The weather isn’t so hot, either.
Editorial from: The Washington Times, 29 November 2010
Today, U.N. negotiators will begin two weeks of meetings in Cancun, Mexico, looking for a way to move the climate action agenda forward, impose global carbon emissions caps and compel countries to pay a series of new international taxes to underwrite environmental programs. Maybe they’ll get what they want when hell freezes over.
The mood of climate alarmists going into Cancun is decidedly downbeat. The sense of impending doom they had cultivated over the last decade or so has largely evaporated. The Climategate scandal took a severe toll on the credibility of some of the climate theology’s leading high priests, and subsequent investigations into some of the more outlandish claims on which their doomsaying was based found them to be either exaggerated or fabricated. The November demise of the Chicago Climate Exchange – which sought to transfer billions of dollars to political insiders trading in government-rigged carbon markets – signaled that there was no money in the game anymore. Last week, even Al Gore admitted his fallibility when he retracted his earlier support for ethanol fuels. The god bleeds.
Last year’s Copenhagen confab was intended to seal a comprehensive global climate deal but turned into an exercise in humiliation. The imagined 2009 treaty – originally billed as “the single most important piece of paper in the world today” – would have instituted global governance of carbon emissions enforced by an international body with the power to levy taxes to force countries to impose its will. But the final, hastily written three-page agreement contained none of those controversial proposals and was simply a nonbinding statement regarding voluntary emissions caps. The most significant event at last year’s summit was when the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa unceremoniously snubbed President Obama, who was reduced to barging his way into their meeting uninvited. It was a low moment for the president personally, and a poor showing for what is under most circumstances the strongest country in the world.
The principal goal of this year’s meeting seems to be to hang on to the meager gains made in 2009 and to discuss what to do about the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire at the end of 2012. The green utopians are up against more immediate problems than their imagined impending climate catastrophe. The debt crisis in Europe will blunt the enthusiasm of countries in the Eurozone to underwrite expensive new international initiatives. China, India, Braziland South Africa, among others, will be even less willing to agree to cut back growth than they were when they scuttled the Copenhagen deal. The United States delegation will have to accept the fact that whatever schemes they would like to agree to, any treaty language would have to meet the approval of the incoming more conservative Senate, a highly unlikely proposition. Cancun will be dead on arrival.
One benefit of meeting in Mexico is that the conference will avoid the embarrassment last year when the Copenhagen meeting ended in an unexpected blizzard. It’s harder to sell global warming to world leaders who have to flee the city before their flights are grounded by an ice storm. The worst the Cancun conferees will have to deal with is the threat of being kidnapped by heavily armed gangs of drug dealers.
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Regarding my international tax dollar distributions, I’d like to speak with my international tax representative. I’d also like to speak to the opposition party to see what alternatives they offer should they win the next international tax election. As I am an activist, I’d like to donate to my preferred international tax party and wonder if that is a tax-deferred donation. As such, I’m also going to need to see the international tax forms so I can predict what my obligation is going to be as I don’t want to come up short with my domestic tax obligations.
Does anyone have a phone number or a web page where I can speak with a local international tax representative?
Showtime boys and girls. What ya got?
Please contact “THE ONE” for all hope&change.
Look to make a buck, says Gillard
November 30, 2010
JULIA GILLARD has called on business to help put the case for a carbon price, stressing the commercial opportunities in the transition to a low pollution economy.
The Prime Minister told a business breakfast in Sydney yesterday that on a visit to California she noticed that the climate change dialogue was focused on opportunities to ”make a buck”, and called on Australian business leaders to ”channel that spirit into Australia”.
As she pledged to push for a carbon price next year, Ms Gillard said there was a broad view in business that Australia needed to ”get on with this job … and I’m determined to do that”.
Advertisement: Story continues below With United Nations climate talks getting under way in Cancun, Mexico this week, GE’s Australasian commercial director, Ben Waters, asked whether Australia’s unilateral emissions reduction target – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 – would be reviewed since it was not strong enough to prevent dangerous climate change.
Ms Gillard said Australia would be holding to its unconditional emissions reduction target of 5 per cent, while keeping open the possibility of lifting the target to 25 per cent depending on international action.
”We’ll be holding to these [targets] as we design the pricing mechanism that will get us there,” she said.
A report published yesterday by the Australian Conservation Foundation said a 5 per cent cut in the economy’s emissions by 2020 would require more than $100 billion in investment in energy, transport and infrastructure.
As any carbon price was likely to be modest, it would not provide a strong enough incentive to raise $100 billion worth of investment, the report said.
To address this, the foundation said other incentives would be needed to mobilise green investment. For instance, governments in Scandinavia have issued ”green bonds” to help fund renewable energy projects and energy efficiency programs.
The British government has formed a ”Green Investment Bank” to help lower the risk of investing in green projects today, before a global agreement on carbon has been struck.
The foundation’s economic adviser, Simon O’Connor, said these types of measures could boost private investment in clean energy and minimise the need for extra government borrowing.
“In Australia, governments use a suite of financing tools to support other industries – loan guarantees and risk insurance for exporters, tax credits for the film industry and off-take agreements and co-investment for major utilities,” he said.
“It’s time government got smarter in applying the available tools to deliver the low carbon economy.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/look-to-make-a-buck-says-gillard-20101129-18dza.html
The cracks are pretty obvious now..
But still..
..there is much desperation..
Tick,tick,tick……..
Looking at the local weather forecast for Cancun, I’d say those delegates who plan to ‘hit the beach’ are in for a disappointingly damp time.
So another climate boondoggle to the tropics. If they actually spent the money on REAL concerns like providinh a safe drinking water supply instead of these idiotic conferences, the world may be a better place. Also if the alarmists are so concerned about the poloar bears – why not have this conference in Resolute Bay? Me thinks it’s more about the travel to the tropics than concern for the globe.
Current Weather Updated: Mon, Nov. 29, 2010, 10:00 CST – Resolute Airport
Resolute, NU -20 °C
Partly cloudy
Feels Like: -34
Wind: N 41km/h
Wind gusts: 52km/h
Relative Humidity: 70%
Pressure: 101.12 kPa
Visibility: 24.0 km
Ceiling: 24000 ft
“In the first comprehensive global survey of temperature trends in major lakes, NASA researchers determined Earth’s largest lakes have warmed during the past 25 years in response to climate change.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101128220357.htm
The reported rate is rather startling. The highs are 1C per decade. Hmmmm.
2011 year of carbon price, says Julia Gillard
November 29, 2010 12:02PM
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has vowed there will be nowhere to hide on carbon pricing with a firm and final decision next year.
In a speech to the Council for the Economic Development of Australia in Sydney, Ms Gillard outlined an ambitious agenda for the remainder of her term, declaring 2011 a year of delivery and decision.
She said Australians wanted their Government to govern. Ms Gillard said the Government had to decide a way of pricing carbon that was supported by a broad enough consensus to be legislated.
She said the Government’s Climate Change Commission would carry out its task of bringing together expert opinion and public attitudes.
As well, the Productivity Commission would publish advice on the measures being taken by trading partners and impacts of a carbon price on Australian international competitiveness.
Ms Gillard said the multi-party climate change committee would meet increasingly regularly through the year.
“Expert papers are already being released publicly and discussed in the committee,” she said.
“I promise you, no responsible decision maker will be able to say next year that they need more time or more information on climate change,” she said.
“In 2011 there will be nowhere to hide.”
Ms Gillard said Australia had weathered the global downturn.
“Now in the recovery, we have to lift the speed limit of the economy,” she said.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/year-of-carbon-price-says-julia-gillard/story-e6frf7l6-1225962660374
This is a strange times that we live in today. Many of the world leaders are about to gather in Mexico next month to agree on a plan to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide with the hope of avoiding further global warming and fight climate change . The total world expenditures will be well into the billions if not trillions of dollars through more, carbon taxes, cap and trade indirect taxation, higher energy costs, green or eco fees and redistribution of wealth.
Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated. – Ottmar Edenhofer
So it seems that global warming was never about science but an attempt to put more money in United Nations coffers.
There has been no unusual global warming for at least a decade and the small amount of warming that there was has now been completely accounted for by the natural planetary cycle called ENSO or El Nino. All the latest natural cycles are pointing to a near term future of 20-30 years of cooler weather rather than unprecedented warming. The globe has been naturally warming since 1600 and alternating periods of warming and cooling like today have existed many times before. So there is no conclusive proof that greenhouse gases generated by man had anything to do with the most recent warming which has been dormant now for a decade. Clearly there is reasonable doubt as the courts would say.
Recently released e-mails from the CRU climategate show the IPCC scientists saying that, “we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”. Their science has turned out to be flawed and questionable. The global temperatures have been declining while the CO2 was rising, completely opposite of what their science said. Matter of fact even Professor Jones from the notorious CRU agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
So we have our current world that cannot find adequate money to fight world wide unemployment, poverty, disease, provide better health care and shelter for its poor, elderly and disenfranchised, yet it is willing to commit trillions of borrowed dollars to solve a problem that may not even exist as currently defined, supported by questionable science and a climate which at the very least, our best climate scientists claim they do not even understand.
