Mercury rising
From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Cancun, Mexico
I am in the plenary session hall at the Moon Palace, where diligent readers of this humble blog will recall that Ms. Figurehead, the president of the UN climate conference here in Cancun, opened these quaint proceedings last week with a prayer to the Moon Goddess of the ancient dwellers in what is now Mexico.
The vast, characterless session hall is known – appropriately enough – as the Cenote hall. Those familiar with the Spanish dialects of the New World will recognize the appropriateness of this designation. For a cenote is a sinkhole. Cenotes are widespread in the Mexican jungle, beneath great limestone caps. They were regarded as sacred by the “first nations”, as the indigenous peoples are now coyly called, and archaeologists have had much fun diving beneath the waters in the cenotes to recover all manner of pre-Columbian artefacts and assorted archaeological knick-knacks.
It is in the Sinkhole Hall that the President of Mexico, Señor Felipe Calderon, has just announced to admiring gasps from 1000 gaping enviro-zombs that he is to launch a Grand Initiative To Smash Global Warming And Make It Go Away, So There. And what, you may ask with a trembling frisson of salivating anticipation, was the President’s Grand Initiative?
Wait for it … wait for it!
OK, I’ll tell you. El Presidente is – tell it not in Gash and Ashkelon – going to ban the use of proper light-bulbs throughout Mexico. Ban light-bulbs. Throughout Mexico. Really and truly. I kid you not. Gee wow golly gosh.
As I sat and listened to the President, who talks even faster than me, I wondered if there was anything else new in his speech. Most of it sounded not just old but stale – a kooky cookie of a speech, long past its sell-by date.
The worstest ever problem the world has ever faced. Heard that before somewhere. Rising temperature. Natch: yet Cancun this morning was so cold, at 54 Fahrenheit, that it set a new 100-year record low for this day of this month (but don’t expect to read about this in any of the mainstream media: it’s Off Message). Rising sea levels. Pull the other one, Excellencia: it’s got bells on. Melting glaciers. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Need for international co-operation, courage, vision, yada yada. Gimme the cash: huge amounts of money from Western nations in reparation for their “climate debt” to developing nations like – er – Mexico. And so, tediously, ramblingly, near-hysterically on.
[Note: see also the new record low for Cancun in December here. – Anthony]
I turned to the rather spectacular young lady on my left, from the Eco-Village Movement (83,000 self-sustaining villages and urban communities in 100 countries), and asked whether the President had said something interesting that my indifferent comprehension of Mexican Spanish had failed to catch. No, she said, with a shapely sigh. She rather wondered why she had come.
There was a question-and-answer session: the only moment in the entire two-week beano when us ordinary citizens were allowed a voice. I was called to speak, but could not because my microphone had somehow been disconnected. Funny, that. So I passed the opportunity to a Singaporean gentleman who, it turns out, has made a fortune peddling a fuel additive which, he told me enthusiastically, improved average gas mileage by 10-35%. The Duke of Wellington would have said, “Sir, if you will believe that, you will believe anything.”
To pass the time – policemen with guns were not allowing anyone to leave while the President was in the room – I decided to calculate just how much “global warming” his Grand Initiative would forestall. I have recently been preparing a learned paper for the Econometrics Journal on the so-far-unaddressed but surely not-unimportant question of how to determine the amount of “global warming” that might actually be prevented by any proposed strategy to mitigate future “global warming” by taxing or regulating carbon dioxide emissions, or by adopting alternative technologies. So all the relevant equations were to hand.
Here goes, then. Electricity accounts for 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Mexico accounts for 1% of world electricity consumption. Light-bulbs use at most 3% of that electricity. Mercury-vapor fluorescent bulbs reduce electricity consumption per candela by – at the very most – 33% compared with incandescent bulbs that one can actually read by. So, once the President’s Initiativo Grande has been put into full effect throughout Mexico, world carbon emissions will have fallen by 40% of 1% of 3% of 33%, or a dizzying 0.004%.
So far, so good. We shall generously assume that 0.004% of the entire manmade greenhouse-gas contribution since 1750 will be forestalled by the Grand Initiative. Now for the equation. The amount of CO2 concentration forestalled by, say, 2100, is in the present instance, 0.004% of the difference between the CO2 concentration predicted for that year, 836 parts per million by volume on the IPCC’s A2 emissions scenario, and the CO2 concentration of 278 ppmv which the IPCC thinks was present in 1750.
So we’re looking at 0.00004(836-278), or 0.0223 ppmv. Not a lot, really.
Now we calculate the “global warming” that will be forestalled by reducing carbon emissions by this amount. For this we need another equation: 88% of 5.35 times the natural logarithm of [836 / (836 – 0.0223)]. And the answer? A little over 0.0001 Celsius, or around one five-thousandth of a Fahrenheit degree. And only that much if the IPCC’s exaggerated estimate of future warming is correct. If not, make that well below one ten-thousandth of a Fahrenheit degree. Either way, extravagantly pointless.
In the UK, the Climate Change and National Economic Hara-Kiri department has already enthusiastically banned real light-bulbs in favor of the flickering, mercury-filled alternatives which – if the appropriate EU “Directive” is followed – require a specialist cleanup team at a cost of $3000 every time one of the wretched things gets smashed.
On my recent visit to the Department, formerly the down-to-earth Ministry of Agriculture and now the up-in-the-air Ministry of Fantastical Nonsense, I asked its chief number-cruncher whether he could show me his calculations demonstrating how much “global warming” the $1.2 trillion that the Ministry of Madness plans to spend over the next 40 years will forestall.
He harrumphed that he had done no such calculation, so I asked: “In that case, Professor, on what rational basis is any of this expenditure being made or proposed?” Red-faced with embarrassment, he couldn’t answer that one either. Neither can I, for only a fool hunts a reason for the doings of fools.
However, with my econometric equations I can now work out how much “global warming” the Ministry of Pointless Extravagance will forestall with its – well, with its pointless extravagance. We begin with two very generous assumptions: first, that the IPCC’s estimates of how much “global warming” CO2 causes are not absurd exaggerations; secondly, that the Ministry of Misplaced Munificence has not flagrantly underestimated the cost of shutting down 80% of the British carbon economy by 2050.
Once again, then, hold on to your sombreros, amigos. Using the same analysis as before, there will be 506 ppmv CO2 by 2050, or just 5 ppmv less if the Ministry of Mumbo-Jumbo gets its way. “Global warming” forestalled will be just 0.03 Celsius, or around a twentieth of a Fahrenheit degree. And the cost per Celsius degree of warming prevented? A mere $34 trillion, or seven years’ total worldwide gross domestic product.
And that is why, Mr. President, one is less than impressed by your Grand Initiative. Don’t you think it strange, gentle reader, that after 22 years of The Process the very first serious calculations indicating just how spectacularly, gloriously futile is every proposed strategy for curbing carbon emissions are those that will appear in my forthcoming paper? No one, as best I can discover, has ever attempted to do this essential math before. Why on Earth not? Because, of course, the climate extremists know perfectly well what the answer will be.
Must stop now: time to pray to the Moon Goddess. At least the moon is brighter than those miserable new light-bulbs.
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Why does it feel like the last days of Rome?
Shevva: It feels like the last days of Rome because of the stinking corruption.
In Australia we’ve had regulated/legislated ‘energy’ saving bulbs for a few years. I’ve tripped over a few times, sprained my ankles multiple times because I cannot F$@ur momisugly#%^ing see!! I’ve replaced them at the same rate as incandescent bulbs. What a wank! I’m pissed and ready for a global citizen revolt. Don’t pay your carbon tax. Pay your bill without the tax. Citizens of the World unite! Hmmmmmm. Where have I heard that before? Oh, that’s right Andy Stern, communist, socialist, agitator – “Workers of the world unite”
Suddenly that NZ gook doesn’t seem so funny. I’ve thought since Copenhagen that we have been counting chickens prematurely.
I did a similar calculation to Monckton on the banning of incandescent light bulbs by the EU. Of course none of the bureaucrats or politicians do any calculations or cost benefit analysis. That is not the point of the exercise.
When all domestic incandescent light bulbs are replaced in the EU, the total energy savings will be less than 0.33%. This figure is on the high side as it takes no account of winter energy saving from the heat released from filament bulbs or the additional energy used in the manufacture of low energy bulbs. Additionally, because of the slow warm up time it is likely that these bulbs will be left on for a longer time than conventional bulbs. The use of mercury will lead to additional environmental costs of disposal and the pollution caused by uncontrolled tipping.
The net benefit is likely to be neutral or even negative.
Written from his airconditioned accomodation cubicle at:
Latitude:-23.15599
Longitude:120.47442
GPS location Date/Time:12/10/2010 10:10:50 GMT
Might I add the obvious fact that if one thinks that socialism, in all its forms, is a workable solution for humanity’s plight, then that view is wrong – for what you get for voting them in is what CM (tuggs forelock) writes about in his missives from Cancun.
Fighting this lot is not too difficult – don’t pay your taxes. If everyone suddenly decided to do so, what are the world’s governments going to do? But if you believe we need free health care, or a welfare state, and everything else that might possibly be listed on a trade union’s wish list, then stop complaining about the shenanigans of the UN and the IPCC – its existence is predicated by the belief that a welfare state is desirable.
Research the Fabians and you will start to understand the political mechanics of the climate change agenda.
Lord Monckton,
You are a bloody legend!! Except your a POM!!
If you were not beating us in the “Ashes” at the moment, i might like you even more!!!
The funny thing is, here in Australia we are a meant to be having terrible droughts and no water due to global warming, yet last time i checked, half of NSW was under water and the desalination plants (which have cost billions) have all been put into mothballs!! oh dear!!
No common sense anywhere i am afraid, except from you Lord Monckton!!
Off the track a bit…
Keep up the fight, just like old Ian Chappell and Ian Botham.
The funny story is;
” It all started years ago when Botham and Chappelli had a few beers after a Test Cricket Match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the late 70’s ! Suddenly Chappelli said to Botham, ” You are a pommy bastard!!” To which Botham replied with a five knuckle sandwich and laid him out flat on the ground! Chappelli seeing stars looked up at Botham and said ” You are still a Pommy Bastard!!” They have never liked each other since!!
Keep up the fight MY LORD!!!
Go the Aussies in the THIRD TEST!!
Kind Regards
Bill of Cairns QLD
Our home-grown idiot, Lord Stern, has demanded that I give up nearly two months of my annual pension to to help the fight against droughts and flooding in far off places, when I’m trying to fight against cold here, and having to turn down the heating to pay for it. I’ll have to resort to my log pile soon!
Monckton said:
“…I asked: “In that case, Professor, on what rational basis is any of this expenditure being made or proposed?” Red-faced with embarrassment, he couldn’t answer that one either. ”
I suspect, sir, that it wasn’t embarrassment that made his face red. It was barely contained fury that you would ask such an inappropriate question. After all, he’s Saving the Planet, and no cost is too much for the rest of us to bear.
On the lightbulb issue, the level of mercury at the light bulb stands at the supermarket must be through the roof, as the bulbs are accidentaly smashed by customers on a regular basis and just disposed of by staff in regular trash.
We have the following settlement in our county (along with many other interesting people and things, given our proximity to Washington DC):
http://www.ecovillages.com/index.php
Used to stress the co-housing aspect much more, and much of it sounds fine, but consider:
They are far from the work center of the city, and the “solution” to commuting on roads that are relentlessly kept unpaved in the area (bad for horses’ hooves) is of course telecommuting (see universal broadband initiatives, just about anywhere on earth).
However, the broadband faces the same hurdles in implementation that many renewables do when they are attempted, after much pious demand that other forms be discontinued–antennae are a no-no. Ugly, cancer-causing, viewshed destroying, wildlife killing, etc.
The answer proposed by some when our county attempted to implement our own broadband initiative for the rural policy area (since the density wasn’t there to make it viable for any business to attempt to do so)?
No antennae for commercial carriers–hundreds of little arrays attached directly to trees so they wouldn’t be seen, by small rural carriers.
I wonder what that does to the trees, to have hundreds of small devices nailed or screwed to them?
Not to mention the power that has to be generated to feed the computers everyone will telework on.
And don’t forget to sign up for the bus down to the coal plant protest next week! Signup sheets posted in the dining hall!
CFL are no good for rooms one goes in and out of quickly. CFL give horrible light. I have a few (at 10p (15c) each, who can resist?) but only in selected places. I leave them on more than I would an incandescent, because of the warm up time and short life if switched too often With UK so cold, I need the heat from the old incandescents : fortunately I have a large stock, purchased when the banning of them was announced, plus new Halogen ones where I want whiter light.
Written this to keep calm in the face of mounting anger if the elementary calculations of net CO2 savings have really not been done!!!! I think a brandy is called for, and something before lunch…..
(Do grapes grow during an ice age?)
Great story. Thank you.
However, as Monckton’s yesterday’s contribution has shown, I am afraid that all this BS events are only blowing smoke to hide what’s going on behind the scene. And there are enough stupid followers there, as Germany’s Roettgen. So while we are celebrating the failure of Cancun, the Gores and Soroses are celebrating another small step towards their goals. Let us focus on that and fight.
Ivan invades Yellowknife:
“Current Conditions
Clear
-40 °C”
http://weather.canoe.ca/Weather/CityYellowknifeNT.html
…-
AGW HotNews Report: Real progress by Ivan.
Nyet! Say Nyet! Minister Baird.
