Find it here
It is by De Jager and Duhau. Page 99 onwards is probably the most interesting part. I haven't been able to download any part of it and Google does not know of it but it is a chapter in a book about global warming in the 21st century. The authors are students of what goes on in the sun, with particular reference to solar cycles.
They find that solar activity has a large influence on earth's temperature, with only a third of one degree of global warming over the last 400 years NOT predictable from solar activity. And that component could well be due to errors of measurement on the ground.
Of greatest interest, however, they say that we have just finished a grand maximum of temperature and are now headed downhill for a grand minimum -- with a forecast drop of around 4 degrees this century. That's roughly the inverse of what the IPCC predict (a median rise of about 4 degrees)
Given the high degree of correlation between solar activity and terrestrial temperature that the authors report, their prediction is many orders of magnitude more reliable than the output of the chaotic IPCC models that discount any influence from the sun. So global cooling here we come!
And People Made Fun Of Nancy Reagan’s Astrologer
Secretary Chu can see the danger coming. And he knows the future.
In Midwest cities such as St. Louis, Mo., one-third of the year — 120 days — will be above 90 degrees.
The real danger with global warming will be the tipping point, he said. As polar ice caps melt, the thaws could expose microbes, which would release carbon dioxide in quantities that would outstrip any reductions humans could make in their carbon-dioxide emissions.
“For the first time in human history, science has shown that we are altering the destiny of our planet. At no other time in the history of science have we been able to say what the future will be 100 years from now
Soothsayer Chu seems to be unaware that Missouri summer temperatures have been in sharp decline over the last 80 years. He might be a good candidate for the Pravda Principle [i.e. The State defines the truth].
More HERE (See the original for links & graphics)
The Week That Was (To November 13, 2010)
Excerpts from Ken Haapala
Distinguished physicist Hal Lewis caused a furor when he submitted his letter of resignation to the American Physical Society (APS). The response from APS was more typical of an authoritarian organization than a scientific society. This week, Hal Lewis sent his response to APS which was posted, at his request, on Anthony Watts' web site Watts Up With That. Lewis insists the statement by APS embracing the IPCC version of global warming must be retracted and proposes two reforms to the society.
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The American Thinker published a piece by Fred Singer demonstrating that the biases in New York Times editorials lead to ludicrous assertions such as the newspaper accusing those who do not subscribe to Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) as denying climate change - something that has been taking place for millions of years. Such claims are the result of the failure by the newspaper to listen to the assertions those who challenge the IPCC and AGW advocates.
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When the IPCC insisted that its 2007 Assessment Report was correct and the glaciers of the Himalayan Mountains will melt by 2035, the government of India engaged Indian Himalayan expert V.K. Raina to make an independent report. The independent report noted that some glaciers are receding and others are advancing. Sometimes different tongues of the same glacier are moving in opposite directions, one receding while another is advancing. There is no general trend. To double check this work, the government of India engaged Australian ice expert Cliff Ollier who described the work of V.K. Rina as splendid and found the IPCC claims are "unsupported, unscientific, and wrong."
The Global Warming Policy Forum published an exceptional article by Cliff Ollier on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Ollier devastates the naiveté displayed by alarmists in making their assertions. Apparently, many of these alarmists do not understand difference in the movement of ice if it is in a bowl that is right side up, or on a bowl that is upside down.
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On Monday, the Tribune Newspapers, to include the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, carried an article announcing that several groups, including the American Geophysical Union (AGU), are preparing scientists to speak out against those who question that humans are causing unprecedented and dangerous global warming. This effort is apparently in response to polls showing that fewer people believe the AGW claim. The mantra of AGW enthusiasts is that the "deniers" are engaged in a well-funded, effective, and professionally run disinformation campaign in which AGW climate scientists cannot compete. They claim that this disinformation campaign supposedly creates confusion among the populace causing many people to think climate science is unreliable or controversial.
Roy Spencer quickly posted an effective rebuttal pointing out that it is the alarmists who have received billions of dollars for their work and have spent large sums on advertising campaigns. [The 2007 grand announcement of the Fourth IPCC Summary for Policymakers comes to mind, which was complete with glorious fireworks near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.]
AGU quickly announced a qualifying statement saying it would enlist 700 climate scientists to respond to questions from journalists. Needless to say, skeptics need not apply.
If scientific organizations are truly interested in communicating the science of AGW to the public, they would disavow the propaganda that has infected the entire issue for decades. Necessary steps include stopping the use of scientifically meaningless slogans such as climate change, disruptive climate change, or climate protection as substitutes for the real issue: are humans causing unprecedented and dangerous global warming?
Those who wish to communicate science to the public should object to propaganda photos that commonly accompany articles on carbon dioxide. These ubiquitous photos show emissions from smokestacks at power plants blackening the sky. Carbon dioxide is invisible. What appears to be blackening the sky is water vapor condensing under certain atmospheric conditions and exceptional lighting conditions.
Those organizations claiming to be scientific should recognize ad hominem propaganda attacks, such the recent book by Oreskes and Conway, for what they are, and denounce those attacks rather than treat them as scientific works. And, of course, objective scientific organizations should proclaim the results of the IPCC models are sophisticated speculation from unverified models rather than scientifically supported predictions.
