Month: January 2023

Daily News 26 Jan 2023

Meet The Organisation Behind The Media’s Climate Hysteria

By Paul Homewood

In his Mail article this week, Ross Clark wrote about an outfit called Covering Climate Now (CCN):

This tougher tone in the media is partly down to an organisation called Covering Climate Now, an initiative by the Guardian and other outlets with Left-liberal leanings, to which some very high-profile news organisations, such as Bloomberg, Reuters, the Daily Mirror and Newsweek, have signed up.

It offers support to journalists to ‘forge a path towards an all-newsroom approach to climate reporting’. Its guidance includes: ‘Remember, an extreme weather story that doesn’t mention climate change is incomplete and potentially even inaccurate.’

For example, when reporting a hurricane, they were urged to add that ‘this comes at a time when human-caused climate change is consistently making storms more intense’.

So who are Covering Climate Now, who funds them and how do they operate?

This is how they describe themselves:

https://coveringclimatenow.org/about/

It is bad enough that this propaganda is being spread so widely across the global media. But their Guide about how to bring climate change into every story makes it clear that “facts” have very little to do with the endeavour:

https://coveringclimatenow.org/resource/your-guide-to-making-the-climate-connection/

There is no evidence whatsoever that climate change is supercharging anything, and the claptrap about communities of colour proves that this is purely a political spin operation. If CCN were really concerned with facts, they would spell out that poorer communities are much less vulnerable to weather events than they used to be because of economic development enabled by fossil fuels.

We have to look no further than the claim about hurricanes to know that the whole exercise is a fraud:

“This [hurricane] comes at a time when human-caused climate change is consistently making storms like it more intense.”

The IPCC however can find no evidence that this is the case, something which would be clear if what CCN say is true:

IPCC AR6

And NOAA are more explicit about Atlantic hurricanes, where there is more long term data available:

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

Which brings us to the question of who is funding this political campaign to brainwash the public?

It should come as no surprise to learn that the money comes from the usual load of far left, mostly American foundations, which we come across so often, like the Packards and Rockefellers.

https://coveringclimatenow.org/about/

The Park Foundation is an case in point. Their only real concern is for a “just, equitable and sustainable society”. As for being committed to an “independent media”, the last thing they want is that.

https://parkfoundation.org/

It is truly insidious that so much of our media seems to have sold out to this left wing agenda, and abandoned any commitment to actually checking the facts where climate is concerned. Remember that CCN say that Reuters, AFP and Bloomberg, who provide so much news content globally, are their partners.

I wonder who in these organisations originally agreed to giving up their editorial independence in this way?

FOOTNOTE

This whole story was brought to my attention by Neil Winton, who runs the Wintons World website. Neil was Reuters’ Science and Technology Correspondent in the 1990s, and as he says his reporting was always meticulously balanced, as Reuters then demanded.

His take on this scandal is here.

He has challenged Reuters to justify their abandonment of fact-based reporting through Reuters’ own in-house publication, The Baron, which keeps the retired informed of the latest news about the company. It will be interesting to see how Reuters respond.

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January 26, 2023 at 11:25AM

Daily News 26 Jan 2023

Friday Open Thread

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January 26, 2023 at 09:43AM

Daily News 26 Jan 2023

Should Nations Stop Using Fossil Fuels? (Part II)

From MasterResource

Part 1 can be found here.

By Julián Salazar Velásquez

Ed. note: Julián Salazar Velásquez, geologist and petroleum engineer with a mulit-decade career in the Mexican and Venezuelan oil industries, is a leading educator and proponent of free market energy. He is author of numerous articles and Gerencia Integrada de Campos de Hidrocarburos” (2020), a primer on the oil industry value chain. His four-part world view began yesterday and continues in Part III, and Part IV.

Part II: Hydrocarbons: Curse or Blessing?

The anti-fossil-fuel crusade by environmental groups has attracted financing from Russia (Figure 3) to reduce competition from oil and gas in areas of Europe, Canada and the US, as reported in 2017 in National Review by Austin Yack. His investigation showed that in 2012, an attempt was made to grant Chevron a license in Bulgaria to explore and produce shale gas. However, due to protests from environmentalists alleging aquifer contamination, the Bulgarian government relented and banned fracking. Russia then awarded Bulgaria a contract to supply natural gas at a 20 percent discount.

