Heatwaves could become more common and 'smash' temperature records in many parts of the world if climate change is not curbed, study claims

Yes.  It's logical that if temperatures rise globally they will also rise in at least some locations.  But will they rise globally?  They are at present falling globally.

And a rise of one or two degrees would not mean much.  There are already people living in very hot locations, much hotter than the present global average, e.g 40C. is common at Marble Bar in Australia


Current global warming rates will see large swathes of the world subjected to record-breaking high temperatures every year as the planet continues to swelter.

A study by Australian meteorologists has found that record-breaking heat events are occurring more regularly and will progressively get more common.

The poorest nations will be hardest hit, with 67 per cent of less economically robust countries having a record temperature every year until the end of the century.

Greenhouse gas emissions, at their current rate, will cause record high temperatures in more than half (58 per cent) of the world.

One in ten regions will also 'smash' previous monthly records by more than 1°C (1.8°F).

This sweating world is portrayed in a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change as the result of 22 different reports.

However, curing the world of a plague of heatwaves could be accomplished if carbon emissions are cut, the study authors claim.

The Paris Agreement has laid out clear guidelines for nations to try and cut their emissions in order to limit global warming.

It lays out two targets, which involve a maximum limit on rising temperatures , of two degrees and 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

If targets for 2020 are met then the number drops dramatically to just 14 per cent of the world experiencing record-breaking weather every year.

'The impact of emissions reductions on the total number of monthly records set is stark,' the authors wrote in the study.

'The benefits of reducing emissions, in terms of both reducing the pace at which high temperature records are set and restricting the magnitude by which records are broken, are very clear.'

Countries close to the equator, where the world's temperatures are always highest, will experience 24 monthly records broken every decade.

This falls to just three records every ten years under the low emissions version of events.

SOURCE





The Climate Jamboree Comes To The UK

The Guardian reports that the next ‘critical’ summit on the ‘climate crisis’ is to be held in the UK. Apparently, we beat the Italians to it. We are indeed truly blessed. The world will be watching:

"The UK is to host a critical global summit on the climate crisis at the end of 2020, at which the world’s 190 nations must commit to deep cuts in emissions.

It will be the most significant UN climate summit since the Paris deal was struck in 2015, when countries made pledges to curb emissions. But these pledges would only keep global heating to a 3C rise, which would bring devastating heatwaves and extreme weather."

This is our big chance to put the ball in motion and save the planet from the Three Degrees. Johnson (or whoever is PM at the time) better not fluff it. We’ll still be in the EU of course, so Britain will be told what to say and do at the conference by Brussels bureaucrats anyway. They’ll probably wheel in a decrepit looking former PM to talk about her stunning ‘legacy’ of zero emissions too – and the BBC will edit out the sniggering in Mandarin which will be heard in the background.

SOURCE





Merchants of Drought

A journal called Scientific American (or ScAm for short) hosts the latest blog from Kate Marvel, claiming that the “Hot Planet” is “Creeping toward permanent drought.” The subtitle is “Both trees and climate models are telling us the same frightening story”.  Most of the text is her usual substance-free emotional wittering: “The smell—a peppery sweetness, pine without Christmas—is what I remember when I think of home”, so I won’t bother to quote much of it, but here is the final paragraph:

"From my office in New York, I can look at these future projections and see California dancing from dry to wet and back again, until there is no again and it settles in to permanent drought. If the trees survive us, they may live to tell of a time where the grass turned brown, the map turned brown, and it was a long time before it was ever green again."

The “future projections” link here goes to a story from a few years ago when the “permanent drought” scare was at its peak, being promoted by the media and climate fraudster Peter Gleick.  Since then, California’s reservoirs have filled up and the “permanent drought” is now a subject for ridicule at sceptical blogs. So it is surprising that anyone would try to resurrect this fake news again.

Here’s a graph from a paper in Nature showing the fraction of the earth suffering from drought over the last 30 years. The different colours show different drought intensities on a 5-point scale from “abnormally dry” (D0, yellow) to “exceptional drought” (D4, dark red). It shows little change; if anything, a slight decrease in drought:



For the USA, there is a graph of the amount of drought on the EPA website, showing that there’s no trend and the worst period of drought was in the “dust bowl” era of the 1930s:



Finally, there is the latest IPCC report, SR15, published last autumn, which has this to say:



Is it possible that Marvel is unaware of all this evidence, and has never thought to look for it? Or is she well aware of it, and simply lying to the public about the approaching “permanent drought”? Either way, it’s an astonishing illustration of the dishonesty of the climate movement and the media organisations such as ScAm that publish this drivel.

