Press Release 14/12/14
Lord Lawson: After Lima, UK Climate Change Act Should Be Suspended
London 14 December: Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), has welcomed the non-binding and toothless UN climate agreement which was adopted in Lima earlier today.
Dr Peiser said:
“The Lima agreement is another acknowledgement of international reality. The deal is further proof, if any was needed, that the developing world will not agree to any legally binding caps, never mind reductions of their CO2 emissions.”
“As seasoned observers predicted, the Lima deal is based on a voluntary basis which allows nations to set their own voluntary CO2 targets and policies without any legally binding caps or international oversight.”
“In contrast to the Kyoto Protocol, the Lima deal opens the way for a new climate agreement in 2015 which will remove legal obligations for governments to cap or reduce CO2 emissions. A voluntary agreement would also remove the mad rush into unrealistic decarbonisation policies that are both economically and politically unsustainable.”
Lord Nigel Lawson, Chairman of the Global Warming Policy Forum, added:
“The UK’s unilateral Climate Change Act is forcing British industry and British households to suffer an excessively high cost of electricity to no purpose. Following Lima, it is clearer than ever that the Act should be suspended until such time as a binding global agreement has been secured.”
And with oil headed south of $58/barrel, good luck with those agreements, weak as they are.
I am pleased to note that our local gasoline prices have fallen to 96 cents a liter- a 29% decrease! May oil continue to freefall.
Good for you. Just to let you know that petrol in Holland is nearer to $2 a liter.
Ralph
€1.38/ltr in SW France. Just bought some for a risky trip to England
Sorry $1.38
£1:13 here in UK for a Litre of Unleaded petrol.
That’s $1:78 a Litre according to Google.
Not to boast, but $0.82 per liter here in the snowy mountains of Colorado
MCourtney: of the £1:13 per litre at the pump UK Fuel Duty accounts for 58 ppl – so over 50% of the cost in the UK is taxation …
But if one uses a Tesco Credit Card, it is another 8p a litre off. Well it was for me, anyway today when I filled up.
In september I was on a trip to Russia(10000 km) and Crimea from Holland, in Russia gasoline price was 0,65 Euro/liter.
At that time oil price was still much higher
In the Great State of Washington (& most of the USA) when our dear leaders do not like something, they tax it. Cigarettes and distilled and carbonated beverages – and now large sugar drinks, come to mind. We call these “sin taxes” – somewhat like indulgences that benefit the well-off and place a hardship on those of lesser resources. All of the above prices for gasoline are about 2 1/2 times the current low price for gasoline in south-central US states. [We in WASH. are at about $2.75 per US gallon.]
From this I conclude it costs Europeans quite a lot more to sin than us old colonials.
Cheers.
In Spain it is about €1.25 to €1.28 a litre, so about £1.03 to £1.05 per litre.
Bottom line is that there is much more tax in Europe than in the States. The actual cost of oil as a component of the pump price is small. Main part is tax (and in Europe there is tax on tax, eg there is fuel duty and VAT and the VAT is levied on the fuel duty so double taxation). Thereafter there is sea transport, refining costs, distribution costs (including road haulage distribution costs), forecourt costs, and profits for all, So it is not surprising that just because crude oil has fallen 35 to 40%, petrol at the forecourt has not similarly fallen.
One should look back to past years when oil was trading at $53 to $58 ppl and then make adjustment for currency appreciation/depreciation and inflation/cost of living increases to get a proprer take on what petrol price ought to be today. If it is more, it is probably due mainly to the increase in fuel duty/green taxes, but may also in part be explained by the fact that not all of the fall in wholesale price has (yet) been past onto the customer. ,
Brisbane, Australia … 98 Octane – AUS$1.46/litre … it doesn’t matter how low the oil price is, we get gouged … oil company excuses are many and contradictory but the ‘authorities’ will do nothing about it.
Oz high gas prices,who’s to blame?
“Local production and refining of oil is also declining, and it was estimated recently that by next year, half of Australia’s oil refining capacity will have closed.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/06/wake-up-australia-we-are-becoming-green-and-defenceless/
A lot of those high prices in Europe are taxes, maybe you should talk to your government about that!
I do feel sorry for you though.
We have 91.1c/Liter and falling.
Newsel … yes, reduce production on the back of maintaining price and reducing operating costs. Demand will for the foreseeable future, be sustained … if the economy should shift a gear upward, God help us … the price will rocket on increased demand and no ability to raise production. 🙂
Been falling for some time now and currently best is €1.38 here in Dublin.
Gasoline average price/liter in the US is $.70 and the majority of that is tax (like most countries).
Northern Alberta, Canada……$ 0.849 per litre
Just a short ferry ride from Victoria BC, 1.08 /liter
I just paid $2.189 per U.S. gallon, this evening in east L.A. (lower Alabama). That would be $0.578 / liter. This would be £0.37 / liter, according to WolframAlpha.com.
1.18€ for Diesel in Bavaria. The first time i filled my VW T4 tank for less than 100€.
Trondheim, Norway, has diesel at NOK 12.50/litre and gasoline at NOK 13.something/ litre. That works out to USD 1.7 / GBP 1.09 / EUR 1.4 for a litre of diesel, and our currency is still falling with the oil price (though not free-falling)
Hard Cheese, Ralph! Unfortunately, the more “green” a country, the more the plebs have to pay up.
In Israel 95 octane gasoline is still very high. Last summer the price was 7.3 sheqels/ liter. Today it’s 7.0 sheqels/liter. That’s only a 5% decrease. Although it must be said that taxes are very high here, oil companies here may not be collaborating directly to keep prices high but there is definitely at least an unspoken understanding amongst them that it is in their interest to keep prices high and they hold to it. When world oil prices go up the petrol companies here are quick to raise prices, when oil prices drop they only make a token reduction. The government here does not mind agreements among the oil companies, either expressed or implied, to keep prices high, because that would mean less tax revenue. Plus, Israel has a long history of socialism where the government to this day approves of monopolies. It must be said that the exchange rate of the sheqel to the dollar has changed as last summer we got 3.3 sheqels to the dollar while today we get 3.9 so if we factor in the change of the exchange rate between last summer and now, in dollar terms the price of gas here has dropped 18% since last summer, but the average Israeli doesn’t feel this because our wages are in sheqels and we pay for petrol in sheqels so in the end of the day we’ve only seen a mere 5% decrease in real terms based on a sheqel economy.
Hear hear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear
I wonder what the peak oil people are saying right now, also.
They are probably recalibrating their models so they can make the next alarmist prediction.
It’s worthwhile to look closely at why the “Peak Oil” claims failed. “Peak Oil” was actually more of a math and science based prediction than Global Warming was, being based on M. King Hubbert’s production history analysis in the 50’s. For a couple of decades, his predictions held true on a large scale.
What went wrong is that everyone forgot about the most important qualifier: “Under current technology”. No one foresaw the huge technological breakthroughs that would transform oil production (although the history of the industry is the history of engineering breakthroughs). With an entirely new level of technology available to producers (fraccing being the chief,but far from the only innovation) the industry has been so radically transformed that none of the old production history paradigms are relevant anymore.
Peak Oilers have been predicting Peak Oil for a century or more. They’ve always been wrong, because, like other Malthusians, they always underestimate the innovative ability of the human race. That’s why modern Malthusians are working so hard to ban innovation and ensure their predictions come true.
One day, yes, they’ll actually be right. But past experience has shown that won’t be any time soon.
Peak Oil? For a long time the history of peak anything has been “Peak and you will find it”
A fluctuating price does not alter the amound of oil in the ground. Surprisingly it remains exactly the same. Indeed, a lower oil price will simply use it up quicker. A finite resource can always run short, or, indeed, run out. In the UK:
We hit Peak Copper back in the Bronze Age.
We hit Peak Tin in the 19th century.
We hit Peak Iron Ore in the 19th century.
We hit Peak Coal in the 1950s, due to difficulties in extraction.
We hit Peak Oil in the 1990s, with production falling.
Every finite resource has a Peak – the difficult science (or art) is to call the precise era for that peak.
Ralph
What’s next, peak Helium?
As minerals run out and assuming no new sources, as the cost rises so do does recycling and added sources that were before unprofitable, As for “peak oil”, technology is apparently about to catch up (and this not including possibly LENR or the new compact hot fusion scenarios):
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Natural-gas-to-1-gasoline-5701521.php
Silver ralph
“Peaks” do not occur because of exhaustion. As has been repeatedly explained to you, for all practical purposes any resource can be assumed to be infinite.
In case there are any onlookers who don’t know what Silver ralph pretends he cannot understand, I will again explain it. The nonsensical idea that resources peak because of depletion is part of the untrue idea that the Earth is overpopulated with humans.
The fallacy of overpopulation derives from the disproved Malthusian idea which wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in in percentage.
Now, the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows.
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to the obvious truth that human ingenuity has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
And these benefits also act to prevent overpopulation because population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this. Of most importance is that poor people need large families as ‘insurance’ to care for them at times of illness and old age. Affluent people can pay for that ‘insurance’ so do not need the costs of large families.
The result is that the indigenous populations of rich countries decline. But rich countries need to sustain population growth for economic growth so they need to import – and are importing – people from poor countries. Increased affluence in poor countries can be expected to reduce their population growth with resulting lack of people for import by rich countries.
Hence, the real foreseeable problem is population decrease; n.b. not population increase.
All projections and predictions indicate that human population will peak around the middle of this century and decline after that. So, we are confronted by the probability of ‘peak population’ resulting from growth of affluence around the world.
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish. There is no existing or probable problem of overpopulation of the world by humans.
Richard
Ralph. You need to go and do a bit more research. Many of the ‘peaks’ you mentioned were not about quantity but about price.
New tin mines are being opened right now in the SW UK. Iron ore is still very plentiful and nowhere near peak, there remains about 1000 yrs worth of coal underground much of which will be tapped by shale and there is more oil being found even as we speak.
No reserve estimates have ever been correct. Not one.
Take your green crap elsewhere
Worse, peak Argon. (You sound squeaky for some reason.)
And peak stones?
>>the peaks you mention are about price, not quantity.
I think you need to do some basic economics. Price is a reflection of quantity, production costs and demand. And all three can lead to a ‘Peak’ condition.
a. The resource can run out = peak.
b. The resource can get too difficult to extract or process = peak.
c. Increasing demand can outstrip a constant supply = peak availability.
And anyway, the examples I gave were about quantity. Take North Sea oil. All the easy oil was extracted in the 70s and 80s. Improved technology in the 90s lead to an increase in production, but with much smaller and more difficult fields. But from the 90s it has been downhill – and it will continue to be downhill because all the big oil has long gone. You need a thousand new fields, to equal one Brent.
http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/UK_crude_oil_production_1976_20101.jpg
And lets not be silly and say: “there is a new oil field off Spurn Head with another 50 barrels of oil in it – so we have not reached UK Peak Oil yet”. Quite clearly, we are a decade past UK Peak Oil, and the way forward is only downhill.
And let’s not kid ourselves that UK tin is coming back into production. Our tin mines were viable when good ore was to be found, and trasport from South America and Australia cost a fortune. (And even then they were difficult, deep mines.) But with all the easy tin gone, and sea freight at £100 a tonne – there is no chance for UK tin. As I said before, we hit UK Peak Tin back in the 19th century, and let us not delude ourselves that it is coming back.
Ralph
But Peak Helium is real! We ARE running out of Helium!
Our children face a sad world in which they will no longer hear their favorite cartoon characters talk in squeaky voices – another chapter of mankind’s culture lost to the greed of overproduction.
Tom, I hope for a peak BS!
There has been talk of end of oil and coal as long as we have extracted it. Even in the mid 19 century some people were concerned that the coal mines would soon be empty. In an old newspaper from 1928 I found an article predicting that all oil globally would be used up in the forties.
Those who think we will reach a peak helium crisis with scarce and highly priced helium in the near future should buy large quantities now and store it in tanks to sell it in the future.
/Jan
Commercial extraction of oil started in 1859, and by 1862 there were predictions that oil would run out very soon.
Current usage is far, far greater yet the reserves have grown not only in quantity but also in the years of supply. Among other reasons that is why oil prices have dropped recently.
As for minerals Silver Ralph is talking nonsense if he means the World, rather than a small part of the UK. Peak iron ore??? I can remember when Mt. Newman started up, they were going to supply 10 million tons a year for 30 years. They’re still mining, at 30 million tonnes p.a. and coming up to the fortieth anniversary. And there’s a whole mountain range of lower grade ore (42 v 67%, when 28% used to be considered commercially viable).
I don’t think you have an appreciation of how much ‘oil’ is ‘in the ground’ based upon technology. I don’t see it running out for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Coal liquefaction processes and large bitumen deposits mean that you’ll never see ‘peak oil’ in my lifetime. Oil will always be available with an abundance solely dependent upon price and demand.
They also ignore the fact that it liberated women (and men) from the drudgery of house work. Labour saving devices such as fossil fuel powered washing machines, dish washers, blenders etc.
Silver ralph,
There are alternatives to oil. South Africa refined the technique for getting oil from coal. We are nowhere near peak coal. Research is taking place into pumping co2 into glass tubes filled with algae and nutrients to extract oil and make biodiesel. Peak oil is reserve peak oil.
When is peak stupid?
As Richardscourtney pointed out there is no peak problem in theory, but as result of the dissipation issue(dS), in the very long run it will become more and more expensive to reclaim resources. Haber already tried to recover gold from seawater, to have an idea about the difficulties.
How about peak hot air? No, I guess not.
And peak stones?
=======
yep, they ran out at the end of the stone age and we almost had to go back to using wooden clubs. but they had peaked during the wood age, so we were stuck with copper and bronze. when they peaked at the end of the bronze age we were right and truly screwed, having run out of wood and stones previously, the human race came to an end as the high priests had long predicted.
So what the heck brought us out of the stone age? A lack of stones? Wanna see my garden?
Peak Uranium, 2035.
Richardcourtney:
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded.
__________________________________
Oh here comes Richard again, with his Malthusian nonsense. The above statement is bollo, Richard, absolute bollo. Oil as an infinite resource? Yeah, and the swine-herd in the field across the way has just flown south for the winter. They do that every year, you know.
If the world can be considered a ‘petri dish’, then so too is the UK. A smaller petri dish with a smaller population, perhaps, but a petri dish nonetheless. Think of the UK as a microcosm of the whole world. So, Richard, has the UK reached Peak Oil? Look at the graph I posted – has the UK reached Peak Oil? Answer the question.
UK oil production is declining, no matter what technology we throw at it. If the UK had no recourse to oil imports, what would happen? Yes, we would be desperately short of oil within ten or so years. Our oil has nearly gone, in the blink of an eye in historical or geological terms. So UK oil is not an infinite resource (an absurd proposition), it has fallen off its perch; it has shuffled off its mortal coil; it is as stiff as a board; it is pushing up daisies; it is an ex-natural resource !!
Anyone who has cultured a real petri dish will get the same result – the bacterium or mould flourishes until they consume all the nutrients in the dish, and then they all die. That is the nature of all petri dishes, Richard, and that is the nature of civilizations too. Any number of civilizations have perished, because they ran out of food, so please do not try to explain to us that food is an infinite resource. Tell your soppy tale to the Ukrainians, and see what they say to you…
.
The only thing that separates the declining UK energy position from the world energy position, is that we have kept most of the world poor. But if the other 5 billion people in the world started consuming oil like the Americans, the world would soon be in the same energy position as the UK.
Ralph
Silver Ralph – to your reasons for a peak, add (d) replacement by alternatives. This is the key point in richardscourtney’s earlier comment. I don’t think any of the peaks you say have occurred (copper, tin, iron ore, etc) have occurred yet on a global basis.
richardscourtney – you need to distinguish between peak oil and peak energy. Replacement of oil by alternatives doesn’t mean there isn’t peak oil, on the contrary it helps to bring on the peak.
Ralph, unfortunately you have misused the word “resource”. This is a big misconception for people who don’t know the definitions of such things as “commodity”, “resource” and “reserve”. We don’t strictly pump oil resources, for example.
Don’t also forget efficiency savings.
Certainly in the transport field there have been worthwhile improvements in the efficiency and fuel consumption of petrol, diesel and jet engines. Transport is a major component of consumption in the developed world so these efficiency savings are a significant part of the reason why peak oil has not yet materialised.
“… we have kept most of the world poor.” -Ralph
———————-
What do you mean ‘We have kept’, Ralph?
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.” “–Robert Heinlein
Dear Ralph,
As you must know, a higher price for oil automatically increases the world’s oil reserves. This is because oil is only able to be counted as part of the oil reserve if it can be exploited economically.
Imagine if this same logic were applied to renewable energy. The energy available from wind and solar would be zero (nada), because it cannot be exploited economically, but only with heavy govt subsidy.
Imagine that.
Well, no, there is still plenty of all these in the UK. It’s a question f economics of extraction. Aluminium/Aluminum is one of the most abundant elements in the Earth’s crust.
We hit peak tin in the bronze age.
And peak stones in the stone age.
[Flints, obsidian, the Egyptian sandstone, …. .mod]
joel December 14, 2014 at 1:58 pm
As you must know, a higher price for oil automatically increases the world’s oil reserves.
___________________________
Yes, Joel, we know that. But the qualification to your statement is ‘it increases reserves by not very much’.
Look at the UK oil production graph I posted. In the 1990s it took some 30 oil finds, to equal one Fortes field. In the 2020s it will take 250 oil finds, to equal one Fortes field. It is a law of diminishing returns, and exponential prices.
And there comes a point when the people give up spending all their money on these ever-diminishing returns, and severely cut back on their energy usage. In short, with very limited energy supplies, the entire nation returns to the Dark Ages. And remember that this is a Dark Age that it is impossible to escape from – because all the easy energy has been extracted and burned a long time ago. A future civilisation cannot tread the easy path to an industrial revolution that we have taken, because all the easy finds of coal and oil have long gone.
This is what Richard wants us to sleep-walk into. Just imagine if the Romans had been using energy at the same rate as we are. How much would be left in the ground some 1,500 years later, for us to use? And 1,500 years is just a blink of the eye, in historical or geological terms. Is Richard expecting that our civilisation will only last for the next 200 years? Do our descendants in 50,000 years time, have no rights to a comfortable energy-lubricated life?
And then we have the great fantasy of ‘new energy technologies’ that will save us all. Yeah, right, well don’t believe it until you see the bill from the energy supplier that has already supplied it to you. Basing the future of a country upon a pipe-dream is not a rational approach to sustainable nation-building.
Ralph
Robert of Ottawa December 14, 2014 at 2:53 pm
Well, no, there is still plenty of all these in the UK. It’s a question of economics of extraction. Aluminium/Aluminum is one of the most abundant elements in the Earth’s crust.
_______________________________________
Oh, yes. Show us where the huge UK bauxite deposits are. And since bauxite tends to be found in shallow layers, you have to rip up large areas of countryside to get it. In case you had not noticed, the UK is rather densely populated.
And even if you did find enough bauxite in the UK, at what price would that be? Ok, so we have already quintupled energy prices, and now we propose to also quadruple all mineral prices. What is that going to do to standards of living? And if we can no longer afford the products, and regress towards a much simpler life, what does that do to industry, technology, science, employment, and all of modernity? Our high standard of living is not a divine right – we can lose it much faster than the many centuries it took to gain it.
Wishful thinking and fantasy economics does not run a nation or maintain a civilisation.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Fucf6NSWXto/TOPbqCgEJdI/AAAAAAAAAyY/MMchq19C7LM/s1600/IMG_0810.JPG
Jimbo
You quote my having said
and then you say
With respect, that is an explanation of my point. “Labour saving devices such as fossil fuel powered washing machines, dish washers, blenders etc.” are the mechanical ‘slaves’ which have replaced human slaves.
Richard
Wait for Peak Fracking – I’m storing up the food in my cellar already!
“Peak Oil” was first mooted around 1860 relating to the Scottish shale oil industry, when Scotland was the world’s biggest petroleum exporting nation.
http://www.scottishshale.co.uk/HistoryPages/
Not a lot of people know that!
Peak oil has always been round the corner – for 130 years!
Even earlier, there was a serious peak oil situation in the 1840s.
The peak sperm whale oil.
The link you provided about shale oil originating in Scotland is great reading and fascinating.
The terms or words “paraffin”, “mineral oil” etc. and historical background by Vera Turnbull. Great reading.
Great pictures, details, life of the mining town.
Thank you so much.
There is helium being burnt as NG in Saudi. There is not a shortage of helium, it is more of a pricing issue. But there are some really stupid short sighted people out there that will not engineer in the ability for take-off’s in the design of Gas Plants. And I am not talking of Saudi’s.There really are some very dumb expats.
Helium does not burn
Helium does not burn.
Idiot, doesn’t have to….still goes into the mix without any added BTU content and goes up the stack regardless.
Lord Lawson doesn’t go far enough. The ridiculous Climate Change Act we’re saddled with in the UK should be abolished.