A similar experience occurred in Romania in 2013 where fracking had to be banned due to environmental protests. These actions consolidated the energy dependence of the European Union on imported Russian gas, delivered through a network of gas pipelines that supply fuel to the entire European continent.

In the context of the ongoing war by Russia against Ukraine, and the solidarity support of the European Union in the face of this aggression, there has been a threat by Russia to cut off the gas supply, which will generate severe problems of supply and energy shortage to face the winter of this year 2022.

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In line with the proliferation of demonstrations against the use of fossil fuels, the new trend in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, has been vandalism and public nuisances by Just Stop Oil to bring attention to the wide use of petroleum and its derivatives as fuels. This propaganda has had mixed results to say the least. (Figure 4)

Based on the above aspects, as a professional linked to the oil industry, I reflect on this situation and ask myself: Is this a fad, or is it the beginning of an escalating showdown with fossil fuels as a curse for humanity instead of a blessing?

I greatly regret the well organized, well funded attempt to demonize mineral energies as a curse for humanity. In Venezuela, a group called oil the “excrement of the devil,” making those of us in the industry seem like some sort of strange beings.

This reflection is based on the sympathy towards the slogans promoted by the world Left and its partners around the fashionable themes of “global warming” or “climate change” as it is called now, with very beautiful dreams of saving the planet or “Mother Earth” by protecting the environment and making us greener, such as: “energy transition,” “green and renewable energy,” “decarbonization,” “net zero,” “fossil free,” “CO₂ sequestration,” and many others that are already leading to dictated state policies in industrialized countries, and even in under-industrialized ones that have nothing to do with these issues. All of which I see as a threatening future for the industry, and more importantly, for the reversal of humanity’s progress, the first signs of which are already being felt.

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Based on the above, I ask myself:

Are the promoters, sympathizers, and activists of this “anti-oil” strategy and actions aware of the benefits that fossil fuels have given and continue to give to the world?

Many people, including professionals linked to the oil industry, sympathize with the idea, constantly spread by the media and social networks, that nations should stop using fossil fuels as soon as possible, to save the planet from global warming by CO₂ emissions.

Would this be feasible? Or would it rather drag us to the similar indicators that humanity had in the pre-industrial era?

I conclude that this would be the real catastrophe, similar to situations where promoters become attached to an unfeasible project, which is then implemented and changed without dealing with the negative consequences. The case I have experienced in my Venezuela is pathetic.

I get the impression that the drag on prosperity is unknown to these promoters, supporters, and activists; therefore, I therefore am inspired to write and educate about the immeasurable benefits of oil, gas, and coal on the development and progress of humanity and the well-being of modern life. The true foe of freedom and prosperity is the simplistic slogans: “just stop oil,” “no new oil,” “net-zero,” “energy transition,” etc.

Consider the benefits from more than 6,600 products derived from oil and gas which comfort and quality to modern living.

1. Plastic industry, with its packaging products, bottles, bags, cups, disposable products, plus the machinery and fuels that move it.

2. Food industry, which begins with the fuels that generate energy for the work of agricultural machinery, transportation, manufacturing, distribution and preservation of food; as well as fertilizers and other products derived from hydrocarbons that we use as containers, in the conservation and refrigeration of our food.

3. Cleaning industry, from its initial phase with the machinery and fuels that move it and the products for our daily consumption such as: soap, lotions, toothpaste, shaving, dermatological, hair care, shampoo, deodorants, vaseline, products of paraffin and the infinity of household cleaning products.

4. Pharmaceutical industry, which begins with its equipment and manufacturing machinery that generate medicines, vitamins, cosmetics and medical supplies, which without their availability endanger the sustenance of our lives.

5. Textile industry, in its initial phase with the fuels that put into operation the machinery for the generation of petroleum-derived products for clothing made with synthetic fibers, dyes, raincoats and footwear with synthetic components.

