The Week That Was: 2023-02-04 (February 4, 2023)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television–words, books, and so on–are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.” — Richard Feynman – “What is Science?” (1966) .
Number of the Week: 25%
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: The issues discussed this week will include the following: Key points raised by Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor emeritus at MIT in Atmospheric Science. Lindzen is best known for his work on the dynamics of the middle atmosphere, atmospheric tides, and ozone photochemistry. He served as a lead author in the “Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks,” chapter of the Third Assessment Report (AR3 or TAR, 2001) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Lindzen is critical of the process and that although the main report contains some excellent work, the further one goes from the actual report, the more distorted the information becomes.
Writing in Climate Etc. Planning Engineer Russell Schussler discusses the failure of wind and solar projects in Germany and elsewhere to provide reliable, affordable electricity. Schussler asks the question all the promoters and their politicians are avoiding: When the great experiment fails, who pays the bill? It is irresponsible that many government entities have committed to Net Zero without a well-tested demonstration project showing the costs of generation and the storage needed.
Paul Homewood brings up that in 2017 the climate modelers at the UK Met Office simulated thousands of winter seasons for the UK. For over the last 3.5 million years, Earth’s climate has been in an Ice Age with glaciation at both poles. In those thousands of simulations, how many included severe glaciation covering the UK?
Mathematics is the language of science, but it can mislead and deceive. Then we have statistics. Henry Miller and S. Stanley Young discuss “How Scientific Is ‘Peer-Reviewed’ Science?” in medicine. There comments apply to the effort to ban stoves using natural gas for fuel.
The annual “Energy Outlook” by BP is highly respected. Several commentators noted that in its latest report, it appears that BP is backing down from its stated goal of “beyond petroleum.”
The Biden Administration has declared a climate emergency arising from carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It has promoted heavy subsidization of alternatives to fossil fuels, such as wind and solar and electric vehicles. Yet, regulators in the administration appear to be restricting access to the minerals needed by these alternative forms of electricity generation and for batteries.
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Proper of Measurement: The interview of Lindzen by Jordan Peterson begins with Lindzen discussing how misleading the claim of 97% agreement among climate scientists is. There is 100% agreement CO2 is a greenhouse gas and adding it to the atmosphere is increasing warming. The question is how much? Lindzen believes that the evidence shows it will increase by a little and claiming that it is an existential threat, a threat to the existence of humanity, is absurd. The issue is climate sensitivity (the impact on temperatures from a doubling of CO2) and there is little or no evidence that the climate is highly sensitive to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide today.
The discussion goes into the tremendous expansion of university administrations since World War II with the increase in government grants and the observation that researchers waste 30% or more of their time writing proposals for grants that are largely meaningless. For example, Lindzen states that the Quarterly Journal of the Meteorological Society of the UK once had a rule that a reviewer could reject a paper for only two reasons: 1) an overt mathematical error; or 2) lack of originality.
Today, many “scientific” journals reject papers for failure to conform to government policy or failure to agree with the political “consensus.” Lindzen discusses how the editors of journals that had published two of Lindzen’s recent papers had been fired for doing so.
This is all part of an effort to get rid of the energy sector. First it was global cooling from aerosols produced by combustion, then it was acid rain, now it is dangerous global warming caused by CO2, the one chemical that users of fossil fuels cannot avoid. Yet, it is at the heart of industrial prosperity, and ordinary people wish to live better lives. For example, when India became independent it had a population of about 200 million and needed to import food. Now it has a population of about 1.2 billion and is a net food exporter. Most of the world is not so stupid to stop emissions of CO2, which will impoverish societies.
What global climate modelers seize upon is positive feedbacks: That is how a small warming will be amplified into a greater warming. This assumption is contrary to Le Chatelier’s Principle: (“A change in one of the variables that describe a system at equilibrium produces a shift in the position of the equilibrium that counteracts the effect of this change.” Although it was first applied to chemical solutions, it can also be applied to systems.)
Lindzen asserts that to address the problems brought by the modelers, one must examine the feedbacks. (Which the Jan 21 TWTW did when discussing the new book by Tim Palmer.) There are many deficiencies in IPCC reports; it is important to focus not on minor deficiencies but attend to the central deficiency.
To Lindzen this is that climate is controlled by two regions: the tropics (30 S to 30 N) and the extratropics.
The rotation of the Earth, the Coriolis effect, and other fluid dynamics result in great differences in the effects changing greenhouse gases and other causes of climate change. The tropics stay relatively constant, in the extratropics changes are significant. Within the tropics, the greenhouse effect is significant, but relatively constant.
But what occurs between the tropics and the extratropics has little to do with the greenhouse effect. Multiple causes – temperature differences cause dramatic changes in weather; prevailing winds change with latitude. Claiming increasing CO2 will cause a significant difference is false.
