Warmist fanatic Bill McKibben on Trump

In the excerpt below, he makes assertions that are unreferenced and unargued for and ignores large facts that don't suit him. Take the following assertion: "This year has been the hottest year recorded in modern history, smashing the record set in 2015"

There's some small truth in that but it's what McKibben "forgets" to say that matters.  He forgets to say that CO2 levels did not match the warming.  I quote fron the journal article appended below:

"For year 2015 alone, the growth in EFF [EFF = emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels] was approximately zero ... For 2016, preliminary data indicate the continuation of low growth in EFF"

So the CAUSE of the warming is not as McKibben would have you believe. The 2015 warming was clearly NOT an effect of an anthropogenic CO2 rise -- because there was no CO2 rise. So his whole story is totally undermined. Even if we allow as real and warming-caused all the dire phenomena he lists, they are NOT caused by a CO2 rise.  So restrictions on CO2 are irrelevant to the warming and Trump's actions will cause no harm.


President-elect Donald Trump has already begun to back off some of his promises: Maybe not all of Obamacare has to go. Maybe parts of his wall will actually be a fence. Maybe it’s okay to have some lobbyists running the government after all.

But I fear he won’t shrink from the actions he has promised on climate change: withdrawing the United States from the Paris accord, ending President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and okaying every new fossil-fuel plan from the Keystone XL pipeline on down. He won’t back down because those are hard-to-hedge choices and because he’s surrounded by climate-change deniers and fossil-fuel insiders who will try to ensure that he keeps his word.

So let’s be entirely clear about what those actions would represent: the biggest, most against-the-odds and most irrevocable bet any president has ever made about anything.

It’s the biggest because of the stakes. This year has been the hottest year recorded in modern history, smashing the record set in 2015, which smashed the record set in 2014. The extra heat has begun to steadily raise sea levels, to the point where some coastal U.S. cities already flood at high tide even in calm weather. Global sea ice levels are at record lows, and the oceans are 30 percent more acidic. And that’s just so far. Virtually every scientific forecast says that without swift action in the next few years to cut carbon emissions, this crisis will grow to be catastrophic, with implications for everything from agriculture to national security that dwarf our other problems.....

If you don’t think poor people should get subsidized medical care, that’s ugly, but it’s an opinion you’re entitled to hold. Science isn’t like that: The heat-trapping properties of the carbon dioxide molecule simply a reality. Which is why, even if we fail in our efforts to stop Trump from making his bet, it’s important for history to note what’s going on. One man is preparing to bet the future of the planet in a long-shot wager against physics.

SOURCE

Global Carbon Budget 2016

Corinne Le Quéré et al.

Abstract.

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and methodology to quantify all major components of the global carbon budget, including their uncertainties, based on the combination of a range of data, algorithms, statistics, and model estimates and their interpretation by a broad scientific community. We discuss changes compared to previous estimates and consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry (EFF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, respectively, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on combined evidence from land-cover change data, fire activity associated with deforestation, and models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in SOCEAN is evaluated with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated by the difference of the other terms of the global carbon budget and compared to results of independent dynamic global vegetation models. We compare the mean land and ocean fluxes and their variability to estimates from three atmospheric inverse methods for three broad latitude bands. All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ, reflecting the current capacity to characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (2006–2015), EFF was 9.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1, ELUC 1.0 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1, GATM 4.5 ± 0.1 GtC yr−1, SOCEAN 2.6 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1, and SLAND 3.1 ± 0.9 GtC yr−1. For year 2015 alone, the growth in EFF was approximately zero and emissions remained at 9.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1, showing a slowdown in growth of these emissions compared to the average growth of 1.8 % yr−1 that took place during 2006–2015. Also, for 2015, ELUC was 1.3 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1, GATM was 6.3 ± 0.2 GtC yr−1, SOCEAN was 3.0 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1, and SLAND was 1.9 ± 0.9 GtC yr−1. GATM was higher in 2015 compared to the past decade (2006–2015), reflecting a smaller SLAND for that year. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 399.4 ± 0.1 ppm averaged over 2015. For 2016, preliminary data indicate the continuation of low growth in EFF with +0.2 % (range of −1.0 to +1.8 %) based on national emissions projections for China and USA, and projections of gross domestic product corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy for the rest of the world. In spite of the low growth of EFF in 2016, the growth rate in atmospheric CO2 concentration is expected to be relatively high because of the persistence of the smaller residual terrestrial sink (SLAND) in response to El Niño conditions of 2015–2016. From this projection of EFF and assumed constant ELUC for 2016, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach 565 ± 55 GtC (2075 ± 205 GtCO2) for 1870–2016, about 75 % from EFF and 25 % from ELUC. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new carbon budget compared with previous publications of this data set (Le Quéré et al., 2015b, a, 2014, 2013). All observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis. Center(doi:10.3334/CDIAC/GCP_2016).

Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 8, 605-649, 2016




NOAA September Temperature Fraud

NOAA claimed record heat in numerous locations is September, like these ones in Africa and the Middle East.



This is a remarkable feat, given that they don’t have any actual thermometers in those regions. In fact, NOAA doesn’t have any thermometers on about half of the land surface.

Satellite temperatures showed that September was close to normal in those regions which NOAA declared to be record hot.

The global surface temperature record is garbage. This is the 21st century, and it needs to be replaced by satellite temperatures which show little or no warming this century.

More HERE  (See the original for links, graphics etc.)






Wipe the EPA entirely

The $4-trillion-per-year federal government works incessantly against the private sector. Likely no wing is more pernicious than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

On his way to prison for defrauding taxpayers out of more than $1 million, former high-level EPA official Jon Beale said that while at the agency he was: “working on a ‘project’ examining ways to ‘modify the DNA of the capitalist system.’ He argued that environmental regulation was reaching its ‘limits’…so he began working on his plan.”

Which, thankfully, was eventually scrapped. But how obnoxious is the EPA – and how much free time does it have – to even consider, let alone work on, such a plan?

Idle bureaucrat hands are the Devil’s playground. There are more than 800,000 federal government employees – that the employer its own self deems “non-essential.” Get that? The Feds have hired almost a million people – they themselves say are totally superfluous.

We have far too many bureaucrats – with nigh nothing to do. So they start looking for things to do – like trying to “modify the DNA of the capitalist system.”

Rather than assigning them things to do, or allowing them to go on these regulatory spelunking forays – how about we scrap their gigs? And while we’re at it – the agencies in which they work? Because if these agencies green light these sorts of regulatory search-and-destroy missions, they have no productive work to do – and thus shouldn’t exist.

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’d all-but-shutter the EPA: “‘Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations. They’re making it impossible…’ (Fox News’ Chris) Wallace interjected, ‘Who’s going to protect the environment?’ ‘They – we’ll be fine with the environment,’ Trump replied. ‘We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy businesses.’”

Trump, by the way, also wants to close the Department of Education: “‘I believe that we should be – you know, educating our children from Iowa, from New Hampshire, from South Carolina, from California, from New York. I think that it should be local education.’”

Trump is, of course, absolutely right. And that local solution for education – is the same solution for the environment. Nigh all fifty states have some bureaucratic iteration of both Education and the EPA. So why are there completely redundant, fifty-first entities in Washington?

Iowa’s version of the EPA and Hawaii’s version know how to handle their respective issues far better than does the bureaucracy in far-off DC. The fifty states can each tailor their policies to their very different climates, topographies and industries.

DC’s EPA can only issue one-size-fits-all mandates – which never fit anyone anywhere. And these mandates have to be overreaching enough to consume and cover the biggest states – which of course crushes all the rest.

Trump should thus realize – we don’t even need to “leave a little bit” of the federal EPA.

Also because as happens with all things DC, the “little bit” you leave behind – will eventually grow back into the monstrosity with which we are currently afflicted. So end it – don’t mend it.

All the while, the DC EPA continues to inexorably stray ever further from any tether to legislation passed by Congress. But one example is its repeated, vast unilateral expansions of its powers under the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) law. Courts have repeatedly rebuked the EPA – but why would bored bureaucrats allow either the law or the courts to rein them in? So they’ve expanded yet again – even further than ever before.

Trump gets this too: “‘The President can go in and tell the director of the EPA to eliminate the Waters of the U.S. rules,’ he says. ‘We will get through the abuse of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, which is taking place through the EPA, and we will eliminate those abuses. We think the Waters of the U.S. is an enormous overreach, and it needs to be eliminated.’”

Hundreds of millions of Americans will be thrilled. Farmers in particular will be ecstatic.

President Trump should absolutely shut down these WOTUS abuses – but he shouldn’t stop there. He should shut down entirely the agency engaged in this obnoxiousness. The EPA absolutely needs to go. And, thankfully, it will be one of the easiest of all of them to close.