Other climate scientists, of course, are quite aware of the falsehood of Marvel’s claims. In any normal, honest field of science, this pseudoscience would be exposed by others in the field. But in the institutionally dishonest field of climate science, the opposite happens. Bogus claims are promoted and described as “wonderful”:

SOURCE






High school climate indoctrination using AP environment textbooks

Jordan Peterson, a worldwide pop-culture self-help phenomenon and University of Toronto psychology professor, has repeatedly warned that “Liberal colleges aren’t about education; they’re about political activism.” It is widely believed and experienced by conservatives that our universities are doing more to indoctrinate our students than truly educate. What many people do not realize is the same thing is being done in our public K-12 schools.

I am one of nine elected directors on the school board in the Hollidaysburg Area School District in central Pennsylvania. Among other responsibilities, school boards are charged with approving their districts’ textbooks and curricula. In most cases, the books are rubber-stamped “yes” by the boards.

When my board placed approval of the Exploring Environmental Science for A.P book on the agenda for our meeting, I knew the voters in my district would want me to know what I was voting for, so I went into the administration office to look at the book. (There is a sheet in the book that you have to sign before you look at it. A day before the board meeting, my name was the only one on the list, even though it had been on display for the required 30 days.)

Since I didn’t have time to read a 500-page book in one afternoon, I went to the sections I knew could be the most problematic — that is, ideologically biased.

What did I find?

“Passive solar power is extremely efficient.” Well, yes, technically that is true. But it’s not the whole “efficiency” story, is it? What about the draining of tax resources through tax credits offered to direct consumer behavior to buy solar panels? That isn’t mentioned, because that is an economic and political question, which was not addressed (more on that later!)

What about nuclear power? A very clean and efficient source of energy? One recommendation in the book for the teacher to “educate” the class about nuclear was for the students to watch a YouTube video on the Chernobyl disaster. What better way to scare students regarding the development and use of nuclear energy? Does this put the use of nuclear power properly in perspective? Yet this is an advanced placement science book.

The book’s description of hydraulic fracturing — commonly referred to as “fracking” — was also charged with descriptors meant to frighten the reader, explaining the dangerous nature of the chemicals used in the fracking fluids. There was no balanced, equally emotive language used to describe the revolutionary development of this process, which a hundred years ago was not even imagined.

We have been told repeatedly over the past 100 years that we would run out of fossil fuels by the end of our or our children’s lifetimes. Fracking has enabled the world to have access to a whole new reserve of abundant and cleaner energy. I would think reasonable people would want to celebrate this instead of scare people about a made-up nightmare scenario about fracking fluids.

In one section of the teacher’s edition, it states that the goals of the section are to make the students understand that “humans play a significant role in the changing climate” and that “what is now inevitable climate change can be slowed by implementing drastic greenhouse gas reductions.”  Of course, there is no mention of the untold millions who will suffer by a significant decline in their disposable income due to rising energy costs and the necessary increases in taxes.

The beginning of one chapter starts with this quote: “Coal plant smokestacks that dirty the air and alter the climate will be replaced by solar panels on our rooftops and wind turbines turning gracefully in the distance.”  Does that sound like something that belongs in a science book?

The facts, ma’am, only the facts!

The book discusses the high cost of converting to renewable energy as our primary resource and recommends raising taxes as a solution! Remember, this is a science book, not a public policy or economics book! The book does not discuss the downside or opportunity cost of raising taxes to achieve objectives that many reasonable people deem to be of dubious value. The impression is clear: renewables = good; fossil fuels = bad. How about the opposite view that renewables = limited value; fossil fuels = unprecedented prosperity and the best human health in the history of the world.

This is not science. This is propaganda disguised as facts for impressionable teenage minds.

SOURCE





Poor timing for Al Gore’s climate panic poppycock

In politics, timing is crucial. And thus it was with the unfortunately timed participation of former US vice-president Al Gore in the Queensland government-sponsored Climate Week earlier this month.

According to the blurb, “Climate Week QLD 2019 will showcase how the state is transitioning to a low-carbon, clean-growth economy and building a community of action to address climate change.”

Occurring as it did after the unexpected victory of the Morrison government, Gore’s pronouncements during the week about the perils of climate change — let’s face it, he easily wins the gold medal in the boy-who-cried-wolf category when it comes to climate-induced apocalypses — were particularly jarring.

As for that photographed pose of Gore and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad cuddling up to each other, it’s probably best not to comment.

