By Dr. John Happs

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.

https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement

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.”

https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/government/carbon-neutral/ncos-eligible-offsets

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By Dr. John Happs

Dr. Michael Mann will be in Australia for 6 months during 2020 as Visiting Professor at the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) at the University of New South Wales.

Bing.com: Dr. Michael Mann

This is the same university that awarded an honorary doctorate to the late Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Investigative journalist Donna Laframboise, in her book: Into the Dustbin: Rajendra Pachauri, the Climate Report and the Nobel Peace Prize, described Rajendra Pachauri, the former chairman of the IPCC, as an environmental activist, habitual liar on climate matters and a “non-stop train wreck.” (more…)

By Dr. John Happs

“Searching for truth at the United Nations is like looking for kernels of wheat in a mountain of horse dung.”

Attributed to: “A playground for the vile and dangerous.” By Piers Akerman, Daily Telegraph, September 30, 2009)

https://www.icjs-online.org/indarch.php?article=2073

Perhaps Piers Akerman was a little harsh over his criticism of the United Nations (UN) although there is no doubt that current climate hysteria had its origins within that organisation. (more…)

By Dr. John Happs

If you want to witness cases of scientific illiteracy, selfishness and hypocrisy, look no further than the attitudes, actions and comments from a number of banking personnel. When it comes to uninformed opinions about climate change and the lack of concern about delivering affordable energy to the poor in developing countries, some of them appear to have no equal.

Judge for yourself. (more…)

By Dr. John Happs

The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest body of ice on Earth after the Antarctic ice sheet and to say that Greenland’s ice sheet is big would be an understatement. It is about 2,400 km long, 1,100 km wide and covers an area of around 1,710,000 square km. It has a volume of about 2,850,000 cu. km and ice cores have been taken from a depth of around 4 km.

The public read and hear only about Greenland’s short summer melting events with exaggerated media reports routinely providing alarmist messages. (more…)

What Produces Warmth?

I live in SE Queensland. Yesterday the surface air temperature rose from a frosty 2ºC at sunrise to a balmy 22ºC in mid-afternoon. The enormous heat needed to achieve this 20ºC of warming came via radiation from the sun. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere plays no significant part in this daily heating event – in fact it may intercept a tiny proportion of the incoming solar radiation and re-radiate it in all directions, thus keeping the daytime surface temperature a tiny bit cooler than it would have been otherwise.

At the deep Mount Isa Mine in NW Queensland, the surface temperature may average about 25ºC but it increases by about 1ºC every 50 metres of depth – rock walls are red hot in places. The enormous heat causing this comes via conduction from Earth’s internal geothermal heat plus some oxidation and heating of the sulphide ores as they come in contact with natural air containing oxygen. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere plays no part in this heating.

There are volcanic windows open right now in Hawaii, Japan and the Galapagos revealing the vast resources of volcanic geothermal heat which is always migrating towards the cooler surface, sometimes violently.

Image acknowledgement: www.pixabay.com

Temperatures vary greatly over Earth’s surface, making a mockery of attempts to calculate an “average” for the globe. Air surface temperature may be minus 30ºC at the South Pole, while at the same time it can be plus 30ºC at the Equator. This enormous difference is caused by the varying intensity of solar radiation striking the surface – carbon dioxide in the atmosphere plays no significant part in creating this variance.

Surface air temperatures in big cities can be 5-10ºC hotter than surrounding rural land partly because bitumen roads, roofs, solar panels and runways heat up more than grassy or forested countryside. Mega-cities are also full of heat-producing humans, engines, trains, vehicles, air conditioners, heaters, stoves, fridges, pumps and mowers.
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The Long War on Famine
by Viv Forbes, 8^th June 2018

Famine has haunted humans for most of their history.

In the days of the Pharaohs, whenever the Nile River failed to flood, Egypt starved. Joseph was called in and he organised stockpiling of grain for famine relief.

Even mighty Rome suffered famines – in 436 BC thousands of starving people threw themselves into the Tiber.

The cold Middle Ages in Europe were haunted by famines. In the 11th and 12th century, famines averaged one in 14 years. Even in England there were 22 recorded famines in the 13th century. In 1235, 20,000 people died in London and people ate horse flesh, bark and grass. There were great famines in India, Bengal, France, China and Russia.

Victims of the Great Famine of 1876–78 in India (British Royal Photography Services)

In more recent times, man-made famines were more common in the Comrade Societies – some wit once remarked that “Soviet agriculture has just suffered its 23^rd consecutive year of unseasonal weather”.
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Canberra breeds many white elephants, but now they are breeding a gigantic new breed of pachyderm in Australia’s Snowy Mountains – a Green Elephant. Grandly named “Snowy 2.0 Hydro-Electric”, it has the compulsory green skin, but it is just another big white elephant under a thick layer of green paint.

Snowy 2.0 plans a hugely expensive complex of dams, tunnels, pumps, pipes, generators, roads and powerlines. Water will be pumped up-hill using grid power in times of low demand, and then released when needed to recover some of that energy. To call it “hydro-electric” is a fraud – it will not store one extra litre of water and will be a net consumer of electric power. It is a giant electric storage battery to be recharged using grid power.

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By Dr. John Happs

A “Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change” report was published in 2015, with 46 signatories contributing to a document that claimed:

“To map out the impacts of climate change, and the necessary policy responses, in order to ensure the highest attainable standards of health for populations worldwide.” (more…)

Dr. John Happs

Despite alarmist claims of “catastrophic global warming”, there is no empirical evidence to confirm that or any acceleration in global sea level rise. Notwithstanding this lack of evidence many people, often those with vested interests, still cling to the alarmist beliefs that catastrophic sea level rise is imminent.

If you live on an overpopulated island with high unemployment, limited resources and were already dependent on aid from the outside world, there is one sure-fire strategy for bringing in extra money. This involves ignoring the lack of empirical evidence for any acceleration in global sea level rise or increase in extreme weather whilst taking the following steps: