More on the screech by Princetown climate missionaries
Lord Monckton has written a reply to the juveniles at the Princetonian
On climate change, as on all else, hear both sides
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, special to The Daily Princetonian
The English-speaking jurisdictions recognize just two principles of natural law. One of these is audiatur et altera pars: let both sides be heard. On the climate question, though, the promoters of the official narrative are strikingly – and revealingly – intolerant of dissent.
Recently, in this column, two climate campaigners were allowed to attack three eminent Princeton-bred professors, the late Fred Singer, the late Fred Seitz and Professor Will Happer. I had the honor to know Professor Fred Singer, an exceptional rocket scientist and founder of the U.S. Satellite Weather Service. I had the further honor of working with him on a paper discussing the intersection between chaos theory and climate prediction. It was one of the last papers he wrote.
And I have the honor to know Will Happer, a formidable radiation physicist, exceptionally well qualified to write about the influence of heteroatomic molecules on global temperature. Will has published a string of distinguished papers on the subject in recent years.
The climate fanatics described the three professors as having used Princeton’s “name and prestige” to “open doors, grab headlines, mislead the public and grant legitimacy to their climate-denial claims … helping put us on the pathway to today’s existential global crisis”. Oh, pur-leaze!
The editors of this journal should in future eschew such hate-speech terms as “climate denial” or “denier” or “denialist”. None of the three professors denies that there is a climate, or even that we are capable of influencing it. Fred Singer’s paper on chaos theory pointed out that, precisely because the climate behaves as a mathematically-chaotic system, even a small perturbation, whether natural or anthropogenic, might cause unforeseeable effects. But it is the property of a chaotic object that, unless the initial conditions are known to a precision that is and will aye be unattainable in climate, the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. In this, Professor Singer swam in the mainstream: IPCC says the same.
Will Happer’s recent detailed paper studying the radiative effects of greenhouse-gas enrichment, far from “climate denial”, powerfully endorsed the conclusion that that enrichment – beneficial though it is for the net primary productivity of plants (their total global green biomass has increased by 15-30% in recent decades thanks to CO2 fertilization detectable from space as chlorophyll fluorescence) – will cause about 2 degrees’ global warming per doubling of concentration, a value within the official uncertainty interval.
All three professors were and are right to point out that the mildly warmer worldwide weather that is occurring does not and will not pose any “global existential threat”. Such childish, anti-scientific slogans, bandied about by the extremist classes, are devoid of meaning and should be forsworn forthwith and for aye. The OFDA/CRED international disaster database shows that, despite a tripling of global population, weather-related deaths have plummeted throughout the past 100 years. And a string of learned papers in the medical journal The Lancet establishes that in all regions deaths from cold outstrip deaths from heat tenfold.
Finally, let us hear no more nonsense about such towering professors as these “preventing climate action”. For such action would expensively do far more harm than good. Since 1990 our influence on climate has increased linearly at 1 unit per decade, driving 0.4 degrees’ warming. Even if the whole world were to move linearly to net zero emissions by 2050, only half the next unit would be abated by then, preventing just 0.2 degrees’ warming.
The cost of global net zero, according to McKinsey Consulting, will be $275 trillion in capex alone. Even ignoring opex, typically at least twice capex, and even allowing for no price increases in the desperately scarce techno-metals needed to reach net zero (one would need 67,000 years’ worth of the entire 2019 global annual production of vanadium, for instance, so good luck with that), each $1 billion spent on attempted mitigation would prevent less than a millionth of a degree of future warming. Value for money it isn’t. And the climate won’t notice either way.
Like it or not, it is legitimate for men of learning gently to correct the moralizing screechers by drawing their attention to elementary, verifiable facts such as these. As it is, only the West is making any attempt to attain net zero. But the net effect of our supererogatory sacrifice of our own workers’ jobs is to price our energy-intensive manufacturing industries out to far Eastern nations whose emissions per unit of production are considerably above ours. Climate campaigners, then, are adding to the very non-problem they are clamoring to solve. Making things in China rather than Chattanooga is good for Communism but bad for the planet.
So let the skeptical scientists be fairly heard, and let us cease to turn universities like Princeton into mere pietistic indoctrinators. Learning advances not by cloying “consensus”, roundly and rightly rejected by Aristotle 4500 years ago, but by diligent research, free publication and open debate. It is only those who know they would lose a debate who seek to silence their opponents. The hysterical malevolence of the screaming campaigners shows the world they know full well that they would lose. Indeed, they have already lost.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, a Cambridge alumnus and former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, is the author of two dozen learned papers on climate sensitivity and mitigation economics.
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Antarctica's emperor penguins could be extinct by 2100 – and other species may follow if we don't act
And penguins might fly
Greater conservation efforts are needed to protect Antarctic ecosystems, and the populations of up to 97% of land-based Antarctic species could decline by 2100 if we don’t change tack, our new research has found.
The study, published today, also found just US$23 million per year would be enough to implement ten key strategies to reduce threats to Antarctica’s biodiversity.
This relatively small sum would benefit up to 84% of terrestrial bird, mammal, and plant groups.
We identified climate change as the biggest threat to Antarctica’s unique plant and animal species. Limiting global warming is the most effective way to secure their future.
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New Zealand's amended cow burp tax plans still stink, say farmers
New Zealand's government has amended controversial plans to tax the greenhouse gas emissions from farm animals. ©AFP
Wellington (AFP) - New Zealand's government on Wednesday outlined changes to controversial plans to tax the farts and burps of livestock, but a leading farmers group said it was still opposed to the emissions reduction scheme.
New Zealand is planning a "world first" levy on emissions of methane and nitrous oxide, produced by the nation's six million cows and 26 million sheep as a step towards tackling climate change.
Under the proposed scheme, farmers would have to pay for gas emissions from their animals.
The plans have caused uproar in New Zealand's agricultural community and sparked nationwide protests.
Farmers have demanded Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's centre-left government ditch the tax, which they warn will make food more costly and could put livelihoods at risk.
The changes outlined Wednesday include allowing farmers to use on-farm forestry to offset their carbon emissions, and a promise to keep emissions pricing low.
"Our shared goal is supporting farmers to grow their exports, reduce emissions, and maintain our agricultural sector's international competitive edge," Ardern said in a statement.
"With or without the government's proposals, New Zealand needs to be at the front of the queue to stay competitive in a market that is demanding sustainably produced products," she warned.
Ardern hopes her cabinet will make a final decision on pricing for the agricultural emissions scheme in early 2023 with a five-year pricing scheme due to start from 2025.
The head of New Zealand's leading agriculture advocacy group said the amended plans still stink and criticised the government's "unrealistic timelines".
"Everyone else is talking about food security and working with farmers to develop practical on-farm solutions," Andrew Hoggard, president of New Zealand's Federated Farmers, said in a statement.
"Only New Zealand is taking the punitive step of taxing efficient, unsubsidised food production, even if it comes at huge costs."
While Ardern wants "an emission reduction system set up that lasts", Hoggard accused her government of making "vague promises of an obscure future review with unknown terms of reference".
"The response is so high level, we may not be able to clearly understand the detail until we actually see it when introduced as legislation next year," he warned.
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Green Britain: Warm banks help thousands survive cold snap as millions of households fall into fuel poverty
Even with government support, some 6.7 million UK households are now in fuel poverty
Until a month ago, Julie, a single mother with three children, was just about making ends meet. But as the UK experiences its first cold spell of the winter, she found herself turning to her local community hub in south London for help.
Most days after doing the school run she comes to the Oasis Centre, a “social living room” set up in the capital to help those struggling with their food and fuel bills. “I’ve never known my flat to be this cold,” she said.
With a weather front this week bringing widespread snow and temperatures as low as -15C to the UK, local councils and charities across the country are providing so-called “warmth banks” to help families caught in a growing cost of living crisis.
“Everyone who comes will see it through their own lens. We don’t call it a warm centre because it’s not just a warm centre,” said Steve Chalke, a Baptist minister who founded the Oasis Trust in 1985. The charity now operates in 36 communities across the UK and in the last six months it has given away over one hundred tons of food.
With the war in Ukraine causing a sharp increase in energy prices, the UK government has moved to cushion the impact on families. In October, the Treasury launched an energy support scheme that provided a one-off £400 energy discount for all households and will cap energy bills for typical households at £2,500 this winter, rising to £3,000 in April.
However, for many, these measures are not enough. Even with government support, some 6.7mn UK households are now in fuel poverty, according to estimates from National Energy Action, a pressure group — 2.2mn more than a year ago.
https://www.ft.com/content/6a7be4e3-d35f-419d-9dc4-2cab788fc06e
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http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
1 comment:
” The climate fanatics described the three professors as having used Princeton’s ‘name and prestige’ to ‘open doors, grab headlines, mislead the public and grant legitimacy to their climate-denial claims’ …””
These climate zealots have the cart before the horse. Someone needs to remind them that if it weren’t for professors of the caliber of Singer, Seitz and Happer, Princeton would have no “name or Prestige” to speak of. They should also be assigned to look up the definition of “Psychological Projection.”
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