Scientists know about climate change

As I sit in London watching the rain fall as it has for most of July, indeed as it did for much of many recent summers, I remember the certainty with which The Guardian reported in 2006 as fact that:

"Scientists know a lot about how events will unfold...which means that whatever we do, our climate destiny is fixed for the next few decades... Rainfall will decline in the summer and the increased deluges in winter will struggle to replenish thirsty reservoirs because much of the water will run off the baked ground."

Scientists know... climate destiny is fixed... Rainfall will decline in the summer..." It's all rubbish folks; most of these scientists are not predicting based on science, they are designing science to fit the desired predictions.

What about the second part of what "scientists know"? "Rainfall will decline in the summer and the increased deluges in winter will because much of the water will run off the baked ground."
Shall we take a look at reservoir levels in the baked South of England, the area with the biggest potential water problem as demand increases year after year as a result, largely, of population growth? South East Water report the levels at their two largest reservoirs: Arlington Reservoir was 82.9% full on 31 July  (the last day they report levels), Ardingly Reservoir was 85.6%% full on the same date.



What about the South West maybe they are faring worse? Well South West Water are not as up to date as South East Water and they report data up until the week ending 23 July. They report percentage data for their five reservoirs: Roadford, Colliford, Wimbleball, Stithians and Burrator. The figures show that the average storage levels across these five reservoirs was 73.26%. As a comparison it was around 65% in 1995; water shortage getting worse? Does it look as though there are problems replenishing thirsty reservoirs because of the declining rainfall that scientists know about?

How about Severn Trent? They report that for at 31 July storage levels of 71.9%.

I could go on and on but I think that the pattern will be similar across most of the UK regions.

So how about The Environment Agency the body that is so certain about Climate Change that they confidently state on their web site:

"It's an inescapable fact: our planet is warming up. Records show that temperatures around the world have risen steadily since 1900...

Climate change is the biggest environmental challenge facing the world today. We know the Earth's climate does change naturally over a long timescale, but the overwhelming majority of the scientific community now accepts that human activities are causing significant, rapid changes to our climate.

Over the past century, global temperatures have risen - the 10 warmest years on record have all been since 1990. The contribution to global warming from human activity is linked to increases in the amounts of heat-trapping "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere. As the concentrations of greenhouse gases increase, less heat can escape from the atmosphere, making the Earth warmer. The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, which is released by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

...

What will happen if we do nothing?

The latest data tells us that some climate change is already inevitable, so we will need to adapt to its impacts. We must plan for more extreme weather conditions: wetter winters with an increased risk of floods, and hotter, drier summers that put pressure on water resources. Sea levels will also rise, increasing the risk of flooding around our coastline."

Maybe these are some of the scientists who know what's going to happen to the climate in the UK. After all they also seem to know that we are going to experience "wetter winters with an increased risk of floods, and hotter, drier summers that put pressure on water resources". Let's look at the Environment Agency's own figures...

The Environment Agency publish their Water Situation for England and Wales figures on a monthly basis but the latest that I can find is for June 2017 not July 2017:

'Rainfall totals for  June were above the long term average (LTA) for the month in most parts of the country and particularly high in parts of northern England. For England as a whole, the June rainfall total was 140% of the 1961-90 LTA.

...

Reservoir  stocks  decreased  at  the  majority  of reported  reservoirs  or  reservoir  groups.  Overall  reservoir  storage  for  England  is  83%  of  total  capacity,  a  small decrease compared to May.'

So after years of knowing that reservoirs would not be replenished by winter rains we have a situation, as the rain pours off my roof, overall reservoir storage at the end of June is at 83% of total capacity.

Scientists know? I think not.

How Greenpeace Wrecked One of the Most Sacred Places in the Americas

"This has been done without any respect for our laws," Peru's deputy minister for culture Luis Jaime Castillo told the press, calling Greenpeace's actions "thoughtless, insensitive, illegal, irresponsible and absolutely pre-meditated." 

He explained further: "It was done in the middle of the night. They went ahead and stepped on our hummingbird, and looking at the pictures we can see there's very severe damage. Nobody can go on these lines without permission—not even the president of Peru!"

Greenpeace are apparently sorry, big deal. They've done major, maybe irreparable damage to part of the Nazca and should face appropriate retribution. The Greenpeace people that I've encountered have been so self-righteous and convinced of their moral superiority that I can well imagine them doing something like this and then whining 'But I'm trying to save the planet, why are you stopping me?'

