Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Bill Nye never was a science guy
He's really ga-ga now
Bill Nye on MSNBC claims we can prevent Hurricanes like Milton if we vote the right way – ‘The main thing is vote’
Bill Nye on MSNBC: "The other side, as we often call it, has no plans to address climate change. No plans for long-term dealing with these sorts of problems. If you have young voters out there, encourage them to vote. People say, 'What can I do about climate change?' If we were talking about it, associating it with big storms like this, that would be really good. But the main thing is vote."
A few points about @BillNye the Science Lie:
1. Americans could vote in 1921 and 1841 -- but the Tampa Bay area still got hit by massive storms.
2. Emissions can't warm ocean water. https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1809073798160736620
3. Recall Bill Nye thinks climate skeptics are not dying fast enough.…
*********************************************
Kamala Harris Is Full On Hiding Her Climate Agenda From Voters – Pursuing ‘strategic ambiguity’ on climate — ‘otherwise known as deception’
Climate change does not poll well so Vice President Kamala Harris is downplaying the whole issue. Gone is the drumbeating that nothing is more important to the next generation than addressing climate change.
During the presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris turned the moderator’s question about climate change into a discussion about housing insurance costs.
She declared climate change was “very real” and then she pivoted to what NPR described as morphing climate change into a “pocketbook issue.”
“You ask anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences who now is either being denied home insurance or it’s being jacked up; you ask anybody who has been the victim of what that means in terms of losing their home, having nowhere to go,” Harris said during the debate.
Why has the climate issue, formerly known as an “existential threat” — complete with doomsday tipping points — now turned into a question of mere insurance costs for the Democratic presidential nominee? The Washington Post reported that Democratic Party leaders “appear to have calculated that climate silence is the safest strategy.” The Post explained, “Democrats see talking about the environment as a lose-lose proposition.”
When Harris was finally asked about “climate change” during her first sit-down media interview on CNN, she addressed her recent campaign reversals on fracking, EVs and net zero issues by claiming her ‘values’ have not changed.
Harris told CNN that there is a “climate crisis” and the way to solve it was by spending “a trillion dollars” and applying “metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”
Huh? So, Harris’ position on the alleged threat of man-made climate change still duplicates her 2019 brief presidential run. Her repeated claims that she will no longer seek to “ban” fracking do not address the fact that continuing Green New Deal and Inflation Reduction Act policies will result in a death by a thousand cuts on fracking and other U.S. energy production methods.
She pledged to continue the ideological net zero fairy-tale that government spending and mandates can alter the Earth’s climate system. Harris’ energy plans will continue to hammer America first.
Let’s remember that Harris’ “values” have included being an original co-sponsor of AOC’s Green New Deal, casting a tie-breaking vote in 2022 for the Inflation Reduction Act, supporting gas-powered car bans, gas stove bans, looking at climate change as one of the “root causes” of illegal immigration, and meat restrictions via the administration’s EPA regulations on agricultural methane emissions.
In addition, the Biden-Harris administration has talked openly about the possibility of declaring a national climate emergency, which — according to NBC News — “can unlock special powers for a president in a crisis without needing approval from Congress.”
Bypassing democracy to impose a Green New Deal on America appears central to Harris’ “values.” But, somehow, her “values” have rapidly gone silent on the alleged “existential” climate threat of the 21st century during this heated presidential campaign.
If you listen closely, the Harris “silence” fades away. The Harris campaign raucously boasted to Reuters that the “climate silence” is all part of her master election plan.
“She has been pursuing a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ on energy policy, [Harris] aides told Reuters last month. She is anxious not to put off undecided voters in swing states, especially gas-producing Pennsylvania, by trumpeting her climate credentials too loudly.”
“Too loudly?!” The only Harris climate “values” that seem to matter are “strategic ambiguity” — otherwise known as deception.
The reality is that Harris’ “climate silence” is a concession to scientific reality and the failed solar and wind promises that are causing a pointless drain on the U.S. economy. The public has been hearing for years of how solar and wind are “cheaper” than fossil fuels and how they are about to replace fossil fuels. But the reality is starkly the opposite of these claims and the Democrat Party knows this.
Despite trillions of dollars in subsidies, green energy mandates, UN climate summits, net zero commitments and restrictions on fossil fuels, solar & wind power made up just 13.9% of the world’s electricity in 2023. Meanwhile, the U.S. still consumed 82% of our energy from fossil fuels in 2023.
When these energy realities are screaming in your face, silence may be the only answer.
The most surprising aspect of the Harris-Walz climate shush campaign may be why the climate establishment has no qualms about muzzling climate change. The New York Times reported that “[Harris] has mentioned climate change only in passing” and noted that “[c]limate leaders say they are fine with that.”
Why are climate activists suddenly “fine” with their standard bearers hushing up on climate during a heated presidential race? Perhaps the answer can be found in the advice of Democratic Party activist Rev. Mark Thompson at the August DNC convention in Chicago, when he declared, “We got 70 days to act right, y’all. Now, after 70 days, we can go back to acting crazy, right?” he said. Thompson added, “Just wait 70 days to go back, please. Be good.”
Let’s hope Americans can glean the climate “crazy” blaring from Harris-Walz’s sham “climate silence” campaign.
**********************************************
Extreme Weather Expert Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. on ‘extreme weather event attribution’ – It’s ‘research performed explicitly to serve legal & political ends
By Roger Pielke Jr.
Weather Attribution Alchemy: A new THB series takes a close look at extreme weather event attribution, Part 1
Excerpt: In the aftermath of many high profile extreme weather events we see headlines like the following:
Climate change made US and Mexico heatwave 35 times more likely — BBC
Study Finds Climate Change Doubled Likelihood of Recent European Floods — NYT
Severe Amazon Drought was Made 30 Times More Likely by Climate Change — Bloomberg
For those who closely follow climate science and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such headlines can be difficult to make sense of because neither the IPCC nor the underlying scientific literature comes anywhere close to making such strong and certain claims of attribution.
How then might we understand such high profile claims?
…
Weather event attribution does not appear in the IPCC Glossary, however it does appear in the body of the AR6 report, where the IPCC explains that event attribution research seeks to “to attribute aspects of specific extreme weather and climate events to certain causes.”
The IPCC continues:
“Scientists cannot answer directly whether a particular event was caused by climate change,1 as extremes do occur naturally, and any specific weather and climate event is the result of a complex mix of human and natural factors. Instead, scientists quantify the relative importance of human and natural influences on the magnitude and/or probability of specific extreme weather events.”
With this post I want to introduce three starting points for our discussions which will unfold over a series of posts in coming weeks and months.
First, event attribution research is a form tactical science — research performed explicitly to serve legal and political ends. This is not my opinion, but has been openly stated on many occasions by the researchers who developed and perform event attribution research.2 Such research is not always subjected to peer review, and this is often by design as peer-review takes much longer than the news cycle. Instead, event attribution studies are generally promoted via press release.
For instance, researchers behind the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative explain that one of their key motives in conducting such studies is, “increasing the ‘immediacy’ of climate change, thereby increasing support for mitigation.” WWA’s chief scientist, Friederike Otto, explains, “Unlike every other branch of climate science or science in general, event attribution was actually originally suggested with the courts in mind.” Another oft-quoted scientist who performs rapid attribution analyses, Michael Wehner, summarized their importance (emphasis in original) — “The most important message from this (and previous) analyses is that “Dangerous climate change is here now!”
…
Weather event attribution methodologies have been developed not just to feed media narratives or support general climate advocacy. Otto and others have been very forthright that the main function of such studies is to create a defensible scientific basis in support of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies — She explains the strategy in detail in this interview, From Extreme Event Attribution to Climate Litigation.
As I recently argued, tactical science is not necessarily bad science, but it should elevate the degree of scrutiny that such analyses face, especially when they generally are not subjected to independent peer review. In this series I’ll apply some scrutiny and invite you to participate as we go along.
Second, extreme event attribution was developed as a response to the failure of the IPCC’s conventional approach to detection and attribution (D&A) to reach high confidence in the detection of increasing trends in the frequency or intensity of most types of impactful extreme events — notably hurricanes, floods, drought, and tornadoes.
…
The underlying theory of change here appears to be that people must be fearful of climate change and thus need come to understand that it threatens their lives, not in the future, but today and tomorrow. If they don’t have that fear, the argument goes, then they will discount the threat and fail to support the right climate policies. Hence, from this perspective, the IPCC”s failure to reach strong claims of detection and attribution represents a political problem — a problem that can be rectified via the invention of extreme event attribution
**********************************************
Biden labels people ‘brain dead’ to doubt ‘climate crisis’ fueled Hurricane Helene
President Biden called on Americans Wednesday to “put politics aside” to focus on Hurricane Helene recovery efforts — moments before stepping on his own message by saying that anyone who doubts climate change’s role in the disaster “must be brain dead.”
“In a moment like this, we put politics aside, at least we should put it all aside, and we have here,” the retiring 81-year-old president said during a recovery briefing in Raleigh, NC.
“There are no Democrats or Republicans, there are only Americans, and our job is to help as many people as we can, as quickly as we can, and as thoroughly as we can.”
The consoler-in-chief, seated next to the Tar Heel State’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, and emergency officials after an aerial tour of the Asheville area, pivoted moments later to an attack on the mostly Republican skeptics about the role of fossil fuel use in severe weather.
“Nobody can deny the impact of [the] climate crisis anymore — at least I hope they don’t. They must be brain dead if they do,” Biden jabbed.
“Scientists report that with warming oceans powering more intense rains, storms like Helene are getting stronger and stronger — they’re not going to get less, they’re going to get stronger. Today in North Carolina, I saw the impacts of that fury.”
***************************************
All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
Monday, October 14, 2024
Solar farms ‘good’ for desert environments?
Solar farms are good for desert environments… That is what we are being asked to believe in a new study coming out of China.
For context, China has a stranglehold on the world’s renewable energy construction and is responsible for mining and distributing at least 90+ per cent of the rare earths and other raw materials required in the industry. Many of these are sourced from Chinese territories, but increasingly, China has set up mines in third world nations or inside contested areas of water in the South China Sea. Renewable energy is becoming a geopolitical conversation as much as it is an environmental debate.
Confusingly, if you like to live in a world of logic and consistency, China is also operating a record number of coal-fired plants (1,161) and constructing the world’s largest oil and gas pipelines from neighbouring regions. Australia has 18 coal-fired plants left. Meanwhile, Beijing drowns coral reefs and atolls in concrete to make military bases while also claiming to pioneer ‘planet saving’ energy. As we used to say, ‘pick a lane’.
Most people would reasonably assume that the best thing for fragile desert environments is to stop touching them.
Leave no footprints, remember? That was the mantra of the 90s.
Whether it is a desert, a rainforest, or a marine park – humans should not be industrialising these areas for profit.
The problem for so-called green energy is that it is not looking particularly green. Renewable projects do not leave footprints, they stomp around leaving boot-prints on the natural world.
Locals are watching hundreds and sometimes thousands of acres of habitat squandered to accommodate infrastructure. Once the construction is finished, these areas are more-or-less lost to the wildlife that once inhabited them.
Destroying the planet to save it, as sceptics are quick to point out.
These complaints are not speculative. We have years of research documenting harm. One of the best case studies is California where the deserts are slowly being consumed by solar farms described as ‘photovoltaic seas’ whose mirages are so convincing that the illusion of frozen waves has led some tourists to go in search of places to launch their boats.
There are dozens of articles containing the testimonies of residents who have suffered medical and psychological conditions caused, they believe, by the approaching green utopia which has taken over their lives.
It is interesting to read comments underneath some of these articles, left by a self-described pro-renewables audience. Some ask why the desert ecosystem cannot ‘adapt to having shade’ or insist that articles that highlight the impact of solar should ‘be taken down’ before they ‘fall into the wrong hands’.
‘Truth’ in the wrong hands? I wonder what that means to these individuals if we were to draw a discussion out of them. We can see here why support for the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill has festered within certain ideological groups. Are they worried that too much exposure to the sunlight might melt their solar panels?
Regardless of whether green voters like to hear it or not, environmental scientists and organisations continue to harbour concerns. Nature acknowledges, ‘…the global climate pattern can also be disturbed by massive deployment of solar energy. This is attributed to the resultant changes in land surface properties.’
ScienceDirect wrote:
‘The construction of a PPP significantly alters the surface disturbance of the soil, affects the balance between the photosynthetically active radiation and radiant flux, reduces the surface albedo, changes the precipitation distribution, and forms a heat island effect. These changes critically impact the driving factors of the local microclimate, such as evaporation, wind speed, temperature, soil moisture, and soil temperature, on both temporal and spatial scales, thereby increasing the land degradation risk in fragile arid ecosystems … it is usually necessary to perform liberal applications of dust suppressant and water to clean the panels and prevent large amounts of dust or sand from affecting the PPP operation. These chemicals are extremely toxic to the environment and may cause extensive negative effects on the local ecological environment in the long run.’
EcoWatch warned earlier this year that a solar farm planned for the Mojave desert in California could result in the destruction of endangered desert tortoise habitat and the removal of Joshua trees. There was also concern that the construction process would stir up the sand and with it, release ‘valley fever’ pathogens into the air.
‘The clean energy project, which is expected to power 180,000 homes – with that power estimated to be for wealthy residents along the coast, the Los Angeles Times reported – could also have lasting impacts on the desert ecosystem.’
The company website insists:
‘While individual trees will be impacted during project construction, clean energy projects like Aratina directly address the existential threat of climate change caused by rising greenhouse gas emissions that threaten vastly more trees.’
The solar farm creators were quick to insist the carbon offset would be ‘equivalent to planting 14 million trees’ but residents are wondering why governments don’t simply plant those theoretical trees if they want to save the world. ‘More trees’ is what the average voter envisions when they vote for ‘green energy’ and yet green energy is deforesting the world.
Returning to the study out of China.
The study opens with the admission that solar farms have had ‘significant impacts on the ecological environment’ and proposes the establishment of an ‘indicator system to assess the ecological and environmental effects of photovoltaic development’.
In their case, they use Driving-Pressure-Status-Impact-Response (DPSIR) as a framework to measure various types of environmental impact.
Their solar farm is a 3,182MW project which takes up 64 square kilometres and has a stated lifespan between 20-30 years.
The introduction claims, ‘Overall, the large-scale development of desert photovoltaics in Gonghe Country has had a positive impact on the ecological environment.’ In this case, the elevated area is described as ‘alpine arid desert’ and ‘semiarid grassland’.
These tests returned various scores including ‘good’ and ‘poor’ but the long detail of the study remains ambiguous.
To take one example. The study talks about soil evaporation and water content beneath the panels.
‘The construction of these power stations has led to a reduction in soil evaporation, while the cleaning of photovoltaic panels has increased the water content of the soil located under the panels. The cleaning frequency of photovoltaic panels in this study is once a month, as a result, the growth conditions for vegetation indirectly improved. This has led to an increase in both vegetation species and biomass.’
And read this alongside some of the ‘poor’ responses.
‘The analysis indicated that the ecological environment still faces tremendous pressure, with lower scores for various indicators in the status layer and lower scores for onsite indicators such as fungal abundance and daily photosynthetic radiation than outside the zone. These results may result in more significant impacts in the future.’
Aside from the obvious question, ‘How many of these are weeds?’ We know from other studies that cleaning the panels isn’t neutral to the environment. The water itself could be a problem as water is a scarce resource in deserts – so where do the solar farms source these enormous quantities of water from? Which other environment is losing out to put a garden hose on a solar farm?
If we look at solar farms across China and around the world, grass in otherwise arid areas can grow better beneath the solar panels where it gets tall enough to obstruct sunlight to the panel. It then carries a fire risk when it dries out during the winter months. Sheep have been brought in to some parks to address this problem – except if you ask the climate zealots at the UN, they think sheep, like cows, are killing the planet. Are we getting rid of farm animals and going vegan, or expanding livestock to keep the solar panels safe?
Grazing might be sustainable for the duration of the farm’s short lifespan, but it only takes one grass fire running through the solar panels to render the entire operation a net-negative for the environment.
No matter what, the original desert landscape and its biology is gone.
Farmers make landscapes ‘greener’ with intensive farming as well – but you would not see a headline from environmental movements praising them for it in this ideological climate.
It is very difficult to argue that these projects preserve fragile ecosystems, rather, they change them – for better or worse is up to the customer to decide.
The study, meanwhile, concludes, ‘Photovoltaic development in desert areas has significantly improved local ecological and environmental conditions.’
Which sounds good on paper, until you open up a picture…
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/solar-farms-good-for-desert-environments/
********************************************************Some Australian states are discovering what happens when they have too much rooftop solar
What a muddle!
When Victoria basks in mostly sunny spring weather this weekend, energy authorities will be monitoring how far electricity demand ebbs. If needed, they’ll turn off rooftop solar systems to ensure stability for the grid.
Such minimum system load events, as they are called, have emerged as a new challenge as households across Australia take advantage of plunging prices for solar panels to shield themselves from rising power bills and cut carbon emissions.
The Australian Energy Market Operator issued two such alerts for Victoria during the AFL grand final weekend a fortnight ago, and warned of two for this Saturday and Sunday.
Prior to this cluster, the state’s only previous warning was last 31 December.
The public has become inured to annual alerts to possible power shortfalls during summer heatwaves or extended cold snaps during winter.
It won’t be long before the obverse – a grid strained by too little demand – is common during mild, sunny spring and autumn days, when the need for cooling or heating abates, experts say.
“It’s all going to be uncomfortably interesting for energy system people,” said Tennant Reed, director of climate change and energy at the Ai Group, noting there are “emerging rules to keep the show on the road”.
Having a grid that is supplied entirely by renewable energy is something Aemo and state and federal governments have anticipated as they step up support for so-called consumer energy resources. Australian households have already embraced rooftop solar at a pace unmatched anywhere, with more than a third generating power at home.
Many options are available to source extra demand, such as encouraging people to use more of their generation at peak sunny periods, renewable advocates say.
Hot water heaters, now often operating at night, could be switched on during the day, while certain industrial users could be given incentives to increase production, much like they are now rewarded to power down during summer heatwaves.
Still, the looming challenges aren’t small, particularly as coal-fired power plants shut.
The grid’s system strength is “projected to decline sharply over the next decade”, Aemo said in its latest 2024 Electricity Statement of Opportunities report.
From October to December is likely to be when demand sinks to its lowest for most parts of the national electricity market. (The national electricity market or Nem serves all regions except Western Australia and the Northern Territory.)
