This was actually written by Mark Lawson. We are collaborating on a collection of papers covering the main problems with intermittent energy. He appears frequently in The Spectator and he is a published writer in his own right. His website.
Key points
The use of hydrogen as the medium of a power export market has an obvious, major flaw. Unlike coal or gas, hydrogen can be created anywhere where there is water, wind and sun. Why should any country import the gas when they can make it on their own territory?
Hydrogen is not like LNG. It is much harder to put into liquid form, is much more likely to leak and has different properties which make it a far more dangerous gas.
Hydrogen has been used as a feedstock in many industrial processes for decades, but the vast bulk of the gas is consumed in the same place it is made, from methane and steam. This is a cheaper method of manufacturing than by using electricity.
Energy losses from converting electricity from renewables into hydrogen and then back again at the other end means that it is less wasteful to use a transmission line. These can now carry power over thousands of kilometres. A battery is also a more efficient and safer means of storing power, at least compared to hydrogen.
Hydrogen is already used widely in industrial applications and certain specialised power applications such as fuel cells for submarines, but it has no role at all as a means of transmitting or storing power. Its main role is as a comforting fantasy for activists hoping for the green nirvana.
The worst idea of a bad lot
If we had to hand out awards for the worst idea among all the proposals for generating and storing “clean” energy, then the large-scale use of hydrogen as a sort of alternative to LNG would be a major contender for the top prize.
The very concept of using hydrogen as a means of storing power from countless “pie in the sky” solar, wind and photovoltaic projects has a major, obvious flaw which the many very smart, driven individuals involved in the area (mining billionaires come to mind) have apparently failed to spot.
Unlike power from coal and gas green power can be generated anywhere, and almost any country that can be named has at some point talked about becoming the “Saudi Arabia of wind” as UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson put it. In other words, why would, say, Japan, import horrifically expensive power from elsewhere when they can make horrifically expensive power in their own territory, including coastal waters?
This point was forcefully made by Professor of Engineering at the Australian National University, Andrew Blakers, in the Australian edition of The Conversation, an online site for academic articles, in early April (1). He says that in the March 2022 budget the federal government set aside hundreds of millions of dollars to expand Australia’s green hydrogen capabilities. These funds are supposed to help create a major green hydrogen export industry, particularly to Japan, for which Australia signed an export deal in January.
However, he also points out that Japan has more than enough solar and wind energy to be self-sufficient in energy and – assuming all that energy is harnessed – does not need to import either fossil fuels or Australian green hydrogen. Whether or not you agree with Professor Blakers that Japan can realistically meet all of its energy needs from local renewable energy the country can certainly generate hydrogen locally.
Background
Hydrogen is currently used as a feedstock for many industrial processes such as treating metals, producing fertilizer, and processing foods. Petroleum refineries use hydrogen to lower the sulphur content of fuels. Almost all of that commercial hydrogen comes from the traditional extraction method relying on steam and natural gas. And for good reason – this is by far the cheapest way of extracting hydrogen.
Proponents of renewable energy, however, now want to build hectares upon hectares of wind farms and solar energy generators to make hydrogen by passing an electric current through water. This involves putting two bare ends of a wire attached to a power source into the liquid. Hydrogen bubbles off the wire plugged into the negative side of the source, or cathode, and oxygen comes off the positive or anode wire.
The idea is to store this hydrogen in some way, preferably in liquid form like LNG, then ship it off to where it is needed as a replacement for fossil fuels in applications such as creating steel, generating electricity, powering electric vehicles, shipping and aviation. This is basically the vision set out in a 2019 report (2) produced by the impressively named Council of Australian Governments Energy Council Hydrogen Working Group, chaired by Australia’s chief scientist of the time, Professor Alan Finkel. This report set out pathways for developing such a trade, but it was full of recommendations for developing pilot projects and building supply chains. There was nothing about actual commercial opportunities. Like the bulk of recommendations in green energy the emphasis was on government action in order to create this export market, preferably by creating demand. Commercial interest would follow, or so it was hoped.
Should this hydrogen market come into existence vast amounts of hydrogen would be required but, as was not mentioned prominently in the Finkel report, the process of making, condensing and shipping hydrogen is known to be technical challenging and wasteful.
Professor Blakers cites an estimate that converting energy to hydrogen, shipping it to where it is needed and then converting back into energy could consume 70 per cent of the energy generated. Michael Liebreich, a senior contributor to BloombergNEF (new energy finance) wrote in 2020 (3) that as an energy storage medium, hydrogen has only a 50 per cent round-trip efficiency – far worse than batteries. He estimated that hydrogen-powered fuel cells, turbines and engines are only 60 per cent efficient – far worse than electric motors – and far more complex. As a source of heat, hydrogen costs four times as much as natural gas. As a way of transporting energy, hydrogen pipelines cost three times as much as power lines, and ships and trucks are even worse, he says.
Another factor that is particularly significant in Australia is the need for large quantities of very clean water for the process. This may not be an issue for the small pilot projects that will be funded by government grants, but it will probably preclude large-scale commercial production.
Activists who talk so glibly about using hydrogen to store energy are no doubt thinking of Liquid Natural Gas, which is now the basis of a thriving international trade using purpose-built container vessels. Thanks to enormous projects on the North West shelf and in Queensland, Australia’s exports in LNG are now double those of thermal coal by value.
The international trade in LNG started growing in the 1960s with the large scale adoption of techniques for liquifying the gas in giant facilities called “trains” and for keeping it liquid for long periods in what amounts to giant thermos bottles. LNG requires low temperatures, minus 160 degrees Centigrade, but the gas itself is a source of energy and some of that energy can be used to power the liquification process. Once at that temperature the liquid form of the gas can be stored relatively safely at atmospheric pressures. Apart from a couple of accidents when the technology was new, LNG has an impressive safety record.
All that occurred without the mixed blessing of government direction. The technical problems of shipping LNG were worked out, the facilities were built and customers were found to buy the output before the general public was fully aware of the general usefulness of being able to trade gas across oceans.
