Sunday, September 30, 2012




You can still see the Warmist in Judith Curry

Judy gal (chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology) has come a long way since she started listening to climate skeptics but there is still a supercilious "know-it-all" attitude about her.  Note this quote from her:

"Propaganda is pretty much the mission for ClimateDepot, but stealth propaganda is becoming increasingly apparent on the ‘science’ blogs, as revealed by the recent SkS hack of their Forum"

The most chaitable thing I can say about that is that she does not know what she is talking about.  She is academic enough to quote her definition of propaganda but that very definition gives the lie to what she says.  The definition says that propaganda is one-sided.  If she thinks Climate Depot is one-sided she needs to get on its mailing list.  I receive mailouts from Climate Depot daily and they send me roughly as many bits of Warmist reporting as they do skeptical reporting.

The idea of sending me Warmist articles is of course the expectation that I will rubbish them  -- which I do.  Rubbishing Warmism is as easy as stealing candy off a baby -- and grown up  babies is what many Warmists sound like.  They want authority (Daddy) to give them the truth.

Judith is just plain wrong, almost wrong enough to be defamatory.  But her failure to attend to the facts is of course very Warmist.

She also seems broadly sympathetic to this comment:

 “Finally, it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.“

Too much science in the Warming debate?  Science should be communicated as an ideology?  In my 40 years in science I have never heard anything so blatantly anti-intellectual  -- aside of course from Nazism and Communism.  Dr Goebbels would agree  -- JR




Dash for gas in Switzerland

No-one has died as a result of radiation from Fukushima but it would appear that nuclear phobia still trumps dislike of carbon emissions.  Both are deeply irrational so we are looking at a dialogue of the insane here.  Germany's dash towards brown coal is similar

Switzerland would have to charge higher end-user power prices and resort to new gas-fired plants to fill the supply gap created by its planned nuclear phase-out prompted by Japan's Fukushima accident, the Swiss energy ministry said on Friday.

The country, which voted last May to phase out nuclear by 2034, on Friday unveiled an ambitious energy strategy intended as a road map for coping with the transition.

"It will be necessary to temporarily develop electricity from fossil fuels... until the energy needs can be completely covered by renewable energy," the energy ministry said in a statement on Switzerland's new strategy through to 2050.

It said that such plants would probably include combined heat and power units as well as Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs). Some analysts expect global gas prices to tumble due to the ready availability of new sources from shale, increasing the fuel's appeal.

The statement also said the average household electricity bill, estimated at 890 Swiss Francs ($950) a year, was due to rise in line with higher costs for renewable energy and to cover the costs of investment in the grid.

The Alpine country, which sources about 40 percent of its energy from five nuclear power plants, joined Germany in voting to phase out nuclear energy after the Japan Fukushima crisis shook confidence in the sector.

Now doubts are emerging about the ability of these countries to expand their renewable capacity in time for when nuclear station shutdowns will squeeze supply margins.

The West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, has already warned that Switzerland may struggle to meet its future power demand and that end users may face higher prices as part of the transition.

Belgium's cabinet postponed the planned closure of one of its oldest nuclear reactors by a decade in July over concerns about finding alternative power sources. Germany may have to slow down its planned transformation to green energy amid cost concerns, its Environment Minister said in August.

The Swiss strategy, part of a public consultation, envisages a greater role for hydropower and renewables as part of its new strategy. It includes targets for hydropower production of 37,400 GWH and renewable energy production of 11,940 GWH by 2035.

The strategy also includes several measures designed to accelerate the process of obtaining permits for renewable energy projects.

Switzerland's strong tradition of direct democracy can slow the development of controversial projects such as wind farms, denounced by some as eyesores. A new version of the strategy will be released in 2014 after the public consultation.

SOURCE



NASA's Orwellian revision of the past

It turns out that there is no way to reliably compare current global temperatures to historical data using NASA's database.  It is a scientific scandal.

I wrote recently about NASA changing its entire temperature record database, just from July to September. That is, in 2012, NASA changed temperatures going back to 1880. And it did that without telling anyone or explaining it. The net effect was to make the 130-year warming trend steeper, by lowering older (pre-1963) temperatures and slightly raising recent ones.

I must confess, I was slightly apprehensive about writing that. It was just possible that I had grabbed the wrong data set in July and was comparing apples and oranges. I'm now happy to report that I was not the only one to catch this change. It was real.

I don't know exactly who does this, or how, but someone compares every month of NASA's temperature data to the previous month. If you want to see exactly what changed between August and September 2012, select the top month on that page. Here is a summary of how much changed in recent months.

    August to September: 60%.
    July to August: 27%.
    June to July: 17%.
    May to June: 39%.
    April to May: 17%.

NASA's temperature record is, indeed, a living document.

My piece was also picked up by "Watts Up With That?" WUWT argues that NASA is in violation of the Data Quality Act.