Windy, sunny spring days – much like the coming weekend in Victoria – also mean an elevated supply of renewable energy in a season of minimal heating or cooling need.
A year ago, on 29 October, Nem grid demand hit a record minimum of about 11 gigawatts for 30 minutes. Small-scale solar, most of it on residential roofs, met 52% of underlying demand.
As more homes install solar, the Nem’s minimum demand may continue to shrink at the present rate of 1.2GW each year, Aemo said.
The Nem needs at least 4.3GW of electricity moving across its transmission network. If there are “unplanned network or unit outages”, the threshold rises to about 7GW – a level that may be breached as soon as next spring, Aemo said.
“While these periods of very high distributed PV levels relative to underlying demand are currently not frequent, they will increase over time and could occur during unusual events and outage conditions,” it said.
“A credible disturbance could lead to reliance on emergency frequency control schemes which are known to be compromised in such low operational demand periods, escalating risks of system collapse and blackouts.”
However, the market has a sizeable toolkit to address those risks. South Australia, where about half the homes have solar panels, already has coped with two minimum system load events of level 3 – the most serious – on 11 October 2020 and 14 March 2021.
For the latter, SA Power Networks, a company part-owned by the Hong Kong-based conglomerate Cheung Kong Infrastructure, was ordered to turn off 71 megawatts of photovoltaic systems. It was the first such intervention by Aemo.
So-called solar curtailment is now a feature of SA’s operating system even if such an intervention is meant to be a “last resort”, the network group said.
Before such action, large-scale solar and wind farms will be turned off, as will big solar systems on shopping centres and factories. Exports of surplus solar power from homes will also be halted before the systems themselves are turned off.
According to WattClarity, a leading energy data website, SA had at least eight such rooftop solar curtailments in 2022 and 2o23.
Victoria, which introduced similar “backstop” rules on 1 October this year, says consumers can do their bit. Solar curtailment should be authorities’ last move.
“We encourage households with solar panels to make the most of their clean energy and save on bills by using their solar power during the day – whether it’s charging electric vehicles, doing laundry or running dishwashers,” a Victorian government spokesperson said.
For Victoria, the backstop mechanism won’t affect a household’s ability to consume their own solar generation. Large batteries are part of the toolkit from this spring, with storage on standby to create additional demand by charging up.
New South Wales and Queensland are expected to face similar challenges in coming years. NSW, though, is yet to start public consultation on restrictions of solar exports, with minimum load issues not forecast until late 2025 or beyond.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/12/australian-states-too-much-rooftop-solar
********************************************************Australian Greens accused of ‘extremism crisis’ after candidate James Cruz’s Hezbollah post
An ACT Greens candidate has been forced to issue a clarifying statement after a social media post in which he appeared to suggest Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah should be removed from Australia’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.
James Cruz, Greens candidate for the seat of Kurrajong, came under fire after he said on X that “more and more” people were arguing that Hezbollah should be taken off the terror list, prompting Coalition calls for the Greens to address their “growing extremism crisis”.
Mr Cruz was replying to Guardian podcaster Nour Haydar, who suggested Jewish groups had led the charge for Hezbollah to be listed as a terrorist group.
Mr Cruz replied: “Remove Hezbollah from the list of terrorist organisations? You’re hearing it more and more.”
Amid a backlash over the post, Mr Cruz issued a statement saying he had only remarked that “other people have queried the listing”.
“Hezbollah is a listed terrorist organisation and the Greens are not arguing to change that,” Mr Cruz said. “I back that position of the Australian Greens.”
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said it was “utterly extraordinary” that an endorsed Greens candidate believed the remarks were appropriate, calling on the left-wing party to dump Mr Cruz from its ticket.
“Hezbollah are proscribed in Australia and around the world for very good reason – they are terrorists,” he said.
“Over a four-decade reign of terror they’ve killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and even Argentina, where they blew up a Jewish community centre in 1995, killing 84 people.
“The Greens must address their growing extremism crisis and it should start with disendorsing James Cruz.”
During a recent wave of demonstrations marking one year since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, the Australian Federal Police targeted protesters displaying the Hezbollah flag, which is a prohibited symbol due to concerns it could ignite violence.
The furore over Mr Cruz’s post came just a week out from the October 19 ACT election, which will see Chief Minister Andrew Barr pitch for another term after 23 years of Labor government.
ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said the comments raised a “sensitive and complicated issue”, but declined to comment further.
Greens sources told The Weekend Australian Mr Cruz’s X account had recently been hacked and deleted by a third party.
Conservative group Advance accused the Greens of “standing with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests”, rather than acting as a “party of environmentalists”.
“Not only do they stand with Hezbollah and Hamas at protests, they float changes to how those barbaric organisations are treated by our national security apparatuses,” spokeswoman Sandra Bourke
“The Greens aren’t who they used to be, and more and more Australians are seeing it as the Greens show their true colours.”
The stoush followed federal Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi’s refusal to declare Hamas should be dismantled.
Mr Cruz’s comments surfaced the day after revelations came to light that ACT Greens candidate Harini Rangarajan had reportedly written a blog post comparing 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden to Jesus Christ.
“I’ve gone on to idolise several other martyrs – Bhagat Singh, Husayn ibn Ali, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, Balachandran Prabhakaran, Joan of Arc, Osama bin Laden, etc,” her post reportedly said.
In his pitch to voters Mr Cruz said he was drawn to run for the Greens because of the party’s commitment to end homelessness and its recognition of housing as a fundamental human right.
“Growing up in poverty and living in public housing showed me the urgent need for a society that addresses inequality and the growing housing crisis,” he said.
************************************************
Greens Declare War on Growing Greens
Grow your own fruit and veg – and destroy the planet. Allotment produce, much prized by proud food-growing citizens the world over, has six times the ‘carbon’ footprint of conventional agriculture, according to a recent paper published by Nature. “Steps must be taken to ensure that urban agriculture supports, and does not undermine, urban decarbonisation efforts,” demand the authors. What have these people been smoking? Surely not some of the puff circulating at the recent Psychedelic Climate Week in New York. Highlights included a discussion on funding ketamine-assisted therapy and a panel on ‘Balancing Investing and Impact with Climate and Psychedelic Capital’.
The lead authors of the Nature paper are academics working out of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. They suggest using urban farms as sites for “education, leisure and community building”. Perhaps the locals could sit cross-legged and listen to early Pink Floyd music. Maybe clap the setting sun to some Atom Heart Mother. Excuse your correspondent if he cannot take this paper seriously. It is a classic example of greens picking on a human activity – almost any will do – and complaining that it causes the devil-gas carbon dioxide to be released. At the recent New York climate happening, according to the Guardian, revellers were told that using hallucinogens can spark “consciousness shifts” to inspire climate-friendly behaviour. What climate friendly behaviour, one might ask, given that almost anything humans do to improve their lot of Earth is demonised by an increasingly weird millenarian green cult.
The authors of the Nature paper seem to have a particular down on home composting. Poorly-managed composting is said to exacerbate the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs). “The carbon footprint of compost grows tenfold when methane-generated anaerobic conditions persist in compost piles,” it says. This is particularly common during small-scale composting, apparently. With a seeming complete ignorance of how small allotments farming functions, the authors suggest that “cities can offset this risk by centralising compost operations for professional management”.
Wherever these cultists look, there are gases being released that are contributing to their invented existential climate crisis. The high application rates of compost in urban agriculture can also lead to nitrous oxide, we’re told. Needless to say, “strategic management of application scheduling and fertiliser combinations may be required to minimise emissions”.
For allotment holders, few pleasures in life compare with a break from arduous work and a hot cup of tea in the shed. Surrounded by the tools of the trade, it is the labourer’s equivalent of passing around a few liveners at National Climate Week, with the added attraction that it doesn’t turn you into a self-important dope. But such pleasure will come to an end if the climate cops have their way. Infrastructure, we’re told, is the largest driver of carbon emissions at what are termed “low-tech” urban agricultural sites. As well as sheds, this includes beds (for vegetables, not a crash pad for ketamine heads) and compost facilities. A raised bed built and used for five years will have approximately four times the environmental impact as one used for 20. Other infrastructure supplies are said to include fertiliser, gasoline and weed block textile.
Plants need water, but only the right sort of water can help save the planet. In their site samples, the researchers found that most allotment-holders use potable municipal water sources or groundwater wells. Big no, no, of course, since such irrigation emits GHGs from pumping, water treatment and distribution. “Cities should support low-carbon (and drought-conscious) irrigation for urban agriculture via subsidies for rainwater catchment infrastructure, or through established guidelines for greywater use,” it is suggested. Presumably, the subsidies will come from the magic bread tree and the infrastructure will be of the special type that does not produce GHGs.
This crackpot climate paper is just the latest sign that the green movement is riven with disagreements as its climate crisis grift starts to fall apart in the face of reality. There are no realistic back-ups for intermittent wind and solar, while carbon capture is a colossal and potentially dangerous waste of money. Without hydrocarbon use, humankind is doomed. Billions will die and society will be returned to the dark ages. Hydrocarbons are ubiquitous in modern society, and so almost everything that humans do to survive and thrive on a dangerous planet can be demonised. Eventually, you end up with Sir David Attenborough making the appalling observation that it was “barmy” for the United Nations to send bags of flour to famine-stricken Ethiopia. Or to read earlier this year the tweet from the United Nations contributing author and UCL professor Bill McGuire that the only “realistic way” to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown was to cull the human population with a high fatality pandemic.
Many green extremists seem to take the view that anything humans do, including growing their own veg, is causing existential harm to the planet. What they really hate, some may conclude, are humans themselves. Treble bongs all round.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/14/greens-declare-war-on-growing-greens/
***************************************All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
***********************************************
Sunday, October 13, 2024
Indonesia Biomass Drive Threatens Key Forests
Indonesia's push to add wood-burning to its energy mix and exports is driving deforestation, including in key habitats for endangered species such as orangutans, a report said Thursday.
Bioenergy, which uses organic material like trees to produce power, is considered renewable by the International Energy Agency as carbon released by burning biomass can theoretically be absorbed by planting more trees.
But critics say biomass power plants emit more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than modern coal plants, and warn that using biomass to "co-fire" coal plants is just a way to extend the life of the polluting fossil fuel.
Producing the wood pellets and chips used for "co-fire" coal plants also risks driving deforestation, with natural forests cut down and replaced by quick-growing monocultures.
That, according to a report produced by a group of Indonesian and regional NGOs, is exactly what is happening in Indonesia, home to the world's third-largest rainforest area.
"The country's forests face unprecedented threats from the industrial scale projected for biomass demand," said the groups, which include Auriga Nusantara and Earth Insight.
Indonesia's production of wood pellets alone jumped from 20,000 to 330,000 tonnes from 2012 to 2021, the report said.
Auriga Nusantara estimates nearly 10,000 hectares of deforestation has been caused by biomass production in the last four years.
But the report warns that much more is at risk as Indonesia ramps up biomass, particularly in its coal-fired power plants.
The report looked at existing co-firing plants and pulp mills around Indonesia and the 100 kilometres (62 miles) surrounding each.
They estimate more than 10 million hectares of "undisturbed forest" lie within these areas and are at risk of deforestation, many of which "significantly overlap" with the habitat of endangered species.
Animals at risk include orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo, the report said.
Using wood to achieve just a 10 percent reduction in coal at Indonesia's largest power plants "could trigger the deforestation of an area roughly 35 times the size of Jakarta," the report warned.
Indonesia's environment and forestry ministry officials did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
Indonesia saw a 27 percent jump in primary forest loss last year after a downward trend from a peak in 2015-2016, according to the World Resources Institute.
The groups also point the finger at growing demand in South Korea and Japan, two major export destinations for Indonesia's wood pellets.
They urged Indonesia to commit to protecting its remaining natural forest and reform its energy plans to focus on solar, while banning new coal projects.
Japan and South Korea should end biomass incentives and focus on cleaner renewable options, the group urged.
"There are no math tricks that can justify burning forests for energy," the NGOs said.
"Science has clearly proven the vital role of tropical forests for climate stability, biodiversity and human survival."
https://phys.org/news/2024-10-indonesia-biomass-threatens-key-forests.html
*********************************************UK: Some rare realism from a Greenie
The government risks a huge political backlash if it keeps pushing the public to install heat pumps to replace their boilers, one of Britain’s leading green entrepreneurs has warned.
Dale Vince, a major Labour donor and renewable energy advocate, called on Keir Starmer to rethink national programmes, championed by Boris Johnson, pushing the technology. Vince argued that Whitehall should explore alternatives to the devices, which he said were expensive, caused serious disruption and could end up increasing energy bills for some people.
Vince, whose criticism of heat pumps has proved divisive among environmentalists, said mass use could bring a bigger political backlash than London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), which led to a surprise byelection defeat for Labour last year in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
“It’s a Johnson-era policy, and like most Johnson ideas, it wasn’t thought through,” Vince said. “It wasn’t meant for the real world, if you look at the amount of money committed. Electricity energy bills overall in our households will go up unless you assume heroic levels of performance.
“You’ve got this incredible disruption of home life for tens of millions of people – the need to change heating systems for a lot of people, not just the boiler – and substandard outcomes in a lot of cases.”
He added: “It’s politically threatening for any government to have a heat-pump programme. If you look back at the Ulez byelection and the fuss made about it in elements of the press, imagine a heat-pump programme where a household has just spent thousands of pounds on some technology that doesn’t do the job.” In June, Vince tweeted that heat pumps were like “Ulez on steroids”.
The entrepreneur’s latest comments expose divides even among environmentalists about the best way to move home heating away from the burning of fossil fuels via a regular gas boiler. Critics such as Vince state that heat pumps could increase bills because the electricity used to run them costs far more than gas. A study by the independent Energy Saving Trust put the cost at £20 a year more than using a new A-rated gas boiler. However, new specialist heat pump tariffs could make them cheaper to run.
Johnson’s government was an advocate of the technology, setting a goal of 600,000 new heat pumps a year by 2028. While installations in the UK have hit a record number this year, they have still only reached about 42,000 since January.
Air-source heat pumps cost just over £12,500 to buy and install on average, about four to five times more than a gas boiler. But the government currently offers a £7,500 grant for households installing the technology.
Vince claimed that he was speaking in the “national interest” in criticising heat pumps. He proposes an alternative – green gas, or biomethane, made from organic material, which his company Ecotricity develops.
Other environmentalists claim that the amount of land needed to produce enough green gas would be unrealistic, lead to food insecurity and damage biodiversity.
The Heat Pump Association, an industry body, insisted that the devices are a “proven, efficient, low-carbon heating solution which are readily available and scalable with the potential to reduce carbon emissions from heating by over 75% relative to fossil fuel heating systems”.
“Electricity prices are higher than gas prices in the UK,” it said. “However, heat pumps use three to five times less energy. Well-installed heat pumps that operate efficiently and make use of flexible electricity tariffs will in the vast majority of cases save the consumer money in comparison to their existing heating system.”
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said of Vince’s concerns: “We do not recognise these claims. The energy shocks of recent years have shown the urgent need to upgrade British homes, and heat pumps are a critical technology for decarbonising heating.
“Biomethane also has an important role in the transition to net zero as a green gas that can decarbonise gas supply, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and increase energy security.”
Vince also revealed plans to take advantage of the government’s decision to end the effective ban on onshore wind by “dusting off” a plan for 100 turbines in Gloucestershire, where his company is based, to power the county’s homes.
He said they could ultimately be transferred to the council’s ownership, handing it both an asset and long-term income. “If they were owned by the local authority, the windmills would bring £7m a year into local authority coffers,” he said.
“We will take the lead on this. We will find the sites, take them through planning and at some point in the future hope to work with local authorities to hand them over for public ownership.”
*********************************************
Human CO2 Emissions Are Supercharging Corn Yields
How can carbon dioxide, which has been portrayed as a dangerous pollutant threatening the very existence of humankind, be considered even remotely beneficial? Sadly, such a question can be expected from people – children and adults – who have been fed irrational fears in place of well-established science that shows CO2 to be an irreplaceable food for plants and necessary for all life.
Even some who recognize CO2 as sustenance consider increasing atmospheric concentrations of the gas to be potentially catastrophic, a view devoid of scientific basis and inimical to the fortunes of malnourished millions.
Corn, or maize, is foundational—along with rice, wheat, soyabean—to global food security, serving as a critical source of nourishment for both humans and livestock. Over the past few decades, increases in atmospheric CO2 from industrial emissions have tracked with notable boosts in corn yields.
Between 1900 and 2024, the national corn yield in the U.S. rose to 183 bushels per acre (bu/A) from just 28 bushels. During the same period, atmospheric CO2 increased from 295 parts per million (ppm) to 419 ppm. Worldwide, corn yield rose from a mere 29 bu/A in 1961 to 86 bu/A in 2021.
This phenomenon is not merely coincidental; it is deeply rooted in the physiological characteristics of corn as a C4 category plant. C4 plants like corn – so named for the number of carbon atoms in their photosynthetic product — possess unique biochemical pathways that make their photosynthesis particularly efficient under high concentrations of CO2 and elevated temperatures. Such plants employ a mechanism that concentrates CO2 in specialized structures called bundle sheath cells.
Higher CO2 levels also improve water-use efficiency in corn, which is particularly beneficial where water supplies are limited or during droughts. This efficiency translates into enhanced growth rates and potentially greater yields. In fact, researchers say that “less water will be required for corn under a high-CO2 environment in the future than at present.”
Augmented corn yields driven by increased atmospheric CO2 have had profound effects worldwide, contributing to an agricultural boom that bolstered farm incomes and enhanced food security across diverse regions. Countries like the U.S. with significant corn production have experienced elevated export revenues, strengthening national economies and their positions in the global market.
But this remarkable impact of elevated CO2 is not just limited to C4 crops like corn. C3 plants, such as wheat, rice, potatoes, and soybeans, all rely on an enzyme called rubisco for carbon fixation. Rubisco’s efficiency improves significantly with higher CO2 concentrations because it reduces the enzyme’s tendency to bind with oxygen—a process known as photorespiration that limits productivity.
Consequently, elevated atmospheric CO2 often results in enhanced photosynthesis and biomass accumulation in C3 species, although to a lesser extent than with C4 plants. This is why rice and wheat yields can increase by up to 20-30% under elevated CO2 conditions. We have witnessed this in yield increases across most C3 food crops.
