Environmentalist Michael Shellenberger was named Time magazine Heroes of the Environment (2008). He wrote an article for Forbes entitled On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare.
The Australian Minister for Promoting Useless Energy thinks that hydrogen fuel, carbon capture and storage, soil carbon and biofuels are priorities for energy policy and greenhouse gas reduction.
If that’s the best our leaders can come up with, Australia should have voted Green last election to speed the inevitable recession and blackouts that will eventually kill this tsunami of energy nonsense.
“Hydrogen” does not supply net energy – burning it can return some of the energy used to produce it from hydrocarbons or electrolysis of water. It is an expensive explosive gas that makes less sense than Snowy 2 – more energy in than out!
Moreover, we have no infrastructure that can safely store, distribute or use hydrogen in our transport fleet, energy network or smelters. Governments should not force energy consumers or tax payers to promote Canberra’s thought bubbles – let the “green hydrogen” entrepreneurs risk their own or shareholders’ money.
“Carbon capture and storage” is another dumb idea. To capture CO2 emissions from coal, gas or biomass power stations consumes a lot of energy to separate, store, pipe and pump it underground (hoping it will stay there). It would be far better leave non-polluting CO2 in the lower atmosphere and surround every power station with crops and forests hungry for the CO2 plant food so essential to their growth.
Trying to extract CO2 from the atmosphere is even dumber because the mighty oceans will quickly release CO2 from their huge stores to restore equilibrium between atmosphere and oceans. Even if it could be done, it is a bad idea – why steal plant food from grass, crops and forests?
“Soil carbon” is green-speak for what every sensible pastoralist tries to do – increase the humus and biological activity in soil. The quickest way to do this is via keyline/contour ripping to retain water in the soil (as shown in Australia by P A Yeoman), and by managed periodic heavy impact of grazing animals to promote pasture growth (as shown in Africa by Alan Savory). But it is total nonsense to turn “carbon farming” into a costly rural rort run by a bureaucracy of soil samplers and modellers who think it will cool the climate.
“Biofuels” are another way to waste energy, food crops and trees to do jobs better done by coal, gas and oil – a crime against humanity and the environment.
If our Minister for Promoting Useless Energy is determined to sequester and store carbon, there is only one sensible way – restore the forestry industry. Harvest mature forest trees for poles, posts, sleepers, paper, cardboard or dance floors. Then replant with new trees. Young trees grow rapidly and extract much CO2. But old trees reach a stage of carbon equilibrium when the CO2 they extract in summer is equal to what they lose as leaves, branches and trunks fall to frosts, droughts, bushfires and termites.
P A Yeomans, 1965: “Water for Every Farm”, K G Murray Publishing.
“The fundamental reason why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is critically important to biology is that there is so little of it. A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all of the carbon dioxide within a metre of the ground in about five minutes.” Freeman Dyson – a prominent scientist specialising in physics, mathematics and astronomy.
Viv Forbes is a geologist, financial analyst, weather watcher and pastoralist with long experience at maintaining the health of pastures and soils. He and his wife have used a Yeoman ripper for about 30 years and have studied and practiced Savory animal management techniques for a similar time. He is Executive Director of the Saltbush Club.
In this PowerPoint presentation, I have tried to answer a question about climate policy that is too rarely asked in Canada. How much does it cost? Only those with a profound ignorance of economics, or a contempt for it, would say that the answer to this question is unimportant. The central economic fact of life is that there are always more things that we want and need than we can afford; when we fail to understand what our choices cost, we indirectly deprive ourselves of things that may be far more important to our overall wellbeing.
Two green-dream fantasies are heading for a massive and costly collision.
Firstly they dream of generating all grid power from wind/solar propped up by battery storage (such as lots of giant Tesla batteries and pumped hydro).
Secondly they dream of replacing all petrol/diesel/gas cars, trucks and buses with electric vehicles, powered by more batteries. (more…)
Channel 7 and Channel 9 news were quick to announce that Perth experienced its highest temperature on record on Saturday, 16th November 2019.
We were told that the temperature reached 40.8oC and a record temperature was claimed. Of course we were not told exactly where that particular temperature was taken and why that “record temperature” was not recorded in neighbouring suburbs.
Interestingly, that“record temperature” of 40.8oC was measured at Perth Airport at 2.00 pm. Also at 2.00 pm, the temperature in Perth City was 38.6oC. Still hot, but 2.2oC lower than Perth Airport.
So what about the temperature in suburbs further west of the airport? Hillarys for instance recorded 24.30oC at 2.00pm on the same day – a whopping 16.5oC lower than the airport “record temperature.”
Late on Tuesday, Nov. 12, high tides from the surrounding lagoon surged onto the more than 100 islands that make up Venice, flooding 85% of the city and damaging artwork and many historic sites. The mayor blamed climate change for the flood. Jim Steele wrote an excellent article about the event and climate change. The Great Flood of 1966 was the worst on record. Since then, Venice has been working on the long-delayed MOSE project which was supposed to prevent flooding. High inflows to the Venice Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea are driven by the strength of the Sirocco and Bora winds that cause local sea level to surge. There has been no trend in the winds. Steele wrote “Dwarfing the 1.4 millimeters per year of estimated sea level rise, from 1930 to 1970 Venice sank at the rate of 2.3 millimeters per year, largely due to ground water extraction. After addressing that problem, the rate of sinking slowed, but Venice continues to sink at a rate of 1 millimeter per year.” The 1996 flood happened during a low tide and the 2019 flood during a high tide.
By Sanjeev Sabhlok Senior leader and overseas coordinator of India’s Swarna Bharat Party
The Modi government has been shovelling scarce taxpayer resources into solar energy, with a further $6.5 billion promised till 2022. This is over and above indirect subsidies that people pay through higher electricity bills because of renewable energy certificates. And while Donald Trump did the right thing by walking out of the Paris Agreement, Mr Modi unthinkingly remains committed to it and Niti Ayog has been touting subsidised electric vehicles.
Our party disagrees with this approach. First, because we oppose subsidies for any industry. But second, because we believe there is a strong case to impose Pigovian taxes on solar energy given the economic and environmental harm it causes.
Solar energy can do a few useful things. It can power a radio in an off-grid location. But it can’t support our day-to-day life.
The 1997 climate treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol allows wealthy countries to count carbon storage in forests towards their targets for limiting greenhouse-gas emissions.
We often hear about various environmental groups that are intent on planting as many trees as possible, supposedly to offset anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The Australian Government has described carbon offsetting as:
“An activity, process, organisation, event, building or precinct is carbon neutral when its net greenhouse gas emissions (emissions) are equal to zero. To become carbon neutral, entities must calculate their emissions, reduce these emissions as much as possible, and then purchase and cancel carbon offsets or carbon credits equivalent to the remaining emissions. This process results in emissions being offset and leads to net zero emissions or being carbon neutral.”
Speaking about the July 25 conference held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Lasee explained, “ICCC13 demonstrated that the Climate Delusion is not based on sound science or economics. It is wasting trillions of dollars and threatening our way of life, while propping up the drive for world socialism.”
This was a common theme throughout ICCC13. The Climate Delusion, relying on bad science and misguided economics, is damaging America and threatening the world.
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