“Scientists” say Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record low, due to the burning of fossil fuels. Record low Antarctic sea ice ‘extremely unlikely’ without climate change, says scientists Antarctic sea ice extent is 15th highest since 1978, and … Continue reading →
via Real Climate Science
January 6, 2025 at 08:33AM
Essay by Eric Worrall
“… people spend more time outside … they are more likely to go to the beach or to the park … this means that their home will be unattended …”
Crime-ate change: Shock link between rising temperatures and rising crime rates
As temperatures continue to soar, a sobering study has found climate change will be responsible for 72,000 additional crimes a year in Australia.
Adelaide Lang
January 5, 2025 – 5:00PMAustralia will have to contend with an additional 1.64m crimes created by climate change over the course of the rest of the century, an alarming study has found.
Researchers Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, Russell Smyth, and Trong-Anh Trinh came to the staggering conclusion after matching weather data with crime rates over an 18-year period.
Their paper ‘Crime, Weather, and Climate Change in Australia’ found that increasing extreme heat events in Australia will generate an additional 72,000 crimes per year.
If emissions continue to rise as predicted, those yearly increases will amount to approximately 1.64m additional crimes throughout the rest of the 21st century.
…
A study published in 2022 analysed data from 171 countries over a decade and found a positive association between increasing temperatures and rates of homicide.
…
The referenced study;
Crime, Weather and Climate Change in Australia*
Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, Russell Smyth, Trong-Anh Trinh
First published: 30 January 2023
Open access publishing facilitated by RMIT University, as part of the Wiley – RMIT University agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.
Abstract
We estimate the effect of temperature on monthly crime using a panel dataset that matches weather with crime rates for over 3,000 postcodes in Australia over the period 2001–2019. We find that a standard deviation increase in average temperature is associated with a 0.008–0.011 standard deviation increase in the crime rate, depending on the specification. This translates to over 72,000 additional crimes per year across Australia. We estimate that over the course of the rest of the century, under a business-as-usual pathway, climate change will be responsible for approximately 1.64 million additional crimes.
Read more: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-4932.12720
The study explanation for why crime spikes on hot days are hilarious;
…
[T]he likelihood of being punished is a direct function of police deterrence and will be lower if the police reduce their patrolling on hot days. Given that police are paid a fixed hourly salary, if effort is more costly on hot days then a simple principal/agent model would predict that they would devote less effort on days when it is more comfortable to remain in an air-conditioned office or police car.
Temperature can also affect the expected cost of property crimes, such as burglaries, although this relationship is less clear cut. If people spend more time outside their home on hotter days – for example, if they are more likely to go to the beach or to the park to enjoy the sunshine or to the air-conditioned shopping centre to escape the heat – this means that their home will be unattended and reduces the probability that a potential burglar will be apprehended. However, on uncomfortably hot days, people may prefer to remain indoors with the air-conditioning on. If there is a positive relationship between the weather and the amount of time spent outside the home, this is likely to increase the likelihood that crimes committed outside the home will be detected and, hence, increase the expected costs of crime outside the home.
Studies have also documented that temperature influences judicial decision-making and, as such, could potentially affect the probability of being convicted and/or length of sentence and/or fine imposed (see, e.g., Heyes & Saberian, 2019).4 However, the temperature at the time of the trial or when the sentence is handed down is not in the information set of someone contemplating committing a crime and should not influence the decision as to whether to engage in illegal activity (Heilmann et al., 2021).
…
Read more: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-4932.12720
The premise that warm weather is a major driver of criminal activity is absurd. Hot climate countries like democratic Singapore, along with Arab gulf states like Dubai and Saudi Arabia, they have no problem keeping crime rates low.
I agree there is a problem with police motivation in Australia, but my personal experience is the poor motivation of police in Australia is not caused by warmer weather.
I live in a quiet rural town, but two years ago, a couple of teenagers rode scooters down the street, stabbing vehicle tires then sprinting off to the next victim. They used a narrow blade, so it wasn’t immediately obvious what had happened.
Everyone was furious, especially after we learned from neighbours one of the thugs had terrified an elderly pensioner couple by menacing them with the knife. People started organising into parties to find the criminals. I said to the police “if we catch them we’ll bring them to you”.
The police officer replied “There is no point bringing them to us. There is nothing we can do about it, they will be out the next day”. Sure enough, a few months later one of the police called me. The police went through the motions, but the judge imposed a non-custodial sentence, the criminals were back on the street less than a week after being arrested.
What would be the motivation for those police officers to endure discomfort on a hot day?
I don’t blame the judge – I’m sure the judge correctly applied the letter of the law. But Australia is signatory to a UN convention which discourages incarceration of minors, which allows hardened recidivist underage criminals to do whatever they want, until they actually kill someone.
Low crime rates in hot countries like Singapore and the Persian Gulf states at the very least prove weather is not the only factor. In my opinion low crime rates in hot climate nations with a strong culture of deterrence is evidence that Western nations could do a lot more to deter crime, regardless of the weather.
The killjoy suggestion that hot weather is a problem, because people are more likely to go out and enjoy themselves, in my opinion puts the onus for behaviour change on the wrong people.
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via Watts Up With That?
January 6, 2025 at 08:07AM
55.82553 -4.31558 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Installed 1/1/1991
“To ensure consistency of measurements in the records, weather stations must meet strict criteria, in alignment with meteorological organisations across the world. This includes specific standards on the levels of grass-cover within the observations area, as well as having enough clear space for the weather station to be free from the influence of non-meteorological factors on the readings.”
THE REALITY
The area of the boxed-in walled garden that houses the screen measures just 16 metres by 28 metres. The combined height of the walls and hedging is in excess of 3 metres. As can be seen from the above image there are also several large other objects in that same enclosure. The surroundings to the south and south west are reminiscent of a scrap yard. To the east there is another walled enclosure and the north and north west are a roadway and a hard standing loading area. The image below is the 10 metre radius from the screen.
This is allegedly a manual reporting station. Below is an example from the archived readings comments section.
There are over two hundred such entries until such time as they seem to have given up bothering to record lack of readings in 2012 – presumably it was more of a rarity that anyone actually turned up to take readings at all.
In conclusion the Pollok Country Park weather station ranks as a strong candidate for both the worst sited in the entire UK as well as the worst observed and maintained. The Met Office takes public money for many atrocious sites like these and should hang its head in shame if this is the best it can do.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
January 6, 2025 at 04:41AM
Quote of the Week: “… as far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”— Albert Einstein (1921)
Number of the Week: 30 years and 64 years before
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This Week begins with Roy Spencer’s report that 2024 was the warmest year in the 46-year UAH record of atmospheric temperature trends. Jo Nova presents data showing China is the world’s greatest emitter of accumulated CO2 from coal. Discussed is a paper showing that breeding may produce plants that are more efficient in using carbon dioxide for photosynthesis without any increase in fertilizer needs. Roger Pielke describes the imaginative efforts of some groups to attribute severe weather events to CO2. A 2021 paper that changes in global temperatures over millions of years are caused by CO2 is discussed with some of the faults presented. Bjorn Lomborg describes some of the consequences of the false claim that wind and solar produce cheap energy.
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The Warmest Year: Roy Spencer reports that 2024 was the warmest year in the 46-year satellite record of lower atmospheric temperature trends reported by the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The data collection dates back to December 1978. Spencer provides a chart showing a ranking of the years using the annual difference from the average annual temperature for the entire record. 2024 was significantly above the previous warmest year of 2023. 2024 is almost 0.77°C above the mean while 2023 was only 0.43°C. The coldest year was 1985, with the temperature about 0.5°C below the mean. The high temperatures appear to be influenced by El Niños, and the low temperatures by volcanos erupting.
Spencer writes:
“The Version 6.1 global area-averaged temperature trend (January 1979 through December 2024) remains at +0.15 deg/ C/decade [0.27°F] (+0.22 C/decade over land, +0.13 C/decade over oceans).”
The full report from the Earth System Science Center is not yet available, thus TWTW is reluctant to speculate on what it may say. Certainly, there are two possible explanations for this warming. One explanation is the string of three El Niños from 2022 on. These put more water vapor into the lower atmosphere resulting in less heat loss to space. The second is a decline in cloud cover. This explanation is discussed in “Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo” by Helge F. Goessling, et al., published by AAAS Science. The abstract states:
“In 2023, the global mean temperature soared to almost 1.5K above the pre-industrial level, surpassing the previous record by about 0.17K. Previous best-guess estimates of known drivers including anthropogenic warming and the El Niño onset fall short by about 0.2K in explaining the temperature rise. Utilizing satellite and reanalysis data, we identify a record-low planetary albedo as the primary factor bridging this gap. The decline is apparently caused largely by a reduced low-cloud cover in the northern mid-latitudes and tropics, in continuation of a multi-annual trend. Further exploring the low-cloud trend and understanding how much of it is due to internal variability, reduced aerosol concentrations, or a possibly emerging low-cloud feedback will be crucial for assessing the current and expected future warming.”
Previous papers have pointed out a warming of the oceans, particularly in the tropics. Since infrared radiation cannot penetrate the ocean surfaces beyond a few millimeters (small fractions of an inch) increasing atmospheric CO2 cannot be an explanation of ocean warming over a few years, but increased sunlight at sea level can. The full Earth System Science Center report should be out shortly. When it is released TWTW will discuss this subject further. See links under Measurement Issues – Atmosphere for the temperature trend report and under Challenging the Orthodoxy for the Goessling paper.
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China # 1? China has outstripped the US and the EU in annual carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, environmental organizations emphasize historic emissions rather than current emissions. They ignore that some of the emissions disappear into the environment. According to the annual fluctuation recorded at Mauna Loa and elsewhere part of the annual increase in CO2 is absorbed during the plant growing seasons, particularly in the Northen Hemisphere, there are strong drop-offs in concentrations every spring and summer. From the data it may be possible to estimate the CO2 lost to the environment and subsequently calculate a half-life for CO2 emissions. Much of this loss is going to vegetation. Trees are growing more rapidly than before, and the planet is greening.
Our World in Data gives charts that can be changed by the reader. For example, the Cumulative CO2 emissions by source, World, can be edited by country or region. In the general chart, Coal is the dominant source of CO2, followed by Oil, Gas, Flaring, Cement, and Other.
Jo Nova used these charts to show that by 2023, China has the greatest cumulative emissions from coal, mostly since 1950, and these emissions exceed that to the US, the EU, and the UK, separately, even though UK and Western country emissions start in 1750, and by 1950 were remarkably high. Thus, the Western anti-coal movement is punishing developed countries for past “sins” while ignoring developing countries for current “sins.” Nova writes:
“The point of this post is to highlight how absurd the situation is. The white guilt for ‘climate change’ is the point — not the gigatons of CO2. No one really gives a damn about carbon dioxide, or they would be trying to solve ‘the China problem’ as if life on Earth depended on solving it.
The whole planet and every koala will die, but no one has the time to add up a few sums and start talking about trade embargos, or boycotts, or even writing a strong letter to President Xi…”
Nova also shows that the US exceeds the EU, China, and other countries in total cumulative CO2 emissions. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy for Nova’s calculations and https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ for trends in atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa.
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Benefits of Increasing CO2: As mentioned in the last TWTW, Paul Homewood linked to an article describing a new study. According to the article:
The growth of maize [corn], sugarcane and sorghum has been greatly boosted by modifying the plants to take advantage of higher carbon dioxide levels now found in the air.
This was done by simply increasing the activity of two genes, says Coralie Salesse-Smith at the University of Illinois. The finding should lead to the creation of new varieties whose yields go up as CO2 levels continue to rise.
This is significant because the plants are C4 plants which evolved during an atmospheric low in CO2, and use an enzyme called PEP to fix carbon dioxide into a four-carbon molecule called malate. C4 plants have smaller microscopic pores on the surface of their leaves (called stomata) to reduce water loss than earlier C3 plants that evolved when the atmosphere was far richer in CO2 than today. Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) posted an essay describing the difference between C3 and C4 plants. It begins:
“Photosynthesis is the process that plants use to turn light, carbon dioxide, and water into sugars that fuel plant growth, using the primary photosynthetic enzyme Rubisco.
The majority of plant species on Earth uses C3 photosynthesis, in which the first carbon compound produced contains three carbon atoms. In this process, carbon dioxide enters a plant through its stomata (microscopic pores on plant leaves), where amidst a series of complex reactions, the enzyme Rubisco fixes carbon into sugar through the Calvin-Benson cycle. However, two key restrictions slow down photosynthesis.
However, plants have evolved another form of photosynthesis to help reduce these losses in hot, dry environments. In C4 photosynthesis, where a four-carbon compound is produced, a unique leaf anatomy allows carbon dioxide to concentrate in ‘bundle sheath’ cells around Rubisco. This structure delivers carbon dioxide straight to Rubisco, effectively removing its contact with oxygen and the need for photorespiration. What’s more, this adaptation allows plants to retain water through the ability to continue fixing carbon while stomata are closed.
