Hilarious Warmist screech from Germany



The photo above is of ever-friendly and enthusiastic journalist Marc Morano.  Marc must have been play-acting when they took that snap but major (but very "Green") German weekly "Die Zeit" has just used it to help portray Morano  as some sort of Mafia boss.  His Italian surname and  Italian looks  help a bit, I guess.

The article is unbelievably corny.  To get the flavor of it, here are the opening sentences:

Marc Morano sows doubt with keypresses.  He sits in the back of a black Lincoln Towncar limousine and uses his most important weapon, a laptop.  Outside the autumn forest flies past while Morano crafts a new hit-piece for his website... 

The car picked up Morano half an hour earlier from his big house in a suburb of the American capital, Washington.  Now he glides to the TV studio of the news station, Fox news.  There Morano has his next engagement.

(In German:  Marc Morano saet den Zweifel per Tastendruck. Er sitzt im Fond einer schwarzen Lincoln-Town-Car-Limousine und bedient seine wichtigste Waffe, den Laptop. Drausen fliegt der Herbstwald vorbei, Morano ladt eine neue Schlagzeile auf seine Web site: ?Die amerikanische Umweltbehorde wird beschuldigt, Menschenversuche durchzufuhren?. Der Wagen hat Morano vor einer halben Stunde vor seinem grosen Haus in einem Vorort der amerikanischen Hauptstadt Washington abgeholt, jetzt gleitet er zum Fernsehstudio des Nachrichtensenders Fox News. Dort hat Marc Morano seinen nachsten Einsatz.)

You'd think they would be embarrassed to print such corny stuff!  But you have to be unembarrassable to be a Warmist in the first place I guess.  Marc comments:  "I assure you all, my home is a bit over 2000 sq foot vinyl sided colonial on barely 1/3 acre. The cars referred to are simply sedans Fox News uses to pick up any guest."

Pierre Gosselin has a full takedown of the "Die Zeit" article.




First Casualty Of British Green Energy Bill: Steel Giant Tata To Cut 900 UK Jobs

Steel giant Tata is cutting 900 jobs and closing 12 sites under plans to improve competitiveness, the firm announced today.

Most of the job losses will be in south Wales, including 500 at the Port Talbot plant, under restructuring of management and administrative posts.  A total of 580 jobs will be cut in Wales, 155 in Yorkshire, 120 in the West Midlands and 30 on Teesside.

The proposals include the restructuring of management and administrative functions at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot-based production hub with the loss of around 500 jobs. Around 3,500 are currently employed at the site.

The company is also planning to close its sites at Tafarnaubach and Cross Keys. Production from Tafarnaubach will be relocated to other sites, while the Colorsteels operation will be relocated to Tata Steel’s key site at Shotton, in north Wales.

The move places 154 jobs at risk at Tafarnaubach and Cross Keys, although the restructuring will create 38 new roles in Shotton, Deeside. [...]

A Welsh Government spokesman said: "This is very disappointing news, and a massive blow to those who will be losing their jobs.

"The Welsh Government has a very strong relationship with the company and officials will now work with Tata to establish a task force and identify what support we can provide for those affected.

"Tata's decision reflects the serious and ongoing challenges faced by manufacturing industries during these very difficult economic times. In addition to these challenges, it is clear that high energy costs and uncertainty over UK Government energy policy are having a significant impact on business investment decisions. As a Government, we have warned for some time of the need for these costs to be reduced.

More HERE




Are Al Gore’s “Dirty Weather” Claims And Tactics Criminal?

Tim Ball

Fraud is defined as “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial  or personal gain.” Did Al Gore campaign to deceive the world about the role of human produced CO2 causing world ending global warming and climate change. He profited through carbon credits based on the false need to reduce CO2 and advanced his political career by “saving the planet.”

Others distorted climate science for a political agenda, but none with the intensity of Gore. One was Senator Tim Wirth who in 1993 said:

“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing …” He staged the starting point of deception with James Hansen’s testimony before the Gore chaired Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He said,

“…we knew there was this scientist at NASA who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it. So we called him up and asked him if he would testify.”

