The first climate scare was man-made “global warming”.

But the warming refused to appear as fast as the models predicted, so it became “climate change”.

But people were not stupid and soon were saying “but climate always changes”.

So now the climate scare industry is focussing on “extreme weather events”, and naturally they still claim these are caused by man-made carbon dioxide.

Timed beautifully for the meeting of the climatists in Durban, the UN IPCC has outdone themselves in forecasting extreme weather events – “weather on steroids”. Determined to scare up a consensus in Durban, this weather scare is sprinkled with warnings of “diluvian rains”, and droughts, cyclones, heat-waves of such magnitude or frequency that “settlement in some areas could be wiped out” and “some areas will become increasingly marginal as places to live” and “it is possible that many residents will have to relocate.”

Source (With thanks to CCNet):
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/un-scientists-forecast-more-severe-droughts-cyclones-and-floods-
20111113-1ndu0.html

Maybe they should be reminded that extreme weather events have been occurring as far back as earth history has been recorded. Here is a listing of “extreme events” over 1900 years, prepared by James Marusek:

Check them out here: http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Weather.pdf

Here is another list of droughts, fires, floods and disappearing or growing ice. It starts with a record of sea floods that drowned 100,000 people in Holland in 1481.

See: http://www.c3headlines.com/bad-stuff-happens.html

Maybe “extreme weather events” are “normal” here on earth and man has very little to do with most of them. Someone needs to tell the pampered pontificators of the IPCC: “Bad Stuff Happens – get used to it, make appropriate preparations – you are not going to stop it.”

More:

• A comment on extreme weather from the Soviet era
• Back to the Dark Ages
• The March of the Triffids
• Exposing the Global Warming Lies
• Wind Energy Ghosts
• The Scientific Scandal of our Generation
• How to Get Expelled from School
• The Turd in the Swimming Pool
• Feedback from a Supporter
• The Road Ahead

See: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/bad-stuff-happens.pdf [PDF, 76 KB]

Reproduced with thanks from Andy Semple at www.andysrant.com

From: Sir Donald Miller. F Eng. FRSE.
Chairman, Scottish Power 1982-92.

Letter to Alec Salmond
09 March 2011

The Right Hon Alec Salmond
First Minister
Scottish Government

Dear Sir

It is I believe becoming clear to a rapidly increasing number of voters in Scotland that the Scottish Government’s concentration on so called renewable energy sources to the exclusion of more reliable and economic sources , such as nuclear , is little short of disastrous. Let us look at the facts:-

1. No wind or marine energy sources can be relied on to provide power when it is needed- the only time when electricity is of any value.

2. Wind and marine need nearly 100% back up from conventional generators. Therefore any expenditure on these is additional to ‘normal’ capital required to secure our electricity supplies.

3. Output from wind turbines varies rapidly, not just locally but nationally, so that conventional back up generation is required to run inefficiently at part load, incurring further costs for the consumer.

4. Wind and wave are such extremely low density sources of energy that costs will always be high and no amount of development will alter this significantly.

5. The cost of onshore wind to the consumer is some £200/MWhr taking into account the ROC subsidy, back up generation and additional transmission costs. This is over four times the cost of energy from conventional or nuclear sources. The cost of off-shore wind is even higher at over £250/MWhr.

6. The claim that Scotland has vast resources of marine energy is based on a failure to appreciate the physics. The actual potential is readily assessed by normal engineering criteria (as in studies by Consulting Engineers Black and Veatch for The Carbon Trust and Robert Gordons University). These show that the total tidal current resource of UK waters from the Pentland Firth to the Channel Isles, neglecting costs and practical limitations such as interference with shipping and fishing and impossibility of servicing such a plethora of installations, would amount to no more than 2.5% to 5% of UK electricity requirements.

7. The costs of tidal energy to the consumer will be significantly higher than offshore wind, even after taking credit for possible developments. Wave energy will be even more costly.

8. Other low carbon technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage are unproven on the scale envisaged, requiring long term sequestration of some 200millions tons of CO2 per year from the UK alone. Taken together with the 25% loss in efficiency of generation, energy costs would more than double.

9. Ofgem has estimated that the UK Government’s energy policy will result in a doubling of electricity prices to consumers within 15 years. The much higher renewable targets of the Scottish Government would, on a stand alone basis, result in even higher prices.

10. The CEO of National Grid in a lecture to the Royal Academy of Engineering in March 2011 stated that the effect of present energy policies would be that the era of having electricity on demand in the UK was coming to an end. The UK Government estimates there is a high risk of power cuts within five years.

11. High energy prices based on subsidies are certain to have an extremely damaging effect on the Scottish Economy as recently quantified in the Verso Economics Report using the Scottish Governments’ own economic model for the Scottish economy. The loss of jobs will far outweigh the few gains, most of which will be of low to medium quality, from renewable installations.