Notably, greenhouse farming—agronomy practiced inside a translucent tent to retain the sun’s warmth—often uses CO2 concentrations artificially increased to more than twice ambient levels to enhance growth.
The relationship between rising atmospheric CO2 and crop yields is clearly a positive one. So, ignore fearmongering media headlines about toxic human CO2 emissions. You, your family and the industries that support our society have greened the planet with daily emissions of carbon dioxide, making food more plentiful and affordable for those grappling with poverty and everybody else.
https://co2coalition.org/2024/09/18/human-co2-emissions-are-supercharging-corn-yields/
************************************************‘It’s almost beyond belief’: Findings blast Australia’s biggest carbon offset scheme
Australia’s biggest carbon credit scheme is barely removing any greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, according to a new study, despite hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into it by businesses and the government.
One of the study’s authors, Dr Megan Evans from UNSW Canberra, said the findings about the Human Induced Regeneration scheme, known as HIR, pointed to “such huge failures that it’s almost beyond belief”.
Co-author and University of NSW senior lecturer Megan Evans.
Co-author and University of NSW senior lecturer Megan Evans.
The HIR is intended to allow farmers and project proponents to reduce stock and feral animals from vast areas of rangeland Australia which, they argue, allows forest to regrow there in a way it would not otherwise.
Credits are then issued for each tonne of carbon dioxide abated by the assumed growth in trees based on a model of how the forest should regrow in those areas, plus on regular audits.
The new research from a group of ANU and UNSW scientists, led by Professor Andrew Macintosh, used historical and current satellite images to suggest there was no meaningful change between forest growth on areas that were claiming carbon credits compared with neighbouring areas.
The new paper suggests that whatever trees have grown on the 116 projects surveyed was overwhelmingly due to recent rainfall, not the human management of projects.
The study found most projects showed “minimal impact on woody vegetation cover in credited areas” even though they had already generated about $495 million in carbon credits.
Their findings were immediately rejected by another ANU scientist, natural resource management associate professor Cris Brack, who has done extensive work for the government regulator, the Clean Energy Regulator.
Brack rejected the statement that little or no abatement had taken place, saying he had “personally reviewed numerous projects across NSW, Queensland and WA”, and had access to independent assurance-audit reports that proved projects were on track.
The HIR method is the largest single contributor of carbon credits to the Australian government and private industry, with 465 projects covering 42 million hectares – an area significantly larger than Japan. Having issued 44 million carbon credits, the Australian scheme is, according to the new study, the fifth-largest nature-based scheme in the world, making these findings of global significance.
The problem, the researchers say, is that HIR schemes are being credited on rangeland that was unsuitable because it was never cleared of forest in the first place, and is already close to its natural coverage of forest (trees above two metres tall over at least 20 per cent of the landscape).
Since 2021, Macintosh and a growing team of scientists have described the method as a fraud that would cost Australia up to $5 billion by 2030.
Their concerns have prompted a number of reviews, most notably by former chief scientist Ian Chubb. In 2023, he found the method was sound and said, “we have no reason to believe that there are substantial numbers of [Australian Carbon Credit Units] ACCUs not credible at the moment”.
But the new, peer-reviewed report, published by Macintosh and his team on Friday in The Rangeland Journal, closely analysed 116 sites in NSW, Queensland and South Australia using high-resolution satellite images.
Based on the number of carbon credits generated on the project areas, the tree canopy should have covered 30 per cent of the sites. Instead, they found the average cover was just 13 per cent. They also found the project’s management had made little difference to tree coverage.
“The areas are likely to be at or near their carrying capacity for woody vegetation, meaning any changes in tree cover are most likely to be attributable to seasonal variability in rainfall,” the report said. “Projects are being credited for regenerating forests in areas that contained forest cover when the projects started.
“Given that 2023 was the third year of a rare triple-dip wet La Niña, if the projects were performing as expected, observed levels of canopy cover across the projects would be significantly higher.”
The scientists said the real problem with this was that emitters would not alter their behaviour because they could buy offsets, then if those offsets did not produce real cuts in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Australia would not genuinely reduce its emissions.
Another of the project’s authors, Professor Don Butler from the ANU, said the government body that administers the scheme, the Clean Energy Regulator, had “let us all down terribly”.
“They’ve used hundreds of millions of dollars of public money to build a house of cards that is enabling climate inaction ... The failure of this scheme will only become more obvious as time goes on.”
But Brack, who has audited the scheme for the Clean Energy Regulator, and found it was meeting its targets, said the other scientists had got their measurements wrong.
The satellite images they used were not picking up all the extra growth, he said, much of which could only be seen from photographs or “in situation measurements” on the ground.
Brack added that projects could still meet targets if there were small trees that had not yet reached full size.
In a statement, the Clean Energy Regulator said the HIR method had been reviewed and found to be sound, by Chubb, the Australian National Audit Office and most recently by Brack who had given “strong assurance that the projects are being managed properly”.
If a project was not compliant, carbon credits already paid out were clawed back, the statement said. “We only issue carbon credits where a project can demonstrate regenerating native forest,” it said.
*********************************************
All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
***********************************************
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Democracies Stand In The Way Of Globalists Climate Agenda
I have frequently written over the last several years that the agenda of the climate-alarm lobby in the Western world is not consistent with the maintenance of democratic forms of government
Governments maintained by free elections, the free flow of communications, and other democratic institutions are not able to engage in the kinds of long-term central planning exercises required to force a transition from one form of energy and transportation systems to completely different ones.
Why? Once the negative impacts of vastly higher prices for all forms of energy begin to impact the masses, the masses in such democratic societies are going to rebel, first at the ballot box, and if that is not allowed by the elites to work, then by more aggressive means.
This is not a problem for authoritarian or totalitarian forms of government, like those in Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia, where long-term central planning projects invoking government control of the means of production is a long-ingrained way of life.
If the people revolt, then the crackdowns are bound to come.
This societal dynamic is a simple reality of life that the pushers of the climate alarmist narrative and forced energy transition in Western societies have been loathe to admit.
But, in recent days, two key figures who have pushed the climate alarm narrative in both the United States and Canada have agreed with my thesis in public remarks.
In so doing, climate alarmists are uttering the quiet part out loud about their real agenda.
Last week, former Obama Secretary of State and Biden climate czar John Kerry made remarks about the “problem” posed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that should make every American’s skin crawl.
Speaking about the inability of the federal government to stamp out what it believes to be misinformation on big social media platforms, Kerry said:
“Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” adding, “I think democracies are, are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to deal with the challenges that we are facing.”
Never mind that the U.S. government has long been the most focused purveyor of disinformation and misinformation in our society. Kerry wants to stop the free flow of information on the Internet.
The most obvious targets are Elon Musk and X, the only big social media platform that does not willingly submit to the government’s demands to censor speech.
Kerry’s desired solution is for Democrats to “win the ground, win the right to govern by hopefully having, you know, winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to, to, implement change.”
The change desired by Kerry, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other prominent Democrats is to obtain enough power in Congress and the presidency to revoke the Senate filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, enact the economically ruinous Green New Deal, and do it all before the public has any opportunity to rebel.
Not to be outdone by Kerry, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland of Canada, who is a longtime member of the board of trustees of the World Economic Forum, was quoted Monday as saying:
“Our shrinking glaciers, and our warming oceans, are asking us wordlessly but emphatically if democratic societies can rise to the existential challenge of climate change.”
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the central governments of both Canada and the United States have moved in increasingly authoritarian directions under their current leadership, both of which have used the climate alarmist narrative as justification.
This move was widely predicted once the utility of the Covid ‘pandemic’ to rationalize government censorship and restrictions of individual liberties began to fade in 2021.
Frustrated by their perceived need to move even faster to restrict freedoms and destroy democratic levers of public response to their actions, these zealots are now discarding their soft talking points in favor of more aggressive messaging.
This new willingness to say the quiet part out loud should truly alarm anyone who values their freedoms.
https://principia-scientific.com/democracies-stand-in-the-way-of-globalists-climate-agenda/
********************************************Ex-Green leader declares war on strawberries
Who remembers Natalie Bennett, the Aussie-accented eco-warrior whose car crash interviews briefly enlivened the 2015 election campaign? The onetime Green leader has since been installed as one of our great unelected masters in the House of Lords. But it seems that all that the institutional knowledge there has not yet rubbed off on Bennett, who continues to suffer a chronic case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Many such cases…
In her never-ending quest to make life worse for the British people, Bennett has found a new scourge on which to direct her ire: strawberries. Yes, that’s right, apparently growing the popular red fruit in colder months is killing the planet and must be banned immediately. Talk about priorities eh? Taking to Twitter last night, the Green peer shared a Times article on a British farm which dared to use LEDs to grow strawberries for Christmas. It prompted Bennett to indignantly thunder that:
Do we _need_ strawberries in winter? No. Maybe
Put that on a poster and vote for it. When the Greens promised a new kind of politics, Mr S didn’t realise that Cromwellian Puritanism is what they had in mind…
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/10/ex-green-leader-declares-war-on-strawberries/
*****************************************Toyota's portable hydrogen cartridges look like giant AA batteries – and could spell the end of lengthy EV charging
Toyota is showcasing a series of sustainable developments at the Japan Mobility Bizweek later this month – including its vision of a portable hydrogen cartridge future, which could apparently provide 'swappable' power for next-gen hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).