The New York Times headline next day said “Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate”. They didn’t report that Wirth deliberately selected the historically hottest day, and …

“What we did it was went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right? So that the air conditioning wasnt working inside the room and so when the, when the hearing occurred there was not only bliss, which is television cameras in double figures, but it was really hot. …”

Al Gore, likely knew what was done. He became the most vocal champion of Hansen’s claims. However, he fails to provide accurate unbiased information and to correct errors, as is well documented.
He claimed, incorrectly, the UK court ruled in his favour of his movie An Inconvenient Truth.  Documentary producer McAleem asked him :

The judge in the British High Court after a lengthy hearing found that there were nine significant errors (in the movie). This has been shown to children. Do you accept those findings, and have you done anything to correct those errors?

Gore:

“…..the ruling was in favor of the movie, by the way, and the ruling was in favor of showing the movie in schools. And …..that’s really the…… bottom line on that.”

It wasn’t in his favor. The judge said show the movie but only after bias and errors were identified by the teacher and suggested balance such as the documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle.

But what about the public?  In contrast, Swindle producer Martin Durkin, withheld release of the DVD at great personal expense to correct a very minor error. The UK Court identified nine major errors in Gore’s movie, but there are some 35 errors. None are corrected, but it’s still used worldwide by hundreds of Gore trained acolytes.

Justice Burton’s commentary is perceptive about Gore’s use (misuse) of science.

“ Although I can only express an opinion as a viewer rather than as a judge, it is plainly, as witnessed by the fact that it received an Oscar this year for best documentary film, a powerful, dramatically presented and highly professionally produced film. It is built round the charismatic presence of the ex-Vice-President, Al Gore, whose crusade it now is to persuade the world of the dangers of climate change caused by global warming. It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film, albeit of course not party political. Its theme is not merely the fact that there is global warming, and that there is a powerful case that such global warming is caused by man, but that urgent, and if necessary expensive and inconvenient, steps must be taken to counter it, many of which are spelt out. Paul Downes, using persuasive force almost equivalent to that of Mr Gore, has established his case that the views in the film are political by submitting that Mr Gore promotes an apocalyptic vision, which would be used to influence a vast array of political policies, which he illustrates in paragraph 30 of his skeleton argument:

“(i) Fiscal policy and the way that a whole variety of activities are taxed, including fuel consumption, travel and manufacturing …
(ii) Investment policy and the way that governments encourage directly and indirectly various forms of activity.
(iii) Energy policy and the fuels (in particular nuclear) employed for the future.
(iv)Foreign policy and the relationship held with nations that consume and/or produce carbon-based fuels.”

Gore continued his deceptions with a series of media events, the most recent was The Climate Reality Project. Distortions and errors were numerous. The political practice of inflating participants was apparently used. It parallels Gore use of consensus as ‘proof’ the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ostensibly the source of his information, was correct. It was implied in his 2007 evidence to the US Senate that inaccurately said, “the debate is over, the science is settled.” Consensus is not a scientific fact. Numbers are meaningless if the data is incorrect. Let’s examine what he said as recently as August 2011 in Aspen with his comment and my reply.

They pay pseudo-scientists, to pretend to be scientists, to put out the message: “This climate thing, it’s nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn’t trap heat. It may be volcanoes.” Bulls–t! “It may be sun spots.” Bulls–t! “It’s not getting warmer.” Bulls–t!