12. Already there has been very significant damage to Scotland’s environment- the massive installation at Doune dominating the route North from Glasgow is a case in point- with consequent loss to one of its greatest assets, the tourist industry. The value of tourism to the Scottish economy is put at £4.2bn a year, far in excess of the value of all the energy produced from wind farms even with the Scottish 80% target for renewables.

13. Prior to privatisation Scotland, with six commercial reactors, produced over 60% of its electricity from nuclear and had a thriving and profitable export trade to England. As a result Scotland benefited from having one of the lowest electricity prices in Europe and this after proper allowances for all the costs involved including waste disposal and decommissioning. Unlike the present energy regime there was no element of subsidy. As distinct from other low carbon generation, nuclear is a tried and tested technology of which we have had excellent experience now for over 50 years. Supplies of nuclear fuel are secure and the cost of energy to consumers from a new generation of reactors would be less than a quarter of that from wind and marine sources.

14. The well being of a modern economy is based on a reliable and economic supply of electricity and will be even more so in future as transport becomes increasingly electrified. If one wanted to go down in history as the politician who did most to damage Scotland’s economy it would be difficult to think of a more effective route than the present energy policy.

15. It is not too late to have a rational and balanced energy policy- but it soon will be. We have only a small window of opportunity- let us grasp it before it is too late.

Sir Donald Miller. F Eng. FRSE.
Chairman, Scottish Power 1982-92.

The passage of the carbon tax bills today is no reason for celebration. It is a step back towards the dark ages.

Just a few generations ago, humans lived in a “green” world. There was no coal, oil or gas providing light, heat, transport and traction power.

In this green utopia, wood provided heat for cooking fires and forests were felled for charcoal for primitive metallurgy; farmers used wooden ploughs and harvested grain with sickles and flails; the nights were lit using candles and whale oil; rich people used wind and water power to grind cereals; horses and bullocks moved coaches, wagons and troops; there was no refrigeration and salt was the only preservative for meat.

Towns were tiny as the whole family was needed to work the farm. For most people, the daylight hours were filled with heavy labour to produce, preserve and transport food. There was no surplus to support opera, bureaucracy or academia.

Humanity was relieved from this life of unrelenting toil by carbon energy – steam engines and electricity, machines, tractors, cars, ships and planes.

Today the pagan green religion celebrates the first step in their long campaign to destroy industrial society and reduce population.

They should be careful what they wish for.

For example, just a few more bitter winters in Britain will see their wind powered lights going out.

A British observer once said of the Whitlam government: “Any fool can bugger up Britain, but it takes real genius to bugger up Australia”.

The Gillard-Green Government is showing the sort of genius needed to dim the lights in the lucky country.

More:

• UN IPCC – Serious Science or Green Activism?
• Repeal the Carbon Tax? Yes We Can.
• The New Global Warming Crisis
• Green Insanity in Britain
• Green Agenda Unravels

See: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/back-to-the-dark-ages.pdf [PDF, 148 KB]

The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that a sudden bout of natural global warming was dwarfing all the scare forecasts of man-made warming.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that this recent warming was swift and dramatic but no one in the climate change department has even noticed this looming warming crisis.

“Since July, temperatures in Australia have soared by over six degrees centigrade. If current trends continue, we can expect another three degrees of warming by Christmas.

“This rapid warming has caused massive environmental disruption – alpine snow has melted, birds are migrating, there is an epidemic of weeds and we can expect more storms, cyclones, floods, mosquitoes and solar radiation burns.

“This is far more serious than the UN’s forecast of a piddling 1-2 degrees of warming over the next hundred years or so.

“What caused this dangerous new global warming?

“The old people called it ‘summer’ and they knew it was caused by the sun.

“Summer heat is generated by a slight increase in the solar radiation received at the surface, caused by cyclic changes in the positions of the sun in the sky. It is obvious that longer term solar cycles also dominate the climate. Even The Farmer’s Almanac knew that cycles in moon, planets and sunspots could be used to forecast the weather.

“However, since people started to let computers do their thinking, knowledge of climate cycles has been lost. We now let computer nerds and taxaholics tell us that the climate is controlled by minute traces of a harmless invisible natural gas exhaled with every breath, generated in every bushfire and exhausted wherever coal, oil and gas are burned. Some even believe that a tax on carbon dioxide will cool the world.

“It’s time we abandoned climate Cassandras with costly computers. There was more sense in The Farmer’s Almanac.

“And a tax on sunlight to reduce global warming makes as much sense as the Carbon Tax.”

The carbon policies of the Australian government will destroy regional industry.

Most regional industry relies on adding value to the products of primary industries – smelters, refineries, processing plants, cement plants, sawmills, flour mills, abattoirs and rail and port infrastructure. These facilities require cheap reliable electricity, which will never be supplied by green energy toys.

