Censored! Climate skepticism "violates community standards", says Facebook

How do I know?  I found out when I tried to put up the post immediately below on my Facebook page. In the post I originally gave a link to a previous post of mine on Greenie Watch seven years ago.  That was when I was instantly told that the post violated community standards.  It was only when I deleted the link to Greenie Watch that I was allowed to put up the post.

As it happened, it didn't hold me up for long.  I had the same post up on another site. So I just used the link to the second site in the post below.  If you open the link you will see that site.  The "banned" link is here

This should be concerning to all climate skeptics.  Can we be heard?





The terrible truth of climate change

The author excerpted below, Joëlle Gergis, is a r*tbag. Only that colloquial Australian expression about rodents serves to describe her adequately.  She trusts models rather than the facts.  So she is of course highly regarded and highly awarded. She is in the elite of Australian climate scientists.  She is a High Priest among them.

The hysterical rave below is entirely based on the output of models, models with no known predictive skill.  And if you want to see how she deals with facts, see here

The only fact she mentions below is the CO2 concentration. She assumes that CO2 levels are a proxy for temperature when they clearly are not  The two very rarely track one another, so an assumption that they will do so this time is heroic, to put it politely


As one of the dozen or so Australian lead authors on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report, currently underway, I have a deep appreciation of the speed and severity of climate change unfolding across the planet. Last year I was also appointed as one of the scientific advisers to the Climate Council, Australia’s leading independent body providing expert advice to the public on climate science and policy. In short, I am in the confronting position of being one of the few Australians who sees the terrifying reality of the climate crisis.

One common metric used to investigate the effects of global warming is known as “equilibrium climate sensitivity”, defined as the full amount of global surface warming that will eventually occur in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations compared to pre-industrial times. It’s sometimes referred to as the holy grail of climate science because it helps quantify the specific risks posed to human society as the planet continues to warm.

We know that CO2 concentrations have risen from pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million (ppm) to approximately 410 ppm today, the highest recorded in at least three million years. Without major mitigation efforts, we are likely to reach 560 ppm by around 2060.

When the IPCC’s fifth assessment report was published in 2013, it estimated that such a doubling of CO2 was likely to produce warming within the range of 1.5 to 4.5°C as the Earth reaches a new equilibrium. However, preliminary estimates calculated from the latest global climate models (being used in the current IPCC assessment, due out in 2021) are far higher than with the previous generation of models. Early reports are predicting that a doubling of CO2 may in fact produce between 2.8 and 5.8°C of warming. Incredibly, at least eight of the latest models produced by leading research centres in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and France are showing climate sensitivity of 5°C or warmer.

The model runs aren’t all available yet, but when many of the most advanced models in the world are independently reproducing the same disturbing results, it’s hard not to worry.
To restrict warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the world needs to triple its current emission reduction pledges. If that’s not bad enough, to restrict global warming to 1.5°C, global ambition needs to increase fivefold.

But these days my grief is rapidly being superseded by rage. Volcanically explosive rage. Because in the very same IPCC report that outlines the details of the impending apocalypse, the climate science community clearly stated that limiting warming to 1.5°C is geophysically possible.

Although the very foundation of human civilisation is at stake, the world is on track to seriously overshoot our UN targets. Worse still, global carbon emissions are still rising. In response, scientists are prioritising research on how the planet has responded during other warm periods in the Earth’s history.

SOURCE





Watermelons Use Green New Deal, Paris Treaty to Impose Socialism

Many of my friends have long referred to environmentalists as “watermelons” — green on the outside, red on the inside. The idea being, because communism and socialism (interchangeable political/economic systems in practice) have failed everywhere they’ve been imposed, doctrinaire socialist zealots have embraced environmental causes as a Trojan horse. Their goal is simple: use environmental policies as a backdoor way to implement socialist policies in the Western democracies. After all, who doesn’t care about the environment?

A recent admission by Saikat Chakrabarti, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) chief of staff, about the much-hyped Green New Deal (GND) reinforces the view socialists are using the environment to replace private property and free exchange in the market with state control of the economy.

In a meeting with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Chakrabarti said addressing climate change was not Ocasio-Cortez’s reason for proposing the GND, according to a report by The Washington Post.

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti told Inslee’s climate director, Sam Ricketts, The Post reported. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

This admission did not surprise me much. Far too many youths have embraced socialism — showing no understanding of how capitalism has improved their lives. What would they do, for example, without their smartphones, laptops, instant messenger and social media services, and the wi-fi enabled coffee shops on every corner, all courtesy of capitalism?

