Like colonialists of old, affluent green activists impose their will on poor people in impoverished countries who have no means of defending themselves.
Near the top of that list are those well intentioned members of the public who, because they cherish nature and love wild animals, donate money regularly to environmental charities.
Shellenberger has been involved with green causes and organizations for decades. In 2008, Time magazine named him a Hero of the Environment. His perspective is informed. His views may once have been those of a naïve 20-something, but he’s a grownup now – with observations and conclusions other grownups need to hear.
This book is engaging. It’s also honest. Within its pages we learn that many activist groups have lost their way. They’re now harming rather than helping. Indeed, they’ve become a new breed of colonial overseers– imposing their will on third world populations who lack the means to defend themselves.
Shellenberger says that, where the Amazon rain forest is concerned, “many environmental NGOs, European governments, and philanthropies have made the situation worse.” Brazil isn’t a rich country. It’s still struggling to raise much of its population out of grueling poverty. Soybean farming is crucially important, since it increases incomes and funds schools.
But Greenpeace has long insisted it knows better than Brazil’s democratically elected government what policies Brazil should follow. Shellenberger says Greenpeace pressured European companies to stop buying Brazilian soy products by falsely claiming they posed a danger to the rain forest. A 2006 Greenpeace report, Eating Up the Amazon, repeatedly refers to an invasion of the Amazon by soy farmers.
Shellenberger cites an expert on the ground who explains that Greenpeace’s extremism, its disrespectful tone, and its disregard for economic realities, has wholly alienated Brazilian farmers. The lengthy interview from which those comments are taken, explains further:
There are only three percent of the lands in the Amazon outside of protected areas good for soy. Soy isn’t going to run over the Amazon because [the farmers] don’t want it. Too many rocks, too many hills. Too much rain and the water table is too high.
Elsewhere, Shellenberger reminds us that the history of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks is a history in which indigenous peoples have been driven from their traditional homelands – exiled from them – because activists and governments prioritized the welfare of animals over the welfare of human beings.
He quotes Sarah Sawyer, a primatologist who has studied gorillas in Cameroon:
at my field site we were called ‘conservation’…in a very derogatory way. And it hurt. ‘We don’t want conservation here,’ they would say…the local people felt like conservation was simply a way to rob them of their resources.
Activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion insist economic activity per se is killing the planet. Among their targets are factory-made consumer goods produced in countries such as Indonesia. In their words, “Fashion = Ecocide.” But Shellenberger offers an alternative perspective:
Around the world, for hundreds of years, young women have been voting with their feet. They have moved to cities from the countryside not because urban areas are utopian but because they offer many more opportunities for a better life…Moving to the city gives women more freedom in who they marry.
Demonizing the factory jobs these women currently perform inflicts real harm. The last thing economically vulnerable people in poor countries need is rich climate activists chopping down their ladder to prosperity.
Rather than supporting economic developments that will make poverty history, Shellenberger says environmentalists too often support ideas that will make poverty permanent. Behind buzzwords such as sustainability, we frequently find opposition to rudimentary progress – the kind that raises living standards and funds health care.
One cannot finish Apocalypse Never without concluding that environmental activists from rich countries, who imagine they have the right to dictate terms to people in poor countries, have become a serious problem across the developing world.
Shellenberger reports that International Rivers, based in affluent Berkeley, California, lied about the sentiments of the local community concerning a proposed hydroelectric dam in Uganda. Rather than opposing the dam, people supported it – a phenomenon Shellenberger has witnessed firsthand in the Congo and Rwanda.
In his words, locals “were ecstatic at the prospects of getting electricity.” Nevertheless, he says, International Rivers has “helped stop 217 dams from being built, mostly in poor countries.”
Anyone who does anything in the real world makes mistakes. Governments. Corporations. Charitable organizations.
Green activists have made plenty. It’s time these were acknowledged, so that course corrections can occur.
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Scenario — having been pushed into buying an electric car, and spending large sums on upgrading your home electricity system, to cope with the government’s haphazard but supposedly climate-related demands: “Should you charge visitors for a recharge? You might gift the cost to friends and relatives, but what about the plumber or the carer?” – asks Transport Xtra.
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The Government’s push to electrify road transport and domestic heating could place major cost burdens on consumers, says a new report.
Electric vehicles have become something of a panacea for politicians as they grapple with how to decarbonise the transport sector.
But for some engineers, the headlong rush to electrify road transport and domestic heating too is a major cause for concern.
LTT reported in May the top-down analysis of Michael Kelly, the former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Communities and Local Government (LTT 29 May & Letters 26 Jun). Now a more bottom-up analysis has been prepared by retired engineer Mike Travers. Both reports have been published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank.
“It is clear that the costs of supporting all the plans the Government has for transport and homes is going to be very high, and it is going to be made worse by the fact that the changeover is not being thought through, let alone planned effectively,” says Travers.
“Part of the problem is that there is no institution or organisation in a suitable position to do so. The distribution companies own the transformers and cables, but may or may not be responsible for the smart meters. They therefore have little interest in some form of smart control [of electricity demand]. As profit-making companies, they also have no interest in investing for the future load increases, as they can charge for all the upgrading work as it is required.”
Decarbonisation will place huge new demands on the electricity network, with homeowners installing electric vehicle charging points, heat pumps and electric showers.
“The extra demand for electricity will overwhelm most domestic fuses, thus requiring homeowners to install new ones, as well as circuit-breakers and new distribution boards,” says Travers.
“Most will also have to rewire between their main fuse and the distribution network. In urban areas, where most electrical cabling is underground, this will involve paying for a trench to be dug between the home and the feeder circuits in the street.”
Quote of the Week:“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” —Thomas Paine (1776)
Number of the Week:12 datasets of evidence
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
July Summary Part III; Models and Observations: Two weeks ago TWTW reviewed Richard Lindzen’s new paper summarizing what we know with reasonable certainty, what we suspect, and what we know is incorrect about climate change, the greenhouse effect, temperature trends, climate modeling, ocean chemistry, and sea level rise. Key parts included:
1) The climate system is never in equilibrium.