Who pays the pseudo-scientists? Almost all climate research funding is from government.
What “climate thing? Climate change is occurring, has always occurred and will continue. Current changes are well within natural variability, despite Gore’s false claims about increasing severe weather. Inadequate computer models aren’t the problem as one editorial claims. The record hurricane record shows no increase in the last 30 years when the IPCC say human CO2 was cause of climate change. Besides, the science say there are fewer severe events with the IPCC warming hypothesis. It may be volcanoes, but not the small amount of CO2 they produce. The dust they eject is significant and a poorly measured factor. Look at the impact of Tambora in 1815, Krakatoa in 1883 and Pinatubo in 1991. It isn’t the sunspots per se, but their relationship to changes in the Sun’s magnetic field, which determines number of cosmic rays forming low cloud. The hypothesis is in the literature since 1991 and since proved, but it is not included in IPCC comments or models. “It’s not getting warmer.” It stopped warming after 1998, a fact tacitly acknowledged by the IPCC when they changed from global warming to climate change. Apparently the crude language is supposed to indicate anger, concern and the illusion his comments are accurate. It works because few people know or understand. It is as phony as Gore’s actions. Hypocrisy was exposed with his massive carbon footprint, the amount of money he made from the carbon credit delusion and recently we learn the portfolio was not in sustainability. As Junkscience reports Gore:

“…may be “talking the talk” but not “walking the walk” when it comes to investing in so-called “sustainable” businesses.”

He promoted carbon credits, the modern equivalent of medieval church Indulgences. Buy your way into heaven by giving money to the church. Chaucer understood the character when he created the Pardoner who said:

“What!  Do you think, as long as I can preach
And get this over for the things I teach,
that I will live in poverty, from choice?
That’s not the counsel of my inner voice!
No! Let me preach and bake from Kirk (church) to Kirk
and never do an honest job of work,
no, nor make baskets, like St. Paul, to gain
a livelihood. I do not preach in vain.

Gore, like most who claim human CO2 is causing warming and climate change, will not debate. He uses personal attacks, propaganda and misleading information. He profits while accusing others of profiting. He uses science for political and personal gain by misrepresenting the facts and evidence. He refuses to correct errors even when identified in Court. It appears to fit the definition of fraud.

SOURCE





China’s Great Green Energy Disaster

China’s leadership committed about $290 billion to cleantech. Now, the green bubble is about to burst

One-quarter of China’s wind farms are not connected to a power grid—a reflection of poor planning, insufficient transmission lines, and technical concerns by regional utilities that the intermittency of wind power can be disruptive to normal operations. Wind-related power failures have caused blackouts in three provinces, while exploding equipment has been blamed in the deaths of several workers, according to local press accounts.

Responding to a perceived market for green energy in Europe and North America, China engaged in a massive production build-up of wind turbines and photovoltaic panels. China was successful in building a vast production capacity of green energy generation. And now, China must face the consequences of its great success.

China’s $30 billion solar power industry is overbuilt and heavily in debt. Analysts say even billions of dollars in new government loans may not be able to pull it out of the hole…. Suntech Power Holdings (STP), the world’s largest solar panel maker, announced in September it would cut or reassign 1,500 workers at its photovoltaic cell factory in Wuxi.

Suntech is counting on a $32 million loan from local authorities to avoid more job losses. To stay solvent, LDK Solar (LDK), China’s second-largest maker of solar wafers, was forced to sell a 20 percent stake to a renewable energy investor part-owned by the city of Xinyu, where LDK is headquartered. The support comes as the companies prepare to report combined 2012 losses of $987 million… Regional governments are loath to let their local solar panel makers fail.

… Help from local governments may be the biggest hurdle to making China’s solar industry competitive, says Shyam Mehta, solar analyst at the Boston consulting company GTM Research: “Until they stop supporting the uncompetitive manufacturers, this won’t go away.”

…LDK and Suntech both have balance sheets “so egregious” they would be “imminent bankruptcy candidates if they were American or European,” says Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates. The companies didn’t respond to requests for comment. Molchanov believes infusions of government money won’t stop the losses until China grapples with its massive overcapacity—the same glut of panels that cut global prices by half in the last two years and drove U.S. solar panel makers such as Solyndra out of business.

“Every province, every city, every bank is going to try to protect their vested interest as best they can,” he says. “That’s why kicking the can down the road has been the dynamic so far.” Aaron Chew, an analyst at Maxim Group in New York, concurs: “The government’s subsidy plan is better than nothing, but I don’t think it will save the industry as it’s still not profitable.”

