Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized 26 Jun 2017

Green Killing Machines: Germany’s Coalition Government Makes Killing Animals Easy

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

In one of its increasingly clandestine late-night meetings, the German parliament has neutered the Nature Protection Act and partially abolished previous species protection regulations — in order to accelerate the construction of wind farms.

The power drunkenness of Germany’s grand coalition has no limits. Increasingly, unconstitutional and ragged laws are pushed through under cover of night. The latest outrage: Last Thursday (22 June), new ghostly rounds of shenanigans occurred in the German Bundestag. In one of its increasingly clandestine late-night meetings, parliament neutered the German Nature Protection Act and partially abolished previous species protection regulations. This was done quite obviously to enable the construction of wind turbines in regions where this has hitherto been taboo.

At the centre of the legal changes is the so-called killing-prohibition of animals. Bats, for instance, were protected in accordance with the Federal Nature Conservation Act and were not allowed to be killed. If a construction project threatened to violate this prohibition of killing, it could not be approved. If building a new road was to be to prevent, the law has been very welcome; however, when it comes to the construction of wind turbines, the ban on killing has become an unwelcome obstacle.

Now, however, the windmill ideologues have succeeded: Parliament and government have pushed through what the German wind lobby has been demanding since 2008, to give the interests of a subvention-savvy industry preference over wildlife protection. The prohibition of wildlife killing is being eroded in favour of wind energy projects. The draft law for the amendment of the Federal Nature Conservation Act, which was first published in December 2016, was voted through by a few dozen MPs at around 22:15.

The Bavarian Association for Landscape Care and Species( VFLAB) and the initiative “Reasonable Power” write:

“After a storm of indignation by ideology-free nature conservation organisations, it had been quiet for several months. It was taken for certain that nothing would be done in this legislative period. Contrary to all expectation, however, the amendment was added to the agenda of the Bundestag at short notice. Obviously, a gap in public attention was being exploited to push through this far-reaching change in the law in favor of the wind energy lobby shortly before the current parliament comes to an end.”

In recent years, the construction of the often useless 27,000 wind farms has violated species protection regulations and has regularly exceeded the expansion limits stipulated by the legislator. Now that all hurdles have been removed, the champagne corks are popping up in the wind industry’s board rooms. The ideological elimination of species protection is reminiscent of the darkest times of the 1960s concrete mania, when the then transport minister Georg Leber promised: “No German is to live more than 20 kilometers away from a motorway driveway”. Fortunately, this obsession has been done; instead, everyone should now see a wind turbine spin in front of their bedroom window.

Here is a statement by the German Wild Animal Foundation issued last December when the draft of the new law was presented:

In the context of amending the law, central concerns of nature conservation are to be ignored when it comes to the construction of wind farms. “The amendment leads to a dramatic increase in the threat to birds and bats posed by wind energy installations. That is unacceptable, “says Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, sole director of the German Wildlife Foundation.

The intended revision of § 44 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act is intended to impose a loosening of the previous prohibition of killing and injuring of animals if such “impairment is unavoidable”. Unavoidable impairments can occur in the operation of wind turbines. This would mean a relaxation of how to handle the power-plant related risks to birds and bats. “The killing of birds is thus no longer a fundamental obstacle to the construction of wind power plants”, Professor Vahrenholt criticised.

As a result, the growing danger of a collision of wild animals such as birds and bats with wind turbines will be increased further. This amendment is justified by the claim that the development of wind energy is in the public interest. This allows wind farm operators to obtain exemptions from the prohibition of killing wildlife.

The rapid expansion of renewable energies, such as wind power, already leads to serious violations of the prohibition of killing (§ 44 BNatSchG). Just how dramatic the conflict between wind energy expansion and species protection is has recently been documented in a study by Dr. Klaus Richarz (Wind energy in ecological forest habitats) which was commissioned by the German Wildlife Foundation.

