Month: June 2018

Daily News 29 Jun 2018

Friday Funny- Welcome to the Anthropocene Narcisscene

(A cartoon by Josh follows) Yesterday, Dr. Judith Curry tweeted:

A much needed article, debunks the ‘anthropocene’

…and linked to this article:

Welcome to the Narcisscene

Returning Humans to the Center of the Cosmos

By Mark Sagoff

At a conference in Amsterdam in 2001, the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and affiliated scientific groups issued what its authors called “the historic Amsterdam Declaration on Earth System Science.” According to this historic declaration, “A new system of global environmental science is required.”1 Although the IGBP eventually closed in response to changes in the funding landscape, its most historic act was to propose the concept of the Anthropocene, a new geologic epoch that would emphasize and draw public attention to the degree to which humanity has altered the “Earth system.” Paul Crutzen, who then served as IGBP vice chair and had earlier won a Nobel Prize in atmospheric science, is credited (along with Eugene Stoermer) with introducing the concept of the Anthropocene and advocating its adoption by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), which is responsible for naming and dating geologic periods, eras, and epochs.

In view of the glacial pace of geologic events and the time it takes for things to turn into rock or become encased in it, you might think there would be no hurry to name a new geologic epoch, especially because the current one, the Holocene, started only about 11,500 years ago. You would be wrong. In 2002, Crutzen published an article in Nature magazine, “Geology of Mankind,” which called on geologists “to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene — the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia” and the beginning of which roughly coincided with the advent of human agriculture.2The idea of the Anthropocene, which Earth system scientists initiated and advocated, landed like a meteor, setting off a stampede among academics. Nature followed with an editorial that urged that the Anthropocene be added to the geologic timescale. “The first step is to recognize,” Nature editorialized, “that we are in the driver’s seat.”3

In response to the clamor, the ICS convened an eclectic Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), including Crutzen and many other Earth system scientists, to present a recommendation. The working group struggled to agree on a demarcation between the Anthropocene and the current Holocene: for example, the Columbian Exchange, the industrial revolution, or the detonation of the first atomic device. But the outcome of AWG deliberations — to declare a new epoch pour rendre hommage à l’Homme — was never in doubt. “We’re not so puny, after all,” one climate scientist remarked. “We are becoming players in geologic time.”4

If the ICS declares the Anthropocene as a new epoch, it will reverse at one stroke three great humiliations science has inflicted on humanity. First, it will restore humanity to the self-importance it knew when people believed that the Earth and humanity were created at about the same time. The Anthropocene, as Erle Ellis and colleagues have written, “will divide Earth’s story into two parts: one in which humans are a geological superpower — an epoch called the Anthropocene — and the other encompassing all that came before our species had a major influence on Earth’s functioning.”5

Second, it will redress the humiliation imposed by Darwin, who saw humanity as a minor twig on the tree of life, by recognizing Homo sapiens as a colossus so powerful that it is relocating tens of thousands of species and causing as many extinctions as the world has ever known. Third, it will return the Earth to its Ptolemaic position. Ancient astronomers thought of the cosmos as an orderly system that revolved around the Earth, which they saw as tempestuous, turbulent, intemperate, violent, ferocious, and capricious. Earth system science turns the Earth into the cosmos — an orderly, self-regulating system that revolves around a capricious humanity. It accomplishes a counter-Copernican revolution.6

The Anthropocene makes humanity great again.

Read the entire article here

I sent the article to our resident cartoonist, “Josh” and he was immediately on the case.

Of course, I still like his previous effort on this topic, “The Adjustoscene.”

Just a short note to readers- Josh has done hundreds of climate related cartoons over the year, and never charged me a dime for them. He’s advanced our viewpoints via humor, and for that we owe him a debt of gratitude. I suggest you buy him lunch or a beer, by going here to his tip jar.

Thanks, Anthony

via Watts Up With That?

https://ift.tt/2ICKGUj

June 29, 2018 at 02:08AM

Daily News 29 Jun 2018

RECYCLING PLASTIC IS MAKING OCEAN POLLUTION WORSE

London 28 June: An explosive report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) reveals that efforts to recycle plastic are a major cause of the marine litter problem. The report, written by public health expert Dr Mikko Paunio, sets out the case for incinerating waste rather than trying to recycle it.

* Most of the plastic waste comes from just a few countries, mostly in Asia and Africa.

* 25% is “leakage” from Asian waste management processes — the rest is waste that has never been collected, but is simply thrown into rivers.

* But European countries ship inject huge quantities of waste into Asian waste management streams, ostensibly for recycling. As much as 20% — millions of tons every year — ends up in the oceans and will continue to do so.

* Since the Chinese banned waste imports at the start of the year, shipments have been diverted to other Asian countries with even weaker environmental controls (Figure 1).