Team Trump has brilliantly named Myron Ebell as leader of their EPA transition. Ebell is no fan of the EPA and its egregious assaults on the private sector. All the right anti-capitalism people loathe him.

President-elect Trump should have Ebell transition the EPA – right out of existence.

The nation, its people and its economy will all be dramatically better for it.

SOURCE




The Facts About the Dakota Access Pipeline That Protesters Don’t Want You to Know

For more than three months, thousands of protesters, most of them from out of state, have illegally camped on federal land in Morton County, North Dakota, to oppose the construction of a legally permitted oil pipeline project that is 85 percent complete.

The celebrities, political activists, and anti-oil extremists who are blocking the pipeline’s progress are doing so based on highly charged emotions rather than actual facts on the ground.

This 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline will deliver as many as 570,000 barrels of oil a day from northwestern North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to connect to existing pipelines in Illinois. It will do this job far more safely than the current method of transporting it by 750 rail cars a day.

The protesters say they object to the pipeline’s being close to the water intake of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. However, this should be of no concern as it will sit approximately 92 feet below the riverbed, with increased pipe thickness and control valves at both ends of the crossing to reduce the risk of an incident, which is already low.

Just like the companies that run the 10 other fossil-fuel pipelines crossing the Missouri River upstream of Standing Rock, Energy Transfer Partners—the primary funder of this pipeline—is taking all necessary precautions to ensure that the pipeline does not leak.

But even if there were a risk, Standing Rock will soon have a new water intake that is nearing completion much further downstream near Mobridge, South Dakota.

From the outset of this process, Standing Rock Sioux leaders have refused to sit down and meet with either the Army Corps of Engineers or the pipeline company.

The Army Corps consulted with 55 Native American tribes at least 389 times, after which they proposed 140 variations of the route to avoid culturally sensitive areas in North Dakota. The logical time for Standing Rock tribal leaders to share their concerns would have been at these meetings, not now when construction is already near completion.

The original pipeline was always planned for south of Bismarck, despite false claims that it was originally planned for north of Bismarck and later moved, thus creating a greater environmental danger to the Standing Rock Sioux.

The real reasons for not pursuing the northern route were that the pipeline would have affected an additional 165 acres of land, 48 extra miles of previously undisturbed field areas, and an additional 33 waterbodies.

It would also have crossed zones marked by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration as “high consequence” areas, and would have been 11 miles longer than the preferred and current route.

North Dakotans have respected the rights of these individuals to protest the pipeline, but they have gone beyond civil protesting.

Though these protesters claim to be gathered for peaceful prayer and meditation, law enforcement has been forced to arrest more than 400 in response to several unlawful incidents, including trespassing on and damaging private land, chaining themselves to equipment, burning tires and fields, damaging cars and a bridge, harassing residents of nearby farms and ranches, and killing and butchering livestock. There was even at least one reported incident where gun shots were fired at police.

The recent vandalization of graves in a Bismarck cemetery and the unconscionable graffiti marking on the North Dakota column at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., are examples of how the protesters’ actions do not match their claims of peaceful demonstration.

Equally disturbing is the meddling by the Obama administration in trying to block this legally permitted project through executive policymaking. This has encouraged more civil disobedience, threatened the safety of local residents, and placed an onerous financial burden on local law enforcement—with no offer of federal reimbursement for these increasing costs.

All that remains for the pipeline project to be completed is for the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a final easement to cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. With no legal reason remaining to not issue it, I am confident the Trump administration will do what’s right if it’s not settled before President Donald Trump takes office.

The simple fact is that our nation will continue to produce and consume oil, and pipelines are the safest and most efficient way to transport it. Legally permitted infrastructure projects must be allowed to proceed without threat of improper governmental meddling.

The rule of law matters. We cannot allow lawless mobs to obstruct projects that have met all legal requirements to proceed.

SOURCE



Global freezing: 15-year ice age predicted to hit in only 4 years as sun prepares to 'hibernate'

The world could be facing a 15 year winter

A 15-YEAR long mini ice age could be due to hit the Northern hemisphere in just FOUR years as the sun prepares for 'hibernation' - triggering a barrage of cataclysmic events.

A team of experts have warned that huge seismic events, including volcanic eruptions, plunging global temperatures and destabilization of the Earth's crust will become more common after worrying changes to the surface of the Sun were recorded.

It could take up to 15 years for solar activity to return to normal with extreme weather and freezing temperatures continuing until 2035.

The warning will infuriate environmental campaigners who argue by 2030 the world faces increased sea levels and flooding due to glacial melt at the poles.

Solar activity, measured by the appearance of sun spots, has been declining at a greater rate than at any other time in history, it has emerged.

The Sun is now without spots for the first time in five years after 21 days of minimal activity were observed through the course of 2016.

Although spots reappeared sporadically during the summer, repeated slumps of no activity were recorded through the year.

The trend has prompted scientists to warn that the world is hurtling towards a historic solar minimum event with output potentially dropping to an all-time low.

The phenomena are thought to drive extreme cold weather in Europe, including Britain, Northern America and across the lower southern hemisphere affecting New Zealand and parts of South America.

They have also been linked to major earthquakes in tremor hotspots igniting fears that major cities including Tokyo and Los Angeles could be facing the next 'big one'.

It could take 15 years for solar activity to return to normal
Research by the The Space and Science Research Center in Florida revealed a strong link between low solar activity and seismic events.

The study looked at volcanic activity between 1650 - 2009 and earthquake activity between 1700 - 2009 comparing it to sunspots records.

It revealed a terrifying correlation between reduced solar activity and the largest seismic and volcanic events in recorded history.

Researchers at Japan's Institute for Cosmic Ray Research concluded there is a link between global volcanic activity and solar activity lows.

Study author Toshikazu Ebisuzaki said: "Volcanoes with silica-rich and highly viscous magma tend to produce violent explosive eruptions that result in disasters in local communities and that strongly affect the global environment.

"We examined the timing of 11 eruptive events that produced silica-rich magma from four volcanoes in Japan (Mt. Fuji, Mt. Usu, Myojinsho, and Satsuma-Iwo-jima) over the past 306 years (from AD 1700 to AD 2005).

"Nine of the 11 events occurred during inactive phases of solar magnetic activity (solar minimum), which is well indexed by the group sunspot number.

"This strong association between eruption timing and the solar minimum is statistically significant to a confidence level of 96.7 per cent."

The frequency of sunspots is expected to rapidly decline over the next four years reaching a minimum between 2019 and 2020.

Solar expert Piers Corbyn of forecasting group WeatherAction warned the Earth faces another mini ice age with potentially devastating consequences. He said: "We are now in a decline of solar activity and are on course for a very quiet period. "This can cause a shift in the jet stream making it move further south and as a result it turns very cold in temperate latitudes including Europe, Britain and North America.

"We are anticipating temperatures to drop leading to ocean water freezing and ice drifts washing up around the coasts in Europe - we expect the next mini ice age."

He said the link between huge changes in solar activity and earthquakes is down to a reduction in the strength of magnetic fields around the Earth.

Japan, America, the Philippines and quake prone regions of the Middle East and Asia are about to be put on high alert, he warned.

He explained fewer solar flares associated with a minimum period reduce the magnetic pull over the surface of the Earth.

This stops all movement of tectonic plates, even the frequent harmless shifts which go unnoticed, allowing huge pressure to build up underneath the Earths crust.

The result, Mr Corbyn said, is much like a pressure cooker with any slightest movement triggering a massive earthquake.

"Think of it like comparing two bags of sugar being filled," he said.

"If you have one with a small hole in the bottom it is constantly emptying while more is being added so there is no overall effect.

"The other has no hole so it gets fuller and fuller until eventually it bursts, this is the sort of thing we are taking about.

"What we expect is fewer earthquakes overall, but more extremely severe ones in at risk regions, and this is very worrying. "Tokyo, Los Angeles and other big cities could all be looking at the next big one."

Scientists predict the number of observed sun spots will continue to decline over the next few years in the run up to 2020. Eventually the 'blank period' will stretch into months triggering the start of the next Solar Minimum likely to last 15 years..

It will mark the 24th cycle since 1755 when solar activity was first recorded and the link made to climate and changes in terrestrial conditions.

In Britain, the main threat is of a repeat of the last significant solar minimum which triggered the infamous little ice age in the 1600s.

The so-called maunder minimum saw exceptionally harsh winters ravage the UK and northern Europe and led to the River Thames freezing over.

A Met Office-led study published last year claimed although the effect will be offset by recent global warming, Britain could see cooler than average winters in years to come.

A spokesman at the time said: "A return to low solar activity not seen for centuries could increase the chances of cold winters in Europe and eastern parts of the United States but wouldn't halt global warming.

"Return of 'grand solar minimum' could affect European and eastern US winters."

Solar physicist David Hathaway, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre, added: "The solar minimum is coming, and it's coming sooner than we expected."

SOURCE

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