Journal “Nature Communications” climate blacklist

People with the temerity to correct the record on climate change must be silenced. That’s the outrageous point of a new study published in the journal Nature Communication.

“The time has arrived for professional journalists and editors to ameliorate the disproportionate attention given to (climate change contrarians) by focusing instead on career experts and relevant calls to action,” the authors said.

While the study’s goal is severely off base, it nonetheless produced two mathematical rankings CFACT is more than a little tickled by.

According to a ranking of how often “contrarians,” as the study labels us, are cited in the media, CFACT’s Marc Morano is far and away the world’s most effective climate communicator.

Marc is number one, with 4,171 media references, nearly double Senator James Inhofe’s 2,628 and Secretary Rick Perry’s 1,903.  Marc appeared in many multiples of media references compared to anyone else as you proceed down the rankings.

Steven Hayward of the Powerline Blog wrote, “Morano is truly the Pete Rose and Hank Aaron of climate contrarians.”

The study also ranks our website, CFACT.org, on its list of the  top 100 “most prolific media sources” for articles skeptical of the global warming narrative and ranks Climate Depot number 1!   See, figure 2b.

The list of 386 people on the climate blacklist reads like an honor roll.  Here’s a sample:

Apollo Astronaut Harrison Schmitt – the only scientist to walk on the moon;

Apollo Astronaut Walt Cunningham –  from the first crew to ride the Saturn V rocket;

Freeman Dyson – The eminent Princeton physicist who postulated the Dyson sphere;

Ross McKitrick and Steven McIntyre – the Canadian researchers whose meticulous mathematical audit debunked Michael Mann’s infamous hockey stick graph;

Anthony Watts – The prominent meteorologist and creator of Watts Up With That;

Rick Perry – The U.S. Secretary of Energy;

Judith Curry – A climate scientist with over 130 peer-reviewed papers;

Roy Spencer and John Christy – Scientists who manage temperature satellites and developed the first successful satellite temperature record;

Fred Singer – The genius scientist who established the weather satellite network;

Roger Pielke, Jr. – The professor who showed that extreme weather hasn’t worsened and disaster costs declined;

Richard Lindzen – The MIT scientist known for his brilliant work on atmospheric physics and author of over 200 papers;

Will Happer – The Princeton atomic physicist and pioneer in optics;

Rudy Giuliani – America’s Mayor;

Mike Pence – Merely the Vice President of the United States (V.P. Gore’s OK?)

While the rankings appear to be genuine in terms of the amount of media individuals garnered, the study’s black and white, unnuanced choice of whom to include on its contrarian list is bush league.  It actually used DeSmog Blog as a major source!  Its mathematical comparison showing that people who debate climate policy in the public policy arena have greater media exposure than researchers who are cited in academic journals is an apples and oranges comparison, lacking scientific validity, that yields a no-brainer.  Their decision to not rank the amount of media garnered by warming campaigners,  which would have yielded a useful comparison, reveals this for a bogus and offensive propaganda hit piece.

We are each exposed to a mountain of media every day.  Peruse the headlines and media coverage of climate for yourself.  Do you need a mathematical analysis to determine which way the coverage is skewed?  Wouldn’t you love to see those hard numbers?

Shame on study authors, Alexander Michael Petersen, Emmanuel M. Vincent, and Anthony LeRoy Westerling.

But, thank you to all our friends and supporters who helped CFACT become the most effective climate communicators in the world.  Facts matter!

SOURCE 





Al Gore Moves To Profit Big From Anti-Meat Drive

Well, wouldn’t you know it!  There he is again – behind another multi-million-dollar money-making scheme.

Al Gore is standing to rake in millions from a World Resources Institute meat consumption reduction report, one that will certainly help boost profits for the meat substitute manufacturers – in which Gore just happens to be a big stakeholder!

Al Gore has ties to meat consumption reduction report while holding huge stake in substitute meat company. Image: cropped here M4GW.

CNN recently reported here on the just published report from the global research nonprofit World Resources Institute. The 568-page report dubbed “Creating a Sustainable Food Future” recommends, among other actions, eating far less beef in order to rescue the planet.

