This is a collection of news story excerpts this past week. AGW proponents and environmentalists is general are taking hit after hit in the media this week. – Anthony
From the GWPF via email: The Crisis of Climate Catastrophism
The threat to tropical rainforests from climate change may have been exaggerated by environmentalists, according to a new study. Researchers have shown that the world’s tropical forests thrived in the far distant past when temperatures were 3 to 5C warmer than today. They believe that a wetter, warmer future may actually boost plants and animals living the tropics. – David Derbyshire, Daily Mail, 12 November 2010
There are many climactic models today suggesting that … if the temperature increases in the tropics by a couple of degrees, most of the forest is going to be extinct. What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn’t find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn’t find that the precipitation decreased. — Carlos Jaramillo, The Guardian, 12 November 2010
The spectre of imminent thirst and/or starvation for billions by 2035 from melting glaciers would appear to have been confirmed as the worst kind of alarmist scaremongering. — Lewis Page, The Register, 11 November 2010
Bjorn Lomborg should be careful about what he wishes for. The unintended consequences pursuant to a renewable trough worth $250 billion has the potential to spawn a lot more nonsense, given its potential for increasing the size and direction of government and making energy policy even more political, much less meritorious. The skeptical environmentalist has become far too credulous. –Jon Boone, MasterResource, 11 November 2010
MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich and did little to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, a scathing review has found. –Tom Arup, The Age, 11 November 2010
Despite a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government, Solyndra, a maker of solar panels in the southeast San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont, will close one of its manufacturing plants, lay off 40 permanent and 150 contract workers, delay expansion plans of a new plant largely financed with the government-guaranteed loan and scale back production capacity more than 50 percent. Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry’s supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010
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The political proof of the AGW/IPCC fraud is in the pudding. Upon release of the climategate emails revealing to the whole world that the information that the socialist frauds in the MSM, academia and government were relying on to push their leftist public policy decisions that would adversely affect millions of peoples way of life and finances of entire countries was inaccurate and manipulated for a political outcome. What do these frauds do. NOTHING. It really wasn’t about the science alfter all.
Mike says: “The threat to the Amazon rainforest is from drought . . . Rainforests need … lot’s of rain.”
One of the greatest threats to the rainforest is the fight against AGW. In the name of fighting AGW, we require a large % of our transportation fuel to be biofuels, which increases the their price and prompts Brazil to raze its subtropical forests to plant corn & soybeans. The destruction of the subtropical forests lowers rainfall in the rainforests.
Because of AGW concerns, we would never think of a coal plant in Tanzania. So the local populace denudes the countryside of trees in order to meet their energy needs. The destruction of trees reduces precipitation in the area, and Mount Kilimanjaro loses snow cover.
“AGW proponents and environmentalists is general”
should read
“…in general”
RR Kampen: ” The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.”
As I’ve noted before, I live on the west coast of Canada. In the last two years I’ve seen temperatures as low as -19C (very rare) and as high as 35C (not so rare).
Thats a pretty “large change” and I don’t know of any species that died out in the last two years.
Now, RR, I admit you are only talking about a 3-5C change, not a 54C change, but I think animals and plants can adapt to 54C swings during a years, so why can’t they adapt to 3-5C?
GOOD NEWS!
Chilly sea temperatures are the first attendees at Cancun’s Climate XXX Jamboree
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Henry@Tim Williams
Tim, it is you who is silly. How can you still believe that CO2 is a problem, when all the facts point into another direction? Do you realize that carbon dioxide also causes radiative cooling by deflecting sunlight at various wavelengths between 0-5 um?
Just to put the carbon dioxide content into the right perspective: it has increased by about 0.01% in the past 50 years from ca. 0.03% to 0.04%. This compares with an average of about 21% for oxygen and ca. 0,5 – 1,0 % for water vapor in the air. In fact, nobody knows exactly how much water vapor is floating around in the whole of the atmosphere at any given time. (Water vapor in the air has nothing to do with clouds. That is still separate). Most scientists agree that water vapor is a much stronger green house gas than carbon dioxide… (if indeed carbon dioxide is a green house gas, which has yet to be proven to me). According to some sources water vapor accounts for at least 95% of the greenhouse effect. It is also logical for me to suspect that as a result of human activities relating to flying (including rocket fuel H2/ O2) , driving, burning, bathing, cooking, boiling, countless cooling processes (including that for nuclear energy), erection of dams and pools containing very shallow waters, for hydro energy, irrigation, consumption and recreation, etc. etc., a lot more water vapor than carbon dioxide is put up in the air, e.g.
