Switching off the lights for a pleasant “Earth Hour” while we sip champagne by candle-light on the balcony is an annual green ritual.

However, Earth Hour is not such fun when it extends without electricity for 54 hours.

Here is a real story of life in a Megacity during an extended blackout: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/living-the-green-dream-in-megacity.pdf [PDF, 42 KB]

Harnessing sunlight for heating and other power purposes is not new. Solar collection devices were developed in the 17th century to protect plants brought from the tropics to northern countries, and both the first solar water heater and the first solar oven were developed the 18th century. Indeed, the solar power revolution has been on the verge of taking off for centuries.

In response to the Arab Oil Embargo, in part, the relatively new U.S. Department of Energy (along with other agencies) began a slew of programs to fund solar energy research, deployment and commercialization. Based strictly on performance, these programs have failed at the cost of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money.

More: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/st334.pdf [PDF, 1.7 MB]

What Happens during a Blackout – an assessment of the consequences of a prolonged and wide-ranging Power Outage in Germany

Infrastructures such as a reliable energy supply, functioning water-supply and wastewater-disposal systems, efficient modes of transport and transport routes and also information technology and telecommunications technology that can be accessed at all times represent the lifeblood of high-technology industrialised nations. The Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment therefore commissioned the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) to investigate the possible effects of a prolonged and widespread power blackout on highly critical infrastructures such as drinking water, wastewater, information and communications systems, financial services and health services, especially against a backdrop where the blackout has a cascading effect spanning state and national boundaries.

In Germany, several recent natural disasters and technical malfunctions (Elbe and Oder floods in 2002/2005, power blackout in the Münsterland in 2005, the Kyrill storm in 2007) have highlighted the population’s dependence on such (critical) infrastructures. Supply bottlenecks, public safety problems and disruptions to road and rail transport have revealed the vulnerability of modern societies and made extreme demands on health, emergency and rescue services.

Since almost all critical infrastructures rely heavily on a power supply, a scenario of a widespread and prolonged power blackout involving massive disruption to supplies, economic damage and risks to public safety is a very serious matter. In 2004 the National Crisis Management Exercise (LÜKEX) highlighted the problematic consequences and chains of consequences and also the enormous difficulties faced by federal structures in managing such a crisis and threat situation that strikes without any advance warning.

As far as can be seen, however, the possible consequences of such an event have not yet been subject to an in-depth, systematic analysis in the literature or in official documents.

The analyses conducted by the TAB reveal that the consequences of such a power blackout could at least be akin to a national disaster. All internal and external civil protection forces would need to be mobilised in order to at least mitigate the effects.

The TAB report indicates how the resilience of critical infrastructures could be strengthened and how possible courses of action within the national system for disaster management could be improved. The report thus makes a valuable contribution towards heightening awareness of this issue within industry and society and offers the committees of the German Bundestag a sound basis for further consideration.

The Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment The German Bundestag retains the copyright to this publication. Reproduction is authorised, except for commercial purposes, but full acknowledgement is requested.

Source: http://www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/en/publications/books/petermann-etal-2011-141.html

Report: http://www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/en/pdf/publications/books/petermann-etal-2011-141.pdf [PDF, 7.4MB]

Big Wind Energy Subsidies: A Hurricane of Carnage, Cronyism and Corruption

To date, under just one program, the US government has awarded US$16 billion to wind and solar energy companies. This crony capitalism is what keeps green energy afloat. The green jobs created have destroyed a bigger number of real jobs.

Read More: http://greencorruption.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/big-wind-energy-subsidies-hurricane-of.html

Energy Roulette Week
(The antithesis of Earth Hour)

A Reality Game for those Concerned about the Future for their Families

Acknowledgement: Josh at www.cartoonsbyjosh.com

Media Statement by Viv Forbes
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.

Any quotes taken directly from this statement may be attributed to Mr Forbes.

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on electricity consumers to boycott Earth Hour grandstanding by pampered people too silly to recognise the realities and benefits of reliable electricity.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, is supporting an alternative proposal that “Earth Hour” be replaced by “Energy Roulette Week”.