Lindzen emphasizes what Al Gore gets wrong. His timing is off by an average of at least 500 years. What causes a decline in temperatures when CO2 is high? (Until we can answer that, there is no reason to assume that a period of severe glaciation will not occur in the future.) For this interesting interview, see link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Who Will Pay? Planning Engineer Russell Schussler discusses the failure of wind and solar projects in Germany and elsewhere to provide reliable, affordable electricity. He writes:
“When electric utilities or electric rates are used to accomplish any public good, any cost increase falls disproportionately upon those with lesser incomes and resources. Power costs tend to function as a highly regressive tax, putting the burden on those who struggle the most and having the least impact on the wealthy. As a practicing engineer I often worried what impact our projects would have on the less fortunate. Now I fear that poor struggling grandmothers will end up paying for the ‘green’ dreams of the financially well off.
When I look at the envisioned green transition, I worry about exorbitant costs less than I used to. I’m not sure anymore what I have a sufficient understanding around the abilities of nations to incur huge amounts of costs and debt for the ‘public good.’ It’s beyond my comprehension at times. I see so many billions spent on things that seem less consequential than the grid. So sometimes I think, why not spend that kind of big money on various assorted energy projects. Maybe we can dump huge sums of public money into longshot projects and hope for the best. But I can’t help wondering who will eventually pay for it, and hoping that poor and least able among us do not end up financing ill-considered pursuits.
After discussing what has changed in his thinking over the years and argues against burdening the poor with huge energy bills, he closes by discussing “Poor Oma in Germany”
“I’m afraid the ‘green transition’ has already done great harm to many poor German grandmothers. The German Energiewende, has been described as the ‘transition by Germany to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply’. Many saw Germany as a showcase for what was possible. In earlier years it has been touted as a spectacular success. Grid concerns associated with a ‘green’ transition were often dismissed by simply declaring ‘What about Germany’. In 2017 I coauthored this article entitled The Myth of the German Renewable Energy Miracle. In 2019 after spending over $150 billion in Euros, Federal Court of Auditors President Kay Schuller noted that the expenditures ‘are in extreme disproportion to the results.’ Although a lot of wind and solar were added, since then the results of the German transition appear to me more and more disappointing with time.
“While Germany did add a lot of wind and solar, their efforts have not provided sustainable benefits and they are now are stymied by their own increased use of coal and oil. They changed a lot, but it was not foundational change. Germany’s past energy policies have created international repercussions. But it is sad enough just to note the impacts upon the German population. Energy poverty has been a major problem for many, and it is expanding to where you now see headlines proclaiming that Energy poverty increasingly affecting Germanys middle class. In Germany and other parts of Europe we are seeing increasing problems of ‘Heat or Eat’ [Links given]
“It’s a tough situation. Who pays for that expensive failure? How should Germany balance what industrial customers pay, versus what residents pay? These are challenging painful weighty decisions. If power is too expensive for businesses, the economy may be wrecked for all. But forcing the cost on those less well-off is cruel. It’s much better to not go there to such an extreme and reduce the likelihood of such problems. Maybe I was correct to assume that you just can’t print up money to run costly experiments on the grid. Costs may matter after all. Let’s make sure we don’t drive our grandmothers toward ruin by unworkable technology based on overly hopeful dreams which ignore where the money will come from if they fail.”
When President Johnson committed hundreds of thousands of ground troops into Vietnam without a strategic plan, tens of thousands in the armed forces paid dearly. Washington is committing the country to an energy transition without a strategic plan or even a proven demonstration project on what is needed. Certainly, the politicians won’t pay, so who will? See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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“Who Needs Actual Data?” Paul Homewood brought attention to a 2017 press release by the Met Office which stated:
“1 in 3 chance of a new monthly rainfall record in at least one region each winter.
“In the last few years several rainfall events have caused widespread flooding in the UK. In winter 2013/14 a succession of storms hit the UK leading to record rainfall and flooding in many regions including the southeast. December 2015 was similar, and Storm Desmond hit the north-west causing widespread flooding and storm damage.
“By their very nature extreme events are rare and a novel research method was needed to quantify the risk of extreme rainfall within the current climate.
“Professor Adam Scaife, who leads this area of research at the Met Office said “The new Met Office supercomputer was used to simulate thousands of possible winters, some of them much more extreme than we’ve yet witnessed. This gave many more extreme events than have happened in the real world, helping us work out how severe things could get.”
“Analyzing these simulated events showed there is a 7% risk of record monthly rainfall in south east England in any given winter. When other regions of England and Wales are also considered this increases to a 34% chance.
“Dr Vikki Thompson, lead author of the report, said “Our computer simulations provided one hundred times more data than is available from observed records. Our analysis showed that these events could happen at any time and it’s likely we will see record monthly rainfall in one of our UK regions in the next few years.”
“The authors have named this novel research method the UNSEEN* method to emphasize that this analysis anticipates possible events that have just not yet been seen. It was also used as part of the recent UK Government National Flood Resilience Review (NFRR)+ when the Met Office was asked to estimate the potential likelihood and severity of record-breaking rainfall over the UK for the next 10 years.”
