the wind
Number of wind turbines to quadruple under Renewable Energy Strategy
The Government’s plans are likely to include more than 4,000 additional onshore turbines by 2020, many built at beauty spots and on high ground which would make them visible across miles of open countryside.
Another 3,000 turbines would be installed at sea..
Two a day, everyday, for ten years....
Ministers will claim on Wednesday that 250,000 “green” jobs could be created as Britain increases renewable energy from 2 per cent to 15 per cent by 2020. Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said: “We can lead in the green jobs of the future, making wind turbines, making parts for nuclear power stations.”
However, Britain’s only wind turbine factory, in Newport on the Isle of Wight, is due to close this month with the loss of 600 jobs. Any new turbines are likely to be made abroad.
At least that make them cheaper and us richer as "jobs are a cost not a benefit".
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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July 11, 2009
Go to work on an egg
Pre-boiled eggs? Whatever next - pre-buttered toast? - Times Online
Just when you thought you had seen every daft time-saving food concept, along comes a new one
And do you slice your own ham, do you boil your own ham, in fact do you feed your own pigs and slaughter them and make your own ham? No? Well shut up then you pretentious snob. Pace Worstall but civilisation has been built on you not doing the boring and mundane and doing more productive things with your time, which even includes writing silly "why, oh why" articles.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:03 AM
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July 10, 2009
Where's my Moonbat Cash?
Climate denial 'astroturfers' should stop hiding behind pseudonyms |Environment | guardian.co.uk
George Monbiot
To stop oil, coal and electricity companies inserting their views into the media by stealth, we need to make blog commenters accountable
there is a large and well-funded campaign by oil, coal and electricity companies to insert their views into the media.
They have two main modes of operating: paying people to masquerade as independent experts, and paying people to masquerade as members of the public. These fake "concerned citizens" claim to be worried about a conspiracy by governments and scientists to raise taxes and restrict their freedoms in the name of tackling a non-existent issue.
So where's my money? I haven't had a bean, why am I missing out on Exxon's millions? Or is the money that George believes is being splashed about as illusory as the global warming evidence he sees everywhere?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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More Ice in it?
Global warming shrinks glacier at alarming rate - Telegraph
Ilulissat - (Danish: Jakobshavn from founder Jakob Severin) a UNESCO-listed glacier, is shedding ice into the sea faster than ever before, according to one of Denmark's top experts on glaciology.
Andreas Peter Ahlstroem, a researcher with the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland institute, said the glacier has receded by more than 10 miles (15 km) since 2001. "We should aim to at least reduce CO2 emissions and limit the damage done," he said.
The ice front itself is some 40km inside Ilulissat glacierl is the most productive glacier in the Northern Hemisphere pushing out some 16 cubic km of ice annually at a speed of 20 to 30 meters per day. The ice starts its journey with a thundering crash as it falls into the fiord, before moving more sedately out to sea.
All dramatic stuff, no wonder it is a tourist attraction. And yes the glacier is retreating, just as it has been since before Henry Ford invented Global Warming...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 AM
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July 9, 2009
Resucitating the patient to kill him slower
G8 leaders upbeat on economic recovery - Scotsman.com News
At the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, leaders also managed to strike a historic deal to limit the rise of world temperatures to 2C or below and slash emissions of greenhouses gases by 80 per cent by the middle of this century.
Recovery while holding a pillow over the face of the patient with their stupid "carbon cuts" agenda. Morons.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:28 AM
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July 7, 2009
Carbon Cops Forecast
Britons fear the carbon cops are coming - Jun 25, 2008
LONDON (Reuters) - First there were the thought police, then the surveillance society, now Britons fear the carbon cops are coming to ensure compliance with climate change legislation, a survey showed on Wednesday Jun 25, 2008.
And with warnings of global catastrophe ringing in their ears some people fear that failure to cut personal carbon emissions will eventually result in enforced carbon behaviour re-education, the Energy Saving Trust said.
It said 41 percent of Britons think the country will need its own Carbon Police Force by mid-century and one quarter believe repeat offenders will have to go into carbon rehab and take carbon addiction classes.
"The UK's perception is that by 2050 we could have the sort of draconian infringements on our civil liberties that have been highlighted in our research. This need not be the case," said EST chief Philip Sellwood said.
No, they arrived today , a mere year later, so much for your forecast.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 PM
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The Green Staatspolizei - The Carbon Cops - Have Arrived
The boys in green are coming as the Environment Agency sets up a squad to police companies generating excessive CO2 emissions.
The agency is creating a unit of about 50 auditors and inspectors, complete with warrant cards and the power to search company premises to enforce the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which comes into effect next year.
Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation at the Environment Agency, said the squad would help to bring emissions under control. “Climate change and CO2 are the world’s biggest issues right now. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is one of the ways in which Britain is responding.”
The formation of the green police overcomes a psychological hurdle in the battle against climate change. Ministers have long recognised the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions, but fear a repetition of the fuel tax protests in 2000 when lorry drivers blockaded refineries.
The central unit, based in Warrington, Cheshire, can call on the agency’s national network of hundreds of pollution inspectors, many of whom will soon be trained in CO2 monitoring.
It will also be able to demand energy bills from utilities without the companies under investigation knowing they are being watched....
You just knew it was coming but it is still a shock when it actually arrives.
H/t ASI
Posted by The Englishman at 7:52 AM
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July 6, 2009
Maldives - Latin for Ill Gotten Gains?
Maldives president Mohammed Nasheed demands large amounts of our cash action on climate change
“We feel that climate change is not an environmental issue, it’s a security issue, it’s a human rights issue,” the country’s first democratically elected leader said at the launch of The Times World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.
“If you thought that defending Poland was important, defending the Maldives is important. If you can’t save the Maldives today you can’t save yourself tomorrow.” So start sending me the money so I can bribe my voters now!
mala, feminine of malo, bad (from Latin malus): dives, rich, opulent, wealthy
Posted by The Englishman at 7:11 AM
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July 5, 2009
Blair - the nu Al Gore?
Tomorrow he will launch Technology for a Low Carbon Future, a report put together with the Climate Group, setting out his arguments.
n Blair’s brave new world there will also be dozens of nuclear power stations, probably including fast-breeder reactors — the type that produce not only power but also lots of nuclear material suitable for fuelling more such plants.
There will be massive investment in research into biofuels, along with the replacement of all petrol and diesel vehicles with others powered by electricity or hydrogen.
“What we are talking about is a revolution in the way we produce and consume energy, travel and design and manage our urban and rural environments,” says Blair, eyes gleaming.
Blair’s faith in science to achieve such changes seems unbounded, which is odd, given that he has no formal scientific training and used to speak out vigorously against the expansion of nuclear power when Labour was in opposition.
He does, however, have a history of investing huge faith in whatever people, issues or causes he chooses to adopt — sometimes in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
Blair’s vision, is that developed nations can be persuaded to invest hundreds of billions of pounds in technologies such as carbon sequestration and new nuclear. On developing such systems they will — or so the rhetoric goes — promptly hand over the technology, plus money to build it, to countries such as India and China.
For Blair the logic is obvious. “If we do not involve those poorer countries, they are not going to be able to implement these measures and their emissions will expand, wiping out any cuts we make,” he says. “They need help and it’s in our interests that they get that help.”
Voters may not see it that way. Instead they will see vast sums of western money — Blair’s own report puts it at up to £98 billion annually, starting next year — being sent to fast-growing rival economies in the East. And, credit-crunched as they are, they may not like it.
How will western voters be persuaded? Another brief silence — then a certainty that his critics will recognise all too well: “We will just have to find a way.”
I bet you will...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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July 3, 2009
Scotland, Green in Tooth and Claw
BIRDS of prey have been brought in to scare away pigeons that have plagued the Scottish Parliament.
The £44,000 contract will see seven birds tackle the problem in a two-pronged attack – but under a "no kill policy".
Hawks will first flush out the pigeons from the various hidden corners of the Holyrood building in Edinburgh.
Falcons flying overhead should then finish the job by frightening them away.
Appropriate for the Scottish Parliament; unnatural, toothless, expensive and bloody useless.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
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Climate Change Causes Conehead Bushcrickets' Wings To Grow
Climate change isn’t something for the future: it is already happening. The longer it goes on the easier it will be to notice these changes without having a specialist to measure it. In virtually every population that has been studied in detail, evolutionary changes have been observed.
There has been a morphological change, for example, in the long-winged conehead bushcricket. Previously they could only fly for short distances, to escape predators.
But because it has been getting warmer in the South of England, where they were confined, they have expanded their wings and can now fly for several hours at a time to cooler areas in the North.
It would once have taken them a week to cross a field, now they can fly for several hours at a time.
Shrinking sheep and now longer wings on the coneheads, what more evidence do you need to ditch your SUV.
Though I must admit reading the Science article about the Coneheads it seems that the Coneheads mainly have two morphological forms, short wings and long wings. The shortarses breed faster and are more competitive but can't move around so tend to dominate established populations. The wingers thrive at the edge of populations because whilst they can't compete well with the fatties barging them out of the way in the food aisles they can fly over the horizon to new food sources. So you will always see more long winged ones on the advancing edge of a population regardless of the weather.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
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July 2, 2009
The Unforseen Consequence of Climate Change
A complete list of things caused by global warming should have a cracker of a new entry...
Climate change is causing a breed of wild sheep in Scotland to shrink, according to research.
Now that is one I didn't know about, I'm converted to the cause...
Posted by The Englishman at 10:03 PM
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July 1, 2009
Beyond Doubt
EU Referendum raises a Bronx cheer
"Today, international action on climate change is urgent and essential. Indeed, there can no longer be any debate about the need to act, because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), of which I am chairman, has established climate change as an unequivocal reality beyond scientific doubt."
Rajendra Pachauri, today in The Guardian.
Watts Up With That? reminds us that:
... the statement that the following climate metrics “are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago” ;
1. “rising sea levels”
NOT TRUE; e.g. see the University of Colorado at Boulder Sea Level Change analysis.
Sea level has actually flattened since 2006.
2. “the increase of heat stored in the ocean”
NOT TRUE; see
Update On A Comparison Of Upper Ocean Heat Content Changes With The GISS Model Predictions.
Their has been no statistically significant warming of the upper ocean since 2003.
3. “shrinking Arctic sea ice”
NOT TRUE; see the Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Anomaly from the University of Illinois Cyrosphere Today website. Since 2008, the anomalies have actually decreased.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:06 AM
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Hot Air Madness
Wind Observation Map - Britain shows that locally the wind speed is 2mph, and that is measured at a hilltop aerodrome (Lynham), and it is similar across the whole country. That is a feature of very hot and very cold weather, the wind doesn't blow. So none of the expensive power generating whirlygigs will be working as a million fans and air conditioning units turn on this morning.
So I'm pleased to note the BBC is reporting:
Wind has the power to revolutionise the UK's electricity industry, according to a study published on Wednesday.
Research from analysts Poyry says that the UK can massively expand wind power by 2030 without suffering power cuts or a melt-down of the National Grid.
The cost of electricity would then be determined not by consumer demand, but by how hard the wind is blowing.
When it is windy power will be so cheap that other forms of generation will be unable to compete, the report says.
If the wind were to drop everywhere round the UK (as happened during the January high pressure cold snap), other generators would make their money by switching on back-up fossil fuel power stations for a very short time, charging extremely high prices, it predicts.
The study bases its assumptions on current levels of subsidy. It concludes that thanks to the wind subsidy through the "Renewable Obligations Certificates" issued by regulator Ofgem, electricity prices would be negative if the wind were blowing hard.
The study amplifies a recent paper from National Grid itself stating that a move towards wind power would not necessitate widespread investment in expensive back-up power plants fuelled by gas or coal.
This is a key finding which helps remove one of the main barriers to the advance of wind (although some will remain sceptical).
But it comes with a warning. Dr Hare said: "It will cost more. There is no such thing as cheap green power - that is a myth."
The authors of a report from the Royal Society this week made the same point. But politicians are still reluctant to pass on this message to the public.
Madness, sheer bloody madness. I need to invest in a diesel generator.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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June 30, 2009
One for sorrow, two for joy ...
Why we must protect magpies | Chris Packham | The Guardian
...the Songbird Survival Trust has called all bird lovers to arms. They want a magpie cull and they are not just asking farmers or gamekeepers to lock and load; they want everyone with a garden to use their legal right to kill these birds now, in their breeding season, leaving their chicks to starve in the nest. Well, as a lifelong and passionate birder, I'm not going to be signing up for the slaughter.
The trust's reasoning comes down to the same old misinformed chestnut - that evil magpies are causing the decline in smaller songbirds. It's kneejerk ornithological racism, ignorant and counterproductive. It's true that some magpies prey on the nests of smaller birds during the breeding season, but this is for perhaps three or four months of the year and only affects young birds that are easily replaced. The magpies never kill the more valuable breeding adults (unlike cats, which do so 365 days a year). No predator would thrive by dramatically reducing its own food supply...
So how could the trust get it so wrong? I can only assume that this fringe group is still clinging to outdated views built on a foundation of medieval superstition.
Or maybe they understand a bit about Predator Prey Cycles, silly old medieval superstitions such as Lotka-Volterra equations and refinements there of. Mr Packham should stick to gurning to the camera.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:46 AM
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June 25, 2009
Scotland to outlaw ‘dishauntening’ of ordinances
MSPs get power to fine over State Religion - Scotsman.com News
A RAFT of new powers to crack down on wasteful homeowners and businesses were passed yesterday, giving the Scottish Government the tough tools it needs to meet what have been hailed as the world's most ambitious state religion observance targets.
Measures voted through by Parliament included the power to fine householders and companies if they do not take action to improve the idolatory display of their houses and buildings.
The legislation, which comes after months of campaigning, was praised by environmental groups and politicians, who said all eyes would now be on Scotland as other countries set their own climate change religion targets. However, ministers acknowledged that the difficult job of meeting the new targets must begin immediately.
The burning at the stake of non-believers and deniers is expected start in the new year.
More at EU Ref
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
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June 24, 2009
Hot Weather Reading
Daily Green : Global Warming and Other Bollocks Book
Among their claims:
Polar bears are not going to go extinct. The pair of scientists claim that polar bear populations are not declining, but in fact growing in spite of their loss of habitat.
Humans are not to blame for global warming. Feldman and Marks point to the sun being the CO2 culprit, arguing that the sun's heat has simply intensified.
Global warming might be good for us. The duo say a warmer climate and an increase in CO2 could be good for farming and agriculture.
Organic food is not better for you. The anti-organic pair say plant nutrients comes from the air in the form of CO2, and from water-soluble chemicals in the soil. By the time organic foods reach your plate, it is all the same.
There is no need to cut back on salt. The soon to be under fire scientists posit that salt is good for us, and we need it to control our body temperature - a person with low salt can cause overheating, and in extreme cases, death.
Set to publish on July 8, the Global Warming And Other Bollocks authors maintain that the end of the world is not, in fact, nigh. They claim that "the idea that we are one step from calamity is as old as history itself. Every step on the road of progress has always been countered by those who think that we should keep to a primitive lifestyle that they claim is compatible with nature."
One to read under the patio heater on a summer's evening.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:48 AM
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June 21, 2009
Top Greenery News From The Times
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor - The Times
THE green movement’s greatest triumph – the abolition of ozone-destroying CFC gases in the 1980s – may become its biggest embarrassment because of research showing that their replacements are sharply accelerating global warming.
That must be the accelerating warming that has stalled for a decade, thank goodness he isn't doing a a Grand Prix race commentary.
My Week: Bill McKibben: I’m spewing carbon for your benefit and mine
The environmentalist is jetting around the world to try to halt climate change.
We are called 350.org because 350 is the most important number on earth. Eighteen months ago, after the Arctic melted, scientists published data showing that any value for carbon in the atmosphere greater than 350 parts per million was incompatible with “the planet on which civilisation developed”.
It's melted? No one told me, you would have thought someone else would have noticed it had all disappeared....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:59 AM
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June 18, 2009
UKCP09 - The Findings
I have checked and I think it fulfills the Submission Guidelines
The Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction is awarded to the author who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length science fiction novel in English.
The prize is open to any full-length novel, written in English by an author of any nationality, provided that the novel is published for the first time in the United Kingdom between 1 January and 31 December of the year before the prize is awarded
Posted by The Englishman at 2:39 PM
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The Times Bigs Up Bennite Five Point Planning For Future
Climate impact report says 800,000 homes will be at risk of flooding - Times Online
It will say that the estimated number of homes at risk of flooding is likely to double to about 800,000 within 25 years because of rising sea levels. Average summer temperatures in the South of England will rise by 2C by the 2040s and up to 6.4C by 2080, it will warn, increasing the risk of skin cancers and insect-borne diseases.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, will respond to the warning from the UK Climate Impact Programme (UKCIP) by urging people and businesses to redouble efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Contingency measures will be announced to prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed during prolonged periods of hot weather. Mr Benn is also likely to signal the urgent need to extend water metering and change agriculture practices as he lays out a “five-point” plan.
More than 100 public sector organisations — including the NHS, police and Army — will be ordered to develop and publish action plans by next year on how they intend to respond to the dangers.
Robin Pagnamenta - Energy Editor The Times
...it would be hard to dispute the quality of the science that underpins this report — the product of 12 years of detailed research by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, part of the Met Office. Its predictions may be grim, but they are better informed than anything else that has been published on the subject.
Hilary must laugh at his poor old dad trying to seize the means of production in the name of the workers and socialism, that was never going to work. He has achieved it by running some computer models and scaring us it might be as warm as Provence for our grandchildren.
And Murdoch is loving it.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
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UKCIP09 - We are all going to fry - car provided with job
Detailed forecasts of how climate change may affect the UK during this century are to be released by the government later.
The report will predict how temperature and rainfall are likely to change at regional and local scales.
Scientists believe winters will be wetter, particularly in the north, and summers drier, especially in the south.
The projected impacts are "worse than the government had feared," according to a source familiar with the project.
The government hopes the UK Climate Projections 2009 report (UKCP09) will allow citizens, local authorities and businesses to plan better for future decades.
A fascinating website to dig around, but frustrating that on my old machine I couldn't download any of the report they made in 2002 -
UK Climate Impacts Programme - UKCIP02: Documentation
I know they update the document in 2007 but it would still would have been interesting to see how their forecasts from seven years ago had fared...
Maybe I will just apply for a job there instead...
Trainer – UK Climate Impacts Programme, Environmental Change Institute
Grade 6: £25,623 - £30,594 pa.
UKCIP is embarking on its largest stakeholder engagement programme Projections in Practice. This programme will explain both the benefits of UKCP09 and offer practical help in accessing and using the data.
Experience of planning and conducting presentations is vital and although previous training experience is not necessary, it would be advantageous.
This role will involve a great deal of travelling within the UK (for which a vehicle will be provided if required) and be prepared to spend the contract period working away from home.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:37 AM
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June 7, 2009
General Gordon of Khartoum Killed by Climate Change and other news
Refugees of climate crisis flee rising tide - Scotsman.com News
WITH their turquoise water and swaying coconut palms, the Carteret Islands north-east of the Papua New Guinea mainland might seem the idyllic spot for castaways.
But sea levels have risen so much that during the high tide season, between November and March, the waves block the view from one island to the next and residents hang their possessions in fishing nets between the palm trees.
We have dealt with this before...the islands are sinking, whether because of tectonic plate movements or the fishermen's habit of dynamiting the coral reefs I don't know. But why let facts get in the way of a good story of poor islanders being evicted from their idyllic home ...
Rakova, on the Carteret Islands, echoes that sentiment. A year ago, her proposed relocation effort attracted just three families out of a population of around 2,000. But after last season's high tides, she is asking for about £1 million to help some 750 people relocate before the tides come again.
In other news "experts call the Darfur region of Sudan – where nomads battle villagers in a war over shrinking natural resources – the first significant conflict linked to climate change."
Of course, it was a land of peace and harmony until we all started driving 4x4s.....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:48 AM
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June 6, 2009
In The Year 2080, So Very Far Away
Here is the weather ... for July 2080 - Times Online
Farmers in Devon and Cornwall could be challenging vintners in France by 2080 as climate change transforms the southwest into a balmy wine-growing region.
Forecasters predict that temperatures could rise by 3C to 4C, making the West Country ideal for growing crops such as grapes, sweetcorn and sunflowers.
Meanwhile, commuters in London will be left sweltering as peak temperatures spiral as high as 41C.
Some may question how the Met Office can make predictions a lifetime into the future, when it struggles to produce forecasts for the next few months. However, climate change impacts are predicted to be so strong that, over decades, they are easier to predict than short-term changes.
"Easier to predict", of course, it only takes a week to prove a short term forecast wrong, but 2080, gosh, how can you doubt they might be right.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:27 PM
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June 4, 2009
Climate Change - The Big Report
Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is the most comprehensive objective compilation of science on climate change ever published. It offers a “second opinion” to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 2007. Unlike that report, Climate Change Reconsidered finds global warming is not a crisis, and never was.
Principal findings of the book include the following:
Climate models suffer from numerous deficiencies and shortcomings that could alter even the very sign (plus or minus, warming or cooling) of earth’s projected temperature response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations.
The model-derived temperature sensitivity of the earth--especially for a doubling of the preindustrial CO2 level--is much too large, and feedbacks in the climate system reduce it to values that are an order of magnitude smaller than what the IPCC employs.
Real-world observations do not support the IPCC’s claim that current trends in climate and weather are “unprecedented” and, therefore, the result of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
The IPCC overlooks or downplays the many benefits to agriculture and forestry that will be accrued from the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content.
There is no evidence that CO2-induced increases in air temperature will cause unprecedented plant and animal extinctions, either on land or in the world’s oceans.
There is no evidence that CO2-induced global warming is or will be responsible for increases in the incidence of human diseases or the number of lives lost to extreme thermal conditions.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:11 AM
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June 1, 2009
Dynamic Arctic Ice - The Movie
Full Story:
Arctic Sea Ice Time Lapse from 1978 to 2009 using NSIDC data ｫ Watts Up With That?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:20 AM
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May 29, 2009
Sea Level Rise Highest Ever Estimate
World's leading scientists warn climate change is as great a threat as nuclear warfare
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which organised the summit, said the consequences of not acting were comparable to a nuclear fall out.
"It is comparable in magnitude [to nuclear warfare]. With business as usual we will have another five or six degrees Celsius [9 to 10.8F] – that could not sustain civilisation as we know it, which is quite comparable to a nuclear shoot-out. It would mean 80 metres rise in sea level
80 Metres - Wow - In 2007, the International Panel on Climate Change only estimated that sea levels would rise 0.18 to 0.6 meters (0.59 to 2.0 feet) over the next 100 years. Al Gore weighed in with twenty feet over an unspecified time. But 80 metres, where did he get that from?
From assuming every bit of ice on the planet will melt!
Estimated potential maximum sea-level rise from the total melting of present-day glaciers.
[Modified from Williams and Hall (1993)]
Of course with the average temperature of Antarctica being -49 C some despicable deniers refuse to see how warming by 6 degrees C will melt all the ice...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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Bishop Bashes Pope on Climate Change
Bishop Hill alerts us to the latest lecture in The Times pushing Climate Change by one Frank Pope.
The Bish points out Frank has swanned around the world burning up fossil fuels and calls him a hypocrite.
But let's have a look at his Papal Bull
Unprecedented international collaboration is also necessary to secure a future for renewable energy generation, which is acutely sensitive to geography. By building smart grids that transmit energy for long distances with little loss, wind farms and solar power arrays can be sited where the wind blows and the sun shines hardest.
Nimby, of course somewhere over the rainbow the weather is always perfect for wind and sun and if the lights go out it is just because we haven't built enough power lines through the wildernesses to get to that promised land.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM
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May 28, 2009
Doctors tell off sceptics - consensus has been reached there is no debate
Doctors must speak out on climate change - Letter to The Editor The Times
Sir, We are sad at the responses to Muir Gray’s article on the health impacts of climate change (Opinion, May 25). Many still seem to select isolated comment from poorly assessed sources, and trumpet that “climate change doesn’t exist” or that “it isn’t caused by man”. Both are wrong.
In climate change, as in medicine, one must challenge and weigh all the evidence, consult experts in the field and discern where the truth lies. This process is long over. Consensus has been reached...
Such consensus does not occur by chance. The evidence comes from drawing together observations from many sources — the most convincing being from Arctic ice caps, showing that carbon dioxide levels are higher now than for many thousands of years and rising at an unprecedented rate. Recent “coolings” in temperature are within the normal year-on-year variations.
Medical professionals will be reminding this group that there are immediate benefits to be had from action now, mainly about how we move, how we eat and how we redistribute resources more fairly around the globe — all of which are fundamental to health and welfare.
Professor Hugh Montgomery Director, UCL Institute for Human Health and Performance,
Dr Mike Gill & Dr Robin Stott Co-Chairs, Climate and Health Council
Dr David Pencheon Director, NHS Sustainable Development Unit
Dr Tony Waterston Paediatrician, Newcastle
Helen Moffatt Chief Executive, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Mustafa Abbas Head of Healthy Planet Medical Student Campaign
How very dare you! Questioning the doctors! You naughty sceptics, don't you know we know what is best for you.
Times commentators are almost universally sceptical both of Muir's Opinion and of the whole 100 question splash, is there a consensus amongst the readers forming?
"“climate change doesn’t exist” or that “it isn’t caused by man”. Both are wrong...the most convincing (evidence) being from Arctic ice caps, showing that carbon dioxide levels are higher now than for many thousands of years and rising at an unprecedented rate."
What does that mean? Ice caps, are they counting more than one in the Arctic or are they including Antarctica as well? Are they saying the ice caps are melting (see here for links) or are they saying that ice cores show CO2 levels have risen, if the latter that doesn't prove anything about climate. The one thing I look for in a diagnotician is precision, and in prescriptions clarity, they fail on both and so I wouldn't trust them to pull a splinter out of my arse.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:42 AM
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China Controls All Green Technology
Crunch looms for green technology as China tightens grip on rare-earth metals
China’s near monopoly on the raw materials for environmental technology – a 95 per cent dominance of world supply that is likely to become more widely noticed as China tightens its grip.
Don Burbar, the chief executive of Avalon Rare Metals, said: “The crux of the matter is that there are now a lot of technologies that can’t work without rare earths, and China is currently in effective control of the global supply. China has positioned itself to retain control, and meanwhile politicians around the world do not appreciate how the supply side of green technology works.”
There are potential supplies around the world, but prospective miners in Australia and the US are experiencing financing difficulties and as soon as new facilities have emerged in Asia and elsewhere, Chinese companies have quickly become majority investors.
" All green technology depends on rare-earth metals and all global trade in rare earth depends on China"
Not that I want to worry you or anything but I would stock up on candles.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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May 26, 2009
Your Chance to Question the Experts on Climate Change
100 questions to save the world, and your chance to ask them.
There’s a broad consensus that our way of life, and quite possibly our very existence, is under threat from changes in the Earth’s climate.
Where the consensus breaks down, though, is to what extent we can fix it. Before we are able to find answers to the pressing issues facing every inhabitant of our planet, we need to ask some perceptive questions.
From 26–28 May 2009, Nobel Laureates from every discipline will be joined by world experts in climate change to discuss the connections between global warming and other urgent environmental, economic and development challenges facing our world. The Symposium will be hosted at The Royal Society and St. James’s Palace under the patronage of HRH The Prince of Wales.
This is not just a discussion for the scientific élite: In the course of the following 12 months, the project will, appropriately, become a global debate. We here at The Times will do our part by giving you a voice in this unique worldwide forum.
Leave your own questions in the Times comment field, or below any of the expert questions that will be appearing in Science Central over the coming months.
I'm sure you have some questions to ask, but first let us look at the top expert's question
Sir Richard Branson, Virgin
What is the one piece of irrefutable evidence that knocks the climate change sceptics' arguments on the head? Is it the fact that sea levels are rising? James Lovelock believes this is the clearest demonstration of the Earth's rising temperature.
Why don't we see what a real expert is saying....
Willem de Lange - Professor Department of Earth & Ocean Sciences, University of Waikato
..an invited reviewer for a chapter dealing with the economic impact of sea level rise on small island nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second Assessment Report...also co-authored the sea level rise section of the New Zealand impact report, and same section for a revised report following the release of IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001).
What has sea level actually done so far this century? There have been large regional variations, but the global rate has slowed and is currently negative, consistent with measured ocean cooling. Claims to the contrary are exaggerations and not realistic.
I am a climate realist because the available evidence indicates that climate change is predominantly, if not entirely, natural. It occurs mostly in response to variations in solar heating of the oceans, and the consequences this has for the rest of the Earth’s climate system. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis runaway catastrophic climate change due to human activities.
Next please.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:10 AM
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May 25, 2009
The Missing Broad Street Pump Handle of Climate Change
Climate change is the cholera of our era
Professor Sir Muir Gray - Public Health Director of the Campaign for Greener Healthcare
Smoking, Aids, swine flu? They all pale into insignificance compared to climate change’s threat to health. That proposition will instantly provoke a hostile reaction from the diminishing band of climate-change sceptics. But as a doctor of 40 years’ standing who has been involved in running public health services for 30 years, I know that the evidence is good enough to make action, not inaction, the sensible choice. An empirical view of the data shows that delay will not just increase the amount of preventable harm, it may take us past a point of no return.
The defeat of Cholera in London by John Snow is an heroic story of the use of evidence.
Unfortunately Muir Grey doesn't actually provide or point us to any of his evidence or data why climate change is the cholera of our times; (apart from a lot of Frenchies dying of heat stroke).
Campaign for Greener Healthcare is part of Knowledge Into Action a registered Charity No. 1123566, which is "harnessing the revolutionary power of citizens and the Internet to improve the three determinants of health – the physical environment, the social environment and healthcare". It is newly formed and so hasn't filed any accounts and its prospectus makes no mention of how it intends to raise the money it intends to spend. I wonder.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 AM
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May 24, 2009
Sheep Duvet Lifters
'Stop eating lamb and drinking beer if you want to save the planet' - Telegraph
A Government-sponsored study into greenhouse gases has found that producing 2.2lbs of lamb was the equivalent of releasing 37lbs of carbon dioxide. Lamb produces so much carbon dioxide because sheep belch so much methane (sic), which is a potent greenhouse gas.
The study also found that alcoholic drinks contribute significantly to emissions..
I have feeling this research consists of sticking their head round the door of a student flat the morning after a lamb biryani and lager night...
Posted by The Englishman at 4:45 PM
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May 22, 2009
And the Forecast is.....
Met Office says new super-computer will give more accurate forecasts - Times Online
Yesterday, however, the Met Office unveiled a £33 million super-computer that it hopes will be able to do the job with a little more precision.
The IBM machine is more powerful than 100,000 standard PCs combined. For the technically minded, that means it will have a speed of one petaflop, placing it among the world’s top 20 most powerful computers. It is capable of performing 125 trillion calculations per second. It will use 1.2 megawatts of power, enough for a small town, provoking criticism from environmentalists. Although the machine was switched on this week, it will take two months to boot up fully and will not be running at peak performance until after an upgrade in 2011.
Bank holiday weekend will bring a taste of summer, but rain is coming - Times Online
There will be a real taste of summer for anyone heading outdoors over much of Britain this holiday weekend — although there could be a sting in the tail on Monday.
For most of the UK the weekend will be warm and dry, and some places could have the highest temperatures of the year, up to 24C (75F).
But on Bank Holiday Monday the weather picture may flip completely. Although the forecasters at the Met Office are still uncertain, a damp squib seems to be in store.
North Wales and northern England should have a pleasant day of sunshine but the rest of the country is likely to be cloudy, humid and wet. The South East may be particularly wet as a band of rain drives up from the Channel with up to around 9mm (0.35in) rainfall expected.
Two months to boot up, is it a Babbage Steam powered one? No wonder they can't tell us the weather for Monday yet.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
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Tune In, Surf's Up, It's Hot
Global Warming Now Audible, Study Says
According to a new study, it's now possible to hear the rise of global warming in the form of more, larger, more intense storms—signs of climate change, many scientists say.
For decades, seismologists have been filtering out the sounds of massive, storm-driven ocean waves crashing into coastlines. The pesky noise was getting in the way of earthquake detection.
But now some experts are electronically filtering out the quakes—and turning up the volume on the storm waves.
The noise of waves crashing ashore creates very specific vibrations, according to study leader Peter Bromirski of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. And those vibrations indicate how severe storms at sea actually are.
Seismic recording stations have been monitoring the vibrations of the Earth worldwide since the 1930s in roughly the same way.
That consistency may be reassuring to scientists. For example, weather-satellite data have been used to identify evidence of a trend of intensifying storms, but some scientists say satellite tech, having changed so much over the decades, is problematic for tracking storms in the long term.
"The nice thing about these [quake] recording stations," Bromirski said, "is that they are such stable devices that so consistently measure the vibrations produced by storm activity." ...a trend is already obvious, he said. "There is a definite increase in severe storm events over the years that we are noticing at the recording stations."
Posted by The Englishman at 6:12 AM
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May 21, 2009
Salmond All Wind and No Power
Wind boss calls for atomic mix - Scotsman.com News
NUCLEAR power must be part of the energy mix for the future, according to the man behind Europe's largest onshore wind farm, which the First Minister officially opened yesterday.
Speaking at the launch of the Whitelee wind farm in East Renfrewshire, Ignacio Galán, chairman and chief executive of Iberdrola, Scottish Power's Spanish parent company, said nuclear power and renewable sources had to be complimentary.
His willingness to build new nuclear reactors puts him at odds with Alex Salmond's SNP administration, which has ruled out the construction of new stations in Scotland.
Of course Salmond doesn't have to worry about the lights going out when the wind doesn't blow, they will just suck some juice up from south of the border whilst droning on about how green Scotland is..
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
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MIT The Sky is Falling
Global warming of 7C 'could kill billions this century' - Telegraph
The study, carried out in unprecedented detail, projected that without "rapid and massive action" temperatures worldwide will increase by as much as 7.4C (13.3F) by 2100, from levels seen in 2000.
Previous estimates have concluded that the likely increase this century would probably be 2.4C (4.3F).
The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge....
Prinn says. "The least-cost option to lower the risk is to start now and steadily transform the global energy system over the coming decades to low or zero greenhouse gas-emitting technologies."
The first line of their home page says - The question is no longer whether global warming is upon us … but how we can rise to its challenge.. That will be the global warming of the last ten years or the global warming of the last 400? The first doesn't exist and the second is a gentle steady natural process so I guess not. I expect it means the global warming from when you last held hands with a real girl in the late 1990s...
"Least-cost option"? Destroy civilisation because of a computer read out based on what they admit are " so many uncertainties, especially with regard to what human beings will choose to do and how large the climate response will be, "we don't pretend we can do it accurately. Instead, we do these 400 runs and look at the spread of the odds." ? I don't think so Prof.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:28 AM
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May 20, 2009
T'internet t'save us all
Prince of Wales tries bricklaying despite gardening injuries - Telegraph
Earlier in the day the Prince told delegates at the Google European Zeitgeist conference that the power of the internet to "inform and challenge" people's thinking could be used to tackle the world's environmental problems.
Quite right, Sir, without the Internet I'm sure a lot of us would be much less educated about climate change. In fact it is horrifying to imagine what the scaremongers would have got away with...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:28 AM
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Hasta la vista, baby.
Scorching summer on the way so paint your house white, advises government - The Scotsman
FOR the past couple of summers, the British public have suffered torrential downpours, flooding and landslides. As usual, Wimbledon has had to stop for rain.
But now, government officials are advising householders to prepare for a potential heatwave and "go Mediterranean" by painting the outside of their homes white to reflect the heat.
Details of the plan to cope with temperatures which are expected to soar this summer were released yesterday and included rather more obvious tips to stay in the shade where possible, and to avoid going outdoors between 11am and 3pm if vulnerable to heat.
Heatwave plan for England 2009 : Department of Health - Publications
Supersedes/replaces Heatwave plan for England 2008
Supersedes/replaces Heatwave plan for England 2007 : Department of Health
Supersedes/replaces Heatwave: Plan for England - protecting health and reducing harm from extreme heat and heatwaves (2006) : Department of Health - Publications
Supersedes/replaces Heatwave: Plan for England - protecting health and reducing harm from extreme heat and heatwaves (2005 edition) : Department of Health
Supersedes/replaces Heatwave: Plan for England - Protecting health and reducing harm from extreme heat and heatwaves (2004 edition) : Department of Health
It's coming any day now I'll get the whitewash out....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
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May 19, 2009
Catlin Arctic Survey - Lost Again?
ArcticSurvey (ArcticSurvey) on Twitter
Ice Team arrive back at Heathrow and are en route to CAS HQ for Press Conference
2:15 AM May 18th from web
Day and a half later and not a news story anywhere, odd.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:38 PM
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May 18, 2009
More on those smart meters
Government's smart-meter estimate falls short by £6bn, expert claims - Times Online
The Government has underestimated the cost of a nationwide rollout of smart meters by as much as £6.4 billion, according to Ernst & Young.
Last week ministers gave a green light to install 47 million new gas and electricity meters, which can monitor energy use in real time, in every household in Britain. They said that the project could be completed at a cost of between £7 billion to £9 billion, or an average of £269 to £346 per household.
Ernst & Young, the audit firm, has rejected that estimate, arguing that the true cost would be at least 49 per cent higher, at about £13.4 billion, or £515 per household.
All so Ed Miliband can watch and remotely control how much power you are using.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
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May 15, 2009
Trudie's Cleverest Green Answer
Dame Trudie Styler: : saving the world one private jet at a time
Alongside her husband, she founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1989, and has since expanded her role to include forthright attacks on oil giants and the urgent need to move beyond our dependency on this wretched fuel.
Naturally, this urgent need must be balanced with the urgent need to courier Trudie and her entourage of personal groomers to events that simply wouldn't be the same with out her – and I'm afraid it is her journey to last weekend's White House correspondents' dinner that has caused the latest controversy. To summarise, Trudie took a private jet from New York to Washington DC for the dinner. For the trip, she was accompanied by an eight-person entourage, which included her Manhattan-based hair guru – and there are those now questioning her integrity.
An outraged Trudie responded: "My life is to travel and my life is also to speak out about the horrors of an environment that is being abused at the hands of oil companies. I can't think of a cleverer answer than that."
How odd. Lost in Showbiz can't think of a stupider one. Then again, perhaps we simply lack Trudie's vision. In some ways she is profoundly consistent, having previously made the 80-mile journey to the home of fellow environmentalist Zac Goldsmith by helicopter.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:06 AM
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May 14, 2009
Abbott and Costello on Climate Change
Professor Anthony Costello: climate change biggest threat to humans - Times Online
Climate change poses the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century but its full impact is not being grasped by the healthcare community or policymakers, a medical report concludes.
The report, compiled by a commission of academics from University College London and published in The Lancet, warns that climate change risks huge death tolls caused by disease, food and water shortages and poor sanitation.
Chris Abbott, a 30-year-old academic, said he was "punched in the face" and then "smashed" across the head with a riot shield as he sat on Bishopsgate during the 1 April protests. Chris Abbott:: "You do not expect to be beaten up by the police when you are exercising your right to protest on something as important as climate change"
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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May 13, 2009
Arctic Ice Still Going To All Melt Real Soon
New warning over Arctic ice-cap
Professor Peter Wadhams, from the University of Cambridge, told BBC News he has brought forward his estimates of the ice-cap's demise.
He believes the ice is now so thin that almost all of it will disappear in about a decade.
He says it will become seasonal, forming only during the winter.
He told the BBC: "By 2013 we will see a much smaller area in summertime than now, and certainly by about 2020, I can imagine that only one area will remain in summer."
New warning?
Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
Professor Peter Wadhams from Cambridge University, UK, is an expert on Arctic ice. "Some models have not been taking proper account of the physical processes that go on," he commented. "In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly. It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040."
Global warming 'past the point of no return' - Science, News - The Independent
Friday, 16 September 2005
Current computer models suggest that the Arctic will be entirely ice-free during summer by the year 2070 but some scientists now believe that even this dire prediction may be over-optimistic, said Professor Peter Wadhams, an Arctic ice specialist at Cambridge University.
There is a certain dogged consistency there, of course if he was arguing the opposite he would be seen as an Oil industry shrill...
University of Cambridge DAMTP: Professor Peter Wadhams' chief industrial links in ice research have been with the offshore oil and marine transport industries. He received continuous support from British Petroleum Co. from 1976 until 1992 for his research group at SPRI, covering funding of a technician and support for the design and development of novel instrumentation for use in Arctic ice engineering...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:20 PM
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WWF Coral Scare
Climate change 'killing Coral Triangle' - Telegraph
Rising water temperatures, sea levels and acidity in the vast region threaten to destroy reefs in Southeast Asia's Coral Triangle, a region labelled the ocean's answer to the Amazon rainforest, the WWF report said. Saving the Coral Triangle will require countries to commit to deep cuts in carbon gas emissions when they gather for global climate talks in the Danish capital Copenhagen in December to work out a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.
Cuts of 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050 would be needed to avert the worst effects...
Collapse of the reefs would send food production in the region plummeting by 80 percent and imperil the livelihoods of over 100 million people
Two minutes on Google finds this slightly more impressive paper...
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING AND CORAL REEFS:
by Dr. Craig D. Idso (.pdf)
...The persistence of coral reefs through geologic time – when temperatures were as much as 10-15°C warmer than at present, and atmospheric CO2 concentrations were 2 to 7 times higher than they are currently – provides substantive evidence that these marine entities can successfully adapt to a dramatically changing global environment.
Thus, the recent die-off of many corals cannot be due solely, or even mostly, to global warming or the modest rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration over the course of the Industrial Revolution.
The 18- to 59-cm warming-induced sea level rise that is predicted for the coming century by the IPCC – which could be greatly exaggerated if predictions of CO2-induced global warming are wrong – falls well within the range (2 to 6 mm per year) of typical coral vertical extension rates, which exhibited a modal value of 7 to 8 mm per year during the Holocene and can be more than double that value in certain branching corals. Rising sea levels should therefore present no difficulties for coral reefs. In fact, rising sea levels may actually have a positive effect on reefs, permitting increased coral growth in areas that have already reached the upward limit imposed by current sea levels.
The rising CO2 content of the atmosphere may induce changes in ocean chemistry (pH) that could slightly reduce coral calcification rates; but potential positive effects of hydrospheric CO2 enrichment may more than compensate for this modest negative phenomenon.
Theoretical predictions indicate that coral calcification rates should decline as a result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations by as much as 40% by 2100. However, real-world observations indicate that elevated CO2 and elevated temperatures are having just the opposite effect.
In light of the above observations, and in conjunction with all of the material presented in this review, it is clear that climate-alarmist claims of impending marine species extinctions due to increases in both temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration are not only not supported by real-world evidence, they are actually refuted by it.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:27 AM
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Donderdag Veggiedag Durbledag Greeniedag Daggiedaggiedo
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Belgian city plans 'veggie' days
The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.
Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.
"Opt" as freely choose, of course not. And can we all guess why they are being forced to forgo the horse sandwich?
The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day".
Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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May 12, 2009
£7 Billion to save £3.6 Billion - Miliband's Big Brother Plan
Smart meters for all homes – but families will foot bill - Scotsman.com News
AN INNOVATIVE "smart meter" will be installed in every home in the UK to encourage energy saving, under plans announced yesterday.
The gadgets, which will replace traditional electricity and gas meters, will display how much energy is being used at any one time.
The gadget will also show how much the energy is costing, and a red light will warn if a particularly large amount of gas or electricity are being used.
The UK government's plan to install the devices in all 26 million homes by 2020 was widely welcomed yesterday.
The initiative will be paid for by energy companies – but with the prices expected to be passed on to the consumer.
It is estimated the initiative will cost £7 billion, but ultimately save as much as £3.6 billion by 2020 ....the devices will enable precise information on a household's energy use to be communicated remotely to power companies.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said: "The meters most of us have in our homes were designed for a different age, before climate change.
So I will pay through the nose so that Ed, or Ed's successors, can check on how much juice I'm using at any time. I would love to see the red lights flashing as I applied the electrodes to his scrawny chicken-skinned body but otherwise count me out.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:39 AM
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May 7, 2009
The New BBC Natural Talkinghead
Meet the Pol Pot of conservation - Telegraph
Springwatch, the BBC's fly-on-the-wall nature programme, returns later this month to delight 3.5 million viewers. But this year there will be no Bill Oddie.
His place is being taken by Chris Packham, a fast-talking 48-year-old former children's television presenter who could turn out to be every bit as controversial as his predecessor. ...
...the isolated thatched cottage in Hampshire where Packham spends the rare days when he isn't either staring down a long lens shooting wildlife (in the photographic sense) or talking into a lens to present television programmes...He is now so busy that little time is left for his private life. At least, he can combine work and play with his current partner, Charlotte Corney. She runs the Isle of Wight Zoo, a safe haven for tigers, whose plight is a shared concern. ...The quiet of the New Forest these days upsets him so much that he spends most of his spare time in his home in southwest France...
"Bill is an old hippy; I'm an old punk rocker," says Packham. The spiky hair that lured many non-nature lovers to The Really Wild Show in the Eighties has long been toned down, but the spitting anger of his formative years is still with him, and directed to the cause of preserving wildlife. Among the targets of his rage are politicians, squirrel killers, "eco-fascists who bang on about native species" – and ordinary pet owners.
Cat lovers ... He knows he is in danger of sounding like "the Pol Pot of conservation", but it infuriates him that owners refuse to acknowledge the carnage wrought by these fluffy, domesticated killers. Since New Labour came to power, between a third and two thirds of our cuckoos, swifts, pied and spotted flycatchers, nightingales, turtle doves and wood warblers have vanished from these shores. "Climate change in Africa is affecting the flight paths and nesting areas all over Europe, but Britain has had the worst fall in bird numbers."
He holds politicans, as well as pets, responsible. "I've had enough of arguments in village halls: we need a benign dictatorship."
I never thought I would think bring back Bill Oddie....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM
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May 6, 2009
Red Faced Greens All at Sea
BBC NEWS | England | Eco-sailors rescued by oil tanker
An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.
The team, which left Mount Batten Marina in Plymouth on 19 April in a boat named the Fleur, aimed to rely on sail, solar and man power on a 580-mile (933km/h) journey to and from the highest point of the Greenland ice cap.
The expedition was followed by up to 40 schools across the UK to promote climate change awareness.
But atrocious weather dogged their journey...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:34 AM
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Scottish Pussy Problems
How sex and the humble moggie may be death of Highland tigers - Scotsman.com News
"We are not the only country with a small species of wildcat, but they are ours and it would be a tragedy if Scotland's tiger becomes extinct. We get terribly upset about the extinction of Siberian tigers; let's get upset about the possible extinction of the Scottish wildcat."
Crossbreeding with escaped domestic cats is the problem. Neutering is suggested, as with all cats a more final solution would be my suggestion. Click, bang.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 AM
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May 2, 2009
Call me a social and moral decadent
Lawns will become sign of 'moral decadence' because of climate change - Telegraph
It has already started:
Sex on Queen's lawn at Windsor Castle - Telegraph
My first job today is mow mine - and I would love to have inscribed on the garden gate; "Clinging to the grassy elegance of English lawns will be signals of social and moral decadence."
Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM
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May 1, 2009
Met Office Forecaster Right but Wrong
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Will the UK get a sizzling summer?
The Met Office is forecasting a barbecue summer after two summers of rain.
Given the shortcomings in past summer forecasts, how much credence should we give this one?
Remember the summer of 2007? On 11 April of that year, the Met Office chirped: "The summer is yet again likely to be warmer than normal. There are no indications of a particularly wet summer." - the wettest summer for England and Wales since 1912. Temperatures were below average.
In April 2008, the Met Office projected: "Summer temperatures are likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or above average." That didn't prepare people for one of the wettest summers on record, with high winds and low sunshine.
Chief meteorologist Ewen McCallum said: "We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30C (86F) - something we hardly saw last year."
Mr McCallum admitted in a news conference that seasonal forecasting is still in its infancy - a cross between climate change prediction and tomorrow's weather forecast.
But he said normal forecasting had massively improved, with the four-day forecast now as good as the one-day forecast when the Met office started more than 30 years ago.
I think I have spotted his problem, the Met Office was actually founded in 1854. So as with so much of what he says he is technically correct, that is more than 30 years ago, but hardly accurate or historically aware.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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April 24, 2009
Live London Weather - looking at the UHI
Weather Monitoring System
Weather Eye: Studying an urban heat island - Times Online
The effect will be examined in a new project in which a weather station will be installed into a school in each London borough.
I note that there are also weather stations outside London. For fans of Surfacestations.org there are also pictures of some of the sites so you can judge the tarmac round them.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:57 AM
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April 22, 2009
Global Warming slowing - its all our fault
Global warming 'slowed by pollution' - Telegraph
The first study found that the hole in the ozone layer, caused by the use of CFCs, has prevented the melting of Antarctica even as the rest of the world warms.
A separate study found that plants absorb more carbon dioxide under polluted skies, therefore slowing global warming.
Scientists said the findings made it even more important to cut carbon emissions in the future...
Get ready for more "The dog ate my homework" excuses....
Posted by The Englishman at 10:28 PM
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April 21, 2009
I see no cooling
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers
There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time.
In the mid-17th Century, a quiet spell - known as the Maunder Minimum - lasted 70 years, and led to a "mini ice-age".
This has resulted in some people suggesting that a similar cooling might offset the impact of climate change.
According to Prof Mike Lockwood of Southampton University, this view is too simplistic.
"I wish the Sun was coming to our aid but, unfortunately, the data shows that is not the case," he said.
"If the Sun's dimming were to have a cooling effect, we'd have seen it by now."
Note how the "neutral" term "Climate Change" is taken as read to mean "warming" - and I'm not sure I want the sun to "come to our rescue" and for us to re-enter a mini ice age. But pick any set of data you like, or even any set of data you don't like, and you will see the world has been cooling for the last few years. So what cooling is it that he can't see?
Posted by The Englishman at 8:03 AM
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Stern - tax us to make us happier
Enough green talk. Now make it happen | Nicholas Stern - Times Online
The Government should make clear that consumers and taxpayers will pay higher prices and taxes in the coming decade, particularly for energy, flying and driving. All political parties must be honest about it. The Government cannot shirk the costs of action and the Opposition cannot point-score by attacking or denying the extra costs and prices that are involved.
The cost of these steps towards a low-carbon economy will not be small. .. We should probably be allowing for up to £20 billion per year, perhaps more, split between direct price increases and public expenditure during the next few years, which should be a period of intensive investment in making the transition to a low-carbon economy. If half of this comes from public expenditure it would represent about 0.7 per cent of current UK GDP, or 1.5 per cent of public expenditure. These significant sums are manageable. The medium-term fiscal strategy, which will inevitably be tough, must make allowance for these costs.
These investments will have strong returns beyond the radical reduction in climate risks. They will also create the engine of growth of the next few decades: low-carbon technology. The potential markets for electric cars, wind and solar power generation and improved public transport, for example, could be very large....And a low-carbon economy will be very attractive: cleaner, quieter, more energy-secure and more biodiverse.
More taxes on profitable business to build unprofitable pipedreams will make us all richer? That's the point of "investment" isn't it? No sorry, make some of us much richer. I get it now.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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Lord Stern - Ignorant and Reckless
Climate change sceptics likened to those who denied HIV Aids link by Lord Stern - Telegraph
Now in a new book, the World Bank's former chief economist has warned the science he based his predictions on is out of date. He said levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already at 430 parts per million (ppm)..
Lord Stern warned that Florida and Bangladesh could disappear, alligators could survive at the North Pole and millions of people would have to migrate.
Lord Stern, who is to launch his book - A Blueprint for a Safer Planet - at a public lecture at LSE on Tuesday, said in the face of such evidence those who continue to deny climate change are "ignorant and reckless."
Call me ignorant and reckless but the global CO2 level hasn't reached 430ppm yet nor are future scenarios "evidence". Especially when the sea level would have to rise over 345 feet to submerge all of Florida and ten times that (3451 feet) to submerge Bangladesh's highest point Keokradong. Which would make alligators feel even more all-at-sea at the North Pole where the ocean bottom is 4300 feet below present sea level. And we all know how alligators love deep water...
Doesn't anyone do fact checking any more? Sorry, I forgot its the Telegraph.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:57 AM
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April 18, 2009
Not so Green as Cabbage looking
Beware green jobs, the new sub-prime | Dominic Lawson - Times Online
A small voice of sanity...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:52 PM
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Telegraph Misses True Story Reprints Green PR instead
Arctic ice is thinner than ever according to new evidence from explorers - Telegraph
Utter tosh - the real and interesting story about this is here.
They didn't expect to find "Frst Year Ice", but if they had looked at the real expert reports on the internet, from the comfort of home, before they went they would have found a map showing where the "First Year Ice" was. Just where they were going. So either they are stupid or .....
(And if you want to really measure the thickness of the ice trudging around isn't the way to do it, you dial into what the remote sensors and satellites are telling us, and you don't even need to get chilly.)
Posted by The Englishman at 11:05 AM
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April 14, 2009
How much does the Green religion cost you?
Posted by The Englishman at 1:44 PM
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Imagine a Birkenstock stamping on your face, forever
Make fuel waste an offence, demands climate expert - Scotsman.com News
HOMEOWNERS who do not to take action to improve the energy efficiency of their properties should be treated as criminals, one of the country's most influential environmentalists said last night.
Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, "We should be getting into the territory where we force people to do this (insulate their homes],"
"Lots of people have done things voluntarily, such as changing their light bulbs. However, there are also a lot of people who can't be bothered.
"Making it compulsory would help to concentrate their minds. I think climate change is so serious that we need to start cracking down in a serious way. We need to start forcing people to do the right thing – not just encouraging them but actually forcing them."
(I am sure the headline is from PJ O'Rourke but Google gives this blog as the only source I can quickly find...)
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
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April 9, 2009
Ground Sourced Hot Air
The UK is sitting on a "vast resource of untapped energy", a Royal Academy of Engineering conference on the potential use of geothermal energy was told.
By using ground source heat pumps, the energy can be transferred from hundreds of feet below the ground to the central heating system, while the same pump can also cool the building by taking heat out of the air in the summer.
The technology is widely used in Scandinavia and the US but has failed to take off in the UK because of the cost and the availability of cheap oil and gas...
Um doesn't the US have even cheaper oil and gas? And a quick peek at petrol and Diesel prices in Scandinavia shows they are cheaper than here. So I think the spanner monkeys had better come up with a more convincing explanation, like the systems aren't cost effective and require you have a half acre garden....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:41 AM
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Live from the Ice
The Catlin Survey combines a pioneering feat of human endurance with scientific discovery on a geographic scale most would think impossible in the 21st century...This endeavour will provide the a comprehensive surface-based dataset, which will then be made available to scientists. Its data will be used to improve the accuracy and reliability of supercomputer models forecasting the timing of the disappearance of the sea ice, and the associated impacts for our changing global climate – and beyond....
Their Biotelemetry equipment is "operational" so you can keep an eye on their heartbeat, body temperature etc. Very impressive, I'll have a bet with you: With my super telepathic powers I bet that Pen's heartbeat will be, 91, 91.3, 93.9, 95.1... when you first visit the site, and when you refresh, and when you visit later today from a different machine....
ht Watts Up
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
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April 8, 2009
The Recovery of Windmills to be based on Taxpayer
UK hopes Europe can save offshore wind farm - Times Online
Government plans to make Britain a global leader in green energy are set to be rescued by the European taxpayer.
The Times has learnt that the European Investment Bank (EIB) is in talks with developers about a financial rescue package for the £3 billion London Array scheme, which is located in the Thames Estuary. Planned to be the world’s largest offshore wind farm, it is a project that has strong personal backing from the Prime Minister.
Not only do they run out of wind but they also seem to run out of cash.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
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The Recovery of Britain to be based on Windmills
Recovery will be green, says Brown - Scotsman.com News
...the Government will shortly announce a relaxation of the planning rules to enable the building of more wind farms to ensure the UK meets its target of getting 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
"This is a major part of our plan for recovery in the Budget. We will set out our proposals for a greener economy," Mr Brown said.
"This is a job creator, a quality of life improver and an environment-enhancing measure. We want to harness a general desire among people to be part of this. A better Britain means building a greener Britain."
Not only has he run out of money he seems to have run out of thought now.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
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April 7, 2009
Book Your Beachfront Place Now
Arctic will be ice-free within a decade - Telegraph
Walt Meier, research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre at the University of Colorado predicted the Arctic Ocean will be effectively ice free sometime between 2020 and 2040, although it is possible it could happen as early as 2013.
"Most people would agree it is not a matter of if we lose the summer sea ice but when," he said. "Temperatures are still warming because of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the greenhouse effect.
Bad news for Catlin Expedition: Satellite Data Shows Arctic Cooling in February and March « Watts Up With That?
...since the beginning of 2005, Arctic temperatures have been cooling at a rate of 1.8 degrees C per decade, or 18C per century ( see comments). Also note that Arctic monthly temperature anomaly now is about three degrees lower than in January, 1981.
The short term trend isn’t meaningful...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:42 PM
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April 5, 2009
Booker Quote of The Week
Christopher Booker - Telegraph
Truly we are governed these days by stark, raving lunacy – and no one is meant to notice.
And which particular lunacy do think this one is, so many to choose from, it is hard to guess...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:19 AM
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Shock Finding - Plants Take CO2 From Air
Plants buy Earth more time as CO2 makes them grow - Times Online
TREES and plants are growing bigger and faster in response to the billions of tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by humans, scientists have found.
The increased growth has been discovered in a variety of flora, ranging from tropical rainforests to British sugar beet crops.
It means they are soaking up at least some of the CO2 that would otherwise be accelerating the rate of climate change. It also suggests the potential for higher crop yields.
Some researchers believe the phenomenon is strong enough to buy humanity some extra years in which to try to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. However, few dispute that this will provide anything more than a temporary reprieve.
However, scientists have warned against drawing false comfort from such findings. They point out that although levels will boost plant growth, other factors asso-rising CO2 ciated (sic) with climate change, such as rising temperatures and drought, are likely to have a negative effect.
“On average, the trees were getting bigger faster,” Lewis said. He found that each hectare of African forest was trapping an extra 0.6 tons of CO2 a year compared with the 1960s.
If this is replicated across the world’s tropical rainforests they would be removing nearly 5 billion tons of CO2 a year from the atmosphere. Humans, however, generate about 50 billion tons of the gas each year.
I can't quite get those figures to work as there are only about 4 billion hectares of forest in the world. And 4 x 0.6 doesn't equal nearly five. But then forests release 1.1 Gt of carbon annually from their stocks anyway....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM
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April 4, 2009
New Scientist Letter of The Week
Letters - 25 March 2009 - New Scientist
From Guy Cox
The assumption that nuclear power will still be available by the end of this century flies in the face of even the most optimistic estimates of uranium reserves.
Uranium - Wikipedia ...the reserves are good for thousands of years
It was my mistake to buy a copy to read on the train, full of tosh like that, and the blog ain't much better...
New Scientist Short Sharp Science Blog:
Saturday, April 04, 2009
1238809528491
eeyore is cute!
And more importantly Climate Audit is critical today.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:36 AM
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April 1, 2009
Mild Winter in Switzerland Historical Documentary
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
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Climate Change Tipping Point Reached?
Chill winds take heat off global warming | Chris Ayres - Times Online
LA Notebook: Climate change scepticism is going mainstream
Well, that didn't take long, did it? After six months of economic hardship and one unusually chilly winter, it seems that Americans are beginning to conclude that perhaps global warming wasn't such a big deal after all. Blowing $30,000 on a solar roof doesn't seem such a great move these days. And for the price of a Toyota Prius you can now buy a three-bedroomed house in Detroit with enough left for a pick-up truck (this isn't a joke - the median house price in Motor City is $7,500).
The ranks of America's “climate sceptics” have been growing quietly for some months now. And at the weekend a watershed was reached: the usually left-wing New York Times put the British-born physicist Freeman Dyson on the front of its Sunday magazine. The article inside revealed that Professor Dyson - 85 years old and based in Princeton - not only possesses one of the finest noodles on Planet Earth, but also happens to think that most of what Al Gore and his band of Unmerry Men preach amounts to little more than yuppie self-loathing.
Tipping Point In The Media « Watts Up With That? Guest Post by Steven Goddard
Over the last year or so I have been taking an informal survey of a key news metric -
Google news searches for the term “global warming.” A year ago, the ratio of alarmist/skeptical articles was close to 100/1. About six months ago, the ratio was 90/10, Two months ago it was 80/20, and today it hit 50/50 for the first time - including the lead skeptical story “A Cooling Trend Toward Global Warming“. One thing that has changed is the rise of blogs written by informed citizens, complemented by the demise of corporate newspapers which make money from keeping people continually alarmed about one thing or another.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:25 AM
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March 29, 2009
Liar Liar
Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told' - Telegraph
Booker on form - though when it comes to Climate Science spotting the Greatest Lie Ever Told is an imprecise art...
Posted by The Englishman at 8:03 AM
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March 28, 2009
Dr Hansen Explains The Climate Forcing Numbers
As we know the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory depends on a combination of changing climate forcings
Some are positive and some are negative, and the big cooling one is aerosols, hazy pollution.
So our leading scientists add up the CO2 and positive forcings and take away the negative ones to give the headline figure. And how are those figures worked out?
....If we accept the IPCC aerosol estimate, which was pretty much pulled out of a hat, it
leaves the net forcing almost anywhere between zero and 3 watts.
I didn’t know what forcing to use when we started our IPCC runs 4 years ago, so I went to
my grandchildren and asked them “What is the net forcing?”
Sophie explained that it was 2 watts, but her well-fed baby brother could only count 1 watt.
Sophie was older and pretty smart so we used 1.8 watts.
But now I’m not sure Sophie was right, and for various reasons I began to think that
conceivably Connor was closer.
So I decided to go back and ask them again, because they are four years older, and should be
smarter.
But now when I ask them, “What is the forcing?”, they say that they don’t know. Maybe this
is scientific reticence creeping in already.
And that Ladies and Gentlemen is the science behind the scare.
For the full pdf including charming pictures of Connor and Sophie doing the math click here.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
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March 27, 2009
The Greatest Human Being That Ever Lived (and you've probably never heard of him)
A day late but worth celebrating.
Hit & Run > Norman Borlaug, Happy 95th Birthday! - Reason Magazine
One of the true giants of our time, plant breeder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Norman Borlaug turns 95 today (March 26 2009). Borlaug is the person who has saved more human lives than anyone in history. How? He was the father of the "Green Revolution" that more than doubled crop productivity in the 1960s and 1970s thus averting the massive global famines predicted by many doomsayers
A quote of his..."If some consumers believe that it's better from the point of view of their health to have organic food, God bless them. Let them buy it. Let them pay a bit more. It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive..."
Oh for more like him.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:08 AM
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Turbine Power to Suck Up Cash
Ministers pore over incentives to save growth of green energy - Times Online
Ministers were last night considering fresh incentives designed to spur investment in renewable energy amid evidence that the credit crunch is threatening government energy targets.
The Energy Minister hit back at claims that the Government was failing to deliver on an ambitious plan to foster a green energy revolution by building thousands of onshore and offshore wind turbines.
Mr O’Brien said: “We are fully aware of the investment challenges facing some parts of the industry. We are examining how we can help ensure there is sufficient finance and other support available for viable projects which are short of the investment they need.”
Let me guess, are you going to show that investing in wind turbines is a rational investment choice with a positive return or are you going to shovel barrowloads of taxpayers cash at your fantasy, Hard one...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:54 AM
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March 26, 2009
Miliband's Dirty Choices
The minister’s dilemma: high ideals or low prices - Times Online
As the private sector votes with its investment decisions, Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, faces an unholy dilemma. He has pinned his colours to the Government’s policy of keeping energy affordable while also boosting the proportion of British energy derived from green sources from 5 to 35 per cent by 2020. He has also pledged to make Britain “the best place in the world to locate or build a low-carbon business”.
All three goals require massive subsidy that the Exchequer can ill afford — unless Mr Miliband chooses to tear up Britain’s vaunted pledge to lead by example in the war on carbon, and allow a new generation of coal-fired power stations such as the one mooted for Kingsnorth in Kent to fill the country’s looming generation gap.
A third of Britain’s generating capacity will become obsolete by 2020. The market will provide new capacity if left to its own devices. But if the current trend continues, it will be dirty.
Can you think of anyone less inspiring in giving you confidence that the lights won't go dim in 2020 than Ed The Horse? His green interventions into the market will mean the worst of all worlds, massive subsidies for schemes that don't work, not enough real power stations and expensive panic measures to fill the gap at the last minute..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:34 AM
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March 25, 2009
Gore Green Global Government Grasp
Al Gore announces sequel to 'An Incovenient Truth' - Telegraph
"Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. 'Our Choice' will answer that call".
I am that man, I'm not some American Messiah, I am the Saviour of The World!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:53 AM
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March 24, 2009
Convinces Me
BBC NEWS | Saltwater at home- Writer's idea to persuade climate change sceptics
Can a simple idea help make the world a better place?
Bangladeshi writer Tahmima Anam suggests randomly piping saltwater into homes....
There are still many climate change sceptics out there.
In order to address the scepticism, which I believe is a result of a failure of the imagination, I propose that all citizens of countries that have high per capita carbon emissions have saltwater randomly piped into their homes.
The saltwater will arrive without warning, with complete disregard for whether or not the people in those homes are themselves high carbon emitters.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:44 PM
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Torrid on Ice - and BBC stealth editing.
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Arctic trek team pushes forward
The British team trying to measure the thickness of Arctic sea-ice as it treks to the North Pole believes the weather is finally turning in its favour.
Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels have experienced torrid conditions since being dropped on to the ice three weeks ago.
Temperatures have been down to -40C with wind chill, and the drifting ice has blunted their progress.
Torrid? Torrid as in:
Parched with the heat of the sun; intensely hot.
Scorching; burning: the torrid noonday sun.
Passionate; ardent: a torrid love scene.
Hurried; rapid: set a torrid pace; torrid economic growth.
[Latin torridus, from torrēre, to parch.]
So it has been so cold they haven't been able to set a rapid pace and the BBC calls that torrid, and now it is warmer it is better - no wonder we are confused....
UPDATE - The BBC has now (next morning) done a stealth edit by replacing the word "torrid" with "extreme" but not changing the last updated by time and date (17:02 GMT, Tuesday, 24 March 2009)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:35 PM
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RSPB Wants More Eagle Slicers
RSPB warning as wind turbines kill sea eagles - Environment - The Independent - 28 Jan 2006
Sea eagles, among Europe's most magnificent birds, are being killed by the turbines of a Norwegian wind farm, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said. The discovery of four dead eagles on Smola, an island with 68 turbines six miles off north-west Norway, and failure of almost 30 others to return to nests on the island, have increased concerns that wind farms in Britain could kill wild birds, the RSPB said.
RSPB to build wind farms on its bird reserves - Telegraph - 06 Dec 2008
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is drawing up plans that will see wind turbines constructed on its estates as part of a new green energy drive.
RSPB conflict of interest over wind turbines , 19 February 2009
RSPB calls for more UK wind farms - 24 March 2009
There should be a significant increase in the number of wind farms built onshore in the UK, the RSPB has said.
It called for an end to the "needless delays" that beset wind farm projects
Posted by The Englishman at 7:55 AM
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A World Fit For Old Etonians
Eugenics is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created unequal and the food is running short; that, in the struggle for food, those who have an inherited advantage prevail and pass the advantage on to their children who prevail even more; that this is how evolution, Yale and the English aristocracy happened. A further belief is that, at this point in evolution, the more evolved must take destiny and the less evolved in hand. Selection must not be left to chance for chance is cruel, capricious and, all too often, expensive but must instead be led by the kindly elite - Harvard professors, British aristocrats, Serbian psychiatrists, Aryans and so on.
As Jonathon Porritt says :Absolutely love the new campaign from the Optimum Population Trust: (PDF) do your bit for addressing climate change by having fewer children – or even no children. ..
You’d have thought I’d advocated compulsory sterilisation, emasculation, euthanasia, and baby-slaughtering all in one fell swoop. Melanie Philips likened me to Pol Pot and Hitler (who was “green” after all!), and when Fox News in the US got hold of the story, every religious nutcase with nothing better to do crawled out from under their stones to suggest the best thing I could do to help address population pressure would be to top myself. Instantly. Logic and sound evidence were not much in evidence.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:41 AM
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March 23, 2009
Ice with a slice please.
Scientists drill deep into Greenland ice for global warming clues from Eemian Period - Times Online
Scientists are to dig up ice dating back more than 100,000 years in an attempt to shed light on how global warming will change the world over the next century.
The ice, at the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, was laid down at a time when temperatures were 3C (5.4F) to 5C warmer than they are today.
With temperatures forecast to rise by up to 7C in the next 100 years, the ice more than 8,000ft (2,400m) below the surface is thought by researchers to hold valuable clues to how much of the ice sheet will melt.
If it was so much warmer then and the ice sheet melted how come there is ice still there for them to sample?
As ever it won't be the data they come up but the spin that is spun with it that matters.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:44 AM
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March 17, 2009
Carbon what?
Shoppers still recognise the importance of reducing carbon emissions in spite of recession - Times Online
Harry Morrison, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, sympathises. “I understand this sentiment that for some businesses, survival is critical now. But from an environmental perspective, the clock is ticking — we don't have much time. In addition, cutting carbon has an immediate bottom-line effect as costs drop, and a medium-term benefit for the brand.”
But there seems to be a stumbling block in how businesses can let their customers know about the good work that they are doing to curb carbon.
B&Q has gone one step further at its new flagship store in New Malden, southwest London. Visitors sipping a coffee in the café can look through glass panels to admire the solar panels and wind turbine that are helping to cut the store's carbon emissions.
Excellent news, carbon is dirty black stuff, we don't want B&Q letting the dust from its BBQ charcoal blow about the place, though I'm not sure how solar panels and wind turbines stop the grit spreading, or am I missing something?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:43 AM
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March 16, 2009
Eradicating Bugs From Your Bins
Two million households now have spy devices in their bins - Telegraph
Make that 1,999,999 as mine fell out, I suggest you examine the charmingly named "chip nest" on yours.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:47 AM
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March 15, 2009
Christian Aid for Hansen
Plan B: scientists get radical in bid to halt global warming ‘catastrophe’ - Times Online
THE director of a Nasa space laboratory will this week lead thousands of climate change campaigners through Coventry in an extraordinary intervention in British politics.
James Hansen plans to use Thursday’s Climate Change Day of Action to put pressure on Gordon Brown to wake up to the threat of climate change....The protest, being organised by Christian Aid, will involve a New Orleans-style funeral march by “mourners” for future lost generations.
Hansen is just one of a number of leading researchers who believe that scientists must get out of their laboratories and campaign on climate change.
They say researchers have spent nearly two decades producing high-quality research demonstrating that the world risks dangerous warming - yet political inaction means CO2 emissions are rising faster than ever.
Even the Met Office, which traditionally has been one of the government’s most conservative research institutions, has become quietly radical over climate.
It sent a team of its top climate scientists to the Copenhagen meeting - backing them with a team of publicists who lobbied journalists intensively to maximise coverage of their research.
Others have used scientific publications to make overtly political points. Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre, the government’s leading global warming research centre, recently used the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, one of the world’s most respected academic journals, to call for a “planned global recession” to cut carbon emissions.
BAH! I'm off to The local Game Fair - I will be mighty tempted by any weapons I see for sale...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:22 AM
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March 12, 2009
Increasing Hot Air
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Earth warming faster than thought
Earth warming faster than thought
By Matt McGrath
BBC environment reporter, Copenhagen
The worst-case scenarios on climate change envisaged by the UN are already being realised, say scientists at an international meeting in Copenhagen
Evidence?
..they say there is an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climate shifts...
...Scientists heard that waters could rise by over a metre..
...There was also new information on how the Amazon rainforest would cope with rising temperatures. A UK Meteorological Office study concluded there would be a 75% loss of tree cover if the world warmed by three degrees for a century....
If 'ifs' and 'ans' were pots and pans, we'd have no need of tinkers...
The meeting was also addressed by Lord Stern, the economist, whose landmark review of the economics of climate change published in 2006 highlighted the severe cost to the world of doing nothing.
He now says the report underestimated the scale of the risks, and the speed at which the planet is warming.
And how fast is that My Noble Lord? Sort of not very fast at all this century? Sort of not at all since you wrote your report? If you want to use a two year data set to spread alarm then you can't complain if others actually look at it, and if you use two years data as "climate" evidence then you can't then claim it is just weather.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:02 PM
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Land Rover Heads the Wrong Way
£27m public cash for Land Rover to build an eco-car - Scotsman.com News
CAR maker Jaguar Land Rover was offered a taxpayer-funded £27 million boost yesterday to make an eco-friendly car as part of a government effort to shore up the beleaguered industry.
The money will be given once Jaguar, owned by the Indian firm Tata, gives the green light to producing the car, a compact, lightweight Land Rover LRX
I don't want Land Rover to produce a cuddly curvy green car, if they want to go green produce Series 1 again. There are fewer cars that are more recyclable, longer lasting and cheaper to produce. Maybe this time they could even make them go. But it might be a touch too hairshirted for the modern day but what would be wrong with a tarted up Series 11a? Now that is a car I would buy.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:00 AM
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March 10, 2009
HRH Hansen's Poodle
Prince of Wales attacks climate change doubters - Telegraph
The Prince said Chile was witnessing the terrifying effects of global warming, including the shrinking of nearly 90 per cent of your glaciers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, in the light of such evidence, and so much more from across the globe, I find it incomprehensible that there are those who doubt the science of climate change."
I'm sure his Highness has read the scientific papers which show that they have been retreating for over a century -
Source
Here is another fascinating example of an easily understandable one that even he could understand.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office wants to use the Prince's expertise, experience and contacts more from now on in "soft diplomacy" abroad.
Some diplomats feel he is an asset that has been under-used. The Prince's views on climate change and the environment are widely admired by world leaders.
On Thursday, in Brazil, Prince Charles will deliver a keynote speech when he will warn the world has less than 100 months to act if it is to avoid irreversible damage from climate change.
It is a shame to see him reduced to being wheeled round as a useful idiot spouting spoonfed views to prop up the increasingly discredited agitprop of the consensus.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:52 AM
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March 9, 2009
Darned Greens
Darn your socks to help save planet, says minister - Scotsman.com News
The new environment minister, who has never owned a car, tumble drier or dishwasher, said our grandparents could teach us how to lead greener lifestyles.
She believes it is time we become less materialistic.
"..this shiny new, buy-everything-chuck-it-away society is the anomaly in history. It's going to have turned out to be a very expensive anomaly in every way – for our climate, and for our pockets.
"So maybe we should be showing off the darned holes in our socks."
Ms Cunningham added that the problem was that some people would make fun of that idea.
Perish the thought. The dry Scotsman continues...
BACKGROUND
THE Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall began their ten-day tour of South America yesterday with the issue of climate change at the top of their agenda.
Prince Charles and Camilla arrived in Chile, but they will also visit Brazil, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Highlighting the issue of global warming is a major theme, and this week the prince will give a dire warning on climate change to the world.
Their chartered Airbus arrived at Comodoro Arturo Merino Benitez airport close to Santiago. They were driven away in a limousine, followed by a motorcade of six cars.
Tee hee..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:43 AM
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March 6, 2009
Time to get a grip on your train fetish
Commuter journeys "slower than before the war" - Telegraph
Commuters enjoyed faster train journeys into London before the Second World War than they do today, according to new research. ...
All Southeastern trains into London before 9am from the Kent coast and East Sussex were cancelled yesterday because of thick frost and ice. Many other commuters had their journeys disrupted. Up to 3in (8cm) of snow – more than had been forecast – fell overnight near Okehampton, Devon,..
A whole three inches, 200 miles away! No wonder chaos ensued. Trains are 19th Century technology which should have been phased out last century. The invention of the steering wheel made them obsolete. Coaches can carry more people on the same track width, quicker, using less fuel and with the flexibility to drive round problems. Only Freud can explain people's obsession with great long steaming machines, pounding their way under bridges and through tunnels, whoo-whooo!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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The Ed and Mandy Show
Green shift demands root and branch changes -
Ed Miliband and Peter Mandelson - Times Online
Imagine somebody telling you that 20 years from now almost everything you do in your life you will do differently. That is how fundamental the transition to a low-carbon economy in the UK will be....
But this is more than a green job creation scheme, or “greening” the recovery. This is about looking beyond the short term, to Britain’s industrial future. Low carbon is not a sector of our economy. It is, or will be, our whole economy and a global market.
While the shift to low carbon requires significant change and adaptation, it also has huge economic and industrial benefits if we combine a strategic approach from government with the dynamism of private enterprise and compete for them. A low-carbon industrial strategy must seize the opportunities that will come with change. That requires a new industrial activism for a new green industrial revolution.
Nice for Ed to have Uncle Peter's guiding hand writing his homework for him. Shake all the buzzwords out of the box and rearrange them however you want Eddy, you still haven't got a clue. Luckily you only have a few months left to strut your stuff...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:28 AM
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March 5, 2009
We'll Keep The Red Flag Flying For Global Warming
5th March 2009 the Southern bit of Wiltshire was unexpectedly blanketed, icy hills to climb made spring seem far away. (At the top of this hill it was six inches deep).
And apologies to Her Majesty and her stout fellows in red berets who would be very cross if they spotted me photographing their red flag. I didn't test their patience by snapping the broken down tank being towed across the road in front of me.
(For those not familiar with Wiltshire a large portion of it is under control of the military for them to play at being soldiers on, lots of bangs and crackles and big boy toys. The red flag pictured was on Porton Down and means keep out. Porton Down is now relabelled as some sort of Public Health Institute, I suppose they fly flags and wave guns to stop trespassers risking catching the snuffles or something.....)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:10 PM
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March 4, 2009
When Recycling Upsets Greens
Park feeds wolves 'recycled' squirrels - Scotsman.com News
Camperdown Park in Dundee has stepped up its cull of the aggressive rodents in a bid to secure the future of their red cousins. To enhance the scheme's eco-friendly credentials dozens of the dead creatures are being "recycled" by being fed to the wolves and eagles in adjacent animal enclosures.
Park bosses claim the policy is a common sense way of making the best of a nationwide offensive against grey squirrels.
But the move has left a nasty taste in the mouths of some animal rights activists... who believe that wolves and eagles really prefer tofu sandwiches made with stone ground organic spelt flour.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM
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March 2, 2009
Green Money Plea
How to win the climate war: dig into your pocket for victory | James Cameron - Times Online
Going green will costs billions. The way to raise the money is to issue modern war bonds and raise an army of investors...
ts patriotic duty and dip into its own savings, however meagre, and lend to the Government. The money was specifically used for the war effort. .... I hesitate to link the war against Nazism with the war against climate change but I believe that now is the time for the Government to consider, with urgency, the issue of bonds for another cause - reducing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere - while at the same time kick-starting the faltering economy....
The Government can help to make this happen. The Treasury can lend a hand. That is what happened in the 1940s. To paraphrase a line from an old poster: “Climate Bonds - the present for the future.” We and our political servants should seize the day. We have no time to lose.
James Cameron is the vice-chairman of Climate Change Capital
Posted by The Englishman at 7:07 AM
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March 1, 2009
Heatwave alert and advice to drink cool water from the Met Office
Take a siesta to beat the British heat - Times Online
TAKE cover: heat waves are on the way. Despite the unusually cold winter the government has drawn up a national emergency plan to deal with the rising risk of extreme hot weather linked to climate change.
Under the plan, people in areas hit by heat waves will be advised to stay indoors during the middle of the day — in effect, taking a siesta — and change out of formal clothing such as suits and avoid hot food.
They will also be advised to stay cool by using fans, shading windows and drinking lots of water.
On Friday the Met Office hosted a private conference for governmental agencies and public health experts, who discussed the emergency plan.
It envisages setting up a national response centre overseen by the Cabinet Office whenever a prolonged heatwave threatens. This would send out public alerts and co-ordinate responses by councils, local authorities and emergency services. The Met Office also plans to work with GPs to directly target those most at risk from prolonged heat. This would include the elderly and people with medical conditions such as circulatory and heart disease.
They would be issued in advance with personalised heat wave health packs by their GPs. Then, when a heat wave threatened, they would get automated warning telephone calls reminding them...
The Met Office has a service to warn people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) when it is cold and horrible that they might be feeling extra poorly, something most coughers and splutterers can work out for themselves fairly easily. They charge the NHS £18 a patient per winter and £10,000 per area to set up. No wonder they want to expand the role of health forecasting.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM
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February 26, 2009
Tonight's Homework from Christian Aid
Tonight the Englishettes brought this home from school...
(Slices from several sheets for brevities sake, and I don't think it would be good for your blood pressure to read it all.)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:15 PM
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Paul is Dead and Antarctic Warming
I strain my brain everyday trying to understand articles such as Steig Eigenvectors and Chladni Patterns - Climate Audit and wanted to share my oversimplisitc view that might give others a toehold into monitoring how well the blogosphere is auditing the claims of climate scientists.
The papers are full of terms such as "Eigenvectors" which is a bit putting off. But concentrate and it becomes a bit clearer.
There was a recent paper that made the front cover of Nature which claimed Antarctica was warming, to the surprise of everyone who had previously looked at the data who thought it was cooling (Either result was claimed to be consistent with the CAGW theory.) What the guys at Climate Audit have been doing is working out where that signal comes from.
For those of a certain age that image is recognisable as the groove of an LP, a single signal. But we know it is made up of many individual signals combined, the drums, the guitars and the janitor on cowbells etc. What the consensus scientists tell us is that the magic way they play the track, a way they won't reveal shows that that the thousands of individual signals, the weather data, tells them that the Antarctic is warming.
But "auditing" the data shows that that it was only recorded on a three track machine, the other tracks were left on the studio floor. Each track is a special setting of the control knobs to record the incoming noise. And now we know what those settings are we can see what happens if you record random noise, put random data into the formula; you get very similar results to what the scientists claimed was significant proof.
If you play any random music backwards you will hear that Paul is dead, if that is what you want to hear...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
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PC stands for Polar Cooling
The Times reports Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread way than expected, raising sea levels and worsening climate change, according to a scientific survey.
The International Polar Year survey found that warming in the Antarctic was “much more widespread than was thought”, while Arctic sea ice was diminishing and the melting of Greenland’s ice cover was accelerating.
Preliminary findings from the two-year survey by 10,000 scientists...
Catherine Bréchignac, President of ICSU, adds “thanks to the tireless efforts, enthusiasm, and imagination of thousands of scientists, working with teachers, artists, and many other collaborators.”
I'm not sure how the imagination of teachers and artists help with scientific research but than I'm also not sure how "the catalyst for the development and strengthening of community monitoring networks across the North" is also relevant....
The report is available here in a variety of languages including English and Inuktitut, but it seems to be just a glossy fund raising pack. I'm sure there is a link somewhere to the raw data but I can't find it.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM
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February 25, 2009
Who Pressed The Big Red Button?
video: Nasa loses its first CO2 satellite after launch failure - Times Online
The space agency’s first carbon dioxide-monitoring satellite took off on a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California this morning, but after blasting through the Earth’s atmosphere it fell short of its orbiting height and plummeted back towards the sea.
The orbiting carbon observatory (OCO) satellite was designed to map carbon dioxide on Earth to provide an important step forward for scientists studying climate change.
“For the scientific community it’s a huge disappointment. "....
But an unworthy thought arose that whilst the scientific community might be disappointed the climate change community might be secretly relieved that an independent source of data wasn't going emerge....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
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February 23, 2009
Big Brother in your Bin
Waste collection crews are being issued with devices featuring GPS technology that allow councils to store a history of information about individual rubbish collections, including whether householders are failing to recycle properly.
The system feeds binmen with up-to-the minute information about houses they are visiting.
It also provides local authorities with enough information to issue recycling advice or automated fines to residents who fail to obey bin rules.
The bin bugs failed but they won't give up the idea of controlling our habits, the way we live and our bins will they?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:17 AM
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Touching Darwin's Hem
Yesterday was in London on a pilgrimage to the Darwin - Big idea big exhibition.
I guess from The American Museum of Natural History supplying most of the exhibits and a sideshow that sat incongruously at the end attacking the teaching of intelligent design that this exhibition will move on to America after April. So catch here or there if you are into that sort of thing.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:12 AM
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February 22, 2009
Fac quod dico, non quod facio
Green watchdog red faced over emissions - Scotsman.com News
SCOTLAND'S top environmental watchdog, which urges citizens to fight global warming by reducing the amount of climate-changing gases they produce,... admits that its own emissions rose by a total of almost 10%, or 200 tonnes, last year.
They really do spout a lot of hot air and farts.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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February 20, 2009
I'm off to buy a 4x4
Sales go into reverse as gas-guzzling 4x4s become 'socially unacceptable' - Scotsman.com News
Expensive, gas-guzzling cars like 4x4s are becoming socially unacceptable – unless you're a farmer.
Edmund King, the AA president, said: "The recent cold and icy spell tested many drivers. AA insurance saw claims climb by 100 per cent, but there weren't many by 4x4 drivers, who tended to stay on the road."
Corinne Evans, of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "It's good to see the brakes put on 4x4 owners' relentless quest to trash our climate. Perhaps the school run can now be done in somewhat more sensible vehicles – or, even better, on foot."
I think it is time to look for a bargain....
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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Nappy Time
Commentary: green is not the only factor - Times Online
The environmentalist case against disposable nappies is relatively compelling...
Not that old chestnut again - as Defra points out they are only greener if you hand wash them in cold water and dry them outside on a line across the back yard...
But hurrah - our hero realises something else...
Well, so what? Disposable nappies, I contend, are design classics, and worth every penny. A top-of-the-line disposable lets me clear that changing table in two minutes - much less if the subject is co-operative. That is a precious efficiency: with a three-week-old and a two-year-old in the house, my poor girlfriend is averaging three hours' sleep a night. I'm getting maybe five. Neither of us will be wasting a second washing nappies.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:43 AM
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February 18, 2009
Scotch Diet
Releasing sea eagles into the wild seemed a good idea, but there was one key flaw … they love killing other rare animals - Scotsman.com News
..They most commonly ate sea birds, particularly fulmars. This was followed by mackerel, then lumpsucker, dogfish, red deer, mountain hare, lamb, brown rat, raven, short eared owl, great black backed gull, puffin, greylag goose and eider duck.
The Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of the avian world. Protected species and farmers lambs, yum yum...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
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February 17, 2009
Recycling News
Food scraps and farm waste to be chewed up to create energy - Times Online
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter
Plans to build more than 1,000 anaerobic digesters to turn unwanted food and farm waste into energy and fertiliser will be unveiled today.
Lewis Smith covered the same story back in August 2008 to which EU Referendum
set out a dire tale about how private enterprises had embraced anaerobic digesters as an admirable solution to organic waste disposal, only to have the economics of their systems wrecked by the dead hand of the Environment Agency.
The EA insisted on classifying these systems as "scheduled processes" – under an EU directive – and then charging exorbitant "authorisation" and "subsistence" fees which, with the stultifying and time-consuming bureaucracy involved, ensured that few digesters were installed. Those that were quickly became disused simply because, under the burden of regulation, they were too expensive to operate.
So, now that the government has effectively priced the system out of the market, it is offering public money – our money – to encourage the use of a well-tried and working technology that it, itself, has hamstrung.
Had Smith known anything of the subject – and the background to it – he could have written a really interesting and critical piece. As it is, we are condemned to the usual ration of extruded verbal material which has become the only fare available. Thus, as we keep saying, are we served by the fourth estate.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:46 AM
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February 16, 2009
Mr Ed's Climate Police Will Come Calling
Energy experts to visit every home to help them go green - Telegraph
"The Great British Refurb" will fit every home in need of insulation in the roof or walls by 2015. By 2030 every home will be offered a "whole house" green refurbishment, including fitting renewable heat technologies like ground source heat pumps and solar panels.
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said teams of energy advisers would go around "house by house, street by street" to advise people how to improve their homes.
Loans would then be made available to pay for the new technologies, that can cost thousands of pounds.
It is not yet decided how the massive programme will be funded but it is expected a large amount of money will come from a levy on energy companies that will ultimately be passed onto consumers.
"We cannot afford not to act," he said. "
What fun dinner must have been in the Miliband household; the old man Adolphe was a Marxist illegal immigrant always grumbling about the Americans, David would have been banging his rattle in his high chair until he went to University and Ed is obviously named after and is as bright as a talking horse.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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February 15, 2009
Tory Millions - Where the Money Goes
Amazon villagers get Conservative party windfall for saving rainforest - Times Online
A REMOTE community in the Amazon stands to be given millions of pounds to stop cutting down its rainforest after being chosen by both the Conservative party...
A total of 322 families living in the Juma reserve in the Brazilian state of Amazonas will each receive a monthly allowance in return for pledging zero deforestation. Each family had to attend a workshop on climate change and commit to zero deforestation and to send their children to school. They were then given a forest cash-card credited with 50 reais (£15) per month.
The Tories decided to support the project after a visit in December by Greg Barker, shadow environment minister, on a fact-finding mission. “Nothing we can do to fight climate change will succeed unless we can reverse the alarming deforestation across the world,” he said.
It will be announced this week as part of a Conservative climate change campaign.
If I promise not to cut down any rainforests this month will the Tories give me money to stay in bed?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:23 AM
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Doomed, I say Doomed!
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Global warming 'underestimated'
The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist, Professor Chris Field, has warned.
....Speaking at the American Science conference in Chicago, Prof Field said fresh data showed greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2007 increased far more rapidly than expected.
"We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously in climate policy," he said.
Prof Field said the 2007 report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.1C and 6.4C over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem.
So he is claiming emissions rose "far more", emissions are estimated but luckily we have an old family firm on a volcano in the Pacific that publish what they think CO2 levels actually are, and I can't see any unexpected rises. And Watts Up points out another small problem with this BBC alarmism:
Chris Field is not a climate scientist, as they claimed. He is actually a Professor of Biology in an Ecology Department. So how does the BBC choose their headlines? In matters of global warming, apparently the apocalyptic words of one American ecologist overrule those of the UK’s own government climate scientists at The Met Office. Chris Field clearly does not have any credentials to be making the climate claims the BBC reported.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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February 11, 2009
Darwin and the Climate Changists
Christopher Booker had a pop at Darwinists last Sunday which gave some supporters of him a nasty surprise. Eu Ref and Numberwatch nail much of the argument, but there are two strands that I wanted to pick up.
I am huge admirer of Darwin but the wall to wall coverage is a little over the top and actually becoming boring and off putting. It is interesting to compare it to the complete absence of any coverage over here of Abraham Lincoln who shares the same birthday and will also be celebrating being 200 tomorrow - he did a bit to change the world as well but I've yet to spot a paragraph.
But more importantly Booker is right in pointing out the fundamentalist attitudes of some self proclaimed Darwinists. They have become at one with the Warmists in brooking no dissent. It made me turn to my old copy of The Origin of Species and look up chapter's six and seven where the old boy carefully lays out objections to his theory and answers as best as he can.
As Prof Moran says: We'd like to think that this behavior—bringing up objections to your ideas—is standard operating procedure for most scientists but, alas, it is a lost art. You would be hard pressed to find a modern science book where an author makes an effort to address criticisms in a fair and rational manner.
And that is another reason why Darwin was a great scientist and worthy of our celebration.
( I notice my old 1888 copy of the book cost me £3 but there is one on ebay this morning going for £360 so far; I'm tempted to sell, very tempted...)
Posted by The Englishman at 9:12 AM
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February 9, 2009
A new addition to our fleet
'Toxic' French aircraft carrier docks in Britain - Telegraph
A former French aircraft carrier containing 700 tonnes of contaminated materials has docked in Britain.
Bloody Garlic gets into everything...
the 32,780-tonne vessel will become the largest ship to be recycled in Europe and will bring jobs to the area, but the project has faced criticism from environmental campaigners.
And what do they suggest we do with it? Turn it into a fireship and head it into Calais?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
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Frying tonight
Secondhand cooking oil in green heating trial - Times Online
Secondhand cooking oil is being used to heat homes and schools in an experiment designed to help householders to cut down their carbon emissions.
Biofuel derived from used vegetable oil and tallow has been mixed with kerosene and fed into domestic boilers for the world’s first trial of renewable heating oil.
Initial results from the trial, in and around the market town of Reepham, have delighted researchers, who said it was proving as efficient as fossil fuel while emitting less than half as much carbon dioxide. The trials are being led by the University of East Anglia’s Low Carbon Innovation Centre, the Clean Energy Consultancy and the oil industry.
The world's first trial that is unless you count the thousands of people round the world who have been doing this for years - but if we did that then what would be the point of University of East Anglia’s Low Carbon Innovation Centre?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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February 7, 2009
Freedom of Movement to be Banned
Flights could be rationed, says environment tsar Lord Turner - Telegraph
Lord Turner, the chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, said people would be given personal flight limits to lower pollution from the aviation industry. "We will have to constrain demand in an absolute sense, with people not allowed to make as many journeys as they could in an unconstrained manner."
"And Gordon has ordered the first person to be banned from flying anywhere is that bastard Blair...."
Posted by The Englishman at 6:36 AM
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February 2, 2009
Let's pray for some Global Warming otherwise nobody will ever work again
Snow: Councils and transport chiefs blamed for fiasco - Telegraph
As London ground to a virtual standstill Mayor Boris Johnson also faced questions over the inability of the capital's infrastructure to cope with six inches of snow.
Mr Johnson admitted London did not have enough snow ploughs to keep the roads clear and defended the decision to suspend all bus services, which left thousands of angry commuters stranded.
It was the first time in living memory that all London buses have been stopped, something which didn't even happen during the Blitz.
Snow: Schools, airports, motorways and railways all closed - Telegraph
Up to 1ft of snow fell in parts of the south east and the Pennines while most of the country was blanketed in at least four inches of it.
Business leaders fear that the disruption could cost the British economy at least £1.2 billion in lost trade.
Pafuckingthetic, in fact embarrassing. Four inches of snow and the whole country comes to a halt, apart from the self-employed who stayed working.....
Snow exposes the public sector's instinct to give up - Telegraph
there is a significant difference now to the way things used to be. The very first instinct in the public sector these days is to give up, rather than to battle with the elements, almost certainly because of "health and safety" considerations. In London yesterday, schools were closed even though most teachers and pupils live within walking distance; and, although a few routes opened later in the day, during the rush hour all the buses remained in their garages. Not even the Luftwaffe stopped the capital's buses. It should have been possible to run a reduced service.