2) The core of the system consists of two turbulent fluids interacting with each other and unevenly heated by the sun, which results in transport of heat from the equator towards the poles (meridional) creating ocean cycles that may take 1,000 years to complete.
3) The two most important substances in the greenhouse effect are water vapor and clouds, which are not fully understood and are not stable.
4) A vital component of the atmosphere is water in its liquid, solid, and vapor phases and the changes in phases have immense dynamic consequences.
5) Doubling carbon dioxide, (CO2), creates a 2% disturbance to the normal flow of energy into the system and out of the system, which is similar to the disturbance created by changes in clouds and other natural features.
6) Temperatures in the tropics have been extremely stable. It is the temperature differences between the tropics and polar regions that is extremely important. Calculations such as global average temperature largely ignore this important difference.
Last week, TWTW used the work of William van Wijngaarden and William Happer (W & H) to summarize what we know with reasonable certainty, what we suspect, and what we know is incorrect about the greenhouse effect. Both the gentlemen are experts in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical physics (AMO), which is far from simple physics, but is necessary to understand how greenhouse gases interfere (delay) the radiation of energy from the surface into space – how the earth loses its heat every day, mainly at night.
1) There is no general understanding of the greenhouse effect sufficient to develop elegant equations.
2) The optical depth or optical thickness of the atmosphere (transparency) changes as altitude changes. The depth is measured in terms of a natural logarithm and, in this instance, relates to distance a photon of a particular frequency can travel before it is absorbed by an appropriate molecule (one that absorbs and re-emits photons of that frequency).
3) Unlike other natural greenhouse gases, water vapor, the dominant greenhouse gas, is not well distributed in the atmosphere, its irregular. [SEPP Comment: It is variability during the daytime, the formation of clouds from H2O, etc., all combine to make it impossible to do theoretical computational “climate” dynamics with any value at all. Because H2O is known to be “all over the map” the Charney Report recognized a decent calculation was impossible. So, it went down the erroneous path of ignoring H2O and assumed a CO2 value; and then coming back in later with a “feedback” argument to try to account for H2O. It didn’t work then, now, or into the future.]
4) There is a logarithmic relationship between greenhouse gases and temperature.
5) “Saturation” means that adding more molecules causes little change in Earth’s radiation to space. The very narrow range in which Methane (CH4) can absorb and emit photons is already saturated by water vapor (H2O), the dominant greenhouse gas, below the tropopause, where the atmosphere is thick. Thus, adding methane has little effect on temperatures because its influence is mostly where the atmosphere is thin, transparent.
6) Their (W & H) calculations show that a doubling of CO2 will increase temperatures by no more than 1.5 ⁰ C.
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Problems with Models: In September 2019, established Japanese climate modeler Mototaka Nakamura, wrote a book that is available on Kindle, which contains an English summary. Nakamura is the author of about 20 published papers on fluid dynamics, one of the complex subjects in climate change. Interestingly, Richard Lindzen was one of Nakamura’s thesis advisors at MIT. Nakamura mentions this in his discussion of ocean currents, namely the Thermohaline circulation. This circulation includes the Gulf Stream, which keeps Western Europe far warmer than it would be otherwise. [The late Bill Gray, who was a pioneer in forecasting hurricanes, was a strong advocate of the importance of the Thermohaline circulation.]
Based on Nakamura’s discussion, he is a stronger advocate of the Thermohaline circulation than Lindzen, particularly in the cold southward flowing water on the bottom of the Atlantic. In his discussion on this phenomena, Nakamura states Professor Lindzen may disagree, asking how do you know?
As presented in the September 28, 2019, TWTW, Australian reporter Tony Thomas, who has followed the climate issue for years, reviews the book, emphasizing that the certainty claimed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its followers is hollow.
Among other important changing phenomena, the climate system is largely made up of two fluids in dynamic motion, the ocean, and the atmosphere, and we simply do not know enough about fluid dynamics to make long-term predictions about the interactions of these fluids. According to Nakamura the climate models are useful tools for academic purposes, but useless for prediction. As quoted by Thomas, Nakamura writes:
“These models completely lack some critically important climate processes and feedbacks and represent some other critically important climate processes and feedbacks in grossly distorted manners to the extent that makes these models totally useless for any meaningful climate prediction.
“I myself used to use climate simulation models for scientific studies, not for predictions, and learned about their problems and limitations in the process.”
Nakamura and his colleagues tried to repair the errors:
“…so, I know the workings of these models very well. For better or worse I have more or less lost interest in the climate science and am not thrilled to spend so much of my time and energy in this kind of writing beyond the point that satisfies my own sense of obligation to the US and Japanese taxpayers who financially supported my higher education and spontaneous and free research activity. So please expect this to be the only writing of this sort coming from me.
“I am confident that some honest and courageous, true climate scientists will continue to publicly point out the fraudulent claims made by the mainstream climate science community in English. I regret to say this, but I am also confident that docile and/or incompetent Japanese climate researchers will remain silent until the ’mainstream climate science community’ changes its tone, if ever.”
Thomas writes some of the gross model simplifications are:
Ignorance about large and small-scale ocean dynamics.
A complete lack of meaningful representations of aerosol changes that generate clouds.
Lack of understanding of drivers of ice-albedo (reflectivity) feedbacks: “Without a reasonably accurate representation, it is impossible to make any meaningful predictions of climate variations and changes in the middle and high latitudes and thus the entire planet.”
Inability to deal with water vapor elements.
Arbitrary “tunings” (fudges) of key parameters that are not understood.
As Richard Lindzen has stated for years, the models fail to capture changes in clouds including changing cloud area and that the sizes of clouds are too small for grid scale modeling.
Nakamura’s work reinforces what many, including Lindzen, have stated. But it is refreshing to see that a modeler who spent years trying to model the climate system recognizes how unsuccessful this 40 plus year effort has been.