* EU recycling is therefore a major contributor to marine waste and increasing recycling will therefore simply increase marine litter.

Author Dr Mikko Paunio says

“It is clear that the European contribution to marine waste is a result of our efforts to recycle. However, several countries have already shown that they can reduce this contribution to near zero, by simply incinerating waste”.

Despite this success, the EU is trying to redouble recycling efforts and to close down the incineration route, mistakenly believing that this will reduce carbon emissions. As Dr Paunio puts it,

“The effects look as though they will be appalling. We can expect a great deal more plastic to end up in the environment, and in the oceans in particular. If the EU was serious about its war against marine pollution it should consider banning the export of plastic recyclate rather than banning plastic straws or taxing incineration.”

Figure 1: UK plastic waste exports, 2017 versus 2018. Source: British Plastic & Rubber

Full paper (pdf): Save the Oceans: Stop Recycling Plastic

via climate science

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June 29, 2018 at 01:30AM

Daily News 28 Jun 2018

The Local Newspaper Responds

via The Deplorable Climate Science Blog

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June 28, 2018 at 10:20PM

Daily News 28 Jun 2018

Ontario’s new premier must save the province

“Premier Ford must put Ontario back on a sane energy and environmental course … and show the world how to rebound from a green energy disaster.” – Paul Driessen

In a bid to help then-Premier Kathleen Wynne win reelection, Al Gore recently told Canadians that Ontario was an example of a government that was doing everything right. Canadian climate analysts Tim Ball and Tom Harris say Gore’s claim is completely off base. In reality, Ontario’s climate change and green energy policies were a disaster – an extreme example of what governments in Canada, the United States and around the world should not do.

Ontario voters apparently agree with Ball and Harris. Ex-Premier Wynne lost to Doug Ford, who will be sworn in as the province’s new premier on June 29.

Here, Ball and Harris explain how Ontario went wrong, and how climate science went off the rails – to become a highly politicized justification for controlling and reducing fossil fuel use and economic development throughout the world. In the process, Ontario’s consumer and small business electricity prices skyrocketed from 4.3 cents per kWh 24/7/365 in 2002 to 13.2 cents per kWh in 2018 during peak usage times. The predictable impact on jobs and families was ignored.

___________________

Ontario’s new premier must save the province

Neither Ontario nor any country should follow its example on energy and environmental policies

Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris

On March 8, 2018, former US Vice President Al Gore visited Ontario, Canada in an attempt to help then-Premier Kathleen Wynne win the June 7 provincial election. Gore said, “I travel all over the world, and I cite Ontario as an example of a provincial government that is doing it right: creating jobs, building the base for economic progress, while also staving off the severe danger that the climate crisis poses to all of us.”

In reality, Ontario’s approach to climate change and so-called green energy has been a disaster – an extreme example of what governments around the world should not do. That may be part of the reason Ms. Wynne lost to Doug Ford.

Ontario’s situation is dire. In “Ontario MPP ‘proud’ of province’s debt and ‘would do it again’” (April 1, 2018), National Post writer Triston Hopper explained:

“Ontario’s debt, which currently stands at $311.7 billion, is the most held by any sub-sovereign government in the world. It has also grown precipitously under the current Liberal government, who first took government when Ontario’s debt stood at $138.8 billion.”

Crippling energy and environmental policies

To fix the province’s woes, new Conservative Premier Doug Ford must first understand the causes of the problems. A major issue has been crippling energy and environmental policies.

The real rot in Ontario began in 1992, when then-premier Bob Rae appointed businessman and former UN Under-Secretary-General Maurice Strong to be the Chairman of Ontario Hydro, the province’s publicly owned electricity utility.

At the time, Ontario was an economically sound, prosperous province. All this started to change when Strong applied the energy and environmental policies he proposed for the entire world through his creation of the United Nations Environmental Program and his chairmanship of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit (officially, the UN Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED).

At UNCED, Strong introduced Agenda 21, a global energy and environment policy of world-shattering implications, and got it ratified. It was also at the Earth Summit that world leaders signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The UNFCCC’s primary objective was defined as achieving “stabilization of greenhouse gas [GHG] concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [human-caused] interference with the climate system.”

Under this scheme, the fact that in 1992 (and even today) we had no idea what concentration of GHGs would lead to “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” was immaterial. The die was cast. The world-wide climate alarm had begun.

The UNFCCC even redefined the basic guidelines for the UN’s climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The guidelines now restrict “climate change” to include only variations due to human activity. Specifically, Article 1 of the UNFCCC treaty states:

“‘Climate change’ means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.”

The definition predetermines the outcome of the IPCC’s work. In particular, since the IPCC is required to support the Framework Convention, it had to change its mandate from its original purpose of studying all causes of climate change to the UNFCCC’s political definition of manmade climate change.