More here http://gizmodo.com/how-greenpeace-wrecked-one-of-the-most-sacred-places-in-1669873583 but probably not on the eco warriors favourite news organisation, the BBC. For Greenpeace are heroes to the BBC and it's politically correct brigade of 'journalists'.

The reality behind climate change policy?

That might be it.

Wind power

According to The National Grid:

The current capacity of wind power connected to the transmission system that we forecast for is 5.5GW (Jan 2013). This capacity is expected to continue to increase during 2013/14 and could reach 32GW of wind generation capacity by 2020.

5.5GW, is that a lot?

UK Energy Watch reveal real time energy production:

BM Reports/NETA reveal similar figures

 So Wind is managing to contribute 1.7% of the UK's power. That's a really impressive return for spoiling so much of the British countryside, isn't it?

As I have said before - Coal, gas and nuclear power stations work and their power generation is controllable. Wind power's power generation depends upon nature and that means no production on cold days when power demand for heating is high and often over-supply on breezy summer nights when power demand is relatively low.

The UK's countryside is being despoiled to satisfy political ambitions and so as to further the warmist agenda. Please can we have some sense about this matter in the future.

MPs want to turn your lights off. A shame no one told you - Telegraph

' By 2020, it said, Britain must reduce its electricity use by "103 terawatt hours", rising by 2030 to "154 terawatt hours". This could have been understood only by someone aware that we currently use each year some 378 "terawatt hours". So what was being proposed was that this must be cut down in six years by 27 per cent – more than a quarter – rising 10 years later to a cut of more than 40 per cent, or two fifths.'

The climate change obsession that will destroy our economy and lives, more here from Christopher Booker in The Telegraph

UPDATE:
I am informed that Christopher Booker has corrected his article thus:

I must correct a rather serious error in this piece on such an important and complex subject. Although the amendment to the Government’s Energy Bill calling for a 27 percent reduction in Britain’s electricity use was bundled in with others, it was not a Government amendment, and although it was not formally withdrawn, it was not therefore part of the Bill as approved by the House. Later in the debate the minister, Greg Barker, did say that he “welcomed the principle behind the proposal’, but said that this issue should remain part of his Department’s ongoing review of how our electricity demand should be reduced. I apologise profusely to my readers for my misreading of what happened, which I will return to correct and explain in more detail in next week’s column. 

The reality of wind power

' Under current government plans, 800 turbines – some over 400 feet tall – are to be built in mid-Wales, with another 100 miles worth of pylons to be built across Montgomeryshire and into Shropshire in order to connect their expensive, intermittent, unreliable electricity with the national grid. This is going to cost a minimum of £2 billion. Yet, for about one fifth of that cost you can build a gas fired power station capable of producing nearly three times as much power – without blighting the countryside for miles around and without draining the pockets of the poor, put-upon energy user with unnecessary green tariffs.'

More here http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100220836/what-really-happened-on-bbc-any-questions/

BBC News - Biofuels: 'Irrational' and 'worse than fossil fuels'

'The UK's "irrational" use of biofuels will cost motorists around £460 million over the next 12 months, a think tank says.

A report by Chatham House says the growing reliance on sustainable liquid fuels will also increase food prices.'

Green policy failure...
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22127123

The one hundred and seventy fifth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

Tory Aadvark reports the simply incredible news that: 'Greens Admit Electric Cars Are Not That Green' Apparently:

'An EV is zero emissions when in use, in so much as the vehicle produces no emissions itself, this was and is still the Green meme, the inconvenient truth is that if the electricity that was used to charge the battery was generated by a fossil fuelled power station then the emissions for each EV journey are almost identical to that from a small modern petrol or diesel car.'

As if intelligent people didn't already know this... 'Electric cars are not that green' - "No shit, Sherlock"

Fracking - the truth?

The way that fracking has been turned into a hated process by the illiberal left made me suspicious, it's almost as though they don't want a new cheap energy source to be found in the West that would reduce our dependence on supporters of Islamist terrorism and a Russian autocracy. So this story interests me...

Hot Air reports this:
'Full disclosure: I’m a friend of filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, producers of the new documentary Fracknation.  I’ve been looking forward to this effort for some time, interviewing Phelim and Ann during the last couple of years as they prepared for and produced the film. Outside of friendship — and Ann and Phelim are a truly lovely and delightful couple — I wanted to get the other side of the fracking dispute represented in the cinematic arena, especially after Gasland and now Promised Land.