Already, German wind farms are killing 250,000 bats and more than 12,000 birds of prey per year. The list of endangered species listed in the study reads like the “Who is Who” of the bird kingdom. Public resistance is growing too: According to a survey by Emnid last October shows that 80 per cent of respondents are against wind farms in the forest – with 87% of rejection the opposition in Eastern Germany is particularly high.

While companies such as Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) are forced by law to resettle lizards for millions of euros, the same legislator has now opened the door to the massive killing of rare animals. This double standard is purely ideological. An animal that dies as a result of normal economic activity (for example, because an industrial plant contaminates a lake or a a river) continues to enjoy the full protection of the law. An animal killed by wind turbines for the purpose of the Green Energy Transition, however, dies for the good cause. This has nothing to do with appropriate legislation, but much with ideology. The way in which this law has been smuggled through in a cloak-and-dagger operation is testament to the fact that the guilty parties are well aware of what they have done.

Full post (in German)

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

June 26, 2017 at 11:51AM

Uncategorized 26 Jun 2017

Another ridiculous scare tactic: 2 billion climate change refugees by 2100

via Watts Up With That?
http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

From the “it didn’t work out with 50 million, so let’s go for 2 billion and date further our that can’t be verifed in our lifetime” department. Remember the “50 million climate refugees by 2010” scare, that worked out so badly that the U.N. had to “disappear it” from their website?

Well, like zombies that never die, it’s back, and stronger than ever. But, it’s from a sociologist, so take it with a grain of salt, and maybe the whole salt shaker.

Rising seas could result in 2 billion refugees by 2100
CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – In the year 2100, 2 billion people – about one-fifth of the world’s population – could become climate change refugees due to rising ocean levels. Those who once lived on coastlines will face displacement and resettlement bottlenecks as they seek habitable places inland, according to Cornell University research.

“We’re going to have more people on less land and sooner that we think,” said lead author Charles Geisler, professor emeritus of development sociology at Cornell. “The future rise in global mean sea level probably won’t be gradual. Yet few policy makers are taking stock of the significant barriers to entry that coastal climate refugees, like other refugees, will encounter when they migrate to higher ground.”

Earth’s escalating population is expected to top 9 billion people by 2050 and climb to 11 billion people by 2100, according to a United Nations report. Feeding that population will require more arable land even as swelling oceans consume fertile coastal zones and river deltas, driving people to seek new places to dwell.

By 2060, about 1.4 billion people could be climate change refugees, according to the paper. Geisler extrapolated that number to 2 billion by 2100.

“The colliding forces of human fertility, submerging coastal zones, residential retreat, and impediments to inland resettlement is a huge problem. We offer preliminary estimates of the lands unlikely to support new waves of climate refugees due to the residues of war, exhausted natural resources, declining net primary productivity, desertification, urban sprawl, land concentration, ‘paving the planet’ with roads and greenhouse gas storage zones offsetting permafrost melt,” Geisler said.

The paper describes tangible solutions and proactive adaptations in places like Florida and China, which coordinate coastal and interior land-use policies in anticipation of weather-induced population shifts.

Florida has the second-longest coastline in the United States, and its state and local officials have planned for a coastal exodus, Geisler said, in the state’s Comprehensive Planning Act.

Beyond sea level rise, low-elevation coastal zones in many countries face intensifying storm surges that will push sea water further inland. Historically, humans have spent considerable effort reclaiming land from oceans, but now live with the opposite – the oceans reclaiming terrestrial spaces on the planet,” said Geisler. In their research, Geisler and Currens explore a worst-case scenario for the present century.

The authors note that the competition of reduced space that they foresee will induce land-use trade-offs and conflicts. In the United States and elsewhere, this could mean selling off public lands for human settlement.

“The pressure is on us to contain greenhouse gas emissions at present levels. It’s the best ‘future proofing’ against climate change, sea level rise and the catastrophic consequences likely to play out on coasts, as well as inland in the future,” said Geisler.