But according to S___  at a thread at Twitter (see below), the WRI’s Co-Chair is David Blood. “David Blood is former Goldman Sachs’ Asset Management head who founded Generation Investment Management with Al Gore, yes that Al Gore,” S___writes under point no. 3.

Americans will need to cut their beef consumption by about 40% and Europeans by 22% for the world to continue to feed everyone in the next 30 years, according to a new report

So the report is now looking more and more like a junk-science-based instrument designed to boost the plant-based substitute meat industry, which include major companies such as Beyond Meat.

Generation Investment Management is connected to Kleiner Perkins, where former Vice President Al Gore is one of its partners and advisors.

Who’s Kleiner Perkins? It turns out they are Beyond Meat’s biggest investor, according to bizjournals.com here. Beyond Meat is a Los Angeles-based producer of plant-based meat substitutes founded in 2009 by Ethan Brown. The company went public in May and just weeks later the more than quadrupled in their value.

Yes, Al Gore, partner and advisor to Kleiner Perkins, Beyond Meat’s big investor, stands to haul in millions, should governments move to restrict real meat consumption and force citizens to swallow the dubious substitutes and fakes.

If taken seriously, the World Research Institute Report, backed by Gore hacks, will help move the transition over to substitute meats far more quickly.

All these “We need to cut beef consumption to save the planet” stories originate from the World Resources Institute whose co-chair is a partner in the firm that collaborates w/ the main investor in @BeyondMeat and his co-founder is a partner in the main investor.”

Another dubious money making scheme that reeks of ethics violations and that needs to be investigated.

SOURCE 





British mother arrested and taken to police cell after putting out wrong colour bin bags

A mother was arrested and taken to a police cell after being accused of putting her rubbish out in the wrong colour bin bags. Lyndsey Webb was detained by two officers at her home after “falling foul” of new recycling rules in Ipswich, Suffolk.

A court heard that the 34-year-old was caught dumping household waste in black bags near her home after Ipswich Borough Council allegedly failed to send her new orange-coloured ones. After giving evidence via video link from her cell, she was eventually given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £50 compensation.

Last night Ms Webb said householders were "totally in the dark" about how to recycle properly and accused the council of putting her family through "a total nightmare".

It comes after The Telegraph launched a Zero Waste campaign calling on the government, local councils and private companies to do more to boost the country’s recycling rates and make the process simpler.

Earlier this year The Telegraph revealed that just a fifth of councils provides a complete recycling service, leaving householders left in a postcode lottery of waste disposal, and confused as to what they should be putting in their bins.

The bewildering system means Britain will not meet targets to recycle 50 per cent of household waste by 2020.

Suffolk magistrates court in Ipswich heard that Ms Webb was among a small number of residents in the town who were allowed to put black bin bags containing waste outside their homes if they did not have space for wheelie bins.

But magistrates were told that the system changed when residents were issued with two types of bags - orange and clear – to encourage recycling.

Ms Webb claimed that Ipswich Borough Council gave her permission to put out black bags after she was not issued with orange and clear ones in time.

But prosecutors alleged that Ms Webb of St Helen’s Street, Ipswich, was caught dumping the black bags late at night by CCTV cameras on three occasions. She was summonsed to Suffolk magistrates court by the council to face four offences of fly tipping household waste. A warrant was issued after she failed to attend court and she was arrested and taken into police custody.

After the hearing Ms Webb told the Telegraph that the system was “totally broken”. “All I did was get the colour of my rubbish bags wrong and I’ve suddenly got two police officers at my door arresting me in front of my kids,” she said.

“It’s ridiculous. They didn’t even send me the orange ones on time. They take so long to collect the rubbish anyway nowadays - I’ve had rats crawling around.

"We're all totally in the dark. These people have put me and my family through a total nightmare."

Webb was given a conditional discharge for six months and ordered to pay £50 compensation for the cost of the removal of the bags.

An Ipswich Borough Council spokesman said: “She was dumping a large quantity of bags outside a shop in an alleyway around the corner. “She was originally sent a warning letter, but her offending continued. She was sent a summons and missed two court appearances.

“She was arrested under warrant because of her failure to attend court.”