As noted, Hydrogen has been produced on a large scale for some time, albeit from steam and methane, but the bulk of it is consumed on the spot. Up to the 1960s hydrogen was also used in town gas pipelines, usually contributing around 10 per cent of the mixture in a still mainly methane system. This became uneconomic with the advent of the large-scale LNG industry.
Unlike LNG, hydrogen presents considerable difficulties in its storage and use. It is a much smaller molecule than methane, so seals and pipes that would comfortably prevent methane leakage do not keep hydrogen in. The liquification temperature for hydrogen is much lower than that of methane, specifically minus 253 degrees centigrade or just 14 degrees above what physicists call absolute zero – you can’t get any colder – and so requires considerably more energy to achieve and maintain. The alternative is to store the gas under very high pressures.
This leads to the problem of safety. Without getting into technical details, hydrogen has different burning and explosive properties to that of LNG and, as noted, a greater tendency to leak.
It is a far more dangerous substance than LNG. History buffs will recall the explosion and fire that destroyed the German airship the Hindenburg in 1937, which used hydrogen to stay afloat. The technology of airships was abandoned after that but the few such aircraft still in service use helium rather than hydrogen to stay aloft. At the very least, major hydrogen systems will require a stringent set of safety rules and procedures which may have to be learned the hard way.
Then there is the problem that switching to hydrogen is not just about slapping a hydrogen tank on an existing engine or using existing pipelines. Everything will have to be redesigned and rebuilt, all at eye-watering cost.
Faced with these inconvenient facts, activists offer counterarguments that range from the feeble to the ridiculous.
They claim that green power will be so cheap the wastage from using hydrogen to store the power will not matter. Really? Refer to the chapters in this book on renewable energy, in any case if it’s so cheap why wouldn’t each country create its own power and never mind any export market? If energy has to be shifted around internally, why not reduce the losses and use a transmission line? If power has to be stored then massed batteries may be almost as ridiculous a solution, but at least it would be cheaper, more efficient and (probably) safer than a hydrogen storage unit.
Another argument is that hydrogen can be stored cheaply in salt domes. These geological features are a key part of the formation oil deposits. The salt can be extracted comparatively easily to form large, underground pockets for gas storage, or so it is hoped. There are development projects in Europe and in the US looking at salt domes but the last word in this area such be left to another BloombergNEF report.
“Storing hydrogen in large quantities will be one of the most significant challenges for a future hydrogen economy. Low cost, large-scale options like salt caverns are geographically limited, and the cost of using alternative liquid storage technologies is often greater than the cost of producing hydrogen in the first place.” (4)
Activists also point to hydrogen’s possible use in town gas supplies. That is at least possible, but town gas mains are now run at much higher pressures than they were in the 1960s, and have been designed for methane, not hydrogen. There may well be safety issues.
There are already niche uses where the advantages of hydrogen outweigh the disadvantages such as in rocket fuel and fuel cells for submarines. However, the use of hydrogen as a means of storing and retrieving energy was the subject of considerable research long before the present activist enthusiasm but, unlike LNG, no technological solution permitting its commercial use in the power system has emerged.
To judge by the large amount of nonsense spoken and written about its use, the main value of hydrogen is not commercial at all. The gas’s main value has been to provide comfort to activists. It is one of the many fantasy stories they tell themselves in the expectation of some day reaching green nirvana, somewhere over the rainbow. It is about as much use as any other fantasy story.
References
(1) Australia plans to be a big green hydrogen exporter to Asian markets – but they don’t need it. The Conversation, April 4.
(2) Australia’s National Hydrogen Strategy, COAG Energy Council
(3) Liebreich: Separating Hype from Hydrogen – Part Two: The Demand Side, October 16, 2020.
(4) Hydrogen Economy Outlook – Key Messages, BloombergNEF, March 30, 2020
The Week That Was: 2022-04-16 (April 16, 2022) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week:“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” – Richard Feynman, conclusion to his report on the Challenger disaster.
Number of the Week: $94.8 Trillion
THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: TWTW will discuss Roy Spencer’s estimate of the human contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) as measured by the noted measuring facility on Mauna Loa mountain in Hawaii. The issues Spencer brings up apply to other efforts to establish causation through the use of statistics as well.
Over the past few months TWTW may have inadvertently implied that oceanic and atmospheric convection are not vital to the earth’s climate system, as discussed below.
Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography Ole Humlum wrote a report on the current state of the climate based on observations, not global climate models. Key points are presented.
Thanks to a shoddy survey, the Great Barrier Reef is dying again. Marine biologist Walter Starck and Jennifer Marohasy present evidence that it is not, exposing the shoddy survey.
Explained below, North America can become the energy arsenal of democracy, if Washington gets out of the way.
***************
Limits in Statistics: As Richard Feynman stated: “If there is something very slightly wrong in our definition of the theories, then the full mathematical rigor may convert these errors into ridiculous conclusions.” (TWTW, Mar 26). Such errors often result from overreliance on statistics. A real problem arises when politicized scientist, bureaucrats, and politicians claim the ridiculous conclusions are science facts, the same as physical evidence. On his web site Roy Spencer discusses such a problem when “Explaining Mauna Loa CO2 Increases with Anthropogenic and Natural Influences.” He writes:
“SUMMARY
“The proper way of looking for causal relationships between time series data (e.g., between atmospheric CO2 and temperature) is discussed. While statistical analysis alone is unlikely to provide ‘proof’ of causation, use of the ‘master equation’ is shown to avoid common pitfalls. Correlation analysis of natural and anthropogenic forcings with year-on-year changes in Mauna Loa CO2 suggest a role for increasing global temperature at least partially explaining observed changes in CO2, but purely statistical analysis cannot tie down the magnitude. One statistically based model using anthropogenic and natural forcings suggests ~15% of the rise in CO2 being due to natural factors, with an excellent match between model and observations for the COVID-19 related downturn in global economic activity in 2020.” [Boldface added]
Spencer explains the observations at Mauna Loa, then using differential calculus develops a “Master Equation” to infer (suggest) causation. This is separate from proving it. Proof requires physical evidence. Differential calculus computes the rate of change in one trend (phenomenon) of interest with the rate of change of another trend or phenomenon. Since the time of Newton, it is commonly used in physics such as calculating the orbits of the planets.
Spencer then goes through several attempts to correlate the changes in CO2 with changes in other trends:
“Global anthropogenic emissions, tropical sea surface temperature (ERSST), global average surface temperature (HadCRUT4), the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI), Mauna Loa atmospheric transmission (mostly major volcanoes), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).”
He writes further:
“The first thing we notice is that the highest correlation is achieved with the surface temperature datasets, (tropical SST or global land+ocean HadCRUT4). This suggests at least some role for increasing surface temperatures causing increasing CO2, especially since if I turn the causation around (correlate dSST/dt [change in sea surface temperature over time] with CO2), I get a very low correlation, 0.05.
“Next, we see that the yearly estimates of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions are also highly correlated with dCO2/dt [change in CO2 over change in time]. You might wonder, if the IPCC is correct and all of the CO2 increase has been due to anthropogenic emissions, why doesn’t it have the highest correlation? The answer could be as simple as noise in the data, especially considering the emissions estimates from China (the largest emitter) are quite uncertain.” [Boldface added]
Here is a major problem is using land-based surface temperature data used by many global climate modelers – it is extremely noisy because the effects of urbanization have not been removed. Many developing countries are experiencing intense urbanization as populations move from rural areas seeking a better way of life. Further, in developed countries much of the data is from airports, which have experience intense urbanization. Failure to remove the effects of urbanization results in ridiculous conclusions from global climate models.
Spencer concludes:
“The Mauna Loa CO2 data need to be converted to year-to-year changes before being empirically compared to other variables to ferret out possible causal mechanisms. This in effect uses the ‘master equation’ (a time differential equation) which is the basis of many physically based treatments of physical systems. It, in effect, removes the linear trend in the dependent variable from the correlation analysis, and trends by themselves have no utility in determining cause-versus-effect from purely statistical analyses. [Boldface added]
“When the CO2 data are analyzed in this way, the greatest correlations are found with global (or tropical) surface temperature changes and estimated yearly anthropogenic emissions. Curiously, reversing the direction of causation between surface temperature and CO2 (yearly changes in SST [dSST/dt] being caused by increasing CO2) yields a very low correlation.
“Using a regression model that has one anthropogenic source term and three natural forcing terms, a high level of agreement between model and observations is found, including during the COVID-19 year of 2020 when global CO2 emissions were reduced by about 6%.” See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
***************
Additions and Corrections – Convection: Over the past few months TWTW has focused on the work of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical physicists W. A. van Wijngaarden & W. Happer and extensions of this work by Howard Hayden to develop ten essays on Basic Climate Physics, posted on the SEPP website. This focus may give readers the false impression that a one-dimension model of outgoing radiation can describe the climate. That was not the intent.
The earth’s climate is a complex three-dimensional system where convection plays an important role in transporting heat to the tropopause where water vapor freezes out. Above the tropopause, infrared radiation more readily escapes into space. Also, atmospheric and oceanic convection transport heat from the tropics towards the poles. For example, the calculations van Wijngaarden & Happer are supported by observations over the Antarctic. There is more infrared radiation escaping from the top of the atmosphere than can justified by the surface temperature using the Stefan-Boltzmann law. This is from the atmosphere over Antarctica being warmer than the surface due to atmospheric convection.
Over the next several weeks, TWTW will endeavor to explain that convection is very important for the earth’s climate system, and that increasing greenhouse gases play a small role in this complex system. See http://www.sepp.org/science_papers.cfm.
***************
Observations, Not Imagination: In “The State of the Climate, 2021” published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Ole Humlum writes:
“This report has its main focus on observations and not on the output of numerical models, with the exception of Figure 39 (see p.38). References and data sources are listed at the end of the report”
The former Professor of Physical Geography at the University Centre in Svalbard, Norway, and Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography, University of Oslo, Norway, discusses air temperatures; oceans; sea level; sea ice; snow cover; and storms and hurricanes. Regarding air temperatures, he writes:
“Many figures in this report focus on the period since 1979 – the satellite era – when access to a wide range of observations with nearly global coverage, including temperature, became commonplace. These data provide a detailed view into temperature changes over time at different altitudes in the atmosphere. Among other phenomena, these observations reveal that a Stratospheric temperature plateau has prevailed since 1995.
“Since 1979, lower Troposphere temperatures have increased over both land and oceans, but most clearly over the land. The most straightforward explanation for this is that much of the warming is caused by solar insolation, but there may be several secondary reasons, such as changes in cloud cover and land use.”
For oceans he focuses on the Argo Program:
The Argo Program, which uses robotic floats to monitor ocean temperatures around the globe, and at different depths, has now achieved 18 years of global coverage, growing from a relatively sparse array of 1000 floats in 2004 to more than 3900 in December 2021. Since 2004, these floats have provided a unique ocean temperature dataset for depths down to 1900m. The data is currently updated to August 2020.
Although the oceans are much deeper than 1900m, and the published Argo data series still is relatively short, interesting features are now emerging from these observations. For example, since 2004, the upper 1900m of the oceans have experienced a globally averaged net warming of about 0.07°C. The maximum net warming (about 0.2°C) affects the uppermost 100m, mainly near the Equator, where the greatest amount of solar radiation is received.
He recognizes that a careful examination of the details is needed as more data comes in. He then discusses the problem of sea level:
“Global sea level is monitored by satellite altimetry and by direct measurement using tide gauges. While the satellite record suggests a global sea-level rise of about 3.3mm per year or more, data from tide gauges all over the world suggest a stable rise of 1–2mm per year. The tide gauges indicate no recent acceleration (or deceleration) of sea-level rise. The marked difference (a ratio of about 1:2) between the two datasets has no universally accepted explanation, but it is known that the satellite observations face complications in areas near the coast (see, for example, Vignudelli et al. 2019). Whatever the truth, the tide-gauge data are more relevant for local coastal planning purposes”
In the Climate Symposium 2020, the late Tom Wysmuller of the Right Climate Stuff Team recognized the 1 to 2 ratio and stated it was from a programming error in calculating sea levels from satellite altimetry. Interestingly, NASA emphasizes the observations from space on sea levels and ignores observations from space on temperatures. Selective science?