Any prudent steward or national leader would say , this serious climate problem that we were told was imminent and catastrophic, this claim no longer seems valid and the science of which is far from settled or even completely understood yet. You climate scientists better go back and study this better. Meanwhile we have other global and regional priorities like Haiti that need the limited funds much more at this moment. This is what leaders in Mexico should do but time will tell if there are any real leaders among this group even at this conference.
I suggest the gubment hire its carbon missionaries borrowing best practices from my Mormon friends. If they work faithfully for a year or two and ride bicycles, they can get their temp jobs to become permanent.
By the way, I doubt the crime level is high at the Resort community of Cancun. If a delagate does something stupid like buy dope, they will get a taste of crooked justice system.
Besides Moncton and Spencer, are there any well-known (to us) skeptics in attendance?
It appears that, according to the latest weather forecasts, Hell is due to freeze over 2 weeks after the ECO Fest at Cancun!
As we in the UK are feezing our toes off (minus 18C in some places last night!) for the fourth winter in a row, the greenies would have more success selling ice-cream to Eskimos than they now would selling AGW to the British people. The media and the met office continue to fight a rear guard action but its *like watching an angry hedgehog trying to stop an articulated lorry.
Translation *like watching an angry porcupine trying to stop a Mack truck.
It will be interesting to note WHO DOES NOT SHOW at Cancun, and if it’s reported.
Always fun to spend a few winter weeks in the tropics on “other people’s money”, but not so much when the climate-alarm ship is stuck in the doldrums, drifting toward the rocks.
High-profile enviro reporters will probably limit their time or send surrogates to collect press releases from NGOs, Hollywood will find some other shiny new thing to follow, and politicos will quietly find ways to be unavailable.
Meanwhile, ice continues to accumulate and another “PFFFFFT” hurricane season has passed with a whimper. Maue’s ACE index at 33-year low.
Minus 18C equals about zero Fahrenheit. Or exactly minus 0.4 Fahrenheit.
Now call me Mr Cynical, but I’m betting that the Artic Ice will make a sudden surge in area just as soon as Cancun finishes. Of course it could just be the North Atlantic Jet Stream moving back to it’s more usual Southern route, but then you can’t have a conspiracy without a government funded body (NSIDC) lurking somewhere around.
Too bad I can’t ship the -10 °C weather I have right now down there…. That would be funny. 😀
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
Cancun = Can’tcun…
Last friday night there were new cold-records in November.
Never before, ever has such a low temperature been measured at Hovden in November.
They have had a measuring-station there for 140 years.
Lowest measured for November now at Hovden, ever, is minus 29.4 degrees Celcius.
Hovden in Norway, that is.
Funny how they refuse to talk about this:
The Environmental Impact Of War
http://saladin-avoiceinthewilderness.blogspot.com/2010/11/environmental-impact-of-war.html
But then, we wouldn’t want to put a dent in the war profiteers bank accounts, now would we?
Copenhagen – 0 Cancun – 0 New Kyoto – _
If there ISN’T a “Cancun Something” OR a “New Kyoto Something” – does that mean the EPA has to pack their bags and go back to established, recognized, proven science about CO2? Seems anyone could make a case in court that if the world doesn’t recognize CO2 as an immediate danger to Life On Earth and the Environment, then they can’t either.
Another Climate Craziness:
Dr. James Hansen went definitley nuts
I have following new information for you. It is not yet in the internet but I heard it in a blog:
Tomorrow James Hansen will go to Pontresina, a village in Switzerland. What is he doing there? He will make propaganda against a planned pumped-storage power station (project Lago Bianco of Repower) ! As we know, the renewable energy sources like solar and wind power need lot’s of storage capacity, and planned pumped-storage power station would be a good solution for the problem.
But Hansen opposes it?!*#!
Reportedly he doen’t want that the energy industry cannot “whitewash” coal power. What a numb nut.
I will keep you updated about this unbelievable story
In an Idiocracy, everything is possible.
We’ve already heard that Cancun wasn’t about fighting the non existing threat of Anthropogenic Climate Change at all but that it was going to be the biggest economic gathering the world has ever seen. “Spreading the Wealth” was the real subject.
Now the western world is subject to extensive bail outs we can ask ourselves whose wealth they want to spread?
How crazy this world has become became evident today when the German News program “Heute” presented a climate special about Cancun repeating all the familiar mantra’s about a heated atmosphere, sea level rise, sinking islands and melting ice caps.
Their climate special was immediately followed by “Das Wetter” showing pictures of heavy snow in Bayern creating havoc on the roads and freezing temperatures of -15 degree Celsius.
I can’t imagine a more effective way to blow up the public’s perception of Climate Change, let alone Anthropogenic Climate Change.
The disconnect with reality is growing bigger every day.