The nation’s investments in wind power are faring no better. One-quarter of China’s wind farms are not connected to a power grid—a reflection of poor planning, insufficient transmission lines, and technical concerns by regional utilities that the intermittency of wind power can be disruptive to normal operations. Wind-related power failures have caused blackouts in three provinces, while exploding equipment has been blamed in the deaths of several workers, according to local press accounts. China Datang Corporation Renewable Power, a state-owned wind energy developer, saw first-half 2012 profits plunge 76 percent, in part because regional utilities simply don’t have the capacity to accept all the energy it produces.

China’s wind turbine manufacturers, responsible for 40 percent of the world’s output, are suffering a double squeeze, as demand has stalled both at home and abroad. Sinovel Wind Group, the world’s largest wind turbine maker by market value, posted a $45 million third-quarter loss this year on an 82 percent drop in sales—its largest loss since its initial public offering in January 2011. _Businessweek

China’s green energy woes should have been expected, given the experience of other nations that followed a similar slippery downhill path.

Epic Failure of Spain’s Grand Green Energy Gesture

Obama’s Legacy of Corrupt Green Failures

Germany pays the price for its green foolishness

Modern industrial power grids cannot tolerate the huge moment-to-moment energy fluctuations of intermittent unreliable energy sources such as big wind and big solar.

Whenever attempting a large scale conversion to “green power,” initial economic costs are exorbitant. The cost of the power plants themselves, the cost of new power grid infrastructure, and the huge cost of maintaining spinning backup power sources. And then there is the cost to society as lower and middle income customers strain to pay skyrocketing power bills.

But the real costs of such an ideologically driven, top-down attempt to transform a national power grid and power supply, begin to emerge as the unreliables approach 20% or more of total power capacity to the grid. The violent and unpredictable intermittency of big wind power in particular, leads to power failures — blackouts, brownouts, selective shutdowns of power customers, etc.

More HERE





Britain's "Green" policies under attack from Europe!

The future of the Government's flagship Green Deal programme hangs in the balance after an intensifying tax dispute with the European Commission.

Brussels bureaucrats have warned Whitehall to overhaul the tax rules regarding energy-saving materials or face the prospect of massive fines at the European Court of Justice.

Currently, the UK Treasury levies a reduced rate of 5% VAT for insulation materials for walls, ceilings, floors and water tanks. However, the full 20% rate of VAT still applies to energy-efficient windows and doors.

In August, the European Commission warned the UK Government the reduced 5% tax rate is unlawful and it must change the law or face the prospect of the European Court imposing huge financial penalties.

The UK Government is fiercely disputing the ruling but today a spokesperson for Europe's Tax Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta said it was unlikely the challenge will be successful and said the UK had only this week filed the formal paperwork to appeal.

“The current infringement proceeding is on the application of the reduced VAT rate to some goods and services which according to the VAT directive would not be subject to this rate,” she added.

“How this infringement interacts with the eligibility criteria of investments under the Green Deal is a domestic UK issue on which we do not have comments.”

However, she warned of a lengthy delay to a final outcome as the Commission deals on average with 400 to 500 infringement cases a month.

If, as threatened, Europe sticks to its ruling it means the Green Deal will be grounded because it will no longer be financially viable.

The energy-saving programme is underpinned by the so-called 'golden rule', which means the expected financial savings must be greater than the costs attached to the energy bill.

The imposition of an unexpected quadrupling in tax will rule many green improvements out of the scheme.

A spokesman for DECC admitted the department is closely monitoring the situation but did not want to discuss the implications while the crunch decision from Brussels is awaited.

If, as expected, the case is referred to the European Court of Justice to impose financial penalties the issue could drag on until the middle of next year at the earliest.

In the meantime, the Government is desperate to avoid repeating a boom similar to the Feed-in Tariff for solar PV as it may be penalised further to compensate for the retrospective difference in tax levels.

The October 1 launch of the Green Deal was played down by Ministers although earlier this month the Energy Secretary Ed Davey announced that householders insulating their homes would be able to claim up to £1,000 in cash from the Government in January.

The dispute has been simmering for decades as the UK government gradually expanded the list of energy-saving devices that qualify for lower rate VAT.

