Month: March 2017

Uncategorized 8 Mar 2017

Peter Thiel Sees More ‘Economic Progress’ From Fracking Than Silicon Valley

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)http://www.thegwpf.com

Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire and confidante to President Donald Trump, said something you don’t often hear from Silicon Valley moguls: hydraulic fracturing did more for progress than the tech boom.

“What’s very striking is that on some level I think fracking represents a bigger economic form of progress for our society as a whole than the innovation in Silicon Valley,” Thiel told author and energy expert Daniel Yergin during a 45-minute interview at the CERAWeek conference in Houston.

The U.S. fracking boom added 233,000 jobs to the oil and gas sector from 2009 to 2014 when abundant North American crude and OPEC’s refusal to cut production sent prices plunging. The oil and gas industry shed about 100,000 jobs during the downturn.

Oil and gas production, on the other hand, remained relatively high through 2015, hitting a record 9.7 million barrels per day in April of that year. Production has come down somewhat since, but is expected to increase as crude prices climb. […]

Thiel also took on the global warming establishment, according to Axios. Thiel is often painted as a skeptic of catastrophic man-made global warming, but he’s also funded green energy projects.

“I don’t know whether I am an extreme skeptic on climate change, but I have my doubts about the extreme way that people try to push it through,” Thiel said Wednesday night, “and I would say that I would be much more convinced of climate change, of the need to do something, if I thought there was a more open debate in which both sides were given a full hearing.”

Germany’s Once Powerful Green Party Fears General Election Crash

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)http://www.thegwpf.com

Germany’s Green Party must fear to miss the five percent threshold to get into the Bundestag at the general elections later this year.

According to a recent INSA opinion poll, support for Germany’s Green Party stands at a meager 6.5 percent. Not long ago, the Greens had hoped to be able to move into the Bundestag with double-digit figures.

For a time, the Greens were thought to be favorites for the next coalition government with Angela Merkel. Over the last few years, the programmes of both parties had looked increasingly similar.

According to the INSA poll, support for the Social Democrats has gained two percentage points to 32 percent. The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) have lost a point to 30.5 percent. The AfD remains at eleven percent as in the previous week, as does the Left Party at eight percent.

Support for the liberal FDP increased to seven percent.

Full story

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

March 8, 2017 at 01:01AM

Uncategorized 8 Mar 2017

No, climate change didn’t cause “5 Whole Pacific Islands” to be swallowed by sea level rise

via Watts Up With That?http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

From the reason #75 why we don’t subscribe to “Scientific American” anymore department. Back in May of 2016, there was the usual brainless caterwauling over Sea Level Rise caused by climate change, SciAm picked it up:

Sea-level rise has claimed five whole islands in the Pacific: first scientific evidence

Even The Guardian said the headline was hype.

Report’s author says many media outlets have misinterpreted the science by conflating sea-level rise with climate change

Well, that “scientific evidence” seems to be little more than vacuous opinion from “The Conversation” in Australia. We covered the topic last year, but here is another look.

Warren Blair writes:

Almost 25-years of meticulous data gathered by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology displays no discernible sea-level rise for Solomon Islands and Nauru. See the two graphs below.

But both want your money for catastrophic climate-change mitigation:

Solomon Islands gets access to fund to combat climate change

There are numerous stories in mainstream media going back 15-years regarding the urgent plight and impending doom of these islands in particular.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology is well known for adjusting data to suit their AGW agenda; however, sea-level data is difficult to adjust and is primarily adjusted for Barometric
Pressure (very little wriggle room).

How much money would you give the Solomon Islands and Nauru for climate-change mitigation?

The Australian Government, despite its own data, already spends tens of millions through the ‘Pacific Adaptation Strategy Assistance Program’ and the ‘Green Climate Fund’.

Taxpayers should be up in arms and increasingly they are as new political voices emerge and take votes from the major parties.

via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

March 8, 2017 at 01:01AM

Uncategorized 8 Mar 2017

Trump Wants To Cut A $700 Million EPA Program And Industry Is Freaking Out

via Climate Change Dispatchhttp://climatechangedispatch.com

A coalition of lobbying groups sent President Donald Trump a letter urging him to take a $700 million federal program that subsidizes replacing diesel engines off the budget chopping block. The White House’s budget proposal calls for eliminating the Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) program, which funds the replacement or upgrading of diesel engines in trucks, […]

via Climate Change Dispatch http://ift.tt/2jXMFWN

March 8, 2017 at 12:05AM