Originally a project of Toyota’s mobility technology subsidiary Woven (formerly Woven Planet), the team produced a working prototype of a hydrogen cartridge back in 2022 but has since developed the idea further… and appears to be running with it.
The latest cartridges are lighter and easier to transport, with Toyota claiming the current iteration has been developed with the experience the company has gained in reducing the size and weight of the hydrogen tanks used in its fuel cell electric vehicles.
The concept involves hydrogen cartridges that are compact and light enough to be carried by hand, with one model wearing what looks like an oversized AA battery on his back in a specially design backpack.
Put simply, the cartridges would allow fuel cell electric vehicle drivers to swap out their power source when hydrogen levels run low, rather than having to refuel at a station like you typically would with a fossil fuel-powered car.
But Toyota also feels that these refillable and renewable cartridges could be used in a multitude of situations, such as to generate electricity in a fuel cell to power the home or even providing hydrogen to burn for cooking.
In fact, Toyota and the Rinnai Corporation are exhibiting a stove at Japan Mobility Bizweek that does just that. Similarly, in emergency situations, the hydrogen cartridge could be removed from the car and used to power any applicable device in the case of a blackout, for example.
Although just a concept for now, Toyota feels that these lightweight, portable cartridges could create a more affordable and more convenient way to deliver hydrogen to where people live and work, without the need to lay a huge network of pipes.
With advances in battery technology, the next generation of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars, such as Renault's recent Emblème concept, could well boast more energy dense battery packs, so can harness the power of much smaller hydrogen tanks to help zero emissions vehicles travel further without lengthy charging stops.
Toyota’s vision of portable hydrogen cartridges has the potential to power a multitude of vehicles and everyday objects, from smaller capacity motorcycles to cars and even home appliances.
The company’s concept would see fresh hydrogen cartridges delivered, alongside food and other items, with the spent cartridges retrieved and refilled. As a result, Toyota says it is currently looking to find matches with technologies and ideas from companies and startups in different fields, including both service provision and the development and sale of devices using the cartridges.
Although much debated in the automotive space, hydrogen is a flexible fuel source, with the ability to generate electricity in fuel cells or used as a combustion fuel.
It emits nothing in the way of CO2 when used (water is the only byproduct), and it can help contribute to net zero targets if it is produced using renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.
With demand waning globally for EVs, it feels as if hydrogen is back on the agenda, with the likes of Hyundai, BMW and Honda all exploring ways of making the technology commercially viable.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/toyotas-portable-hydrogen-cartridges-look-105254958.html?guccounter=1
******************************************Australian conservatives commit to keep coal fired power stations open ‘indefinitely’
David Crisafulli will keep Queensland’s coal fired power stations open “indefinitely” if he is elected to ensure energy remains “reliable and affordable” during the transition to renewables.
The Liberal National Party leader has committed to net zero emissions by 2050, but is yet to release a detailed plan on how that would be achieved.
Speaking in Mackay on Thursday, Mr Crisafulli said Queensland had the youngest fleet of coal-fired power plants in the country and he would keep them maintained and operational.
“We will continue to ensure that they operate whilst they are needed to form part of the mix of affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity,” he said.
“There is no way the vast majority of thinking Queenslanders would want us to shut off baseload power before the capacity of the next generation of energy has been developed.”
Asked if that meant they would run indefinitely, Mr Crisafulli said: “Well, I guess the answer to that is yes”.
“We need the baseload power that comes from those coal-fired power generators, we need that there,“ he said.
“We also need to have a vision to make sure that we are part of a transition to renewable energy, but it’s got to be done in a way that makes sure that Queenslanders can continue to afford their bills whilst we work towards the future.”
Mr Crisafulli’s LNP voted to support Labor’s legislated plan to cut 75 per cent of emissions by 2035, but has not set a renewable energy target.
Labor is relying on the proposed Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro project, near Mackay, to enable it to shut down the state’s five coal-fired power stations and reach its target of 80 per cent renewable energy by 2035.
The project is still being subjected to financial, engineering and environmental investigations and is yet to get government approvals or substantive funding.
Initial estimates put the project at $12bn but that figure is expected to balloon after more detailed financial modelling is complete.
Mr Crisafulli has backed Labor’s other Borumba pumped-hydro station, near Gympie, but has rubbished Pioneer-Burdekin as a “hoax”.
He has pledged to fund Borumba and partner with the private sector to build smaller pumped-hydro projects.
On Thursday he refused to say how many pumped hydro plans would be built if the LNP won government, when or where they would be built and the estimated cost to taxpayers.
***************************************
All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
***********************************************
Wednesday, October 09, 2024
Hurricane Milton Historic, Not Unprecedented
It is wrong to blame human activity and ‘climate change’ for strength of hurricane
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (October 8, 2024) – Hurricane Milton is on track Wednesday to be one of the biggest storms to ever hit the Tampa Bay, Florida area, and is one of the few Category 5 hurricanes on record in the satellite era (1966-onwards). It may join Hurricane Michael in 2018 as the only Category 5 hurricanes to form in the Gulf of Mexico in October and make landfall at that strength.
While the history of Gulf hurricanes growing this strong and making a direct hit on Tampa Bay shows this is a rare occurrence, it is not unprecedented and “climate change” driven by human emissions of carbon dioxide is not to blame.
Storms of similar size and strength struck the Tampa Bay area in 1848 and 1921. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tracked at least 146 hurricanes that have formed in the Gulf since 1851.
Historical data show there has been little to no long-term trend since 1900 in Florida major hurricane activity through Hurricane Helene, which hit the panhandle last month.
People born in the 1950s or later did not experience the record-high hurricane activity of the 1940s, and the early 1900s activity was likely under-reported as virtually no one lived in Florida in 1900.
https://heartland.org/opinion/press-release-hurricane-milton-historic-not-unprecedented/
**************************************************The Guardian Tries, and Fails, To Link Firefly Endangerment To Climate Change
A recent post by The Guardian titled “Firefly species may blink out as US seeks to list it as endangered for first time,” claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing a firefly species native to the North Eastern United States as endangered because of climate change. This is false, or at least the focus on the climate element at the start of the article is false. The threats listed are not climate effects, and the U.S. government proposal even acknowledges that human development poses the true threat.
The article describes a firefly species called the Bethany Beach firefly, which is found in coastal parts of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, claiming that it is “facing increasing dangers to its natural habitat because of climate change-related events” including sea level rise over time and “lowering groundwater aquifers.”
It is important to note first that the article admits the sea level rise issue is projected to impact firefly habitat “by the end of the century” – about 76 years from now. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the firefly is only found in freshwater marshes near coastal dune environments. The FWS release is more specific, and says between 76-95 percent of those habitats may be lost to high-tide flooding by 2100… according to climate models.
This might be true, but it is not clear that those habitats will be lost forever because of rising sea levels, and not just pushed back inland gradually over the course of those intervening decades. Dune environments are by default extremely volatile, changing with every tide, and left to nature will grow and recede. The freshwater marshes (swales) associated with them likewise change by the season.
Climate Realism has on several occasions pointed out that sea level rise is hardly the accelerating danger that the media make it out to be, here, here, and here, for examples on the East Coast specifically.
Amazingly, the Guardian article itself quickly mentions a contributing factor to relative sea level rise on the East coast that is also damaging the freshwater environments the firefly needs, and that is “lowering groundwater aquifers.” These aquifers on the East Coast are not lowering due to climate change, they are lowering due to increasing populations necessitating greater water withdrawals. This causes the land to sink, increasing the relative rate of sea level rise in some areas. Delaware, for example, is seeing about 1.7 millimeters of land subsidence each year, which adds up to about 7 inches over 100 years.
The real crux of the issue comes later in the article, where the Guardian finally mentions the abrupt changes to the firefly’s habitat that actually impact its survival on the short term, and that is “growing threats from coastal development and light pollution, the latter of which can interfere with the insects’ ability to use their bioluminescent lights to communicate with each other.” The Guardian points out that the Bethany Beach firefly only flashes in full darkness, which is becoming less available due to light pollution from housing development on the coast.
Looking at human population trends for the three states that have Bethany Beach fireflies; Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, all three have seen exploding population growth over the past few decades.
“Within the past several years,” the Guardian reports, “Bethany Beach fireflies have been displaced and populations wiped out because of development on coastal wetlands.”
This is obviously not due to climate change, and it comes across as cynical and misleading when the article, and the FWS report, try to make that connection as though climate change is the driver behind declining firefly numbers. The FWS went so far as to try to claim intensifying severe storms were also projected to cause more firefly habitat destruction, but the data simply does not support that hypothesis.
The Guardian and the FWS would be better served telling the truth upfront instead of allowing it to be buried at the bottom of an article, which fewer readers will end up seeing. It’s deceptive and doesn’t help the Bethany Beach firefly they allegedly care about.
*********************************************************
It’s Time for Climate Candor
The proposed global energy transition to “all-electric everything” and Net Zero by 2050 is not unfolding as we were told it would. Rather, it is unraveling as many of us thought it would. Rising energy costs, declining energy reliability, fuel selection mandates, reduced freedom of movement, dietary changes and other real and perceived issues have spawned resistance to the transition. The lack of candor regarding the transition is palpable. It is clearly time for climate candor.
The UNFCCC and the IPCC need to be candid about the continued existence and influence of natural climate variation and include research into the causes of natural variation in their programs.