C4 plants—including maize, sugarcane, and sorghum—avoid photorespiration by using another enzyme called PEP during the first step of carbon fixation. This step takes place in the mesophyll cells that are located close to the stomata where carbon dioxide and oxygen enter the plant. PEP is more attracted to carbon dioxide molecules and is, therefore, much less likely to react with oxygen molecules. PEP fixes carbon dioxide into a four-carbon molecule, called malate, which is transported to the deeper bundle sheath cells that contain Rubisco. The malate is then broken down into a compound that is recycled back into PEP and carbon dioxide that Rubisco fixes into sugars—without having to deal with the oxygen molecules that are abundant in the mesophyll cells.”
RIPE is working on ways to increase efficiency in photosynthesis in C3 crops but improvements in efficiency of C4 plants are also welcome.
The paper at issue is “Increasing Rubisco as a simple means to enhance photosynthesis and productivity now without lowering nitrogen use efficiency” published by the New Phytologist. The summary states:
“Global demand for food may rise by 60% mid-century. A central challenge is to meet this need using less land in a changing climate. Nearly all crop carbon is assimilated through Rubisco, which is catalytically slow, reactive with oxygen, and a major component of leaf nitrogen. Developing more efficient forms of Rubisco, or engineering CO2 concentrating mechanisms into C3 crops to competitively repress oxygenation, are major endeavors, which could hugely increase photosynthetic productivity (≥ 60%). New technologies are bringing this closer, but improvements remain in the discovery phase and have not been reduced to practice. A simpler shorter-term strategy that could fill this time gap, but with smaller productivity increases (c. 10%) is to increase leaf Rubisco content. This has been demonstrated in initial field trials, improving the productivity of C3 and C4 crops. Combining three-dimensional leaf canopies with metabolic models infers that a 20% increase in Rubisco increases canopy photosynthesis by 14% in sugarcane (C4) and 9% in soybean (C3). This is consistent with observed productivity increases in rice, maize, sorghum, and sugarcane. Upregulation of Rubisco is calculated not to require more nitrogen per unit yield and although achieved transgenically to date, might be achieved using gene editing to produce transgene-free gain of function mutations or using breeding.”
TWTW comment: Rubisco is an enzyme, a molecule produced by the plant to act as a biological catalyst to speed up specific chemical reactions without being consumed by them. The human body is thought to have about 75,000 different enzymes, generally proteins. Plants have hundreds to thousands of different enzymes depending on the species. Rubisco is the one critical for photosynthesis.
The paper in the New Phytologist discusses the hope that the new pathway of changing the efficiency of Rubisco will not be subject to the regulatory delays faced by bioengineering plants. It then discusses how Rubisco limits both C3 and C4 photosynthesis and the improvements in CO2 uptake shown in both C3 soybean and C4 sugarcane plants. With proper breeding, improvements in Rubisco may not require increased nitrogen fertilizer. (Nitrogen fertilizer releases Nitrous Oxide, a greenhouse gas that is greatly overrated in its warming potential by the UN IPCC and its collaborators.) The stated conclusions and future perspectives of the paper are (references given in the paper):
“Given the strong limitation that Rubisco imposes on maximum photosynthetic rates in both C3 and C4 crops, it has been and will remain a key target for improvement. As highlighted above, new approaches and tools will accelerate improvement in this key and essential endeavor. However, in terms of technology readiness, both improvement of Rubisco kinetics and introduction of CCMs [CO2-Concentrating Mechanisms] into crops remain in the discovery phase, Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 1 and 2 as defined (USDA-NIFA, 2018). Since most improvements here are transgenic, and necessarily so with CCMs, these would require lengthy deregulation under current legislation, suggesting a 20–30 yr time window until these improvements could enter seed systems in volume. Given the major limitation that Rubisco imposes on yield potential, and the large increases in yield per unit land area needed to reach projected future demand, it is critical that these endeavors are accelerated and realized. While a less sophisticated solution, we have shown here that simply increasing Rubisco content can readily be achieved and is able to increase yield, serving as a shorter-term solution to overcoming the limitations imposed by this central enzyme. It has been reduced to practice in single-site field trials of both a C3 and a C4 crop (TRL4), making it ready for wider scale testing (TRL 5) and entry into seed systems on a shorter timescale. Timescales would be further reduced by achieving upregulation through scarless edited mutation of the Rubisco promoter or 5′UTR regions. Finally, we have shown a 20% increase in Rubisco content would not lower crop nitrogen use efficiency and could substantially increase yield per unit land area, making this one potential solution in decreasing pressure to expand the agricultural footprint to meet rise in demand. Further, this approach would be equally applicable to bioenergy and bioproduct feedstocks that can be grown on marginal land unsuitable for food crops, in particular sustainable perennials such as C4 Miscanthus and switchgrass or fast-growing woody coppice crops such as willows and poplars (Sannigrahi et al., 2010; Somerville et al., 2010; Baker et al., 2022; He et al., 2024). Increasing Rubisco provides a means to achieve a moderate increase in photosynthesis and yield in the short term. It is thus not an alternative to the much-needed larger increases required in the medium and longer term by improving Rubisco kinetics, introducing CCMs and other synthetic opportunities to increase photosynthesis and productivity in crops.”
This is promising news because based on geological evidence, the world will get colder, even if it is not the onset of a new Ice Age, and the growing seasons of Earth great grain belts will get shorter. Real famine from climate change (cooling) is likely, though no one knows when. Any increase in plant productivity is welcome. No doubt, many so-called environmental groups will object, as usual, whether valid or not, to any promising improvements for humanity.
See links to Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide (extensive references in the link to the paper) and https://ripe.illinois.edu/blog/difference-between-c3-and-c4-plants for the RIPE project description of the difference between C3 and C4 plants.
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Attributing Weather Events to CO2 Increase: A long-time effort by World Weather Attribution and similar groups is blaming severe weather events on CO2 increases. CO2 is a trace gas, only about 420 parts per million in volume today, and is secondary in its effect to water vapor. Without water vapor and the greenhouse effect, the land masses of Earth would get too cold at night to support life. But that fact is not considered by the UN IPCC and its collaborators, particularly those attributing severe weather events to a slight warming that CO2 may cause.