Quote:

The Earth Hour people turn off a few lights on a balmy night for a romantic hour in candle-light (incidentally generating twice as much CO2 as light bulbs for the same amount of light.) This is unrealistic green tokenism.
(more…)

Does an increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere increase global temperature or not?

Most climate commentators immediately parrot the conventional wisdom of the climate alarmists – “The atmosphere is a blanket retaining the heat from the sun. Increased carbon dioxide thickens the blanket and will cause dangerous warming, leading to a tipping point where runaway heating becomes irreversible.”

However an experiment conducted in 1909 shows this conclusion to be wrong – the atmosphere acts more like a radiator, quickly removing heat from land and water surfaces, transporting it aloft and radiating much of it back to space. The atmosphere is a great temperature moderator – it stops daytime temperatures from rising too high, and keeps night-time temperatures from falling as low as they would otherwise. The net result, averaged over the whole world, is not known, but the daytime shading probably has a greater effect on surface temperatures than the night-time insulation.

For much more real science from one of the few authors who writes clearly, see this paper:

Klause Ermecke, 2010 – “Rescue from the Climate Saviours – Is there any Danger from “World Climate?” KE Research.

Read the full paper:
http://www.ke-research.de/downloads/ClimateSaviors.pdf [PDF, 1MB]

Australia’s $180,000 part-time Climate Commissioner, Tim Flannery.
Cartoons by Josh

State and Federal Governments should stop wasting community resources on useless schemes for carbon trading and carbon sequestration and focus on some real world pollution crises.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the government and media focus on carbon dioxide emissions was totally misdirected and counter-productive.

“All it will do is delay the spread of coal powered electricity to many areas now desperate for clean invisible power. It will also give an enormous boost to the demand for uranium fuel, whose mining and use is deterred by politicians in Australia.

“There is already a groundswell of opposition from well informed scientists and engineers to the whole basis of the Greenhouse Religion. Even the PM’s own backbench contains well informed sceptics, and the ranks of scientific sceptics are growing all over the world.

“This irrational and hysterical focus on carbon dioxide is diverting attention and resources from real pollution which is altering local climate and affecting many areas of the world.

“For example, the “Asian Brown Cloud”, a haze of pollution about 3 km thick and sometimes covering an area as big as Australia, is causing real human health and safety problems. At times this cloud drifts right across the Pacific Ocean and is noticed in America.

“China now emits more sulphur dioxide (SO2) than anywhere else in the world. This chokes their people, causes acid rain and damages buildings. This brown haze is already affecting local climate and melting glaciers in China and the Himalayas. In Arctic areas, soot is covering snow and absorbing more heat from the sun. Soon the brown haze will obscure the sun in some polluted Asian cities.

“This pollution is caused by millions of cow-dung cooking fires and open-air cremations in India, cooking with wood, coal and cardboard all over Asia, forest fires in Indonesia and millions of small obsolete and dirty wood, charcoal and coal stoves and furnaces all over Asia and Africa. Similar problems are obvious in places in South America.

“The western world went through this pollution phase fifty years ago, and although improvements can still be made, we have banished the notorious smoke pollution of places like London, Manchester and Pittsburgh.

“London smoke pollution was so bad that the city became known as “The Big Smoke”. Children developed rickets from the lack of sunshine, plants and animals died and lung disease was widespread. During its last and worst ever pollution event, “The Black Fog” of 1952, caused by a temperature inversion over London, visibility was reduced to less than a foot and 4,000 Londoners died from SO2 poisoning (50 in one small London park alone). This shock brought action – cooking and heating with open fires of wood and coal was banned in big cities. Clean electric power saved the forests and cleared the air.

“The world’s worst pollution is caused by open air combustion of wood, dung and coal which produces not only the harmless greenhouse gases of water vapour and carbon dioxide, but also real pollutants such as soot, smoke, ash, dust and chemicals containing sulphur, chlorine, nitrogen, fluorine, and metals. In dilute quantities, these trace elements are not a problem, but when concentrated in city air, they can be toxic.