It would have been fun to be a fly on the wall when the planning for this gala week occurred. The expectation would have been that Labor would win the federal election, with the clear message that the public was demanding “real action on climate change” — so the motto goes. Reference would have been made to Bill Shorten’s plans to reduce emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 and for 50 per cent of electricity to be generated by renewable energy sources.

The Queensland government would endorse these targets while arguing for more ambitious ones. Reference would be made to the Palaszczuk government’s pledge for the state to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Without doubt, Big Al would be supportive.

Of course, the Great Barrier Reef would need to be a central part of the story. And the potential for the final rejection of the Adani project would complete a very satisfactory week of positive, vote-winning news items for the Queensland government.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would give Gore the time of day. After all, he is not a trained scientist; he appears to make a living from concocting scary climate stories.

While he was in Queensland, he was offering up some more whoppers. Maybe he thought the appearance fee he received — estimated to be $320,000, paid for by Queensland taxpayers — necessitated the delivery of some sensational unsubstantiated claims.

To tell an audience that the choice is between Adani and the Great Barrier Reef is puerile and misinformed. To suggest that India is now sourcing 60 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources is just plain wrong — out by a factor of four to five. And these statements come on top of the many falsehoods Gore has peddled in the past. These include:

 * In 2006, he claimed that the planet would reach a “point of no return” in 10 years.

 * In the same year, he predicted that sea levels would rise by 20 feet (just over 6m) “in the near future”.

 * In 2008, he claimed that the north polar cap would be completely ice-free within five years.

 * In 2011, he claimed that polar bears would soon become close to extinction (their number has been ­rising).

Presumably, these faulty predictions were known to the organising committee as well as to the key politicians — Annastacia Palaszczuk, Trad and Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch — who supported the shindig. But Gore is a name and his discredited propaganda doesn’t prevent him from being a regular invitee to the annual conferences of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Recall that the last one was held in Poland during a particularly cold weather snap.

So now that Gore has left town on his private jet — no doubt some sort of carbon offsets were arranged — state governments and the renewable energy industry, in particular, are in the process of reconsider­ing their approach to climate change and their inter­action with the federal Coalition government.

There is no doubt that most of the renewable energy players were devastated by the May 18 election result. Their hopes, in descending order, were: Labor victory; defeat of Energy Minister Angus Taylor in his seat of Hume in NSW; and the appointment of anyone but Taylor as the next energy minister.

These hopes have been completely dashed.

A vitriolic, misleading and well-funded campaign was waged against Taylor, including the dredging up of snippets from his successful commercial past that were intended to cast doubt on his integrity — indeed, suitability for high office.

In the end, the self-serving, mean-spirited attempt to damage Taylor completely backfired and he was returned to parliament with a swing towards him. Not only does he remain the Energy Minister but his areas of responsibilities have been expanded to include emissions reduction.

One of the problems for the mendicant renewable energy players in dealing with Taylor is that he is just too smart and commercially experienced. He understands the industry like the back of his hand and is happy to query the sometimes faulty advice he receives from the bureaucracy.

He knows that claims that renewable energy-sourced electricity is now cheaper than coal-fired electricity are not correct and that Australia’s electricity generation mix will involve a range of technologies in the future.

He is committed to increasing supply and promoting greater competition to drive down prices. These measures are in line with the recommendations of the report of the Australian Competi­tion & Consumer Commission on retail electricity prices.

The renewable energy players will be forced to stand on their own two feet — for a change — and will need to adjust to the new reliability standards that come into play on July 1. Penalties are being imposed on far-flung installations and contributions are expected to fund the additional grid infrastructure required to hook up new wind and solar farms.

The salad days are over for the renewable energy industry, a situation ironically made worse in Queensland by the (temporarily stalled) requirement to use lic­ensed electricians for the instal­lations of large-scale solar farms.

The Palaszczuk government may be committed to a “low-carbon, green growth economy”, but that pales next to its devotion to trade unions.

As for the big energy companies, which also were hoping for a federal Labor win and had geared up accordingly, it’s time for a radical rethink.

Their campaign against the “big stick” legislation — the legislation contains a great deal more, with forced divestment the final option — is being quietly shelved. Co-operation with the Coalition government is now the name of the game.

Next year, Big Al should be able to stay at home. Indeed, next year there may not even be a Climate Week QLD — the state’s taxpayers deserve a break.

In the meantime the Adani project, unsurprisingly, has been given the go-ahead.

SOURCE 

***************************************

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

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************