Sunday, November 07, 2021
Tesla car breaks down at the worst possible time trapping 10 other cars
If it had been a conventional car, someone would only have to empty a jerrycan of fuel into it and the problem would have been over immediately
A hi-tech electric car has broken down at the worst possible time trapping motorists for hours inside a shopping centre carpark.
Motorists were stuck at the exit of the five-storey Westfield car park in London after the vehicle ran out of charge while trying to exit the building.
The story went viral on Reddit after a user, called Henry, posted about the lengthy wait time.
“Perfect, a Tesla ran out of battery and stopped at the ramp of a five-storey car park at Westfield. It has been three hours and counting,” he said.
As the wait continued, the Reddit user added photos to the thread – with one showing cars looping around the sloped spiral exit ramp.
The Teslas have a similar range as petrol-powered cars. The Model S – which appeared to cause the delays – can travel 580km on one charge.
This further infuriated readers on the Reddit post about the delay. “Considering the huge range these cars have, there’s really no excuse for this.” One wrote. “Especially as the cars still have quite a bit of range (10-20 miles) even after hitting 0 per cent. The driver had plenty of warning.” Another agreed.
“Westfield even has a large capacity Tesla charging station lol. “But yeah like others say over 3 hours is bad management imo. Get an extension lead at that point.
A spokesperson for Westfield told The Sun there were about 10 vehicles stuck behind the Tesla.
“A customer’s Tesla vehicle broke down on the entry ramp of the car park at around 6pm due to an empty battery,” they said. “Westfield London’s car park team assisted the broken down vehicle and guided 10 vehicles that were behind the Tesla around it.
“Tesla car park assistance then arrived on site to support the broken down vehicle.”
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Europe’s energy crisis better wake America up
Modern housing and energy systems enable people to adapt to and survive even the most extreme heat and cold – even in Antarctica, which just experienced the coldest average winter temperatures ever recorded: -61 C (-78 F).
Survival becomes far less likely, however, if climate treaties and energy policies prohibit efficient air conditioning and heating, ration them, subject them to recurrent blackouts, or make them harder to afford amid rising oil, natural gas, coal and electricity prices.
Yet that is exactly what’s being advocated and implemented. Britain and various US cities and states want to ban natural gas heating and cooking – and replace them with expensive heat pumps and other electric appliances, powered by expensive, weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels. Meanwhile, energy prices have been skyrocketing in response to Covid recovery and anti-fossil-fuel policies.
Climate theory has long held that most 21st-century warming will occur in northern latitudes during winter months. But now we’re now told a warming Arctic could also be causing colder winters, which could endanger far more people than rising temperatures or more frequent heat waves.
Actually, far more people die in cold weather than in hot weather or heat waves. In the United States and Canada, cold causes 45 times more deaths per year than heat: 113,000 from cold versus 2,500 from heat. Worldwide, where air conditioning is far less available, some 1,700,000 people die annually from cold versus 300,000 from heat – a ratio of almost 6:1.
Energy policies that favor wind and solar over fossil fuels beget “fuel poverty” that can make adequate heating impossible, causing numerous health problems and deaths. Poor, minority, elderly and fixed-income families are most severely and inequitably affected, it found.
Cold homes bring increased risks of respiratory and circulatory problems (including asthma, bronchitis, flu, cardiovascular disease and stroke) and exacerbate existing adverse health conditions. Cold household temperatures also increase depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. Already vulnerable groups – young children, older people and those with preexisting health issues – are especially susceptible to hypothermia, more illness and death.
Public Health England calculated that one-tenth of all “excess winter deaths” in England and Wales are directly attributable to fuel poverty, and 21.5% of excess winter deaths are attributable to the coldest 25% of homes. 30,000 to 40,000 people died each year in England and Wales since 1990 who would not have perished if their homes hadn’t been so cold, researchers estimated.
Adjusted for population, this is equivalent to 165,000 to 220,000 excess American winter deaths per year.
In 2017, Germany endured 172,000 localized blackouts; in 2019, 350,000 German families had their electricity cut off because they couldn’t pay their power bills.
Coal, oil, natural gas, electricity and home heating costs have risen significantly since those studies were prepared, likely increasing the excess winter death toll markedly. In fact, 2021 European gas prices skyrocketed nearly 600% over 2020 prices, and Rotterdam coal futures soared from $60/ton in October 2020 to $265/ton in September 2021. Energy prices are still rising, affecting jobs and living costs.
Global demand for gas and coal has surged as the world recovers from Covid. British gas production has plunged by 60 % since 2000; Britain and Europe have banned fracking; Putin is playing politics over how much gas it will deliver to Europe; and President Biden has stymied leasing, drilling, fracking, pipelines, and oil and gas exports. Many coal and nuclear power plants have been shut down. Meanwhile, Europe’s heavily subsidized wind turbines generated far less electricity in 2021 due to unfavorable winds.
This perfect storm of misinformed policies could bring unprecedented excess deaths as winter sets in.
Schools, hospitals and clinics could also be much chillier – and deadlier. At 11¢ per kilowatt-hour (average US business rate), a 650,000-square-foot hospital would pay about $2.2 million annually for electricity. At 25¢ per kWh (UK), the annual cost jumps to $5 million; at 35¢ per kWh (Germany), to $7 million! Those soaring costs would likely result in employee layoffs, higher medical bills, reduced patient care, colder conditions, and more deaths.
Adding to these woes, Citigroup says EU natural gas prices could hit $100 per mcf (per thousand cubic feet or million Btu) if this winter is particularly cold and more Gulf of Mexico hurricanes disrupt production. News outlets report that energy companies supplying six million UK homes face collapse, and several elder care homes have warned that crippling energy bills could force closures, leaving many old and infirm people homeless.
Britain’s energy minister has said a “very difficult winter” lies ahead, as gas prices soar amid fear of blackouts and food shortages. Many households “will not be able to cope.”
US energy prices remain well below Europe’s, but threats to American families are also rising. The average monthly Henry Hub spot price for natural gas has shot from $1.63 in June 2020 to $5.16 in September 2021. That’s well below the highest-ever price ($13.42 in October 2005) but still ominous.
One-third of American households already had difficulty six years ago adequately heating and cooling their homes – and one-fifth of households had to reduce or forego food, medicine and other necessities to pay energy bills. Even before Covid, low-income, Black, Hispanic and Native American families were spending a greater portion of their incomes on energy than average US households.
Nearly half of US households that heat with natural gas will spend 22-50% more this winter than last year, depending on how cold it gets. Families that use electricity, propane or fuel oil to heat their homes will also pay significantly more. Energy-intensive factories may have to cut back hours and production, lay people off, and move operations overseas (where they will continue to burn fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases).
Americans are also being impacted by gasoline prices that have risen more than a dollar a gallon for regular since the 2020 election and recently reached $5.00 per gallon in New York and $7.60 in one southern California town.
The overall effect of these anti-fossil-fuel policies on livelihoods, living standards, health and life spans will be profoundly negative. Countless people will perish, many of them cold and jobless in the dark.
Under Joe Biden, the United States is already on a trajectory to Europe’s real climate crisis: unaffordable, unreliable energy. That crisis better wake America up. Otherwise, self-righteous activists and governing classes will destroy middle class jobs, families – and lives.
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Volvo comes clean: Admits that making an electric car produces emissions that are 70% HIGHER for a normal car
They say that after 70,000 miles emissions saved cancel that out. But that assumes that electricity will come from somewhere at no greater cost than now
Volvo has said that emissions from the production of electric cars are far higher than a petrol equivalent, as it called on world leaders and energy providers to significantly boost investments in green energy.
But the Swedish car maker said that over a car's lifetime the electric version will become greener overall, once it has covered more than 70,000 miles.
To coincide with the COP26 climate summit taking place in Glasgow - and as part of a revolutionary new transparency approach adopted by Volvo - it publishing its latest 'Life Cycle Assessment' report for the pure-electric £57,400 C40 Recharge.
It shows that greenhouse gas emissions during production of the electric vehicle are nearly 70 per cent higher than a petrol model, which is mainly due to the carbon intensity of battery and steel production, as well as from the increased share of aluminium in the plug-in car.
But Volvo said as an EV the C40 Recharge has a far lower carbon footprint than its comparable petrol version during the 'use phase', although it will need to be driven around 70,000 miles before it offsets its higher emissions from production.
Volvo says the aim of its new reveal-all reports is to encourage decision makers to make improvements so that it and other electric cars can 'deliver on their true potential in terms of climate benefit'.
It said that if this is done then EVs built and charged using clean renewable energy will have huge potential CO2 reductions.
The Swedish company - now owned by Chinese group Geely - has already outlined its aims to become a fully electric car maker by 2030.
Part of its plan is to roll out a new family of pure electric cars in the coming years, in one of the industry’s most ambitious electrification schedules.
This includes becoming a climate-neutral company by 2040, as it works to consistently cut carbon emissions across its business.