This is the data that the American public pays for. It is one of only two or three such records of global temperatures going back more than a century. It is what all claims of global warming are based on. And about one third of that data changes every month! Without warning, notice or explanation.

In my opinion, this is a scandal. There is no way for the public to inform itself reliably on an issue that could cost us trillions of dollars. We have no way of knowing how much of global warming is real and how much is simply due to unexplained adjustments to the data - data that is under the control of zealots like James Hansen.

SOURCE



Greece can't afford "renewables" any more

Greece, aiming to stave off a fresh energy crisis, plans to support its main electricity market operator through a temporary tax on renewable power producers and by extending an emergency loan, a senior official said on Friday.

Deputy energy minister Asimakis Papageorgiou told Reuters that Greece's international lenders had dropped their opposition to the loan plan in view of the country's critical energy situation.

The electricity system came close to collapse in June when market operator LAGHE was overwhelmed by subsidies it pays to green power producers as part of efforts to bolster solar energy.

LAGHE was already suffering in Greece's debt crisis as bills were left unpaid by consumers protesting against the collection of an unpopular property tax via the bills of PPC, the country's sole electricity retailer.

Earlier this year the fund extended 100 million euros to state-owned natural gas supplier DEPA and another 110 million to dominant state-controlled utility PPC (DEHr.AT).

The temporary charge on renewable energy producers was a further measure to plug LAGHE's deficit of more than 300 million euros.

"I'd call it a solidarity levy," Papageorgiou said. "It will be in force over a very specific period... and set at such a level that will allow them to operate normally with satisfactory returns."

Greece has slashed the guaranteed feed-in prices it pays to some solar operators and is no longer approving permits for their installation.

SOURCE




Greens Shocked: Britain Plans To Build 20 New Gas Power Plants

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey has given the clearest indication yet that he expects gas to continue to play a major role in the UK's energy mix for at least the next two decades, revealing 20 new gas-fired power plants are likely to built over the next few years.

Speaking to the Guardian, Davey said the government was planning 20GW of new gas capacity by 2030, but insisted that the surge in new gas capacity would not crowd out investment in renewables, nor lead to the UK breaking its legally-binding carbon budgets.

"I strongly support more gas, just as I strongly support more renewable energy," he told the paper. "We need a big expansion of renewable energy and of gas if we are to tackle our climate change challenges."

The comments come ahead of the expected release of a new national gas strategy this autumn and what is likely to be a tense debate between the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Treasury over whether or not the upcoming Energy Bill includes a decarbonisation target for the electricity sector for 2030.

Chancellor George Osborne has signalled that he is fiercely opposed to the target, arguing that it would discourage investment in new gas capacity. However, the Lib Dem conference this week passed motions supporting the inclusion of the target on the grounds it is deemed necessary to ensure the UK meets its long term carbon targets.

The latest comments will further anger green groups, particularly after the Lib Dem conference signalled that the party was preparing to step up its support for the low carbon economy.

"Green-lighting a whole fleet of new fossil fuel power stations would cause a huge jump in emissions and blow this autumn's once-in-a-generation opportunity to replace dirty power stations with clean ones," said Joss Garman, political director of Greenpeace. "Only days ago Ed Davey and Danny Alexander said they were fully committed to achieving completely carbon-free power in the UK by 2030. Nick Clegg can't afford to make this another 'sorry'."

SOURCE
 


Norm Kalmanovitch on global warming and the Alberta deficit

Re: "Alberta deficit could hit $3B," Aug. 31.

With $2-billion spent on carbon capture and storage, and millions subsidizing other ludicrous initiatives to stop global warming (which officially ended by 1998), Alberta is well over the $4-billion mark in spending on climate change foolishness, so without this wasted expenditure addressing a clearly fabricated problem, Alberta would not be in a deficit position.

Premier Alison Redford had the chance to extricate Alberta from what is essentially climate change fraud by referencing the documents Paul Hinman tabled in the legislature on my behalf on Oct. 25, 2011.

In tabling these documents, Hinman stated: "I'd urge all members of the legislative assembly to read these reports, that we might make better-informed decisions," but apparently the political necessity of perpetuating the global warming scam was more important to Redford than doing what is right, especially with the government's position on climate change being a key issue in the election.

Graphs in my report all showed no global warming since 2002 and, using the International Panel on Climate Change's own HadCRUT3 data set, I demonstrated global cooling since 2002, followed by this comment: "The red trend lines on this data set clearly shows that the world has actually been cooling since 2002 in spite of the continued accelerated increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, and therefore every penny spent by our government since 2002 to combat global warming has been entirely wasted."

Removal of $4 billion in wasted spending from a $3-billion deficit, according to my math, gives a billion-dollar surplus.

SOURCE

***************************************

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.  

The graphics problem:  Graphics hotlinked to this site sometimes have only a short life and if I host graphics with blogspot, the graphics sometimes get shrunk down to illegibility.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here and here

*****************************************

No comments: