Lights Out

For yonks they waged a war on coal
And painted miners black;
They threw explorers on the dole
And shut the gates outback.

The land was closed to oil and gas
And nukes were always banned;
While wind and sun got all the brass
And uglified the land.

Poles and turbines all in ranks
Sprouted on the hills;
The carbon credits pleased the banks
And households got the bills.

Then all the factories fled offshore
As puny power flickered;
More jobs were lost for evermore
As politicians dickered.

Then one still night the lights went out
And blackouts stalked the land;
The pollies quickly turned about
And Greens were spurned and banned.

To view or print the whole newsletter plus images click:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lights-out.pdf

Daring to Doubt by Tony Abbott:

Climate change is by no means the sole or even the most significant
symptom of the changing interests and values of the West. Still, only
societies with high levels of cultural amnesia could have made such a religion
out of it. Beware the pronouncement, “the science is settled”. It’s the spirit of
the Inquisition, the thought-police down the ages. Almost as bad is the claim
that “99 per cent of scientists believe” as if scientific truth is determined by
votes rather than facts.

– Tony Abbott, 2017 Annual GWPF Lecture, London 9 October 2017

https://www.thegwpf.org/tony-abbott-daring-to-doubt
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/10/dangerous-abbott-unleashed-speaks-the-truth-critics-froth-and-flounder/

Escaping the Renewable Energy Trap
by Alan Moran:
https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/09/escaping-the-renewable-energy-subsidy-trap/

The Paris Agreement
by President Donald Trump
What he really said.
https://www.thegwpf.com/reminder-what-president-trump-really-said-about-the-paris-agreement/

Serious Defects in Australia’s Energy Policies
A group of retired senior engineers challenge Australia’s bi-partisan energy
foolishness. See:
https://carbon-sense.com/2017/10/13/open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-of-australia/

Personal
Thanks to all of those who sent well-wishes on our moving adventure and downsizing of our lives. Some even sent contributions to the depleted Carbon Sense cause.
We are making progress on the shift. As an experienced shifter predicted, we have reached the “where did we put that” stage.
Next we will be saying – “why did we keep that stuff”.
But our office is now working and more Carbon Sense will flow again. Thanks for your support.

Viv Forbes

To view or print the whole newsletter plus images click:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/lights-out.pdf

by Viv Forbes

Carbon dioxide must be an almighty gas – it gets blamed for almost every human disaster.

Now we have the alarmist Climate Council blaming bushfires on carbon dioxide and global warming. Focussing on the wrong problem is doing more harm than good. It is disappointing to see respected firefighters like Greg Mullins now blaming “climate change” for more and worse bushfires, and now even promoting the misguided Climate Council.

We have heat waves, dry spells and bushfires in Australia every year – bushfires were burning all up the coast when Captain Cook sailed by in 1770. But today we know what causes dangerous fires. It needs deliberate political mismanagement to create disastrous wild-fires which destroy everything – houses, sheds, fences, wildlife and mature trees.

A good wet season can result in nature building up a dangerously large fuel load. In the past this was usually removed safely by many small fires lit by lightning strikes, aboriginals, graziers or foresters. Today massive fuels loads are too often allowed to accumulate for more than one season in forests, reserves, parks and around suburbs. Then one match or spark on a windy day can produce massive fires.

Image acknowledgement: www.pixabay.com

Today’s stupid green policies that discourage and prohibit burning-off, encourage the accumulation of bushfire fuel and exclude grazing animals from large areas of parks and reserves are making uncontrollable wildfires more common. (more…)

by Viv Forbes

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…)

Key IPCC quotes

The fifth and latest IPCC assessment report, published in 2013, showed that climate models failed to predict the absence of warming from 1998 and 2012, and that climate scientists have no clear idea of why they failed. (NB. I have added the bolding in the following extracts.)

1. “… the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade) … is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade).” [WG I SPM, page 5, section B.1, bullet point 3, and in full Synthesis Report on page SYR-6]
2. “… an analysis of the full suite of CMIP5 historical simulations (…) reveals that 111 out of 114 realisations show a GMST trend over 1998–2012 that is higher than the entire HadCRUT4 trend ensemble ….” [WGI contribution, chapter 9, text box 9.2, page 769, and in full Synthesis Report on page SYR-8]
3. “There may also be a contribution from forcing inadequacies and, in some models, an overestimate of the response to increasing greenhouse gas and other anthropogenic forcing (dominated by the effects of aerosols).” [WG I SPM, section D.1, page 15, bullet point 2, and full Synthesis Report on page SYR-8]
4. “This difference between simulated [i.e. model output] and observed trends could be caused by some combination of (a) internal climate variability, (b) missing or incorrect radiative forcing and (c) model response error“. [WGI contribution, chapter 9, text box 9.2, page 769]

IN MY SIMPLER WORDS …

1 – According to statistical practices the trend in temperature from 1998 to 2012 (the 15 years prior to the report being drafted) falls somewhere between slight warming and slight cooling. In other words there is no certainty that any warming occurred.

2 – Despite claims of the accuracy of climate models most of the model runs (97%) wrongly predicted warming from 1998 to 2012.

3 – The IPCC is admitting that “some models” – we are not told how many, so maybe it’s almost all – exaggerate the influence of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

4 – The models could be wrong for a number of very basic and general reasons; the IPCC really doesn’t know why the models failed.

John McLean, Leading IPCC reviewer.

What follows is an expanded version of a complaint sent to the ACCC. (The ACCC complaint form limits the amount of text than can be entered.)

I wish to complain about the Australian Government “Climate Change” advertisement currently showing on Australian TV (August, 2008). The text of the advertisement is as follows:
(more…)

This paper provides a factual and objective view of the reality of the effects of some of the world’s greatest oil spills. It particularly deals with the geography of the region in which the spill occurred, the climatic effects on the spill, the probable volume oil spilled, the cleanup actions that followed and the long-term environmental effects.

As an introduction, Part 1 of the paper deals with some of the commonly held beliefs that the world is about to run out of fossil fuels, that oil spills and leaks are universally ‘environmental catastrophes’ and challenges the long term view that the effects are persistent and adverse to the environment. The seemingly endless alarmism that follows each spill is highlighted and the reader is asked to read the remainder of the paper with an open mind, comparing the predictions of doom with the evidence revealed by the reality of hindsight.

It is concluded that the effects of the relatively few spills that have occurred have been exceptionally exaggerated for political purposes by both politicians and environmental activists. Both these alarmist cliques loudly report claims in every case that go far beyond the actual effect of the spill itself. Some of the unfortunate claims by scientists are also exposed as political activism unrelated to scientific method.

Finally the paper provides a ‘prophesy’ (based on the history of previous spills) as to the long-term results and effects of the recent BP Macondo Well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that commenced on 20th April 2010 and was capped on 29th July 2010, 100 days later.

The author writes under a pseudonym to protect his privacy. However any comments or corrections will be passed onto him. He has experience and contacts in this field and is skilled at extracting and documenting facts.

The report is presented in six parts, with subsequent parts appearing over time:

Part 1: A Summary of Oil Chemistry and the Environmental Effects of Oil.
Available as PDF, 73KB: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oil-spills-1.pdf

Part 2: The World’s Largest Oil Spill – The Gulf War, Kuwait, 1991. The spill, the prophets of doom and the reality that unfolded.
Available as PDF, 596KB: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oil-spills-2.pdf

Part 3: The Exxon Valdez Spill, Alaska. A small spill with huge publicity and extensive cleanup activity, much of which probably made things worse.
Available as PDF, 561KB: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oil-spills-3.pdf

Part 4: The Ixtoc I Well Blowout, Gulf of Mexico, 1979. Despite forecasts of disaster for the environment, within five years the effects of this huge spill were undetectable. In fact the fisheries recovered quickly because they were relieved of fishing pressure, and locals swapped low paying fishing jobs for high paying cleanup or oil industry jobs. As in all spills, the biggest loser was the well owner.
Available as PDF, 88KB: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oil-spills-4.pdf

Part 5: The BP Macondo Well Blowout, Gulf of Mexico, 2010. This may be the second largest man made oil spill in history, and at times the slick covered 6,500 sq km. However about 74% of the oil lost evaporated, dissolved, bio-degraded, or was burned, skimmed or captured. Just 5 days after the leak was plugged, the US government agreed that the oil was no longer a problem. Once more the damage was forecast to be catastrophic, once more it was not. The Gulf of Mexico copes with natural leaks of this size every year. The real costs were political and losses by BP shareholders.

Available as PDF, 133KB: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oil-spills-5.pdf

Part 6: Conclusions & Comments. In 2009, President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rohm Emanuel said: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste… it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” The recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a marvellous crisis used by the Obama administration and extreme environmentalists to weaken Big Oil, demonise carbon fuels, and drive the so-called “clean fuel” agenda. Foreign oil producers and the green energy promoters are the beneficiaries. Innocent local businesses and BP were the victims, both of the oil spill but more so of the government actions designed to benefit from the crisis.

Available as PDF, 1200KB: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oil-spills-6.pdf

Note: This 6 part article can be printed from the 6 PDFs and then bound into one indexed report.

UPDATE 9 April 2013:

Those who wish to check the accuracy of the forecasts in these articles should check this reference:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22075182

Oil is a natural product and the oceans have been coping with it for millennia.

Author’s Profile

The author retired from the Australian Army as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1986. He served in various postings in Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews, short stories and the occasional article to several journals. He works internationally as a self-employed project manager and project management trainer and consultant.

He has worked part-time for 9 years in the oil and gas industries in the Middle East (Dubai, Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi) and in North and Central America, and has made it his business to question the experts. Everything he quotes is on the web (except where it is stated as an opinion.)

By Viv Forbes

By the time solar energy reaches Earth’s surface it is spread very thin – even midday sunshine will not boil the billy or make toast. And solar collectors will only convert about 20% of that weak energy into electricity. Thus thousands of solar panels are needed to collect significant energy, and lots more to charge the expensive batteries needed to maintain electricity supply overnight and during cloudy weather. Despite these disadvantages, force-feeding of “green” energy by all levels of government has given Australia nearly three million solar collectors (mainly imported from China).

It requires scads of land to generate significant electricity from the sun’s weak rays. But even in sunny weather they produce nothing for 16 hours every day. And a sprinkling of dust, pollen, ash or salt, or a few splatters of poop from birds or flying foxes can reduce output by 50%, while night, snow or heavy cloud cover snuffs them out completely. (more…)

By Viv Forbes

Leaders of the Clintel Group of world scientists and professionals will attend the UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) which starts in Madrid today (2 December) and runs for twelve long days. (The Climate Summit was shifted suddenly to Spain after Chile cancelled because of violent riots in Santiago.)

Clintel will present their “No Climate Emergency” petition at the Climate Reality Forum. This petition has already been presented to the UN Secretary General, the European Commission and the European Parliament. (more…)

The World Economic Forum in 2015 had a prophetic vision that unless the world mends its wicked ways “global warming will become catastrophic and irreversible”.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/15-quotes-on-climate-change-by-world-leaders /

In July 2016 the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, claimed that global warming was as dangerous to the world as Islamic terrorism.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/23/john-kerry-climate-change-big-threat-islamic-state/

At the recent G20 summit in China, the world leader of the Global Warming Religion, Ban Ki-moon, canonised two new ministers – Father Obama (who seeks political sainthood in his after-life), and Father Xi Jinping (who seeks to crucify western industry on the climate cross). Both signed the Paris Pledge.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=54841#.V9Jowfl97IU

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/03/breakthrough-us-china-agree-ratify-paris-climate-change- deal

(more…)

The Australian electricity market has become a stinking swamp covered with a tangled net of treaties, laws, rules, obligations, prohibitions, targets, taxes and subsidies. The swamp conceals the rubble of demolished coal generators; another plant destined for destruction (Liddell) is gradually sinking into the green ooze.

The swamp is slowly claiming paddocks of subsidised solar panels that, at best, only work for six hours per sunny day. The scene is uglified by spec-built regiments of ailing wind turbines that are often idle, but sometimes whirling madly. To distract the gullible media from this mess, big diesel generators charge a gigantic battery which pumps water uphill and then lets it run down again. A garbage dump of dead lithium batteries fills a nearby gully and the swamp is fenced by locked green gates.

The stagnant water is stirred on sunny days by luxury launches carrying academics-with-models, green media evangelists, climate alarmists, emissions inspectors and power regulators. Speculative sharks constantly patrol the swamp snapping up every smelly subsidy morsel scattered by politicians in posh yachts fishing for votes.

(more…)