[* – UNprecedented Simulated Extremes using ENsembles’ [Boldface added]
According to Tim Palmer a pioneer in the Ensemble method of modeling, all models are predicting a rise in temperatures. Yet, the dominant condition of climate for the past 3.5 million years is an Ice Age with extended 100,000-year periods of glaciation and short, 10,000 years or so, warm periods. According to USGS, “Glaciers extended over much of Europe during the last ice age” including Scotland and Wales and most of England and Ireland. See links under Model Issues and https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/glaciers-extended-over-much-europe-during-last-ice-age
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Ridiculous Mathematics: In Lectures on Gravitation, Richard Feynman wrote:
“If there is something very slightly wrong in our definition of the theories, then the full mathematical rigor may convert these errors into ridiculous conclusions.”
One area in which ridiculous conclusions frequently appear and are taken seriously is in the application of statistical methods. Writing for the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) “How Scientific Is ‘Peer-Reviewed’ Science?” Henry Miller, and S. Stanley Young expose some of the tricks used including Multiple Testing and Multiple Modeling and ‘p-hacking” where a random finding has “statistical significance.” They point out that:
“This is a significant problem for the scientific community because if published articles are unreliable, we do not really know what we think we know.
“The cause for all this cheating is simply greed — the desire of the research community to tap into the huge reservoirs of research funds, the pressure on scientists to publish or perish, and publishers of scientific journals seeking to maximize profits.”
Faulty statistics are used to support calls for banning natural gas appliances such as stoves, water heaters, furnaces, etc. For example, one statistical trick is Population Attribution Fraction (PAF) for childhood asthma. Another ACSH article states:
“The two largest PAFs are the presence of a pet, and atopy, a predisposition of allergic reactions, in the parents.”
For scientific integrity these need to be separately identified and eliminated from the study but are not. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, EPA and other Regulators on the March, and Washington’s Control of Energy
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Beyond Petroleum? The BP “Energy Outlook, 2023” pays typical lip service to the fad for renewables. For example, under “Core Beliefs” it states:
“This year’s Outlook can be used to identify aspects of the energy transition that are common across the main scenarios. These trends help shape core beliefs about how the energy system may evolve over the next 30 years.
- The carbon budget is running out. Despite the marked increase in government ambitions, CO2 emissions have increased every year since the Paris COP in 2015 (bar 2020) …
- Government support for the energy transition has increased in a number of countries, including the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act in the US. But the scale of the decarbonization challenge suggests greater support is required globally, including policies to facilitate quicker permitting and approval of low-carbon energy and infrastructure.
- The disruption to global energy supplies and associated energy shortages caused by the Russia-Ukraine war increases the importance attached to addressing all three elements of the energy trilemma: security, affordability, and sustainability.
- The war has long-lasting effects on the global energy system. The heightened focus on energy security increases demand for domestically produced renewables and other non-fossil fuels, helping to accelerate the energy transition.
- The structure of energy demand changes, with the importance of fossil fuels declining, replaced by a growing share of renewable energy and by increasing electrification. The transition to a low-carbon world requires a range of other energy sources and technologies, including low-carbon hydrogen, modern bioenergy, and carbon capture, use and storage.”
It then goes into some of the more fanciful ideas such as blue and green hydrogen (as if H2 has a color), carbon capture and storage, carbon dioxide removal, etc. All designed to appease the greens who wish to destroy the fossil fuel industry, which provided the basis for modern prosperity. The fundamental problem is that there is no demonstration project that alternatives other than nuclear and hydropower can deliver affordable, reliable energy, particularly for transportation. Commentators such as Paul Homewood and Robert Bradley think that BP is not giving up on fossil fuels. It may be all an illusion until political leaders gain some degree of common sense that the general public seems to have. See links under Questioning the Orthodoxy.
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Keep It In The Ground: An editorial in the Wall Street Journal implies that despite massive subsidies to alternative energy, particularly wind and solar, the administration does not intend to permit the US manufacture of the necessary equipment for wind, solar and necessary storage. The editorial begins:
“The Biden Administration is heavily subsidizing electric vehicles, but at the same time it is blocking mineral projects needed to produce them. Another example of this head-scratching contradiction came Thursday when Interior Secretary Deb Haaland walled off much of Minnesota’s Superior National Forest from mining.
“Minnesota’s Duluth Complex has one of the world’s largest undeveloped mineral deposits, including copper, nickel and cobalt that are needed in vast quantities for EV batteries. Ms. Haaland is assuring the deposit stays undeveloped by signing an order withdrawing more than 225,000 acres in the Superior National Forest from mining for two decades.
“The order says the withdrawal is necessary to protect ‘fragile and vital social and natural resources’ as well as the ‘traditional cultural values’ and ‘subsistence-based lifestyles’ of Native American tribes. But mining needn’t compromise these other interests, and individual mining projects must undergo rigorous federal environmental reviews.
“Ms. Haaland is dancing to the tune of green lobbyists who want to keep minerals in the ground as they do fossil fuels. She’s making their job easier by pre-emptively vetoing projects. Now federal agencies won’t have to conduct laborious environmental reviews for proposed mines, and greens won’t have to sue to block them. How politically efficient.
“Other mining projects in Minnesota, Arizona, Nevada, and Alaska have been stuck in permitting purgatory and the courts. Ms. Haaland’s Superior National Forest withdrawal sets a precedent that could expedite the process of blocking other mining projects. Call it anti-permitting reform.”