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Australia eyes more oil and gas fields as COP26 seeks fossil phase-out
Morrison's flim flam at Glasgow has left Australia free to pursue its best interests
Australia’s coastline could soon be opened up to more oil and gas drilling even as the United Nations declares the world cannot afford to increase fossil fuel production if it wants to avoid catastrophic global warming and 80 nations pledge to cut methane emissions.
The federal government is preparing to begin community consultations on potential exploration activities spanning new parts of Western Australia’s Bonaparte, Browse and North Carnarvon basins and Victoria’s Gippsland Basin, which oil and gas companies have identified as areas of interest.
Environmental advocates on Wednesday described the push for new fossil fuel exploration along Australia’s coastline as “callous and cynical”.
“This is an attempt to broaden the footprint of fossil fuels, while Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor attempt to make friends in Glasgow,” Wilderness Society WA campaigns manager Patrick Gardner said.
“The mindless creep of fossil fuel expansion is being pushed onto communities that do not want it.”
The launch of community consultations – after which exploration companies must bid for a release and be assessed as a deserving applicant – comes amid growing warnings against ramping up production of planet-heating fossil fuels.
Supporters of gas, including the Morrison government, describe it as a necessary “transition fuel” in the green power shift, as a comparatively less-emitting alternative to coal that can keep energy reliable and affordable in periods when weather conditions for wind and solar generation are unfavourable. Gas is also used as a raw material in a range of manufacturing processes.
But the fossil fuel’s future is increasingly under question, with scientists and climate advocates arguing gas remains a heavy source of emissions and its role must be urgently reduced not expanded.
Another major achievement at Glasgow came with the agreement from 40 nations including Australia, which together generate 40 per cent of global GDP, committing to collaborate on clean technology to replace carbon-intensive industries like steelmaking and power generation.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Friday, November 05, 2021
Traffic jams deadly for electric cars
Unless you can turn all heating off
Has anyone actually thought it through? If all cars were electrically powered__ Imagine three hours of traffic jam, battery flat, what are you going to do?
There is practically no heating in an electric vehicle over extended periods. If you are stuck in traffic during the night, no battery energy left, so no heat at all
Call the breakdown services to collect women and children!! They can't even get there because the roads are choked
When the road is cleared no one can move, (flat batteries). How are the hundreds or thousands of cars going to be recharged
It's going to be the same in the summer traffic jams. That's going to be perpetual jams with dead batteries.
Unknown author
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China Warming
Richard S. Lindzen
Many of the world’s leaders appear to believe that emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) constitute an existential threat whose impact is already severe and will become impossible to deal with within a very few years. This has resulted in a number of international agreements, beginning with the Rio Pact of 1992 and continuing up through the 2016 Paris Accords. Despite these agreements, the increase in the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere continues unabated (see Figure 1). In surveying the underlying science, it becomes clear that the role played by China in this story is indicative of a more general cynicism inherent in many of the supposed “solutions” to climate change.
From a minimum in temperature around 1960 (basically the end of a modest cooling trend beginning around 1939, which led to concerns over global cooling) until 1998, the global mean temperature anomaly (the index used to describe the Earth’s temperature) did increase by about 0.5 degrees Celsius. That’s a small change compared to the typical change between breakfast and lunch, though the net increase since then has been relatively insignificant (except for a major El Niño in 2014-16) and appreciably less than predicted by all climate models. It should be noted that the increase was small compared to what was happening in any given region, and temperatures at any given location were almost as likely to be cooling as warming. Despite the fact that increases of CO₂ thus far have been accompanied by the greatest increase in human welfare in history, and despite the fact that there have been large increases in the Earth’s vegetated area largely due to increases in CO₂’s role in photosynthesis, governments seem to have concluded that another 0.5 C will spell doom.
One sees frequent references to the agreement of 97% of the world’s scientists. However, as pointed out by Joseph Bast and Roy Spencer (and myself), this claim is specious. One also sees references to increases in things like sea level, hurricanes, and other weather extremes, but as been widely noted, these claims are based on the illegitimate cherry picking of starting dates for the trends. There is also the important question of what exactly constitutes an existential threat. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if we continue along the present path, using the current models that seem to overestimate warming, there would be in 2100 a reduction of global gross domestic product of less than 4% (of a total GDP that would be much higher than what we have today). It is hard to call this an existential threat.
Let us ignore the above problems for the moment, and ask why emissions that presumably have led to the observed increase in CO₂ have continued to increase. Figure 2 below shows the likely answer. Increasing emissions from China, India, and the rest of the developing world swamp the small reductions in the Anglosphere and the European Union. Indeed, if emissions from the Anglosphere and the EU were to cease (which is of course an impossibility), it would make little difference. According to the Global Energy Monitor, China is planning the addition of 200 GW of coal-fired generating capacity by 2025. If we assume this is a four-year period and that a large-scale power plant is 1 GW, that would be about one plant per week over the next four years. Why would China intentionally pursue the presumed destruction of the Earth?Moreover, why are the Anglosphere and the EU pursuing hugely disruptive, destructive, and expensive policies intended to reduce their already largely irrelevant emissions?
The answer to the first question is likely to be that China sees the threat of climate change as readily manageable regardless of what one believes about the underlying physics (remember that China’s leaders, as opposed to ours, tend to have technical backgrounds). But they also recognize that climate hysteria in the West leads to policies that clearly benefit China. Indeed, China is actually promoting activities like the Sino-American Youth Dialogue on climate change to promote climate alarm among young American activists. In a recent announcement sent to students at MIT, the Youth Dialogue’s Committee stated:
“With rapid growth of the global population and the continuous expansion of the world economy, carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere have surged. Extreme disasters induced by global warming keep popping up. The world is undergoing irreversible climate change. It is in everyone’s stake to protect the planet we call home. We must confront the problems brought to mother nature by climate change and seek solutions in cooperation, sharing responsibility as two major countries and collectively building ‘a community with a shared future for mankind.”
The letter went on to offer modest cash rewards to those making the most “compelling” arguments. At the same time, the Chinese, unlike the World Bank, have been happy to fund coal projects in developing countries. (It will be interesting to see how the Communist Party implements Chairman Xi’s recent pledge to cease this practice.)
The second question is more worrisome because of the patent illogic of proposals claiming to address climate change. Confronted with natural disasters, it is obvious that richer societies are more resilient than poorer societies. For example, earthquakes in Haiti can result in thousands of deaths. Similar earthquakes in California result in orders of magnitude fewer deaths. Thus, it would seem that confronted with what is claimed is an existential threat over which we, in fact, have almost no influence, it seems obvious that the correct policy would be to increase resilience against disasters. Instead, the West is proposing to do the very opposite. It is hard to think of good or virtuous reasons for such a policy. Perhaps our policymakers have a pseudo-religious wish to expiate the sin of letting ordinary people reach comfortable middle-class standards of living. The encouragement of such policies by China is undoubtedly one of the reasons; certainly, many of the proposed Western responses (electric cars, windmills, and solar panels) will involve heavy investments in China, which dominates the global solar industry and is already the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles.
But I doubt that this is the main reason. To be sure, the common response of politicians to any purported problem is to do “something.” These “somethings” often involve some short-term benefits to the politicians and institutions that support such policies. But in the case of climate alarm, one has to wonder if those politicians who are investing in waterfront property are really concerned about the climate. Nor is the rejection of nuclear power indicative of seriousness.
Debate over this issue has been avoided and even actively suppressed under the fatuous claim that the science is “settled.” Indeed by 1988 Newsweek had already claimed that all scientists were agreed on the subject, even though nothing could have been further from the truth. And the truth has been buried ever since. As former Energy Undersecretary for Science in the Obama administration Steven Koonin compellingly illustrates in Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, the issue remains far from actually being settled. The book relies entirely on the science from the official assessments of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and from similar official U.S. assessment reports. The vicious attacks on Koonin since the book’s release in May indicate the absence of almost any level of discourse. Yet, given what is at issue, the need for an open debate over both our assessment of climate science and the proposed policies is, indeed, desperately needed.
https://co2coalition.org/2021/10/22/china-warming/
**********************************************New Zealand plan to halve greenhouse gases criticised as an ‘accounting trick’
They are not alone in that
Climate change experts have warned that New Zealand has employed “accounting tricks” to create a target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts that looks far more ambitious than it really is.
On Sunday the country pledged to halve its emissions by 2030 aspart of the Paris agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C. The announcement was made on the eve of the United Nations Cop26 climate conference.
The previous target, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC), was to reduce emissions by an average of 30% from 2005 levels, over the 2021-2030 period.
Related: Facing pressure at home, New Zealand’s climate change minister steels himself for Cop26
The updated NDC, has a target of reducing net emissions by 50% below the gross 2005 levels come 2030, or to reduce average annual net emissions over the next decade to 41% below 2005 gross levels.
The target roughly aligns with commitments by the European Union, Newsroom reports, the primary difference being that the European Union aims to reduce most of its emissions within its own borders. New Zealand, on the other hand, expects that less than a third of its emissions will be reduced onshore.