To the above, one can quote from the beginning of the English appendix of Nakamura’s book:
“Before pointing out a few of the serious flaws in climate simulation models, in defense of those climate researchers who use climate simulation models for various meaningful scientific projects, I want to emphasize here that climate simulation models are fine tools to study the climate system, so long as the users are aware of the limitations of the models and exercise caution in designing experiments and interpreting their output. In this sense, experiments to study the response of simplified climate systems, such as those generated by the ‘state-of-the-art’ climate simulation models, to major increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases are also interesting and meaningful academic projects that are certainly worth pursuing. So long as the results of such projects are presented with disclaimers that unambiguously state the extent to which the results can be compared with the real world, I would not have any problem with such projects. The models just become useless pieces of junk or worse (worse, in a sense that they can produce gravely misleading output) only when they are used for climate forecasting.
“All climate simulation models have many details that become fatal flaws when they are used as climate forecasting tools, especially for mid- to long-term (several years and longer) climate variations and changes. These models completely lack some of critically important climate processes and feedbacks, and represent some other critically important climate processes and feedbacks in grossly distorted manners to the extent that makes these models totally useless for any meaningful climate prediction. It means that they are also completely useless for assessing the effects of the past atmospheric carbon dioxide increase on the climate. I myself used to use climate simulation models for scientific studies, not for predictions, and learned about their problems and limitations in the process. I, with help of some of my former colleagues, even modified some details of these models in attempts to improve them by making some of grossly simplified expressions of physical processes in the models less grossly simplified, based on physical theories. So, I know the internal workings of these models very well. I find it rather bewildering that so many climate researchers, many of whom are only ‘so-called climate researchers’ in my not-so-humble opinion, appear to firmly believe in the validity of using these models for climate forecasting. I have observed that many of those climate researchers who firmly believe in the global warming hypothesis view the climate system in a grotesquely simplified fashion: many of them view the climate system as a horizontally homogeneous (no variations in the north-south and east-west directions) or zonally homogeneous (no variations in the east-west direction) system whose dynamics are dominated by the radiative-chemical-convective processes, smooth vertical-north-south motions in the atmosphere, and stationary oceans, and completely neglect the geophysical fluid dynamics, an extremely important and strong factor in the maintenance of the climate and generation of climate variations and changes. So, in their view, those climate simulation models that have ostensible 3 D flows in the atmosphere and oceans may be more than good enough for making climate predictions. They are not good enough. Incidentally, I never liked the term, ‘model validation’, often used by most climate researchers to refer to the action of assessing the extent to which the model output resembles the reality. They should use a more honest term such as ‘model assessment’ rather than the disingenuous term, ‘model validation’, and evaluate the model performance in an objective and scientific manner rather than trying to construct narratives that justify the use of these models for climate predictions. [Boldface in original]
“The most obvious and egregious problem is the treatment of incoming solar energy — it is treated as a constant, that is, as a ‘never changing quantity’. It should not require an expert to explain how absurd this is if ‘climate forecasting’ is the aim of the model use. It has been only several decades since we acquired an ability to accurately monitor the incoming solar energy. In these several decades only, it has varied by 1 to 2 Watts per square meters. Is it reasonable to assume that it will not vary any more than that in the next hundred years or longer for forecasting purposes? I would say ‘No’.
“One can stop here and proclaim that we can never predict climate changes because of our inability to predict changes in the incoming solar energy. Nevertheless, for the sake of providing some useful pieces of information that can help countervail rampantly bold and absurd claims such as ‘We can correctly predict climate changes that are attributable only to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide to assess the human impact on the climate’, I will describe two problematic aspects of climate simulation models below. I also hear somewhat less bold claims such as ‘These models can correctly predict at least the sense or direction of climate changes that are attributable only to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.’ I want to point out a simple fact that it is impossible to correctly predict even the sense or direction of the change of a system when the prediction tool lacks and/ or grossly distorts important nonlinear processes, feedbacks in particular, that are present in the actual system.” [Boldface added.]
The major problems in the climate models that Nakamura describes further are ocean flows (ocean circulation) and water in the atmosphere. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Testing Models: Repeatedly, John Christy of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and others, have shown that the models used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) grossly overestimate the warming of the atmosphere over the tropics, where the greenhouse effect occurs. The one exception is the model from the Institute of Numerical Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A new fleet of models is coming out called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 6 (CMIP6).
As demonstrated by the Paris Agreement, the goal of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the IPCC, and its followers is to reduce carbon dioxide influence on surface temperatures. Before the CO2 influence on surface temperatures is reduced, the CO2 influence on atmospheric temperatures must be reduced. Thus, using trends from widely scattered surface instruments as a proxy of what is occurring in the atmosphere is a poor choice, because comprehensive atmospheric temperature trends have been available for 30 years, with measurements beginning in 1979, forty years ago.
In a forthcoming paper in Earth and Science, Ross McKitrick and John Christy compare the “historic” values calculated from 38 new CMIP6 models with datasets from three different types of observations.
“(1) Radiosonde (or sonde) data are measured by thermistors carried aloft by balloons at stations around the world which radio the information down to a ground station. Sondes report temperatures at many levels, and we use here annual averages at the standard pressure-levels: 1000 (if above the launch site), 850, 700, 500, 400 300, 200 150, 100, 70, 50, 30 and 20 hPa.”
“(2) Since late 1978, several polar-orbiting satellites carried some form of a microwave sensor to monitor atmospheric temperatures. These spacecraft would circle the globe roughly pole-to-pole making a complete orbit in about 100 minutes. They were (and are) sun-synchronous so the Earth would essentially rotate on its axis underneath as the spacecraft orbited pole to pole so that essentially the entire planet is observed in a single Earth-rotation (or day). The intensity of microwave emissions from atmospheric oxygen are directly proportional to temperature, thus allowing a conversion of these measurements to temperature. Since the emissions come from most of the atmosphere, they represent a deep layer-average temperature. For our purposes we shall focus on two deep layers, the lower troposphere (LT, surface to ~ 9 km) and the midtroposphere (MT, surface to ~ 15 km).” [Boldface added.]
“(3) The third category of these datasets are known as Reanalyses. In this category, a global weather model with many atmospheric layers ingests as much data as possible, from surface observations, sondes and satellites, to generate a global depiction of the surface and atmosphere that is made globally consistent through the model equations. We will access the temperature data from these datasets at 17 pressure levels from the surface to 10 hPa and will be able to calculate the deep-layer averages that match those of the satellite measurements.”
The model runs came from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory archive. The time period covered was 1979 to 2014 for which data for both models and observations were complete.
“For this study we used the period 1979-2014 from the simulation set that represents 1850-2014 in which the models were provided with ‘historical’ forcings. These time-varying forcings are estimates of the amount of energy deviations that occurred in the real world and are applied to the models through time. These include variations in factors such as volcanic aerosols, solar input, dust and other aerosols, important gases like carbon dioxide, ozone and methane, land-surface brightness and so on. With all models applying the same forcing as believed to have occurred for the actual Earth, the direct comparison between models and observations is appropriate. The models and runs are identified in Table 2 [not presented here]. We also list the estimated Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) values for the 31 models for which we were able to find values, usually through unpublished online documentation (sources available on request.”
As stated above, the climate is never in equilibrium, so the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity is an idealized concept of how much the global average temperature of the earth will increase if carbon dioxide is doubled. As stated by Lindzen, above, global average temperature is an idealized concept that is not particularly important.
Global climate models are notorious for producing significantly different results for different runs of the model. This is what produces the spaghetti-like mess when the model results are displayed in a graph. So, McKitrick and Christy developed 95% confidence intervals for all the model runs and average observations from the observing systems for the lower troposphere (surface to about 9 km (30,000 feet)) and the middle troposphere (surface to about 15 km (49,000 feet))
The authors conclude:
“The literature drawing attention to an upward bias in climate model warming responses in the tropical troposphere extends back at least 15 years now (Karl et al. 2006). Rather than being resolved the problem has become worse, since now every member of the CMIP6 generation of climate models exhibits an upward bias in the entire global troposphere as well as in the tropics. The models with lower ECS values have warming rates somewhat closer to observed but are still significantly biased upwards and do not overlap observations. Models with higher ECS values also have higher tropospheric warming rates and applying the emergent constraint concept implies that an ensemble of models with warming rates consistent with observations would likely have to have ECS values at or below the bottom of the CMIP6 range. Our findings mirror recent evidence from inspection of CMIP6 Equilibrium Climate Sensitivities (Vosen 2019) and paleoclimate simulations (Zhu et al. 2020) which also reveal a systematic warm bias in the latest generation of climate models.”
TWTW observes that three different types of datasets from observations are grouped tightly both for global and the tropics. For most of the models, the mean for satellite observations are below the lower confidence interval, for that model. The more money that has been spent on climate science, the worse the models have become when compared with observations. The US models are among the worst, to be discussed in a later TWTW. As Nakamura has written, they have no predictive value. The UN IPCC and its followers have clearly departed from the scientific method into the world of wild speculation. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Defending the Orthodoxy.
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New Guy in Town: A new paper claimed that the broadly accepted range of values given in the 1979 Charney Report for a doubling of CO2 of 3 ⁰C plus or minus 1.5 ⁰C (or 1.5 ⁰C to 4.5 ⁰C) was too low and using questionable statistics asserted that the 5 to 95% confidence interval for a doubling of CO2 should be 2 to 5.7 K (⁰C). TWTW agrees that the values in the Charney Report need to be changed. Based on observations of the atmosphere they should be lowered not raised. The paper by McKitrick and Christy indicate the need for a lowering, with the datasets ending in 2014. Thus, it is obvious that the authors of the new paper ignored the physical data from the atmosphere.
The lead author of the new paper is from Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, a consortium of five Australian universities and others. It is supported by the Australian Research Council. Apparently physical data is not important for conducting science in Australia.
Tracing articles advocating the increasing of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), leads to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) whose web site reads:
The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) leads the way in addressing frontier scientific questions related to the coupled climate system — questions that are too large and too complex to be tackled by a single nation, agency, or scientific discipline. Through international science coordination and partnerships, WCRP contributes to advancing our understanding of the multi-scale dynamic interactions between natural and social systems that affect climate. WCRP engages productively through these partnerships to inform the development of policies and services and to promote science education. Most critically, WCRP-supported research provides the climate science that underpins the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, including national commitments under the Paris Agreement of 2015, and contributes to the knowledge that supports the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and multilateral environmental conventions. [Boldface added]
The three co-sponsors are: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commissions of UNESCO, The International Science Council, which was “created in 2018 as the result of a merger between the International Council for Science (ICSU) (previously a sponsor of WCRP) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC).”
Vote for Aprils Fools Award: The voting for the SEPP’s April Fools Award will be continued until July 31. Due to changes in schedules, there are no conferences held before then to announce the results. So, get your votes in now.
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Number of the Week: 12 datasets of evidence. The McKitrick and Christy paper used 12 different datasets of evidence to establish that the new IPCC models, CMIP6, are exaggerating the warming of the atmosphere even more than the previous models, CMIP5, did.
By contrast, the new papers insisting that the influence of CO2 is greater than previously estimated use the concept of lines of evidence instead of current data. Lines of evidence are concepts developed by those trying to reconstruct past conditions or justify concepts that develop slowly. For example, the science of evolution uses several lines of evidence such as fossil evidence, homologies (common ancestors), and distribution in time and space (as the earth changed). Time can become a major problem in the imperfect record of the earth changing.
Mr. Gore demonstrated a major problem with time in his famous film in which he had time backwards. He showed CO2 increasing before Antarctic ice cores showed a warming. Actually, the ice cores showed warming before CO2 increasing. Mr. Gore was wrong. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Suppressing Scientific Inquiry
Peter Ridd loses, we all lose
By Jennifer Marohasy, Spectator, Australia, July 23, 2020
James Cook University wins appeal in Peter Ridd unfair dismissal case
Federal court decision overturns earlier finding that the university contravened the Fair Work Act when it dismissed academic
By Ben Smee, The Guardian, July 22, 2020 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
“Science has become a way to push political agendas while shutting down any opposition to the narrative. If you attempt to question or disagree with the mainstream narrative being pushed, you’re clearly anti-science.”
How Much Will the Planet Warm If Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Doubles?
A doubling of carbon dioxide all but guarantees warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius, says a new study.
By Ronald Bailey, Reason, July 23, 2020
German Climate Realist Scientists Launching Climate Science Videos To Disalarm The Public
By Kalte Sonne, (German text translated/edited by P. Gosselin), No Tricks Zone, July 22, 2020
Change in US Administrations
AEA Applauds NEPA Modernization Announcement
Long overdue overhaul will get American infrastructure projects out of the courtroom and onto the construction site
Editorial, American Energy Alliance, July 15, 2020
China’s coronavirus recovery drives boom in coal plants, casting doubt over commitments to cut fossil fuels
Environmentalists say China is in the midst of a new coal boom, as approvals for coal energy projects have accelerated this year in response to the coronavirus outbreak
New coal-fired power projects are being driven largely by local government stimulus spending, which is falling back on old playbook of debt-heavy construction
By Harry Pearl, South China Morning Post, July 21, 2020 [H/t GWPF]
[SEPP Comment: Curry lists links discussing the above books. The New York Times thinks False Alarm is a dangerous book! It may get people to think rather than accept what the old gray lady prattles?]
Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science
A Five-decade Analysis of Tropical Cyclone Trends in the South China Sea
Bo, X., Xinning, D and Yonghua, L. 2020. Climate change trend and causes of tropical cyclones affecting the South China Sea during the past 50 years. Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters doi.org/10.1080/16742834.2020.1752110. July 24, 2020
The Reproductive Response of a Holm Oak Forest to Long-term Drought
Bogdziewicz, M., Fernández-Martínez, M., Espelta, J.M., Ogaya, R. and Penuelas, J. 2020. If forest fecundity resistant to drought? Results from an 18-yr rainfall-reduction experiment. New Phytologist doi: 10.111/nph.16597. July 22, 2020
“Once collected, the krill were transported to a laboratory where they were acclimated and then exposed to four seawater pH treatments for a period of seven days: ambient (pH 7.96) or reduced (pH of 7.70, 7.65 or 7.28).”
[SEPP Comment: CO2 Science is using the convention that lowering pH is acidification, though it is not.]
Model Issues
New model of predicted polar bear extinction is not scientifically plausible
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, July 20, 2020
[SEPP Comment: Another example of prophets of catastrophe ignoring contradicting data.]
The Models Were Wildly Wrong about Reopening Too
By Phillip Magness, American Institute for Economic Research, July 23, 2020 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
“The measure is set to create more than 50,000 charging stations and will largely be funded by the state’s investor-owned utility companies, with the total budget capped at $701 million through 2025.”
[SEPP Comment: What is the expecedt rate of return for this forced “investment”? Since regulated utilities earn a rate of return on approved investment, this may be another way for the politicians to skim the consumers – ratepayers, who will get nothing.]
Climate change: Siberian heatwave ‘clear evidence’ of warming-BBC
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, July 17, 2020
Global heating: best and worst case scenarios less likely than thought
Uncertainty over climate outcomes reduced but experts warn urgent reduction in CO2 levels is essential
By Jonathan Watts and Graham Readfearn, The Guardian, July 22, 2020 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
“’The bears face an ever longer fasting period before the ice refreezes and they can head back out to feed,’ Steven Amstrup, who conceived the study and is chief scientist of Polar Bears International, told AFP.”
Most polar bears to disappear by 2100, study predicts
By Gloria Dickie, The Guardian, The age of extinction, July 20, 2020
[SEPP Comment: Didn’t polar bears go extinct 8,000 years ago when the world was warmer? See links under Model Issues]
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
‘Everybody’s entitled to their opinion – but not their own facts’: The spread of climate denial on Facebook
‘The arguments are that people can’t trust scientists, models, climate data. It’s all about building doubt and undermining public trust in climate science’
By Louise Boyle, The Independent, UK, July 23, 2020
“Dr Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences at Penn State and National Academy of Sciences member, suggested that Mr Zuckerberg was using Facebook to ‘exploit his platform for the spreading of disinformation, including climate change denial’.”
[SEPP Comment: Hockey-stick anyone?]
Dutch Newspaper ‘De Telegraaf’ Accuses Scientists Of Being Corporate Publicists
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
Greta Thunberg is the Winner of the First Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity
Editorial, MassisPost, July 20, 2020 [H/t Climate Depot]
Greta Issues Latest Demands
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, July 24, 2020
“But perhaps what is most is most significant is that it is only addressed to EU leaders, and no other countries. The EU accounts for less than a fifth of worldwide emissions, so even eliminating emissions completely would only have a negligible effect.”
Questioning European Green
BEIS Committee’s Fake “Proposals From The Public”
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, July 18, 2020
[House of Commons: Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee]
“This whole exercise is far from the democratic consultative exercise it is made out to be. Clearly the Select Committee are determined not to allow contributions from anybody opposed to the government’s agenda.
“And in the end, no doubt, the ‘consultation’ will be presented as a justification for current policies.
“Rather like the Soviets used to do in fact!”
Questioning Green Elsewhere
W. S. Jevons on Energy Efficiency (Memo to Biden, Part IV)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, July 23, 2020
“This concludes our four-part series bringing the ‘wisdom of the ages’ to the contemporary energy debate. Carbon-based energies are unique in their density and reliability and affordability and portability compared to the energies of old (wind, water, plants, trees, earthen heat).”