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A Wall Street Journal article on a leaked White House memo contained the Quote of the Week. Apparently the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Treasury question the wisdom of huge subsidies for wind farms, thus are delaying approvals for massive amounts of subsidies under the stimulus bill. According to the article, a wind farm at Shepherds Flat, Oregon will receive a total of $1.2 Billion in Federal, state, and ratepayer subsidies. According to another article, the total permanent jobs created will be 35. This works out to over $34 Million per job.
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THE NUMBER OF THE WEEK is 65.8 GWe to 0.7 GWe. This is the NET increase in capacity from coal-fired electrical generation for 2008 in China and in the US, respectively. According to the World Nuclear Association, referenced in an earlier TWTW, in 2008 China added 91.8 GWe of capacity in new coal-fired plants while closing 26 GWe in old coal-fired plants. According to the US Energy Information Administration the US added 1.5 GWe in new coal-fired plants while closing 0.8 GWe in old coal-fired plants. The additions were on existing sites.
Solar and wind advocates claim the US is losing the race with China for so - called 21st Century energy. Once again, it appears China is in a different race.
More HERE (See the original for links)
The 1930s all over again in Germany
Only the colour of the shirts has changed
What is it with these intolerant zealots who refuse to learn anything from history?
Right smack on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, German Parliamentarians, in a frontal assault, are now openly calling out and branding scientists for the crime of scientific dissent. These out-of-control parliamentarians are demanding that the German government take a position against dissenting views in climate science.
What follows makes McCarthyism look like a treasure hunt. What a number of zealous German parliamentarians are calling for borders on a call to launch a science pogrom.
The climate dogmatists are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the scepticism, free speech, and dissent now spreading in Germany and Europe, and therefore want to stamp it out using the might of the federal government – and now.
The upcoming 3rd International Climate and Energy Conference, REGISTER HERE, has got them spooked as well.
Journalist Dirk Maxeiner here brings our attention to the latest development on the exploding intolerance that has gripped certain factions in Germany. Maxeiner publishes the text of a query written by the Green parliamentarians sent to the German government, read below.
As the text shows, branding of climate science dissenters has begun. Fred Singer and EIKE (European Institute For Climate and Energy) are the first to feel the sting of the denier-branding-iron. German greenshirts have sent the bloodhounds afterFred Singer because of his speech in a German parliamentary forum discussion on the economic impacts of climate protection held by the FDP Free Democrats, the junior coalition partner of Angela Merkel’s CDU/FDP coalition government. Read background here.
Some may think that I’m being over-dramatic here. I am not. The situation that the few, yet very vocal, sceptics face here is precarious. Just read the following query written by a faction of Parliamentarians to the German Government, translated of the German text presented at Dirk Maxeiner’s site (emphasis added, and note the use of the term “denier” throughout the text)......
There it is folks. All this because some people are asking questions about the science. These Green radicals are scared crapless. Their media hacks did everything possible to slander and destroy Fred Singer, EIKE, and other dissenting German scientists – to no avail.
Now for the first time they’re going after the liberty-oriented Liberal Institute of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation. They are de facto demanding a declaration of war on scientists and groups that have a different opinion. This level of intolerance has not been seen in Germany in over 65 years. This is their “Either-you’re-with-us-or-against us” declaration to Angela Merkel’s coalition government made up of the CDU Christian Democratic Union and FDP Free Democratic Party.
More HERE
'Bonkers' green energy policies risk power shortages in Scotland
Scotland is in “serious danger” of suffering power shortages over the next decade thanks to Alex Salmond’s “bonkers” green energy policies, the head of one of the country’s largest generators has warned.
Rupert Soames, chief executive of Aggreko, said Scotland’s lights will be “perilously close” to going out because a huge proportion of existing coal, oil and nuclear power stations are due to shut down over the next eight years.
He accused politicians of “holding hands and singing Kumbaya to the great green God” but warned the reality is it will be many decades before renewable energy can plug the gap left by traditional sources of power.
Unless Mr Salmond ends his ‘wishful thinking’ and draws up alternative plans, Mr Soames warned Scotland will be in “deep trouble” by 2018
But SNP ministers dismissed his claims last night and argued their target of generating 80 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 was realistic, despite the cost and unproven nature of the technology involved.
Mr Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill and brother of the Tory politician Nicholas Soames, was speaking at business conference at the Scottish Parliament.
Although his comments addressed an impending energy crisis across the UK, he suggested the problem is more acute in Scotland. The SNP has refused to allow the construction of new nuclear power stations north of the Border.
“How is Scotland going to react to the fact the national grid, on which we all depend, will lose 30 per cent of its generating capacity by 2013?” he asked delegates. “We may wish the replacement to be wind, we may wish the replacement to be tidal but wishing isn’t going to make it happen and I think you have responsibly to have a Plan B. We have to move on from the days of holding hands and singing Kumbaya to the great green God or believing that Scotland is going to be the centre of the universe for renewables.”
The largest offshore wind farms are actually being built off the east coast of England, he said, which is closer to the major centres of energy demand.
Mr Salmond’s policies fail to recognise “the cold realities” of financing and engineering expensive new forms of green technology, Mr Soames continued. He warned it will require Scottish politicians to display considerable leadership to “avert a very real energy crisis that will hit us in less than ten years time.”
“My concern is that not the long-term vision is wrong, but policy-making is so focused on the end of the road that you can’t see the giant pothole 300 yards ahead,” he said.
He mocked the ever-increasing climate change targets imposed by politicians – Mr Salmond’s original 2020 green energy target was 50 per cent – as they suggest “all this can be achieved without any consequences, no matter how bonkers the policy”.
Instead he argued the deadlines for existing targets should be pushed back a decade, adding: “We cannot live without electricity and even brief shortfalls would be catastrophic.”
A third of the UK’s energy capacity from coal, two-thirds from oil and nearly three-quarters from nuclear generation will end over the next eight years, he said. “Without an immediate programme of building new power stations, with concrete being poured in the next two years, we will be in serious danger of lights going out,” Mr Soames said.
Without naming Mr Salmond specifically, he said anyone who believes nuclear power is dispensable and more than 10 per cent of energy will come from the wind, is talking “nonsense” and should be “banned” from formulating energy policy.
Similarly, he argued that it is unrealistic to believe that targets to cut energy consumption by 30 per cent by 2020 can be met, or that tidal power is going to make a “meaningful contribution” in the next 15 years.
Glasgow-based Aggreko is a FTSE 100-listed company and operates in 29 countries worldwide. Mr Salmond also spoke at the conference, but had left by the time Mr Soames made his address.
A Scottish Executive spokesman said the First Minister “is confident of meeting our targets for the industry, and with some 7GW of renewable electricity in Scotland in production, under construction or consented, we are well on track to exceed our interim target for next year.”
He highlighted a new £70 million fund for green energy announced by Mr Salmond last week, saying this demonstrated his commitment “to ensuring Scotland seizes the once-in-a generation opportunity presented by renewable resources.”
But Gavin Brown, Scottish Tory energy spokesman, said: “The SNP needs to listen to the CEO of one of Scotland’s most successful companies, a real energy expert, and find a credible policy for our energy needs. “It is the SNP’s blinkered dogma which is threatening to turn out the lights across Scotland by refusing to consider continued nuclear power as part of the energy mix.”
SOURCE
$1.1bn wasted on solar power in Australia
MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers' money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich and did little to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, a scathing review has found.
The review of the now scrapped federal government solar rebate scheme, conducted by ANU researchers Andrew Macintosh and Deb Wilkinson, also found the rebates did little to generate a solar manufacturing industry in Australia, instead sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars offshore.
Mr Macintosh, deputy head of ANU's Centre for Climate Law and Policy, told The Age yesterday the rebate had been "beautiful politics, terrible policy".
"I can't see there is anything to be gained continuing to subsidise rooftop solar PV [photovoltaics] in areas where households have easy access to the energy grid," he said.
The program, started in 2000 with lower rebates, offered households an $8000 rebate to install solar panels on their roofs. In total, the government spent $1.1 billion installing 107,000 rooftop solar panels.
In June last year the Rudd government cancelled the program with less than 24 hours notice after surging demand rendered the scheme financially unsustainable. A less generous solar credits program has since replaced the rebate.
The report did not make any conclusion on the merits of the new scheme, or existing state-based solar programs.
By using documents obtained from the federal Environment Department, the researchers found 66 per cent of the solar systems installed under the program were on homes in suburbs with at least a "medium-high" socio-economic status.
All solar panel systems installed under the program combined reduced Australia's emissions by just 0.015 per cent, and cost up to $301 per tonne of carbon saved - hundreds more than the cost of emissions reductions with a carbon price.
In other findings, Mr Macintosh and Ms Wilkinson say while the program drove a six-fold increase in the generation capacity of rooftop solar panels, the technology still generates only 0.1 per cent of electricity output in Australia.
While the rebate benefited the domestic solar industry by up to $780 million, it did little to develop a value-adding manufacturing industry in Australia. Instead solar panels imports, mainly from China, rose from $17 million to $295 million between 2002 and 2009.
Mr Macintosh and Ms Wilkinson's review concludes the experience with the popular solar rebate program "highlights how care needs to be taken to ensure that renewable energy programs are designed and administered to generate public benefit outcomes".
"When poorly targeted and designed, these programs can be wasteful and produce predominantly private rather than public benefits," it says.
Mr Macintosh warned there were several environment programs still on the government's books that had similar flaws as the solar rebate, including the cash-for-clunkers program, which offers motorists $2000 to junk old cars if they buy a new fuel-efficient vehicle.
The chief executive of the Australian Solar Energy Society, John Grimes, said the solar industry needed a clear policy to ensure long-term growth. He said the solar industry had suffered from boom-bust policies, including the sudden closure of the program and the decision by the NSW government to scale down its feed-in tariff.
SOURCE
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For more postings from me, see DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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