As the rate on electricity and gas consumption has long been set at 5%, the UK Government thought it appropriate to reduce the levels for energy conservation to the same level.

It is only now, 12 years after the five per cent rate for some key energy-saving measures was introduced, that the EC is challenging their legality. And it is seeking to force the UK government to remove all exemptions, thereby raising the VAT rate for all energy efficiency actions to the full 20%.

Shortly after the General Election, the EC tax inspectorate indicated disquiet about these lower VAT rates because they were beyond the permissible categories for reductions.

A 'formal notice' followed but HMRC believed they had answered the objections. HMRC then received an official Reasoned Opinion, claiming that the existing concessions were in breach of Annex 3 of the latest VAT directive. This states that the 5% rate is permitted only for the “provision, construction, renovation and alteration of housing, as part of a social policy”.

The Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin, briefed by HMRC, has strenuously rejected the claim that installing energy saving measures does not have a social purpose.

As well as issues raised by having a flagship policy disrupted, the Government also faces the problem of achieving carbon targets, energy security and its pledges on eradicating fuel policy, three of the aims of the Green Deal.

Three-quarters of the energy used in UK homes is for heating rooms and water, which accounts for 13% of UK emissions. Workplaces account for 20% of the total. To help meet the UK carbon budgets emissions in homes and communities must be reduced by 29% and by 13% in workplaces by 2022.

The energy efficiency sector in the UK already accounts for around 136,000 jobs, and had sales of £17.6 billion in 2010/11.

Sales in this sector have grown by over 4% per year in the UK since 2007/08, and are projected to grow by around 5% per year between 2010/11 and 2014/15.

With millions of the UK’s ageing houses being energy inefficient, the potential of the retrofit market is estimated at £500bn.

SOURCE



Green/Left accused of keeping Australian Aborigines in poverty

THE Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton has accused the left of standing in the way of indigenous advancement, consigning the nation's first peoples to lives of poverty.

In her second Boyer lecture, an extract of which is published in the Herald, Professor Langton argues the environmental movement has emerged as "one of the most difficult of all the obstacles hindering Aboriginal economic development".

"Among the left and among those opinion leaders who hang on to the idea of the new 'noble savage', Aboriginal poverty is invisible, masked by a 'wilderness' ideology," Professor Langton argues in the lecture, which will be broadcast on Sunday.

"Whenever an Aboriginal group negotiates with a resource extraction company there is an unspoken expectation that no Aboriginal group should become engaged in any economic development. They only tolerate Aboriginal people living on their own land as caretakers of wilderness, living in poverty and remaining uneducated and isolated."

Professor Langton, the chairwoman of Australian indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, attacks environmental campaigners who teamed with dissident Aboriginal groups to oppose development at Jabiluka in western Arnhem Land and elsewhere "not because of impacts on Aboriginal people but to preserve nature and 'wilderness"'.

"Whether Aboriginal groups had projects imposed on them or negotiated successful settlements, these professional protesters, supported by sophisticated non-government organisations funded by a gullible public, accused Aboriginal leaders of 'selling out'. Not once have they campaigned against Aboriginal poverty. They assume that this is the normal for the natives.

"Time and again, native title groups have spent years getting an agreement with a resource company over the line, negotiating income streams that might shift indigenous people from the margins to the centre of regional economic development in return for land access, only for a ragtag team of 'wilderness' campaigners to turn up with an entourage of disaffected Aboriginal protesters to stop development at the eleventh hour."

She accuses Labor of taking Aboriginal voters for granted since the days of the Whitlam government but says this changed with the election of the West Australian Liberal MP Ken Wyatt as the first indigenous member of the House of Representatives, and the defeat of the Labor government in this year's Northern Territory election, largely due to the disaffection of indigenous voters in bush seats.

Professor Langton says the territory result challenged mainstream perceptions of the marginal power of the Aboriginal vote and demonstrated the Country Liberal Party - once rabidly opposed to Aboriginal rights - had changed its colour.

Professor Langton's lecture will be broadcast on ABC Radio National on Sunday at 5pm and will be available at abc.net.au/radionational/boyerlectures.

SOURCE

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