Democrats’ Green New Deal would make US reliance on China much worse
By Paul Driessen and Ned Mamula, WUWT, July 24, 2020
Funding Issues
MEPs warn of insufficient control over EU climate spending
By Florence Schulz, EURACTIV, July 24, 2020
The Political Games Continue
DNC climate platform draft calls for net-zero emissions by 2050
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, July 19, 2020
“She [Rachel Wolf who acts as the secretariat for the Zero Carbon Commission] finishes by referring to COP26. Whether Britain emasculates itself with a carbon tax or not, China, India and indeed most of the world outside of Europe will carry on with business as usual.
“Surely we have learnt this lesson by now? One of the main planks of the UK Climate Change Act was that it would encourage other countries to follow suit. We have found out to our cost since that this was mere wishful thinking.”
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA Proposes First Ever CO2 Standards for Commercial Aircraft
New US sanctions block Putin’s pipeline despite Danish breakthrough
By Diane Francis, Atlantic Council, July 15, 2020
Energy Issues – Australia
Australia Considers a New Household Solar Energy “Export” Tax
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, July 23, 2020
“Rooftop solar panel owners could be getting charged fees to sell energy back to the grid”
“They argue that under the current system, households without solar could be unfairly burdened with the cost of augmenting power networks to cope with the increase of new panels, which is already placing a strain on the network in states with heavy solar penetration like South Australia.”
Energy Issues — US
Canceled: America’s energy dominance
By Steve Milloy, Washington Examiner, July 17, 2020
“Actually the growth rate for electricity consumption for the past ten years has been nearly zero, and this means that virtually every new wind turbine added to the grid since 2010 has been a waste of money.
“But it’s worse than that. Every new wind turbine added to the grid has resulted in higher costs for the consumer, because the coal-fired and nuclear power plants displaced by wind turbines produced electricity at a lower cost.”
[SEPP Comment: Unfortunately, too many “experts” make the wrong comparison – new-to-new rather than new-to-existing. Why replace existing?]
Will Solar Be the Most Dominant Form of Renewable Energy by 2023?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, July 19, 2020
“Nowhere is there any recognition by Hannan [a reporter for The Telegraph] of the high cost of producing hydrogen, or the cost and difficulties involved in creating a distribution and storage network and adapting household appliances.
“These apparently are just minor issues that must not stand in the way of the Great Green Revolution.”
California Dreaming
You see the warnings everywhere. But does Prop. 65 really protect you?
By Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2020
“chemical known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm.”
Other News that May Be of Interest
75 years on the endless frontier: a vision for the future rooted in the past
75 years ago, the White House made public Vannevar Bush’s vision for American prosperity that was based in government support for fundamental research. Today our director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, shares his vision for keeping Bush’s legacy alive at NSF.
Why We Can’t Trust Anything ‘The Science’ Says Any More
These scientists are attempting to hide information that doesn’t conform to what roving violent mobs are attempting to impose at the blunt ends of bricks, sticks, and guns.
By Joy Pullmann, The Federalist, July 10, 2020 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
TWTW Summary: The article is summarized in its beginning:
“Many large U.S. corporations are sitting on piles of tax credits they may not be able to use for years. They want Congress to let them have the money now.
“Duke Energy Corp., Ford Motor Co., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and others could benefit if Congress includes a tax credit cash-out proposal in its next economic-relief legislation. Such a move, which is among ideas being considered by lawmakers and the Trump administration, could improve corporate cash flow by tens of billions of dollars.
“Duke has been unable to use all the corporate-research and renewable-energy credits it accumulated because it has been using accelerated tax deductions for capital investments to lower its taxable income, said Dwight Jacobs, the company’s chief accounting officer. That bumped it up against tax-code rules that limit tax credits, leaving $1.8 billion in unused credits on Duke’s books. Under the proposal, the company could get that within months instead of years.”
TWTW Comment: Of course, those selling tax credits for wind and solar will embrace the idea of getting cash flow without producing anything.
Assume, for the moment, the wind always blew and the sun always shone, then wind and solar power just might make sense. That’s why those talking about an ‘all wind and sun powered future’ sound like they’re coming from another planet.
Renewables rent seekers keep telling us how cheap wind and solar are, compared to those ‘evil’ fossil fuels, coal and gas.
But ‘price’ and ‘value’ are not the same animals. What we pay for something, and what it’s worth depends entirely upon what we get. And, in relation to the consumption of electricity, whether or not we get it, at all.
Wind power might be ‘free’, but try purchasing it, at any price, when the wind stops blowing. Ditto with solar power, when the sun does what it’s been doing every day since the dawn of time.
Comparing weather dependent wind generation and sunshine dependent solar with sources available, around-the-clock, irrespective of the weather or where the sun sits in the sky, is a game played by intellectual pygmies. There is, of course, no comparison.
So when you’re faced with a pile of numbers said to show how wind or solar stacks up against the big boys, the obvious retort is, ‘when’? When I need it, or when the wind is just right or the sun is at its zenith?
Charles Rotter runs the numbers and identifies the true cost of weather and sunshine dependent wind and solar. Spoiler alert: it’s truly staggering.
The excess costs of Weather Dependent Renewable power generation in the EU(28): 2020 Edmhdotme
Charles Rotter
8 June 2020
These straightforward calculations are intended to answer the simple question:
“roughly how much would it cost to generate the same amount of power as is produced by the present fleet of EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewables, using conventional generation technologies, (Nuclear or Gas-firing) ? and how do those figures compare ?”.
Accordingly the post quantifies the scale of the fiscal waste and the burdens on utility bills attributable to the use of EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewables as installed at the end of 2019. It combines the comparative costs of generation technologies, published by the US Energy Information Administration in 2020 with information on the Nameplate rating of installed EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewable installations and their actual productive power output as of 2019. This data on Renewables performance at end 2019 is accessed from EurObserv’ER.
According to this costing model, the approximate EU(28):
capital cost commitment to the current EU Renewables installed is ~520 €billion: of which the excess costs over Gas-firing is ~450 €billion and ~85 €billion over the costs of Nuclear.
long-term cost commitment of the current EU(28) Renewables generation of ~65Gigawatts installed is ~2,000 €billion: of which the excess costs over Gas-firing is ~1,800 €billion and ~980 €billion over the costs of Nuclear power.