And make no mistake — this documentary succeeds in rebutting Josh Fox, the producer/director/writer of the documentary Gasland that touched off much of the anti-fracking activism. Phelim steps through a number of Fox’s claims inside and outside of the documentary, systematically undermining each of them. He includes a clip of his in-person challenge to Fox, which Fox tried to suppress, and another with a state official that cozied up to Fox — whose lawyer hilariously demands the film of the interview immediately afterward. (It’s amazing how little some lawyers know about the First Amendment.)  Instead of speaking with Hollywood actors and the UAE (which provided some funding for Promised Land), Phelim speaks with the farmers in the supposedly-blighted areas of Pennsylvania, New York, and the Delaware Rivery Valley, as well as experts on fracking, water science, and environmental agencies.

The best part, however, comes near the end.  One couple in the area have been particularly effective activists, giving interviews, appearing in Gasland, and protesting about their contaminated water supply.  The EPA even came to Dimock based on their complaints to test the water supply specifically in their wells, which they claimed were contaminated by the fracking that had taken place in the region.  When Phelim asks to interview them for Fracknation and to get the results of the test, they get belligerent enough to call a policeman (who turns out to be one of the most reasonable of all the people in the film) as well as threaten to pull a gun on Phelim. Only through a FOIA request does Phelim find out why — the EPA didn’t find anything wrong with the water, and they were smart enough to tape the meeting in which they told the couple the results.

Fracknation delivers a powerful debunking of the scare campaign against fracking and domestic natural-gas production.  But don’t take my word for it — here’s Variety on the impact of Fracknation:

Those nursing the suspicion that Hollywood politics are awash in knee-jerk liberalism may well have their cynicism validated by “FrackNation,” a counterargument to the outcry over the natural-gas retrieval process known as “fracking” recently explored in Gus Van Sant’s feature “Promised Land.” But the more thoughtful and politics-oriented auds targeted by this well-reasoned film from helmers Phelim McAleer, Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda will find plenty to chew over, including the possibility that perhaps all is not as simple as it seems in the world of nonrenewable energy.

Irish journalist McAleer narrates and serves as host to this briskly paced, low-budget and mischievous pic, presented as a rebuttal to Josh Fox’s Oscar-nominated “Gasland,” a docu that has been instrumental in building political resistance to a process seen by different factions as a godsend and an antidote to Big Oil. Fox is clearly depicted as the villain in “FrackNation,” from a “Gasland” post-screening Q&A where Fox refuses to answer McAleer’s simple questions, to a scene at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum where Fox literally flees the camera.

McAleer makes a good case against Fox’s movie. From the farmers of the Delaware River Basin, for whom fracking hysteria has meant a loss of crucial income, to experts like James Delingpole, who somehow makes a fairly reasoned case that the anti-fracking people are the tools of Russian President Vladimir Putin (for whom the natural-gas market provides political leverage), most of the voices entertained here make a good deal of sense. But the filmmakers might have done well to address the animosity so many Americans feel toward the energy business in general.

And what did the New York Times think?  You’d probably guess … and you’d be wrong:

Narrated by Mr. McAleer, whose previous documentaries have also argued against environmental concerns, “FrackNation” is no tossed-off, pro-business pamphlet. Methodically researched and assembled (and financed by thousands of small donations from an online campaign), the film picks at Mr. Fox’s assertions and omissions with dogged persistence. Much of what it reveals is provocative, like a confrontation with Mr. Fox about the presence of methane in the water supply decades before fracking began.
What’s clear is that Mr. McAleer knows his way around the Freedom of Information Act and has done his legwork. Besides talking to carefully selected scientists and water experts, he visits pro-fracking residents of Dimock Township, Pa., who are annoyed that their community is being characterized as a toxic wasteland. And he’s not above taking a sentimental detour to Poland to commiserate with a pensioner who can’t pay her energy bills, or reveling in the odd gotcha moment, like accusing a public official of “inappropriate ties” to Mr. Fox.

More than anything, “FrackNation” underscores the sheer complexity of a process that offers a financial lifeline to struggling farmers. Whether it also brings death to their water supply is something we won’t find out by listening to only half of the debate.