The IPCC Working Group authors need to be fair in including all relevant research in their evaluations, not just research which supports the consensus narrative.
The consensed climate science community needs to cease its efforts to prevent publication of climate research which does not comport with the consensus narrative.
The IPCC Working Group authors need to insist that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers is a real summary of the conclusions of the Working Groups and not a gross exaggeration describing the current situation as a “crisis” or “existential threat” of an emergency.
The UN Secretariat needs to tone down the “earth on fire” and “boiling oceans” rhetoric intended to scare the population into precipitous action.
NOAA and NASA need to justify why and explain how they repeatedly “adjust” historic temperature anomalies.
The renewable generation developers need to tone down the “cheapest electricity” rhetoric, acknowledge that their generation systems are redundant capacity and will remain so until hey are combined with sufficient storage capacity to render their generating capacity dispatchable.
Electric utilities need to clearly communicate their need for dispatchable capacity sufficient to meet current and projected future peak demand.
Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate to both government and regulatory agencies that existing coal and natural gas generation cannot be shuttered until sufficient alternative dispatchable generation has been commissioned to replace their generating capacity and accommodate growth in expected peak demand.
Electric utilities and their ISOs and RTOs need to clearly communicate that additional natural gas generation capacity might be necessary to accommodate peak demand growth if dispatchable renewable generation capacity is not connected to the grid rapidly enough to meet growing demand resulting from “all-electric everything”
Federal and state agencies responsible for the energy transition need to acknowledge that the Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFRs) they are relying upon to supplement renewable generation do not exist and are therefore not currently available for deployment. These agencies also need to acknowledge that the future availability of these DEFRs is uncertain.
Federal and state agencies also need to acknowledge that DEFRs, if and when they become available, render intermittent renewable generation redundant capacity to the extent that they are employed as backup capacity to renewable generation.
Federal and state agencies need to acknowledge that the promise of reduced energy costs resulting from the energy transition is a fraudulent fantasy.
While the above actions need to occur in the interest of candor, it seems highly unlikely that they will occur before there is a major grid outage followed by a self-serving “blame game”.
A repetition of the “Six Phases of a Project” appears inevitable.
https://edreid.substack.com/p/its-time-for-climate-candor
*****************************************Australia: Put Greens last: peak Jewish groups demand major parties agree to preferences swap
Two of the nation’s peak Jewish groups have taken the unprecedented step of seeking to influence the make-up of the future parliament by writing to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, urging the major parties to preference each other above the Greens at the next election.
The letter sent on Tuesday morning by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia also seeks a public commitment from both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader that they will not allow the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government or make concessions to them in return for Greens support on confidence and supply.
Separate versions of the letter have also been sent to the five recontesting teal MPs – Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps and Zoe Daniel – urging them not to form a negotiating bloc with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament.
Signed by ZFA president Jeremy Leibler and ECAJ president Daniel Aghion, the letter to the major party leaders says there is a precedent for such a step given Labor and Liberals “committed to preference One Nation last on multiple occasions, including by former prime minister Scott Morrison at the 2019 federal election.”
The letter sparked a ferocious response from Greens leader Adam Bandt who warned Labor that preferencing the Liberals above the minor party would devastate the ALP primary vote and trigger an exodus in support.
“Voters will desert them,” Mr Bandt told The Australian.
The letter urges Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton to work together to “counteract the shameful and cynical behaviour of the Greens” over the past 12 months, accusing the minor party of seeking “political gains by exploiting intercommunity tensions that have been heightened by overseas conflicts, without regard for the social consequences”.
Mr Leibler and Mr Aghion warn in the letter that the Greens have undermined social cohesion and “threaten the foundations of our freedoms and democracy”.
“The Greens have knowingly spread outright falsehoods, including the monstrous lie that this government is complicit in genocide,” the letter says. “In doing so, the Greens have joined forces with and incited political and religious extremists who have at times engaged in violence.”
“We are writing to each of you to make a public commitment that you will not permit the Greens to play any role in a potential minority government,” the letter says. “We are also writing to seek a public commitment from each of your parties to preference each other above the Greens.”
***************************************
All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
***********************************************
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Democrats Want ‘Climate Literacy’ In Schools As Actual Literacy Slips
The Democratic Party is pushing to increase “literacy” on climate change-related material in America’s schools while students are performing poorly with respect to actual literacy.
The party’s education platform mentions the importance of “climate literacy” for American K-12 students several times, emphasizing the purported need for students to be able to understand and interpret information relating to climate change. Meanwhile, the average reading score for both fourth and eighth grade students in 2022 had fallen by three points relative to 2019, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
“We will equip students with the knowledge and skills to understand complex scientific issues, counter the rising tide of denialism by promoting environmental and climate literacy, and reverse the Trump Administration’s cuts to the National Environmental Education Act,” the platform states. (RELATED: Even Democrats Aren’t Sold On Pushing Gender Ideology In Schools, Polls Show)
Less than 50% of all fourth grade students were able to read at or above the standard for proficiency in 2022, with only 17% of black students and 21% of Latino pupils meeting the mark, according to the NAEP.
The U.S. is seeing “staggering numbers of children, especially children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, without fundamental literacy skills,” Allison Socol, the vice president of policy, practice and research for the Education Trust, wrote earlier this year.
NAEP data “consistently” demonstrates that about two in every three American students cannot read proficiently, and about 40% of all students are effectively non-readers, according to an analysis published by Scientific American in September 2023.
Notably, the Democratic platform mentions conventional literacy just once, while “climate literacy” is mentioned on two occasions. The word “writing” or its cognates do not appear at all in the platform.
The emphasis on “climate literacy” aligns with a broader push by Democrats to make education more climate-friendly, even as many American students are struggling in the classroom.
For example, the Biden-Harris administration is spending big to replace existing school bus fleets with electric models in order to bring down emissions and fight climate change. While Vice President Kamala Harris has promoted the program as beneficial for students, it could end up lining the pockets of Chinese manufacturers and is potentially susceptible to waste, fraud and abuse, according to reports by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of the Inspector General.
In June, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) — a labor organization that is closely allied with the Democratic Party — issued a list of climate-related demands as a part of their contract negotiations with the city, even though educational achievement statistics for the city’s schools are lackluster, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. CTU’s demands included calling for the removal of all lead pipes in school buildings, the replacement of windows that do not open, and the creation of a “climate champion” position at each school to organize climate-related activities.
In 2022, Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s Department of Health released a five-part climate curriculum for students that suggested it may be best for students to rely on “emotions” rather than “rational thinking” when engaging with climate change-related subject matter.
Moreover, pandemic-era school shutdowns — a policy pushed widely by Democrats at the time — have also resulted in significant learning loss that is continuing to disrupt educational outcomes, The New York Times found in March.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/09/22/dems-climate-literacy-schools-literacy-slips/
*********************************************California’s High Energy Prices Will Be Coming to YOUR City if Kamala Harris Gets Elected
The “Green New Deal” and “Net Zero” policies in California promoted by Kamala Harris have led to increasingly high costs of living, housing, and transportation. This, coupled with an increase in crime, smash-and-grab robberies, homelessness, pollution, and congestion, has caused many tax-paying residents and companies to exodus from California to more affordable cities and states.
California’s net move-out number of residents in 2022 alone was more than 343,000 people that left California — the highest exodus of any state in the U.S.
The California Policy Institute counted more than 237 businesses that have left the state since 2005. Among these businesses were eleven Fortune 1000 companies, inclusive of AT&T, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron.
Kamala Harris continues to support California’s tax-and-spend, overreaching, and economy-crushing policies and their threats to America’s energy, agricultural, economic, employment, living standards, and national security future.
Kamala Harris has a long relationship with California. She became the San Francisco district attorney in 2004 and served two terms in that role from 2004 to 2010. In 2010, she succeeded Jerry Brown as California Attorney General. She was sworn into the role in January 2011 and served until 2017, when she joined the U.S. Senate after being elected in 2016.
Kamala has supported the closure of coal, natural gas, and nuclear electricity generating plants that provided continuous, uninterruptible, reliable, and dispatchable electricity in favor of renewables that generate intermittent, unreliable, and non-dispatchable electricity.
With her continued advocacy of California policies, California now imports more electric power than any other US state, more than twice the amount in Virginia. The imported electricity from adjoining states is mostly from emission-generating coal-fired or natural gas power plants, the same types of power plants that California has been shuttering.
Further, she has supported the ban on fracking and continually decreased the states’ in-state oil production. With her support for eliminating oil production in the State, ever since she became Attorney General, California has increased crude oil imports from 5 percent in 1992 to more than 60 percent of total consumption from foreign countries.
With Kamala’s advocacy of California energy policies, the State has become a national security risk for the entire country. The State’s 9 international airports, 41 military airports, and 3 of the largest shipping terminals in the nation are growing their dependency on foreign crude oil to support the demands of the State and the country.
Kamala continues to support California’s banning the sale of gasoline cars after 2035. To make the huge 1,000 lb. Tesla EV batteries comprised of exotic minerals and metals mined in developing countries; she is shockingly advocating that Californians continue “financially supporting” developing countries like China and Africa, with inferior or non-existent labor laws and environmental regulations, to continue humanity atrocities against their people with yellow, brown, and black skin, and the environmental degradation in those developing countries, for the exotic minerals and metals to make EV batteries, JUST so California can go “green”!