On issues such as sea ice, snow cover, and storms and hurricanes there are no general trends outside of what is considered to be normal. In short, the “climate crisis” appears to be man-made by politicians and politicized scientists, not based on physical evidence. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and https://therightclimatestuff.com/oct2020-symposium/.
***************
The Great Barrier Reef: The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is an important symbol for Australia, and it has been as distorted by Australian climate scientists as Arctic melting and polar bear extinction have been distorted by Arctic climate scientists. Writing in Quadrant, marine biologist Walter Starck gives an overview of the GBR and how algal life quickly changes with changing weather, without permanently affecting the living coral. He begins with some readily verifiable facts:
1/ Tropical ocean waters are generally nutrient poor and the symbiotic algal cells which give corals their colors are living near the lower nutrient limits for healthy plant growth. Their metabolism is sensitive to temperature and to achieve high efficiency it is fine-tuned to an optimum temperature range of only few degrees. Different strains of the algae are optimized to the differing seasonal temperatures and geographic regions.
2/ The strains of algae living in the tissues of corals change in accord with seasonal changes in water temperature. Such changes are usually gradual and the change in algae is not visually apparent.
3/ However, a more rapid change in temperature can result in the existing algal strain being expelled from the corals and [the coral] appearing bleached. Such rapid changes in temperature are not rare. Atmospheric cold fronts can result in sudden cooling. Likewise, calm periods lasting a week or more in warmer months can result in several degrees of warming near the surface when wave-driven mixing and water flows across shallow reefs fade away.
4/ If a temperature change is only brief, as in the wind returning after a calm period, the expelled algal strain may just be re-established. If the change is seasonal, a new strain of algae may replace the previous one. Such recovery can be relatively quick. A few weeks after a bleaching event, corals usually appear normal again.
5/ Bleaching mostly affects shallow reef areas where it is also conspicuous. In deeper channels and on the edges of extensive shallow reef flats where tidal flow of warm water off shallow areas occurs, some bleaching may extend a few meters deeper. Extensive reef areas at depths below about 10 meters are generally unaffected. The vulnerable shallow areas are also subject to occasional devastation from storms, floods or even just a good rain if it occurs when corals are exposed by a low tide.
Unfortunately, news reports and unscrupulous scientists claim changes are permanent when they are not, including those from heat events. Indeed, GBR is not the most diverse coral reef,
“It is also worth noting that the average sea surface temperatures on the GBR are a couple of degrees cooler than they are in the Coral Triangle area of northern Indonesia and the southern Philippines, where coral reefs reach a peak of biodiversity [not] found anywhere [else] on Earth.”
In a pair of posts on her blog, Jennifer Marohasy provides photo evidence of the worse part of current coral bleaching that the GBR is not dying. As she states:
“It is a travesty and a tragedy that one of the most beautiful and biodiversity ecosystems on this Earth is being falsely reported as dying.”
On April 10 she went to John Brewer Reef, described as one of the worst bleached sections. She found:
“There was some bleaching, especially around the perimeter of John Brewer Reef – on the sandy sea floor where the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) surveyed and concluded coral cover is never more than 30% – but most of John Brewer Reef is still covered in more than 80% colorful corals. This high percentage is denied by AIMS because they never survey the reef crest.”
It appears that relying on reports of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) is similar to relying on reports claiming dying grasslands from those who tour only the edge of the desert. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – Great Barrier Reef
***************
The Energy Crisis? Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Net Zero Watch is speaking in Australia. See Challenging the Orthodoxy.
***************
Arsenal of Democracy: Donn Dears brings up that thanks to its industrial strength, during World War II, the United States was considered the Arsenal of Democracy. Now, thanks to its oil and gas resources, greatly expanded by hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling it can be considered the Energy Arsenal of Democracy. TWTW adds Canada because US refineries are dependent on heavy crude for efficient refining to all necessary products. According to the EIA:
“In 2021, the United States imported about 8.47 million barrels per day (b/d) of petroleum from 73 countries. Petroleum includes crude oil, hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs), refined petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel fuel, and biofuels. Crude oil imports of about 6.11 million b/d accounted for about 72% of U.S. total gross petroleum imports in 2021, and non-crude oil petroleum accounted for about 28% of U.S. total gross petroleum imports.
“In 2021, the United States exported about 8.63 million b/d of petroleum to 176 countries and 4 U.S. territories. Crude oil exports of about 2.98 million b/d accounted for 35% of total U.S. gross petroleum exports in 2021. The resulting total net petroleum imports (imports minus exports) were about -0.16 million b/d in 2021, which means that the United States was a net petroleum exporter of 0.16 million b/d in 2021.
“The top five source countries of U.S. gross petroleum imports in 2021 were Canada (51%), Mexico (8%), Russia (8%), Saudi Arabia (5%), and Colombia (2%).”
Exports to Mexico exceeded imports from Mexico. With Canada and Mexico, North America can be energy independent of authoritarian governments. The question is when will Washington and the Canadian Prime Minister stop using false claims of dangerous global warming based on shoddy studies by the UN to cripple the vibrant fossil fuel industries?
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Defending the Orthodoxy, Change in US Administrations, Energy Issues – US, Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
***************
SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD – THE JACKSON
SEPP is conducting its annual vote for the recipient of the coveted trophy, The Jackson, a lump of coal. Readers are asked to nominate and vote for who they think is most deserving. The entire Biden Administration won in 2021, so individuals in it are still eligible.
The voting will close on July 30. Please send your nominee and a brief reason the person is qualified for the honor to Ken@SEPP.org. The awardee will be announced at the annual meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness on August 14 to 16.
***************
Number of the Week: $94.8 Trillion: According to accountant Paul Homewood,
“Eight emerging markets — India, China, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa, UAE, Nigeria, and South Africa [South Africa repeated] — will together need $94.8 trillion in transition finance from developed markets if they are to meet climate goals.