Fracknation will air on Tuesday evening on Mark Cuban’s AXs cable television channel at 9 pm ET. It’s a brilliant effort by Phelim and Ann, and it’s appropriate for all ages. The only violence in the film comes, unsurprisingly, from people who don’t want to have Phelim asking inconvenient questions.'

Anyone know how I can watch this in the UK sooner rather than later, after it airs on Tuesday?

January 3: Why, exactly, is it not in the public interest? - Readers' Letters / Opinion / The Courier

A fascinating letter to The Courier

Sir, – Conservationists and nurseries have been quick to claim that the spores of chalara fraxinea, which is the fungus causing Ash Dieback, could have blown over from mainland Europe but are very quiet about their role in importing and planting diseased trees from the same source.

They have known for around six years that Ash Dieback was widespread in Europe but are now blaming government for not introducing a ban earlier in the hope they will be compensated or get grants for replanting from the hard-pressed public purse.
Considering the vague map references to where the diseased plantings took place and what organisations owned the woodlands, I decided to make a Freedom of Information request to the Forestry Commission to reveal this information in detail.
They replied saying, they were not prepared to release it at this time and that, whilst it might be of interest to the public, it was not in the public interest to divulge locations and owner organisations as it could deter other owners from reporting the disease. The Forestry Commission obviously has a poor opinion of the integrity of those who plant trees.
So, there we have it. Up to 80 million ash trees are at risk from disease but the Forestry Commission is quite prepared to protect its tree-planting buddies from criticism, in what must be one of the most scandalous environmental introductions from abroad by those who have been advocating the destruction of “alien” populations of both flora and fauna for years.
Yet it’s not in the public interest to reveal who they are? The 'con' in 'conservation' is truly exposed.
Angus Macmillan.
Meikle Boturich,
near Balloch,
Dunbartonshire.

Why does anyone believe these 'experts'?

The UK government's Climate Projection Study of 2009 predicted that climate change would cause much drier summers in the south of England, with rainfall dropping by up to 60% during June, July and August. Here is how the rainfall of the past five summers in the South East of England has compared with the long-term average (1970-2000):
2007....... 174%
2008........122%
2009........ 97%
2010........100%
2011........132%

After 12 days of June 2012, rainfall in some areas has already exceeded 50% of the average for an entire summer.

Experts?

Thanks to The Spectator's 'Barometer' column for the figures.


Ah but your figures are only for the Sough east of England I hear the cry from the 'warmists'. True, so here are the reservoir levels (at 13 June - last figures available, it has rained a hell of a lot since then) from Southern Water:

'Bewl Water reservoir at Lamberhurst near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, is the largest stretch of water in the South East of England. The reservoir is key to providing water to the region.

Capacity: 31,000 megalitres - 81% full, approx 2% below 10 year average and well abve the minimum over that period



Darwell reservoir near Robertsbridge, East Sussex, provides water for the Hastings area.

Capacity: 4,730 megalitres - 80% full, approx approx 2% below 10 year average and well above the minimum over that period


Powdermill reservoir near Sedlescombe, East Sussex, provides water for the Hastings area. Our smallest surface water reservoir, this is currently kept full ready to replenish Darwell reservoir if needed later in the summer.

Capacity: 1,060 megalitres - 98% full, approx 9% above 10 year average and 30% above minimum


Weir Wood reservoir near East Grinstead, is key to water supply in North Sussex. The reservoir is filled by rainwater and during a drought period the use of the reservoir is minimised to conserve supplies.

Capacity: 5,600 megalitres - 100% full, approx 20% above 10 year average and 50% above minimum.

Now take a look at that Southern Water page and note how the summary graphic for each reservoir is so out of date which means, coincidentally I am sure, that the impression of present dangerous drought is given.


How about South West Water?
They present their figures differently but there we see that at 10 June:
Total reservoir storage for the week: 103212 Ml (89.4%)
This week last year total storage was: 79089 Ml (68.5%)

Here's some more information from South West Water comparing water levels now with last year and 1995:



I suppose I could go on and on but I think you get the picture.


Over the last few years I have often referred to another prediction form another set of experts. In July 2009 (almost exactly three years ago) I wrote this:

'As I sit in London watching the rain fall as it has for the last few July days, indeed as it did for much of the summers of 2007 and 2008, I remember the certainty with which The Guardian reported in 2006 as fact that:

"Scientists know a lot about how events will unfold...which means that whatever we do, our climate destiny is fixed for the next few decades... Rainfall will decline in the summer and the increased deluges in winter will struggle to replenish thirsty reservoirs because much of the water will run off the baked ground."

Scientists know... climate destiny is fixed... Rainfall will decline in the summer..." It's all rubbish folks; most of these scientists are not predicting based on science, they are designing science to fit the desired predictions.

So after years of knowing that reservoirs would not be replenished by winter rains we have a situation, as the rain pours off my roof, where three quarters of UK reservoirs have higher than normal stocks...

Scientists know? I think not.

CO2 and coral

The BBC and their environmental allies have told us many times that the rise in CO2 levels in the seas is killing coral and that coral just will not survive in acid oceans. The trouble is that the science shows otherwise: Watts Up With That reports that 'The fishes and the coral live happily in the CO2 bubble plume'. Here's an extract:

'Willis Eschenbach’s post on lab work on coral response to elevated carbon dioxide levels, and The Reef Abides, leads to a large scale, natural experiment in Papua New Guinea. There are several places at the eastern end of that country where carbon dioxide is continuously bubbling up through healthy looking coral reef, with fish swimming around and all that that implies.

What that implies is that ocean acidification is no threat at all. If the most delicate, fragile, iconic ecosystem of them all can handle flat-out saturation with carbon dioxide, what is there to worry about?'

So why are the enviromentalists keen to push the threat? The same article suggests a possible reason:

'That lack of a threat is a threat to a human institution though – the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) based in Townsville, north Queensland run by Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

To quote Walter Starck (http://www.bairdmaritime.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6171:png-coral-reefs-and-the-bubble-bath&catid=99:walter-starcks-blog&Itemid=123) – “A never ending litany of purported environmental threats to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has maintained a generous flow of funding for several generations of researchers. The “reef salvation” industry now brings about US$91 million annually into the local economy in North Queensland.

Although none of these threats has ever become manifest as a serious impact and all of the millions of dollars in research has never found any effective solution for anything, the charade never seems to lose credibility or support. The popular threat of the moment is ocean acidification from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

So AIMS mounted an expedition to Papua New Guinea to examine the large scale, natural experiment that was a threat to their livelihood. They reported in Nature (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n3/pdf/nclimate1122.pdf?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201106) that while the reefs they examined looked healthy, they didn’t like them. The threat has been averted for the moment, but maintaining funding requires constant vigilance.'

Wind farms cause global warming!

This Telegraph report reveals that:

'Wind farms can cause climate change, according to new research, that shows for the first time the new technology is already pushing up temperatures.

Usually at night the air closer to the ground becomes colder when the sun goes down and the earth cools.
But on huge wind farms the motion of the turbines mixes the air higher in the atmosphere that is warmer, pushing up the overall temperature.

Satellite data over a large area in Texas, that is now covered by four of the world's largest wind farms, found that over a decade the local temperature went up by almost a centigrade as more turbines are built.

This could have long term effects on wildlife living in the immediate areas of larger wind farms.

It could also affect regional weather patterns as warmer areas affect the formation of cloud and even wind speeds.'

This would be funny if it were not so bloody predictable. Just as predictable is that a) the BBC will ignore the report, b) the climate-change fanatics will continue to push wind-power as the saviour of the planet Earth and c) the power companies and landowners will continue to make money off of people's stupidity.


Thanks to Devils Kitchen for the spot. Devils Kitchen also summarises:

' wind farms cost billions in subsidies, transfer money from the poor to the rich, slice up rare wild birds, dice up bats by the hundred, emit more CO2 in their construction than they save over a lifetime, don't generate any worthwhile or consistent electrical power.

And now they cause climate change...?'

Attention Richard Black? Something else to blame on CO2?

Discovery News, the Discovery Channel's news website, has an article that begins thus:

'Could Air Pollution Be Making Us Fat?

A hypothesis proposes that rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere may be contributing to obesity.

Steadily rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be affecting brain chemistry, increasing appetite and contributing to the obesity epidemic, according to a new hypothesis, which still awaits rigorous testing and inevitable debate.

The idea proposes that breathing in extra CO2 makes blood more acidic, which in turn causes neurons that regulate appetite, sleep and metabolism to fire more frequently. As a result, we might be eating more, sleeping less and gaining more weight, partly as a result of the air we breathe.

Major studies are in the works to test the hypothesis, which is still very much in the what-if stage. But if the link pans out, the research would offer yet another reason to reduce the CO2 we produce, while also potentially inspiring new obesity treatments.'

I think the key words in that report are 'could' and 'may' but I am sure some scaremongering is well in order. However I doubt that Richard Black would be approving of the line that reads:

'a new hypothesis, which still awaits rigorous testing and inevitable debate.'

Ridiculous, where would be if CO2 scares were subjected to rigorous testing?

"Just a bunch of smoke and mirrors and bullshit"

I have long wondered about the scare tactics used by the environmental movement, so was intrigued to come across the above video.

The YouTube description for the above video is this:

'The following is an outtake from Joe Berlinger's movie Crude. At the March 4, 2007, lunch meeting between plaintiffs' lead U.S. lawyer Steven Donziger and plaintiffs' U.S. consultants Charles Champ, Ann Maest and Richard Kamp, they reveal the truth about plaintiffs' lack of evidence and their intent to manipulate the Ecuadorian court. Maest tells Donziger that they need evidence of groundwater contamination, because plaintiffs did not submit any. Maest admits that, "Right now all the reports are saying it's just at the pits and the stations, and nothing has spread anywhere at all." Donziger responds, "Hold on a second, you know, this is Ecuador. ... You can say whatever you want, and at the end of the day, there's a thousand people around the courthouse. You're going to get what you want. Sorry, but it's true." Donziger continues, "Because at the end of the day, this is all for the court just a bunch of smoke and mirrors and bulls**t. It really is. We have enough, to get money, to win." View more outtakes at YouTube.com/TexacoEcuador. For more information about the Ecuador lawsuit, visit Chevron.com/Ecuador.'

Fascinating, do take a read of Chevron's website but also of The San Francisco Examiner and The Wall street Journal amongst other linked articles.

Disaster is always around the corner

The Global Warming/Man Made Climate  Change fanatics are always pointing to scientific predictions of forthcoming disaster as a way of urging us to reduce CO2 emissions and cut back on industry in the west. The trouble is that they have been doing this for so long that the timescale of some of the predictions has now been & gone and oddly the predictions have not come true. There a quite a lot of predictions form the late 1990s and early 2000s that this holds for and I will try and blog about more of these over the coming months but I thought I would start with one from the United Nations Environment Programme. In 2005 this organisation predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. Did that happen? If it did then the world's environmental organisations failed to report it.

The point being that scare tactics are all these activists have, apart of course from rigged data and questionable science, so the watermelon brigade (Green on the outside but red on the inside) issue their warnings so as to try and redistribute money and destroy western economies.

Meanwhile the activists' accomplices in the leftist media, such as the BBC, faithfully report the predictions of doom and gloom but neglect to report when the predictions are shown to have been wrong

Good energy news

It was reported widely yesterday that the company Cuadrilla had announced an enormous UK shale gas find. Assuming a 20% recovery rate (which is conservative) then this find is as big as the North Sea Troll super giant oil field. The gas produced would meet around 15 years of total UK energy demands. Put another way it would meet all current LNG imports for 40 years.

Of course the eco-nuts and warmists have been out in force explaining how this source of energy is bad, and of course the BBC have been at the forefront of publicising these opinions and presenting them as facts. For once I will not 'have a go' at the BBC for their clear and obvious bias and for campaigning rather than reporting, I will leave that to Biased-BBC. However I will pick up on one point made by the eco-nuts and reported eagerly by the BBC. The BBC report that:

'could provide 5,600 jobs in the UK, 1,700 of those in Lancashire.'
but also that
'Phil Thornhill, from Campaign Against Climate Change, was one of those protesting outside the meeting.

He said: "Those jobs could and should be in green energy. We need a revolution in the economy to really deal with climate change effectively.

"We need to be moving much quicker than we are to a low carbon economy, that would be a lot of jobs, a lot of development.

"They could create jobs in renewables if they put the investment there." '

Ah green jobs, the eco-nuts holy grail Shall we have a quick look at the reality of green jobs? As HotAir revealed a week or so ago:

'Today’s Washington Post acknowledges what everyone already knows, and what Spain learned the hard way as well — green-jobs subsidies are sinkholes.  When Barack Obama loaded his 2009 Porkulus with nearly $40 billion in subsidies to the green-tech industry, he promised that it would produce an explosion of jobs in a new, green US economy, starting with 65,000 directly created from his largesse.  With half of the money gone, how many jobs has Obama’s investment created?

A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show.

The program — designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies. …

Obama’s efforts to create green jobs are lagging behind expectations at a time of persistently high unemployment. Many economists say that because alternative-­energy projects are so expensive and slow to ramp up, they are not the most efficient way to stimulate the economy.

That may be the understatement of the year.  Even with Obama’s initial promise of 65,000 jobs created (or “saved,” which makes zero sense in this context), that would still come to $593,846 per job, which is hardly an efficient use of capital.  If a private-sector business had that kind of capital, it could easily create five jobs from that amount with $100,000 in compensation each, with enough left over for a substantial profit margin.
But the actual results in this case are much worse.  With $17.2 billion spent on these programs, the cost per actual job created comes to $4.853 million.  That kind of capital could launch entire new businesses, let alone multiple jobs.  Any company that ate through $4.853 million to create a job would shortly become a former company … kind of like Solyndra, where $535 million disappeared and took 1,000 jobs along with it.'

That's the reality of green jobs and I wish someone would put the point to Chris Huhne, David Cameron, the BBC's eco-journalists or any of the spokespeople for  the various eco pressure groups.

'It's a fact' - Is it really?

The Daily Mail yesterday included a for and against letter in answer to the debate question 'Is Nigel Lawson right on climate change?' Here's part of one of those letters:

'Let's be clear; it is a fact that climate change is a greater threat to the world than international terrorism. It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out. It's a fact that we have already passed peak oil production. It's a fact that the UK is 80 per cent dependent on fossil fuels...... Lawson's premise of cutting back on environment policy to ave our economy will be academic if we no longer have  a planet to live on.'

Wow that's a lot of 'facts', I wonder how many are actually substantiatable? The writer of that letter is Alan Aldridge and he signs himself as of 'Romay Renewable Energies, Crawley, Sussex'. So no financial axe to grind there then as a company who describe themselves as 'one of the UK’s leading domestic and commercial renewable solution providers who design, supply and install renewable energy systems' pushes'facts' that are anything but facts.
Let's look at Alan Aldridge's 'facts' and see if they are anything of the sort:

1) ' it is a fact that climate change is a greater threat to the world than international terrorism - This claim is hard to prove one way or another but having lost a friend to Islamic terrorism and having witnessed Islamic terrorists planes flying into the Twin Towers and killing thousands I am sceptical of this 'fact'.

2) 'It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out.' - Not true and I cannot see how such a claim could be justified. There are reserves of oil that have yet to be exploited, when the price is right they will be extracted. The worldwide reserves of shale oil and gas dwarf current oil reserves and could fuel the world for many years. The doom-mongers have been warning of fossil fuels running out since the 1960s, it has not happened yet and won't for a lot more than 20 years. I am willing to make a bet with Alan Aldridge that fossil fuels will still be being produced in 25 years time; will you accept a £500 bet Mr Aldridge and an apology from whoever is proved wrong?

3) 'It's a fact that we have already passed peak oil production.' - Peak oil was first claimed to have been reached in the 1960s and the same claim has been regularly made ever since by those with an axe to grind. The proponents of the passing of peak oil often ignore the prospect of new discoveries of oil and the advances in extraction techniques. We are probably close to peak oil but that does not mean the same as an end to oil production.


4) 'It's a fact that the UK is 80 per cent dependent on fossil fuels' - Absolutely not correct; I make it over 90%. However the solution is not increased reliance on largely unreliable and expensive wind power. Nuclear has a large place in our futures along with energy conservation.

I make that four 'facts' of which one 'fact' is unsubstantiatable, one 'fact' actually an underestimate but I disagree with the implied solution, one 'fact' that may be close to be being correct but is not as important as it sounds and one 'fact' that is laughable wrong. Nice try Alan Aldridge, will you agree to my wager, after all you know that 'It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out'.

Anyone else feel like having a bet with Alan Aldridge?


I have contacted Riomay with this comment:

'In a letter published in The Mail on friday your Alan Aldridge made four main claims of 'facts'. I disagree with the veracity of all of them, you can read why here - http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2011/06/its-fact-is-it-really.html

So will Alan Aldridge take me up on my offer of a bet regarding his laughable 'fact' that 'It's a fact that we are only 20 years away from fossil fuels running out.'

I am willing to make a bet with Alan Aldridge that fossil fuels will still be being produced in 25 years time; will you accept a £500 bet Mr Aldridge and an apology from whoever is proved wrong?'