###

Source: http://ift.tt/2te3Cp3

The paper: http://ift.tt/2sTsxeE

Impediments to inland resettlement under conditions of accelerated sea level rise

Abstract

Global mean sea level rise (GMSLR) stemming from the multiple effects of human-induced climate change has potentially dramatic effects for inland land use planning and habitability. Recent research suggests that GMSLR may endanger the low-elevation coastal zone sooner than expected, reshaping coastal geography, reducing habitable landmass, and seeding significant coastal out-migrations. Our research reviews the barriers to entry in the noncoastal hinterland. Using three organizing clusters (depletion zones, win-lose zones, and no-trespass zones), we identify principal inland impediments to relocation and provide preliminary estimates of their toll on inland resettlement space. We make the case for proactive adaptation strategies extending landward from on global coastlines and illustrate this position with land use planning responses in Florida and China.

Apparently, the sociologist is relying on projections like this one, which suggests a 6 meter rise:

Source: Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets

Reality suggests otherwise. Here is St. Petersburg, which has a 6 inch (0.1524 meter) rise in 65 years with no apparent acceleration.

via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

June 26, 2017 at 11:35AM

Uncategorized 26 Jun 2017

Climate change will make your plane late, imprison you at home, buckle roads, boil asphalt

via JoNova
http://ift.tt/1hXVl6V

It’s the end of the world, and kittens will probably die too. Here’s another round of Global Panic. Horror part I: you will get stuck at airport-world

Earlier this week, nearly 50 flights out of Phoenix were cancelled. At 120 degrees, the temperature forecast exceeded the airline’s 118 degrees maximum operating temperature.

It’s difficult not to connect the delays to climate change….

It’s difficult not to blame climate change, after a generation of brainwashing.

So Phoenix got to 48.9C which made it nearly as hot as Marble Bar, Australia, last year (when it was 49C). After 80 years of deadly global warming both towns were nearly as hot as Marble Bar was in 1922.

As the world continues to warm, such plane delays will become more common, says Camilo Mora, an associate geography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And that’s just the beginning.

And imagine what associate professors of geology might forecast on flight patterns circa 2080? You’ll never know if you read Fortune, where anyone can forecast climate bad-news, but prize-winning atmospheric scientists remain invisible if they stick to things they know, like the […]

Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

via JoNova http://ift.tt/1hXVl6V

June 26, 2017 at 11:09AM

Uncategorized 26 Jun 2017

Sucking Green Monster

via Science Matters
http://ift.tt/2oqIky9

Draining the swamp is one thing, difficult enough to do and then contend with the alligators nesting there. Caleb Rossiter is even more concerned about the infiltration of climate change activists into every branch of federal bureaucracy. His POV is explained in a Washington Examiner article Trump’s agenda faces climate deep state by John Siciliano | Jun 25, 2017.

Background

Rossiter, whose left-liberal credentials included a stint as counsel to former Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., who was one of Nancy Pelosi’s lieutenants after she swept to power in 2006, is a fervent supporter of clean fossil fuel development, and is sympathetic to Trump’s agenda. He made a name for himself for being a Democrat who is also a fervent critic of alarmist climate policy. His willingness to reject an article of faith in leftist and Democratic circles got him ousted a few years back from the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, where he was an associate fellow.

The Herculean Challenge

“So, there wasn’t much change at EPA this year, not much change at [the] State” Department, Rossiter says. People say Trump will “get it right next time” when it comes to the budget, Rossiter adds, but he isn’t convinced.

“It’s going to be hard … and this stuff is really deeply embedded in the budget. People are doing National Science Foundation studies, transportation studies based on the assumption that carbon dioxide is a clear and present danger to our country.”

Another long-term problem is that Obama planted climate change offices in Cabinet agencies all over the federal government. These climate offices are meant to direct, advise on, and recommend actions that have climate change as their guiding star. Their whole point is to ensure that federal agencies only approve projects that consider the climate consequences of government action.