Recently Xstrata announced plans to cease smelting and refining copper in Queensland. Then Blue Scope Steel decided to reduce production and shed workers. Now Rio has signalled the sale of its aluminium processing empire. Next we can expect that a large coal fired electricity generator will be unable to repay its debts. Cement plants will be squeezed and rail and port costs will increase.

All of these projects are denigrated in their own country because they have one thing in common – they rely heavily on carbon fuels such as coal and gas and thus are all threatened by the toxic carbon tax. None of these activities will cease because of our carbon tax. They will either pay foreign spivs for “carbon credits” or the business will transfer to other countries who will welcome our trashed industries.

Not one of these operations will survive if forced to use costly and unreliable wind or solar power.

The 74 green lemmings in Parliament have given us “certainty” – the certainty of capital flight and job losses.

Are we prepared for the new green future where jobless Australians survive from backyard vegie gardens, poaching kangaroos and wild pigs from carbon credit forests and cooking with biomass on a wood stove? Of course we will enjoy pirate movies downloaded at the speed of light using the NBN (as long as the sun is shining or the wind blows).

More:

• The Carbon Dioxide Tax Game
• Speaking of elections, Ontario Wind Turbines Slice Liberal Politicians
• Carbon Dioxide and the Politics of the Carbon Tax
• Julia Gillard explains carbon dioxide to students
• Reduce Australian CO2 emissions and provide low cost power by… building new coal plants!

See http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/reaping-green-dividends.pdf [PDF, 213 KB]

Britain scrambles to avoid future blackouts

Source: http://dailybayonet.com/?p=9131

Chris Huhne, the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change gambled the future of Britain’s energy generation on a massive expansion of giant bird shredders:

February 2007 [before Huhne was in government]:

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: “The doubling of our electricity generation from wind in a little more than a year shows what renewables can do and gives the lie to the need for a new generation of nuclear power. “However, the incentives for wind need to be maintained while the Government is still far short of doing what is necessary to encourage tidal and wave power. “On a windy island surrounded by waves and tides, we should never be short of environmentally-friendly energy sources.”

June 2010:

Huhne expressed his excitement over the findings of a recent report into the value of Britain’s offshore resources. He is quoted saying: “It is right to point out, as that report did, that in due course we may once again be a net energy exporter, as we were during the peak of oil and gas in the North Sea, and that’s a very exciting prospect.”

July 2010:

The Energy Secretary said enabling Britain to be totally self-sufficient thanks to renewable sources – which also included wave power and harnessing tidal streams – would be an extraordinary prize.

September 2010:

I’m pleased that we’ve reached the point where 5GW of our energy comes from onshore and offshore wind – that’s enough electricity to power all the homes in Scotland.

Cartoon by Josh

But wind power is a mirage.

If the promise of wind was real, the UK wouldn’t need to spend £5 billion on new undersea cables linking it to more reliable power from European nations like nuclear-powered France:

The Government plans to spend more than £5billion laying 11 undersea power cables to allow Britain to import electricity from neighbouring countries and prevent blackouts in the next decade. The giant cables would provide up to 10GW of electricity, enough to power 2.4 million homes a year. Ministers are said to be alarmed at Britain’s likely energy shortfall, made worse by the fact the country has less capacity to import power than any other in Europe.

Chris Huhne scattered the land and oceans with anti-avian monuments to stupidity, and all he has to show for it is millions of dead birds and people who can’t afford electricity. Turns out the green dream is more of a nightmare for Britons.

Two years ago, in June 2009, supported by a few other maverick climate alarm sceptics and even fewer in the non-government media, the Carbon Sense Coalition opposed the Rudd-Wong-Turnbull Ration and Tax Scheme. The public support of the sceptics was dramatically contrasted with the lack of support from big business. The people and the sceptics won, and the Rudd-Wong-Turnbull
RATS scheme was beaten.

For a reminder of this battle see: http://carbon-sense.com/2009/06/20/reject-the-cap-n-tax/

But the Carbon War is far from over. Now we have Brown-Gillard-Combet trying to ram down our throats a new carbon tax followed by a revamped RATS Scheme. We are not helped in this battle by luke warmists such as Greg Hunt. And we face daily alarmism from the whole government media/research empire.

But the sceptics are now far more numerous, the public is far more aroused, and some politicians are getting nervous. They know that we will never forget who votes for the Carbon Tax Bills. We will remember them in the next election.

Read on: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/kill-combet-carbon-tax.pdf [PDF, 23 KB]

“The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization… [p. 249]

“Unloading essentially means the removal of an existing burden: for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground, blowing up dams and switching off the greenhouse gas emissions machine.” [p. 226]

“A Matter Of Scale” by Keith Farnish, environmental writer, philosopher and activist.