NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE DOES CLIMATE CHANGE SCARE SERIES
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April 14, 2017 at 06:30PM
EPA Head / Paris Agreement: “It’s something we need to exit in my opinion.”
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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart – President Trump’s EPA Head Scott Pruitt has given unequivocal support to cancelling US participation in the Paris agreement.
EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Calls for ‘Exit’ of Paris Climate Agreement
by BEN KEW 14 Apr 20174273
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has called for America to “exit” the Paris Climate Agreement signed by Barack Obama last November.
In an interview with FOX and Friends, Pruitt said that “Paris [agreement] is something that we need to really look at closely. It’s something we need to exit in my opinion.”
“It’s a bad deal for America,” he continued. “It was an America second, third, or fourth kind of approach. China and India had no obligations under the agreement until 2030. We front-loaded all of our costs.”
…
On Thursday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry confirmed that his department is conducting a review of all energy policy, adding that it was “the right to do.”
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Video of the Fox News interview is available here
Pruitt opposes the Paris Agreement. Perry opposes the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is bad for America, bad for the entire world.
Time to act on your campaign promise, Mr. President.
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April 14, 2017 at 05:59PM
Take Two!
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By Paul Homewood
On 6th April 2017, the stunningly ignorant Joe Romm reports that unsubsidised solar power is now the cheapest source of new power:
Stunning drops in the cost of wind and solar energy have turned the global power market upside down.
For years, opponents of renewable power, like President Donald Trump, have argued they simply aren’t affordable. The reality is quite different.
Unsubsidized renewables have become the cheapest source of new power — by far — in more and more countries, according to a new report from the United Nations and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
On 15th April, the failed Independent reports that solar power investment has collapsed in England, because the wicked Tory government has dared to withdraw subsidies:
The number of solar panels being installed in the UK has fallen by more than 80 per cent, according to an analysis of new figures in the latest sign that the industry is being strangled by government policies despite being one of the cheapest sources of electricity.
The Solar Trade Association (STA), which produced the figures based on recently released government statistics, found the first three months of this year had seen a catastrophic collapse in the number of solar panels being put up following the withdrawal of virtually all subsidies….
Under government rules, solar has not been allowed to bid against other power generators for contracts to supply electricity at a guaranteed price even though it is in a position to save money for consumers.
Me thinks Joe Romm is telling porkies!!
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April 14, 2017 at 10:07AM
The Lancet and Air Pollution
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By Paul Homewood
We’ve pretty much covered the topic of air pollution and premature deaths already this week.
But this latest study has just been published by The Lancet.
No doubt, it will be used to press for more, wonderful renewable energy, and less fossil fuels.
These are the findings, (my bold):
Ambient PM2·5 was the fifth-ranking mortality risk factor in 2015. Exposure to PM2·5 caused 4·2 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 3·7 million to 4·8 million) deaths and 103·1 million (90·8 million 115·1 million) disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) in 2015, representing 7·6% of total global deaths and 4·2% of global DALYs, 59% of these in east and south Asia. Deaths attributable to ambient PM2·5 increased from 3·5 million (95% UI 3·0 million to 4·0 million) in 1990 to 4·2 million (3·7 million to 4·8 million) in 2015. Exposure to ozone caused an additional 254 000 (95% UI 97 000–422 000) deaths and a loss of 4·1 million (1·6 million to 6·8 million) DALYs from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2015.
The study seems to share the same methodology as previous studies, and is based around statistical models. The paper describes its methods:
Attributing deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) to ambient air pollution requires spatially and temporally resolved estimates of population-weighted exposure, specification of a theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL), estimation of relative risks across the exposure distribution, and estimates of the deaths and DALYs for diseases linked causally to air pollution. We combined estimates of exposure and relative risk to estimate the population-attributable fraction (PAF), the proportion of deaths and DALYs attributable to exposure above the TMREL. The numbers of deaths and DALYs for specific diseases were multiplied by the PAF to estimate the burden attributable to exposure.
In short, they have to guess the exposure to PMs in different regions across the world since 1990, guess the “safe exposure level”, guess the relative risks for various exposures, and guess the number of deaths that might have arisen from all of this.
In other words, the results depend on the assumptions you feed the model. Change these, and you could easily get ten times the number of deaths, or a tenth.
There are some parts of the study that are worth noting though.
First the geographic distribution. The table below lists the data for the ten most populous countries:
We find that the the Asian countries (excl Japan and Russia) listed account for 2.5 million of the world total of 4.2 million.
At the other end of the scale, death rates in the US and Japan are way below rest. Clearly this is a problem for the developing world, and much less so for the US and Europe.
It is of course no secret that air pollution is a very real problem in much of Asia, and part of this arises from household fuels.
The second thing to note is the role that population ageing plays:
In the US, for instance, there has been less exposure to pollution since 1990, and consequently less deaths as a result.
However, this has been partly offset by an ageing population. As I commented the other day, we all have to die of something sooner or later. An, sadly, when we get to 80, we are much more likely to succumb to respiratory disease. Particularly when we may have been exposed to polluted air for many decades previously.
Indeed, this ageing factor is apparent across every country except Nigeria.
In reality, the increase in deaths estimated by the study since 1990 simply reflects the fact that people have not died from other causes first.
Increased population also accounts for more deaths.
Taking this issue of age into account, the study reckons that deaths from air pollution in the UK has nearly halved since 1990, from 44.0 to 22.8 deaths per 100,000.
How many of these are due to exposure in the past is open to question.
It does not take a genius to work out that countries like China desperately need the sort of air pollution controls that the we in the west have had for decades.
They also badly need access to reliable, cheap energy so they don’t have to rely on burning wood and coal at home.
Provision of modern, clean power stations will achieve all of this in a way that renewable energy never will.
As for us in the west, we must not be afraid to acknowledge just how much things have improved in the last few decades. Without doubt death rates will continue to plummet.
But we must be very careful we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
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April 14, 2017 at 09:36AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 