For instance, at a press conference in Brussels in early February 2015, in the run-up to negotiations culminating in the Paris climate agreement, Christiana Figueres, then executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, stated the global warming scaremongering going on for more than 25 years at the UN was about controlling peoples’ lives by controlling the economy, not fighting climate change.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” Figueres said. “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history,” she continued.

Others who have highlighted the anti-capitalist agenda motivating climate alarmism include professors Joshua Goldstein and Steven Pinker, who, in an article in The Boston Globe, said progressives were using the climate change fight to push big government action on a laundry list of “longstanding social ills such as inequality, corporate greed, racism, and political corruption. … Naomi Klein’s campaign to ‘change everything’ casts global warming as an opportunity for the left to step up its various crusades.”

To be clear, GND would constitute a complete socialist makeover of the U.S. economy — the culmination of years of effort by watermelons. GND’s package of government handouts combined with a government-directed industrial policy is straight out of the old Soviet playbook. It would include, among other things, a huge government jobs program and “free” health care and college. It also would require a complete makeover of America’s housing stock, its transportation system, and its entire energy system, all by 2030.

Perhaps the more than 100 Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate who rushed to sponsor or publicly embrace GND — including Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — are finally being honest about their fealty to socialism. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has always proudly proclaimed himself a socialist. Hence, his support for GND should surprise no one.

Socialism is a scourge. From the former Soviet Union to Cuba, from North Korea to Venezuela, everywhere socialism has been tried it has robbed people of freedom and their property, produced economic stagnation and misallocation of resources, and directly or indirectly resulted in millions of deaths. The socialist policies promoted in the GND under the guise of saving the planet are no less deadly than previous utopian socialist schemes.

Both the human race and the environment will benefit when we permanently consign all such delusional national or international socialist plans where they rightfully belong, into the dustbin of history.

SOURCE





Electric cars are a threat to clean air, claims cycling hero

Electric cars are one of the biggest threats to solving congestion, pollution and obesity caused by reliance on private vehicles, according to the cycling champion Chris Boardman.

He said that although switching to an electric car made people feel they were reducing their environmental impact problems remained.

Boardman, a gold medallist at the 1992 Olympics, and now the walking and cycling commissioner for Greater Manchester, was speaking at a Times+ event last week

Asked if he believed that a rapid switch to electric cars was the answer to poor air quality in cities, he said: “They are one of our biggest threats because it makes people feel like they have changed without actually having to make any changes. About 75 per cent of the pollution is still there.”

Boardman, who is seeking to create a 1,000-mile cycling and walking network around Manchester, said that electric cars did not reduce congestion or address low levels of exercise.

“All the other problems that we have got and pay for are all still there. It’s perhaps slightly better [to drive an electric car than a petrol or diesel model] but my main worry is it’s a reason to not change,” he said. “We need to give people viable and attractive options to get out of the car, not a different type of car.” He added that he himself drove an electric Nissan Leaf.

The government’s air quality expert group said this month that particles from tyres, brakes and road surfaces made up about two thirds of all particulate matter from road transport and would continue to increase even as more cars were run on electric power.

Imperial College London, which was commissioned by ministers to examine the impact of the government’s clean air strategy, said in a report last week: “A greater proportion of electric vehicles in London may help NOx [nitrogen oxide pollution mainly from diesel vehicles], but will be less effective in reducing non-exhaust emissions except where helped by regenerative braking.”

Heidi Alexander, deputy mayor of London who is responsible for transport, told the event that she had “some sympathy” with Boardman’s view but that electric cars “could be an important stepping stone to enable us to create a cleaner, greener environment”.

She said that Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, had set a target of cutting car journeys by three million a day by 2041 and increasing the proportion of journeys by walking, cycling, or public transport from 64 per cent to 80 per cent. But some people would still own cars and she would prefer them to drive electric models. “I don’t think we should let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” she said.

The AA said it agreed with Boardman on the need for feasible and attractive options to get people out of the car but added that “too often they don’t exist”. A spokesman said: “The vast majority of travel — 61 per cent of trips, 78 per cent of distance — are done in the car, because of convenience, flexibility, distance and time-saving.

“The electric car ultimately switches the millions of car users from fossil fuels that generate CO2 and urban-level emissions from the exhaust to a form of propulsion that doesn’t. Electricity generation needs to be adapted to come from greener and more sustainable sources, but that is down to politicians.