All the worlds politicians have no doubt realised for some time the entire AGW theory is a dead duck. All they are trying to do now is weasel out one slimy sidestep at a time. If they had one shred of decency they would announce that they got it all wrong, but no, they continue on trying to placate their greenut electors, “97%” trough dwellers and the manic CAGW converted – and hope the real world won’t see what is going on.
“All they are trying to do now is weasel out one slimy sidestep at a time.”
I prefer to call it a “lateral arabesque”… sort of like side-stepping the issue in hopes everyone will forget it.
“All they are trying to do now is weasel out one slimy sidestep at a time.”
Yes, but only those with the nunce to see what’s coming. That does not include one single politician in the whole of europe.
They are just beginning to realize that their solutions are drenched in blood. And the UDCs won’t put up with it — and shouldn’t.
The only one with the guts to take on the eco fascists is Tony Abbott of Oz. A man with cojones.
We, in Britain, have been truly cursed with the most imbecilic governments for a couple of decades now. Signing up to a policy which actually harms the economy has got to be the most absurd thing any government could do. But worse, it affects the electorate as well! Unfortunately, we have millions of sheep, who will trot along to the election booths and, yet again, vote in one of the two political parties which are responsible for the shambles we find ourselves in. I despair. Only Ukip would actually do something sensible, and they’re unlikely to get more than 20 or so seats in Parliament.
But the real reason for this is MSM.
If MSM clearly detailed what are the real consequences of Government policy on the economy, on jobs, the price of energy etc and also what Governmemnt policy means on the reliability of energy and the real reason behind smart metres (energy rationing) AND that Government policy (the drive towards renewables) has achieved no or all but no reduction in CO2 since renewables require 100% back up by conventional fossil fuel generation which generation is not being used in its most efficient running mode (it has to ramp up/ramp down to meet the varying and intermittent loads/supplies of wind energy,a nd just like driving a car, fuel efficiency is at its worst in start/stop mode and haence CO2 emissions at its worst), I have little doubt that the sheepie would have revolted long ago.
The sheeepie have been kept in place by the lack of media reporting and/or misinfornmation and/or distortion of facts fed to the general public.
I blame the media more than the politicians. The problem is the lack of balance. This is because most of the politicians, and most of the media come from preciesely the same political stable, ie., left wing champagne liberals socialists. That is why the matter has become so partisan and why there is a lack of objectivity and lack of holding the politians to account.
If we don’t abolish the CCA we should most certainly abolish Greenp*ss. And then, WWtF.
I think it’s not enough to slow down the mad crusade against the “Gas of Life” CO2. We must stop this irrational nonsense! It’s time for a new revolution, its time to start the international carbon liberation movement, its time for the “Carbonist Manifesto”:
“Manifesto of the Carbonist Party
Preamble:
A spectre is haunting the Earth — the spectre of carbonism. All the powers of the old World have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and UN, Obama and Merkel, Greenpeace Radicals and Internet IPCC-trolls.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as carbonistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of carbonism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
Two things result from this fact:
I. Carbonism is already acknowledged by all World powers to be itself a power.
II. It is high time that Carbonists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of Carbonism with a manifesto of the Carbon Liberation Party itself.
To this end, Carbonist of various nationalities have assembled in the World Wide Web and sketched the following manifesto, to be published as a clear statement how valuable and important the liberation of carbon is in order to deliver enough CO2 as essential plant food for a better human nourishment and a much improved and greener environment.”
Well, so far the “Preamble” of “The carbonist Manifesto”. Who wants to continue with the first chapter of the manifesto… ?
😉
Oops – I have forgotten an important supplement of the newly proclaimed Carbonist Party: Every liberation movement needs its own hymn, so I declare “Burn” by Ellie Goulding to be the new “Internationale” of the carbonistic CLP (Carbon Liberation Party). Thus just enjoy this truly burning and carbon-liberating CO2-hymn… 🙂
http://youtu.be/sXtpLjffj5Y
Ralph, maybe your mass mailing of your “big-email” got someone’s attention? 🙂
http://www.pdf-archive.com/2014/12/10/big-email
I do hope so.
What I do know is that I have had a number replies from disgruntled MPs, wondering why neither the BBC nor the Met Office, and nor the Chief Scientist has told them anything about this. We pay the Met Office £ hundreds of millions to research weather, and we pay the BBC £ billions to be impartial – and yet it is left to a private blogger to tell MPs that:
a. The world is not warming.
b. There is a complete disconnect between CO2 levels and temperature.
c. There is absolutely no evidence for an increase in Climate Calamities.
Questions have been asked, and I do hope they have been asked robustly.
Ralph
Politicians don’t want to hear any of that stuff.
How are they supposed to “save the world” if the world doesn’t actually need saving?
Well there is always Paris where the shake down starts all over again , if nothing else the delegates will find far more shopping opportunities and a better class of restaurant , and when its Joe public picking up the bill this type of thing really matters.
Anyone known where the next of these little ‘parties ‘ is after Paris is ?
On personal level I just hope ‘Ed the fool’ is history by then so at least he will not be filling his over-sized boots at public expense .
He will be in an Eu boondoggle or heading a “charity” in the USA on 1M dollars a year or some other really useful activity!
Paris! These people just love their carbon footprints.
And England has far warmer winters than we have in the Glacier Belt of North America (where glaciers were once a mile thick!).
Though half of England like half of Europe was covered repeatedly by glaciers, too, for the last 2.5 million years….and pray tell, what should we fear most?
It is cold outside on my mountain in New York! Been cold for the last several years and getting colder each winter and summers are colder, too.
And as the GWPF also tells us in the UK “Climate Policies To Add Up To 40% To Cost Of Household Electricity” – See more at: http://www.thegwpf.com/green-madness-climate-policies-to-add-up-to-40-to-cost-of-household-electricity/#sthash.9fsJwjL4.dpuf
More revelations that the Government has hidden the future costs to the UK citizens because they were “thought to be confusing”. Oh yes, we would be very confused if we were told the truth about how much the climate policies are going to cost us.
Phillip, I read that in today’s Telegraph, but there is talk that this 40% figure is a minimal figure and it could be as high as 60%!
Greenpeace showed themselves in their true colours by damaging one of the world’s most ancient monuments (the Nazca Lines) to publicise their own agenda.
Despite all the efforts of the EU, the UK is staging an economic recovery, which is going to stall if energy costs soar. I believe firmly that a country’s first priority is to create wealth, not re-distribute it before the wealth is created in the first place. The philosophy of the Greens is the opposite, intellectually, morally and scientifically they are bankrupt.
“I believe firmly that a country’s first priority is to create wealth, not re-distribute it… ”
It seems the plan has been to destroy wealth, not redistribute it. An investment with a negative return destroy wealth – like military expenditure which, all things considered, uses money to destroy value (not to mention, values).
The FIRST duty of any government is defense. Never money wasted. Many a brave soul died on the beaches of Dunkirk because of your creed and beliefs. DS
“thought to be confusing” – that resonates somewhat with the “dumb american voter” controversy in the US.
The “dumb voter” is a product of democracy by proxy – e.g. electing representatives. It is only a “controversy” to people who think that something needs to change, that they have the answer, and that people who don’t share that view are “too dumb to realize they are voting against their interests.” I’ve found, through multiple countries with a representative democracy, that there are similar views of the voting base in a lot of them.
If there were a direct democracy of sorts established, you’d see a truer reflection of the values of the people instead of voters basically having to chose a single specific or small range of generic issues to guide them on whom to vote for and getting “baggage” that comes with that vote.
Arsten,
Yes… BUT…
If there was direct democracy, then we could get rid of the jews! And the blacks! And…
See the problem? The majority could get rid of you, too.
dbstealey:
I agree. But, then, so could a representative democracy. What keeps that from going semite-slaughter, I wonder? Oh, right. Checks and balances.
I am suggesting supplanting a single branch of government with direct democracy, the Legislative, and leaving the other two more or less intact in the case of the US.
Remember: if you think you are a better than someone else or those that liked you more than the “other guy” because you won a popularity contest, you are out of touch with reality.
The only thing that can protect from the “democide” (death by Government) of any system, including democracy (two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch) is individual rights to liberty.
The only things that can effectively protect liberty are structural checks and balances which prevent any group, Religious, Government, or Business, Green Water Melons, etc, from having power to dictate to others their behavior. The above plus property rights, and self protection rights, plus high morality (very necessary) are protections against group tyranny, be it tyranny of a minority or a majority..
As Thomas Jefferson well stated, “Government is a necessary evil”
“acknowledgement of international reality”….
I love that. Something tells me we “may” see something like this in the week ahead. “Shall”,”may” – oh crickey. I can’t make me mind up.
Reality has a habit of rearing its ugly head.
So let’s just hope that the (comparatively) miniscule number of scientists who say there is no problem are right? Or we’re stuffed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
With the slowdown not morphing into the prophecied Great Cooling, “It’s not looking hopeful they’re right” is beginning to look like “no chance”
“(comparitively) miniscule”! Only a village idiot would be unaware of the more than thirty thousand scientists and engineers who co-signed a statement saying that human emissions are not a problem.
No alarmist statement has come anywhere near those numbers, and only a village idiot would rely on Wikipedia for anything climate related: their bogus list is at least 30,000 names short.
The 30,000 signers of the OSIM petition are 0.3% of the 10,600,000 scientists and engineers qualified to sign it. 0.3% is miniscule. Why haven’t the other 99.7% signed it?
Ah. Mr. Misrepresentation appears.
It is deceptive to try and compare a subset with the set. Rather, compare the subset with the alarmist subset. Then you will see that the true “consenasus” tilts heavily to the side of skeptics of MMGW.
D. Socrates is getting desperate:
It is absolutely correct to compare the subset to the set.
Flat wrong. Normal people compare one subset with another subset, while Prevaricators compare one part to the whole. That is not a comparison, that’s just a fraction.
Next:
…there are roughly 10,570,000 scientists and engineers that did not sign the petition.
First, how would you know? Second, all that matters is the number that signed the OISM petition, versus the *very* small number that has signed any alarmist statement. So name them. Put all your alarmist scientists together, and then compare them to OISM. You will still come up short, by a ratio of about 10:1. I’ll bet you can’t find 3,000 named alarmist scientists who have signed any petition contrary to OISM. Wanna bet?
You can’t post the number of alarmist scientists who have signed anything contradicting OISM, and even if you could, you won’t. Because the number of alarmist scientists is puny compared to the skeptical consensus. That’s why you deflect, and misdirect to a meaningless number of total scientists. You have no idea what, or if they would sign. Truth be told, you know as little about the true climate ‘consensus’ as you do about anything else, and what you think you know is wrong.
Next:
Dancing around the word “verbatim” doesn’t cut it…
Of course it does. When I cut and paste your words, that is verbatim. Try cutting and pasting my words some time, instead of fabricating quotes.
Next:
When you say “30,000 is not miniscule” you are comparing a subset to a set. How else would you know it is not miniscule without a comparison?
I know because I am doing a legitimate comparison: the number of skeptical scientists vs the number of self-identified scientists, who have signed a statement contradicting OISM. That is the comparison that creates the consensus.
You are the only one who has a problem with that, and your real problem is that you’ve been telling your pals that you have “the consensus”, when that is nonsense. You don’t, and you never did. That is just another bogus alarmist assertion.
The truth is that the climate alarmist contingent is pretty damn small. An even bigger problem is that the general public has started laughing at you. You’ve cried “Wolf!!” too many times. Now I notice lots of references to ‘Chicken Little’ in the mainstream press. That can’t be good for your side.
Dbstealey writes…
…
“Flat wrong. Normal people compare one subset with another subset, while Prevaricators compare one part to the whole”
..
Time to school Mr Stealey in statistical random sampling.
…
When you wish to measure something is the whole set you select a random sample ( a subset ) of the whole. You use statistics to determine how large you want your subset of the whole to be, to be able to state the confidence interval when making statements about the whole. You compare your subset to the whole in this case.
It’s done all the time. In fact, I suggest you talk to a QC engineer about it.
As rgbatduke would say, that works if your samples are truly random, surface stations are far from being random.
D. Socrates,
You have been schooled by a number of people, but as usual you refuse to learn. As another commenter explained to you:
… if we followed your Bozo the clown logic, we can compare individual wealth by comparing a persons wealth to the combined wealth of the entire world.
You just don’t understand, and you probably never will.
Better get some sleep, the alarm clock goes off early — for working folks.
It is absolutely correct to compare the subset to the set.
…
When you say “30,000 is not miniscule” you are comparing a subset to a set. How else would you know it is not miniscule without a comparison?
If it were not for false assertions, D. Socrates wouldn’t have much to say. He cannot compare set with subset like he’s desperately trying to do. Because if he did, he would have to admit that his clique of alarmist scientists is very minuscule by comparison to the skeptical consensus.
I’ll put it this way: I challenge Socrates or anyone else to post a named list of American scientists and engineers, all with degrees in the hard sciences including more than 9,000 PhD’s, that contradicts the OISM statement.
If you can, you win. If you can’t, you lose.
Can’t anybody spell minuscule?
Richard Smith,
Some of us can spell correctly. I cut ‘n’ pasted his comment, but when I compose I always spell minuscule correctly.
You could look it up!☺
Good example f “misrepresentation”
…
“30,000 is a big number”
…
Well, there are roughly 10,570,000 scientists and engineers that did not sign the petition.
Is that enough for you ?
D. Socrates says:
Good example f “misrepresentation”
…
“30,000 is a big number”
Where did that quote come from? It’s in bold, with verbatim quote marks.
I think it was fabricated, just like most everything else Socrates posts. So, was it fabricated? Or not?
The only legitimate numbers comparison is between the number of OISM scientists who say that human emissions are not a problem, and the number of contrary scientists that Socreates can dig up. But so far, he has avoided my challenge. So he loses the debate. Nothing new there, he hasn’t been on the winning side yet.
It’s like this: no one knows where any un-named scientists stand. Every one of them could be in total agreement with OISM. But they were not asked (or more correctly: if asked, they did not respond either way).
Socrates is trying to imply that all those un-named scientists agree with him, which is his usual nonsense. It’s like an election: only those who vote, count. The others don’t matter.
I understand that it is torture for climate alarmists to be reminded that the true ‘consensus’ is heavily on the side of scientific skeptics. But that is a fact, as I have documented. The only way to contradict that would be to produce even more named scientists who disagree with OISM. Socrates has his chance, but as usual he deflects. I know the reason: the clique of alarmist scientists is very small. Prove me wrong.
The life of a climate alarmist gets harder every day, doesn’t it? ☺
Dancing around the word “verbatim” doesn’t cut it, it was clearly implied in your post It came from “Only a village idiot would be unaware of the more tha thirty thousand scientists and engineers.”
…
You even put “thirty thousand” in italics to add emphasis.
..
You were using that number relative to the words “Comparatively miniscule”! (you even added exclamation point)
…
Come back here when you find out from the OISM what was the response rate from their solicitation.
..
PS… A PhD in reptilian endocrinology doesn’t speak to a qualified opinion on climate science.
Keep digging Socrates soon you’ll be able to have lunch in China.
Meanwhile if we followed your Bozo the clown logic, we can compare individual wealth by comparing a persons wealth to the combined wealth of the entire world. Poor Mr. Gates would not be as wealthy as he thought he was.
D. Socrates says:
A PhD in reptilian endocrinology doesn’t speak to a qualified opinion on climate science.
What has that got to do with anything? The fact is that every co-signer on OISM was required to have a degree in the hard sciences.
Alx is right, you’re just digging a deeper hole.
“What has that got to do with anything?”
…
You were the one that said that 9000 of the signers of the petition has PhD’s.
…
The trouble with your statement is there is no way of telling what field of study the PhD is in.
D. Socrates says:
The trouble with your statement is there is no way of telling what field of study the PhD is in.
Go to the OISM page and do a search.
Anyway, you’re still deflecting from my challenge. Where are your alarmist scientists? I still say they are but a handful; a small, self-serving clique of rent seekers.
You’re always asking questions. Answer one for a change: prove me wrong. That’s my challenge to you. Show the names of your scientists with their degrees in the hard sciences that make up your so-called “consensus”.
I’ve given you some of the skeptical scientists, with their names. 32,000 of them. Now, what have you got?
Dbstealey
LMAO “hard sciences”
…
I guess you just don’t understand that the study of reptilian endocrinology falls under biology which, is a “hard science”
..
You still haven’t explained why over 10 million (99.7%) of the qualified people haven’t signed the petition.
D. Socrates, in his interminable comments throughout the work day, says:
I guess you just don’t understand that the study of reptilian endocrinology falls under biology which, is a “hard science”
And I say: So what? What is Algore’s CV? He’s the High Priest of Socrates’ alarmist cult.
Socrates further exhibits his total inability to understand how comparisons work. Apparently he will never understand, because he keeps making completely inappropriate comparisons.
For example, Socrates continues attempting to deflect the legitimate comparison between his pathetically small number of alarmist rent-seekers, and the overwhelming number of skeptical scientists.
So once again I challenge Mr Socrates to produce the names of every alarmist rent-seeking scientist he can find and post them here — just as I have posted the names of 32,000+ American scientists that reject climate alarmism. Everyone will then see very clearly that the so-called “consensus” is heavily on the side of skeptical scientists — the only honest kind of scientists.
But I predict that Socrates will once again tuck tail and run from that challenge, because if he posted all the alarmist names he could find, everyone would see that his number would be minuscule compared with the number of scientists who reject climate alarmism.
“And I say: So what?”
…
You say that a lot. Well, I suggest you find out what areas of science the “9000 PhD’s ” that signed the OISM petition.
Secondly, I don’t care about Al Gore. If you care about him, good for you, it has nothing to do with this discussion. Bringing him up is a “deflection”
..
“overwhelming number of skeptical scientists.”
…
32,000 out of 10,600,000 is not “overwhelming” In fact, it is only 0.3%
..
Here are two links that reflect reality.
..
Enjoy them
..
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12/
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12/
Ooops…
This is the 2nd link
..
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
..
David Socrates, I have looked and looked, and I have found zero (that is a big fat ZERO) scientist that have signed a petition stating that AGW is catastrophic.
Also BTW, I have looked and found much evidence that the predicted harms of CO2 induced CAGW have failed to manifest, and the benefits have manifested and are likely to continue to in the future.
David,
Interesting link to a paper written by Robinson, Robinson and Soon in 2007 is included within the web site your “Skeptic” links reference.(1) The paper somewhat refutes the “concluding” remarks of the “Skeptic” piece.
(1) http://www.petitionproject.org/
Village Idiot, even if the alarmist scientists are right – what do you expect the Governments to do about it?
They’ve come together, evaluated the science, evaluated the costs, evaluated the uncertainty and come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is this.
Do you think they were wrong? Such an overwhelming majority of experts all making the wrong call? Free market democracies, authoritarian Asian economies, developing agricultural countries… everybody has agreed on this.
If you agree with respecting the authority of experts how can you possibly question this policy?
Now there’s a novel concept! Politicians who always make the right decisions.
Just a little thing called the Emissions Gap:
http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/emissionsgapreport2013/portals/50188/Executive_summary_en.pdf
So let’s just hope that the (comparatively) miniscule number of scientists who say there is no problem are right? Or we’re stuffed…..
We’re all going to die from run away UHI………
scientists who say there is no problem are right
============
that is a logical fallacy. everyone agrees there are problems in the world. and pretty much everyone agrees that a warmer climate is not so bad, when the alternative is poverty.
how about this as a solution for the UN? Get the 2 billion people on the planet that live without running water or electricity out of poverty. Use the wealth created to solve global warming.
because right now, the solutions being proposed, that poor countries cut CO2 to save the rich countries from warming don’t make any sense if you are poor, but make great sense if you are rich.
ferd, you do realize that was a quote from VI, right?
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
.
.
Loed Lawson calls for suspension of Climate Change Act
The Eugenics of Climate Talks.
My observation of the Peru talks is that it was an orgy of mutual masturbaters. The delegates were there pleasuring each other, making each other feel good with a sensory experience in a resort location. They turned each other on with whispers of sweet nothings about solar energy, and oil hate, while promoting population control and self-species annihilation.
Thankfull the conference yielded a still born aborted mutant of an agreement. All that drinking, flattery, and seduction gave birth to a dead child.
This is a pattern of the twisted left. They are really good at killing. Killing people, progress, and the western way of life.
Thanks to God that they are slowly dying of impotence, a product of their own philosophy.
Well said sir. ++1
Excellent.
Would just add that left/right is redundant – they are the same thing.
They might as well ask Gruber to be their spokesman.
Time to call off Paris now. Nothing will have changed except the drivers to ‘do something’ will get less as the economic situation gets worse. It will be another expensive failure.
Call off Paris??? Shush yo’ mouth!!! All of those catered parties? All of those nights at the Moulin Rouge, on the UN’s dime? All with the guarantee of doing it all over again the next year, no matter what is “agreed” to?
Come on, who wants to be Grinch that stops the Gravy Train from rollin’ on? Especially when all the money is free!!! (because to everyone who’s there, it is)
Are you denying our hard-working climate bureaucrats their well-deserved stay in the city of light? Also, consider the positive effect on a strained French economy. Not least, the leaders of soon-to-be-flooded island states are in dire need of checking the real estate market for their new homes.
Least we forget the crude, unforgiveable behavior of the Greenpiece terrorists.
When will this scam of all scams end? The basic ability to understand ‘reality 101’ (the so called reasonable woman/man) is not ‘skepticism’ or being a ‘denier’.
1) There is no extreme AGW problem to solve, the planet resists (by an increase or decrease in planetary cloud cover) forcing changes rather than amplifies forcing changes (which explains why there is no warming for the last 17 years), it is a fact that plants thrive when CO2 levels increase (CO2 increases are beneficial to all life on this planet) the CO2 increase is a net good thing rather than a net bad thing)
2) Green scams do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions anyway, if there was a CO2 problem (i.e. if CO2 has a bad thing rather than a good thing) then nuclear power is the answer, massive conversion to nuclear power will significantly reduce CO2 emissions
3) The only people who are benefiting from the AGW madness are the green scam leaches and the piles and piles of AGW bureaucrats and paper pushers.
Figueres’ quote is an example of absurd new speech.
The climate ‘change’ agreement is not an ‘agreement’ in the normal sense of the work (i.e. where there is a logical course of action to a address a problem that needs to be solve and the parties agree to the logical action to address the problem), the climate change ‘agreement’ is that some countries will do what every they want, other countries will attempt to destroy what is left of their economies by forced spending on green scams that do not work, and some countries promise to send tax payer money which they do not have to the UN, where it will be absorbed by middle man, bureaucrats, and corrupt governments and what is left will be spent on green scams that do not work.
http://news.yahoo.com/lima-u-n-talks-agree-building-blocks-2015-064032532.html
‘When will this scam of all scams end?’
When it stops being so rewarding for those involved in it . In reality the true believers are far fewer than those who are riding this gravy train because in the end it requires little work and is so comfortable .
One oddity of the whole AGW scam is not for all the talk of reducing growth to ‘save the planet ‘ it has created massive growth in areas like the renewable industry , climate ‘science’ , NGO’s and massive events like the Lima . Its has been very good for ‘business’ if you were in the right business .
When this scam ends – in my not-so-long-left lifetime – I trust the kudos will deservedly accrue to the likes of Anthony Watts, Steven McIntyre, Andrew Montford, Jo Nova, Judy Curry, Tallbloke, Delingpole, Booker and so many, many more bloggers, journalists and real scientists who took on the vested interests of green corporatism and its ecoligarchs.
There just has to be a role of honour (ok, my Colonial cousins: honor) for these people. I haven’t even scratched the surface of those who are making it happen. They.are.making.it.happen.
Paris has been the real and metaphorical centre of many capitulations: let us all hope that 2015 becomes yet another, and that the ‘Fields of Elysium’ echo to the sighs of relief of millions of people around the world who will get their lives back.
/rant
Oooops: Roll of Honour
“…define the obligations of rich and poor…”
According to the CBC (repeated many times) the reason for trying to find an agreement was to raise money to ‘help developing countries lower their CO2 emissions.’ Ooh what a lie!
In other words, a complete misrepresentation of the purpose of the $100bn. The PR people said it was to pay for ‘mitigation of climate change disasters’. which as we know means anything they want it to mean (see the Copenhagen agreement text).
The cite above and the CBC are congruent which is really worrying. Are they really planning to raise money to get the low emissions countries to lower their CO2 emissions? Is this a problem that will be solved by the developing countries limiting their energy production to that of renewables provided by the industry and patented inventions of the developed countries? They are going to raise $100bn to pay rich countries for hardware to install in poor countries? Welcome to old fashioned ‘aid programs’ that held the donor more than the recipient.
As we can tell by the simple math, carbon dioxide trading is not emissions reduction. It is touted as having rich emitters pay to emit, and the money used to pay for damage which the rich owe to the poor because of their suffering from unaffordable disasters caused by climate change attributable to CO2 emission, which will continue to be emitted for a fee. What a pot-boiler for carbon traders!
This is so dumb it inspires awe. It has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. Apparently climate change mitigation requires paying for rural water supplies and primary school education. I am all in favour of rich nations helping poor nations to have clean water and goods schools, but we don’t need to lie about it or create massive, expensive bureaucracies that enrich Goldman Sachs.
I completely agree.
We should do this. Rich nations should help poor nations to have clean water and goods schools.
But we should do it because it’s right.
Lest someone pour doubt on the contrived reason (AGW will kill us all) so we poison the wells whilst depriving the next Faraday access to books.
Go tell that to the Taliban and their ilk…..they are murdering teachers for teaching women “freedom”.
Crispin in Waterloo said: “I am all in favour of rich nations helping poor nations to have clean water and goods schools, but we don’t need to lie about it or create massive, expensive bureaucracies”
MCourtney said: “We should do this. Rich nations should help poor nations to have clean water and goods schools. But we should do it because it’s right.”
I totally agree with both of you. I would add one additional comment.
When a richer country wishes to give aid to a poorer country, they should do this directly (bypassing the UN) and only do it if the receiving country allows our people to come in (without having to pay anyone off), to set up the project, coordinate the project and using local people to build the project in question.
Only in this way will the have countries get the most bang for their buck. Direct aid for useful projects that the local people participate in. This is the only true way of giving aid.
There are zero obligations…..any one come to the rescue of our forefathers? Maybe the school of hard knocks is the only way forward for those that need lessons beat into the skulls instead of bleating they are hard done by…..tell that one to my grandmother. GBHS
+1
Since this was posted 10 days ago, oil has dropped another $10 from the $68 range to a $58 range. Since most people are not aware of the energy situation, I have added a few more comments below the previous comments.
If you think the current oil prices are a boon to the future you are sadly mistaken; the current price will take production down and demand up, to replace future demand will be more expensive.
If you integrate the cost of oil over the long run, this price drop will only increase the total integrated cost. To provide future demand new production costs will be more expensive.
I suspect the market is somewhat asymmetrical. The drop in price is going to cause a lot more damage in the short term to the future of the supply side; than it will enhance or improve any structural change on the demand side. And finally don’tcompare the history of Oil with Natural Gas. Oil is priced globally while NG is priced by the availability of pipe lines. There is not yet any transocean pipelines. The US is still a net importer of NG and the US will continue to use NG energy at an increasing share of total energy. It’s our Ace in the hole.
It’s far easier for a few producers to go bankrupt than it is for consumers to improve their life style.
And one more little tid bit: Before the prices started falling oil production for the rest of the world outside of the U S and Canada was not keeping up with demand. It was only the high cost production from the US and Canada that was the cause of the current glut. We have reduced total oil and product imports nearly 5 million barrels per day in less than 4 years, while still importing 7 million barrels per day.
RWO 12-2-2014
______________________________________________________________________________________
If you subtract oil production of Texas and N Dakota from total US production there is no increase in production for the remaining states during the past 4 years. The new production in the remainder of the states can barely replace depletion of conventional production in those states.
The current world wide glut of oil only amounts to about 1 million barrels per day of surplus production; or little more than 1% of world production. If you then subtract US and Canada’s production from total world wide production the remaining balance has not increased for the past couple of years. Therefore if only 25% of current US and Canadian shale production is lost, world wide production balance will be restored. Current prices do not support new shale production in the US or any where else in the world. These prices will also not support many of the current loans due on much of the current production and all future planned production.
If over the next 6 months the world economy outside of the US, continues to contract and world oil consumption continues to fall; N Dakota, WestTexas, and Houston will see another 1986 in the oil patch.
Much of the increased N. Gas production in the US is not due to N Gas wells but due to all the new wells for shale oil production. Oil produced from shale formations is a much lighter crude and has higher percentages of Ethane, Propane, Butane, and N Gas; when refined it yields less Gasoline and much less Diesel.
Wells from shale formations have deteriorating production at much higher rates than conventional oil production, 60% down after the first year and production is usually down to 20% or less of initial production after the third year. Therefore new wells must be continuously drilled to replace the contracting production of previous wells. Also adding additional wells (infill drilling) in the same field reduces initial production of new wells; therefore over time the drilling rate also has to increase, and it begins to acquire the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
Most all the oil service companies and Major oil; SLB, BHI, HAL, COP, CVX, BP, are all down 30% or more since July. That kind of a price drop indicates changes to future cash flow, payroll, and new planning for budgets already in place.
My concern is: Will current oil prices be a net benefit for the American economy; short term maybe, long term never.
RWO 12-12-14 We shall see. This opinion is mostly based on EIA data.
Deflationary economic conditions are never a good thing, long term.
Except to the people at the bottom……
@BFL,
Especially to the people at the bottom.
Sure, falling prices look good – for a time. But why do prices fall? To answer that, you need to look at the good old supply – demand curve. If prices are falling, demand is falling. But let’s play that out in a supply / manufacturing economy: if demand is falling, and the fall in price isn’t stimulating demand, pretty soon inventory starts to pile up. Manufacturers start shutting down production lines, putting people out of work. Because stuff isn’t being bought, retailers lay off staff. And the economy shrinks even more.
Deflation is deadly if you are indebted: if prices are (generally) falling, so too does your income. But your debt remains constant; in fact your debt as a percentage of your total incomes starts to climb.
My experiences suggest that economic projections are nearly always wrong, and despite the thoroughness of your analysis I believe it will be wrong also. All economic analyses have to deal with a multitude of variables and cannot properly account for human ingenuity, productivity improvement and the imperitive of making a profit. I suspect Saudi Arabia will have to deal with the unintended consequences that will result from their desire to maintain market share.
“My concern is: Will current oil prices be a net benefit for the American economy; short term maybe, long term never.”
Well, it sure helps a lot of people for this Christmas season to buy a few more things. Overall it is a boon to the US economy (if you want to talk about the 99%) It’s just a bust to those who hold oil stocks, and those who’s wells will not produce because of the lower prices. It’s definitely a plus, for now and for the future. If prices skyrocket again, at least they can’t say gasoline prices will never go back to $2 per gal. as they have in some places. When prices of oil was over $100,110/barrel, no one was predicting $58 oil…
As I recall from news bites, this started out with a U.S. Saudi agreement as a way to punish Russia for Ukraine (which it is doing). Then it morphed into a way for the Saudi’s & OPEC to make U.S./Canada shale oil unprofitable which it is also doing. And as a side benefit countries like Venezuela (who we have had a falling out with) and Iran are also taking lumps because so much of their economy depends on oil. However most pundits don’t expect the low prices to last beyond the middle of 2015, so enjoy now.