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/its-water-vapor-stupid
For example, I found that in my 50M2 swimming pool I lost 2500 liter water due to evaporation in one week (7days). Compare this to my consumption of patrol (gas) of 40 liters in a week./
A problem that I also picked up are the overlaps of the absorption of water vapor and oxygen in the 14-15 um band. Obviously with much higher percentages of O2 and H20 in the air, a small deviation in the applied compensation formula’s may lead to enormous errors. In fact, I can antipicate that it must be near impossible to do any accurate calculations without messing up something here or there. For example, take the fact that we cannot even be sure of the exact water vapor content in the atmosphere…
So, really, all the facts that are presented to us with the carbon dioxide are still all assumptions based on mathematical approximations. I could not find any results of any real physical tests on the warming and cooling properties of each of the CO2, O2 and H2O. Global warming caused by carbon dioxide therefore comes down to a believe system: you just have to have “faith”. There is no real proof. It is all in the mind of man behaving badly. The applied logic is simply: “let us have a planet, let us add some CO2 and let us see if the temperature went up. It did. So that must be it” . But there is no proof.
The IPPC used 1750 as year zero – thus it compared the warming to the increase in GHG’s from 1750 until 2005. Then it applied proportional blame. But that is looking at the problem from the wrong end. That’s assuming that you know what is causing the problem. However, you don’t have the proof in hand. That’s the worst mistake any scientist can make.
We also know that CO2 stimulates growth and greenery: it is afterall the “oxygen” for plants and trees and plays a distinctive role in the photo-synthesis. An interesting observation I made here in Africa is the cooling that you feel when you enter a forest. It is not just the cooling caused by the shades of the trees. You can actually feel the coolness coming from the bottom up. You clearly feel that greenery and forests actually absorb heat from its surroundings which it needs for growth. Hence, the reason why there is no growth of forests in winter or there where it is very cold! There is also evidence of earth becoming greener during the past couple of decades. So in addition to the radiative cooling caused by CO2, I now also found another part of the CO2 that causes cooling and not warming……It is and it stays a truly amazing molecule without which life would not have been possible.
“”””” DirkH says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:25 am
“Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. ”
And given the fact that their product was a rather complicated tube, this goes to show that even in the warped economics surrounding the solar industry, you can still be dumb enough to go broke. “””””
Apparently Solyndra “Scientists/engineers” think that a round tube has a greater projected area than a flat sheet; so it gathers more sunlight. Well we know that the spherical earth still only has a prjected area that is only 25% of the total aurface area; so Solyndra’s magic cut that 4:1 ratio down to a mere factor of Pi. Whoopy !
So they only have to make pi times as much solar cell surface as they can expose to the sunlight; that’s really a great idea.
No wonder they don’t trumpet their solar conversion efficiency; which is the ONLY thing that matters in solar energy systems; since the real estate consumed costs way more than any solar cell system.
The obvious answer is BIOCHAR – a process whereby CO2-absorbing forests will be felled so the wood can be pyrolised (part burnt, which produces Co2 and copious amounts of H2O) to create Biochar (translation = charcoal) which can be buried (it’s important symbolically, so the nasty black stuff is REMOVED permanently from the environment).
No matter that it’ll take decades to regrow the felled forests, no matter that it’ll take a vast amount of energy to perform the magic process, no matter that the wood and biochar will have to be transported great distances. Apparently the totally chemically inert carbon can be used to “fertilise the soil” for crops – a claim that has no chemical, biological, or logical basis. How many billion tons of wood or biomass are these idiots planning to transport to pyrolysis plants, then transport the “biochar” to the “soil enrichment” areas or vast landfill sites?
It’s enough to make any normal sensible person weep (or laugh – take your pick).
Rhoda R
November 12, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Grey Lensman says: The problem with the palm oil plantations is that they are cut out of rain forests and with the blessings of the same crowd that has hissy fits over native farmers slash and burn farming. Can’t have the locals farming for survival, but WWF and other large ‘environmental’ groups can destroy rain forests for profit if they belong to the church of AGW.
#
Its worse then we thought!
The greens just want a few really really expensive demonstration installations of unworkable eco-damaging projects, to distract everyone with “gee-whiz”, while the are dismantling the rest of our working power infrastructure. Once we have no choice but to use land wasting solar, wind, and bio-fuel based energy, they will point to these projects, highlighting how damaging they are and demanding that they must be stopped and its all the fault of greedy capitalists.
BTW, you left off the radical Marxist Center for Biological Diversity. These anti-human nut-jobs are a big voice behind “Linguistic Diversity”. They really and truly want to turn Amazonia into a no go Nature reserve of sorts, but not to protect wild life, but to protect the cultures and languages of primitive Indians from the evil contamination caused by contact with western civilization. They do not want them to learn any language, math or science so that they can be maintained in the innocent purity of their forefathers. Is that sick or what?
Don’t forget over a dozen articles from the early 70s was recently discovered that completely bebunks the “Global Cooling Myth” that warmists have been clinging to: http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/a-new-treasure-trove-of-1970s-global-cooling-articles/
All around a bad year for AGW movement.
toad says:
November 12, 2010 at 11:42 am
“AS Jimmy Haigh says above, James Delingpole received the Bastiat Prize…”
A great achievement by Delingpole, no doubt. However, to put the award into a little context, it’s not exacly a Pulitzer prize is it? Instead it’s a prize awarded by one of those UK ‘think tanks’ the nebulously named ‘International Policy Network’ IPN. It may be irrelevant, but interesting nonetheless, to note that the IPN receives some funding from Exxon. Not that that in any way shapes their policies or research because they tell us so in no uncertain terms; so it must be true…
“IPN’s agenda is neither dictated nor compromised by outside financial sources. We are never a “front group” for any donor or industry.”