Deep Green Climate Network

Tentacles are attached everywhere, but Rossiter provides examples of some the most obvious larger and more developed suckers.

The State Department‘s Office of the Special Envoy for Climate Change, or the SECC, which is responsible for negotiating climate deals and implementing U.S. policy on climate change.

The State Department also has an Office of Global Change, which represents the nation in any negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the same convention that handled the Paris negotiations with 194 other countries. It also handles negotiations with other international organizations that handle climate change policymaking, including the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization.

The U.S. Agency for International Development also has its own specialized Office of Climate Change. USAID is the nation’s primary distributor of foreign aid, and climate change is seen by the agency as one of the primary reasons its services are in greater need than ever before. USAID spends more than $300 million per year in 50 countries for “climate-smart development,” according to the agency.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has its Climate Change Program Office, which also guides the agency’s response by focusing on how global warming will affect agriculture, forests, grazing lands, and rural communities. It works to ensure that climate change is recognized and “fully integrated” into research, planning, and “decision-making processes,” according to the USDA website.

The Energy Department has at least two climate change or climate-related offices within its Office of International Affairs, overseen by the deputy assistant secretary for International Climate and Technology.
First, there is the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy, which coordinates clean energy development programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Second, there is the Office of International Science and Technology Collaboration, which oversees a number of programs with other countries to develop clean energy programs.

The Department of Transportation is another big Cabinet level agency with climate change policy strewn through it. One of its main initiatives is the Transportation and Climate Change Clearinghouse, which is designed as a “one-stop source of information on transportation and climate change issues,” according to the agency. “It includes information on greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, analytic methods and tools, GHG reduction strategies, potential impacts of climate change on transportation infrastructure, and approaches for integrating climate change considerations into transportation decision making.”

The list goes on, according to Rossiter. The Department of Justice has its own programs, as does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Education, he said.

Another large organization that the U.S. government is a part of is the World Bank. It is set up to fund projects all over the world, but has been known to hold up coal-fired power plant projects because of the threat of “climate catastrophe,” Rossiter said.

“A big one is at the bottom of your list at the Department of Transportation,” Rossiter said. “They put a lot of limitations on public transport, what can be approved, and they are very fixated on the greenhouse gas hypothesis.”

Tree growth in Queens sewer.

Next steps for Trump

Trump has taken some actions to disconnect the climate network, primarily by rolling back climate change regulations, land management decisions and international agreements such as the Paris climate change agreement. But all of these actions just scratch the surface, according to critics of Obama’s policies.

They say Trump hasn’t even begun to address the real grip that climate change alarmism had put in place within the government. Trump can turn off the engine, but other presidents can just as easily turn them on again if they are still there, which would leave Trump’s climate agenda in tatters.

Trump is attempting to strike out climate regulations painstakingly one at a time, which will take years, with no guarantee that a new president wouldn’t reverse all Trump’s actions. Revoking the endangerment finding would be a more secure method, because it would eliminate the raison d’etre for carbon dioxide regulation. At least, that’s what climate skeptics hope.

Rossiter said one of the weaknesses in Trump’s decision to leave Paris was that he failed to mention global warming science. “I wish Mr. Trump would have really cut the Gordian Knot by saying for scientific reasons it’s way too premature to restrict our economy on the basis of fears of climate catastrophe,” he said.

Rossiter believes the science isn’t as strong as most people say it is for taking action to stop global warming. “The 98 percent consensus is carbon dioxide is a warming gas. And it has, probably, some impact on the temperature,” but that “doesn’t mean you are immediately creating floods, hurricanes and droughts and locusts.

“This creates a problem because what we are trying to do, what we need to do, is defang the concept that has spread through the federal government. Once it’s defanged, it’s much easier to go through the executive branch agencies and say ‘look, our goal here is clean as possible generation of electricity for the wealth of the United States and the world.’”

Washington’s Future?