BFL, I have heard this too. So it probably came from Russia Today and isn’t true.
My doubt comes from the risk to OPEC. If the KSA is willing to use oil as a weapon against Iran then OPEC is broken by the Sunni/Shia divide. That’s a step too far.
If this was true then they can’t go back. So I doubt they would let it start.
“…the current price will take production down and demand up, to replace future demand will be more expensive…”
And there is the fundamental flaw in your argument: the unlifted oil will still be there as will the means to extract it.
To maintain cash flow oil will not be shut in to the last dying breath . The only unlifted oil will be where investments have not yet been made. The capitol equipment written off now will have to be replaced with less experienced labor.However I don’t expect these lower prices to last more than 6 moths unless there is a severe collapse of the world economy..
>>the current price will take production down and demand up,
>>to replace future demand will be more expensive.
That is the express intention of Saudi Arabia. They want to drive the price down sonthat they can drive oil sands and gas fracking out of business, and to prevent future exploration – to retain their dominance in the market.
At the $120 dpb level, the USA could totally disconnect itself from the Middle East, and use its own resources. If it did so, then the Middle East would be bankrupt within ten years. Yes, they have lots of assets, but they also spent money like water and produce nothing.
Name me one technical product that is made in the Middle East. Name me one technology that was invented in the Middle East.
Yeah, nothing. The Middle East is a parasite on the back of humanity, and the the sooner we eradicate this parasite, the better. The only thing we get back from the Mid East, is funding for hard-line religious education across the whole world – spreading divisions.
Ralph
“Name me one technology that was invented in the Middle East”
..
..
Kerosene
..
Reference: Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī
“Name me one technology that was invented in the Middle East”
.
Kerosene
..
Reference: Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī
>>Kerosene.
Yeah, except that Thucydides mentions flame throwers being used in the 5th century BC.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides
Thucydides, 4:100
This is the trouble with the so-called Islamic Golden Age – every invention they claim in the name of Islam, pre-dated Islam by a long margin. There is a mendacious travelling show going around Europe callled ‘1001 Islamic Inventions’ – but not one of the inventions in this show is Islamic. They are all Greek, Roman, Persian or Indian. The entire show is Islamic propaganda, and yet European politicians and media have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.
http://www.1001inventions.com
The show even claims that a Camera Obscura is an Islamic invention and based upon an Arabic term – without realising that the Greeks knew all about the camera obscura, while the name itself is Latin for a ‘dark room’.
Ralph
A flame thrower is not kerosene.
Couldn’t agree more.
“Name me one technical product that is made in the Middle East. Name me one technology that was invented in the Middle East.”
Well, alcohol production comes to my mind first, but also the ideas like 60-base angle and time units and yes, we write Al-Khwarizmis when programming computers. But really who would need wheat?
There are not many recent technological inventions from islamic world, but Middle East is not same as recent islamic world. Take my word for it.
David Socrates December 14, 2014 at 10:40 am
A flame thrower is not kerosene.
______________________________
Derrr, what do you think a flame-thrower uses? Water?
The point is that liquid combustable hydrocarbons were know about and used a thousand years before Islam was invented. Ergo, my friend, kerosene was NOT an Islamic invention.
Try another invention. What else came from Islam?? Give it a try….
Ralph
ralfellis
…
Read up on “Greek fire” (which is what Thucydides wrote about)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire#History
..
The point about the kerosene is that it is the first known reference to petroleum refining.
I could have said “petroleum refining” instead of “kerosene” which is the point.
People are People. Some are clever. Some not so much.
Some societies welcome new ideas. Some societies defend their social cohesion.
The Enlightenment and the Wars of Religion show that ruling a State is not a simple Good / Bad decision. It is context sensitive.
But I would still rather live in the UK than the Islamic State.
I read the other day that coffee , as we drink it today the liquid essence from ground and roasted beans , was invented in the Yemen in the 15th Cent . Apparently, previously the ground beans were ingested whole , along with fruit and nuts , presumably to make the whole mix edible.
Now I personally call that a definite “boon and a blessing” to modern life.
Greek Fire was made from liquid petroleum, which implicitly tells us that refining petroleum products was a known science, a science that goes back to the 4th century BC. And need I remind you that all of Iraq and Iran was Greek at that time, so Greece had plenty of access to oil products:
http://www.greece.org/romiosini/greek_fire.html
And the process of distillation was known by the Greek alchemist, Zosimus of Panopolis, in the 3rd century. And Zosimus was distilling oils and fats, not simply alcohol:
.
As to coffee, that was an Ethiopian invention. I think it is firmly accepted that all Arabica coffee plants originally came from Kaffa in Ethiopia, from which the name of the brew was derived. And need I remind you that Ethiopia is not an Islamic country. This article is from the Smithsonian Magazine:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science/five-coffee-mysteries-beans-genes-may-crack-180952614/?no-ist
Ok, so what other inventions came from the Golden Age of Islam?
Ralph
I think rather, based on its description, and the need for Greek Fire to be kept under oil (or wrapped with oil-soaked cloths) until released/launched/catapulted into the enemy ships, and the repeated claim that Greek Fire could not be extinguished … I’d say Greek Fire was sodium metal, kept in oil to prevent it being exposed to air and catching fire too early.
I decided to take you up on your challenge because I found the question very interesting as you only asked for ONE TECHNOLOGY. I took a quick look to see which countries are covered. The middle east covers the modern countries of: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.
This did not take long at all. There are many references for inventions for Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia. As you can see ANCIENT Egypt, Iran and Iraq did not wait for ALL technology to come to them. Once they started farming it freed people up.
Ard (plough) – Egypt
Door lock and Key – Nineveh, the capital of ancient Assyria
Cylinder Seals – Sumerians (Mesopotamian / S. Iraq)
Cuneiform – The First Written Language – Sumerians ( Mesopotamian / S. Iraq)
Windcatchers – (Persia / Iran)
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllock.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/5-amazing-ancient-egyptian-inventions.htm#page=5
http://www.ancient.eu/article/71/
Some commenters are falling into a well trodden trap. We need to distinguish between the Middle East, Islam and Arabs. Some Arabs became Christians before the arrival of Islam. There are still Christian Arabs in the ME. There were Christians before Muslims. Iranians are Muslims but NOT Arabs.
The idea that NO TECHNOLOGY was invented in the Middle East is a bigger bit of garbage than CAGW I must say.
On inventions I have a challenge. What is a ‘Yakhchal’? Clue: brrrrr.
Silver ralph
You demand
I answer; wind turbines.
Vertical-axis windmills to mill corn were first developed by the Persians around 1500 BC, and
they were still in use in the 1970’s in the Zahedan region.
Wind turbines have had only ~3,500 years of continuous use and development, so Western governments are subsidising their use in hope that their continued use will make them economic.
Name me one Middle Eastern activity which is as stupid as the Western subsidisation of wind turbines.
Richard
“Name me one Middle Eastern activity which is as stupid as the Western subsidisation of wind turbines.”
Their treatment of women.
>>Jimbo:
>>There are many references for inventions for
>>Egypt, Mesopotamia and Persia.
Sorry Jimbo – the challenge was to find a Muslim invention. We all know that Babylonia and Greek Persia were very inventive, but that is not the point.
The point is that Islam has claimed all these inventions for itself, to prove that it is superior – when all Islam is doing is copying the inventions and processes of past civilizations.
Ralph
>>richardscourtney December 15, 2014 at 4:29 am
>>I answer; wind turbines.
>>Vertical-axis windmills
Sorry Richard, you lose. £5 in the beer-kitty.
The first vertical windmill was invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century, some 600 years before Islam was invented. And since this was quite a sophisticated windmill I expect is was based on earlier models we do not know about:
http://himedo.net/TheHopkinThomasProject/TimeLine/Wales/Steam/URochesterCollection/Hero/section77.html
Ralph
>>markl December 15, 2014 at 9:30 am
>>Their treatment of women.
Damn, you got me there, Marki.
Ok, I will put £5 in the beer-kitty too… 😉
Ralph
>>richardscourtney December 15, 2014 at 4:29 am
>>I answer; wind turbines.
Sorry, Richard, I see you are answering about a Persian inventions. But the question was about Muslim inventions. So you fail again, because the Persians were not Muslim. Another £5 in the beer-kitty.
Islam was only invented in the 7th century AD, so anything pre the 7th century is not Islamic, and does not count.
And perhaps I should add that Anatolia, Syria, Jordan and much of northern Mesopotamia were majority Christian until the 7th century. While central and southern Iraq was substantially Jewish, with Judaism’s greatest university being based at Pumbeditha (i.e.: Fallujah).
Ralph
Silver ralph
You demanded
And I replied
Then you ‘moved the goal posts’ and misrepresented my answer by writing
SAY WHAT!?
You asked about “the Middle East” and NOT “Islam”.
I answered the challenge you presented and I would have avoided getting involved if I had been aware that you were merely trying to promote your religious prejudice and bigotry.
My answer was correct because Heron of Alexandria was in the first century AD which predates Islam, and the Persian wind turbines I cited predated Heron by 1,500 years.
I will keep my £5 because – as usual – you are wrong.
Richard
My response was to Silver ralph and not you. I went so far as to quote him. Here is the quote again in case you missed it.
Since he inserted the words MIDDLE EAST into his question I challenged that. I showed inventions created in the MIDDLE EAST, therefore answering his question………..which he said no one could, and I did.
PS: There is the Middle East with its Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs. Not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs. In ancient times non Arabs also existed in the Middle East and still do. Maybe this is what causes some people confusion when thinking about Islam and technology.
ralfellis,
In your response to richard you again confuse his challenge of the Middle East innovation question with Islam. Take you time.
My apologies for thinking that ralfellis and Silver Ralph are two different people. BUT THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT I MET THE CHALLENGE. Thank you.
I don’t think there is any confusion at all.
I said ‘Middle East’ because in any newspaper or media blog, your post will immediately be deleted, if you say !slam or Mus!im. Everyone knows that, don’t they? How can anyone be confused by someone using ‘Middle East’ as a pseudonym for !slam?? Come on, chaps, you are a part of the modern PC world, surely !!
Besides, the ‘Mid East’ is not a historical reference to that region. It is either Babylon, Persia, Eastern Macedonia, Parthia, or Arabia – it is never called the ‘Mid East’, except in a modern context.
Ralph
ralfellis,
Next time say what you mean. Look at all the unnecessary grief. If you want to say Islamic say it. If you want to say Middle East say it. Say what you want within the house rules of WUWT.
Did Al Jazari invent anything? Was he a Muslim? These are two simple questions.