6. Construction industry, which makes available the infrastructure and housing to accommodate our families, from the machinery and fuel that moves them and the products used such as asphalt, thermal insulation, plastic pipes, synthetic cement, glues, paints, waterproofing, heating and cooling equipment, furniture, kitchen utensils such as: parts of refrigerators, gas stoves, non-stick coatings, plastic containers and others.

7. Industry of land, sea and air transportation that needs fuel to move and the parts and spare parts that are mostly made with petroleum products in the form of: plastic parts, bodywork, pipes, cables, tires, liquids and internal furniture.

(To Be Continued in Part 3)

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January 26, 2023 at 08:32AM

Daily News 26 Jan 2023

In Unexpected Swing, Germany’s Public Now Favors Nuclear Power

Isar nuclear power site, Bavaria

Replacing what worked with what sounded good is finally running up against reality. The days of indulging in fantasy energy futures are fading. There’s so-called climate policy, and then there’s the need to survive the winters and keep the lights on. Back to the future.
– – –
Russia’s war in Ukraine is forcing a rethink of energy security not only in Germany but also by the entire continent, and nuclear power is one of the winners, says OilPrice.com.

For decades, Germany has maintained a love-hate relationship with nuclear power. Currently, Germany has three existing nuclear reactors that produce ~6% of the country’s power supply, a far cry from the 1990s when 19 nuclear power plants produced about a third of the country’s electricity supply.

The genesis of the current state of affairs can be traced back to 1998 when a new center-left government consisting of the Greens party and Social Democrats started demanding that the country moves away from nuclear power, a long-held objective of the Greens.

The Greens became prominent in the 1980s after they started rallying against the dangers of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons against the backdrop of the Cold War. Indeed, the last new nuclear plants to be built in Germany date back to 2002 after which plans were put in place to phase out all existing plants over the next few decades.

However, the tide turned again in 2010 after a coalition of the liberal Free Democratic Party and the conservative Christian Democrats rose to power and extended the use of nuclear energy in Germany by up to 14 years.

But alas, the newfound love for nuclear power was not to last: a year later, explosions and meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan soured the public’s mood on nuclear power and forced Germany to do another about-face on this policy. Berlin then returned to the original plan for a nuclear phaseout by the end of 2022.

But Russia’s war in Ukraine is forcing a rethink of energy security not only in Germany but also by the entire continent.

Up until last year, Germany and Russia were major energy partners, with the latter providing the country with the majority of its oil and natural gas. But Russia’s war has led to Europe and Germany scrambling for alternative supplies as winter looms. Germany is now rethinking its nuclear phaseout strategy, and the public is falling in line.

“We will need more electric power in the future. That’s a fact. And 6% can be a lot to miss when there is nothing new [to replace it]. We’d be losing 6% when we really will need more,”German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has told Deutsche Welle.

Previously, the majority of the public was in favor of the nuclear phaseout in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster; now over 80% are in favor of extending the lifespan of Germany’s existing nuclear reactors.

Nuclear energy is seen as a preferable energy source to a fall back to burning coal. According to Dutch-based anti-nuclear group WISE, nuclear plants produce 117 grams of CO2 emissions per kilowatt-hour, much lower compared to burning lignite which emits over 1,000 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour.

Back To Coal

But limiting greenhouse gas emissions is hardly a top priority for energy-starved Europe. According to a report by the Observer Research Foundation, energy supply disruptions triggered by Russia’s war on Ukraine took LNG prices even higher leaving coal as the only option for dispatchable and affordable power in much of Europe, including the tough markets of Western Europe and North America that have explicit policies to phase out coal.

According to the Washington Post, coal mines and power plants that closed 10 years ago have begun to be repaired in Germany. In what industry observers have dubbed a “spring” for Germany’s coal-fired power plants, the country is expected to burn at least 100,000 tons of coal per month by winter. That’s a big U-turn considering that Germany’s goal had been to phase out all coal-generated electricity by 2038.

Other European countries such as Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and Greece have also started restarting coal plants.

Full article here.

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January 26, 2023 at 06:00AM