While New Zealand’s share of global greenhouse gas emissions is small, its gross emissions per capita are high and it is one of the world’s worst performers on emission increases. Emissions in New Zealand rose 57% between 1990 and 2018 – the second-greatest increase of all industrialised countries. Earlier this year, data showed New Zealand’s emissions had increased by 2% in 2018-19.
The Climate Action Tracker has given the country a “highly insufficient” rating, pointing out that despite net-zero emissions by 2050 being enshrined in law, the government’s policies focus too heavily on offsetting carbon overseas and through forestry, rather than addressing the root causes such as agriculture.
Bill Hare, from Climate Analytics, a partner organisation to Climate Action Tracker said New Zealand’s latest announcement employs “various accounting tricks”.
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Climate Democracy Dies in Darkness
A British leftist group calling itself the Center for Countering Digital Hate has issued a report on what it calls the "Toxic Ten," which are so-called fringe websites spreading "climate change denial." The ten include our group, the Media Research Center, as well as Breitbart, The Daily Wire, Townhall Media, Newsmax, The Washington Times and The Western Journal.
So, any challenge to Greenpeace climate-crackdown orthodoxy is now classified as "toxic" and "digital hate."
Their solution? To press Facebook and Google to "stop monetizing" these conservative sites, stop allowing them to buy ads and to "comprehensively label" their climate reporting as misinformation. You don't have to prove conservatives wrong. Just "comprehensively label" them as false.
Once again, the left wants to win debates by stopping any debate from happening. The founder of this "Digital Hate" squad is a man named Imran Ahmed, who previously co-authored the book "The New Serfdom: The Triumph of Conservative Ideas and How to Defeat Them," with Angela Eagle, a Labour Party member of Parliament.
Ahmed can already count on jihad from the "objective media." Their British socialist friends at The Guardian awarded their report with the headline "'Super polluters': the top 10 publishers denying the climate crisis on Facebook."
Offering any criticism of climate panic (and climate policy) is "super polluting." Does this sound like science, or does it sound like political hyperbole? Naturally, Ahmed told The Guardian, "big tech is once again on the wrong side of science, truth and human progress."
The Washington Post also provided a pliant piece headlined "Breitbart has outsized influence over climate change denial on Facebook, report says." Tech reporter Cat Zakrzewski warned, "The far-right news and commentary site is one of just 10 publishers responsible for nearly 70 percent of interactions with climate change denial content on Facebook."
On Twitter, Zakrzewski gushed, "The nonprofit has been effective in drawing policymakers' attention to falsehoods on social media, as it did with its 'disinformation dozen' report earlier this year."
The Post reporter avoided any evidence of "falsehoods" by engaging with conservative articles. She blithely wrote that, "For years, Facebook has faced pressure to issue a broad ban on climate misinformation," and that somehow doesn't strike her as distasteful censorship.
My column on ClimateDepot founder Marc Morano's book "Green Fraud" was pictured under the Daily Wire section of the report. The MRC section is illustrated with a Joseph Vazquez article on NewsBusters about ... Marc Morano. He's apparently Digital Hater No. 1.
In my Morano column, I noted that the climate panic lobby is never held accountable for failed predictions of doom from decades ago. In one PBS series called "Race to Save the Planet," Meryl Streep claimed, "By the year 2000 -- that's less than 10 years away -- the earth's climate will be warmer than it's been in over 100,000 years. If we don't do something, there'll be enormous calamities in a very short time."
In 2021, that can be defined as climate misinformation.
But panic helps Democrats sell a crackdown. The Post story quoted Sen. Sheldon "Whites Only" Whitehouse complaining, "Facebook and other social media companies make money when they send users down rabbit holes of climate change denial. That's a very dangerous business model for the future of the planet."
Apparently, the "business model" is this: Only the leftists get to talk on climate policy; everyone else should be suppressed. No one is allowed to question the failed predictions and overwrought "solutions" of climate experts like Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Washington Post should embrace their business model with the slogan "Climate Democracy Dies in Darkness."
https://townhall.com/columnists/timgraham/2021/11/03/climate-democracy-dies-in-darkness-n2598461
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Thursday, November 04, 2021
Climate change will cause corn, wheat and soybeans crops to go haywire by 2030, DECADES sooner than expected, damning NASA study says
These modelling exercises are another case of GIGO. What you get out of them reflects what you put into them. The authors admit that wheat crops will increase -- as well they might. Canada already produces a huge wheat crop and warming would expand that.
As far as corn is concerned, there are already varieties in India that grow well in hot conditions.
And the guff below is based on CMIP6 assumptions, which posit extreme temperature rises, not the most probable ones
The world's crop staples, including corn, wheat and soybeans, are likely to be drastically impacted by climate change as soon as 2030, 'several decades sooner than estimated,' according to a newly published study.
The research — stemming from NASA scientists — notes that in a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario, corn crop yields will drop a staggering 24 percent.
Corn is considered 'the most important global crop in terms of total production and food security in many regions,' according to the study.
Soybeans and rice are also set to be negatively impacted, though the models created by the researchers give varying levels of impact, ranging from a decline of 2 percent to as low as 21 percent.
Rice could see a drop from 23 percent growth to 2 percent growth or as low as a 15 percent decline. However, wheat crops could grow 17 percent, the researchers concluded.
'We introduce the concept of climate impact emergence to the field of agriculture impacts, highlighting that major shifts in global crop productivity due to climate change are projected to occur within the next 20 [years], several decades sooner than estimates based on previous model projections,' the authors wrote in the study.
The researchers used advanced climate and agricultural modeling to look for changes in yields based on several factors, including projected increases in temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and a rise in carbon dioxide concentrations.
'We did not expect to see such a fundamental shift, as compared to crop yield projections from the previous generation of climate and crop models conducted in 2014,' said the study's lead author Jonas Jägermeyr, a crop modeler and climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute, in a statement.
Jägermeyr was especially concerned at the projected decline in corn, adding, 'a 20% decrease from current production levels could have severe implications worldwide.'
Although wheat crop yields will increase globally, it will be uneven and will not last forever, according to the study.
South Asia, the southern U.S., Mexico and parts of South America will be able to grow the crop longer, as will certain parts of the northern U.S., Canada and other East Africa.
However, the gains may start to 'level off mid-century,' NASA said in the statement.
'Even under optimistic climate change scenarios, where societies enact ambitious efforts to limit global temperature rise, global agriculture is facing a new climate reality,' Jägermeyr added.
'And with the interconnectedness of the global food system, impacts in even one region's breadbasket will be felt worldwide.'
The researchers used the climate model simulations from the International Climate Model Intercomparison Project-Phase 6 (CMIP6) and simulations for 12 crop models from Columbia University's Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) to come up with their findings.
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Man-made Disaster for Ireland
Up to 1.3 million cattle would have to be culled in Ireland to reach anticipated government targets for reducing greenhouse gases in the agriculture sector, a new report has concluded.
Irish farmers are expecting the worst after taoiseach Micheál Martin described the report by KPMG, commissioned by weekly newspaper the Irish Farmers Journal, as “scaremongering”.
The debate over agriculture’s role in reducing carbon emissions is a hugely controversial topic in Ireland, pitting Dublin against rural communities.
The country, which does not have a significant manufacturing sector, has long relied on farming, alongside multinational investment, to drive its economy. Irish beef and dairy brands such as Kerrygold and Pilgrims Choice are among its most successful exports.
But Irish agriculture is under huge pressure: 35% of national greenhouse gases come from the sector, the highest level in Europe, where the average is 11%. And more than 60% of that comes from methane associated with belching by ruminant animals.
Ninety countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 in Glasgow on Tuesday in an initiative put forward by the US and the EU. Although methane breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Reducing these emissions has been touted as one of the most immediate opportunities to slow global heating.
Stephen Prendiville, head of sustainability at the EY consultancy in Dublin, said the debate about methane “had been lost” in the narrative about the climate emergency and this would help countries reliant on agriculture to focus on how to “operationalise” reductions.
The Irish government is due to unveil its sector-by-sector climate emergency plans on Thursday and is considering a 21% to 30% cut in carbon emissions from the agriculture sector.
KPMG looked at four scenarios, concluding that rural Ireland faced a €4bn hit to the economy and the loss of more than 56,000 jobs if the government opted for the 30% target.
It also warned that a 30% cut would require a 20% cut in cattle numbers, 22% of the beef herd and 18% of the dairy herd.
With 6.5 million cattle in the country according to official Central Statistics Office data this equates to a reduction of 1.3 million of the national herd.
The lower target of 21% would mean a reduction of about 5%, or 325,000 cattle, according to the KPMG analysis.
“Farmers desperately hope that it doesn’t come to this [culling],” said Phelim O’Neill, editor of the Irish Farmers Journal. “There is widespread acknowledgement that we need to reduce emissions”, he said but he had commissioned the report to put some facts back into the “heated debate” that is giving famers “climate anxiety” about their futures.
The debate has pitted Dublin versus rural Ireland, with farmers feeling they are being unfairly targeted without government assessments of the impact on their industry.
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Uncertain future for battery metals
As the EV boom and the broader clean energy transition gathers pace, investors are monitoring the demand outlooks for key metals and rare earths that will play a central role in the shift.
On that front, a new report by the CSIRO this week offers some insights into the future of that supply and demand outlook.
The report ‘Known Unknowns: the devil in the details of energy metal demand’ uses the Physical Stocks and Flows Framework (PSFF) tool to look at three EV battery metals (cobalt, lithium and nickel) under three different EV uptake scenarios.
Among the key questions for users to explore, is how technological change and recycling recovery rates will impact the demand and supply of metals.
It suggests that metals used in electric vehicles may be more complicated than what is currently accepted.
CSIRO’s critical energy metals mission-in-development lead, Dr Jerad Ford, said the PSFF tool uses factors not currently accounted for in traditional forecasts to test the demand and supply assumptions.
“We know that demand for many metals will increase substantially as the world transitions to a low carbon economy,” Dr Ford said.
However, unsophisticated models based on current supply levels and recycling levels could lead to “many mischaracterisations of the real opportunities in both metal mining and recycling”.
“They ignore the dynamics of materials flows on a global scale, and the expected changes in underlying technologies,” Ford said.
Cobalt and nickel could have an extremely short demand cycle
Ford and his team framed their research with scenario-based analysis for three different supply/demand projections, based on the variables outlined above.
For instance, it is commonly assumed that demand for newly-mined metals like cobalt and nickel will continue to increase for the foreseeable future, as they are essential for high performance lithium-ion batteries used in EVs.
However, by “Accounting for additional factors such as changes in battery chemistry, quicker EV uptake, and higher levels of recycling, the PSFF tool suggests that cobalt demand may have a short demand window before an extended glut”, Ford said.
The CSIRO’s model also calculated a scenario where nickel demand also peaks early before falling back, while lithium remains “stronger for longer before also trailing off in the out-years”.
“This challenges conventional wisdom that the demand for these battery metals will mirror each other,” Ford said.
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'First Victim' of Build Back Better Agenda Torches Biden for Killing Energy Jobs
"It's definitely not something that I'm proud of, but I may have been the first casualty of the 'Build Back Better' plan," explained Neal Crabtree, a pipeline welder and union member who testified before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday.
"Three hours after President Biden's inauguration, I lost my job on the construction of the Keystone Pipeline," Crabtree explained. "Now I realize this was only one project, but what I really feared was the consequences the decisions would have on my future. And now I see those fears being realized. Not only did I lose an opportunity for employment on the Keystone, but I'm losing employment opportunities."
"All this is happening while the demand for energy is rising — Build Back Better shouldn't mean the total neglect and destruction of our energy infrastructure as we know it," Crabtree said. "Instead of being built or being in service they're now canceled," he added of pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure projects. "They were canceled because of overregulation and in a push for a green new energy sector that just isn't capable or reliable enough to provide the energy that we need right now."
Crabtree, who's worked on pipelines for decades, stated how he too is feeling the price crunch brought on by growing inflation that's hitting Americans at the gas pump and in their utility bills.
"People from coast to coast are feeling the pain of rising energy prices and there seems to be no thought given to the hundreds of thousands of workers in this industry or the millions of products that we use every single day that, you know, are provided by fossil fuels," he said. "There shouldn't be a fear of a heating shortage in the northeast this coming winter, yet here we are."
"Rising prices are a direct result of the lack of infrastructure that it takes to get the products moved to where they're needed most and it's mainly pipeline construction," Crabtree said, highlighting the problems that are driving up fossil fuel costs — a similar situation to the supply chain crisis playing out at several American ports.
"Every penny in the increase of energy on Americans takes about a billion dollars out of the pockets of Americans over a year's time and I can't see how that's a popular decision right now," explained Crabtree. If the root causes of increased fossil fuel prices aren't addressed, "I believe that elections in the coming years are going to prove that point," he stated.
"The disruption of the Colonial Pipeline earlier this year should've proven just how important the work that myself and these companies do really is," Crabtree pointed out. "We took one pipeline that was down for one week and we saw the panic it caused. Why do we only have one pipeline servicing such an important part of this country," Crabtree asked rhetorically before giving the answer: "It costs more to permit and plan a new pipeline than it does to actually build one."
Crabtree isn't anti-green energy, though. He said he believes "it's going to take an all-of-the-above approach for our energy future" but that future doesn't mean demonizing the fossil fuel industry, something that is "only going to hurt the economy and the country."
On a more personal note, Crabtree also explained what the Biden administration's anti-fossil fuel energy agenda means to him and those in similar situations. "I belong to a union that specializes in pipeline construction and I've spent over 25 years developing the skills that I have and I'm compensated well for it," he explained. "The government's idea of shutting down my industry and retraining me in another career is not realistic — I'm too far in life to be starting over at an entry level position."
"There's a whole generation of workers coming up that if they want to pursue careers in green energy then I support that just like I support private companies' rights to develop green energy," he said again proving he's not anti-green energy. "What I don't support is the government limiting my employment opportunities in my chosen field, especially when the product is in huge demand."
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Wednesday, November 03, 2021
Another very negative view of COP 26
It's just a great excuse for the rich and powerful to have a satisfying get-together. It CANNOT achieve anything. Change is up to the national legislatures
By DAN WOOTTON
I don't know which image of unbridled hypocrisy, sickening privilege and total tone-deafness made me fume more.
The parade of 400 private jets parked up at Scottish airports as world leaders, royalty and billionaires gushed out more carbon within a 24-hour period than most of us will in a lifetime in order to arrive at Cop26 and preach that we must all change our lives forever more in order to reach Net Zero by 2050.
Or the dangerous Insulate Britain criminals splayed once more on the roads, this time in Manchester, to stop more hardworking Brits from going to work, taking their kids to school or getting to hospital when most of these eco-terrorists haven't even bothered to properly insulate their own homes.
And that's just the start of the maddening spectacle of Flop26 over the past 48 hours.
The parade of 400 private jets parked up at Scottish airports as world leaders, royalty and billionaires gushed out more carbon within a 24-hour period than most of us will in a lifetime +5
The parade of 400 private jets parked up at Scottish airports as world leaders, royalty and billionaires gushed out more carbon within a 24-hour period than most of us will in a lifetime
There have been hyperbolic statements about the end of the world designed to terrify our children from the great and the good; a sweary display from that omnipresent sulky teen Greta Thunberg; no shows from China and Russia; the Archbishop of Canterbury comparing the climate debate to Nazi appeasement; and Prince Charles blatantly wading into politics yet again by demanding a 'vast military-style campaign' to reduce emissions.
In fact, I'd go as far to say there's never been a bigger disconnect between everyday Brits and the political, business and media elite determined to tell us what we must do while not changing a thing about their own lovely lives.
And I say all of this as a passionate environmentalist.
I actually spent much of my own youth as some sort of 1980s Kiwi Thunberg wannabe, writing songs and campaigning about the hole in the Ozone Layer that, you might remember, was going to lead to our imminent demise.
Yup, I was one of those terrified youngsters back then who listened to the environmental doomsday merchants with complete terror.
But guess what? Moderate changes to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in spray cans and refrigerants over a period of time have meant that the Ozone hole has actually shrunk in recent years!
The world survived the warnings from the hysterical campaigners (again) and I learnt a big lesson that constant scare campaigns from people who jet around the globe in private jets is not the best way to tackle climate change or environmental issues.
This is where you would hope the so-called independent British broadcast media would step in to bring a degree of perspective to Cop26 proceedings.
Chance would be a fine thing.
Instead, we've had hysterical Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow tweeting on his way to the summit: 'En route to COP26 - trees and branches affected by climate change have slowed our rail journey - tho the branches have been cleared we are doen (sic) to 5mph - What an irony! What a message! We MUST change! Dare we hope that we shall?'
Er, is a so-called impartial broadcaster really trying to claim that branches never fell onto train lines thanks to storms before the so-called 'climate emergency'?
Sky News' craven coverage has been unsurprising, given they are an official sponsor of Cop26 and run a dire daily climate show.
But I'd like to see one of their journalists question the company's own chief executive Dana Strong, who spent the first half of the year commuting to her job in London from Philadelphia in the US via – you guessed it – private jet!
And, despite forcing its own TV dramas to start including characters driving electric cars and rejecting meat for vegan dishes, Sky had the audacity to defend the 3,500-mile transatlantic commute.
A spokesperson for the company said: 'Many CEOs leading multinational companies have schedules that mean it is appropriate to use different modes of transport. It is critical to counterbalance this, that is why we offset carbon emissions caused by the business travel of Sky employees.'
Translation: While we're telling our viewers to stop going on holiday and reduce meat consumption, if you're rich, you don't need to change a damn thing.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10157499/I-want-save-planet-resent-told-it.html
*********************************************Europe's Energy Crisis Better Wake America Up
COP-26, the twenty-sixth massive climate control “conference of parties,” goes live in Glasgow, Scotland on Halloween. That’s certainly appropriate since its primary purpose is to further terrify humanity to “take action” to prevent the “existential threat” of “manmade climate cataclysms.”
Thousands of politicians and climate activists will take private jets and limos to the lecture and hector halls – to demand that “commoners” be restricted to one Basic Economy flight every three years, meatless diets, public transportation, and keeping 640-square-foot homes at 65 F all winter and 85 F all summer.
Otherwise, they say, countless people will die as our planet “overheats” by up to 4.1 degrees C (7.2 F) by 2100. Real-world science and data provide no support for temperature spikes of this magnitude. But just in time for COP-26, Columbia University concocted a “new study” and “new metric” on the “mortality cost of carbon,” based on these scary computer-modeled temperature forecasts.
Bloomberg News gave the death-by-global-warming fable prominent coverage.83 million people(equivalent to the entire population of Germany) “could be killed” this century by rising planetary temperatures caused by fossil fuel use, it asserted. Nonsense.
Modern housing and energy systems enable people to adapt to and survive even the most extreme heat and cold – even in Antarctica, which just experienced the coldest average winter temperatures ever recorded: -61 C (-78 F).
Survival becomes far less likely, however, if climate treaties and energy policies prohibit efficient air conditioning and heating, ration them, subject them to recurrent blackouts, or make them harder to afford amid rising oil, natural gas, coal and electricity prices.
Yet that is exactly what’s being advocated and implemented. Britain and various US cities and states want to ban natural gas heating and cooking– and replace them with expensive heat pumps and other electric appliances, powered by expensive, weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels. Meanwhile, energy prices have been skyrocketing in response to Covid recovery and anti-fossil-fuel policies.
Climate theory has long held that most 21st-century warming will occur in northern latitudes during winter months. But now we’re now told a warming Arctic could also be causing colder winters, which could endanger far more people than rising temperatures or more frequent heatwaves.
Actually,far more people die in cold weather than in hot weather or heat waves. In the United States and Canada, cold causes 45 times more deaths per year than heat: 113,000 from cold versus 2,500 from heat. Worldwide, where air conditioning is far less available, some 1,700,000 people die annually from cold versus 300,000 from heat – a ratio of almost 6:1.
Energy policies that favor wind and solar over fossil fuels beget “fuel poverty” that can make adequate heating impossible, causing numerous health problems and deaths. Poor, minority, elderly and fixed-income families are most severely and inequitably affected, it found.
Cold homes bring increased risks of respiratory and circulatory problems (including asthma, bronchitis, flu, cardiovascular disease and stroke) and exacerbate existing adverse health conditions. Cold household temperatures also increase depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. Already vulnerable groups – young children, older people and those with preexisting health issues – are especially susceptible to hypothermia, more illness and death.
Public Health Englandcalculated that one-tenth of all “excess winter deaths” in England and Wales are directly attributable to fuel poverty, and 21.5% of excess winter deaths are attributable to the coldest 25% of homes.30,000 to 40,000 people died each year in England and Wales since 1990 who would not have perished if their homes hadn’t been so cold, researchers estimated.
Adjusted for population, this is equivalent to 165,000 to 220,000 excessAmericanwinter deaths per year.
In 2017, Germany endured172,000 localized blackouts; in 2019,350,000 German families had their electricity cut off because they couldn’t pay their power bills.
Coal, oil, natural gas, electricity and home heating costs have risen significantly since those studies were prepared, likely increasing the excess winter death toll markedly. In fact, 2021 European gas prices skyrocketed nearly 600% over 2020 prices, and Rotterdam coal futures soared from $60/ton in October 2020 to $265/ton in September 2021. Energy prices are still rising, affecting jobs and living costs.
Global demand for gas and coal has surged as the world recovers from Covid. British gas production has plunged by 60 % since 2000; Britain and Europe have banned fracking;Putin is playing politics over how much gas it will deliver to Europe; and President Biden has stymied leasing, drilling, fracking, pipelines, and oil and gas exports. Many coal and nuclear power plants have been shut down. Meanwhile, Europe’s heavily subsidized wind turbines generated far less electricity in 2021 due to unfavorable winds.
This perfect storm of misinformed policies could bring unprecedented excess deaths as winter sets in.
Schools, hospitals and clinics could also be much chillier – and deadlier. At 11¢ per kilowatt-hour (average US business rate), a 650,000-square-foot hospital would pay about $2.2 million annually for electricity. At 25¢ per kWh (UK), the annual cost jumps to $5 million; at 35¢ per kWh (Germany), to $7 million! Those soaring costs would likely result in employee layoffs, higher medical bills, reduced patient care, colder conditions, and more deaths.
Adding to these woes, Citigroup says EU natural gas prices could hit $100 per mcf (per thousand cubic feet or million Btu) if this winter is particularly cold and moreGulf of Mexico hurricanes disrupt production. News outlets report that energy companies supplying six million UK homes face collapse, and several elder care homes have warned that crippling energy bills could force closures, leaving many old and infirm people homeless.
Britain’s energy minister has said a “very difficult winter” lies ahead, as gas prices soar amid fear of blackouts and food shortages. Many households “will not be able to cope.”
US energy prices remain well below Europe’s, but threats to American families are also rising. The average monthly Henry Hub spot price for natural gas has shot from $1.63 in June 2020 to $5.16 in September 2021. That’s well below the highest-ever price ($13.42 in October 2005) but still ominous.
One-third of American households already had difficulty six years ago adequately heating and cooling their homes – and one-fifth of households had to reduce or forgo food, medicine and other necessities to pay energy bills. Even before Covid, low-income, Black, Hispanic and Native American families were spending a greater portion of their incomes on energy than average US households.
Nearly half of US households that heat with natural gas will spend 22-50% more this winter than last year, depending on how cold it gets. Families that use electricity, propane or fuel oil to heat their homes will also pay significantly more. Energy-intensive factories may have to cut back hours and production, lay people off, and move operations overseas (where they will continue to burn fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases).
Americans are also being impacted by gasoline prices that haverisen more than a dollar a gallon for regular since the 2020 election and recently reached $5.00 per gallon in New York and $7.60 in one southern California town.
The overall effect of these anti-fossil-fuel policies on livelihoods, living standards, health and life spans will be profoundly negative. Countless people will perish, many of them cold and jobless in the dark.
Under Joe Biden, the United States is already on a trajectory to Europe’sreal climate crisis: unaffordable, unreliable energy. That crisis better wake America up. Otherwise, self-righteous activists and governing classes will destroy middle-class jobs, families – and lives.
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In Glasgow, the world moves to halt deforestation
I can get with that
Glasgow: Global deforestation would be halted by the end of the decade under a plan to be endorsed by over 100 world leaders on the second day of United Nations climate talks.
Leaders representing land which is home to over 85 per cent of the world’s forests are expected to commit to halting and reversing deforestation and land degradation by 2030.
Among the signers, countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have seen struggled with deforestation for decades. The nonprofit World Resources Institute calculates forests absorb roughly 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.
The deforestation announcement is not part of the formal COP26 negotiations, but reflects the efforts of the UK hosts of the climate talks to use the moment to drive forward a range of initiatives to help tackle climate change through side deals to the talks. Other signers of the pact are expected to be Australia, Canada, Colombia, Russia, and Norway.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made his mantra for action on “coal, cars, cash and trees” central to the Glasgow talks.
The British government’s determination to secure significant side deals is widely seen as part of an effort to ensure that COP26 can succeed in advancing efforts to control climate change even if world leaders gathered here do not commit to the headline emission reductions.
Those reductions are part of the 2015 Paris agreement targets of keeping warming to well below two degrees.
The plan to reverse deforestation is expected to include a commitment of US$12 billion ($16 billion) in public funds from 12 countries between 2021 and 2025 to protect and restore forests, as well as US$7.2 billion of newly-mobilised private investment.
This would include a new US$1.5 billion fund to protect the Congo Basin, which is home to the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world.
Although forests take the emissions out of the atmosphere, this natural climate buffer is rapidly disappearing.
Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil's space research centre INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy.
The world lost 258,000 square kilometres of forest in 2020, according to WRI’s deforestation tracking initiative Global Forest Watch, an area larger than the United Kingdom. The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation said that parts of the Amazon rainforest have gone from being a carbon “sink” that sucks carbon dioxide from the air to a source of CO2 due to deforestation and reduced humidity in the region.
Monday’s agreement vastly expands a similar commitment made by 40 countries as part of the 2014 New York Declaration of Forests and goes further than ever before in laying out the resources to reach that goal.
Alongside this more than 30 financial institutions with over US$8.7 trillion of global assets – including Aviva, Schroders and Axa – are expected to commit to eliminate investment in activities linked to deforestation.
“Today we celebrate - tomorrow we will start pressing for the deal to be delivered,” said Roberto Waack, a Brazilian business leader and biologist and Chatham House visiting fellow.
“The deal is a significant milestone on the road to protecting our precious forests and tackling the climate crisis.
Executive director of Trillion Trees, a joint venture between BirdLife International, Wildlife Conservation Society and WWF, John Lotspeich, said it was “fantastic” that leaders were “finally” addressing deforestation.
“Yes, we must restore forests and plant trees to achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. “But at the same time, if forests continue to disappear at the current catastrophic rate, all this work will be to no avail. And frankly, the silence around the value of intact forests has been deafening.”
The United Nations climate office warned this week that the world remains off target for meeting its goal of cutting emissions as part of international efforts to curb global warming.
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Big business 'sniffs' the green dollar at COP26
Climate change conferences, such as today's COP26, were once the domain of scientists and bureaucrats.
Now, they are increasingly attended by big business delegations eyeing off the "green dollar" — former climate negotiator for Australia, Richie Merzian, calls it a "trade show" for climate change.
It's a sign that climate change is as much an economic challenge as it is a scientific one.
In fact, one of the four goals of Glasgow is "mobilising finance"; $90 trillion is needed for infrastructure to assist the economy to decarbonise by 2030, according to the World Bank.
One of Australia's biggest investors in renewables, Mike Cannon-Brookes, said "$90 trillion is probably an understatement".
"The challenge with Australia's commitments and the promises we are taking to COP26 in Glasgow is that they don't give our economy any stability," he told 7.30.
"There's no legislation, there's no planned interim targets, which means as an investor, you can't be sure what environment you're investing in, which means you're going to need a higher return because the risk is higher, which means the cost of doing business in Australia is going to go up."
COP26 will see an unprecedented showing of corporations, bringing the quality of their commitments — and motives — into sharp focus.
Polluters tackling emissions
Australia's largest independent fossil fuel supplier, Ampol, is switching some of their petrol stations to fast-charging electric vehicle stations, according to CEO Matt Halliday.
"We do view ourselves as a distributor of energy. Over time, we'll be distributing different forms of energy," Mr Halliday told 7.30.
"We're rolling out 121 stations across our network initially, in partnership with ARENA."
Despite Ampol's 1 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, it is part of a business delegation called the Climate Leaders Coalition — which includes BHP, CBA and Coles — and has sent representatives to Glasgow.
"I don't think it's appropriate to rely on any one group, government or organisation. It's about a coalition working across value chains, working together on policy settings," he said.
The rise of 'greenwashing'
Increasingly, carbon-intensive businesses like Ampol — who pledge to deliver net zero on emissions by 2040 — will come under the microscope.
Critically, Ampol's plan will not deal with "scope 3" emissions — the emissions from customers burning their fuels — according to Richie Merzian.
"Companies will try and greenwash their way into only offsetting the emissions from scope 1 and 2, their domestic emissions," Mr Merzian told 7.30.
"And if you're a major fossil fuel producer, the majority of your emissions are when your goods are burnt.
"We're seeing a rise of greenwashing. We're seeing more junk credits being put on the market and purchased up by big polluters. We're seeing a lot more marketing, and not a lot of action. And that's the real risk."
In Australia, one in five carbon credits generated here could very well be hot air, according to new research by the Australian Conservation Foundation.
However, COP26 will see new commitments from some of the industries hardest to abate.
World's largest cement maker tackles scope 3
Holcim is the world's largest cement and building material producer. It's also a member of US climate envoy John Kerry's First Movers Coalition, a group of emissions intensive industries attending COP26.
Holcim's chief sustainability and innovation officer, Magali Anderson, told 7.30 that the new targets they were taking to COP26 meant they would now reduce their scope 3 emissions — emissions created down their supply chain by customers using their building products — by 90 per cent, a goal endorsed by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi).
"Scope 3 emissions represent 20 per cent of our total footprint," Ms Anderson said.
"[For] some companies, it represents 80 to 90 per cent.
"Which means 80 per cent of our emissions are actually under our control.
"Steel and cement are part of this famous 'hard to abate' sector. Myself, I hate this nomination; I love to call it [a] 'full of opportunities' sector, because whenever we reduce, the type of reduction we're going to make will have an enormous impact."
Mr Cannon-Brookes, whose software firm Atlassian also has endorsement from SBTi, said COP26 would bring new promises from the corporate sector, but transparency and governance was required.
"We need to call out and be clear about what people are actually committing to, whether it's an individual, whether it's a business or whether it's a government," he told 7.30.
"When people are making a net zero pledge, we should ask things like, is it legislated? As a government, that's laws, as a business, that's in some sort of actual policies, penalties, incentives, that sort of thing.
"We should ask, does it involve scope 3 emissions?
"None of Australia's policies involve scope 3. Very few of those large, generally fossil fuel-based businesses involves scope 3. That's a really important point."
Attempting to address the authenticity of green investments, the Climate Bonds Initiative is a not-for-profit that developed an accreditation system now adopted by the EU and China — and investors are hungry for ways to 'green up' their portfolios, according to CEO Sean Kidney.
"There is money pouring out of our ears looking for green," he told 7.30.
"In the recent auction, when the European Commission went to market seeking money for its green bond, they were 11 times oversubscribed.
"That means that they placed 12 billion euros a bond. They got 11 times the orders.
"This COP26 will be replete with corporations, with investors, with ministries of finance, not just ministers of climate change.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
*****************************************
Tuesday, November 02, 2021
Climate skeptics and prominent Greenies are in agreement for once: COP 26 is a farce
Climate Depot’s Marc Morano and a contingent of climate skeptics will descend upon the UN climate summit in Glasgow Scotland next week. The climate skeptics will be joining a growing coalition of climate activists who realize that UN summits are meaningless and will support the accurate claims of Schwarzenegger, Greta, Kerry, Hansen and others.
’30 years of blah blah blah’: Thunberg (correctly) questions value of climate talks – Greta: “There is no Planet Blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” … “Net zero, blah, blah, blah. Climate neutral, blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders — words, words that sound great but so far, has led to no action or hopes and dreams. Empty words and promises.”
Schwarzenegger gets it right: ‘Nothing is getting done’ at UN climate summits – Echoes Greta’s ‘Blah Blah Blah’ analysis
Shock graph of rising CO2 emissions despite ‘planet-saving’ UN climate pacts shows ‘farce’ of ‘climate action’
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In Glasgow, the world moves to halt deforestation
I can get with that
Glasgow: Global deforestation would be halted by the end of the decade under a plan to be endorsed by over 100 world leaders on the second day of United Nations climate talks.
Leaders representing land which is home to over 85 per cent of the world’s forests are expected to commit to halting and reversing deforestation and land degradation by 2030.
Among the signers, countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have seen struggled with deforestation for decades. The nonprofit World Resources Institute calculates forests absorb roughly 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.
The deforestation announcement is not part of the formal COP26 negotiations, but reflects the efforts of the UK hosts of the climate talks to use the moment to drive forward a range of initiatives to help tackle climate change through side deals to the talks. Other signers of the pact are expected to be Australia, Canada, Colombia, Russia, and Norway.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made his mantra for action on “coal, cars, cash and trees” central to the Glasgow talks.
The British government’s determination to secure significant side deals is widely seen as part of an effort to ensure that COP26 can succeed in advancing efforts to control climate change even if world leaders gathered here do not commit to the headline emission reductions.
Those reductions are part of the 2015 Paris agreement targets of keeping warming to well below two degrees.
The plan to reverse deforestation is expected to include a commitment of US$12 billion ($16 billion) in public funds from 12 countries between 2021 and 2025 to protect and restore forests, as well as US$7.2 billion of newly-mobilised private investment.
This would include a new US$1.5 billion fund to protect the Congo Basin, which is home to the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world.
Although forests take the emissions out of the atmosphere, this natural climate buffer is rapidly disappearing.
Wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest have hit a record number this year, with 72,843 fires detected so far by Brazil's space research centre INPE, as concerns grow over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy.
The world lost 258,000 square kilometres of forest in 2020, according to WRI’s deforestation tracking initiative Global Forest Watch, an area larger than the United Kingdom. The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation said that parts of the Amazon rainforest have gone from being a carbon “sink” that sucks carbon dioxide from the air to a source of CO2 due to deforestation and reduced humidity in the region.
Monday’s agreement vastly expands a similar commitment made by 40 countries as part of the 2014 New York Declaration of Forests and goes further than ever before in laying out the resources to reach that goal.
Alongside this more than 30 financial institutions with over US$8.7 trillion of global assets – including Aviva, Schroders and Axa – are expected to commit to eliminate investment in activities linked to deforestation.
“Today we celebrate - tomorrow we will start pressing for the deal to be delivered,” said Roberto Waack, a Brazilian business leader and biologist and Chatham House visiting fellow.
“The deal is a significant milestone on the road to protecting our precious forests and tackling the climate crisis.
Executive director of Trillion Trees, a joint venture between BirdLife International, Wildlife Conservation Society and WWF, John Lotspeich, said it was “fantastic” that leaders were “finally” addressing deforestation.
“Yes, we must restore forests and plant trees to achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. “But at the same time, if forests continue to disappear at the current catastrophic rate, all this work will be to no avail. And frankly, the silence around the value of intact forests has been deafening.”
The United Nations climate office warned this week that the world remains off target for meeting its goal of cutting emissions as part of international efforts to curb global warming.
**********************************************
Big business 'sniffs' the green dollar at COP26
Climate change conferences, such as today's COP26, were once the domain of scientists and bureaucrats.
Now, they are increasingly attended by big business delegations eyeing off the "green dollar" — former climate negotiator for Australia, Richie Merzian, calls it a "trade show" for climate change.
It's a sign that climate change is as much an economic challenge as it is a scientific one.
In fact, one of the four goals of Glasgow is "mobilising finance"; $90 trillion is needed for infrastructure to assist the economy to decarbonise by 2030, according to the World Bank.
One of Australia's biggest investors in renewables, Mike Cannon-Brookes, said "$90 trillion is probably an understatement".
"The challenge with Australia's commitments and the promises we are taking to COP26 in Glasgow is that they don't give our economy any stability," he told 7.30.
"There's no legislation, there's no planned interim targets, which means as an investor, you can't be sure what environment you're investing in, which means you're going to need a higher return because the risk is higher, which means the cost of doing business in Australia is going to go up."
COP26 will see an unprecedented showing of corporations, bringing the quality of their commitments — and motives — into sharp focus.
Polluters tackling emissions
Australia's largest independent fossil fuel supplier, Ampol, is switching some of their petrol stations to fast-charging electric vehicle stations, according to CEO Matt Halliday.
"We do view ourselves as a distributor of energy. Over time, we'll be distributing different forms of energy," Mr Halliday told 7.30.
"We're rolling out 121 stations across our network initially, in partnership with ARENA."
Despite Ampol's 1 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, it is part of a business delegation called the Climate Leaders Coalition — which includes BHP, CBA and Coles — and has sent representatives to Glasgow.
"I don't think it's appropriate to rely on any one group, government or organisation. It's about a coalition working across value chains, working together on policy settings," he said.
The rise of 'greenwashing'
Increasingly, carbon-intensive businesses like Ampol — who pledge to deliver net zero on emissions by 2040 — will come under the microscope.
Critically, Ampol's plan will not deal with "scope 3" emissions — the emissions from customers burning their fuels — according to Richie Merzian.
"Companies will try and greenwash their way into only offsetting the emissions from scope 1 and 2, their domestic emissions," Mr Merzian told 7.30.
"And if you're a major fossil fuel producer, the majority of your emissions are when your goods are burnt.
"We're seeing a rise of greenwashing. We're seeing more junk credits being put on the market and purchased up by big polluters. We're seeing a lot more marketing, and not a lot of action. And that's the real risk."
In Australia, one in five carbon credits generated here could very well be hot air, according to new research by the Australian Conservation Foundation.
However, COP26 will see new commitments from some of the industries hardest to abate.
World's largest cement maker tackles scope 3
Holcim is the world's largest cement and building material producer. It's also a member of US climate envoy John Kerry's First Movers Coalition, a group of emissions intensive industries attending COP26.
Holcim's chief sustainability and innovation officer, Magali Anderson, told 7.30 that the new targets they were taking to COP26 meant they would now reduce their scope 3 emissions — emissions created down their supply chain by customers using their building products — by 90 per cent, a goal endorsed by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi).
"Scope 3 emissions represent 20 per cent of our total footprint," Ms Anderson said.
"[For] some companies, it represents 80 to 90 per cent.
"Which means 80 per cent of our emissions are actually under our control.
"Steel and cement are part of this famous 'hard to abate' sector. Myself, I hate this nomination; I love to call it [a] 'full of opportunities' sector, because whenever we reduce, the type of reduction we're going to make will have an enormous impact."
Mr Cannon-Brookes, whose software firm Atlassian also has endorsement from SBTi, said COP26 would bring new promises from the corporate sector, but transparency and governance was required.
"We need to call out and be clear about what people are actually committing to, whether it's an individual, whether it's a business or whether it's a government," he told 7.30.
"When people are making a net zero pledge, we should ask things like, is it legislated? As a government, that's laws, as a business, that's in some sort of actual policies, penalties, incentives, that sort of thing.
"We should ask, does it involve scope 3 emissions?
"None of Australia's policies involve scope 3. Very few of those large, generally fossil fuel-based businesses involves scope 3. That's a really important point."
Attempting to address the authenticity of green investments, the Climate Bonds Initiative is a not-for-profit that developed an accreditation system now adopted by the EU and China — and investors are hungry for ways to 'green up' their portfolios, according to CEO Sean Kidney.
"There is money pouring out of our ears looking for green," he told 7.30.
"In the recent auction, when the European Commission went to market seeking money for its green bond, they were 11 times oversubscribed.
"That means that they placed 12 billion euros a bond. They got 11 times the orders.
"This COP26 will be replete with corporations, with investors, with ministries of finance, not just ministers of climate change.
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South Australia adopts electric vehicle tax, joining New South Wales and Victoria
Many unhappy Greenies
Electric car buyers in South Australia will soon be charged for every kilometre they drive, with the state joining New South Wales and Victoria in adopting electric vehicle taxes.
The new tax will come into effect in July 2027, or when electric vehicles make up 30 per cent of the market, whichever is earliest
South Australia was the first Australian state to propose an electric vehicle (EV) tax in November last year, but delayed the introduction of legislation amid debate and community opposition.
A bill to allow the tax passed South Australia's Legislative Council on Thursday, with SA Best's MLCs Connie Bonaros and Frank Pangallo as well as independent MLC John Darley voting with the government to approve it.
In order to secure its passage, the government offered some short-term sweeteners, including a three-year registration fee exemption for new electric vehicles, and a $3,000 subsidy for the first 7,000 electric vehicles sold.
Those subsidies will not apply for hybrid vehicles, or those priced at more than $68,750.
The bill will also establish a parliamentary committee to examine the rollout of electric vehicles.
The new tax will come into effect in July 2027, or when electric vehicles make up 30 per cent of the market, whichever is earliest.
Owners of plug-in hybrid vehicles will be charged an indexed fee of 2 cents per kilometre, while the owners of any other electric vehicles will be charged an indexed fee of 2.5 cents per kilometre.
The charge will be levied in arrears as part of the vehicle registration process, with the final cost calculated on the distance travelled since the previous registration renewal.
Treasurer Rob Lucas said that, while South Australia was the first to propose the tax, it would not be the last state to enact it.
"Look, I think it's a recognition that this is inevitable," he said. "Sooner rather than later, we're going to be almost 100 per cent electric vehicles on our roads.
"And we're going to have to have a mechanism which funds the maintenance and replacement of our road network, because fuel excise will completely disappear."
Fuel excise is currently charged by the federal government.
Opponents of the new tax said its passage would slow the state's ambition to be a national leader of electric vehicle uptake.
"While statements and goals are good, adequate policy commitments to support the EV sector are now needed," said the Australia Institute's South Australian director, Noah Schultz-Byard.
"Our research shows the EV package in South Australia falls well short of what is being offered by the SA government's Coalition counterparts in New South Wales."
The Labor opposition said the passage of the bill days before the Glasgow Climate Change Conference sent the wrong message.
"This is a state government trying to fix a federal government revenue issue while the planet is literally on the verge of climate catastrophe," Deputy Labor Leader Susan Close said.
"While most of the rest of the world is trying to incentivise take-up of electric cars, Steven Marshall's government has just brought in a big new tax to act as a disincentive.
"Sadly, it seems the reckless climate policies of the Liberals at a federal level are now infecting the Liberals here in SA.
Greens MLC Robert Simms said the vote on the bill was an "embarrassing day for South Australia".
"Much like the Morrison federal government, the Liberals here in South Australia just aren't taking the threat of climate change seriously," Mr Simms said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Monday, November 01, 2021
Climate change fueled witch hunts… Then and now
European witch hunts of the 15th to 17th centuries targeted witches that were thought to be responsible for epidemics and crop failures related to declining temperatures of the Little Ice Age. A belief that evil humans were negatively affecting the climate and weather patterns was the “consensus” opinion of that time. How eerily similar is that notion to the the current oft-repeated mantra that Man’s actions are controlling the climate and leading to catastrophic consequences?
The first extensive European witch hunts coincided with plunging temperatures as the continent transitioned away from the beneficial warmth of the Medieval Warm Period (850 to 1250 AD). Increasing cold that began in the 13th century ushered in nearly five centuries of advancing mountain glaciers and prolonged periods of rainy or cool weather. This time of naturally-driven climate change was accompanied by crop failure, hunger, rising prices, epidemics and mass depopulation.
Large systematic witch hunts began in the 1430s and were advanced later in the century by an Alsatian Dominican friar and papal Inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer. At Kramer’s urging, Pope Innocence VIII issued an encyclical enshrining the persecution and eradication of weather-changing witches through this papal edict. The worst of the Inquisition’s abuses and later systemic witch hunts were, in part, empowered by this decree.
This initial period of cooler temperatures and failing crops continued through the first couple of decades of the 16th century, when a slight warming was accompanied by improvements in harvests. Clearly, the pogrom against the weather-changing witches had been successful!
Unfortunately for the people of the Late Middle Ages, the forty years or so of slight warming gave ground to a more severe bout of cooling. The summer of 1560 brought a return of coldness and wetness that led to severe decline in harvest, crop failure and increases in infant mortality and epidemics. Bear in mind that this was an agrarian subsistence culture, nearly totally dependent on the yearly harvest to survive. One bad harvest could be tolerated, but back-to-back failures would cause horrific consequences, and indeed they did.
Of course, the people’s misfortunes were attributed to weather-changing witches who had triggered the death-dealing weather, most often in the form of cold, rain, frost and devastating hailstorms. Horrific atrocities were alleged of the witches, including Franconian witches who “confessed” to flying through the air to spread an ointment made of children’s fat in order to cause a killing frost. Across the continent of Europe, from the 15th to the 17th centuries there were likely many tens of thousands of supposed witches burnt at the stake, many of these old women living without husbands on the margins of society.
The worst of the witch hunts occurred during the bitter cold from 1560 to about 1680. The frenzy of killing culminated in the killing of 63 witches in the German territory of Wiesensteig in the year 1563 alone. Across Europe, though, the numbers of witches continued to increase and peaked at more than 500 per year in the mid-1600s. Most were burned at the stake; others were hung.
The end of the witch hunts and killings tie closely to the beginning of our current warming trend at the close of the 17th century. That warming trend started more than 300 years ago and continues in fits and starts to this day.
In the Late Middle Ages, a large segment of the population actually believed that evil people could negatively affect the climate. It appears that we haven’t learned the lessons of the 16th century and the dangers of stirring unfounded fears concerning changes to our climate. Perhaps in the not too distant future we will have the benefit of hindsight and realize that people like Al Gore and Dr. Michael Mann were the Heinrich Kramers of the early 21st century, trying to convince us all that we can control the uncontrollable — the natural cycles of the Sun and Earth that are operating today, just as they have for many millions of years.
https://co2coalition.org/2021/10/29/climate-change-fueled-witch-hunts-then-and-now/
*********************************************Biden Tries to Explain Driving Cross-Country in an Electric Car, It Goes Horribly Wrong
As gas prices soar across the country, President Joe Biden attempted to explain the benefits of electric cars. Predictably, his explanation was more confusing than it was helpful.
Biden was giving a speech Thursday describing his two massive spending sprees, also known as the Build Back Better plan and infrastructure bill.
According to a White House transcript, Biden was describing the need to replace buses and cars with electric alternatives like rail and electric cars.
“When you buy an electric vehicle, you can go across America on a single tank of gas, figuratively speaking,” Biden said. “It’s not gas. You plug it in.”
Biden at least admitted his “tank of gas” analogy was figurative, so he apparently understands electric cars do not actually run on gas. That is where his knowledge of electric cars seems to end.
Biden’s suggestion that you can drive across the country in an electric car on the equivalent of one tank of gas is false on multiple levels.
First, electric cars have a shorter range than gas cars. The average electric car can travel 250-350 miles on a single charge, the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies reported. The 350-mile range is comparable to many gas cars, but UC Davis said only higher-end brands like Tesla have that range.
To most logical people, the equivalent of one tank of gas would be a full charge in an electric vehicle. Considering the country is a lot longer than 350 miles, it would be impossible to travel across the country on one charge.
Once the electric car does run out of gas, re-charging it is not nearly as simple as getting a tank of gas.
UC Davis reported in a standard 120V outlet like the ones in a normal home, a fully electric car can take 20 or more hours to charge. Even with a 240V outlet, full charging takes four to eight hours.
Some vehicles are equipped for “fast charging,” meaning they can get an 80 percent charge in about 20 minutes. That is still significantly longer than a typical stop for gas.
This is not to say that no one should buy an electric car, because they certainly have benefits. However, stopping for 20 minutes every 250-350 miles on a road trip is undoubtedly an inconvenience.
When Biden says electric cars can go across the country in one figurative tank of gas, his comment is at best misleading and at worst completely ignorant. In reality, electric cars have to stop more often and for longer than gas cars.
It is easy to see why Biden would want to start pushing electric cars. In just the last couple of months, gas prices have skyrocketed at an alarming rate around the country.
According to AAA, the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.399 as of Thursday. That was an increase of more than 20 cents since the previous month, when the average was $3.187.
On Oct. 28, 2020, the average gallon of gas in the United States cost $2.151. In just 365 days, the average price has risen about $1.25 per gallon.
Every time Americans go to the gas pump, price increases remind them of the current state of our country under Biden. He can lie about electric cars all he wants, but he cannot hide what’s happening in the United States.
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Broken chargers, limited ports, queues: The reality of driving from London to Glasgow using an electric car
At a rough estimate it took him 15 hours to make a trip which would have taken five in an ordinary car
It was at my first charging stop that I realised driving an electric car from London to Glasgow might not be as straightforward as I had thought.
I had started in Westminster feeling upbeat about my challenge. I was driving a Kia e-Niro, a family SUV with a range of about 275 miles. With the map telling me it was 400 miles to Glasgow city centre, I reckoned two charges should see me through.
So the journey to my first charging stop at Norton Crane Services on the M6 Toll was a breeze. That's where reality hit home. Only three of the four rapid charging points were working - nowhere near enough for the number of electric vehicles wanting a top-up.
Some people gave up, but I stuck it out. Even when I got to the front of the queue it took several attempts for the car and charger to talk to each other and for the electrons to flow.
Sorosh told me to get used to it. He'd had an electric car for three months and rated his experience 50:50. He loved his car, but not the charging infrastructure. "There is a lot of work to do if they are scrapping all diesel cars by 2030. It's nowhere near ready," he said. "They have got two charging spots here when you need at least 10."
For part of my journey, I was joined by Philippa Oldham, a director and engineer at the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK.
She said cars have become a serious proposition for motorists, with many now capable of well over 200 miles, roughly three times the range of the best-selling electric just eight years ago.
But my car could still take almost an hour to charge up - far longer than I would normally spend at a service station.
"It is a long time," Philippa agreed. "But is that the time for a lunch stop, to make a few phone calls and check emails?
My next charging stop was Tebay Services. But once again I hit a hitch. Two rapid charging points were out of action. Another wouldn't work because the machine was already charging another car.
It was exasperating. It was 8.30pm, I still had 270 miles to go and just 70 miles left on the battery.
This wasn't range anxiety. This was charger anxiety. If I drove on to the next service station would I find a working machine or have to call for a breakdown truck?
I gambled and won. At Southwaite Services, south of Carlisle, I had four chargers to myself, all working. It was a massive relief.
According to Zap Map, the UK has just over 26,600 chargers. But a report by the Competition and Markets Authority this summer found one in 25 of those aren't working at any given time on average. For rapid chargers, the kind I was using, it's one in 10.
I made it to Glasgow at midnight after a stressful drive.
The government has allocated more money to upgrade the charging network. But one has to wonder whether that is going to happen fast enough for all the drivers now doing the right thing and buying electric.
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'World's greenest residential building' reduced to 20 storeys after Brisbane City Council questions size
Lodged in July last year, Aria Property Group's Urban Forest development originally proposed a 32-storey, 382-unit apartment tower on Glenelg Street in South Brisbane.
Designed by Koichi Takada Architects, the application received international attention for its promise to be a tower covered in greenery including trees and shrubs, hiding much of the building structure under plants.
The tower was designed to have nearly 300 per cent green coverage and aims to secure a 5-star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia on the back of its subtropical design.
The original assessment report lodged with the council for the tower last year said the design's "unprecedented level of landscaping" would create a striking building on the city skyline.
However, the plan generated concern from locals who feared the tower was oversized and would permanently change the inner-city suburb's character.
Concerns about its impact on a neighbouring heritage-listed church, a local school, and the number of apartments were also raised in submissions.
More than a year later, the application is still being assessed by Brisbane City Council.
Earlier this year, at the council's request, Aria reduced the size of the tower to 24 storeys, but the council was not satisfied.
In August a council planner requested further reduction of its size to fit the neighbourhood plan.
"The overall proposed building height and number of storeys is required to be reduced in response to ... the South Brisbane riverside neighbourhood plan code," the officer wrote.
The planning code covering that area of South Brisbane has a height limit of 12 storeys, which many residents in submissions on the development insist should be heeded.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-27/urban-forest-building-downsizes-south-brisbane/100571768
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