[Al-Jazari – 1136–1206]
Jazirat ibn Umar (current Cizre, Turkey)
• Crankshaft and Crank-Slider Mechanism
Distinguished Figures in Mechanism and Machine Science
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-90-481-2346-9_1
Sally Ganchy, Sarah Gancher (2009), Islam and Science, Medicine, and Technology, The Rosen Publishing Group, p. 41
Computer Aided Modelling and Finite Element Analysis of Connecting Rod Fouling on Camshaft of DI Engine of Mahindra and Mahindra Tractor.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICETET.2009.60
http://adelhemadi87.mihanblog.com/post/13
=========
• Segmental Gears
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2009/12/eccentric-engineer.cfm
scholar.cu.edu.eg/sites/default/files/galal/files/mechmachinery__part_iv.pdf
=========
• Various Automata
http://history-computer.com/Dreamers/Arabic.html
.
>>Did Al Jazari invent anything? Was he a Muslim? These are two simple questions.
Sorry, Jimbo, but the Romans were using the crankshaft for their great water-powered sawmills, like the one at Hieraopolis. And here is another Roman crankshaft:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Roman_crank_handle%2C_Augusta_Raurica%2C_Switzerland._Pic_01.jpg/800px-Roman_crank_handle%2C_Augusta_Raurica%2C_Switzerland._Pic_01.jpg
As to auotomata, the primary designer was again Hero of Alexandria of the 1st century AD. He made an odometer, a fire engine, automatic doors, a steam turbine, and a slot machine (for holy water) and many other things besides. Here is his design for automaton singing birds.
http://himedo.net/TheHopkinThomasProject/TimeLine/Wales/Steam/URochesterCollection/Hero/section15.html
Ralph.
And as to segmental gears, they were in use more than thousand years before Islam was invented. This is the Antikythera mechanism, which is from the 4th century BC and is thought to be an astrolabe. It not only has dozens of gears,mit has also been claimed that it uses a differential gear.
Nothing like this was produced again, anywhere in the world, until Harrison made his famous H5 marine chronometer.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/NAMA_Machine_d%27Anticythère_1.jpg/673px-NAMA_Machine_d%27Anticythère_1.jpg
Silver ralph,
may I suggest that you immediately write to my below referenced sources pointing out their errors. They did after all use the word “invented” or variations thereof.
PS: I did not say he invented “auotomata”. I said he invented “Various Automata”. Not all automata are the same.
Did he invent the “Crank-Slider Mechanism”? I did mention that.
The rumor is that when it comes to production the oil industry has a strong engine but bad breaks.
Crap. “brakes” as in not being very good at reducing production.
Great analogy
dipcip
“If you think the current oil prices are a boon to the future you are sadly mistaken; the current price will take production down and demand up, to replace future demand will be more expensive.”
That is illogical. Sorry. The price is low because of low demand for an increased supply. When supply decreases, or demand goes up, the price will go up again. ‘More expensive’ means market regulated price. So what? That is what we had before.
There is another more likely scenario: this is a grand scheme to punish Russia for taking Crimea without firing any more shots. Their prime rate has been put up to 10.5% already. It is going to hurt Russia a lot more than it hurts or benefits anyone else. Remember the pipeline wars and Abkazia? This is more of the old game.
Sorry: As each year goes by more energy is invested to extract a BTU of energy. At some point all the energy invested will be equal to the bounty. Integrated over time energy will become a greater portion of every ones budget. Crispin: I agree with the third Paragraph.
dipchip
You assert
Sorry, but that is gross misunderstanding.
Firstly, con-artist do attempt to obtain subsidies for technologies which are net energy consumers: ‘hot rocks’ is one such technology, and the use of intermittent energy supplies (e.g. wind and solar) as part of a grid supply increases the fuel consumption of the grid supply. Those of us who favour rational decisions oppose such chicanery.
Secondly, Return On Energy Invested (ROEI) is a very misleading metric. People want energy in a form they want it so, for example, they purchase electricity although converting the energy of fuels to electricity has a very negative ROEI.
The energy expended to mine or drill for fossil fuels is much less than the energy obtained in the fossil fuels. And there is no foreseeable future where that will not be true.
Richard
It was always about equalization and financial assistance to the developing world. World socialism with government by the UN. As Churchill said:
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
This was not about raising standards of living in the developing world which requires capitalism, but bringing the developed world to its proverbial knees.
He could have said “unequal sharing of misery”.
The hallmark of socialism is corruption.
To be fair to the developing world, if there is chance of getting your hands on a ton of cash by guilt tripping some fools into given it you , why wouldn’t they. It is not the developing world that may be looking toward reducing the developed worlds status , but these fools already in the developed world.
Somehow the Greens and MSM will twist this meeting into a “win”
The guardian is hailing it as a massive success.
From the Guardian
“…the text adopted on Sunday no longer makes it mandatory for countries to provide detailed information about their prospect reductions targets…
“…The countdown clock to Paris is now ticking. Countries had the chance to give themselves a head start on the road to Paris but instead have missed the gun and now need to play catch up,” said Mohammed Adow, Christian Aid’s senior climate change advisor. (Mohammed Adow is a 29-year-old Christian Aid worker based in Nairobi. He knows nothing whatsoever about climate science, so is well qualified to be a “climate change advisor.”)
“…Campaigners said that would make it increasingly difficult to be sure the deal would manage to keep warming within the 2 degree threshold…
“…much remains vague or poorly defined. The countries put off decisions about the legal structure of the agreement, and deferred decisions about ensuring a flow of finance to developing countries…
“…The all-inclusive nature of the emissions cuts constitutes a break with one of the defining principles of the last 20 years of climate talks – that wealthy countries should carry the burden of cutting carbon dioxide emissions. Under the plan, countries are due to come forward by March 2015 with their proposed emissions reductions targets. The United Nations would then weigh up those pledges and determine whether the collective action was enough to limit warming to 2C…”
****
Does any of this look like a success to anyone? Does the Guardian even know what a “success” in Lima would resemble? Utter rubbish from the AGW Delusionists.
We Guardianistas in the comments know the talks failed. We the readers aren’t all thick.
And not all of us are unhappy about the failure.
‘Failure’ would have been an end to the ‘Global Warming’ gravy train. Anything that keeps it going is a success in Guardian World.
Thanks for the good news, Lord Lawson, Dr. Peiser.
I prefer a toothless agreement to a real one, based on faulty modeling and catastrophic climate forecasts.
The “popular” press, in the middle of all the cheerleading, is throwing around the word “treaty” with regard to the desired outcome of the Paris meeting next year.
If that is indeed the case, with even the weak language in this agreement (“loss and damage scheme”) the only way anything remotely similar to this will fly in the US is if the Chief Executive flat out breaks the law and by-passes the Senate.
Tame tornadoes: Quietest 3 years for twisters on record. Another Nail in the coffin of incresed severe weather.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/12/13/tornado-drought/20240063/
Increased severe weather caused by man’s greenhouse gases is a joke.
See
here – here – here.
‘The use of factually inaccurate material without a legitimate basis in science is an abuse of the foundation’s [GWPF] charitable status, which is all the more reprehensible because the public is more trusting of pronouncements made by charities’
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/lord-lawsons-climatechange-think-tank-risks-being-dismantled-after-complaint-it-persistently-misled-public-8659314.html
blackadderthe4th,
That was from 14 June 2013. A lot has happed since then.
Can you show me the “factually inaccurate material” from the GWPF regarding climate science?
And it states ,’The change follows a charge that the main purpose of the foundation is political’.
blackadder4,
Please. Maybe things are different there. But I can assure you that here, Greenpeace is a wholly political dues-collection racket.
There are many more like it. But they get a free pass. Why do you suppose that is?
blackadderthe4th,
Show me the climate science inaccuracies. That was the main charge of the link you put up.
This is not “good news”. It is better news than we might have feared — that we can agree on. But, as I understand it*, all countries are now committed to reducing CO2 emissions. Sure, there is no real teeth in this thing or any real benchmarks; but year after year all countries attest to “how important CO2 mitigation is” by signing off on some agreement or the other.
When countries start to just say no and not even show up — that will be good news.
* From the Climate Depot: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/14/lima-climate-change-talks-reach-agreement?CMP=ema_565
Your understanding of “All countries committed to reducing CO2 emissions ” is very far from the truth . China [ one of the biggest CO2 producers ] has only agreed to not increase its emissions after 2030 if they get a big share of something like 100 billion $ in climate taxes paid for by the Western countries .
In theory, China could increase its emissons tenfold until 2030, and still abide by the agreement with USA. In reality, they have just put some fresh glossing on the old message “we will do whatever we like”, and that’s what all nations should do.
But, if by some miracle, the money “agreed” on in Cancun should be forthcoming, it will be 1500 billion dollars in the next 15 years. Who can foot such a bill? Nobody, and this absurd sum is perhaps only so large in order to install some more guilty conscience in western nations, and to extract even more “climate saving” money to the so-called poor states of the world. Remember, the UN still defines Rumania as a rich country and South Korea as poor. No poor nation however rich in reality wants to shed their cloak of poverty, it is the perfect excuse for any committment, and the perfect reason for guilt-ridden ransom.
ConTrari
“But, if by some miracle, the money “agreed” on in Cancun should be forthcoming, it will be 1500 billion dollars in the next 15 years. Who can foot such a bill?”
People who print money to pay bills, that’s who.
“This is not “good news”. …When countries start to just say no and not even show up — that will be good news.”
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. This was typical spin that everyone….in the world….is recognizing. Countries are still in the grip of being responsible for saving the world and don’t want to be viewed as the bad guy. Wait until more CO2 taxes and limitations start hitting the people. Starting Jan1 California will add $.10 to every gallon of motor fuel being sold and it escalates each year. Brown’s boast of “leading the nation/world” in cutting CO2 emissions will sour very quickly as businesses vacate the state and even the Liberals chafe at paying taxes that others aren’t exposed to .
As with any conflict when you are loosing, you: declare victory and then withdraw.
How do you people survive crouching so much rancor and deceit in your heart? You are a poison.
jed beetle,
What is your problem? I mean, beside your name?
“Crouching”?
Do you write copy for The Gruaniad?
crouch (krouch)
v. crouched, crouching, crouches v.intr.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/crouching
Dawtgtomis,
Yes, “crouching” is entirely inappropriate in this context. Strange, no?
Hey, but at least Socrates managed to google the word correctly. Why I don’t know, but I guess it might keep him out of trouble.
Jed beetle, please give examples of the deceit – with evidence.
In England questioning a person’s integrity is permissible only if you can back it up. We trust people to be honourable.
Because the dishonourable cannot be tolerated.
Please detail the deceit.