Say Nyet! to the AGW zombies at UNaBomber* Mao Stlong’s AGW “zombie conference”.
…-
“Russia will not renew Kyoto protocol
“Summit cast into doubt as Russia says it will not sign extension to treaty that has governed climate negotiations for more than a decade”
“After last year’s failure at Copenhagen, a weak result – or outright collapse – of talks at Cancún would damage the credibility of the entire UN negotiating process, the energy secretary Chris Huhne warned.
“Next year people will say, well, we’re not going to make any progress and we end up with a zombie conference where there won’t be anybody at a senior enough level to take any serious decisions at all.””
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/10/cancun-climate-change-conference-kyoto
*UNaBomber Mao Stlong is Canadian Liberal leader Bob Rae’s Uncle Mo Strong.(search)
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi
These numbers are backed up by acceptance from a renowned UK government advisor.
The FUTILITY of Man-made Climate Control by limiting CO2 emissions, watch:
On average world temperature is ~+15 deg C. This is sustained by the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect ~33 deg C. Without the Greenhouse Effect the planet would be un-inhabitable at ~-18 deg C.
Running the numbers by translating the agents causing the Greenhouse Effect into degrees centigrade:
• Water Vapour and Clouds account for about 95% of the Greenhouse Effect = ~ 31.35 deg C
• Other Greenhouse Gases GHGs account for ~5% = ~1.65 deg C
• CO2 is 75% of that remaining effect accounting for the enhanced effects of Methane, Nitrous Oxide and other GHGs = ~1.24 deg C
• Most CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, more than ~93%
• Man-made CO2 is less than 7% of total atmospheric CO2 = ~0.09 deg C
• the USA contribution to CO2 is ~20% equals = 17.6 thousandths deg C
• UK’s contribution to World CO2 emissions is ~1.8% = 1.6 thousandths deg C.
So closing the whole UK Carbon economy could only affect world temperature by a minuscule and immeasurable amount
As closing the carbon economies of the Whole World could only ever achieve a virtually undetectable less than -0.09 deg C. How can the Green movement and their supporting politicians think that their remedial actions and draconian taxes are able to limit warming to only + 2.00 deg C?
So the probability is that any current global warming is not man-made and in any case such warming could be not be influenced by any remedial action taken by mankind however drastic. If the numbers above are even close to the right ballpark, the prospect should be greeted with Unmitigated Joy:
• concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be discounted.
• it is not necessary to damage the world’s economy to no purpose.
• if warming were happening, it would lead to a more benign and healthy climate for all mankind.
• any extra CO2 is already increasing the fertility and reducing water needs of all plant life and thus enhancing world food production.
• a warmer climate, within natural variation, would provide a future of greater prosperity for human development and much more food for the growing world population. This has been well proven in the past and would now especially benefit the third world.
Nonetheless, this is not to say that the world should not be seeking more efficient ways of generating its energy, conserving its energy use and stopping damaging its environments. It remains absolutely clear that our planet is vastly damaged by many human activities such as:
• environmental pollution.
• over fishing.
• forest clearance.
• industrial farming.
• farming for bio-fuels .
• and other habitat destruction.
And there is a real need to wean the world off the continued use of fossil fuels simply on the grounds of:
• security of supply
• increasing scarcity
• rising costs
• their use as the feedstock for industry rather than simply burning them.
The French long-term energy strategy with its massive commitment to nuclear power is impressive, (85% of electricity generation). Even if one is concerned about CO2, Nuclear Energy pays off, French electricity prices and CO2 emissions / head are the lowest in the developed world.
However in the light of the state of the current solar cycle, it seems that there is a real prospect of damaging cooling occurring in the near future for several decades. And as power stations face closure the lights may well go out in the winter 2015 if not before.
All because CO2 based Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming has become a state sponsored religion.
And now after “Splattergate” thanks to the 10:10 organisation the world now knows exactly how they think.
Splattergate is classic NOBLE CAUSE CORRUPTION. It is probably the most egregious piece of publicity ever produced in the Man-made Global Warming cause. This short film shows doubting schoolchildren being blown up and having their entrails spread over their classmates because they may have been less than enthusiastic about the CAUSE. So any misrepresentation is valid in the Cause and any opposition however cogent or well qualified is routinely denigrated, publically ridiculed and as we now see literally terminated.
Excellent article! Monckton’s renaming of that agency every time he refers to it reminds me of an incident involving composer Igor Stravinsky. One of his works was reviewed by Vladimir Dukelsky, better known as Vernon Duke, composer of the song ‘April in Paris.’ Stravinsky took slight exception to the review and replied to it. He never referred to Dukelsky by name, but first as ‘the composer of “April in Paris,”‘ then later as the composer of March in Marrakech, then February in Fujiyama, then London in Leap-Year, and so on. Very funny reply to an inconsequential review.
All that being said, we, too, are having no end of trouble with the new bulbs. I’ve already broken one (didn’t know of the hazard), and the ones that remain are dying off at least as fast as the incandescent ones they replaced. Further, they make lights throughout the house flicker maddeningly, and sometimes go out altogether. What a crock!
Thanks, Lord Monckton, for seeing things as clearly, and expressing them as well, as you do!
Every little helps! 0.0005% here, 0.003% there, it all adds up, you know, and in a couple of centuries we will have saved enough to knock this warming thingy on the head for good.
What has Monckton accomplished at COP-16? There seems to have been few people “needing” his ministrations, no “Hitler youth” needing to be spanked. It sounds like the most exciting items have been CFact’s petitions and whatever activities that have replaced bathing in the morning Sun.
So he gets to experiment with alliteration and experience shapely sighs. This is actually progress, perhaps we have made it past the “crisis” and are entering a phase of mopping up the remaining hot spots.
Ah yes, that’s what I was going to comment on. On the demise of Incandescent Classics:
> And the answer? A little over 0.0001 Celsius, or around one five-thousandth of a Fahrenheit degree. And only that much if the IPCC’s exaggerated estimate of future warming is correct.
Clearly President Calderon intended this to be merely one of “a thousand points of light” and that it, combined with 999 future similar gestures, shall bring us to, umm, a decline of 0.1°C.
Cool! (Of course, I’m now referring to my overnight low in New Hampshire of 4°F, about -15°C.)
speaking of corruption; knowing how Mexico works I’ll guarantee that the reason El Presidente is so eager to sign off on this light bulb deal is that he and his backers have been personally guaranteed a cut of the massive profits that will be made from the new, high priced bulbs that all the paisanos will now be forced to buy.
Look under any global warming initiative, theft and fraud will always be the true motivation. Fitting that this should be in Mexico, where that’s been a way of life for a long, long time.
Meanwhile, the econutty kool-aid guzzlers are gearing up for a fight come January, launching such powerful, fact-laden missives as the one below, from the Union of Hysterical Bedwetters, aka UCS:
“Dear Friend,
Are you ready for 2011? I hope so, because boy do we have our work cut out for us! Come January, climate deniers—backed by big oil, the coal industry, and electric utilities—will descend on Congress, governors’ offices, and state legislatures across the country. Taking a page out of the tobacco industry’s playbook, they will manufacture doubt about the science of climate change and stop at nothing to protect their own interests and deep pockets by blocking efforts to reduce global warming emissions. We’re gearing up for a fight and are prepared to move forward. —Karla”
Sigh. It’s incredible that, after all these years they still resort to the same, tired tactics. You can smell the fear, though. The “climate deniers”, of course are all the newly-elected Republicans, who will be descending on Washington D.C., like viking hordes. What’s in your wallet? Not much, if the Warmistas have anything to say about it.
“[…] Eco-Village Movement (83,000 self-sustaining villages and urban communities in 100 countries) […]“
And most of those nut and berry-eating eco-loons are down at the EU district in Brussels…
.
In theory, a legal argument could be made at the class action level that the Federal government cannot force you to bring a potentially lethal substance into your home (Mercury-vapor fluorescent bulbs) by denying you a safer alternative……..
Joe Hopkins,
I work for one of those US “large Hg emitters”. I must thank you for that article you linked to. I’ve sent the link to our environmental compliance folks and other chemists in our region. It has also changed my view of mercury emissions considerably. While I’m not totally conviced that wastewater point source emissions into a lake would be acceptable, the atmospheric emissions may be another story.
Thank you, again.
Now that we in the UK have been saddled with another “jobs for the boys” Ministry, that of climate change, this reduces the chance of any abandonment of this economically-suicidal scam. When has government ever voluntarily grown smaller, anywhere in the world, without being forced to do so at gunpoint? Oh well, maybe it’s for the best – Earth’s climate has, after all, been changing continuously since its crust began to solidify, and it’s time we put a stop to it, dammit! Up with Global Cooling!
The Climate Scandal will now start unravelling in the political arena due to Wikileaks (though nothing to do with their non-performance in Climategate), this to do with Soros, Rothschild, Goldman Sachs and the EU as NWO Proxy. Over the next two weeks they will do everything they can to grab Assange and stop the final revelations, because this is truly now the endgame.