At one time, World Weather Attribution claimed it derived its attributions from the frequency statistics forming the Gauss-Markov theorem. Ross McKitrick, 2022 co-recipient of SEPP’s Fredrick Seitz Award, demonstrated that the authors of a key paper supporting this type of attribution misunderstood the conditions of the Gauss-Markov theorem. Thus, World Weather Attribution, and similar groups are using other tricks to make dubious claims.
Roger Pielke Jr is posting a series on Weather Attribution Alchemy on his blog. As he states, “hurricanes are a poster child of climate politics.” The first two parts were “Weather Attribution Alchemy” and “Attribution Stealth Advocacy at the NAS.” The current installment is “Tricks of the Trade.” In it Pilke describes Attribution Inflation, Begging the Question (assuming the conclusion that is to be proven), and Ignoring Evidence (a common characteristics with all those involved with the UN IPCC and its collaborators). Pielke provides examples of all these tricks and concludes with:
“What is Going on Here?
Extreme event attribution is puzzling.
The most charitable explanation for the proliferation of dodgy attribution claims is that there is a demand for them, including by many in the media and on the climate beat. That demand will be filled by someone — even if the “science” is more like pseudo-science.
A less charitable explanation is that there is a systematic effort underway to contest and undermine actual climate science, including the assessments of the IPCC, in order to present a picture of reality that is simply false in support of climate advocacy. We might call that pseudo-scientific gaslighting.
The issues I document above are fairly obvious — and I invite contrary views, which I am happy to publish here at THB.”[The Honest Broker]
It is sad to see entities in once distinguished academic institutions reduced to such tricks. World Weather Attribution is in the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. It has clearly stated that its purpose is to alarm the public about the imagined dangers of increasing CO2. This is clearly political, not scientific nor promoting knowledge. But as Pielke states, these tricks extend to other academic institutions as well, such as MIT. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Omitting Key Facts: The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2021, published a paper by James W.B. Rae, et al. “Atmospheric CO2 over the Past 66 Million Years from Marine Archives.” The paper builds on the paper by Westerhold et al. (2020) paper “An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years.” It is the data record of the Westerhold paper that Willis Eschenbach unraveled, revealing periods of millions of years when temperatures were roughly stable, but CO2 varied from roughly one-half of what it is today to over twice of what it is today. Geoscientist Tom Gallagher took the work by Eschenbach and clearly showed that changes in ocean currents, forced by plate tectonics, better explain changes in Earth’s historic climate than changes in CO2. All too typically, the Rae paper ignores plate tectonics and changes in ocean currents.
Other deficiencies in the Rae paper include omitting the work of John Tyndall who demonstrated experimentally that water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide is only secondary. Further, the Rae paper cites Arrhenius S. (1896) “On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground.” Arrhenius grossly misunderstood the work of Tyndall and admitted it in a 1906 paper significantly reducing his views of the influence of CO2 on temperatures. The Rae paper omits this self-correction.
Of course, the Rae paper makes no mention of the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer on atmospheric radiation transfer, which explains how greenhouse gases work, using the most up to date database on Earth’s atmosphere. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer for the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer and Defending the Orthodoxy for the work of Rae, et al. including its citations.
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Unknown Costs: Consumers in Germany and the UK are painfully discovering that the promise of free, clean energy is false. In his essay in the Wall Street Journal, Bjorn Lomborg writes:
“As nations use more and more supposedly cheap solar and wind power, a strange thing happens: Our power bills get more expensive. This exposes the environmentalist lie that renewables have already outmatched fossil fuels and that the ‘green transition’ is irreversible even under a second Trump administration.
The claim that green energy is cheaper relies on bogus math that measures the cost of electricity only when the sun is shining, and the wind is blowing. Modern societies need around-the-clock power, requiring backup, often powered by fossil fuels. That means we’re paying for two power systems: renewables and backup. Moreover, as fossil fuels are used less, those power sources need to earn their capital costs back in fewer hours, leading to even more expensive power.
This means the real energy costs of solar, and wind are far higher than what green campaigners claim. One study shows that in China the real cost of solar power on average is twice as high as that of coal. Similarly, a peer-reviewed study of Germany and Texas shows that solar and wind are many times more expensive than fossil fuels. Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Denmark, all of which increasingly rely on solar and wind power, have some of the world’s most expensive electricity.
The International Energy Agency’s latest data (from 2022) on solar and wind power generation costs and consumption across nearly 70 countries shows a clear correlation between more solar and wind and higher average household and industry energy prices. In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is about 12 cents a kilowatt-hour (in today’s money). For every 10% increase in solar and wind share, the electricity cost increases by more than 5 cents a kilowatt-hour. This isn’t an outlier; these results are substantially similar to 2019, before the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.”
Lomborg shows a chart comparing electricity prices with the percentage of electricity from wind and solar. Then he states:
“Take Germany, where electricity costs 30 cents a kilowatt-hour—more than twice the U.S. cost and more than three times the Chinese price. Germany has installed so much solar and wind that, on sunny and windy days, renewable energy satisfies close to 70% of Germany’s needs—a fact the press eagerly reports. But the press hardly mentions dark and still days when these renewables deliver almost nothing. Twice in the past two months, when it was cloudy and nearly windless, solar and wind delivered less than 4% of the daily power Germany needed.
Current battery technology is insufficient. Germany’s entire battery storage runs out in about 20 minutes. That leaves more than 23 hours of energy powered mostly by fossil fuels. Last month, with cloudy skies and nearly no wind, Germany faced the highest power prices since the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with wholesale prices reaching a staggering $1 a kilowatt-hour.”
Lomborg explains how poor countries are especially hurt by the deceit that green energy is cheap. then concludes with:
“This sets the backdrop for U.S. authorities’ recent bribery allegations against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. Since most Indian states don’t want to ‘risk ‘intermittent’ renewables,’ according to Reuters, he allegedly had to bribe government officials to get them to buy power from his $6 billion solar power project. Mr. Adani’s case confirms what the data already show: Solar and wind are bad business and make our power much more expensive.”
See Article # 1.
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Number of the Week: 30 years and 64 years before. The UK Met Office has drastically lowered its once world-class standards. In recent years, independent UK researchers have been discovering that the Met Office has been reporting temperatures from locations that are only Class 4 or 5 (such as “close to other sources of heat” such as runways and taxiways in busy airports). Others have revealed that some weather stations do not exist, such as the reported location on an urban beach.
Chris Morrison in the Daily Sceptic reports”
“The U.K. Met Office claims to have a continuous record of temperatures at Stornoway Airport going back to 1873. This is truly remarkable since manned powered flight was not achieved until 1903 and the actual airport was built in 1937.”
The airport record began 30 years before the first powered, controlled flight with a person on board occurred and 64 years before the airport was built. See link under Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-fossil-fuels/
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, December 22, 2020
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Tricks of the Trade
Weather Attribution Alchemy, Part 3
By Roger Pielke Jr., His Blog, Dec 30, 2024
Decline of Reflective Low Clouds May Have Contributed to Recent Record Heat
A new study links decreasing cloud cover over the ocean to last year’s spiking heat, adding to research showing Earth’s loss of luster [decrease in Earth’s Albedo, reflection of solar enengy back to space] is increasing warming.
By Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, Dec 5, 2024
Link to paper: Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo
By Helge F. Goessling, Thomas Rackow and Thomas Jung, AAAS Science, Dec 5, 2024
Since the industrial revolution China has burnt more coal than any nation on Earth
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 31, 2024
Defending the Orthodoxy
Ancient Deepsea Shells Reveal 66 Million Years Of Carbon Dioxide Levels
Co-authored by two Texas A&M scientists, a new analysis using ancient marine organisms provides important past climate data and context to modern carbon emissions.
By Leslie Lee, Texas A&M University College of GeosciencesJune 14, 2021
Link to paper: Atmospheric CO2 over the Past 66 Million Years from Marine Archives
By James W.B. Rae, et al., Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Not mentioned in the historical review is the work of John Tyndall 1859-1875 who used experiments to demonstrate the greenhouse effect, and that water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas.]
NASA, NOAA to Announce 2024 Global Temperatures, Climate Conditions
Press Release by Abbey Donaldson, NASA Headquarters, Jan 3, 2025 [H/t William Readdy]
[SEPP Comment: Begins with a globe red and orange stating: “This map depicts global temperature anomalies for meteorological summer in 2024 (June, July, and August). It shows how much warmer or cooler different regions of Earth were compared to the baseline average from 1951 to 1980. (Credit: NASA/NOAA)” Apparently, NASA/NOAA ignore that we are in Icehouse Earth.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Can State Lawfare Contain the Fictional Methane Crisis?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 1, 2025
Link to: Methane leaks are supercharging the climate crisis — here’s what we must do, now
By Russel Honore, The Hill, Dec 31, 2024
From the article: Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré (Ret.) is a former commanding officer of the U.S. First Army. He led Joint Task Force Katrina in New Orleans following the devastating Category 5 hurricane. He is currently head of The Green Army, an organization dedicated to finding solutions to pollution.
[SEPP Comment: Katarina was a class 3 hurricane at landfall, not class 5; when it made landfall at the Louisiana / Mississippi line. The mayor of New Orleans failed to order evacuation of the City, which flooded when flood control dikes failed from shoddy construction resulting in many deaths. Eventually, the mayor went to jail for diverting Federal funds intended for flood control to political uses, part of a long, sad history of New Orleans. During the Vietnam failure, the military command did not understand its enemy, a severe military failure. The Green Army does not understand its enemy, methane is insignificant in global warming / climate change.]
UN’s new mission: ‘Fight the climate-related disinformation running rampant on social media’ – ‘Debunk myths & put an end to the narratives of denialism’ – ‘Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change’
By Marc Morano, Climate Depot, Jan 1, 2025
Link to: UN Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change
Press Release, UN Climate Action, Accessed Jan 2, 2025
Link to: United Nations Global Principles For Information Integrity
Press Release, UN, Accessed Jan 2, 205
PDF: https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un-global-principles-for-information-integrity-en.pdf
The principles are societal trust and resilience; independent, free and pluralistic media; transparency and research; public empowerment; and healthy incentives. They all share at their core an unwavering commitment to human rights.
Questioning the Orthodoxy
The 2050 Net Zero Climate Scam
By William Levin, American Thinker, Dec 29, 2024
It needs to be said as loudly as possible. The 1.5-degree climate tipping limit has no basis in any finding of the IPCC. It is the arbitrary finding of 195 political actors, in defense of the non-scientific “well below 2 degree” catastrophe, magically transported by the IPCC from 2100 to 2050.
The errors and misstatements in “Climate Denialism”
By Andy May, WUWT, Jan 1, 2025
Link to erroneous paper: Climate Denialism
By Tinus Pulles, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Dec 31, 2024
Climate News – January 2025
By Alan Moran, His Blog, Jan 1, 2025
African Desertification
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Dec 31, 2024
“Comparison of archival and recent photographs shows a marked increase in Namib Desert vegetation over the past 90 years of CO? increase, while regional climate models predict increased aridification with climate change.”
After Paris!
Brazil’s Paris Pledge Lies In Tatters
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 1, 2025
Yet the delusional Miliband [UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero] still believes that the rest of the world will follow our lead and wreck their own economies as well!
Mexico’s Emissions Con Trick
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 2, 2025
Link to: Climate Action Tractor, Country Summary, Mexico
By Staff, Climate Analytics, NewClimate Institute, et al., December 12, 2022
From Tracker: Mexico’s climate policies continue to go backwards, as fossil fuel use is prioritized and climate-related policies and institutions dismantled. Mexico’s updated 2030 target (NDC), submitted in November 2022 results in higher emission levels than the targets from 2016, breaching both agreements under the Paris Agreement and Mexican Law – where governments committed to improve their targets over time.
‘Trump effect’ undermines U.N. climate summit
COP29’s failure is great news for humanity
By Marc Morano, The Washington Times, Dec 24, 2024 [H/t ICECAP]
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Genetic tweak to three key crops massively boosts their growth
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 26, 2024
Link to simple explanation: Genetic tweak to three key crops massively boosts their growth
A simple change to maize, sorghum and sugarcane that allows them to take advantage of rising CO2 levels can boost their growth by around a fifth
By Michael Le Page, New Scientist, Dec 19, 2024 [Paywalled]
Link to paper: Increasing Rubisco as a simple means to enhance photosynthesis and productivity now without lowering nitrogen use efficiency
By Coralie E. Salesse-Smith, Yu Wang, and Stephen P. Long, New Phytologist, Dec 17, 2024
New Year’s Resolution to Embrace CO2 Emissions and Benefits
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Dec 30, 2024
Scientists Report A ‘Striking Global Greening Trend’ Over The Last 42 Years
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Dec 30, 2024
Link to paper: Uncovering true significant trends in global greening
By Oliver Gutiérrez-Hernández and Luis V. García, Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, January 2025
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Global Coal Consumption Continues To Rise As Multi-Trillion Dollar Green Energy Plans Falter
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Dec 29, 2024
Climate Cartel Frays: Goldman Sachs Exits Global Green Banking Alliance
By Bonner Russell Cohen, Real Clear Energy, Dec 30, 2024
Seeking a Common Ground
Lightfoot and Ratzer, a Response: Why an Equation of State Alone Cannot Model Atmospheric Dynamics
By Kevin Kilty, Retired Mechanical Engineering faculty member, University of Wyoming, CO2 Coalition, Dec 30, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Disagrees with Lightfoot/Ratzer stating that the influence of water vapor is 1,000 to 7,000 times that of CO2.]