Outside London, it was especially galling for people who wanted, and who tried, to get to work to find that the transport system had simply ground to a halt. Nobody expected it to run normally given the conditions; but is it really acceptable that it hardly functioned at all?
Posted by The Englishman at 9:22 PM
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I'm just going out for a while, I may be some time...
Britain hit by worst snow in 20 years - Telegraph
It comes on the day experts had already nicknamed "national sickie day" with 330,000 workers expected to take the first Monday of February off because of annual seasonal gloom heightened by the effects of recession.
Barely half an inch here so far but I'm working from home today....
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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January 29, 2009
IPCC forecasts useless according to forecasting expert
A quick summary of a summary....
Forecasting Guru Announces: “no scientific basis for forecasting climate” « Watts Up With That?
Today yet another scientist has come forward with a press release saying that not only did their audit of IPCC forecasting procedures and found that they “violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting”, but that “The models were not intended as forecasting models and they have not been validated for that purpose.”.....
Dr Armstrong provides the following eight reasons as to why the current IPCC computer models lack a scientific basis:
1. No scientific forecasts of the changes in the Earth’s climate.
2. Improper peer review process.
3. Complexity and uncertainty of climate render expert opinions invalid for forecasting.
4. Forecasts are needed for the effects of climate change.
5. Forecasts are needed of the costs and benefits of alternative actions that might be taken to combat climate change.
6. To justify using a climate forecasting model, one would need to test it against a relevant naïve model.
7. The climate system is stable.
8. Be conservative and avoid the precautionary principle.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:27 AM
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January 28, 2009
The Wisdom of Solomon
Climate change 'irreversible', warn scientists - Telegraph
Contrary to popular opinion, halting carbon emissions will not see temperatures reduce before the year 3000, according to the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory.
Nevertheless, Susan Solomon, who led the research, said cutting emissions remained important. ...Ms Solomon said: "Climate change is slow, but it is unstoppable - all the more reason to act quickly, so the long-term situation does not get even worse."
Logic Failure at Line 3, Terminal Error.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:59 AM
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January 27, 2009
Climate Alarmism - Follow the Money
activism.plc@gov.ac.uk — Climate Resistance: Challenging Climate Orthodoxy
...we would be less interested in such dodgy dealings if it weren’t for the mainstream media’s tendency to decry Exxon funding as corrupting of the scientific method while deeming Munich Re’s pronouncements - let alone the pronouncements of those they sponsor - as above scrutiny. It’s also worth re-stating at this point that fear is to the insurance industry what oil is to Exxon.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM
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January 26, 2009
Carbon Hunting
Scots enter space age to map world's greenhouse gases - Scotsman.com News
SCOTS scientists are to use data from new carbon-hunting satellites to map levels of greenhouse gases around the world for the first time....
Scientists have calculated that nature produces about 330 billion tonnes of carbon every year from natural sources such as breathing animals, decaying plants, forest fires and volcanic eruptions.
Human activities, such as driving cars, burning coal and farming, produce about eight billion tonnes into the atmosphere – a tiny sum in comparison but enough, say researchers, to imbalance the system and raise the surface temperature of Earth.
The Earth is thought to be absorbing about 50 per cent of the carbon dioxide we put out – but little is known about exactly where it is soaked up.
You don't often see those figures or uncertainty displayed; It will be interesting to see what the satellite shows.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM
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January 25, 2009
Susan Watts - In Trouble With Her Bush Facts
Cut and Paste Journalism — Climate Resistance: Challenging Climate Orthodoxy
BBC bosses today tried to make excuses for the cut-and-paste job by BBC science journalist, Susan Watts
For once lets leave aside the Global Warming stuff, the level of spending on science etc which this article shows she got wrong and cut to something else she said:
Religion, or at least the religious vote, informed Bush policy. ...Creationism has grown stronger, to the point that more Americans now believe in the biblical story of creation than evolution.
Where did Watts get the idea that adherence to Biblical interpretations of life on Earth increased under Bush? Not from Gallup, which has data going back to 1982:
Look at that bottom line - Godless Darwinism increases from 9 to 14% during the Bush years (It seems to have decreased during the Clinton years). If you add in those who think God may have nudged evolution along a bit then it changes from 49/47 to 50/44 (evolution/creation) so she isn't even correct in saying that "more Americans now believe in the biblical story of creation than evolution".
What is the point of a science correspondent that can't get simple facts right and allows her Obamamania to write her stories?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:46 AM
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January 22, 2009
Newsnight Editing Obama to Make A Warmist Dream
An update on An Englishman's Castle: Watts Up With Obama where I discuss Newsnight's Susan Watts's reporting on Obama's speech. All was not as it seemed, it seems...
BBC Newsnight - Warming up President Obama’s inaugural speech?
What should the BBC do if the new US President’s references to global warming in his inaugural speech don’t quite come up to expectations?
....It would seem that someone at the BBC had taken the trouble to splice the tape so that half a sentence from paragraph 16 of the inauguration speech was joined on to half a sentence from paragraph 22, and this apparently continuous sound bite was completed by returning to paragraph 16 again to lift another complete sentence.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:40 AM
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January 20, 2009
Watts Up With Obama
BBC NEWS | NEWSNIGHT | Susan Watts's blog
They were the words that scientists everywhere wanted to hear and President Obama couldn't have been clearer, promising to "restore science to its rightful place"...
They'll welcome too his pledge to "roll back the spectre of a warming planet".
Quite a change in tone from the past eight years.
During the Bush presidency, the world saw the Arctic ice cap shrink to a record summer low, the relentless rise of greenhouse gas emissions, and warnings from scientists shift from urgent to panicky.
Pity no one told the globe it was meant to be warming, if you look at the graph I think it is quite obvious that Bush did a great job at "rolling back the spectre of a warming planet". In fact there are many shivering people in America who think the rolling back has gone far enough.
But our little damp panted BBC poppette continues;
"...the coincidence of the recession and Obama coming to power could truly prove to be the world's last, best chance to solve the energy and climate security equation in a way that avoids destructive changes in global temperatures. He inherits a unique opportunity."
See the destruction of the global economy is a good thing and together with the coming of Obama is swoonfully wonderful.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:37 PM
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January 18, 2009
Always read the small print
MPs may be denied vote on £100 bin tax - Times Online
THE GOVERNMENT has quietly adopted powers enabling it to introduce national pay-as-you-throw rubbish taxes of up to £100 without a vote in parliament.
The Tories discovered the bin tax measure in a little-noticed clause of the Climate Change Act.
“New taxes are being imposed by arrogant and out-of-touch rulers, showing contempt for the democratic process. The imposition of extra-parliamentary taxation is a constitutional outrage,” said Eric Pickles, shadow communities and local government secretary.
Would that be the Climate Change Act that the Tories supported, obviously not having read the small print...?
(www.publicwhip.org.uk seems to be down this morning so I can't check on voting records)
Posted by The Englishman at 8:33 AM
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Going out this morning?
George refuses to leave his bed this morning, I can't say I blame him, especially as I already have the log fire blazing away whilst others lay asleep.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:22 AM
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The Seer's Revelation
President Obama 'has four years to save Earth'
Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added.
Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future....
The throne is surrounded by twenty-four elders. In the right hand of God is a scroll sealed with seven seals. In the midst of the Cherubim and the elders the Seer beholds a lamb, "agnus tamquam occisus",... The Seer weeps because no one either in heaven or on earth can break the seals. He is comforted on hearing that the lamb was worthy to do so because of the redemption it had wrought by its blood. ...
At the opening of four seals, four horses appear. Their colour is white, black, red, and sallow, or green (chloros, piebald). They signify conquest, slaughter, dearth and death. At the opening of the fifth seal the Seer beholds the martyrs that were slain and hears their prayers for the final triumph. At the opening of the sixth seal the predestined to glory are numbered and marked. The Seer beholds them divided into two classes.
After the interval of about half an hour, the seventh seal is broken; seven angels issue forth, each one holding a trumpet. The sounding of the first four trumpets causes a partial destruction of the elements of nature. One-third of the earth is burned, as also one-third of the trees and all the grass. One-third of the sea becomes blood. One-third of the rivers is turned into water of wormwood. One-third of the sun, moon, and stars is obscured, causing one-third of the day to be dark. At the sounding of the fifth trumpet locusts ascend from the abyss. Their work is to torment men for five months, They are specially charged not to touch the grass. At the sound of the sixth trumpet the four angels chained at the Euphrates are let loose. They lead forth an army of horsemen. By the fire which the horses spit out and by their tails which are like serpents, one-third of mankind is killed. The seventh trumpet is now sounded, the nations are judged and the kingdom of Christ is established.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
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January 17, 2009
Gathering Winter Fuel
Time to chop up some of the big trunks for firewood, so get a man with a 60 inch chainsaw bar in. Now that is what you call a big boys toy.
Normally of course big chainsaws like that are only seen in virgin rainforests but here we are being all green and cuddly producing carbon neutral fuel. Do you think I will get a green award?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:29 PM
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January 13, 2009
Watt's Up with That - Best Science Blog
Best Science Blog - The 2008 Weblog Awards goes to Watt's Up with That
A worthy winner, can you hear the screeching from the losers as to how devalued an award it is as it went to a "denier" ...
The award site is unreachable so I don't know the rest of the results.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:04 PM
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January 12, 2009
The Green Agenda
Fighting effects of climate change ‘will help poor’ - Times Online
Tackling climate change will reduce poverty by cutting heating bills and providing jobs, a report by Oxfam and the New Economics Foundation, base their findings on work by organisations including Friends of the Earth, concludes....the poor are likely to be worst affected by rising temperatures...and have less money to adapt to higher prices of fuel and food.
So exactly how preventing "rising temperatures" help cut heating bills, and how does taxing fuel and (by consequence) food help the poor?
Andrew Simms, the New Economics Foundation’s policy director, explains: “A well-designed programme of national environmental transformation that creates jobs, makes better homes as well as healthier food and better transport systems, provides a historic opportunity to solve longstanding and deeply entrenched problems of poverty and social injustice.”
So nothing to do with the environment at all really then.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM
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January 11, 2009
Your daily waste of 0.02g of CO2
Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches - Times Online
...a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon.
A separate estimate from John Buckley, managing director of carbonfootprint.com, a British environmental consultancy, puts the CO2 emissions of a Google search at between 1g and 10g...
...viewing a simple web page generates about 0.02g of CO2 per second. This rises tenfold to about 0.2g of CO2 a second when viewing a website with complex images, animations or videos.
So no more watching pointless videos with a clear conscience..
Posted by The Englishman at 7:31 AM
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January 8, 2009
Not just because their lips are moving
Numberwatch on Warmist Scientists :
How we know they know they are lying.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:51 AM
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January 7, 2009
Sun, Sea, Sand and Tory Greenery
But the biggest threat to global security was the melting Arctic ice caps....Climate change has already been linked to the escalating fight for the world's natural resources, including an increasingly precious commodity – dry land.
In November, the newly elected president of the Maldives, Mr Nasheed, known locally as Anni, announced his country would begin to set aside a portion of its billion-dollar annual tourist revenue to buy a new homeland...
The Tories played a key role in Mr Nasheed's victory. Anni, who graduated from John Moore University, Liverpool, is known to be a good friend of the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague.
His own long political journey to the presidency began at Dauntsey's, the public school in rural Wiltshire where he attended sixth form.
A delegation of senior Tories flew to the Maldives on Tuesday...The visit will also be used to make a plea for British climate change scientists to visit the Maldives to study the effect of rising sea levels.
A funded trip to the Maldives to save humanity, who could be against it. Of course you could just be boring and stay at home and read what a real scientist discovered...
Charles Darwin, writing in his Autobiography towards the end of his life, looked back to some of his earliest scientific work associated with the voyage of the Beagle, and was able to "reflect with high satisfaction" on "solving the problem of coral-islands."...
Posted by The Englishman at 9:58 PM
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Spliffing idea for energy recycling
How incineration could generate electricity | Ross Clark - Times Online
Councils are paying to store the resulting mountains of paper because sending it to landfill sites would incur stiff taxes and because Britain lacks the capacity to incinerate the waste.
The most shocking thing is that the Government knows incinerating paper is better for the environment than recycling it and yet still has persisted with its recycling policy. It knows because the 2006 study it funded into the matter, Carbon Balances and Energy Impacts of the Management of UK Wastes, said so.
Recycling sounds worthy. The trouble is that when you compare the energy needed to transport and recycle waste paper with the energy that could be produced by burning it in power stations, it becomes clear we could cut carbon emissions by abandoning recycling and instead building incineration plants.
We persist with recycling for two reasons. First, the environmental lobby has scared the public about incineration plants - it has only to mention the word “dioxin” to cause mass fright, when in fact a well-run incinerator at high temperatures emits fewer dioxins than a typical bonfire.
Second, sorting out material for recycling has become a quasi-religious observation that the green lobby likes us to undertake in order to atone for our environmental sins - and which, as councils have discovered all too quickly, provides an ideal excuse to squeeze us with fines.
My papers no longer go to be recycled, I'm burning them at home to keep warm. No carbon footprint of transport for them, just ash to go on the fruit tree patch.
I only recently worked out how to make newspaper logs at home. I had seen those presses where you mash them all up, squeeze them and then try and dry them out. Obviously too much work and you end up with mouldy damp lumps. It is much easier to take the outside sheet off your paper, position it slightly at a skew and then roll the rest of the paper up inside it. As the outer sheet was skewed it now has triangular ends poking out beyond the cylinder. Poke these ends into the hollow centre of the cylinder and it will stay together and burn gently like a log. (If you misjudge the hole you can always just twist the ends to make a huge spliff like log.)
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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January 4, 2009
Carbon Offset Company - Not Delivering on Promises - Official
EU denounces socialite’s carbon offset project - Times Online
A PIONEERING climate change project in Africa run by Robin Birley, the socialite stepbrother of Zac Goldsmith, has been accused by the European commission, its main donor, of making unsubstantiated claims about its environmental impact.
The project has received more than £1m in public grants and money from celebrities in the music and film business. They include Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones and Brad Pitt, the actor.
The project attempts to offset an individual’s carbon footprint by paying poor farmers in Mozambique to plant trees...
The commission’s criticism comes amid increased concern about the worth of these fashionable but largely unregulated carbon offset schemes. Critics say it is almost impossible to guarantee that the trees will survive the length of time needed to offset any significant carbon emissions. ...The commission also warned that the money flowing into the Gorongosa area had attracted hundreds of poor farmers who were now cutting down trees,...[Envirotrade] are selling products that are not delivering what was promised and the public needs to know.”
Posted by The Englishman at 7:56 AM
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January 2, 2009
Faitrade News
The Press Association: Queen's decision to sell Fairtrade food on royal Sandringham estate welcomed
Palestinians to Sell First Fair Trade Product
The glimmers of an economic revival for Palestinians will grow early next year with the launch of their first fair trade product. Fair trade olive oil will hit the shops in 2009
With the help of dedicated volunteers from around Pembrokeshire, Wales has become the world’s first Fairtrade nation.
Parminder Bahra has written a couple of Fairtrade articles in the Times this morning, which seem to have been and gone from The Times website, maybe just a technical hitch (I'll check later) or it maybe because he rips into the charity for living of its margin and fees and that some workers have yet to see any benefit...
Tea workers still waiting to reap Fairtrade benefits - Times Online
Supermarkets seeking to promote their ethical buying policies proclaim that their produce is Fairtrade, and customers buy such goods in the belief that they are doing their bit for workers in the developing world.
However, an investigation by The Times suggests that workers on plantations that supply Fairtrade tea are not seeing their lives improve as they should. ...
Some workers suspect that the scheme is being used to make estates appear socially responsible as demand increases in the West for Fairtrade-labelled goods. ...Fairtrade estates can also supplement their output by buying from noncertified plantations, although they cannot then sell such produce as Fairtrade. For example, Eastern Produce Kenya, a Fairtrade-certified trader, regularly buys noncertified tea from the Kaprachoge estate, where conditions are far from those stipulated for certification.
Fairtrade inspections are announced in advance. “The estate owners can tell the workers not to be critical. It is a harsh system – [the workers] are deeply afraid of the owners because they can lose their job.”
The Fairtrade Foundation ...was unhappy with inspections being conducted by independent organisations and it tried to influence the outcomes of these inspections, Paola Ghillani, ..a former board member said.
“The Fairtrade Foundation at that time, and maybe now, has got too much at stake. They were living from funding, but also from licence fees [they received] each time they gave the label to a licensee. The inspection and certification system is not independent enough.”
You may remember that the The ASI revealed "a number of inconvenient truths about Fairtrade" sometime ago.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:33 AM
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December 31, 2008
And the forecast is chilly
Media & Web Public Release 31 Dec 2008
Jan 2009: Serious winter weather for UK.
Cold with very cold and bitter spells. Major snow deluges and disruption. Some windy spells with local floods in parts. Milder end to month.
Long range forecast for World Temperatures 2009
Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist of WeatherAction long-range forecasters issued his forecast for World temperatures 2009 which directly contradicts the Met office & World Meteorological Organisation's forecasts and challenges the Met Office to a bet.
"Our researches show the recent general world cooling will continue and contrary to the claims of Global Warming and related models there will no significant El Nino or associated warming effects in 2009.
"The Met Office's recent forecast that the world in 2009 will be in the warmest 5 on record will fail, instead 2009 is
likely to be similar to or colder than 2008. All their recent climate forecasts have failed and this one will too. It is high time that politicians recognised reality so I challenge the Met Office to a bet that their forecast will fail and world temperatures 2009 will be cooler than the 'top 5'.
"It should be noted that the Met office prognoses of world temperatures have consistently failed and their long range forecasts only mislead the public and serve the political, business and taxation intentions of the
Global Warming and Climate Change Lobby.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:00 PM
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Cor, What a Scorcher!
EU Referendum: We are supposed to take this seriously?
Next year in the UK is set to be one of the top-five warmest on record, according to the Met Office...Taking a quick reality break, courtesy of Steven Goddard over at Watts up with that?, we are reminded that the Met Office in April last year predicted that the 2008 summer would be "warmer than average" with "rainfall near or above average."...
Funny enough, all Met Office forecasts carry a health warning. We are told that, "Our long-range forecasts are proving useful to a range of people, such as emergency planners and the water industry, in order to help them plan ahead."
They are not, we are cautioned, "forecasts which can be used to plan a summer holiday or inform an outdoor event." But, it seems, they are good enough to predict global warming well into the next Century.
And we are supposed to take this seriously?
The global warming forecasters sound more and more like secondhand car dealers;" I know the wheels don't match, and yes the paint is scratched, and I'm sorry the seat is ripped and the inside smells a bit, but you just wait 'till you've got her out on the open road, Sir, lovely little car. Yes I know we had to jump start her, but that is only the once...."
One summer soon will be a scorcher and then it is game over for the deniers, if it isn't 2009 it may be 2010. It's what weather does. Thank goodness no one remembers 1975 or 1976 because if either of those summers happened now it would be compulsory carbon rationing under Czar Miliband for ever.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:20 AM
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The Global Warming Hoax
Global warming: Reasons why it might not actually exist - Telegraph
2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved, according to the Telegraph's Christopher Booker. Sceptics have long argued that there are other explanations for climate change other than man-made CO2 and here we look at some of the arguments put forward by those who believe that global warming is all a hoax....