I wonder what the response will be?

Two interesting global warming related articles

1) James Waterton on Samizdata thinks that 'If global warming is real, it is now inevitable' and backs this up with some observations from Beijing and about China & India:

'The fact is that if AGW is a genuine phenomenon, it is inevitable. There is absolutely no point in the rich world winding back its CO2 output, because China, India and the rest of the developing world will replace any first world CO2 reductions several times over. Despite the occasionally placatory noises about limiting CO2 emissions heard from the likes of the Chinese central government, the fact is that the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians, the Brazilians, nor anyone else from the developing world will ever stymy their nations' opportunity to develop by hobbling their industrial output via significant CO2 emissions controls. Nor are the leaders of these countries likely to do anything to incur the wrath of their citizens by curtailing their perfectly reasonable aspirations to own motorcars, motorcycles, air conditioners and enjoy the convenience of air travel - all enormous direct or indirect sources of CO2 emissions. If significant CO2 reduction could be achieved with minimal economic and social cost, then perhaps the developing world would cooperate. However, large-scale CO2 reduction is an extremely expensive and socially disruptive exercise, and this reality will persist for several decades.

And it is too late to roll back the clock - too many people in the developing world have tasted the fruits of development, and quite legitimately demand more. Those governing the aspirational billions are far more likely to be influenced by them than An Inconvenient Truth. Global CO2 emissions are going to continue to grow for many years, there is no doubt about it. The "global warmenists", as the mighty Tim Blair calls them, need to re-evaluate their positions, because what they propose at present is simply an exercise in developed-world wealth destruction on an epic scale. Those insisting on such a state of affairs appear little short of anti-human luddites, as detractors of the green movement have long asserted. Bjørn Lomborg is spot on - any resources allocated towards the AGW issue should be directed towards researching crisis management and developing an appropriate disaster-relief capacity under the circumstances of rapid climate change, even if only as an insurance policy. And the absolute last thing we in the developed world should be doing is hampering the wealth-creating organs of our societies in a futile effort to cut CO2 emissions. If AGW is truly the looming catastrophe that many predict, we need to be as wealthy as possible to plan and make provisions for its impending consequences, and thus deal with them when they start to unfold.'

He's quite right but the ecomentalists in much of the West just won't listen.


2) Frank Furedi at Spiked ponders the matter of 'competitive fearmongering' when it comes to climate change and nuclear power. A fascinating article and well worth a read. Here's a few extracts:

'After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in tsunami-hit Japan, fear appeals based on the alleged threat from nuclear reactors successfully – at least for now – trumped the climate alarmists’ predictions of planetary apocalypse. The German shift shows that even in the midst of a titanic clash of competing calamities, scaremongering can be surprisingly pragmatic.

Historic experience tells us that the success or otherwise of competitive scaremongering has little to with the actual intensity of the alleged threat.

...

Competitive scaremongering is encouraged by a cultural imagination that is far more open to appeals based on fear than on faith in people and the future. That is why even sensible attempts to counteract scaremongering can sometimes get sidetracked by the temptation to respond in kind, with an alternative form of alarmism. This regrettable tendency is strikingly illustrated in the response of some experts to the anti-MMR crusade. The health scare and panic about a bogus association between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism shows that scaremongering can fundamentally alter the way we live our lives. Hundreds of thousands of parents have become needlessly worried about allowing their children to be vaccinated by what is a very safe vaccine. Immunisation rates have sharply declined, with potentially dangerous consequences for children who do not get the vaccine. With so much at stake, it is understandable why some opponents of the anti-MMR crusaders have responded with their own fear appeals, claiming that a measles epidemic could threaten the future health of children across the West.

...

However, the contemporary culture of fear is very selective in its attitude towards invisible contaminants. Official reports suggest that around 10,000 people may have died from cancer as a consequence of the world’s gravest nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986. But that’s a relatively small number compared with the thousands of deaths caused by coal-mining and its associated pollution. Although contaminants released by both technologies have caused death, coal-mining rarely provokes the kind of hysteria that nuclear energy does.'

Do read the whole article and remember it the next time the BBC or Daily Mail are running a scare story based on dodgy science - now why am I thinking about the mobile phones cause cancer stories?

Is 'fracking' to blame for methane in water?

If you listen to the ecomentalists the answer is yes, however watch this...

Now what do you think?