” IPN does not accept contributions intended to “purchase” a predetermined research outcome or in any way compromise the intellectual integrity of our work.”
http://www.policynetwork.net/statement-international-policy-network%E2%80%99s-independence-and-guiding-principles
Perhaps Anthony should feel a little aggrieved that his sterling contribution in the same subject field has been overlooked this year especially when one considers esteemed WUWT contributor Indur Goklany is listed as an ‘individual’ on the IPN website….there again I’m sure you all know that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastiat_Prize
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Policy_Network
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=108
DY @ur momisugly 2:01
Depersonalized to the status of zoo animals.
==========
Anthony Watts 11:42
“……But few seem to remember that the source was right here….”
Oh, I think most of us remember you breaking the news from an airport somewhere. It was a moment you don’t forget easily. But didn’t the person who originally posted the word “Climategate” actually say something along the lines of “I wonder how long it will be before somebody calls it Climategate?” Best wishes, Dave.
1DandyTroll says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:10 am
Alarmists worry to much I think that’s why they go all out with their paranoia.
Put into rational numbers they worry that the average global temp will go from some 14.5° C to 15.5° C in the coming 80 years. I don’t know about everyone else but to me that spells maybe a month longer viable crop season in Siberia and Wouldn’t that be a good thing since them climatecommunizts fuzz so much of over population.
No, no… it’s worse than you thought. Given an adiabatic lapse rate of 6C/km and a “storey” of 3m , this means you’d have to move up a floor every 18 months in order to keep your personal climate the same.
Can you imagine the catastrophe that would cause? You’d have Inuit moving into the basement after 18,000 years…
What was the earth’s climate like during the period of MegaFauna?
tonyb says:
November 12, 2010 at 9:45 am
Smokey saidf
“November 12, 2010 at 8:41 am
In other news, Al Gore has apparently gone missing.”
Have you got any proof that he actually existed?
tonyb
How else is snow produced?
RR Kampen says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:57 am
The issue is climate change and a large change happening quickly _can_ kill of a vast number of species before new equilibrium is reached.
So if I have a rat infestation, I can turn the central heating up 5C and wipe it out?
That’s good to know.
And yet animals manage to survive the annual seasons. Where I live — not a particularly extreme part of the world — we’ve had temperature swings of 60C degrees from winter to summer. That much of a change in six months makes the 1C degree over a century change “predicted” by climate catastrophists seem like a joke.
James Sexton says:
November 12, 2010 at 8:21 am
“MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich…….”—————– Did they think the poor would run out and buy solar panels? No, I’m not exclusively poking fun at our friends from Oz, we do the same thing in the states with windmills.
Poke fun all you like mate, it is a standing joke here. I am trying to convince the wife to put in a 5Kw system before the subsidies dry up. (Big Jools has already cut and changed the rebate scheme and then reduced what was left, and NSW has aleady cut back the feed-in tariff) must get my snout in the trough quickly.
Were there not climate change, and evolving biological niches, how would evolution have the driving power it does?
============
I think the biggest problem we face is global retardation.
toad says:
November 12, 2010 at 11:42 am
AS Jimmy Haigh says above, James Delingpole received the Bastiat Prize for online journalism at a dinner in New York last night. His work on exposing ‘Climategate’ is duly recognised at last , especially on Telegraph Blogs where they’re having a Field Day.
REPLY: Good for him! But few seem to remember that the source was right here, including the coining of “Climategate” on WUWT. – Anthony
____________
Most of us here remember – and are raring to celebrate the first anniversary. Today I was holding forth on Climategate during a seminar on the social consequences of modern computing and the internet and the students seemed pretty enthralled by the story. Although it was a small group, if they are indicative of students in general (or at least engineering students) the time is ripe to demolish the AGW myth with a few well-placed arguments. It helped that one of the students had read Lawrence Solomon’s The Deniers and was chiming in about natural climate variations.
What makes me laugh is that Solyndra built its headquarters and one of its manufacturing plants in California, the land of government overregulation and expensive everything.
This story has been linked at http://www.instapundit.com . That should keep WUWT’s hit numbers to keep rolling right along. 🙂
More competition with China:
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2010/11/01/daily14-Evergreen-Solar-China-manufacturing-transition-coming-mid-2011.html says in part:
Evergreen Solar Inc. expects the transition of its solar panel assembly operation from Devens to China to be complete by mid- to late-2011, company officials said during a third-quarter conference call Tuesday.
The Marlborough-based company officially opened its new facility in Wuhan, China, in September, and has been moving the Devens panel assembly operation to the new facility as a way to cut costs.
It’s expected that the move to China could lead to the elimination of jobs in Massachusetts. Evergreen employed 925 in the state as of June, according to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, which has been involved with the company since it received more than $40 million in state financing in 2007.
The financing deal requires that Evergreen maintain 660 jobs in Massachusetts, according to the state office.