Climate crisis made severe rains behind Europe’s 2021 floods ‘up to nine times’ more likely
This is just modelling. There is no actual evidence for the claim
The extreme rainfall that triggered devastating and deadly flooding across western Europe last month was made between 1.2 and nine times more likely by the climate crisis, a rapid analysis finds.
Severe downpours similar to those suffered in countries including Germany, Belgium and Switzerland last month are now 3 to 19 per cent heavier because of human-driven global heating, the research says.
Previous rainfall records were smashed in parts of Germany and Belgium last month, causing rivers to burst their banks and unleash deadly waters.
The unprecedented flooding killed at least 220 people in Germany and Belgium, and caused £4.9bn (€5.5bn) worth of damage in Germany alone.
“Climate change is hitting us everywhere now,” Dr Maarten van Aalst, one of the research authors and director of the international Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, told a press briefing.
“I hope it’s a wake-up call to not just people that have been affected, but people elsewhere [too].
“We are facing more extreme events of many kinds, and the only thing we can do is to close the tap of increasing greenhouse gas emissions ... and to prepare for the more extreme climate that we live in.”
Similar rainfall events are currently expected to occur around once every 400 years for any given region in western Europe, the analysis says.
“Even with climate change, this was a very rare event,” said Dr van Aalst.
“But this is just one event in one place that is happening every 400 years. If you look around the world, we’re going to be seeing many of those things that only happen once every 400 years.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/europe-floods-2021-climate-change-b1907311.html
****************************************Have you been greenwashed? The dirty secret behind 'clean' energy deals
Power supplier Outfox The Market's website is plastered with eco-friendly claims. 'You don't have to choose between the planet and your pocket,' reads the marketing copy, adorned with a cartoon image of wind turbines on a green field. 'Do the right thing. Go green, go clean.'
Like many other cheap energy brands, the supplier is capitalising on a growing appetite for clean, renewable electricity.
Yet closer inspection of the small print shows these green tariffs are no more environmentally friendly than ordinary energy deals.
The supplier may purport to offer '100 per cent clean wind electricity', but the only thing it needs to make such a claim are certificates that cost as little as £1.45 per customer.
To state that a tariff is green, suppliers have to prove they have generated the renewable electricity themselves, bought it from a plant, or purchased a Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (Rego) certificate.
The vast majority — including Outfox The Market — choose the last of these options, as it is typically the cheapest and easiest.
Each certificate guarantees that a supplier will match its customer's electricity usage by investing a similar amount in green energy produced by a renewable generator.
But suppliers continue to source energy from the wholesale market — the National Grid — which uses fossil fuels, all the while claiming to be '100 per cent renewable'.
Firms are not obliged to reveal how much of their 'green' energy comes from the purchase of these certificates, or how much is bought directly from renewable sources.
So customers can think the energy they use is purely green, when it is actually generated from a combination of gas, solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass and nuclear sources.
Regos — issued by the energy watchdog Ofgem — have come under increasing scrutiny, and earlier this month ministers pledged to clamp down on 'greenwashing' firms that exaggerate their eco-friendly credentials.
Concerns about greenwashing were highlighted this year in a major report by the consultancy Baringa. Report author Vlad Parail says: 'People might switch to a green tariff, then feel they can relax about their carbon footprint. In reality, when they buy from a firm backed by Regos, the direct impact a customer has on the environment is very small.'
Energy firm Utilita estimates that three in five customers would take action against their supplier if they had been misled.
Saving the planet doesn't come cheap
Two years ago, Aimee Higgins started reading more about climate change and wanted a more eco-friendly lifestyle.
A big part of that, the 39-year-old says, was having a greener energy supplier, even though it didn’t come cheap.
She was used to paying £50 a month for her three-bedroom home, which she occupies alone.
But now she pays £80 a month for a genuinely green tariff — a rise of more than 50 per cent.
Aimee, co-founder of a non-profit environmental organisation called Every One of Us, insists it is worth it.
She says: ‘I realise I am in a privileged position to be able to pay more for energy that is genuinely green.
‘Our green energy infrastructure is still growing and as it improves, prices will come down for everyone, provided people like me start investing in it now.’
Aimee is a customer of Good Energy, which has a gold accreditation under Uswitch’s Green Tariff system.
Some 58 per cent say they would want to be compensated for the premiums they paid for so-called green energy — meaning firms could be left repaying £144 a year to customers as a result of misleading '100 per cent renewable energy' claims.
Analysis by Money Mail found that of the 20 cheapest energy tariffs currently available on Uswitch, 14 hold a 'bronze' score for green credentials. The remaining six are not even accredited.
To achieve a 'bronze', a brand can rely solely on Regos certificates. If more than 42.9 pc of its electricity is bought direct from a renewable generator, it gains 'silver' status.
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A hybrid light aircraft
Good for "short hops"
At first glance it did not look very different from the other light aircraft dotted around Exeter airport’s runway, a chunky extra compartment bolted to the bottom of the fuselage the only hint that there was more to it than met the eye.
But the plane took off a little more steeply than might have been expected and as it circled the airport before heading towards the moors of Devon and the coast of Cornwall, it was noticeably quieter than the norm.
This was the maiden test flight in England of the Electric EEL, a hybrid electric plane, the like of which may soon be coming to airfields across the world.
“I’m impressed,” said Chris Davey, deputy airfield operations duty manager, as he watched the plane sail away into the blue sky. “Its climb rate was good and it’s a lot quieter than a conventional plane. I guess it’s the future.”
Thirty-six minutes later, the plane touched down 80 miles away at Cornwall Airport Newquay. It didn’t go as fast as some of the jet planes he has flown and nowhere near as high as the spacecraft he has worked on but test pilot Elliot Seguin, a relaxed Californian who flies with the figure of a guitar player on top of the instrument control panel, was clearly enjoying himself. “Oh boy, I like this plane,” he said.
Electric EEL is an adapted six-seat Cessna. There is a conventional combustion engine in the back of the plane that drives the rear propeller. But that chunky compartment holds six batteries – originally built for motorcycles – that power the front propeller. The replacement of one conventional engine with the batteries makes the plane lighter – hence the steeper climb – but also, the makers argue, quieter, cheaper, greener.
Seguin said it flew very much like a conventional Cessna. “That means we can really focus on the electrical systems. We’ve got Teslas on the road, cellphones in our pockets that show this battery stuff is here. We’ve got to see if we can put batteries in an airframe and make it work.”
The plane was tested in California and Hawaii before being shipped from the Port of Long Beach to the UK. Seguin tested it in Orkney before flying down to Exeter for a champagne launch in front of two UK government ministers, aviation minister Robert Courts and the business and energy minister Lord Callanan.
It is very much a work in progress. The batteries are only used to help get the plane airborne. “We could get half an hour of juice out of them but the batteries wouldn’t be happy with that,” said Seguin.
The plane has been built by California company Ampaire, which believes hybrid, and eventually, completely electric planes may, in the not too distant future, be used for short hops – for example from Exeter to the Isles of Scilly.
Susan Ying, Ampaire’s senior vice-president said she believed that as well as being good for the environment, hybrid planes will cut the cost of flying. She said the cost of the hop from Exeter to Newquay in Electric EEL was 30% cheaper than in a conventional light aircraft. “And batteries are coming down in price all the time,” she said.
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UK: Council accused of taking ‘rewilding’ too far as weeds take root in Brighton sidewalks
A Green-led council has been accused of taking rewilding too far by allowing so many weeds to flourish that they have become a health hazard, with some residents requiring hospital treatment after tripping up on overgrown pavements.
Brighton and Hove council, which has been under Green party control since last year, has banned toxic weedkillers that include chemicals such as glyphosate after a petition from residents.
But it is now struggling to control the resulting “growth spurt” in pavement weeds – a problem made worse by pandemic staff shortages.
The issue threatens to pit the city’s younger generation, who largely back rewilding, against older suburban residents who favour tidiness and safety.
Alistair McNair, a Conservative councillor for Patcham on the northern edge of Brighton, said: “Of all the complaints I get, weeds are among the top three issues. In some streets weeds are 2ft high.”
He said that some people had complained of nasty falls after tripping on weeds. “I have been told by a few residents that they or their relatives have fallen over and some have been hospitalised,” he said. “For a lot of residents it’s a really important issue.”
He added: “Weeds on pavements is not rewilding and it’s not attracting insects, it is breaking up pavements and a lot of people are infirm and really unhappy about it.”
McNair backed the ban on glyphosate, but urged the council to find other ways to remove weeds. He said: “Residents have told me there are cheaper ways of doing it – people have said salt water kills weeds – and you can use non-glyphosate weed killers.”
A fellow Conservative councillor, Robert Nemeth, told the Sunday Times: “It’s all very well for trendy city-dwellers to say: ‘Let’s rewild our pavements’ … They probably haven’t got any friends who are elderly or disabled.”
But the council’s Green party leader, Phélim Mac Cafferty, defended the policy as a way of increasing biodiversity. He said: “Native wildflower species such as dandelion, red clover and hogweed are incredible for supporting the most pollinating insects. This in turn supports a wider thriving ecology.”
He said that all political parties backed a call to ban pesticides when it was first implemented by the previous Labour-led council in 2019.
He added: “It was made clear to councillors that this ban on glyphosate would lead to more weeds on paved areas. But many residents have also welcomed the weeds as habitats for insects and bees and complain when the city council removes them.”
Mac Cafferty said extra staff were deployed to manually remove weeds, but he accepted that this strategy had been hit by Covid staff shortages and a summer “growth spurt”.
He added: “We understand the need to make sure pavements are passable and safe. So we are now seeking contractors who can help speed up the weed removal programme. We remain resolute in tackling the climate and ecological emergency and the ceasing of pesticide use is one way we can do this. ”
McNair said: “This was an issue before Covid. Many of the streets in my ward are occupied by elderly residents. And they believe that removing weeds is a core responsibility of the council and it is not being done.”
He added: “The Greens mainly represent the centre of town where you don’t have as many verges and green spaces. There might be an elementary lack of understanding about different needs of residents across the city. The ward I represent is older but there are a lot of young families here too. I get complaints from people with wheelchairs and pushchairs.
“I have raised the issue in council and I was told by one councillor that residents like the weeds. Some councillors think this is part of rewilding, whatever that means.”
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
