Last Friday, I attended a conference for a multinational bank in Oman.
It is an annual event to update the region’s clients about the bank’s latest views on local and global conditions and, of course, to tell us about its latest products.
I had thought that “green derivatives” was just myth or bad idea, not something able to be sold. But I was shocked to learn that the volume of trades has reached to one trillion dollars!
It seems we are just creating another speculative industry, which will attract huge funds, the whole thing far removed from basic and essential social investments.
I am not against real green initiatives that reduce the pollution, make use of energy more efficient, offer cleaner/better water or improve the healthy environment that surrounds us. I am against the linkage between those useful things and “climate change”, which just seems to put restrictions and taxes on some industries just to fund something not real.
“Climate Change” is something universal. It will keep changing and is more powerful than any human actions. This is my own personal view.
The joke of the conference was this:
When one of the attendees asked the instructor: “What if the investment is lost, how I can justify that to my manager?”
The answer: “Tell him that your company was supporting the fight against global warming!”
I wonder if that answer would be enough to keep feed me in future, if I will lose my job, or will I blame the weather for my decision!
I wonder how the carbon taxes collected in past and future will be justified to the future generations, when they discover that they were used to fund unnecessary and non-productive expenditures like trading on the Chicago Climate Exchange?
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, William M. Briggs, David R. Legates, Anthony Lupo, Istvan Marko, Dennis Mitchell, & Willie Soon
25 Sep 2016
Some 375 political activists attached to the National Academy of Sciences, supporting the totalitarian view on the climate question, have recently issued an open letter saying we “caused most of the historical increase in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.”
In fact, the extent of our influence on climate is not “settled science.” Only 0.3% of twelve thousand papers published in learned journals claimed that recent warming was mostly manmade. The 375 activists are entitled to their opinion, but the scientific community’s peer-reviewed results overwhelmingly fail to endorse their narrow view that recent warming was predominately manmade.
True, we influence climate, by returning to the air some of the carbon dioxide that was there before. But so do termites, by emitting more methane than all the world’s farm animals combined. So do plants, by taking carbon dioxide; storing the carbon in leaves, stems, and trunks; and returning the oxygen to the air. So does the Sun, by supplying nearly all the Earth’s radiant energy. So do volcanoes, by emitting hot rocks that warm the air and ejecta that shade the Earth from the Sun and cause cooling. So do the oceans, by helping to keep the Earth’s temperature within a few degrees either side of the period mean for more than 800,000 years.
The Australian Climate Commission says Australia needs to reduce emissions “to nearly zero by 2050”.
Such a reduction can only be achieved if the Climate Commission has a secret plan to use nuclear power or for a massive expansion of hydro power.
If they do not have such a plan, their “nearly zero” emissions target would force the shut down of most of the energy, transport and industrial infrastructure developed since James Watt invented the steam engine.
Imagine Australia with “zero emissions” – which means zero production of carbon dioxide from human activities and industries.
This would mean zero usage of coal, oil, petrol, diesel or gas, zero production of cement or steel and the shut-down of 92% of Australia’s electricity generators.
Sunbeams and sea breezes cannot supply 24/7 electricity – the only feasible non-carbon options for Australian grid power are nuclear or hydro. Has the Climate Commission joined the nuclear power lobby? Or do they have a secret plan for big hydro developments on the Snowy, the Franklin and the Tully-Millstream?
And how do we keep our diesel-fuelled transport fleet operating? Using big, big batteries and even more nuclear or hydro power to recharge them at every roadhouse in the outback? (But once they eliminate our grazing animals and their emissions, we will not need road trains.)
And how do we keep planes operating? Are they suggesting that we divert most of our sugar production to producing power alcohol? (more…)
Blowing Away Money: Wind Energy – fables, fallacies and failures
by Mark Lawson
There is some evidence from power grids overseas about the use of wind and alternative power on a large scale and, as far as alternative energy advocates are concerned, none of it is good.
Wind advocates can point to a number of studies saying that 20 per cent penetration of wind energy will increase wholesale electricity costs by 10 per cent. This implies that wind energy is 50 per cent more expensive than conventional, but a closer look shows that the studies are theoretical and don’t say anything about how much carbon would be saved. It is a safe bet that 20 per cent penetration will not result in 20 per cent savings, and some reason for thinking that it might not result in any saving at all.
“Manmade global warming, for many, is an Earth-worshipping religion. The essential feature of any religion is that its pronouncements are to be accepted on the basis of faith as opposed to hard evidence. Questioning those pronouncements makes one a sinner. No one denies that the Earth’s temperature changes. Millions of years ago, much of our planet was covered by ice, at some places up to a mile thick, a period some scientists call “Snowball Earth.” Today, the Earth is not covered by a mile of ice; a safe conclusion is that there must have been a bit of global warming. I don’t know the cause of that warming, but I’d wager everything I own that it was not caused by coal-fired electric generation plants, incandescent light bulbs and SUVs tooling up and down the highways.”