So the IPCC’s mandate was changed to assessing “the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change.…”

The problem is, you cannot determine the human effects unless you first know the extent and cause of natural climate change. The fact that we cannot meaningfully forecast the weather beyond 72 hours in advance demonstrates how little we understand about natural climate change and its causes.

But the new IPCC mandate worked perfectly to support Strong’s anti-development agenda. He needed “science” to prove that increasing GHG emissions from industrial activities (especially carbon dioxide or CO₂) would cause dangerous global warming. Since rising emissions are a natural outcome of increasing global production, energy use and prosperity, linking emissions to alleged climate changes and extreme weather events allowed Strong to target the world’s major energy source: fossil fuels.

Once the science was determined, the bureaucracies of national offices such as Environment Canada could push policies to cripple energy production, industry and development. Other countries and regions were slow to adopt these principles, but in Ontario Strong was able to use his position at Ontario Hydro with impunity, to implement the crippling policies he orchestrated in Rio.

Diverting funds to alternate energies already shown not to work

In so doing, he stopped nuclear programs, closed coal plants, and diverted funds to alternate energies that were already shown not to work. As one report summarized:

“The electrical scam in Ont. started with the Bob Rae NDP government when Maurice Strong, Rae’s god-father, broke up Ontario Hydro. The electricity scam continued through the Harris and McGuinty Governments. Today Premier Kathleen Wynne and the liberal party administer the Enron styled electrical rate manipulation scam.”

Other premiers since, right through to Wynne, tried to privatize Ontario Hydro. But all failed to deal with the problem. Meanwhile, the cost of energy became an increasing drag on the economy and cost of living.

When Strong started as Ontario Hydro Chairman, the province had one of the most powerful provincial economies. It was consistently classified as a “have” province in the federal government equalization program, which begun in 1957 and designated provinces as “have” or “have not” based primarily on their ability to generate tax revenue.

In the ensuing grand socialist scheme, between 2012 through 2018, nearly C$121 billion was transferred from the “have” provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan to the “have not” provinces of Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec – and Ontario. (See the table.)

Sapping the vigor of its economy

From Strong’s tenure onward, Ontario energy costs continued to sap the vigor of its economy. Once an industrial powerhouse and the home of hundreds of thousands of high-paying manufacturing jobs, Ontario lost many of these jobs when companies either left the province or went bankrupt. Contributing to the downward spiral were skyrocketing electricity prices.

For consumers and small businesses, electricity prices have increased from 4.3 cents per kilowatt-hour for all times of the day in 2002 to 13.2 cents per kWh in 2018 during peak usage times – a 200% rise. Electricity rates for larger businesses follow the market rate and so vary widely throughout the day. For example, at 5 pm on June 26, 2018, the rate was 22.14 cents per kWh!

Independent energy researcher and former Ontario Independent Electricity Market Operator board member Tom Adams concludes, “The root cause of Ontario’s power rate cancer started with the coal phase-out” – which went from 7,587 megawatts of coal-based electricity in 2003 to zero by 2014!

To supposedly “lead the world” in “stopping global warming,” the provincial government closed all of Ontario’s coal-fired electricity stations, which provided about 25% of the province’s then-inexpensive electricity in 2002. And yet, even in 2003, Ontario accounted for a measly 0.5% of global CO₂ emissions.

A worthless sacrifice

So regardless of what one believes about the causes of climate change, the sacrifice was worthless.

Making matters even worse, the Ontario government spent billions of dollars erecting about 8,000 industrial wind turbines. In a report co-authored by University of Guelph economics professor Ross McKitrick, Mr. Adams noted: “Solar and wind systems provide just under 4 percent of Ontario’s power but account for about 20 percent of the average commodity cost.”

Electricity market expert and University of Montreal professor Pierre-Olivier Pineau has observed, today “Ontario is probably the worst electricity market in the world.”

And so, Ontario went from being an economic powerhouse to joining the ranks of “have not” provinces that receive payments from Canada’s equalization program.

Not surprisingly, access to abundant, reliable, inexpensive energy has been a major factor differentiating the “have” and “have not” provinces. Mostly because of Hibernia oil, Newfoundland and Labrador became a “have” province. The other “have” provinces are also energy-rich: Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.

So, the question now is: Can premier-elect Doug Ford get Ontario back on track with a sound energy policy? There is no better place for him to start than by publicly opposing the myth that human CO₂ emissions are causing dangerous global warming.

There is plenty of scientific evidence to support this. Ford need only consult the reports of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, which summarize thousands of studies from peer-reviewed scientific journals that either refute or cast serious doubt on the climate scare.

Let’s hope Ford uses this important tool – and that the next example Ontario sets for the world is how to rebound from a green energy disaster.

Dr. Tim Ball is an environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa-based International Climate Science Coalition.