After discussing the enormous subsidies being given to processing facilities that need materials to be mined, the editorial concludes:
“The reality is that if minerals aren’t mined in the U.S., they will be extracted in countries with far less stringent environmental and labor standards. Not that this seems to bother the White House. The State Department this month pledged to help build EV battery supply chains in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. The DRC produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, and Zambia is the world’s sixth-largest copper producer.
“Wouldn’t it be better for American workers and the environment to mine these minerals in the U.S.? At least the Administration is consistent on one point: It wants to keep all U.S. natural resources that could be strategic energy assets in the ground.”
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Beyond Groupthink: The 15th Climate Change Conference by The Heartland Institute will be held from February 23 to 25, 2023, at the Hilton Lake Buena Vista in Orlando, Florida. It will feature over 40 speakers, including members of the SEPP Board of Directors, Willie Soon and David Legates. Tom Sheahen, Howard “Cork” Hayden, and Ken Haapala will address the question: “Is Climate Science Scientific?” See https://climateconference.heartland.org/
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Number of the Week: 25%. According to the USGS the last glacial maximum occurred about 20,000 years ago and covered 25% of the Earth’s land area,
“Beginning about 15,000 years ago, continental glaciers retreated, and sea level began to rise. Sea level reached its current height about 8,000 years ago and has fluctuated ever since.”
TWTW adds that sea levels have risen very slowly over past 8,000 years. See
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-does-present-glacier-extent-and-sea-level-compare-extent-glaciers-and-global-sea-level#:~:text=The%20Last%20Glacial%20Maximum%20(LGM)%20occurred%20about%2020%2C000%20years%20ago,25%25%20of%20Earth’s%20land%20area
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Solar energy
By Steve Hurley, Explaining Science, Mar 9, 2019
Censorship
Is Freedom of Speech at Risk at the University of Washington?
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Jan 30, 2023
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2023-02-01T21:15:00-08:00&max-results=2
Suppressing Scientific Inquiry
Shut up, they explained
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
“An outfit called the Council of Canadian Academies was just paid handsomely by the government to say people should not disagree with the government and the government should consider punishing them if they do. Which is a bit scary.”
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/
Download with no charge:
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge:
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data
By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019
Climate Science: What Does it Say? | Dr. Richard Lindzen
By Jordan Peterson, His Podcast, Jan 3 (?) 2023
Green energy: Don’t stick Granny with the bill
By Planning Engineer (Russell Schussler), Climate Etc. Jan 29, 2023
Tom Nelson Interviews Javier Vinós
By Andy May, WUWT, Feb 1, 2023
Secrets Of The Keeling Curve
By Tom Quirk, Climate Change the Facts, Sep 26, 2022
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/Secrets-of-the-Keeling-Curve-IPA.pdf
“A sudden change, a ‘regime shift’ was found in 1989 in the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. There was clear evidence in the biological record of significant changes with reduction ranging from size of fish catches to biomass of zooplankton, near the base of the food chain.”
How Scientific Is ‘Peer-Reviewed’ Science?
By Henry Miller, and S. Stanley Young, ACHS, Jan 31, 2023
https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/01/31/how-scientific-%E2%80%98peer-reviewed%E2%80%99-science-16803
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Mercury helps to detail Earth’s most massive extinction event
By Staff, Mansfield CT (SPX) Jan 27, 2023
https://www.terradaily.com/reports/Mercury_helps_to_detail_Earths_most_massive_extinction_event_999.html
Link to paper: Mercury evidence from southern Pangea terrestrial sections for end-Permian global volcanic effects
By Jun She, et al, Nature Communications, Jan 3, 2023
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35272-8
“It’s relevant to understanding what might happen on earth in the future. The main cause of climate change is related to a massive injection of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere around the time of the extinction, which led to rapid warming.” – According to a co-author.
[SEPP Comment: The paper does not mention a significant increase in CO2 or a warming. The lack of evidence does not stop one author from making unsupported claims about CO2.
BP Energy Outlook 2023
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 1, 2023
“Under the only rational projection, New Momentum, fossil fuels will still be supplying 55% of the world’s energy in 2050, with renewables well down the list at 35%.”
Link to: Energy Outlook
By Staff, BP, Jan 30, 2023
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/energy-outlook.html
“BP’s CEO Plays Down Renewables Push as Returns Lag” (‘beyond petroleum’ imaging wearing thin)
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, Feb 2, 2023
“The Science”
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Jan 29, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Video supporting the Quote of the Week.]
Reprise — Why I Don’t Deny: Confessions of a Climate Skeptic — Part 1
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Feb 4, 2023
Why There Is No Climate Crisis
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 3, 2023
Video by Ben Pile
Saved by our valiant leaders, again and again
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
Energy and Environmental Review: January 30, 2023
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, Jan 30, 2023
Change in US Administrations
Climate Change Weekly #460: Biden Offshoring Pollution, Environmental Injustice
By H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Change Weekly, Feb 2, 2023
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
New Study: CO2 Fertilization Drives The 1980-2018 Global Greening Trend…Greening Leads To Cooling
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Feb 2, 2023
Link to most recent paper: Biophysical impacts of earth greening can substantially mitigate regional land surface temperature warming
By Yitao Li,, et al. Nature Communications, Jan 9, 2023
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-35799-4
Imagine there was a cheap way to save 2,000 people and cool cities but it didn’t make anyone rich?
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 2, 2023
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Backflip: BP “disappointed” in renewables — flags a shift back to oil and gas and “making profits”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 3, 2023
Industry-Intensive Vietnam to Increase Fossil Fuel Consumption
By Vijay Jayaraj, WUWT, Feb 3, 2023
India to use emergency law to maximize coal power output.
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 30, 2023
Abandon Hope or Abandon Net Zero
By Jason Isaac, Real Clear Energy, Feb 01, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/02/01/abandon_hope_or_abandon_net_zero_879188.html
Seeking a Common Ground
Heartland Institute Ships ‘Climate at a Glance’ Book to Thousands of Teachers Across America
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Feb 2, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Some months ago, TWTW reviewed a draft and found it a clear, well-written, discussion of major issues regarding climate.]
Science, Policy, and Evidence
It’s not a gas
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
“Alas, true. If only it were a scam, eventually the perpetrators would tire of the lies. To all the people talking about a “climate scam” or “hoax” or “fraud”, we say again that unfortunately the alarmists really believe what they are saying. As with a great many terrible ideas over the centuries, what you see is what you get. To Justin Trudeau LNG is the past, and a harmful one, and he’s focused on this shimmering green future so close he can almost reach out and touch it past these dense visitors and their petty preoccupations.”
Models v. Observations
Ocean life is seeding the clouds above it, and the modellers didn’t know
By Jo Nova, He Blog, Feb 1, 2023
Emperor penguin ESA listing in 2022 used Antarctic sea ice models known to be flawed
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Jan 30, 2023
Who Needs Actual Data? Not The Met Office! [2017 report]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 1, 2023
Link to press release: High risk of unprecedented rainfall
By Press Office, Met Office, July 24, 2017
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2017/high-risk-of-unprecedented-rainfall
“Our climate has also changed, so older observations may no longer be so relevant.”???]
Measurement Issues — Surface
February Fantasy Redux
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Feb 1, 2023
Expert BoM excuses about a solar panel leaning on bushes near Sydney’s official thermometer.
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Feb 3, 2023
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH Global Temperature Update for January, 2023: -0.04 deg. C
By Roy Spencer His Blog, Feb 1, 2023
“The linear warming trend since January 1979 now stands at +0.13 C/decade (+0.11 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.18 C/decade over global-averaged land).”
[SEPP Comment: No change in long-term average over the entire dataset.]
Global Temperature Report, January 2023
Earth System Science Center, UAH, Feb 3, 2023
Map: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/JANUARY/202301_Map.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/JANUARY/202301_Bar.png
Text: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2023/JANUARY/GTR_202301JAN_1.pdf
Changing Weather
The Safe Climate Of 1931
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Jan 30, 2023
Video
The Atmosphere Is About to Get “Unstuck” in Our Neighborhood
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Feb 1, 2023
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-atmosphere-is-about-to-get-unstuck.html
1969 Cold Record Broken In China -53°C…Snow In The Mediterranean…Japan Hard Hit
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 31, 2023
Lowest Windchill in U.S. History
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Feb 3, 2023
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2023/02/lowest-windchill-in-us-history.html
“Mount Washington, New Hampshire is well known to most meteorologists.”
“Reminder: windchill temperature combines wind and temperature to provide a measure of how much heat you are losing when you are outside. Lower windchill temperature means a faster loss of heat from your skin.”
[SEPP Comment: Hiking up Tuckerman Ravine while carrying a pair of skis and skiing back down was probably not advisable this weekend.]
Changing Seas
How Did Those UKCP Sea Level Projections Work Out?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 3, 2023
“Hilary Benn, who presented the 2009 report as Secretary of State at DEFRA, used it as a lever for wide reaching policy changes. Given that these changes have been premised on a highly flawed report, it is time that public policy is amended accordingly.”
High temperatures boost biodiversity in Arctic and sub-Arctic seas.
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Jan 30, 2023
Link to paper: Three decades of increasing fish biodiversity across the northeast Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean
By Cesc Gordó-Vilaseca, et al., PNAS, Jan 19, 2023
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120869120
[SEPP Comment: Is the increase in species enrichment due to an increase in sea bottom temperatures as stated in the article but remain constant or CO2 enrichment?]
Changing Earth
The core of settled science
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
Link to paper: Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core rotation
By Yi Yang & Xisodong Song, Nature Geoscience, Jan 23, 202
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01112-z.epdf
From the abstract: “We compared this recent pattern to the Alaskan seismic records of South Sandwich Islands doublets going back to 1964 and it seems to be associated with a gradual turning-back of the inner core relative to the mantle as a part of an approximately seven-decade oscillation, with another turning point in the early 1970s.” [Boldface added]
Lowering Standards
What is the IEA anyway?