SOURCE 





For Most Things, Recycling Harms the Environment

In 2008 I was invited to a conference called Australia Recycles! in Fremantle. I flew coach for 30 hours (we had to divert, at one point, to Auckland instead of Sydney because huge headwinds used up more fuel than expected) and landed in Perth and then was driven to Freo by one of the conference organizers. (If you are keeping score at home, that’s 2.78 metric tons of carbon for the flight from Raleigh-Durham to Perth and back.)

It became clear that I was the “tethered goat,” brought in for entertainment and to spice things up a bit. Apparently, someone had listened to my April 2007 conversation with Russ Roberts; that’s pretty impressive, because this was just over a year after EconTalk started, before EconTalk was a “thing” and before Russ started ignoring my emails and not returning my phone calls.

I had a day before my plenary address, and walked around the conference hall. Everyone there, everyone, represented either a municipal or provincial government, or a nonprofit recycling advocacy group, or a company that manufactured and sold complicated and expensive recycling equipment.

And what a wealth of machinery and equipment it was. Recycling requires substantial infrastructure for pickup, transportation, sorting, cleaning, and processing. I have sometimes suggested a test for whether something is garbage or a valuable commodity. Hold it in your hand, or hold a cup of it, or tank, or however you can handle it. Consider: Will someone pay me for this? If the answer is yes, it’s a commodity, a valuable resource. If the answer is no, meaning you have to pay them to take it, then it’s garbage.

It’s useful to pause for a moment and consider some definitions.

Is Recycling Useful, or Is It Garbage?

The problem with recycling is that people can’t decide which of two things is really going on.

One possibility is that recycling transforms garbage into a commodity. If that’s true, then the price of pickup, transport, sorting, cleaning, and processing can be paid out of the proceeds, with something left over. That’s how it is with real commodities, such as wheat or pork bellies, after all. It’s expensive and complicated to produce wheat or pork bellies, and then deliver them to the market in a form that they can be used. But people will pay you for the wheat or pork bellies. In fact, the “profit test” shows that people will pay you enough to cover all those costs and still have something left over.

The other possibility, and it’s a completely different possibility, is that recycling isn’t a commodity at all. But it is a cheaper or more environmentally friendly way to dispose of garbage. After all, if you bury something in a landfill, it’s gone. And you still had to collect it, transport it, and process it into the landfill. Recycling might cost money, but if you can sell the stuff for any price you are getting some of those costs back. Further, recycling keeps things out of landfills, and we systematically underprice landfill space. The reason is that we don’t want people dumping garbage in vacant lots or by the side of the road. But that means that recycling may be cheaper, all things considered, than using the space in the landfill. The problem is that “all things considered.” You really do have to add up all the costs — resources, money, convenience, environmental damage — of landfilling, and recycling, and then compare them.

These arguments are often muddled and mixed together, by both proponents and critics. And “recycling” is, after all, not just one homogeneous activity, but a whole collection of possible streams of waste or resources, each of which has to be evaluated separately. Should we recycle aluminum cans? Probably, because the price of recycling aluminum compares very favorably to using virgin materials, the mining and smelting of which are expensive in terms of energy and harmful to the environment.......

Remember, this was a conference for recycling advocates and manufacturers of recycling equipment, from around the Pacific Rim. There were hundreds of recycling “Baptists,” or true believers and zealots, and dozens of large corporate “bootleggers,” or profit-seeking firms that green folks would normally never have consorted with. (If you don’t recognize the “Baptists and bootleggers” formulation, you may be interested in Bruce Yandle’s original statement of it.)

I was going to argue that there were economic reasons, technical but clear, why glass recycling was not only prohibitively expensive but also harmful to the environment. It made me wonder why I had been invited, but I surmised that they wanted to have at least one tethered goat for target practice, to keep sharp in being able to advocate their position.

My slot was after the main conference luncheon, a plenary speech, meaning that no other events were scheduled. That is a place of honor, at a conference, and I had been treated with extreme courtesy at every point. Still, I expected the worst in reaction to the actual content of my talk (the essence of which I have already summarized, above).

I gave the talk, and… Nothing. Some polite applause, a few desultory questions. And then people just drifted off. I tried to strike up a conversation with some people who were still in the hall, and I asked them why there was no controversy.