“Cambridge has shown what can be done with a system of park and ride that converts more than four million car journeys a year into bus trips.”

SOURCE





Washington D.C. Conference Exposes ‘Climate Delusion’

The new president of The Heartland Institute, Frank Lasee, was not exaggerating when he described the 13th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC13) as “the most important climate change and energy event of the year.”

Speaking about the July 25 conference held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Lasee explained, “ICCC13 demonstrated that the Climate Delusion is not based on sound science or economics. It is wasting trillions of dollars and threatening our way of life, while propping up the drive for world socialism.”

This was a common theme throughout ICCC13. The Climate Delusion, relying on bad science and misguided economics, is damaging America and threatening the world.

The conference sold out with over 300 attendees, launched with a translated video address by Dominik Kolorz, a Polish trade union activist and the chairman of the Śląsko-Dąbrowski Solidarity, the largest regional union structure in Poland. Kolorz could not be at the conference because he had to support union workers in a protest against the closing of furnaces in one of the largest employers in Śląsko, a major steel plant, due to misguided European Union climate policy. “You can see that the effects of climate policy, already noticeable, can be very dramatic in a social context,” said Kolorz. “We do not deny that we are in a period of global warming. But … there is no scientific consensus, in our opinion, about human responsibility for climate change…”

Kolorz expressed strong concern about the long-term consequences of UN climate policy, stating, “what the European Union proposes to us in the frame of climate policy is…a liquidation of industry operating in Poland. It’s not just about banning the coal. It’s not only the elimination of conventional energy, but it is really about the decarbonizing of the industry in Poland but also in Europe, we would deal with the liquidation of the metallurgical, steel and cement industries…What can happen in Poland if we stick to the dogma of the climate policy—we will lose about half a million jobs in the next 20 years.

“I can declare that we in Poland are ready, under the auspicious of Solidarity, to actually lead to an economic, social, scientific conference on which different types of views will collide—those who say that man is responsible for climate change and the skeptical ones,” said Kolorz.

He told the audience, “Now, Solidarity with you can expose the lie that conducted climate policy is good for humans. Let us lead a policy that is really good for the citizens of the world but let us not lead the policy that is stuffed with lies and which would really lead to the fact that the rich will be even richer and the poor will be even poorer.”

This was followed by the presentation of the “Dauntless Purveyor of Climate Truth Award” to the junior author of this article, Dr. Jay Lehr, for his many years of fearless communication of climate science realities to the public. In his acceptance speech, Lehr focused on the real drivers of the climate scare—attempts by the left to impose world socialism and put society under ever more government control. Lehr demonstrated the Climate Delusion by listing twelve variables that, while crucially important to any calculation of projected Earth temperatures, are not well understood.

ICCC13 Panel One concerned “Scientific Observations,” in particular, the science presented in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, the latest volume of peer-reviewed research by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). The panel also focused on climate modeling vs. observed temperature data, and the Sun’s dominant influence on climate change. Dr. Nir J. Shaviv of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explained that “There are no arguments proving that warming is mostly human.” Shaviv maintained that future warming will be benign, supporting his position with convincing data.

After tracing the history of the IPCC and the NIPCC, Dr. David Legates of the University of Delaware proposed that NIPCC reports be encapsulated in an online format that would be quick and easy for students and others to access.

Dr. Roy W. Spencer of the University of Alabama in Huntsville described how poorly computer models correlate with real climate change and concluded that there is no climate crisis or climate emergency. “Even if observed warming is due to increasing CO2 (carbon dioxide), it’s too weak to notice in your lifetime,” he said. Spencer also explained that “damaging tornadoes are down 50% since we started monitoring them in the 1950s. You wouldn’t know that from listening to the media every time a tornado hits a town.”

Panel 2 on Energy and Climate Economics was outstanding in making the real costs of the Climate Delusion clear and irrefutable. Kevin Dayaratna of the Heritage Foundation offered a simple explanation of the various mathematical models used to determine the costs to society of eliminating fossil fuels. No matter how he sliced it, the results are draconian. Dr. Ben Zycher, resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute, and Dr. Roger Bezdek described the absurdity of attempting to shift away from fossil fuels to unstable so-called renewable energy.

Considering what goes into developing a wind turbine or a solar farm, it is clear that they are not really green and never economical without the government paying most of the bill. Zycher emphasized that "'Clean' power is not clean." It requires huge land use and creates “heavy-metal pollution, noise, flicker effects, solar panel waste, wildlife destruction,” among other negative impacts of alternative energy sources. He also focused on the “anti-human core” and the “authoritarian implications” of the Green New Deal proposed by the Democrats.

In his luncheon keynote speech, Representative Tom McClintock (R-Calif., ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee) asserted that future generations “will remember with gratitude and admiration that there were organizations like Heartland…to lead us out of the darkness of fear and hysteria and into the light of the bright future that our advancing technology and freedom can and surely will deliver, if we let them.”

Christopher Monckton, the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (UK), followed up with a highly technical talk in which he demonstrated that “Global warming will be small, slow, harmless and net beneficial. There is no case, rational, scientific, political, economic, social, moral or other for any mitigation of global warming. It’s over!”

At the lunch event, James Taylor, Heartland senior fellow, Environment and Energy Policy, introduced an open letter to President Donald Trump that he wrote and co-signed with nine other climate realists. The letter, which was included in the material given to all conference attendees, thanked the president for “speaking out against the fake climate crisis,” and asked for his help:

By appointing the Commission on Climate Security proposed by National Security Council scientist Dr. Will Happer. “It is a winning political argument to point out that you are supporting more scientific investigation and inquiry, rather than less,” the letter explained.

“We ask that you tweet frequently about the Climate Delusion to break through the media blackout that has kept much of the public from learning about the Climate Realist position.”

The letter explained Trump’s important role in ending the Climate Delusion: “Without your help, it is likely the current media blackout imposed on the truth about the very minor role of CO2 in temperature forcing and the net benefits of a warmer climate will continue unabated.”

Attached to the open letter were 10 pages of supporting documentation demonstrating many of the mistakes in the Climate Delusion.

Dr. Craig Idso, Dr. Patrick Michaels, and Anthony Watts pulled the curtain away from the doctored data promoted by NASA and NOAA in Panel 3. They all showed that when the initial data did not support the Climate Delusion, alarmists found ways to convince people that the data needed to be adjusted. Idso focused on the data that does indeed prove that CO2 is the lifeblood of all vegetation, with plant growth always increasing with increasing levels of the gas.

This panel flipped the politically-correct argument on its head by proving with data and diagrams that increasing CO2 is not damaging the planet and its inhabitants, but instead is yielding huge benefits for life on Earth. They collectively emphasized that at the time of World War II, CO2 levels [about 300 parts per million (ppm)] were too close to plant starvation, which occurs with less than 150 ppm of CO2. Satellite photographs showed major greening of nearly every continent in the past 40 years. Particular increases are now seen in the rain forests along the equator.

The real-world benefits of increasing CO2 fly in the face of the propaganda produced by the United Nations and associated organizations that benefit by trying to increase the size of government in response to fraudulent fears.

The first speaker in Panel 4, “Winning Public Policy Options,” was Douglas Pollock from the University of Chile. His efforts to warn institutions about the unnecessary harm that fighting climate change is causing resulted in his views being banned in Chile and throughout Latin America. Pollock explained what has been happening in Chile as a cautionary tale about what can happen in North America if we follow their disastrous devotion to green energy. Pollock said that the impact on global temperature of Chile’s plans would be 0.0000115 deg C per decade. The wind and solar sources Chile has brought online recently “have meant an average cost at least nine times higher than those of traditional sources,” concluded Pollock.

James Taylor next explained the futility of conservatives trying to appeal to the left and influence the center by supporting the climate scare. He said, “Scientifically, economically, politically, if you are a Republican and you are pushing for these types of programs [lesser versions of the Green New Deal], you are a loser.” As the senior author of this article (Tom Harris) and moderator of Panel 4 commented after Taylor’s talk, “I wish you’d been an advisor to our previous prime minister Stephen Harper because he was elected as a climate skeptic and, in an attempt to appease the left and attract the middle vote, he moved over the become a climate alarmist. And the media still massacred him and he lost the last election.”

Finally, Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, explained the debate that has gone on inside the Trump administration concerning the delayed Happer climate change commission. He also described two petitions launched by CEI. The first was for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to re-open the CO2 Endangerment Finding. Because of a new OMB (Office of Management and Budget) memorandum, the EPA has 120 days to answer the petition. The second petition was asking NASA to withdraw the misguided statements on their web site about 97% of scientists agreeing with the so-called global warming consensus.

“Let’s push back against the deep state that still has its tentacles around the White House,” concluded Ebell. No wonder the Business Insider commented, “Myron Ebell may be enemy #1 to the current climate change community.”

Panel 5, Advancing from Theory to Practice, discussed how fossil fuels are still very much a key part of the future of the world, and how America is leading the way. This panel made it clear that converting the world from coal, natural gas, oil and nuclear power can never happen in practice. But the effort to even attempt it will greatly damage the entire world population with the poorest suffering the most as energy costs skyrocket and brownouts and blackouts become the order of the day.

During panel 5, Dr. Benny Peiser, Director of the London, England-based Global Warming Policy Forum, gave an eye-opening talk about the negative impacts that installation of wind and solar energy projects were causing all over Europe. Germany’s poor judgment in this area, Peiser said, was destroying its leadership in all areas of high-tech manufacturing as a result of the tripling of their energy costs. For every kilowatt they produce with wind or sun, they must have a fossil fuel plant at the ready to take over when the wind and solar power are not adequate.

Lord Monckton gave a stirring speech in Panel 5 in which he demonstrated the “unit abatement cost of abating 1 degree C of anthropogenic global warming by policies equivalent to Britain’s zero-emissions plan was $273 trillion per degree C abated.” That is over one-quarter of a quadrillion dollars. “It is ten times more expensive, on these optimistic assumptions, to try to mitigate global warming than to let it happen and adapt to it,” Monckton concluded.

Also speaking in Panel 5 was Jennifer Fielder, CEO of the American Lands Council and a Montana state senator. She explained why nationally-controlled lands managed by distant, unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington, combined with the influence of far-left extremists in the environmental movement, have resulted in dirty air, polluted water, decimated wildlife, blocked access and economically devastated, depressed and unsafe communities. The solution, said Fielder, was to entrust the land to people who live close to the land in the states.

During the evening meeting at the closing session, awards were given to three of the world’s most expert climate scientists:

Dr. Tim Ball received the “Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science Award.” In his acceptance speech, Dr. Ball explained how wealthy Canadian businessman, the late Maurice Strong, engineered much of the climate scare through the United Nations.
Dr. Patrick Michaels received the “Courage in Defense of Science Award.” In his acceptance address, he summarized the high points of his efforts to stop the fraudulent alarmist movement’s promotion of the Climate Delusion.

Dr. Richard Lindzen received the “Frederick Seitz Memorial Award.” In his acceptance speech, he cited many of the great scientists who came before him who seriously questioned the climate scare.

The conference came to a close with prominent meteorologist Joe Bastardi regaling the audience with his childhood love of weather, storms, and hurricanes. Now in his 60s, Joe showed amazing childhood enthusiasm for his work. He took the audience on a tour of the greatest hurricanes to hit the East coast of the United States over the last 100 years.

While everyone was transfixed by his narrative, Joe’s phone rang. He paused and answered it, putting the caller on speakerphone. Out of the phone came the voice of "President Trump" complimenting Heartland for great work on climate change. "Trump" said, “One thing on climate: it’s just like the fake news story on Russia, which was a complete hoax, by the way, a complete hoax; there is no collusion between CO2 and temperature, no collusion whatsoever.” We may never know for sure whether or not it was indeed President Trump. We certainly would like to think so.

ICCC13 was one of the best of all of Heartland’s climate realist events yet. It will go a long way to helping end the Climate Delusion.

SOURCE





'I want pressure off electricity prices': Australian PM pushes for an end to state government bans on fracking

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australians can 'watch this space' when it comes to ending states' bans on gas explorations.

Mr Morrison said he was frustrated with the refusal by states to end their bans as his government works to keep its promise to reduce the nation's power bills. 'I want to see those bans go, I want to see that gas come out from under people's feet because when it does that means it takes the pressure off electricity prices,' he told the Nine Network on Thursday.

Victoria has permanently banned fracking, while Tasmania has a moratorium and NSW has certain restrictions on the practice.

A moratorium on gas fracking in parts of Western Australia is expected to be officially lifted in August, while South Australia last year passed laws to enshrine a 10-year ban on fracking in the southeast of the state.

The Northern Territory in 2018 lifted a temporary fracking ban while Queensland allows the practice.

The prime minister gave a cryptic answer when questioned over whether there were any signs of states ending their bans 'soon'.

'Watch this space,' he said.

SOURCE 

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

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