A sign of the times that a newspaper is allowing a short understandable article on it but I don't like to call the global warming thesis a hoax. I think the vast majority of believers sincerely believe it, and that a lot of scientists who promote it are simply mistaken in the detail of what they think the science shows; that is the way with science. But they are not hoaxing us. But there are a handful of activists out there who don't care what the truth is, who hide behind the " consensus", to push their political agenda; they aren't hoaxing us with the data, they are simply evil liars.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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December 28, 2008
Global Warming - We desperately need a good summer in 2009 to counteract it.
Climate change takes its toll on British countryside - Telegraph
Matthew Oates, the National Trust nature conservation adviser, said; "A cold late spring, a wet summer, with few sunny days, and the long dry autumn has shown how dependent our wildlife is on the weather," he said. "Many species closely associated with the four seasons are having to cope with higher incidents of poor weather as our climate becomes more unpredictable.
"After two very poor years in a row we desperately need a good summer in 2009. Climate change is not some future prediction of what might happen, it's happening now."
Dr Tim Sparks, a climate change specialist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said Britain would experience warmer, drier summers and wet, mild winters...
So a dry autumn, cold spring, and wet summer are blamed on climate change which is predicted to produce wet, mild winters and warmer drier summers. No wonder I'm confused.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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Swimming to the North Pole in 2009
Pen Hadow to measure retreating Arctic ice - Times Online
Pen Hadow, the explorer, is to embark on a 700-mile expedition to the North Pole to measure the thickness of the shrinking Arctic icecap.
The information will be used to refine computer models of the impact of climate change...
Hadow will set out in February from the Canadian side of the Arctic. The short days mean much of the trip will be undertaken in darkness in temperatures as low as -50C, while the break-up of the icecap means the team will have to put on immersion suits and swim. Hadow said: “Hitherto our skills and experience have been largely socially redundant, but now we have the chance to deploy them for the benefit of everyone.”
In February/ March there will be about 13 to 14 million square km of ice in the arctic, if you can't find it so you have to swim then you are worse than socially redundant. And if you think a a survey that will cover one millionth? of that area is of any use other than as a agitprop stunt then matron really should make you stick to the basket weaving.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:38 AM
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December 26, 2008
Cheer up - there are blue skies round the corner
Cheer up - there are blue skies round the corner | Paul Simons - Times Online
Winter is about to warm up and next year should bring an end to the dismal run of wet and windy summers in Britain... the Met Office is predicting that by February winter will have melted away, possibly heralding a bumper spring. ..By springtime La Niña should finally be dead and buried, paving the way for a much calmer and much improved summer.
The Gulf Stream has also perked up. As this warm ocean current races up the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico, it gives us the best winter fuel allowance in the world, the equivalent of a million power stations' worth of free heat each year.
For the past few years scientists have feared that it was running out of steam and was even in terminal decline. This nightmare prospect was chillingly illustrated in the sci-fi film The Day After Tomorrow - when the Gulf Stream suddenly stops working half the northern hemisphere freezes over.
But the Gulf Stream has recovered its poise, which means no frozen apocalypse. Or at least the nightmare is delayed for the time being.
For the past year the Sun has been unnervingly spotless, its quietest sunspot episode for more than 50 years. But it has now woken up again and a new sunspot cycle spluttered into life. Some believe that this upsurge in solar activity will herald warmer and possibly drier weather.
And not a mention of Global Warming!
Posted by The Englishman at 7:09 AM
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December 24, 2008
Put a tiger in your tank
Fill 'Er Up With Human Fat - Forbes.com
Liposuctioning unwanted blubber out of pampered Los Angelenos may not seem like a dream job, but it has its perks. Free fuel is one of them.
For a time, Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner turned the fat he removed from patients into biodiesel that fueled his Ford SUV and his girlfriend's Lincoln Navigator.
Love handles can power a car? Frighteningly, yes. Fat--whether animal or vegetable--contains triglycerides that can be extracted and turned into diesel. Poultry companies such as Tyson are looking into powering their trucks on chicken schmaltz, and biofuel start-ups such as Nova Biosource are mixing beef tallow and pig lard with more palatable sources such as soybean oil. Mike Shook of Agri Process Innovations, a builder of biodiesel plants, says this year's batch of U.S. biodiesel was likely more than half animal-derived since the price of soybeans soared.
A gallon of grease will get you about a gallon of fuel, and drivers can get about the same amount of mileage from fat fuel as they do from regular diesel, according to Jenna Higgins of the National Biodiesel Board. Animal fats need to undergo an additional step to get rid of free fatty acids not present in vegetable oils, but otherwise, there's no difference, she says.
Greenies like the fact that waste, such as coffee grounds and french-fry grease, can be turned into power. "The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel--and I have more fat than I can use," Bittner wrote on lipodiesel.com. "Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the Earth." Bittner's lipodiesel Web site is no longer online.
Oh the joy of all those unwitting veggie greens burning tallow in their cars! But if they start burning pork fat will the air of LA take on the aroma of bacon cooking? Now that would be unfair.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:10 AM
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On this day a star was seen
Forty years ago today:
The Apollo 8 Flight Journal - Day 4: Lunar Orbits 4, 5 and 6
The first photograph taken of Earthrise taken by a human as he watched the event unfold. (follow the Nasa link for the photos and back story)
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Happy Birthday Earthrise
Back in 1948, the British astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle predicted that when spaceflight enabled us to see the whole Earth from space, the view would change us forever.
Hoyle would have to wait another 20 years before humans would get to see this view with their own eyes, when the crew of Apollo 8 became the first astronauts to leave Earth orbit.
The photos became the poster children of the environmental movement, the very antithesis of the space program that brought us those images.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:50 AM
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December 23, 2008
CO2 Data Selection
NOAA CO2 Global Data Set Readme
The retained values comprise the data set that we feel
best represents the CO2 distribution in the remote,
well-mixed global troposphere. These are the values
we use to calculate long-term trends and interannual
and seasonal variations in our studies of the global
carbon cycle. It is possible, and even likely, that
some of the values flagged as not representative of
background conditions are valid measurements, but
represent poorly mixed air masses influenced by local
or regional anthropogenic sources or strong local
biospheric sources or sinks. Users of these data
should be aware that data selection is a difficult
but necessary aspect of the analysis and interpretation
of atmospheric trace gas data sets, and the specific
data selection scheme used may be determined by the
goals of a particular investigation.
They feel the data they present is what it "should" be and is selected according to the goal of what they are looking for - is that an accurate summary?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:26 AM
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December 22, 2008
Give us today our daily bread
Let us bend the rules, say organic farmers - Times Online
Organic certification bodies, including the Soil Association, the country's biggest campaigner for organic food and farming, asked Hilary Benn, the Rural Affairs Secretary, last week for approval to relax the rules for an indefinite period. They want their members to be able to use conventional animal feed instead of organic food concentrate, which costs double. The aim is to give farmers some leeway during the harsh economic climate.
Look out for the cat fight as the tofu munchers condemn this as breaking the principle of the thing and those farmers who are trying to earn a crust and when faced with the choice of organic farming or feeding their family chose the latter, just as the farmers in the third world should be free to do.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:52 AM
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December 21, 2008
The Climate Cultists Gain Control
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Climate experts get key US posts
US President-elect Barack Obama has nominated two leading global warming specialists for key science posts in his administration.
Harvard physicist John Holdren will be Mr Obama's scientific adviser while marine biologist Jane Lubchenco will head the US oceanic research body.
The Reference Frame: Crackpot John Holdren will become Obama's science adviser
John Holdren is the ultimate example of the pseudointellectual impurities that have recently flooded universities and academies throughout the Western world.
..despite his PhD in plasma physics. Instead, he has only written 3 very well-known texts - with at least 100 citations - and all of them are about the "catastrophic" population growth. A few additional, newer articles with 50 citations or so are about the "catastrophic" climate change.
The most famous article, by far (400+ cits), is his and Paul Ehrlich's 1971 text in Science magazine, Impact of Population Growth.The subtitle says that "complacency concerning this component of man's predicament is unjustified and counterproductive". In other words, it is an unforgivable crime not to be hysterical about the population growth. Wow. They study the "interlocking crises" in population, resources, and environment that have been the "focus of countless papers, dozens of prestigious symposia, and a growing avalanche of books".
Recall that the second author, Paul Ehrlich, predicted that 4 billions of people (90% of the 1980 total), including 65 million Americans (28% of the 1980 figure), would perish of hunger in "Great Die-Off" in the 1980s. Well, Holdren and Ehrlich may have narcissistically talked about "prestigious symposia" but it's hard to change the fact that events where people compete who is going to propose a more absurd die-off scenario are just gatherings of pompous loons.
Do I really have to argue that their forecasts have been proven remarkably wrong? Do I have to argue that all similar papers are likely to be wrong because the "arguments" in them are simply not rational? It's no science.
In the particular Ehrlich-Holdren paper, they discussed five "theorems", as they boldly call this idiotic stuff. For example, the first "theorem" says that "population growth causes a disproportionate negative impact on the environment". The last one argues that "theoretical solutions to the problem are often not operational and sometimes they are not solutions".
These are great theorems! They're so accurate, well-defined, rigorously proven, and universally valid! ;-) I am sure that in insane asylums, they would use different words than "theorems" to describe these manifestations of their anxiety disorders....
These days, his main weapon is to articulate more radical and scary forecasts about the climate than (almost) anyone else who uses a proper English grammar. ;-) And he is always careful to be called "Professor" and "big guy" by all the journalists, see for example this BBC piece where he blames President Bush for a 7-meter rise of the sea level (??) and his recent op-ed in the Boston Globe where he attacks the climate skeptics, again without a glimpse of a rational argument. There is absolutely no valuable content in anything that Holdren has ever produced. It's just plain bullshit sold in such a way that gullible people happily eat it and smack their lips.
LewRockwell.com Blog: Obama and "Political Science"
The "global warming" movement is about one thing and one thing only: controlling people.
Remember, these are people who insist that carbon dioxide is a "dangerous pollutant" (which Obama promises to declare his first day in office). Since all people exhale carbon dioxide, that means that all human beings are "dangerous polluters," which subsequently means that people themselves must be controlled.
I predict that the Obama administration, with its emphasis upon empowering labor unions and radical environmentalists, will make the Bush administration look to be benign in comparison. I fully believe that this will be the most dictatorial administration in U.S. History -- and many who criticized Bush for his abuse of power will be singing the praises of The Chosen One.
Posted by The Englishman at 3:50 PM
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December 19, 2008
Renewable Costs
Linking offshore wind farms to grid to cost £10bn – and public will pay - Scotsman.com News
Opponents of offshore wind argue that it is too expensive to be viable. Those in favour say the cost has to be met to provide renewable energy needed to tackle climate change and provide a secure supply.
The government aims to build 25 giga- watts of offshore wind farms – requiring about 700 turbines – to help meet the target of 15 per cent of energy being generated from renewables by 2020.
Danielle Lane, development manager at the Crown Estate, said the cost was still a "relatively small" amount compared to the overall cost estimated of bringing on stream 25 gigawatts of wind power, which has been calculated at £80 billion.
Nuclear would cost about £37 Billion for 25 GW...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM
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The Al Gore Effect
Where was Al Gore when it SNOWED in Las Vegas and New Orleans? - Yahoo! Answers
Posted by The Englishman at 6:34 AM
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December 18, 2008
CO2 levels and Magnetism
Dear all,
This is the link I have been looking for. Spectrum analysis of my historical CO2 data , the SST of the polar Atlantic ocean and the aa index show very similar cycles, nearly no similarity can be seen in the Mauna Loa CO2 spectrum.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year
from snow covered southern Germany
Ernst Beck
- A learned commentator explains :
This matter is important because the paper by Pazur and Winkelhofer invalidates the IPCC model for the cause of the recent increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration. And the clear advocacy of AGW in the paper by Pazur and Winkelhofer does not detract from the work they conducted.
Their paper reports that they exposed sea water to low intensity magnetic fields under laboratory conditions. And they observed that the solubility of CO2 in the water varied with the strength of the field over the range of field strengths provided by variations in the Earth's magentic field. They observed that the CO2 solubility reduces by a maximum of 0.5% for each 1% decrease in the magnetic field strength.
They postulate that the solubility of CO2 in sea water of the ocean surface layer varies with magnetic field strength in similar manner to the solubility of CO2 in the sea water they studied in their laboratory. Although this remains to be confirmed by field work (no pun intended), it is a very reasonable assumption.
Using this assumption, they calculate that a 1% change in dipole moment over a decade would increase atmospheric CO2 concentration by 1 ppmv over that decade (this is equivalent to the atmospheric burden of CO2 increasing by 0.35 PgC/year). And this increase is an order of magnitude more than volcanic subaerial CO2 emission that Kerrick (2001) estimates as being 0.03 PgC/year. They conclude that each reduction of 1% in the Earth's magnetic field strength adds 1.75 ppmv of CO2 to the atmosphere by altering the solubility of CO2 in sea water.
The National Graphic website provides an estimate that the magnetic field of the Earth has reduced by about 10% since 1845. So, using the conclusion stated above, it would seem that the effect reported by Pazur and Winkelhofer has increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by about that 17.5 ppmv since the middle of the nineteenth century.
The solubility of CO2 in sea water was also altered by the change to mean global temperature, and this could be expected to have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by about that 8 ppmv since the middle of the nineteenth century.
So, the altered solubility of CO2 in ocean surface water has increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by ~(17.5+8) ppmv = ~24 ppmv since the middle of the nineteenth century.
Let us assume for sake of argument that there was a preindustrial level of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration that was ~290 ppmv . Then the total increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since the middle of the nineteenth century is ~100 ppmv.
Hence, the altered solubility of CO2 in ocean surface water is responsible for ~24% of the increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration since the middle of the nineteenth century.
This still leaves the predominant cause of the increase to be from biota which is indicated by the isotope data.
But the IPCC uses a simple accountancy exercise as their model for the cause of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since the middle of the nineteenth century. And an error of ~24% invalidates an accountancy exercise.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:15 AM
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December 17, 2008
Cooler yet warmer, Sea Ice more but less, Death and Devastation happening
Arctic ice volume lowest ever as globe warms - U.N. | World | Reuters
Ice volume around the Arctic region hit the lowest level ever recorded this year as climate extremes brought death and devastation to many parts of the world, the U.N. weather agency WMO said on Tuesday.
Although the world's average temperature in 2008 was, at 14.3 degrees Celsius (57.7 degrees Fahrenheit), by a fraction of a degree the coolest so far this century, the direction towards a warmer climate remained steady, it reported.
"What is happening in the Arctic is one of the key indicators of global warming," Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said. "The overall trend is still upwards."
Did anyone ask him about the Antarctic or that the Global Sea Ice amount is steady?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:18 AM
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December 16, 2008
Damp Squid of a Climate Scare Story
Climate change takes the fight out of cannibalistic Humboldt squid - Times Online
... The range of the Humboldt squid has expanded rapidly. Previously restricted to tropical and subtropical zones they are now found as far north as Alaska. Changes in surface water chemistry because of the rise in carbon dioxide levels predicted for 2100 may restrict this range, according to the study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...
So they are becoming more common and spreading across the ocean but in a hundred years time they may not be. Next scare please.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:00 AM
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December 15, 2008
What Loss of Sea Ice?
Global Sea Ice Trend Since 1979 - surprising ｫ Watts Up With That?
The red line is positive, indicating an increase in ice level from 1978-Dec 2006. The slope of the red line is plus 6341 km^2 per year indicating that the earth in 28 years has added 177,000 sq kilometers of ice with a mean ice level of 20.42 million Km^2....
Obviously people cannot make the claim that sea ice is being lost. It isn’t. The data shows that our trend is basically flat during this time of unprecedented temperatures. It’s clear that there has been no significant change in sea ice area.
This is almost enough to make me turn in my Skeptic union card, but increased CO2 warming the earth makes some sense to me, the magnitude is in question. The fact that polar sea ice not melting is not an insignificant point. It is also important to realize that the changes are too small to fit with IPCC statements about the trend. Unlike trees, ice does make a good thermometer. I can’t say this strongly enough— This is a strong indication of substantial errors in the computer models and temperature data which needs to be addressed before we throw what’s left of our global economy to the wind. How would Earth’s total sea ice ignore such substantial warming? It’s a good question which deserves an answer.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:18 AM
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December 14, 2008
Nigel and Nigella on living in the Real World
Climate change summits like Poznan and Brussels will cost us the earth - By Nigel Lawson
It is quite clear that, short of a breakthrough in the technology of non-carbon energy – which may happen, but may not – the only cost-effective response to any feared global warming is to adapt to the consequences.
The dirty little secret is that, so far this century, there has been no recorded global warming; as the Met Office the other day pointed out, sotto voce, 2008 has been, globally, the coldest year of all. That has not stopped the flood of claims of increasing evidence of "climate change" all around us.
Of course, there may well be, as most climate scientists predict, global warming in the future. Meanwhile, welcome to the new science paradigm, in which effects precede cause. I have to confess my own limitations. Unlike Mr Al Gore, Lord Stern, and Lord Turner, I do not know what is going to happen to the planet in the next 100-200 years. But I do know nonsense when I see it.
Nigella's bear-y naughty
Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson has sparked a furore by suggesting she would be prepared to kill a bear and wear its fur.
The British author of How To Be a Domestic Goddess and star of TV cooking show Nigella Bites made the comments during an interview on the BBC's The One Show on Tuesday.
During a discussion on fur as fashion, Lawson said: "I feel going into a shop and buying a fur coat would be an act of weakness, but if I could go out into the woods and kill a bear myself, I would then wear it proudly as a trophy."
Host Adrian Chiles expressed disbelief that she would do such a thing, saying: "you're a nice lady who makes chocolate puddings".
Lawson replied: "If you're in nature and it's either you go or the bear goes ..."
Posted by The Englishman at 9:30 AM
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Landfill Madness in the USA
Crash in trash creates mountains of unwanted recyclables in US - Telegraph
Householders have long been able to feel virtuous about their impact on the environment by sorting out their rubbish each week. But now the great trash market crash has even raised the environmentally alarming spectre that some waste intended for recycling may end up in landfills.
Residents in West Virginia's Kanawha county, which includes the state capital Charleston, have been told to stockpile plastics and metals, the materials worst hit by the crash, as they will no longer be collected.
Bruce Parker, president of the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA) believes that the market may not bounce back until late 2010 - and by then the mountains of unwanted rubbish would have turned into major mountain ranges. The NSWMA argues that to handle the crisis, the US will have to step up investment in its own recycling mills to fill the gap left by Asia and that contractors may have to impose recycling surcharges.
"It may cost communities more in the meantime but from an environmental point of views, the savings in terms of reducing greenhouse emissions and other benefits are still much greater," he said.
You don't suppose Mr Parker's members want the American taxpayer to pay them to carry on sorting out rubbish rather than stick it in landfill do you?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:16 AM
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December 13, 2008
I've got a little list Of society offenders
Eco starlet - Times Online
It’s a 23-year-old called Tamsin Omond, protesting against the expansion at Heathrow by climbing the Palace of Westminster....Young, aristocratic (she’s the granddaughter of a baronet), clever (Cambridge-educated) and very pretty...right now, a well-known “quite cool” fashion label is trying to sign her up to be its “face”... She’s wearing an anorak and red and white stripy cotton shorts with bare legs. She has a mop of curly blonde hair, and her eyes are caked in eyeliner. She’s sort of mad-looking, but also sort of cool, too...She’s in black trousers, Converse trainers and a brown, tweedy army coat with the collar half up, and she sketches out her story for me. A privileged upbringing in Hampstead, an education at Westminster School, and on to Cambridge. The future involved an important job with a multinational, a nice big house, kids. Then came a calling to the priesthood (“To put something at the centre of my life that wasn’t me”), then a revelation. Alone in her house one day, she fell upon some climate science information...She is absolutely a child of our time, a perfect icon in the age of Obama. Not only because she also understands the power of image, but because she knows that you are nothing without something to say...In early September, the ethical outdoor clothing brand Howies ran a lecture and party weekend called the Do lectures (dolectures.co.uk), attended by everyone from Gavin Pretor-Pinney, author of The Cloudspotter’s Guide, to Yun Hider, Gordon Ramsay’s foraging expert.
And last month, Rory Spowers, a mate of Zac Goldsmith and founder of the charity 999itstime.com, hosted a gathering of eco-activists at his home in Surrey. Among them were George Barker, one of the names behind the 1990s Flying Rhino parties; David de Rothschild, who runs the charity Adventure Ecology, and his girlfriend, who he met at this year’s Burning Man festival; and that well-known bon viveur Bruce Parry, whose Ibiza parties are fast becoming the stuff of legend.
For two full days and nights, starting after breakfast, the group sat around a large table thrashing out ideas about how to harness their skills, contacts and ideas to help save the planet.
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list--I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed--who never would be missed!...
CHORUS. He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of
'em be missed.
...The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.
But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,
For they'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be
missed!
CHORUS. You may put 'em on the list--you may put 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of
'em be missed!
-- W. S. Gilbert
Posted by The Englishman at 10:03 PM
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December 12, 2008
Historic CO2 Levels - A Sceptical Roundup
Pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today. How and why we are told otherwise?
How many failed predictions, discredited assumptions and evidence of incorrect data are required before an idea loses credibility?
Proponents of human induced warming and climate change told us that an increase in CO2 precedes and causes temperature increases. They were wrong. They told us the late 20th century was the warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us, using the infamous “hockey stick” graph, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) did not exist. They were wrong. They told us global temperatures would increase through 2008 as CO2 increased. They were wrong. They told us Arctic ice would continue to decrease in area through 2008. They were wrong. They told us October 2008 was the second warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us 1998 was the warmest year on record in the US. They were wrong it was 1934. They told us current atmospheric levels of CO2 are the highest on record. They are wrong. They told us pre-industrial atmospheric levels of CO2 were approximately 100 parts per million (ppm) lower than the present 385 ppm. They are wrong. This last is critical because the claim is basic to the argument that humans are causing warming and climate change by increasing the levels of atmospheric CO2 and have throughout the Industrial era. In fact, pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today, but how did they conclude they were lower?....
Posted by The Englishman at 10:49 AM
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December 11, 2008
Albatross
Veggie mouse with a taste for albatross threatens island bird - Times Online
A killer mouse that has turned from a shy vegetarian into a rapacious, predatory carnivore...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:17 AM
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December 10, 2008
The Green Jackboot of Control
Ed Miliband seeks more power for State in UK energy industry - Times Online
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, appeared to be on a collision course with Britain's big power companies last night as he called for sweeping reforms to the industry, including greater state control and a retreat from the free market orthodoxy of the past two decades.
He said that the Government needed to take a more interventionist approach in the setting of higher carbon prices to “overcome market failures” that were inhibiting the adoption of renewable energy technologies.
He added that he would unveil a road map next summer identifying how Britain can cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
And that is why the Statists love Global Warming, it's an excuse for more control. And I think he may be on the right lines for achieving an 80 per cent reduction because if we continue with the policies he and his chums are proposing everyone will either have left or be living in a cave by then
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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December 9, 2008
Tilly and chums play at protesting
Designer demo brings Stansted airport to a halt - Times Online
They came, under cover of darkness, to save the planet by shutting down Stansted. There was the grandson of a peer who served in Wilson’s Cabinet, a film animator and a hat designer, not to mention the undergraduates and postgraduate research students.
This was, in the words of one campaigner, “designer direct action” designed to stop poor people travelling - don't they know their place anymore? And it had to be this week because next week we are all going out to Mumsy's place in Les Gets for the Christmas skiing...
I keep feeling the answer lies on this page...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:21 AM
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December 7, 2008
Passing Water
Men under threat from 'gender bending' chemicals - Telegraph
Men are at risk of being "feminised" by thousands of "gender bending" chemicals that are changing the behaviour of humans and animals, according to a report. ...
Some male roaches have changed sex completely after exposure to oestrogen from the Contraceptive pill pouring out of sewage works.
Good news! Firstly we are starting to get back to environmental scares that don't mention climate change. Real problems caused by real pollutants, how refreshing after the garbage we are being force fed daily on CO2.
Secondly I live at the watershed, all my water is pure from the sky, what I and the girls in the village piss away is carried downstream. First port of call is Mr FM's place (and he is looking a bit strange these days) and then after a cycle thorgh his kidneys it is on to the good people of Salisbury, and after they have fortified it with thier excretions it passes to the villagers of Hampshire - which explains a lot.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:14 PM
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December 5, 2008
Engineers Propose Engines to Solve Problem
Recycling shipped to China to be burnt as cheap fuel - Telegraph
The Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) said the Government's policy of recycling as much as possible is failing to help the environment because materials are being dumped in landfill or shipped to developing countries.
Ian Arbon, author of the report, said local authorities have no duty to track where recycling goes once it is sold onto waste contractors. Therefore a "colossal amount" is ending up in China where there are few environmental restrictions to stop it being burnt as cheap fuel.
"People would be very angry if they knew the recycling they have carefully sorted was going to China," he said.
Mr Arbon said the UK would do far better to process waste locally because it would not only cut down on the carbon emissions used to transport waste but generate electricity from a renewable source. He said the modern generation of incinerators do not pollute the environment and pointed out they are already in use across the Continent.
Download the report here.
Might as well burn the plastic bottles here as pay the Chinese to, in fact those of us with a large "woodburning" stove already have our own local Energy from Waste plant. The problem as ever is people complaining about possible nasties coming out of the chimneys to which are spanner monkey friends reply: In fact, the pollution caused by an EfW plant is as likely to be as damaging as throwing a sugar lump into Loch Ness!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:32 AM
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December 4, 2008
Clear Felling to Tackle Climate Change
Money will grow on trees but is renting out our forests a good idea? - Scotsman.com News
Plans by the Scottish Government to lease a quarter of the forests it owns to private firms have sparked huge concern.
The proposals have prompted fears that international investment companies could use the Forestry Commission land for commercial forestry, with little concern for protecting wildlife, ensuring public access, or promoting the use of the woodlands for tourism.
This has led to accusations that the SNP government, which has in the past opposed measures that hint at privatisation, would be essentially putting the land under private management and "selling off the family silver".
The proposals, outlined in a consultation paper, would be aimed at generating millions from the forests to spend on initiatives to tackle climate change.
Is there any measure a government takes now to raise a bit of cash that isn't excused by "tackling climate change"?
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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December 3, 2008
Do we need another Earth Summit?
BBC NEWS | The Reporters | Richard Black
The series of major summits on the human environment, or on environment and development, or on sustainable development, that have marked the last decades.
The question being asked now is: do we need another one?
And I'm not talking about something like the UN climate conference currently going on in Poland, or the Convention on Migratory Species meeting in Rome; but something huge, all-encompassing, potentially epoch-making, which Stockholm and Rio, if not Nairobi and Johannesburg, arguably were.
The reasons why another summit is needed are not hard to see. As the UN Environment Programme reported last year, virtually every indicator of the world's environmental health is pointing downhill.
In a nutshell, these past summits have not brought the sea-changes needed to put societies on a sustainable path.
So what do you think? Is it worth it? If it is, what should the priorities be?
I can't promise that your thoughts will travel further than this blog; but you never know.
Do we need another one? Short answer, "No". Long answer, "No, of course not." Your views may differ.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:04 AM
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November 30, 2008
The science is settled
Mr Obama begins by saying that "the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear". "Sea levels," he claims, "are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
Far from the science being "beyond dispute", we can only deduce from this that Mr Obama has believed all he was told by Al Gore's wondrously batty film An Inconvenient Truth without bothering to check the facts. Each of these four statements is so wildly at odds with the truth that on this score alone we should be seriously worried.
I think we can safely surmise that Obama used the strongest "facts" he could find in his speech and this ties in with some research I have been doing. The CAGW case seems to rest on five pillars.
The recent rate and level of global warmth is unprecedented.
This correlates and is caused by the human caused rise in CO2.
The climate system is unstable and is close to a tipping point.
The effects of global warming are a clear and present danger, and are distinguishable from natural climatic variations.
The science is settled and only the wicked and corrupt would deny it.
Can anyone point me to a single bit of evidence to support any one of those propositions that can not easily be found to either be debunked or seriously put in question. It is a serious request, because I'm getting bored of the whole subject of CAGW, there doesn't seem to be any battles to be fought there anymore on the science. The battle has moved on to how to persuade people that they are being sold a lie, a dangerous costly lie at that.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:44 AM
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Panic! 2.2ppm CO2 in Atmosphere!
Climate change gathers steam, say scientists
During the 1970s, there were on average 1.3 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas -- in the air. In the 1980s the figure was 1.6 ppm, and in the 1990s 1.5 ppm.
In the period 2000-2007, however, the concentration jumped to an average 2.0 ppm, with a high of 2.2 last year, according to the Global Carbon Project, based in Australia.
Eh? I thought along with everyone else that the accepted figure was 300ish. The journalist is so eager to tell us that Earth's climate appears to be changing more quickly and deeply than a benchmark UN report for policymakers predicted, top scientists said ahead of international climate talks starting Monday in Poland.... Ice levels,.... sea levels...devastating droughts, floods and huge increases in human misery by century's end... that maybe they didn't understand the science. "Global Carbon Project (2008) Carbon budget and trends 2007, [www.globalcarbonproject.org, 26 September 2008]" Those figures are the ones claimed for the annual increase in the concentration of CO2. But then You didn't really expect some who knows what they are talking about to be writing this stuff did you.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:32 AM
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Obama's Suicide Note
President-elect Barack Obama proposes economic suicide for US - Telegraph
Booker's magisterial fisk of Obama is a must read and ties in with Al Fin's view:
Obama hopes that his special charismatic style of denial will be enough to bring EU climate ministers back into unanimity, within the orthodoxer fold. But since climate extremism, such as Obama and Gore advocate, is deadly to economic prosperity, the EU would have to feel particularly suicidal to continue along its current path. A suicidal Europe would be nothing new, however.
Because of economic hard times, Obama himself may find it difficult to persuade many US legislators to pass suicidal climate regulations, despite his political party holding overwhelming control of Congress. If so, he will bypass Congress and use presidential powers via the executive branch to institute energy-starvation policies via the EPA. The more likely scenario is that enough members of Congress can be bought with pork, so as to provide Obama's anti-CO2 jihad with Congressional cover.
Many members of the "loyal opposition" say that Obama cannot possibly be as bad for the US as his record, his associations, his public statements, and his autobiographies say he will be. Whatever. Do what you want to do. The rest of us may choose to make alternate preparations, just in case.
I'm not sue what alternate preparations I can make...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:16 AM
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November 26, 2008
GM Foods - One to Watch
BBC - BBC Two Programmes - Horizon, Jimmy's GM Food Fight
Jimmy Doherty, pig farmer, one-time scientist and poster-boy for sustainable food production is on a mission to find out if GM crops really can feed the world.
We need to double the amount of food we produce in the next fifty years to feed the world's growing population. Are GM crops the answer? Or are they a dangerous Frankenstein technology that could start an environmental catastrophe?
A very fair programme - he tried to present both sides fairly and had to bend over backwards to help Fatty Melchett and chums as they failed to produce any coherent argument. As he finished in Africa where the promise of GM to tackle hunger was explained the European prevention of them taking up such technology was obviously immoral.
(One minor gripe was his repeated statement that producing cheaper food only benefited the producers, he missed the point it actually helps consumers a lot more.)
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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Logging Global Warming
Adjusting Temperatures for the ENSO and the AMO ｫ Watts Up With That? is the blog post you must read today - a simple demolition of the CAGW theory - (CAGW - Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming) - Yes there is warming but it's not that much and won't be that much (and if we removed some of the errors in the record it would probably be even less)
Al Fin has produced an excellent summary, so go there first.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
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November 25, 2008
Challenging the Settled Science
Film review: Einstein and Eddington - New Scientist
Eddington was Einstein's bulldog - championing the German's ideas in an England fiercely defensive of Newton. He had gone to Africa to observe an eclipse and conduct the first experimental test of relativity.
The world waited for the results: would Newton's ordered universe be replaced by - as the English saw it - an Einsteinian madness that would require an entirely new philosophy?
These events have now been dramatised in a BBC/HBO film, Einstein and Eddington....A few things in the film are altered for the sake of drama....But no matter; the story movingly invokes the passion of the two young scientists, reminds us how creative and exciting science can be, how it is rebellious, sometimes, and world-changing...
And how real scientists are prepared to be open and challenge the consensus. Gravity - the science was settled. Civilisation was literally built on the Newtonian theory. But it didn't quite fit at the edges so it was capable of being, if not overturned, then fundamentally revised. I wonder why it is that challenging the far flimsier foundations of the AGW theory is verboten.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:49 AM
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November 23, 2008
Beck on Keeling's Curve
Ernst-Georg Beck - 50 Years of Continuous Measurement of CO2 on Mauna Loa - I haven't got the $18 to buy it, but deep in my waters I feel there is something about this record that we ought to know about.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:57 PM
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Recyclate News
Recovered paper has fallen from £70 a tonne to just £1
Efforts to meet government targets for paper and board recycling have been "stopped in their tracks" by a fall in demand caused by the current economic situation, according to The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI).
The CPI said that the UK relies on global export markets to take more than 50% of the recovered paper it collects, with Far East markets taking more than 75% of the export total, and the current economic situation has left the UK in an incredibly difficult and strained position.
Exports account for, on average, more than 400,000 tonnes of recovered paper from the UK per month and without these markets UK merchants are left with little option other than to store the material they have paid significant amounts for or sell at loss making prices.
The situation in the UK has also exacerbated price falls in Europe, as there is a glut of UK recovered paper on the European market as well as excess European domestic stocks from the lack of Far East buying....
Recycled steel market collapses as Corus values material at zero
Recycling efforts are facing a setback after Corus, the steel giant, has stopped paying for scrap metal delivered to CanRoute recycling centres due to a complete collapse in demand.
Corus had been paying £10/tonne for scrap steel, which is used in packaging, last week, a figure that was already hugely depressed after falling from £95/tonne at the start of October. In May, it was paying £235/tonne for the material.
However, as of this morning, that figure has been reduced to £0/tonne, indicating that there is simply no market for recycled steel at present.
Corus said that the price collapse had been caused by a massive decline for steel products in the construction and automotive industries, which are at a virtual standstill due to the credit crunch. Poor demand from China and India is also behind the low prices.
Waste management companies and local authorities are "hanging onto aluminium waiting for the price to come back".
The price of aluminium has halved in recent weeks from £900 to £450,.... And so it goes on with piles of stuff building up around the country.
But there is some good news...
Local authorities increase plastic recycling | packagingnews.co.uk
The majority of plastic bottles collected between July and December 2007 were made from HDPE and PET, split 48% HDPE and 52% PET, but 23% could be classified as contamination because they included aluminium and steel cans, other plastics and "unusable waste" such as labels and caps.
I think I might fill the back of the SUV up and go and dump some more stuff on the council, I know they want it...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:43 AM
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November 17, 2008
Free Climate Change Video
Climate Change Video - Roger Helmer MEP
Roger Helmer has just published a DVD entitled "Straight Talking on Climate Change". The DVD is available free of charge from his UK office at Boswell House, 9 Prospect Court, Courteenhall Road, Blisworth, Northamptonshire, NN7 3DG. Or e-mail pressoffice@eastmidsmeps.co.uk.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:22 AM
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November 12, 2008
Climate Change - What to do
What to Do about Climate Change by Indur Goklany
A kind correspondent points me to this as an adjunct to the Lomborg article I highlighted. As he says:
The refreshingly clearheaded Indur Goklany makes similar arguments to Lomborg - that controlling emissions to offset things like malaria is extremely bad value compared with focused adaptation, both in terms of cost and outcome. But unlike our Danish friend sees no need to factor in a marginal 'social cost of carbon' or even funding for R&D.
If you are familiar with the core arguments he's made, there's nothing new here, otherwise I would strongly recommend it. Mr. Goklany should be as famous as Bjorn Lomborg but he does not try to provoke or go for sensation, not that that's a particular problem.
Posted by The Englishman at 5:40 AM
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November 11, 2008
Did you enjoy a halcyon October?
GISS Releases (Suspect) October 2008 Data « Watts Up With That?
GISS Releases (Suspect) October 2008 Data
October 2008 “warmest” October on record (according to GISS)
Climate Audit points out the huge warming in Russia might be because a large number of the weather stations there are reporting that October was exactly the same temperature as September... hmmm
And as for the balmy warmth in the British Isles I can only speak for England where I failed to notice the warmth as also did the the official Central England Temperature Record which records an average for October 1951-80 as 10.52 degrees and Oct 2008 as 9.7. Even the Met Office says that
October 2008 - Maximum, minimum and mean daily temperatures were all below average across the UK.
But look again at the map in detail...
But Jim Hansen reckons it was a lot warmer, and who are we to argue...
Posted by The Englishman at 5:57 AM
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November 8, 2008
Bjørn Lomborg Has Some Cool Headed Advice For Obama
A New Dawn - WSJ.com - Bjørn Lomborg
The benefits of climate-change policies are limited and costly. Instead, the president-elect needs to coolly evaluate competing priorities.....Change is definitely needed. Focusing on investment in malnutrition and disease could do immense good at low cost, brandishing a world where healthier and stronger humans can take charge of their own lives and deal better with the many challenges of the future.
Global warming also needs strong leadership. Avoiding the lost decades and misused resources of a Kyoto approach would be paramount, and a focus on 0.05% of GDP R&D would fix long-term global warming at much lower cost and with much higher probability of success. This, truly, would be change we could believe in.
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If only the Chosen One would listen to such sensible advice, but I fear he is beholden to the Climate Alarmists to too great an extent.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:33 PM
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November 7, 2008
The State of Fear
The time is ripe to change the climate of fear | Camilla Cavendish - Times Online
We can create green-collar jobs, cut fuel bills and boost small businesses if we reject science fiction and accept real science
The death of Michael Crichton deprives us of a hugely entertaining and elegant writer, who infuriat