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Germany’s New Morgenthau Plan
By Victor Davis Hanson, the Daily Signal, Jan 3, 2025
[SEPP Comment: The classical scholar reminds us of the inhumane plan for postwar Germany. Fortunately, President Truman recognized its nature, and his administration implemented the Marshall Plan, which promoted the economic growth of Europe for general welfare.]
Model Issues
Claim: Artificial Intelligence can Improve Climate Models
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Dec 31, 2024
Worrall: If you have a possible missing variable problem, the solution is to add more arbitrary adjustments to your model?
Lacking Data, Climate Models Rely on Guesses
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Jan 3, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Discussed Lorenz’s butterfly effect — uncertainty. In statistics, degrees of freedom state the number of values that vary freely. Generally, the greater the degrees of freedom, the greater the uncertainty in the final calculation.]
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH v6.1 Global Temperature Update for December 2024: +0.62 deg. C
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Jan 3, 2025
Ocean Leads Cooling UAH December 2024
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Jan 3, 2025
Changing Weather
Hurricane Data For 2024
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 1, 2025
Link to: Global Historical Tropical Cyclone Statistics
By Staff, Tropical Meteorology Project, CSU, Accessed Jan 3, 2025
[SEPP Comment: No long-term trends.]
U.S. Water Woes – Southwest
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Dec 28, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Adequate water for population growth in the Great Basin and the Southwest is a significant problem with few alternatives. However, coastal areas have the viable alternative of inexpensive desalination thanks to technical breakthroughs in filtration of algae in seawater, primarily by Israel.]
Don’t Panic! It’s Only Winter!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 3, 2025
I wonder how we managed to cope in the past!!!!
Recent Temperature Falls Likely to Put a Dampener on ‘Hottest Year Evah’ Stories
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Dec 28, 2024 [H/t Paul Homewood]
Changing Climate
Central Greenland Was Recently Ice-Free And Covered With Plants When CO2 Was Under 300 ppm
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Jan 3, 2025
Link to paper: Plant, insect, and fungi fossils under the center of Greenland’s ice sheet are evidence of ice-free times
By Paul R. Bierman, et al., PNAS, Accepted June 17, 2024
From the abstract: To understand better the history of Greenland’s ice, we analyzed glacial till collected in 1993 from below 3 km of ice at Summit, Greenland. The till contains plant fragments, wood, insect parts, fungi, and cosmogenic nuclides showing that the bed of the GrIS [Greenland Ice Sheet] at Summit is a long-lived, stable land surface preserving a record of deposition, exposure, and interglacial ecosystems. Knowing that central Greenland was tundra-covered during the Pleistocene informs the understanding of Arctic biosphere response to deglaciation.
[SEPP Comment: According to Google Earth, Summit Camp is at 72°34’North, 38°27’West and has an elevation of 10533 feet (3210 meters). It is about one-third the way north from the southern tip of Greenland.]
NOAA & Global Cooling In The 1970s
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 3, 2025
[SEPP Comment: When changing climate was cooling it created real fears, not imaginary ones from a warming climate.]
Changing Earth
‘Mystery volcano’ that erupted and cooled Earth in 1831 has finally been identified
By Mindy Weisberger, CNN, Jan 3, 2025
Link to paper: The 1831 CE mystery eruption identified as Zavaritskii caldera, Simushir Island (Kurils)
By William Hutchison, et al., PNAS, Dec 30, 2024
The eruption was one of the most powerful of the 19th century, spewing so much sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere that annual average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped by about one 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). The event took place during the last gasp of the Little Ice Age, one of the coldest periods on Earth in the past 10,000 years. [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: CNN stating the Little Ice Age took place? Did the UN IPCC censors approve?]
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Modern Scientific Controversies: The War on Food: Part 1
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Jan 3, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Strangely, those who falsely claim science supports dangerous global warming often object to using science to improve food production.]
Telegraph Cereal Harvest Lies
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 30, 2024
Homewood to the reporter: And the chart of cereal output is proof that cereal output has been extremely stable since the 1980s, despite occasional blips. Your scaremongering about climate change is baseless.
Lowering Standards
Put ‘science’ back in the National Science Foundation
By Charlton Allen, American Thinker, Dec 28, 2024 [H/t John Dunn]
But under the Biden-Harris administration, the NSF seems to have forgotten that “science” is its middle name. According to a recent Senate report, the NSF has diverted more than $2 billion into Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, making ideological conformity a higher priority than scientific merit.
Wrong, World Meteorological Organization, There Is No Evidence “Climate Change Impacts Grip[ed] Globe in 2024”
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Jan 3, 2025
BBC Extreme Weather Complaint
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 2, 2025
I have now submitted a complaint to the BBC about their report, “A year of extreme weather that challenged billions”.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
5 wins for the climate in 2024
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Dec 31, 2024
1. Coal use is plummeting in US and around the world
[SEPP Comment: Are China and India part of the world?]
Climate change brought extreme weather, heat in 2024: UN
By Robin Millard, Geneva (AFP) Dec 30, 2024
Number of cyclones not increasing, but intensity is, data shows
By AFP Staff Writers, Paris (AFP) Dec 31, 2024
“If one can assume climate change is responsible for these trends, make no mistake, the humanitarian catastrophes generated by cyclones are largely due to poverty, vulnerability and a lack of protection for the affected populations,” Robert Vautard, a climatologist and top IPCC official, told AFP.
[SEPP Comment: No links to databases or the database agencies claimed. Named tropical cyclones have been increasing because storms are recognized even if they occur far from land.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
UK Government’s T̵o̵r̵c̵h̵w̵o̵o̵d̵ ̵I̵n̵s̵t̵i̵t̵u̵t̵e ARIA to Provide Early Warning of the End of the World
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Dec 30, 2024
Link to: About ARIA
By Staff, ARIA, Accessed, Jan 2, 2025
From climate change to AI, society faces challenges and opportunities that can be uniquely addressed by science + technology.