“Ignoring this real monster threatening human health and the environment, the media and politicians are chasing the CO2 mirage.

“Carbon dioxide puts the bubbles in your beer, the fizz in your soda water, the holes in your bread, the dry ice in your Esky and the gas in your fire extinguisher. It is colourless, odourless, and non-toxic and does not form polluting smog or acid rain. It encourages the growth of all plant life on land and in the oceans. The whole plant world breathes in CO2 during the growing season and releases much of it again when the leaves fall. It is the key recycler of organic matter for the whole food chain, including the human race.

“Man’s emissions of CO2 are a miniscule factor in determining Earth’s temperature. But while are we are wasting time and money trying to catch and imprison this harmless Will o’ the Wisp, an ominous brown smelly choking cloud of real pollution is growing in our northern skies.

“Removing most of the pollutants from combustion emissions is difficult but not impossible. Removing or burying all carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of carbon fuels is an impossible dream. “Zero emissions” and “carbon sequestration” for key carbon fuels like coal, oil, gas and wood are nonsense goals, and their pursuit is diverting attention and truck loads of money from a worthy goal such as “Zero Pollution”.

“The western world has largely beaten its pollution with inventions such as the chimney, the stove, but most of all by a clean, silent, invisible energy called electricity, generated in clean, concentrated and remote power stations while delivering lighting, heating, cooling, cooking and motive power into the most humble home in the poorest suburb.

“To fly over a clean modern coal-fired power station at say 10,000 m is to put it into perspective – a puny cooling tower or two emitting wisps of water vapour and a small amount of (invisible) carbon dioxide and which is dwarfed by any passing cloud, no matter how small.

“This third world problem presents a real opportunity for Australian energy companies to make profits and clean up the environment by promoting clean non-polluting modern power stations burning high quality Australian coals. This will allow cow dung to be used for soil improvement and allow re-afforestation of areas denuded by centuries of scavenging for fire wood.

“Invisible energy from coal has already banished most of the terrible pollution that affected cities such as London, Manchester and Pittsburgh, and allowed the regrowth of American forests.

“The public has been misled on this issue by an unholy alliance of environmental scaremongers, funds-seeking academics, sensation-seeking media, vote-seeking politicians and profit-seeking vested interests.

“Anyone with the real interests of ordinary Australians, Australian industry or the environment at heart would divert public attention and political action from the non-problem of carbon emissions and towards the world’s real pollution problems.

“History shows that people cannot and will not live without energy in their homes. Unless we allow coal to supply clean silent invisible energy, they will continue to burn dung, wood, cardboard, trees, oil, charcoal or reject coal to get their warmth or cook their food.

“Just one well designed, well-scrubbed, modern Australian designed coal power plant running on natural fossil sunshine from the Sunshine State could provide the light, heating, cooling and entertainment silently and invisibly to the front door for about 3 million Asian homes, housing maybe 10 million people.”

Mr Forbes called on government and opposition to cease political grandstanding on the Greenhouse issue, where carbon taxes and carbon emissions trading will adversely affect most Australians, and focus on goals that will really benefit all of Australia and the environment.

“Do we wait for the re-appearance of rickets and lung disease before acting?”

[First released in August 2007]

James Lovelock has written a letter of objection regarding a wind-farm development in Devon. The final paragraph of his letter reads:

“I am an environmentalist and founder member of the Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied. We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation.”

Source: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/1/25/lovelock-recants.html

By Don Aitkin

“I object to having to pay more for electricity that is produced inefficiently and erratically because some people are worried about the end of the world. In the 1980s, solar energy looked a possible way in the future of protecting our small and diminishing reserves of oil – because even then there were experts telling us that ‘Peak Oil’ had already arrived. It would never have occurred to me that we would be considering it as a source of baseline power. How would we store overnight the energy gained during the day? No one had the answer then, and no one has produced an efficient working model of the answer today. For isolated settlements and properties? Yes. For the grid? No.”

From: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14447