As can be seen later, these estimates show that using Weather Dependent Renewables in the EU(28) costs 7 – 9 times as much as using Natural Gas for electricity generation and about 1.2 – 2 times as much as Nuclear power.
The impact of the poor productivity of Weather Dependent Renewables is shown in these two pie charts:
The EU(28) installed Weather Dependent Renewables amount to ~344GW of Nameplate capacity but produced the equivalent of 65GW over the last year, a productivity level of ~19% overall.
Comparative Costing Model for Electricity Generation Technologies
The comparative costings are derived from US EIA data updated in January 2020.
The values used in this model ignore the “EIA Technological optimism factor” above, which would adversely affect the comparative costs of Offshore wind, (by about 9€billion/Gigawatt: long-term) and to a much less extent Nuclear power. These costs are summarised and translated into €billion/Gigawatt in the table below.
The US EIA table quotes the overnight capital costs of each technology and the above table condenses the total costs of the technology when maintained in operation for 60 years expressed as €billion/Gigawatt. 60 years is chosen for these comparisons as it should be close the service life of current generation of Nuclear installations.
The above comparative data should realistically avoid the distorting effects of Government fiscal and subsidy policies supporting Weather Dependent Renewable Energy, whereby it might be claimed that Renewables can reach cost parity with conventional generation technologies. The promoters of Weather Dependent Renewables always seem to conveniently forget their productivity differentials with conventional dispatchable power generation.
The service life allocated for Renewables used above may well be generous, particularly for Offshore Wind and Solar Photovoltaics. The production capability of all Renewable technologies have been shown to progressively deteriorate significantly over their service life.
Recent 2020 EIA updates fully account for any cost reductions or underbids for Renewable technology, particularly those for Solar panels. The costs of solar panels themselves may be reducing but this price reduction can only affect about 1/4 of the installation costs, these are mainly made up of the other costs of Solar installations, those ancillary costs remain immutable.
It is hoped therefore that these results give a valid comparative analysis of the true cost effectiveness of Weather Dependent Renewables. It should be noted that unlike real microprocessor technologies “Moore’s Law” cannot be applied to Solar Panels. As the Solar energy they collect is dilute and diffuse, in order to be effective they have to be of large scale, so the progressive miniaturisation of “Moores Law” is irrelevant to Solar PV technology.
However the actual costs of power generation shown above do not account for the productivity of the generation technologies. The table below therefore shows the true comparative cost of the Weather Dependent Renewables, when accounting for the productivity of the generation technologies as achieved in 2019.
In addition that these comparative figures are underestimates of the true costs of using Weather Dependent Renewables. The results above only account for the cost comparisons for capital and running costs of the generation installations themselves and the actual electrical power generated accounting for the measured productivity capability of each generating technology. Thus these figures represent the true comparative cost of the power produced by Weather Dependent Renewables installations.
The costs projected here ignore the ancillary costs inevitably associated with Wind power and Solar Renewables resulting from:
unreliability in terms of both power intermittency and power variability
the non-dispatchablity of Renewables: the wind will not blow and clouds will not clear away to order when needed
poor timing of power generation, often unlikely to be coordinated with demand: for example Solar energy is virtually absent in winter, 1/9th of the output than in the summer period of lower demand
long transmission lines to remote generators, incurring both costly power losses in transmission and increased maintenance
additional infrastructure necessary for access
the costs of essential back up generation only used on occasions but wastefully running in spinning reserve nonetheless
any consideration of electrical storage using batteries, which would impose very significant additional costs, were long-term, (a few days), battery storage even economically feasible
unsynchronised generation with lack of inherent inertia to maintain grid frequency
Weather Dependent Renewables cannot be relied upon to provide a “black start” recovery from a major grid outage
Importantly, in addition, these cost analyses do not account for:
inevitable environmental damage and wildlife destruction resulting from Weather Dependent Renewables
The “Carbon footprint” of Weather Dependent Renewable technologies: they may never save as much CO2 during their service life as they are likely to require for their materials sourcing, manufacture, installation, maintenance and eventual demolition. When viewed in the round, all these activities are entirely dependent on the use of substantial amounts of fossil fuels as feedstocks or as fuels.
The Energy Return on Energy Invested: Weather Dependent Renewables may well not produce as much Energy during their service life as was needed for their original manufacture and installation. They certainly do not provide the regular excess power sufficient to support the multiple needs of a developed society.
Comparative Costings for Renewable Generation technologies in Europe
The table above gave a capital valuation of the current 2020 EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewables fleet at ~500 €billion with probable ongoing costs of ~2,000 €billion. Overall in EU(28) this Renewables investment accounts for ~35% of the nameplate generation capacity but only provides ~8% of the actual power contribution. This is approximately twice the cost of providing the same power output with Nuclear power stations and more than 11 times the cost of using Gas-firing for equivalent power generation.
The three tables above show how the different Renewable technologies contribute to the Government mandated excess costs overall in Europe.
Onshore Wind power is the most cost effective Weather Dependent Renewable technology. In general it is just 10% cheaper than Nuclear power in capital spend and is only about 1.4 times as expensive in the long-term. However this cost differential does not account for the problem of Weather Dependent non-dipatachability. Onshore wind power is only about ~6 times more costly in capital and long-term spend than Gas-firing.
Offshore wind power is the least cost-effective being some 2 – 3 times more costly than Nuclear but in the region of 11 – 15 times more costly than Gas-firing.
Solar PV is slightly more cost effective than Offshore wind power being 1.6 – 2.6 times more costly than Nuclear to install and 10 – 12 times more costly than Gas-firing in the long-term.
Offshore wind and Solar PV together are responsible for more than 60% of the excess costs of the EU(28) Renewables fleet even though they are responsible for only ~37% of the Renewable power output produced.