“India will need investments worth $12.4 trillion, nearly half of U.S. GDP, from developed nations and investors to help its economy transition to net-zero carbon emissions by 2060, according to a report. Without capital inflows and grants from the developed world, emerging economies including India’s will see household consumption fall by 5% on average each year, according to a study by Standard Chartered Plc.”
At the time of the Paris Agreement, the UN claimed it would need $100 Billion per year. Now it is $100 Billion a year for a thousand years? The next time John Kerry berates politicians in Indonesia to leave coal in the ground, as he did when he was Secretary of State under Obama, will he bring his personal checkbook?
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Experts Adrift: Solar Cycle 25 more active than expected
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Apr 10, 2022
African Research on Solar Cycles: Science vs. Net Zero
By James Wanliss, Master Resource, April 12, 2022
“Climate change is no hoax, because the climate always changes. Modest global warming might be beneficial for the globe. But not all climate change is beneficial. Cooling would be disastrous. This is especially so because, in a staggering display of wishful thinking, politicians continue to drain vast sums of national treasure to fund so-called alternative energy schemes.”
“The Nigerian paper argues that the modest warming over the past hundred years or so is largely due to natural phenomena.”
[SEPP Comment: The work of W. A. van Wijngaarden & W. Happer is for a cloud-free atmosphere and is devoted to the matter of radiative forcing (RFThe work of Howard Hayden shows that the average surface temperature depends on three variables: solar intensity, the greenhouse effect (of which radiative forcing is an incremental change), and the albedo. Blaisdell notes that IPCC tries to blame temperature changes on RF, whereas measured decreases in albedo are correlated with measured surface temperature increases. IPCC cannot account for increased surface IR emission, and blithely assumes slightly increasing albedo.]
The History of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model Episode Guide
The Health Physics Society (HPS) created this series of videos to examine the history of the most controversial question in our field: the LNT model. Click on the episode numbers to view the videos.
Videos featuring Dr. Edward Calabrese, Accessed April 12, 2022
“And by various Executive Orders, Biden has the whole federal bureaucracy committed to the fossil fuel suppression project, from stopping drilling to blocking pipelines to decommissioning power plants.”
“And it goes without saying that the world of academia has joined Side One with full unanimity. After all, these are the ‘smartest’ people; and the ‘smartest’ people all know that the ‘climate crisis’ can only be solved by suppressing fossil fuels.”
The Nature of Things: Trees Shed Leaves, Coral Bleaches
By Walter Starck, Quadrant, Apr 16, 2022
Epicentre of Mass Coral Bleaching – Still So Beautiful (Part 1)
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Apr 11, 2022
Leonard Lim’s Exquisite Photography of John Brewer Reef
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Apr 14, 2022
Defending the Orthodoxy
“I campaign for the extinction of the human race” (Les Knight’s ultimate solution to climate change)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, April 14, 2022
IPCC scientists say it’s ‘now or never’ to limit warming
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 10, 2022
“But the real objective of the UN is revealed by our old friend Jim Skea. co-chair of this IPCC Working Group and longtime member of the Committee on Climate Change:
“’Climate change is the result of more than a century of unsustan=inable energy and land use, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production’’ said Skea. ‘This report shows how taking action now can move us towards a fairer, more sustainable world.’”
[SEPP Comment: Disagree with allocating most of the 20th century warming to greenhouse gases.]
The latest last chance
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
The IPCC has produced its latest brick, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, aka the Working Group III component of its Sixth Assessment Report. And naturally it includes a brief (well, 64-page) Summary for Policymakers and a Technical Summary (145 pp.) because not even the authors’ mothers are going to read the full 2,913 page doorstopper. But before you rush to do so, let’s play a little game. Close your eyes and imagine what journalists were saying it said within hours of its appearance last week, namely before they too had read it. No, not “We’re all going to die.” That messaging, they have discovered, encourages fatalism and discourages people from bothering with the climate crusade. So this report takes a comparatively cheery tack: “We still have one last chance to save the planet, honest we do, for real this time. But only if, as usual, you give a lot more money and power to politicians.” There, we saved you having to read the rest.
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Interpreting extreme climate impacts from large ensemble simulations—are they unseen or unrealistic?
By T Kelder, et al. Environmental Research Letters, Mar 29, 2022
From the abstract: “Large-ensemble climate model simulations can provide deeper understanding of the characteristics and causes of extreme events than historical observations, due to their larger sample size.”
[SEPP Comment: They may also lead to more muddled or ridiculous conclusions.]
Speaking of messaging
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
“As the Economist incautiously allowed, the drafting of the latest IPCC report was all about messaging. And it’s striking that the mainstream press, famous critics of the rich and powerful, all seemed to have the same messaging memo: neither doom nor complacency, but optimistic urgency. Hence TheGuardian’s ‘The new IPCC report offers not only hope, but practical solutions. Governments that have signed off on it must now act’. And the New York Times. And Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, the Albuquerque Journal and everyone in between. Which for some reason gives the impression not of vigorous independent thought but of its habitual absence.”
Speaking of low confidence
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
“t’s not immediately clear why the degree of agreement would be independent of the amount and quality of evidence, unless there’s this bogus consensus being manufactured somewhere and facts be hanged.”
There’s still a way to reach global goal on climate change
“This 2 degree warmer world still represents what scientists characterize as a profoundly disrupted climate with fiercer storms, higher seas, animal and plant extinctions, disappearing coral, melting ice and more people dying from heat, smog and infectious disease. It’s not the goal that world leaders say they really want: 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.”
“In 2018 the United Nations’ scientific expert team studied the differences between the 1.5- and 2-degree thresholds and found considerably worse and more extensive damages to Earth at 2 degrees of warming. So the world has recently tried to make the 1.5 degrees goal possible.”
[SEPP Comment: Is total war with China the solution to this imaginary problem?]
2 More New Studies Reaffirm The CO2-Drives-Climate-Change Paradigm Has A Magnitude Problem
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zoner, Apr 14, 2022
Link to latest paper: High temporal variability of surface solar irradiance due to cloud enhancement effect over the Western Ghat mountains in peninsular India
By Padmakumari B. et al., Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, June 2022
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
“Even if we were willing to grant the alarmists their premises, that there’s this huge man-made climate crisis and fossil fuels must go, and we ask what they propose we should do, if they rush to propose something as incredibly environmentally and economically harmful as wind, and they respond to the evidence of its utter failure to date with the demand that its usage should be expanded a hundred-fold, we can only despair at the prospect of a meeting of minds.”
“Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect that [White House deputy climate adviser Ali] Zaidi talked about people who reject climate science findings but did not single out Republicans.”
[SEPP Comment: What if the findings are imaginary?]
Now, What About Those 9,000 Unused Drilling Permits?
By Jane Shaw Stroup, The Environmental Blog, Apr 1, 2022
More Gasoline Gimmickry From the Biden Administration
By Benjamin Zycher, Real Clear Energy, April 14, 2022
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
“He [Craig Idso] argues that CO2 provides enormous benefits that should be taken into account even by people who believe that it also carries significant costs. And nothing spoils a good debate like a quarrel over whether there’s any such thing as those ghastly tradeoffs in public policy generally and climate in particular.”
Problems in the Orthodoxy
The Magic And Mystery Of Turbulence
By Katie Spalding, IFLScience, Apr 6, 2022 [H/t Climate Etc.]
“The West is beginning its painful awakening to one very simple fact. This fact is that whoever controls the raw materials controls everything. And if those who control the raw materials play their cards right, they are likely to remain in control while the consumers of these raw materials deepen their dependence on these external suppliers.”
The Human Cost Of Moving Away From Fossil Fuels
The conversation about climate change needs to shift from simply reducing carbon emissions to ensuring that developing nations can take part in a diversified green economy.
By Devika Dutt and Alden Young, Noema, Apr 7, 2022
Model Issues
New evidence of climate model hot biases Part II
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
Link to paper: Advanced Testing of Low, Medium, and High ECS CMIP6 GCM Simulations Versus ERA5-T2m
By Nicola Scafetta, Geophysical Research Letters, Mar 14, 2022
“In the Chesapeake Bay area, subsidence averages nearly 3 mm/year; 11.5 inches per century. That’s in addition to almost 4.5 inches per century in isostatic subsidence, plus 7 to 9 inches per century in actual sea level rise. The total perceived sea level rise can be 24 inches per century – although two-thirds of that total has nothing to do with actual sea level rise. Indeed, the Norfolk Naval Station tide gauge at Sewell’s Point shows that the rate of actual sea level rise has not changed since the gauge was installed in 1927.”
CDN by the sea: Victoria BC
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
Link to: Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level
By Staff, National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool, UK,
“If you’re one of those short-sighted people who thinks in terms of centuries rather than millennia, over the next 100 years the sea level at Victoria will rise by about 2.6 centimeters, which on the San Juan Islands just east of Victoria would be one inch. And if you think one inch of seawater is an existential threat, you shouldn’t be living near the shore. Or arguably without adult supervision anywhere.”
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Newfoundland polar bear sighting updates and video
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Apr 14, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Sure it’s not the roofer checking out the shingles?]
Another polar bear on Fogo, this time on the south shore as sea ice surrounds the island
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Apr 10, 2022
Lowering Standards
Sorry, Nature, Associated Press, etc., Climate Change Is Not Making Hurricanes ‘Wetter’
By H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, April 14, 2022
Australia’s Coal Conundrum: Economy, Climate at Odds
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Apr 1, 2022
[SEPP Comment: A false dilemma typical of Power Mag.]
NPR Wrongly Blames Climate Change for Suffering Caused by Civil War, Corruption, and Weather
By Linnea Lueken, Climate Realism, April 7, 2022
Saving The Planet
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 12, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Thirty Years of the ‘Now or Never’ Climate Cry
By Itxu Diaz, National Review, Apr 7, 2022
5 things to know about liquefied natural gas and its role in the Ukraine crisis
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Apr 10, 2022
[SEPP Comment: It’s not Russian LNG to Europe that is the problem. It is pipeline gas, without expense of converting it to LNG for transport.]
Ocean life may adapt to climate change, but with hidden costs
From abstract: “These results demonstrate that while plasticity facilitated initial survival in global change conditions, it eroded after 20 generations as populations adapted, limiting resilience to new stressors and previously benign environments.”
[SEPP Comment: If the copepod, Acartia tonsa,, is allowed to adapt to rising temperatures and increasing acidity, it does. But if suddenly transplanted to different temperature and acid levels, it doesn’t adapt.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Climate change caused more rain during 2020 hurricanes: study
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Apr 13, 2022
Link to paper Attribution of 2020 hurricane season extreme rainfall to human-induced climate change
By Kevin A. Reed et al. Nature Communications, Apr 12, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Incredible! Comparing the 2020 season with what may have happened in 1850?]
PIK Researcher Stefan Rahmstorf Plays It Loose With His Sources, Mischaracterizes Wind Energy Drawbacks
Stefan Rahmstorf has problems with his sources
By Die kalte Sonne, Translated by No Tricks Zone, Apr 15, 2022
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Remarks by Chair Gensler Before the Ceres Investor Briefing
Posted by Gary Gensler, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, April 13, 2022
“The core bargain from the 1930s is that investors get to decide which risks to take, as long as public companies provide full and fair disclosure and are truthful in those disclosures.
“Over the generations, the SEC has stepped in when there’s significant need for the disclosure of information relevant to investors’ decisions.”
[SEPP Comment: Now public companies must respond to imaginary risks dreamed up by government bureaucrats?
Just what we need
By John Robson, Climate |Discussion Nexus, Apr 13, 2022
“Or what it’s actually for, though according to Climate Home News it’s the ‘High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities (HLEG)’ and it will ‘be supported by a small full-time staff at the UN’s New York headquarters.’ As the UN defines these things, as in vaguely but to their own closed-door satisfaction.”
[SEPP Comment: More reasons why the UN is of little value to the public, particularly to the poor.]
Questioning European Green
Environmentalists Are Crushing Europe’s Energy Independence Ambitions
“A true energy transition must be competitive, reliable, and cheap, not a tax-collection and looting machine. It must consider all technologies. More industry and fewer politics. More competition and less ideology.”
“That’s well said. But the NRDC, with roughly $180 million in assets, and the Sierra Club, with more than $88 million in assets, are sure to play a prominent role in the upcoming elections. Both groups have repeatedly testified in favor of joining RGGI and both groups have the resources to drown out the voices of state residents who pine for American energy independence.”
[SEPP Comment: The numbers are dated. The 2020 IRS 990 for NRDC shows Assets of $442,842,000 and Revenue of $181,822,000. The 2020 IRS 990 for Sierra Club shows Assets of $129,884,000 and Revenue of $153,638,000
“Oregon State University has long received massive funding for their support of climate hysteria. The last I looked; the Federal Government gravy train leaves them upwards of $250 million dollars every year.”
Litigation Issues
UCLA ordered to release records showing coordination between law enforcement and ‘climate denialism’
“As previously reported by Legal Newsline, the original PRA request was initiated after an agenda from a ‘secret meeting’ at Harvard University was released by the Vermont Office of the Attorney General. Documents show that UCLA faculty participated in the meeting alongside climate activists, potential funders and law enforcement officials.”
[SEPP Comment: Publicly funded corruption?]
Fuel Producers, States Challenge New EPA Rule Effectively Mandating Electric Vehicles
By Kevin Stone, Environment & Climate News, April 12, 2022
NY AG launches gas price gouging investigation into the oil industry
[SEPP Comment: Is natural gas price gouging by the state politicians acceptable when they deny public access to low-cost gas?]
EPA and other Regulators on the March
Environmental Protection Agency’s Equity Action Plan
By Staff, EPA, April 2022
[SEPP Comment: In this wonderful array of executive orders, objectives, and priority actions there is no effort to assure affordable, reliable energy to the less fortunate, the poor. No doubt the warm feelings these actions create will keep them warm on cold nights.]
Highly anticipated EPA draft says formaldehyde causes cancer
By Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Apr 14, 2022
“In response to the EPA’s draft, the American Chemistry Council trade group said it ‘strongly objects to this decision,’ stressing that the release ‘follows several unheeded calls by industry and lawmakers to address clear process deficiencies”’— such as transparency issues, bias and other ‘irregularities.’”
Energy Issues – Non-US
Largest CCGT Plant in Southeast Asia Now Fully Operational
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Mar 31, 2022
Chinese Refiners Cut Output At An Alarming Rate
By Tsvetana Paraskova, Oil Price.com, Apr 14, 2022
“The reason that Boston was getting gas from Russia, for instance, was because the state of Massachusetts [and New York] refused to allow a pipeline to bring it from Pennsylvania. That’s the same reason, by the way, that, in January of 2022, the citizens of Boston … were paying 400% more for natural gas than those Pennsylvanians only 200 miles away — in the middle of a New England winter.”
Electrification Can Strengthen America’s Energy Security, But Requires New Focus on U.S. Rare Earth and Critical Mineral Supply Chains
By Debra Phillips, Real Clear Energy, April 13, 2022
Electrification Ignites Debate Over Future of Energy
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Apr 1, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Brings up the interesting view that for the private citizen, buying an Electric Vehicle (EV) is like buying a large electric appliance. Unfortunately, it fails to discuss that solar and wind generation need significant back-up or storage. The costs of these are ignored. So is the disruption that distributive generation (local wind and solar) creates.]
Washington’s Control of Energy
Biden administration announces new oil, gas lease sales, royalty hike
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Apr 15, 2022
“The Interior Department also announced a royalty hike, increasing rates from 12.5 to 18.75 percent.”
“Now it’s this proposal to dramatically increase the cost of onshore leases while cutting the acres offered for lease by 80 percent. The president claims he’s doing nothing to limit domestic production, but once again his administration is making American energy more expensive and harder to produce.” Senator Barrasso (R-Wyo)
“The Haynesville Shale (technically Haynesville/Bossier) in northeast Texas and northwest Louisiana is the third largest natural gas play, in terms of production rate and proved reserves, in these United States.”
Column: U.S. gas storage emptied by exports to Europe and Asia
[SEPP Comment: Will Washington allow fast replenishment?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
‘We’re all in trouble’ – Wind turbine makers selling at a loss
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 14, 2022
“More evidence that low wind prices at auctions are unsustainable:”
Texas Republicans: Backlash to Big Wind Brewing
By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, Apr 15, 2022
Killing eagles is fine, just get your permit first
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Apr 13, 2022
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Hydrogen 11 times worse than CO2 for climate, says new report
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 14, 2022
Link to one report: Atmospheric implications of increased Hydrogen use
By Nicola Warwick et al. UK Government, April 2022
“’But when it’s released directly into the atmosphere, hydrogen itself can interact with other gases and vapors in the air to produce powerful warming effects. Indeed, a new UK Government study has put these interactions under the microscope and determined that hydrogen’s Global Warming Potential (GWP) is about twice as bad as previously understood; over a 100-year time period, a tonne of hydrogen in the atmosphere will warm the Earth some 11 times more than a tonne of CO2, with an uncertainty of ± 5.’”
“Why Shipping Pure Hydrogen Around The World Might Already Be Dead In The Water”
By P Gosselin, From Die kalte Sonne, Via No Tricks Zone, Apr 13, 2022
Link to article: SPECIAL REPORT: Why shipping pure hydrogen around the world might already be dead in the water
Physics and cost mean that ammonia is a far more economic option for long-distance seaborne transportation,
The End For Electric Cars? VW Develops New Hydrogen Technology: “2,000 Km On A Single Tank Of Fuel”!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Apr 12, 2022
Only one electric car can beat ‘range anxiety’ and make it to the North–If you’ve got £100K!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 10, 2022
“’ More than 190,000 electric cars were sold in Britain last year and they accounted for about 11.6pc of total sales, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders. However, there are still significant drawbacks to electric cars.’”
[SEPP Comment: The driving distance is roughly 666 kilometers (414 miles).]
California Dreaming
California proposes to triple electric vehicle sales by 2026
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Apr 13, 2022
Other Scientific News
Monarch butterflies increasingly plagued by parasites
“According to the seismologist Alice Walker on the 8th August 1992 the police called the British Geological Survey saying that people had contacted them saying there had been an earthquake in London and did they know anything about it? It was reported that some people left tower blocks in fright. It was soon released that the cause of the earthquake was a concert by the pop group Madness in Finsbury Park.”
Ban European flights and car use in cities to hurt Putin, report urges
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Apr 15, 2022
Government’s Net Zero plan for tree planting may increase global warming, climate scientists find
Findings by an international team of climate scientists suggest that the government’s Net Zero project to plant millions of tree in Britain is likely to increase rather than decrease global temperature.
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Apr 12, 2022
Link to paper: The Unseen Effects of Deforestation: Biophysical Effects on Climate
By Deborah Lawrence, et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, Mar 24, 2022
TWTW Summary: After describing how many Americans are reacting to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the executive director of the Washington Institute states:
“Many Arabs see it differently. They view America in 2022 through the lens of their experience over the past 30-plus years. For them, something is amiss.
“In 1990, when an Arab aggressor invaded his smaller, weaker neighbor—Saddam Hussein swallowing Kuwait—the response of the American president, George H.W. Bush, was to declare ‘this will not stand.’ He then orchestrated the greatest international coalition since World War II, including half a million U.S. troops, to expel the invader, restore Kuwait’s sovereignty and arrange for billions to rebuild the country. Arabs like to recall that when America showed steely resolve against aggression, their leaders responded to Washington’s call, both by contributing troops and by hosting coalition forces. It was the high moment of Arab confidence in America’s resolve.”
“Their more recent experience with America has left a bitter taste. They recite a list of complaints.
“This started with Barack Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo, interpreted as offering an outstretched hand to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was followed by the decision to cast off Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, America’s longest-serving Arab ally. It continued with Mr. Obama’s almost casual ceding of Syria to Russian control by refusing to enforce his own ‘red line’ against the use of chemical weapons. And it peaked with his counsel that Saudi Arabia, a decades long security partner, should learn to share the Middle East with the radical leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with whom he negotiated a controversial agreement that rewarded Iran for postponing, but not abandoning, its nuclear ambitions.
“The Arabs’ list of complaints then moves to the mercurial years of Donald Trump, who talked about restoring partnerships with traditional friends but showed an ‘America first’ indifference when Iran attacked the largest oil-processing facility in Saudi Arabia.
“With the current administration, many Arabs point to multiple embarrassments. There is Iran’s practice of retaliating against Israeli attacks by targeting U.S. assets because it knows America won’t respond. Iran has reportedly secured unexpected concessions from U.S. diplomats at the still-inconclusive Vienna nuclear talks. Washington has limited its response to multiple Iranian missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, refusing to impose any direct cost on Iran for its aggression.
“The result is that, in the eyes of many Arabs, America’s impressive military assets throughout the Middle East are a decoy that masks a withdrawal of commitment and resolve.
“When seeing America’s we’ll-fight-to-the-last-Ukrainian approach to Russian aggression, many Arabs conclude that the U.S. can’t be counted as a reliable security guarantor, and that nuclear weapons—which Russia has, Iraq didn’t and Ukraine gave up—make all the difference.
“Many add to this list the case of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi. They note that he negotiated away his nuclear ambitions only to be removed from power and killed a few years later.
“To be sure, many of my Arab interlocutors have perfected the art of expressing grievance through historical cherry-picking: highlighting America’s inadequacies while sidestepping their own governments’ follies and self-inflicted wounds. The reality is more complicated, and no critique of American policy can justify indulgence of Russia’s criminal behavior or reluctance to lend assistance to the Ukrainian people.
“These Arabs have a point, however. If a U.S. president is unwilling to say in 2022 what his predecessor said in 1990, ‘this will not stand,’ it is not unreasonable to doubt American resolve and seek deterrence elsewhere.
“The serious ones know they won’t find it in Moscow or Beijing. Some may turn to Israel, which can certainly help, but that country of under 10 million people isn’t a superpower. The answer, if one exists, comes back to Washington.
“The U.S. needs to find a way to bolster these Arabs’ confidence in the strength of American resolve. In part, this means a willingness to operate in the Middle East the way Iran does, with force and intimidation as tools of diplomacy. And in our bilateral relations, this doesn’t mean allowing our friends to buy anything they want in the Pentagon catalogue, but it does mean letting them purchase more than defensive weaponry that does nothing to dissuade Iran.
“If we can’t do this, we should not be surprised to wake up one morning to find that some of these states have drawn the not-irrational conclusion that security can only be found in the pursuit of their own nuclear weapons. That’s a sobering lesson to take from Ukraine.”
Natural climate variation has always been, and still is, a fact of life, regardless of minor changes to trace gases in the atmosphere.
– – –
Extreme weather not just a modern phenomenon as study reveals how British towns experienced drastic climate during ‘Little Ice Age’
* * *
Extreme weather caused by global warming is one of the biggest threats facing the world today, claims the Daily Telegraph.
However, a research project has thrown light on the catastrophic climate shift endured by England just a few centuries ago, which brought snowstorms that lasted weeks, flooding which washed away entire villages and winds that sank flotillas of ships.
From the 1500s to the 1700s, England went through an unusually cold and stormy period, nicknamed the Little Ice Age, which was possibly caused either by reduced activity from the sun, volcanic eruptions or atmospheric changes.
The strange climatic shift happened before weather was accurately monitored, so Western University in Canada has trawled through diaries, chronicles and political treatises to find out exactly what happened and map the areas worst hit. It makes for sobering reading.
“The material that we’ve been gathering is totally different from anything that’s been gathered,” said Prof Madeline Bassnett, the director of the project.
On one catastrophic day, Oct 5 1570, the team uncovered dozens of anecdotes recounting widespread devastation following violent storms.
In Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, an innkeeper and his son were swept away along with their home, which was deposited six miles away in an “inhospitable marsh”.
On the same day, Holinshed’s Chronicles detailed how the “whole towne” of Mumby, Lincolnshire was lost to rising floodwaters “except three houses”.
Iowa Climate Science Education 