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Feb 3, 2023
“2) They do produce really terrific charts, graphs and data sets of energy production, usage, distribution, and a wide and far-reaching portfolio of other energy related topics. This is a very valuable service. However, given their recent shift to advocacy, one now needs to consider the possibility of bias in those charts and graphs.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
SMH: An apology to my grandkids for not fighting Climate Change Enough
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, From Sidney Morning Herald economics writer, Feb 3, 2023
Blame Brexit, that’s the ticket
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
Houston Chronicle: Unpublished ‘Letters to the Editor’ (cancelling me)
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, Feb 1, 2023
It’s over, we won, now we fight.
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Climate models and sea level rise: worse than expected
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
It’s always worse than expected in the world of climate research. But in the case of sea level rise it’s the models that are turning out to be worse than expected, which means sea level rise itself is likely to be less than expected.
Observation: Removing Water Vapor (Greenhouse Gas) Leads To Warming…Adding It Leads To Cooling
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Jan 30, 2023
Link to most recent study: Attribution of local land surface temperature variations response to irrigation over the North China Plain
By Zhijiang Zhang, et al. Science of The Total Environment, June 20, 2022
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969722011962
[SEPP Comment: Hasty conclusion from change in daytime land surface temperature with irrigation. What happens to nighttime atmospheric temperatures with an increase in irrigation?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Al Gore goes nuclear in Davos
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
“It might seem like a fool’s errand to fact check Al Gore.”
No David Kirtley, The 1970s Ice Age Scare Was Not A Myth!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 29, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
The teen turning down championships for the planet
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 2, 2023
Communicating Better to the Public – Protest
Breaking Business Windows Okay? The Climate Cult Finds a Climate Judge
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Jan 31, 2023
“Rather than check their premises on climate exaggeration and falsified predictions, the climate cult soldiers toward the cliff with a false sense of moral authority and certitude. Too bad for them, but probably good for exposing deep ecology religion for what it is–anti-humanism.”
Questioning European Green
Enemy To Itself: Germany’s Green Power Grid Unable To Power Green Society!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 28, 2023
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Minefield of Dreams: Finding the Critical Minerals Needed to Get to Net-Zero
By J. Peter Pham, Real Clear Energy, Feb 02, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/02/02/minefield_of_dreams_finding_the_critical_minerals_needed_to_get_to_net-zero_879185.html
Let’s Face It: Net Zero Is Dead In The Water
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Jan 30, 2023
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-1-30-lets-face-it-net-zero-is-dead-in-the-water
Non-Green Jobs
Jeremy Hunt’s Green Industry Deception [Chancellor of the Exchequer since October 2022]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 28, 2023
“Business will doubtlessly benefit from all of this capital spending, but it will be the public who end up paying the bill. Meanwhile it will be painful transition for those 185 million who will lose their jobs. The idea that they will simply walk into one of the 200 million new jobs is ridiculous – life does not work like that.”
Funding Issues
Zurich Considers Insurance Premium Discounts to Reward Climate Action
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 30, 2021
Litigation Issues
Hyping Maximum Daily Temperatures (Part 4)
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Feb 4, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Highlighting the importance of requiring periods of standardization when instruments are changed. The issue is in secret mediation.]
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Beatrice Has Been Paid £614 Million In Subsidies Since 2019
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 29, 2023
“The Chinese government has a key interest in two of Scotland’s offshore wind farms, including the second biggest of Scotland’s fully operational offshore wind farms – the 84-turbine Beatrice wind farm off the Caithness coast which began operations three years ago.”
Tax dollars are wasted building electric vehicle charging stations in cold climates
By Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Washington Examiner, Feb 2, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
EPA and other Regulators on the March
ESG: Everything Everywhere All at Once
By SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda, SEC, Jan 27, 2023
https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/uyeda-remarks-california-40-acts-group?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
Dems aren’t just coming for gas stoves. Here are other appliances on the chopping block
Nanny-state move prompted huge outcry
By Warner Todd Huston, The Western Journal, Via WND, Jan 26, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
“To name just a few things Biden wants banned, Fox noted, the list includes ‘water heaters, furnaces, clothes washers, dishwashers, ceiling fans, microwave ovens and shower heads,’ all in order to push his unattainable net-zero climate goals.”
It Isn’t Just Gas Stoves Biden Regulators Dislike; the EPA Adding Costly Red Tape to Air Conditioners
By Ben Lieberman, CEI, Jan 30, 2023
https://cei.org/blog/it-isnt-just-gas-stoves-biden-regulators-dislike-the-epa-adding-costly-red-tape-to-air-conditioners/
Energy Issues – Non-US
5 charts explain gas & power price slump into 2023
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 30, 2023
“Most of this is straight forward supply and demand stuff. High gas prices have triggered more LNG supply, lower consumption and switching to other fuels, such as coal and oil.
“Perhaps the most surprising graphic is the sharp decline in power demand, which is a strong sign of economic and industrial slowdown.”
Germany’s Municipal Utilities Expect Permanent Doubling Of Gas, Electricity Tariffs For Customers
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Jan 29, 2023
Ramaphosa: South Africa will not ditch coal ‘just like that’
By Staff, Africa News, Jan 31, 2023
https://www.africanews.com/2023/01/30/ramaphosa-south-africa-will-not-ditch-coal-just-like-that/
ESG and Energy Security
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Jan 31, 2023
[SEPP Comment; International organizations destroying electricity reliability?]
Washington’s Control of Energy
Podcast: What Everyone Got Wrong About Gas Stoves; Secondhand Weed Smoke Causes Asthma?
By Cameron English and Chuck Dinerstein, ACSH, Feb 1, 2023
https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/02/01/podcast-what-everyone-got-wrong-about-gas-stoves-secondhand-weed-smoke-causes-asthma-16854
“The media can be forgiven; they cannot help themselves when given an attention-grabbing headline; it is the nature of that beast. More critically, our leaders, the individuals entrusted through our votes to look out for our interests, appear to have a literacy problem, or their due diligence ends with a briefing or reading a paper’s abstract. Regulatory agencies, like the CPSC, should base decisions on something less flimsy than this house of cards.”
Thinking Out Loud – Banning Our Way To Safety
By Chuck Dinerstein, ACSH, Jan 20, 2023
https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/01/20/thinking-out-loud-%E2%80%93-banning-our-way-safety-16822
Those Attacks on Gas Stoves Aren’t Really about Health
By Steve Goreham, WUWT, Feb 2, 2023
“The nitrous oxide then combines with oxygen to form nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant. But the amount of NO2 generated by stoves is very small, only parts per billion (ppb) levels.”
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Forget Net Zero: Oil and gas investment needed for another 30 years, BP warns
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 30, 2023
Severe Winter Weather Proves No One Is “Deceived” About Oil and Natural Gas
By Graham Copley, Real Clear Energy, Feb 01, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/02/01/severe_winter_weather_proves_no_one_is_deceived_about_oil_and_natural_gas_878967.html
“As the recent bomb cyclone dealt devastating winter weather to much of the U.S., oil generated 40% of overall peak-hour electricity to the New England region the day before Christmas. In no uncertain terms, fossil fuels were a savior. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out that, during the bomb cyclone, ‘the fossil fuels despised by the climate lobby have saved the electrical grid and many lives.’”
[SEPP Comment: Will the politicians of New England and New York ever learn?]
Norway To Keep North Sea Oil Production High, As 92 New Blocks Offered For Exploration
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 29, 2023
Money, Money, Money – Canadian Gas Producers Pivoting Toward Greater LNG Price Exposure
By Martin King, RBN Energy, Jan 29, 2023
https://rbnenergy.com/money-money-money-canadian-gas-producers-pivoting-toward-greater-lng-price-exposure
[SEPP Comment: To get better prices ship natural gas from British Columbia through Chicago to Corpus Christi for liquifying and export? And the PM of Canada has rejected exporting LNG to Germany and Japan claiming there is no market for it?]
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Nuclear Power Plants Are Pushed to the Limit as Demand Surges
Climate goals and the energy crisis are pushing countries to double the lifespan of their nuclear reactors.
By Will Wade and Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg, Jan 24, 2023
https://archive.is/iYLq5#selection-1397.0-1419.15
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Investment In European Wind Industry Falls In 2022
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 12023
“The simple truth is that wind power has only thrived in Europe because of the generous subsidies doled out. It will never be competitive in a free and open market, because its intermittency makes it worthless.”
The Inconvenient Truth About Solyndra
By David Hill & Jeffrey Kupfer, Real Clear Energy, Jan 29, 2023
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/01/29/the_inconvenient_truth_about_solyndra_877840.html
David Hill is former general counsel of the Department of Energy and Jeffrey Kupfer is a former acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Energy.
Critics say wind project adds to ‘industrialization’ of rural Wyoming
By Dustin Bleizeffer, Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Jan 29, 2023
https://www.wyomingnews.com/critics-say-wind-project-adds-to-industrialization-of-rural-wyoming/article_1e12c52c-943c-11ed-bfaf-73aec66c1dbf.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Biofuels: going from useless to harmful
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Feb 1, 2023
From the CO2Science archive:
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
German Drives Tesla 800 Kilometers To Poland: “Never Again Electric Car!” …”Makes No Sense”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 1, 2023
Health, Energy, and Climate
The Left’s Climate Imperialism
By Vijay Jayarah, Daily Caller, Feb 3, 2023
https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/03/opinion-the-lefts-climate-imperialism-vijay-jayaraj/
“Last October, the U.S. climate envoy John Kerry suggested that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should abandon some oil blocks that it had put up for auction. However, for the people of the DRC — some of the poorest in the world — this could mean more years of pollution and ill-health from dirty cooking fuels such as charcoal.”
Childhood Asthma And Second-Hand Cannabis Smoke
By Chuck Dinerstein, ACSH, Jan 18, 2023
https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/01/18/childhood-asthma-and-second-hand-cannabis-smoke-16815
Environmental Industry
Why Environmentalists May Make This Whale Species Extinct
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Jan 30, 2023
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Friday Funny: Jane Fonda: “There’d be no climate crisis if it wasn’t for racism”
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Feb 3, 2023
“Where do they put the pollution?’