Who we are
Created by an Act of Parliament, and sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology, ARIA funds breakthrough R&D in underexplored areas to catalyse new paths to prosperity for the UK and the world
[SEPP Comment: Do they understand physical science, how we know things, and its limits?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Met Office Claims to Have Been Recording Temperatures at “Stornoway Airport” 30 Years Before Aeroplanes Were Invented
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, Dec 31, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
BBC Extreme Weather Lies Exposed
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 1, 2025
Actual facts are of no interest whatsoever to the BBC now, as far as climate is concerned. They live in their own little bubble, where fraudulent computer models reinforce their ideology.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
Climate Anxiety: Manufactured Hysteria Masquerading as Science
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Dec 30, 2024
Link to paper: Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional descriptive survey and analysis by political party identification and self-reported exposure to severe weather events
By R Eric Lewandowski, et al., Lancet, November 2024
From paper: Interpretation Climate change is causing widespread distress among US youth and affecting their beliefs and plans for the future. These effects may intensify, across the political spectrum, as exposure to climate-related severe weather events increases.
[SEPP Comment: Confusing fact (actual climate change) with associated propaganda.]
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Climate change will devastate value of homes, warns Bank of England
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 30, 2024
Homewood: Surely the Bank should be more concerned about the economic catastrophe coming our way thanks to Net Zero?
Questioning European Green
From The Director Of Net Zero Watch
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Dec 29, 2024
Link to: The beginning of the end
By Andrew Montford, Net Zero Watch, Dec 23, 2024
From Montford: There is a long road still to travel, and we shouldn’t expect the entrenched climate cult to suddenly collapse. Instead, we would expect the Net Zero timescales to be extended – see the story about the Canadian government below – and then, over the years, the targets themselves to be watered down, and then ignored, if not cancelled entirely.
Europe: The Fall of the Holy Renewable Empire
by Drieu Godefridi, Gatestone Institute, Dec 27, 2024 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Most Expensive In Europe …Growing Speech Tyranny
2025 Looks Bleak For Germany…Energy The Most Expensive In Europe …Growing Speech Tyranny
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 1, 2025
Effective today, Germany’s CO2 surcharge will rise from 45 euros a tonne to 55 euros, which will further fan inflation and social discontent.
Questioning Green Elsewhere
The Green Revolution: How CO2 Is Saving the Planet, Not Destroying It
By Willow Tohi, Natural News • Dec. 30, 2024
Funding Issues
It’s a win: Bankers are backing away from the Monster Banking Climate Cartel
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 2, 2025
Litigation Issues
US Supremes Hear Climate Lawfare Case to Stop Oil Railway
By Ron Clutz, His Blog, Jan 4, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Following the 2024 Loper-Bright v. Raimondo decision ending the Chevron Deference, and the 2022 West Virginia v. EPA decision limiting the ability for agencies to expand their powers without specific laws passed by Congress, the decision in the new case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado. may be important in limiting government agencies from freely interpreting the law under NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act,]
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
Hochul’s senseless $75B climate cash grab will only speed New York’s decline
By Peter Murphy, New York Post, Dec 30, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Another absurd result of EPA’s political declaration that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, which is contradicted by physical evidence.]
RGGI Investment Proceed Performance in New York
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Dec 30, 2024
Cap-and-invest programs like RGGI are frequently touted as a program that will kill two birds with one stone. “It simultaneously puts a limit on the tons of pollution companies can emit — ‘cap’ — while making them pay for each ton, funding projects to help move the jurisdiction away from polluting energy sources — ‘invest.’”
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Net Zero Watch condemns new windfarm rip-off
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Jan 3, 2025
Link to report: Discarded wind energy increases by 91% in 2024
By Staff, Renewable Energy Foundation, Jan 2, 2025
Nearly £400 million was paid to windfarms in 2024, and much more than this in indirect costs.
[SEPP Comment: Paying unreliable generation to turn off when it may crash the grid?]
Stop Out-the-Door Grants and Loans, DOE!
By Robert Bradley Jr, Letter, Master Resource, Dec 30, 2024
Since the election, the LPO has been finalizing loans at an exponentially higher rate than that of the rest of the current administration’s tenure.
[SEPP Comment: The LPO is the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.]
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA determines formaldehyde poses an ‘unreasonable risk’ to humans and must be regulated
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Jan 3, 2025
[SEPP Comment: Each day the human body produces about 1.5 ounces (43 grams) of formaldehyde by its normal metabolic processes. Then, we have the formaldehyde in fruits and vegetables. Will all these be regulated by the EPA?]
Energy Issues – Non-US
DESNZ tacitly concede defeat
By Andrew Montford, Net Zero Watch, Jan 2, 2025
[SEPP Comment: The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero uses estimates of capital costs, operating costs, and capacity factors that are far too high. Is it another example of government incompetence or government corruption?]
The Climate and Nature Bill
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 31, 2024
How, for instance, will we be able to build the factories needed without access to cement (too carbon intensive) or steel? And where will we get the machinery to fill them with, given that we cannot import it and do not have the manufacturing capacity ourselves? Then there are all of the diggers, bulldozers, dumper trucks and other construction equipment needed, all running on diesel.
We would also need the appropriate expertise and skilled labour, which we probably don’t have now.
Perhaps the biggest irony is that Ed Miliband would not be able to import solar panels from China, or components for his beloved wind farms.
It is crazy, but also frightening, that 192 MPs actually plan to vote for this Bill.
Energy Issues – Australia
Will Australia’s Mandatory Climate Reporting make Greenwashing Illegal?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 1, 2025
Energy Issues — US
Clean Energy Benchmark Is Natural Gas: Today and for the Future
By Staff, The Empowerment Alliance, Dec 30, 2024
New York On The March To Climate Utopia
By Franics Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Jan 2, 2025
The first serious deadline arrives in 2030, where the official mandate is 70% of electricity generation from “renewables” (aka “70 x 30”). That deadline is now just five years away. Within the past year, all the efforts to move toward the 70 x 30 goal are falling apart, as anybody who had given the subject any critical thought knew that they inevitably would. But nobody in authority has yet been willing to acknowledge that this has turned into a farce.
New York Response to Part 490 Sea-Level Rise Amendment Comments
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Jan 3, 2025
Surprising no one, their Assessment of Public Comments blew off our concerns. There is no reasonable defense for using RCP-8.5. As long as New York State continues to claim they follow the science but ignore it when it is inconvenient, the more likely the rush to the bottom will become a death spiral.