Now, she is campaigning for the presidency of the United States to “clone” California’s electricity and crude oil energy policies for the entire country.
Kamala remains oblivious that people use CONTINUOUS and UNINTERRUPTIBLE electricity for safety, security, and life support that wind and solar CANNOT provide for computers, communications, airports, air traffic control, hospitals, telemetry, data centers, AI (artificial intelligence), and cloud storage.
Without an oil “replacement” to support the supply chain of the products demanded by society that are now made from fossil fuels, she would ELIMINATE Electricity, Transportation, and Communications, as they are all made from the thousands of products made from fossil fuels.
Not only are aircraft, merchant ships, and space exploration equipment constructed from the same products made from fossil fuels, eradicating the world of crude oil usage would ground the 20,000 commercial aircraft, and ground more than 50,000 military aircraft, and the 23,000 private planes in the world, leave the 50,000 merchant ships and 33 million pleasure boats tied up at docks, and discontinue the military and space programs!
Those few wealthy countries attempting to go “green” seem oblivious that at least 80 percent of humanity, or more than six billion in this world, are living on less than $10 a day, and billions have little to no access to electricity. Today, politicians in a few wealthy countries are pursuing the most expensive ways to generate intermittent electricity.
Meanwhile, many countries, including India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China, and the ASEAN countries, focus on the availability of cost-effective, dispatchable baseload electricity for the growth of energy-intensive industries that can drive economic progress and improve living standards. These countries have their baseload electricity provided primarily through coal-fired, natural gas, and nuclear power stations to support their rapid industrialization and economic growth. That is partly why they are the highest economic growth economies in the world.
America’s investments in unreliable and unproven renewable electricity sources like wind and solar should be reconsidered. They are ill-suited to meet long-term economic demands, particularly in the mining, manufacturing, AI, data center, and agricultural sectors.
A stable and secure supply of crude oil to meet the demands of citizens and businesses, as well as continuous, uninterruptible, dispatchable electricity, are both non-negotiable requirements for sustainable economic growth, not just for California but for the entire country.
The good news for Californians is that Gavin Newsom is terming out as Governor of the State. The bad news for America is that if Kamala gets elected president, she can nominate her “buddy” Gavin Newsom as Secretary of Energy for the country. God Bless America to live with similar energy polices of California.
*********************************************
NOAA’s U.S. Temperature Data Demonstrate that Population Growth UHIs & Measurement Inadequacies Drive Average Temperature – Not Climate Change
Editor’s Note: The media regularly reports on temperature extremes, whether it is local, statewide, or global. They are especially guilty of hyping supposed “hottest” days, months, years, or decades. Climate Realism has covered the false or misleading hottest year claims across dozens of articles, for example here, here, and here, are prime examples of the hottest ever hype that Climate Realism has debunked. When it comes to climate, the mainstream media often only report on the average global temperature rather than look at or track to high temperature and low temperature datasets. As Larry Hamlin describes below, the media completely misses a good part of the temperature story because they ignore these parts of the temperature record, which tell a far less alarming story about climate. Worse than that, now the media has been relying on climate models rather than actual data to determine their “hottest ever” claims.
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin:
NOAA’s U.S. contiguous U.S. summer (June through August) measured minimum and maximum temperatures trends over the period 1895 through 2024 (shown below from NOAA’s Climate at a Glance Times series data website) show clear and distinct differing temperature trend increasing growth compared to the calculated average temperature trend outcome.
The minimum temperature trend outcomes after 1985 climb significantly faster than do the maximum measured temperature trend outcomes. U.S. population data shows an increase of about 100 million during the 1980 to 2023 period.
Since the average temperature is not a measured value but instead the calculated mathematical average of the minimum and maximum measured temperatures {(TMax + TMin)/2} the average temperature calculated trend outcome is controlled and dominated by the much larger increase occurring in the minimum measured temperature trend versus the maximum measured temperature trend.
This differing trend distinction can be more clearly seen in the graphs below where the NOAA Climate at a Glance website time period interval is broken into the time intervals from 1895 to 1950 and 1950 to 2024
Dr. Spencer also provided another study which displayed in graphical form the UHI impacts of U.S. and Global wide temperatures during the period June 1850 through June 2023 as shown below and found here.
In addition to large population growth UHIs acting as a prime driver of rising calculated Tavg temperature outcomes, these temperature measurements are also being significantly impacted by NOAA’s improper siting of thousands of temperature measurement stations.
These thousands of improperly sited temperature measurement devices do not meet NOAA/NWS siting standards and are located far too close to artificial heat sinks that falsely increase both maximum and minimum temperature measurements
As noted in this report (page 18) the year 2019 Oak Ridge National Laboratory measurement station data accuracy experiment showed that flawed station siting temperature measurement impact outcomes were much greater during the evening periods (heat sink contributions to minimum temperatures were a factor of 3 larger than maximum day temperature contributions) versus during the day.
NOAA bases its evaluation of U.S. and global average temperature anomaly value changes over time by using and comparing the calculated Tavg values over time.
As indicted by the temperature measurement graphs and studies noted above NOAA’s contiguous U.S. calculated Tavg increasing trend values since about 1985 are clearly driven upward by station measurement siting flaws and UHI Tmin outcomes versus Tmax measured outcomes.
This results in NOAA’s calculated Tavg assessments of increasing temperature anomalies over time being a flawed and exaggerated claim driven by NOAA’s measurement siting inadequacies and population growth driven UHI impacts – and not “climate change”.
This outcome is also applicable to NOAA’s global wide calculated Tavg temperature anomaly increasing trend assessments as well.
********************************************
Tally Of US Wind & Solar Rejections Hits 735
You won’t read much about this in major media outlets, but nearly every week, local communities across the US are rejecting or restricting solar and wind projects. The latest rejection occurred a few days ago in Center, Nebraska, when the Knox County Board of Supervisors voted 6 to 1 to deny a conditional-use permit for a proposed solar project. According to an article by Mark Mahoney of the Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan, the board’s decision “drew applause from most of a nearly full courtroom at the county courthouse.”
The denial of the project in Knox County marks the 58th rejection or restriction of solar energy in the US this year. In addition, as can be seen in the Renewable Rejection Database, which I have just updated, there have also been 35 rejections of wind energy. Thus, since 2015, there have been 735 rejections or restrictions of wind and solar energy in the US.
To be clear, outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio have published a handful of articles in recent years about land-use conflicts over alt-energy in rural America. And to its credit, the Times has covered some of the conflicts in upstate New York. But that coverage routinely ignores the scale and frequency of the rejections and the conflicts. These rejections don’t fit the narrative that’s promoted by climate activists, academics at elite universities, and their myriad allies in the media about “clean,” “green,” and “renewable” energy. The Times has not written a single article about the longest-running legal battle over wind energy in American history: the Osage Nation’s 13-year legal fight with Enel. Last December, a federal court judge in Tulsa determined that the Italian company violated the tribe’s sovereignty when it built a 150-megawatt wind project in Osage County without getting permission to mine the tribe’s mineral estate. For more on that case, see my December 23, 2023, article.
Although big media outlets seldom cover these conflicts, the facts — and the numbers — are undeniable. Rural landowners and homeowners from Maine to Hawaii are fighting to protect the integrity of their neighborhoods. They don’t want their landscapes and viewsheds destroyed by oceans of solar panels and forests of 600-foot-high wind turbines. They are also rightly concerned about the diminution of their property values and the noise pollution that comes with these projects.
Furthermore, the latest rejections of wind and solar provide only a partial snapshot of the resistance across rural America to alt-energy projects. I am being contacted almost weekly by people across the country who are fighting wind projects, solar projects, battery facilities, or high-voltage transmission lines. In Arkansas, local residents are fighting the Nimbus Wind project. In Shasta County, California, locals have been fighting the Fountain Wind project for years. In Wisconsin, Christiana residents, including John Barnes and Roxann Engelstad, pictured above, are fighting the Koshkonong Solar project.
Last month, in Oklahoma, Jim Shaw, a conservative Republican and political novice from Chandler, defeated a four-term incumbent, Kevin Wallace, by nearly 10 percentage points to become Oklahoma’s House Representative for District 32. Wind-energy developers have been targeting Shaw’s district. A few weeks ago, Shaw told me that one of the main reasons he beat Wallace is that he ran on an anti-wind platform.
How deep is the resistance to Big Wind? Entire states are now opposing wind projects. Last year, the Idaho House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution stating its opposition to the proposed Lava Ridge wind project. That 1,200-megawatt facility is proposed to be built near the southern Idaho town of Dietrich. Idaho residents are objecting because the project will infringe on the Minidoka National Historic Site, which commemorates the incarceration of thousands of Japanese American citizens during World War II.
Lava Ridge is being pushed by New York City-based LS Power. The privately held company wants to install 241 turbines on 104,000 acres of federal land. Opposition to the wind project is coming from across the political spectrum. In August, Twin Falls County Commissioner Jack Johnson told a state legislative committee, “This is the one thing I think that Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, conservationists – I haven’t met anybody from any group that has expressed an interest in wanting these on our public lands...Everybody that we have engaged, that has engaged us, is against these being on our public lands.”
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/tally-of-us-wind-and-solar-rejections
***************************************All my main blogs below:
http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
https://westpsychol.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH -- new site)
https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)
https://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)
http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)
***********************************************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Jim Hansen and his twin