If wishes were horses, we’d all get ponies for Christmas: Geothermal Edition
By David Middleton, WUWT, Feb 1, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Will deep drilling for geothermal heat cause Earth cooling and deplete the so-called “great heat battery”?]
Global Warming Outbreak
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Jan 30, 2023
Could Someone Please Translate this Climate Change Gobbledygook?
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 2, 2023
Nine Years Since The End Of Snow
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Jan 30, 2023
ARTICLES
1. Biden’s Green-Energy Mineral Lockup
The feds block mining that is essential for making EV batteries.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, Jan. 29, 2023
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-mining-duluth-complex-minnesota-superior-national-forest-deb-haaland-electric-vehicles-11674860178?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s
TWTW Summary: Discussed in the This Week section above.
********************
2. Al Gore and the End of Climate Policy
He gave us only climate pork and propaganda, but it’s OK because the science is looking up.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., WSJ, Feb. 3, 2023
https://www.wsj.com/articles/al-gore-and-the-end-of-climate-policy-energy-oil-research-exxon-harvard-rockefeller-11675453870?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s
TWTW Summary: The journalist begins:
“Al Gore was right about one thing in his rant at the World Economic Forum in Davos: CO2 emissions have continued to climb and show no sign of being affected by ‘climate policy.’
“He didn’t mention his own contributions to this outcome, intervening in the early Obama years to turn climate policy into an excuse for protectionist pork barrel, with no real effect on climate. Nor that he was the seminal author of a brand of green hyperventilation that almost guaranteed real climate action would become a polarizing dead letter.
“He also didn’t mention his singular stroke of luck in the history books, which will let him off more kindly than he deserves because the science now paints a less dire picture of our climate future.
“The climate press proved the point, amid his Alpine Vaudeville, by collapsing critically in front of a newly-released ‘Harvard’ study allegedly revealing that Exxon 40 years ago predicted today’s warming with ‘breathtaking,’ ‘stunning,’ ‘astonishing’ accuracy.
“These adjectives aren’t in the study itself, which is merely tendentious, sponsored by the activists at the Rockefeller Family Fund. But the timing probably wasn’t an accident.
“In fact, Exxon’s results were identical to those of other scientists because it collaborated with them. Its findings weren’t hidden ‘behind closed doors,’ as one report alleged. They were published in peer-reviewed journals. Rather blatantly, to get to its desired result, the ‘Harvard’ study had to attribute to Exxon outside research that its scientists merely ‘reported.’
“This retread builds on Rockefeller’s previous greatest hit, paying journalists in 2016 to flaunt Exxon’s decades-old scientific efforts. Exxon was accused of ‘emphasizing the uncertainty’ when uncertainty was the crucial scientific output. No matter what Exxon said, not sellable to policy makers at the time was spending unknown trillions to reduce future temperatures maybe by 4.5 degrees Celsius, maybe by 1.5 degrees. Yet this was the best guidance science could provide for four decades.
Rockefeller prefers to stress the $30 million Exxon once spent on climate-skeptical think tanks. This money, not the scientific uncertainty or humanity’s desire for cheap energy, explains the failure to enact meaningful CO2 reductions. It’s all Exxon’s fault.
OK, studies like this one sponsored by Rockefeller and served up by provocateurs at the Harvard history department and Germany’s Potsdam Institute exist to exploit media shallowness. They wouldn’t exist otherwise.
The hindsight fallacy abounds. Climate modelers, if their forecasts are borne out, can’t know if they were right for the right reasons or wrong reasons. The study also perilously juggles apples and oranges due to the difference between equilibrium and transient climate sensitivity. More to the point, nothing here redeems Rockefeller philanthropic money being poured down a Greta Thunberg rathole when real needs go unmet.
Never mind. After 40 years, an authoritative U.N. panel, which once shared Mr. Gore’s Nobel Prize, has made real progress on the uncertainty puzzle, not only narrowing the consensus range of likely climate outcomes, more importantly reducing the estimated risk of worst-case warming.
The journalist discusses a slight change in “scenarios” in the latest IPCC report (AR6, 2021) then concludes:
“Hooray. This is progress. In the meantime, though, thanks to Rockefeller, Mr. Gore and others, we ended up with policy option C—spend X trillion to have no effect on climate. Our obsessive focus on green energy subsidies pleases many constituents but incentivizes more energy consumption overall. After all, the human appetite for energy is limitless if the price is right. Meanwhile, unused and even denigrated by the left is the only tool that was ever likely to reduce meaningfully the path of emissions, a carbon tax.
“Oh well. Climate policy is effectively over and that’s probably fine. The energy machine will certainly incorporate new technologies, including renewables; there won’t be a major shift in emissions from the path they would have taken anyway.
“Mr. Gore will continue his angry prophet act. Politics will continue to fuel a sacred pork scramble. The climate press will balance on its noses whatever memes are tossed its way. And humanity will adapt to the climate it gets, which the best current guess says will probably be another 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer over the next century.”
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