Power restored to almost all of Puerto Rico after massive blackout
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Jan 2, 2024
[SEPP Comment: LUMA energy is privately owned and took over Puerto Rico’s grid in 2021. As of 2022, power plant generation was 63% petroleum, 23% natural gas, and 8% coal.]
Georgia Proves It: Stable Electricity Markets Attract Business and Growth
By Kevin Doyle, Real Clear Energy, Jan 2, 2025
A big ingredient in this success is Georgia’s utility regulation structure and the advantages it affords Georgians, especially when compared to deregulated states in the Northeast.
In contrast, the deregulated energy markets in states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts usually face higher rates plus price volatility and reliability issues that are a big part of the equation guiding where businesses locate operations—especially large industrial consumers.
[SEPP Comment: The comparison is false. New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts heavily regulate electricity generation. The have banned nuclear and new hydropower and severely limit natural gas generation.]
Washington’s Control of Energy
Outgoing Biden Interior Department announces flurry of new wilderness protections
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Dec 30, 2024
The Ruby Mountains Gambit: Sabotaging America’s Energy Future for Political Games
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Dec 31, 2024
See link immediately above.
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
This Year in Gas
A look back at the most interesting energy market of 2024.
By Doomberg, Dec 30, 2024
Return of King Coal?
India Keeps Coal Power at Full Throttle
By Julianne Geiger, Oil Price.com, Dec 27, 2024
Coal Will Power Kazakhstan into a Nuclear Future
By Vijay Jayaraj, CO2 Coalition, Jan 2, 2025
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Another eXcellent Post from Chris Martz
Comment, WUWT, Dec 31, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Land requirements for nuclear compared with those for solar and wind but not including the storage needed for these unreliable sources.]
Virginia Officials Say State Will Be Home to World’s First Fusion Power Plant
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, 2024
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Regulators Approve Largest Solar Project in Wisconsin History
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Dec 15, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Build more in an area with low solar potential.]
Texas Coal Plant Will Convert to Solar Plus Storage with Help of Fed Funding
By Aaron Larson, Power Mag, Dec 30, 2024
San Miguel Electric Cooperative Inc. (SMECI), a not-for-profit generation and transmission rural electric cooperative located in Atascosa County, Texas, was awarded more than $1.4 billion through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program. With the money, SMECI, which operates a mine-mouth lignite-fired power plant, said it will convert its lignite operations to a 400-MW solar and 200-MW battery storage facility “to provide clean, reliable, and affordable renewable energy to 47 rural South Texas counties.”
The USDA said it expects to make additional New ERA award announcements in the coming weeks. Including the December investments, the USDA has awarded funding to 15 cooperatives as part of the New ERA program, totaling almost $9 billion in New ERA-financed grants and loans.
[SEPP Comment: Big time money for part time power.]
Habitat destruction offsets for “renewables” are just indulgences
By David Wojick, CFACT, Dec 27, 2024
Preservationists nationwide say that wind energy is harming America’s historic sites
A pyramid in Wyoming, lighthouses in New England, and the site where Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in World War II are some of the historic sites that are being threatened by wind development, preservationists say.
By Kevin Killough, Just The News, Dec 26, 2024
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Biden administration adds exemptions into new climate rules for hydrogen energy
By Rachel Frazin, Jan 3, 2025
The tax credits are seen as an important piece of the Biden administration’s climate agenda since hydrogen power could be an important tool to lower carbon emissions from industries like aviation, steel and cement — whose emissions are particularly difficult to eliminate.
[SEPP Comment: What form of energy is used to create the free hydrogen?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
EV Mandates vs. Freedom | Mark P. Mills
Video posted by Charles Rotter, WUWT, Dec 28, 2024
Over The Sea To Arran–Emissions and All!!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 30, 2024
Similar post: The Glen Sannox Clown Show
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 30, 2024
The carbon footprint of a long-delayed new “green” ferry will be far larger than the 31-year-old diesel ship that usually serves the route between the Scottish mainland and the island of Arran.
The Real Definition of EV Range Anxiety
By Geoffrey Pohanka, Real Clear Energy, Dec 31, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Not discussed is charging time, which can take an hour or more.]
California Dreaming
International Regulatory Authority Says California Grid At Risk of Energy Shortfalls
By Kenneth Schrupp, Climate Realism, Dec 27, 2024
(The Center Square) – An international regulatory authority issued a warning that California’s energy grid is at risk of energy shortfalls in 2029, noting increased electrification of buildings and transportation is driving high energy demand growth as reliable, baseline power from natural gas is replaced with less reliable solar energy.
According to the California Public Utilities Commission, which oversees the state’s utilities, PGE has raised energy prices by 127% between January 2014 and 2024.
With PGE rates now at 40 cents per kilowatt hour, they will soon hit the 50 cent per kilowatt hour break-even point when it costs more to drive a Tesla Model 3 with electrons than it does to drive a Toyota Camry with gasoline.
California snowpack near average in season’s first survey, though officials caution ‘anything can happen’
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Jan 2, 2025
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Climate Alarmists Push AMOC Collapse AND Greenland Ice Collapse
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Dec 28, 2024
Two for the price of one? The weather will be record cold with melting ice.
Iran Unplugged
The Islamic country’s electric grid, gas sector, and currency, are all collapsing. Is the theocratic regime next?
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Dec 29, 2024
Great communist successes: Cuba the “sugar bowl of the world” now has to import sugar
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 28, 2024
Link to primary news article: The government describes it as “shameful” that Cuba has to import sugar
Production has fallen, impacting the domestic market and exports. A pound of sugar costs 600 pesos.
By the Editorial Team of CiberCuba, Dec 19, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Other sources such as Reuters and BBC also report the massive decline in production.]
The stupid nation: The UK Gov wants to “de-Westernize” science
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 3, 2025
Climate change tricking UK seasons-BBC
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 29, 2024
Since the dawn of civilization mankind has celebrated the end of winter and the onset of spring. Only the BBC could turn it into some sort of calamity!
I Had A Dream
Guest Post By Patrick Fossett, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 31, 2024
[SEPP Comment: A pollutant by another name is not a pollutant?
Thing Of The Past Update
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Jan 1, 2025
Twenty-five years after the end of snow was announced, snow is forecast for at least 48 states and all of the UK and Ireland.
ARTICLES
1. Green Electricity Costs a Bundle
The data make clear: The notion that solar and wind power save money is an environmentalist lie.
By Bjorn Lomborg, WSJ, Jan. 1, 2025
TWTW Summary: Substantially covered in the This Week section above.
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January 6, 2025 at 04:07AM