These significant excess costs represent the wastage imposed on the European population both via direct taxation by supporting subsidies to Weather Dependent Renewables and then also added to utility bills Europe wide by the Government mandates imposing Renewables on European electricity generation. That wastage amounts to a very regressive tax burden imposed on the poorest in European society. It is leading to ever increasing Europe-wide “Energy Poverty”.
Participation and Costs to Individual European Nations
The primary Nations involved with Weather Dependent Renewables in the EU(28) and their local commitments amounting in total to ~344GW installed are shown graphically below. These results are based on up to date EurObserve’ER information and 2020 comparative cost information from US EIA.
The name plate value of the 2020 EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewable installations reported by EurObserv’ER is shown below:
Accordingly, Germany as a result of its long-term ”die Energiewende” policy has about about 3 times the commitment to Renewables of other European Nations.
The comparative take-up of EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewables by individual Nations in 2020 as measured by Gigawatts of nameplate capacity per million head of population is shown below.
The National contributions to the ~500 bn€+ capital investment in Weather Dependent Renewables is shown below:
The National contributions to the likely ~2,000 billion€+ long-term expenditure on EU(28) Weather Dependent Renewables is shown below:
The recently recorded cost differentials between Generation technologies, when accounting for their productivity, is shown below:
A more detailed assessment of UK Weather Dependent Renewables is shown here.
Comparisons to Gas-firing
At ~1.1bn€ / Gigawatt in capital costs and ~3.5bn€ / Gigawatt for the 60 year long-term, the use of natural gas is the most cost effective and efficient means of power generation currently available. In comparison with Gas-firing the additional capital costs that are incurred by each Renewable technology in the principle European countries committing to Renewables.
These excess costs calculations indicate of the scale additional costs that burden the economies of individual European Nations according to the US EIA 2020 data and recorded Weather Dependent Renewable productivity figures shown above, these total ~450 bn€ in capital costs.
The long-term excess costs in comparison to the use of Gas-firing amount to ~1,800bn€ distributed as shown below.
Comparison to Nuclear power
At ~6.7bn€ / Gigawatt in capital costs and ~16.1bn€ / Gigawatt for the 60 year long-term, Nuclear power is an effective and efficient means of consistent power generation with nil CO2 emissions and low land take. In capital cost terms Onshore wind power can be nominally cost competitive, however that comparison is just for total power output which does account the intermittent and variable performance of Renewable Wind power, which make real difficulties for Grid reliability.
These excess costs calculations indicate of the scale additional costs that burden the economies of individual European Nations according to the US EIA 2020 data and recorded Weather Dependent Renewable productivity figures shown above, these total ~85 bn€ in capital costs. However Offshore Wind power and Solar voltaics impose significant capital cost burdens when compared with Nuclear power.
The long-term excess costs in comparison to the use of Nuclear power amount to ~980 bn€ distributed as shown below.
Conclusions
These straightforward calculations show the scale of immediate and long-term costs associated with Weather Dependent Renewables across the EU(28). They amount to a capital sum in excess of 500 billion€ and a sum exceeding 2,000 billion€. were they to be maintained for the long-term, for ~10% of the EU(28) power production.
The capital costs of replacing the full 65GW of European Renewable generation output with reliable, dispatchable Gas-fired generation would be ~71 billion€ and the whole 600GW European Generation capability could be replaced by Gas-firing for ~660 billion€. CO2 emissions from Gas-firing are 1/2 those from coal-firing and about 1/3 of those from the burning of Biomass.
The benefit of these expenditures on Weather Dependent Renewables is the replacement of about 10% of European power output capacity by “nominally” CO2 neutral technologies. Electrical power generation results in about 1/4 of the total CO2 emissions output from Europe.
In 2019 Europe emitted 3,330 million tonnes of CO2, ~9.7% of the Global CO2 emissions. Accordingly at ~10% of ~25% of 3,330 million tonnes, the Renewable expenditures are being made to avert an annual maximum of ~83 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. Thus the CO2 emissions savings achieved from European Weather Dependent Renewables are as follows:
of the 2019 European CO2 emissions 3,330 million tonnes ~2.5%
of the 2019 Global CO2 emissions 34,164 million tonnes ~0.24 %
of the 2019 CO2 emissions growth growth from developing world 504 million tonnes ~16%
So the question should be asked “does the capital commitment of ~1/2 trillion€ and the probable future expenditures of ~2 trillion€ to replace ~10% of European power output and to avert ~2.5% of European CO2 emissions make economic good sense ?”
If the objectives of using Weather Dependent Renewables were not confused with possibly “saving the planet” from the output of the diminishing EU(28) proportion of CO2 emissions, their actual cost, their in-effectiveness and their inherent unreliability, Weather Dependent Renewables would have always been ruled them out of any engineering consideration as means of National scale electricity generation.
The whole annual EU(28) CO2 emissions output will eventually be far surpassed just by the annual growth of CO2 emissions across China and the Developing world.
It is essential to ask the question what is the actual value of these EU and government mandated excess expenditures in the Western world to the improvement of the Global environment and for the value of perhaps preventing undetectable temperature increases by the end of the century, especially in a context where the Developing world will be increasing its CO2 emissions to attain it’s further enhancement of living standards over the coming decades.
Trying to reduce CO2 emissions, in the Western world alone, as a means to control a “warming” climate seems even less relevant when the long-term global temperature trend has been downwards for last 3 millennia, as the coming end of our current warm and benign Holocene interglacial epoch approaches.
The Context in 2020
In spite of all the noisy Climate Propaganda of the past 30 years, in Spring 2020 the world was faced with a different but very real economic emergency arising from the political reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That emergency, with the world facing global economic breakdown as well as the immediate death of many elder citizens, should put the futile, self-harming and costly Government mandated attempts to control future climate into stark perspective. This real pandemic emergency and the self-harming reactions to it clearly shows how irrelevant concerns over probably inconsequential “Climate Change” in a distant future truly are. Edmhdotme
Iowa Climate Science Education 