By Dr. Robert Brown,
Physics Dept. Duke University
One of many, many problems with modern climate research is that the researchers seem to take their thermal reconstructions far too seriously and assign completely absurd measures of accuracy and precision, with a very few exceptions. In my opinion it is categorically impossible to “correct” for things like the UHI (Urban Heat Island) effect — it presupposes a knowledge of the uncorrected temperature that one simply cannot have or reliably infer from the data. The problem becomes greater and greater the further back in time one proceeds, with big jumps (in uncertainty) 250, 200, 100 and 40 odd years ago. The proxy-derived record from more than 250 years ago is uncertain in the extreme, with the thermal record of well over 70% of the Earth’s surface completely inaccessible and with an enormously sparse sampling of highly noisy and confounded proxies elsewhere. To claim accuracy greater than 2-3 K is almost certainly sheer piffle, given that we probably don’t know current “true” global average temperatures within 1 K, and 5K is more likely.
Three centuries ago, the world ran on green power. Wood was used for heating and cooking, charcoal for smelting and smithing, wind or water-power for pumps mills and ships, and whale oil or tallow for lamps. People and soldiers walked or rode horses, and millions of horses and oxen pulled ploughs, wagons, coaches and artillery.
But smoke from open fires choked cities, forests were stripped of trees, most of the crops went to feed draft animals, and streets were littered with horse manure. For many people, life was “nasty, brutish and short”.
Then the steam engine was developed, and later the internal combustion engine, electricity and refrigeration came along. Green power was replaced by coal and oil. Carbon energy powered factories, mills, pumps, ships, trains, and smelters; and cars, trucks and tractors replaced the work-horses. The result was a green revolution – forests began to regrow and vast areas of crop-land used for horse feed were released to produce food for humans. Poverty declined and population soared.
But new environmental problems emerged. Smoke pollution from burning cheap dirty coal in millions of open fires, old boilers and smelters produced massive smog problems in cities like London and Pittsburgh.
The solution was improved technology, sensible pollution-control laws and the supply of coal gas and coal-powered electricity to the cities. The air was cleared by “Clean Coal by Wire” at the flick of a switch and “Piped Coal Energy” at the click of a gas-lighter. In some places use of hydro, geothermal and nuclear power also helped.
In recent years, however, affluent urban alarmists have declared war on the carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and gas. They claim it is a pollutant and it causes dangerous global warming. (more…)
Dr. Don J. Easterbrook,
Western Washington University,
Bellingham, WA
May 19, 2014
A New York Times headline reads “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt” and goes on to say:
“A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighbouring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries.”
The story, based on studies of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers in West Antarctica, went ballistic in the news media with dire predictions of the ‘unstoppable’ catastrophe about to unfold.
The authors of the Pine Island paper, Justin Gillis and Kenneth Chang say in their paper: “…we find no major bed obstacle that would prevent the glaciers from further retreat and draw down the entire basin.”
In a second paper, “Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Underway for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica,” the authors (Joughin, Smith, and Medley) also infer that the entire West Antarctic ice sheet will soon disappear, resulting in a sea level rise of up to 10 feet. The governor of California is now suggesting moving LAX and San Francisco airports!
WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW
Since last week’s press releases, thousands of Antarctic photos and text items on the internet have been relabeled, and you can scarcely find any mention of Antarctica now without reference to ‘the unstoppable, collapsing Antarctic ice sheet.’ From all of the media hype, you would think that the West Antarctic ice sheet is presently in the process of collapsing and drastic sea level rise is imminent. THE WEST ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET IS NOT COLLAPSING! The retreat of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers is NOT caused by global warming, and sea level is NOT going to rise 10 feet.
By coincidence I have come across the new “Climate of the Nation” report from the strongly green-leaning Climate Institute on the same day I have been reading the latest Essential Report polling and just after looking at a pre-dawn snapshot of east coast market capacity on a pretty standard winter’s day.
Taking the latter first, at 6.30am today 97.6 per cent of the New South Wales load was being met by black coal generation as the State’s population was getting up and its substantial factory sector was gearing up. If you take NSW, Victoria and Queensland together – they represent 90 per cent of the east coast market – at this point 88.9 per cent of the three-State load was being met by brown and black coal generation with wind power providing 0.4 per cent and solar (naturally as the sun wasn’t yet up) 0.04 per cent.
(Eight hours later, I see, at 2.30pm, black coal generation is still bearing 89.7 per cent of NSW load and coal is accounting for almost 82 per cent of required capacity in the three largest States of the market – with hydro power providing 7.5 per cent and wind/solar 4.3 per cent.)
The question that comes to my mind when I look at data like this is what would be required to replace even half this coal power (let alone all of it) with mostly wind power and solar PVs? What would the total system cost be in a set-up where supply is assured and how would this translate in to retail bills? (more…)
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