One fellow was perfectly forthcoming: “Oh, we all know it makes no sense to recycle glass. The economic case is easy. But people should still recycle, because it’s simply the right thing to do. It’s not about the actual environment. It’s about enlisting people to care about the symbol of the environment. Overall, recycling is still worth doing, regardless of its effects.”

A young woman piped up: “It’s okay to say that sort of thing here, because we are insiders. But it’s better not to talk about the economics of things to the general public. We need to help train them to care about the environment, and recycling is one of the best ways to do that.”

I had heard something like this before, as I discussed in the 2007 article that likely got me the conference invite in the first place. An earnest young woman, the public spokesperson for the waste and recycling agency of a medium-sized town in the northeastern U.S. had told me breezily, “Oh, you have to understand: recycling is always cheaper, no matter how much it costs.” Oh, my.

The message I had worried about, and expected to be controversial, was old hat to the industry folks. But it was beside the point, because recycling was for them a moral imperative. Once you begin to think of recycling as a symbol of religious devotion rather than a pragmatic solution to environmental problems, the whole thing makes more sense.

As in any religious ceremony, the whole point is sacrifice: Abraham was ready to slay Isaac; Catholics give up meat during Lent; Muslims fast all day during Ramadan. And a young woman in Chile with two two-liter bottles sits in her car in line, knowing she is publicly visible and that her green moral virtue is apparent to everyone.

More HERE 




GREENIE ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA

Three recent articles below

Climate failures cost us: ALP election review

Bill Shorten’s Labor Party failed a basic test of politics by not articulating to voters who would pay for its climate change policies, how much they would cost and the ­impact on the economy.

A confidential submission to the party’s post-election review from the Labor Environment ­Action Network, obtained by The Australian, expresses “anger and disappointment”, and also “grief”, over the party’s failure to win what was expected to be an unlosable election. The submission is brutal about policy, political and leadership failures.

“Labor was unable to put a price on its climate change action plan,” a LEAN member says in the submission. “It couldn’t say how much it would cost, where the money was coming from or what economic dividend it would deliver or save. It is basic Australian politics — how much, who pays, what does it save. We had no answers.”

The submission reflects poorly on Mark Butler, Labor’s spokesman on climate change and ­energy. While LEAN members thought Mr Shorten was an ­“excellent leader” they concede voters “did not like or trust” him. This damaged Labor’s ability to sell a sweeping policy agenda.

LEAN has called for Labor to reconsider its “specific climate change policies” and how they are communicated, but warns “the party cannot ignore and must ­address the issue of expanding fossil fuel export industries”.

Labor’s franking credits policy, its wishy-washy stance over the Adani coalmine and its failure to “listen to the workers” are ­identified as additional reasons for its loss.

While LEAN members said they were “proud” of Labor’s bold policy agenda, the party failed to connect with voters and persuade them with a compelling message.

“LEAN members … felt we had many, many good and great ­policies but our narrative around them was problematic,” says the submission drafted by co-conveners David Tierney and Felicity Wade.

“Creating a narrative that connects with voters was ­identified as most important to win an election.”

A failure to balance mitigating climate change with the need for “economic opportunities” for workers, industries and rural communities is also recognised. LEAN argues Labor must rebuild its credibility with workers in areas such as the Hunter Valley, which swung against Labor.

“Addressing climate change has to be about the economic possibilities and prosperity, not the moral argument,” LEAN ­argues. “The new jobs need to be led and initiated by clever government policy and investment.”

LEAN urges Labor to stand by a bold emissions reduction target — currently 45 per cent by 2030 on 2000 levels — recommended by the Climate Change Authority and to also support a new federal environment act and the creation of an independent Environment Protection Agency.

However, it argues that Labor must recognise many voters do not trust market mechanisms and there is a worldwide backlash against globalisation, neoliberalism and deregulation. Many ­voters saw specific policy measures as a cost rather than an opportunity to deal with climate change.

“Labor’s policies were generally well received by the climate change, environment and ­renewables ‘industries’,” the submission notes.

“This support, however, didn’t translate to the voting public. While we have walked away from the policy purity of a carbon price across the economy, our policies are still in the technocratic and market mechanism sphere.

“They are supported by ­Treasury officials, corporations and the political class. It is hardly surprising many … people are suspect.”

LEAN urges Labor to build better links internally with members and externally with other environmental groups to help ­develop practical and pragmatic policies so they can help ­communicate and campaign for them.

The blistering submission to Labor’s post-election review comes as Labor, now led by ­Anthony Albanese, is yet to ­officially dump many policies some in the party regard as electorally toxic.

SOURCE 

Sydney Lord Mayor backs climate change strike, in virtue-signalling madness

When your employer encourages you to go on strike, is it still a strike? And what about the people who pay your wages, should they get a say?

These and other imponderables are the latest questions thrown up by the ongoing spectacle of climate activist madness. While the stunts become increasingly silly, indulged by complicit politicians and media, it is taxpayers who are being taken for a ride.

Just two months after becoming one of the first virtue-signalling local governments to declare a “climate emergency”, Sydney City Council has voted to support the Global Strike for Climate Change.

The strikes in the past have been led by schoolchildren bludging a day out of the classroom, but now they are urging “workers across the world” to join them.

And, incredibly, so is Sydney’s Town Hall. A council motion backs the strike, calls on councillors to attend and even orders its administration to support council staff who want time off to get involved.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore and six councillors supported the motion last night, while three others voted against it. So, on Friday September 20th, when dewy-eyed school students and socialist activists rally in the streets of Sydney to ban this nation’s largest export industry, among other things, Town Hall will be cheering them on.

The council wants its own staff to be part of the strike and the protests; which could get kind of messy if the council needs to block off streets, provide security, issue permits or clean up the rubbish.

The campaign wants to ban all new coal or gas projects, demand all energy be renewable and insist that money, sucked from somewhere, is used to retrain workers from the axed industries so they can take up other unspecified jobs in other unspecified places at another unspecified time.

It sounds like a foolproof economic plan — next, they should demand the installation of a fountain of youth.

Sydney ratepayers, of course, are not left out. They are free to attend the strike and its rally — so long as they don’t mind the risk to their own jobs or the costs to their own businesses. September 20 should be a great day in Sydney; perhaps the rubbish bins will go uncollected, planning applications will sit unassessed, parks and gardens will be left untended and the libraries will be a free for all.

Presumably no parking tickets will be issued on that day. And all ratepayers, no doubt, can look forward to having an amount of their annual rate notice rebated to compensate for the day the council decided its service obligations didn’t really matter.

Strike me pink. If they shut down Sydney City Council, wouldn’t it have a non-existent carbon footprint? And what would be the downside?

SOURCE 

Adani refuses to bow to climate activists

A climate activist has locked himself to machinery at Adani's Queensland mine site in defiance of the state government's move to outlaw lock-on protest devices.

The man locked himself to a drill rig at the Carmichael mine site on Wednesday morning, a day after the government announced it would push for an increase in penalties for protesters using the devices. Protesters will face up to two years' jail under the new laws.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk denied the crackdown was to silence protesters of the controversial central Queensland mine, which was finally given the green light earlier this year. "Absolutely this is not the case ... It's just this small element that are going to extreme lengths " the premier told the Today Show on Wednesday.

The government's move to outlaw the devices follows the arrest of dozens of Extinction Rebellion climate protesters who have brought major Brisbane thoroughfares to a halt in recent weeks.

They say stopping traffic gets people's attention, and want communities to collectively find solutions that would lead to zero carbon emissions by 2025.

The government claims protesters are filling the devices with broken glass and explosive gas to injure anyone who tries to cut them free.

Protesters say these claims are baseless. "The climate crisis impacts us all. Increasing penalties will not stop good people standing up for the environment and one another," Frontline Action on Coal spokesperson Kim Croxford said.

Adani is this week facing another hurdle in getting the mine off the ground, with engineering firm Aurecon's announcement it has severed its 20-year relationship with the company. Aurecon has been the target of recent protests by climate activists over its link to the project.

An Adani spokesperson said in a statement that company was surprised by the decision and was already in talks to replace Aurecon to ensure the mine went ahead.

"There has been a concerted campaign by extremists against our Carmichael Project and businesses that partner with us," the statement read. "It has not succeeded and construction of the Carmichael Project is well and truly underway."

SOURCE 

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

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