On another thread ‘jed beetle’ wrote,
You people are seriously deranged.
That’s all he wrote. Probably an escapee from hotwhopper.☺
Just because he disagrees with me and doesn’t like me doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
I want more from him so I can determine if he has a point. Minimalist Mosher-esque quips are of no value.
So I want to draw out more and find out what he has. A different perspective is always valuable. Welcome him and let’s see.
Mr. Beetle,
Welcome.
I enjoyed that exchange I predict the poor fellow is not yet capable of rational discussion, but he has been invited. I also predict that if he does engage “as his accuracy sinks, his ire will rise.”
Does this mean that China can keep increasing CO2 emissions after 2030? (-:
Drawing attention to the terms of China’s agreement and claiming it as a victory was about as powerful as you can get for evidence that one side is completely disingenuous and only concerned with imposing regulations in the US.
If one were truly concerned about increasing global CO2 emissions and the idea that severe cuts must be made immediately because of extreme weather and climate that are already happening, then one does not celebrate the biggest CO2 emitter continuing to increase CO2 emissions for another 14 years.
2030 or “thereabouts” as far as I understand the agreement, the exact year to be decided by China.
China will do whatever it likes and its more than happy to keep selling shoes who keep shooting themselves in the foot.
I wondered whether I should bother to read this post as I’m sure I’ll get to hear all about it from Nigel Lawson when he’s interviewed on the BBC’s next major news program – even on the TODAY program. Waddya mean, “idiot”? 🙂
You might hear Owen Paterson.
The King over the Water of the Tory party can get a hearing on the BBC.
MCourtney: I have time for Paterson. I just wish he would stick to the bigger picture – AGW as a scam – rather than the detail: smart metering, CHP, etc. Some of his solutions just aren’t – at least, not for the UK.
In the end, I often wonder, just how much longer this scam – this drive for UN government – will go on.
Naturally the green gang or Gang greene in canadian frence will hail this as a World Shaking Victory, as their pathetic anti humanist cause sinks from the world stage.
Soon I hope to see nations who respect law and order, extraditing those greenpeace idiots back to Lima for trial.
Time these eco-nasty propaganda organizations are described for what they be.
These are not charities as our revenue services(politicians) keep pretending, they are eco-terrorist organizations by their own words and actions, time we treated them as such.
irrespective of the quality of the science behind climate change, this can only be seen as an abject failure. They have effectively agreed nothing of consequence, save to meet again in Paris at no trivial cost.
This meeting simply builds on previous ineffectual conferences (eg Kyoto). Until there is a real consensus between politics, economics and scientists based upon self evident adverse climate impacts there will be no real progress.
You know… They don’t really believe in it, do they?
Those who study subtle rhetoric would agree. However, those people are too often employed as molders of opinion- propagandists, if you will, but not even they can plug all of the leaks in the bulwark of lies surrounding the “Green” agenda.
Just read the CNN version of this. Basically reads that they agree to agree on something next year in Paris. The something is that rich countries (no definition for rich) will help (no definition for help) poor countries (no definition for poor), but not how or how much. Whatever it is, it doesn’t start until 2020. Plus the proposed $100 Billion green fund got only $10 Billion in pledges (a pledge being a promise that has no legal requirement to be fulfilled).
richardscourtney has been right all along. CAGW died with COP17. Its just a headless chicken now running around the barnyard, giving the illusion of life. The fundamental physics never supported the alarmism, and the more data we have, the more obvious that will become. 2020 is another 6 years of data, and likely another 12 to 14 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere doing very little (if anything) more than it is doing now.
For the historical record, richardscourtney believed it was slain by Climategate and was persuaded that the failure of COP17 was more significant (or even as significant) by me.
Even so, he has a more subtle perspective. He feels that we cannot distinguish the effects of COP17’s failure form he impact of Climategate and also that we cannot know what effect Climategate had into the failure of COP17.
But he did clearly see that once COP17 and Climategate occurred then cAGW was dead.
I mention this purely so as those who one day research the history of this neo-Lysenkoism can have details of an interesting conversation that happened offline.
Even so, he has a more subtle perspective. He feels that we cannot distinguish the effects of COP17’s failure form he impact of Climategate and also that we cannot know what effect Climategate had into the failure of COP17.
I’d agree. Unfortunately, history is a lot like climate. We cannot run a parallel earth sans climategate to see what would have happened at COP17 without it, anymore than we can run a parallel earth with differing amounts of CO2 in it to see what difference it would make.
Copy that.
Richard called it well, we have witnessed the natural inertia of a criminal bureaucrat being exposed.
An agonizingly slow drama with many entertaining acts.
Australia,Canada and soon the USA, when a duly elected government choses to “investigate CAGW”, all hell will break loose on the parasitic front.
I call upon all to agitate their elected idiots for such,criminal investigation of our governments part in this UN scheme, as this will amplify the fear, insecurity and self loathing that this whole meme is built upon.
Fools and bandits fear exposure as such above all else.
Implosions are increasing in frequency, retractions, blaming fellow “researchers” and denying ones own words are a growing sport.
Witness the cynicism of the taxpayer, global warming causes everything, the absolute confusion of the poll chasers and ever growing hostility as the true costs come home.
The conversation the alarmed ones claim is necessary is coming, not from visitors here, not from the government propagandists, but from the impoverished and hoaxed taxpayers, users of government monopoly utilities and suddenly unemployed.
So save the records, as the bureaus try to CYA, they will seek to erase all history, control of the net is a current priority of our kleptocratic class.
MCourtney
And I am very aware that the ‘negotiations’ at CoP17 were derailed mostly by the Chinese. I answered their requests to me for information that were part of their preparations for CoP17.
I remind you of a much more recent offline conversation you and me when you correctly said that Greens “hate” me. You may care to ponder why they direct such strong emotions at me whom most have never met. And – as I also said in that conversation – I am now at a stage where what people think of me no longer matters.
Richard
Richard, I know you do not post as much as in the past, but I wish you to know that I always appreciate your comments regarding the failed science of CAGW.
I haven’t noticed a comment regarding the priests of the Catholic Church and their position on this topic. Not that I object to helping others but by hooking their donkeys to the UN’s climate-wagon their concerns will splinter along with that vehicle when the next wheel comes off.
I can’t believe the Vatican could swallow the notion that ‘man with computer trumps God’ when it comes down to “sustaining God’s children”.
UN’s climate-wagon their concerns will splinter along with that vehicle when the next wheel comes off.
The wheels came off the wagon with ClimateGate/COP17. The jury rigged something together with some square wheels to replace the round ones, and have been bumping along on them ever since. Next year in Paris, they will change out the square wheels for triangular ones, and market it as an improvement with one less bump per revolution.
@JJM Gommers
…As Richardscourtney pointed out there is no peak problem in theory, but as result of the dissipation issue(dS), in the very long run it will become more and more expensive to reclaim resources…
I wish people would stop misusing the word ‘resources’. Resources are things humans use. RAW MATERIALS are the things which might ‘dissipate’.
And of course they don’t, because technology counters this. Look at something like iron ore. How much did a tonne cost to process in the Middle Ages, compared to the cost of a processed tonne today? Things that we need ALWAYS get cheaper…
I hope we have reached peak alarmism, as the cost has been very high. Strangely though peak alarmism is a lot like peak oil, they keep finding new sources.
This “peak” nonsense has happened many times before. In Elizabethan times, England suffered through “peak wood”. To quote the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “Throughout medieval times coal was exported from Newcastle to London, but it was not until the wood shortage of Elizabethan times that coal became important as domestic fuel and trade increased dramatically.” (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/611589/Tyne-and-Wear). And as others have noted, we still have ample supplies of stone, bronze, iron, industry, and information.
For all non-Westerners, all agreements have always been and will always be, non-binding. Contracts are a Western idea and are followed only as necessity dictates.
Traditional Chinese, Korean or Japanese cultures do not permit the breaking of one’s word. In fact, almost no-one allows one to be an oath breaker.
The only exception I can think of may be some interpretations of loyalty to the Kuffar – but that certainly doesn’t apply to China.
Read recently a phrase (cannot remember where, sorry) that “the stupidity is so dense it has it’s own event horizon”.
It was in relation to the Greenpeace Peru stunt but it applies equally I guess…
Village Id10t raises an interesting point.
He links to a list of scientists that have stated that one (or more) of the major tenets of Global Warming is false. I haven’t been able to find a similar list for those scientists that believe that every one of the majors tenets is true.
Does anyone know of such a list?
Are there any scientists that have publicly stated that they believe in everything the IPCC opines? Maybe Hansen and Mann?
🙂 Doubt that it exists…I do like the question.
Martin,
I think you have missed the point of the UN-IPCC. This is not a science activity. The purpose is to extract money from a certain few countries, take a big slice of that for UN activities they don’t want to tell about, pass a part of the remaining money to regimes that support the UN’s agendas, and loudly publicize a few token projects on which they have wasted money. They start with a statement that some humans caused a problem by using coal, oil, and gas to develop. The UN is attempting to be both the moral and financial arbitrator to correct this and to impose a world government so they can continue the work.
Major tenets of GW, scientists, lists – not to be found.
richardscourtney
December 14, 2014 at 9:40 am
Silver ralph
I had prepared the note below for Silver Ralph but then came across the wonderful response by Richard Courtney that covers the essential ground for those would understand how the resource system actually works. Some small additions and this would make a good separate post to hang out in front of Malthusian misanthropes with a new world order agenda. One addition would be that copper prices in real terms and almost everything else have remarkably declined with time, despite the manifold increases in demand!
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/historical-statistics/ds140-coppe.pdf
The price of copper went from ~$7,000/t in 1900 (in 1998$) to an all time low in 2002 of $1,510/t in 2003. The phenomenal take off in demand during the past decade in China pushed it back up to over $5,000/t, but this too will flatten down again. The first world war demand temporarily pushed the price to near $10,000/t but it fell off again after the war. Similarly, the 1974 oil embargo by OPEC pushed commodity prices up temporarily. Also check out food prices and other commodity prices for such an article. This decline in almost all commodity prices has been a vexatious fact for Malthusians and they have published “studies” they claim debunk this decline – don’t be taken in. One thing to note, though, is that government interference can wreck this wonderful economic system and they are working furiously at doing just that.
GP NOTE: Ralph, copper didn’t peak in the bronze age. We produce more copper in a year today than was produced in the bronze age. Bronzers had to work with rich, recognizable deposits of copper, largely native copper and had no idea of the enormous amounts within modern mining depths and low grade. I’m sure you have a link or source but links and sources nowadays are available for whatever ideological use you may wish to employ them for. The internet has basically been filling up with ‘progressive’ and malthusian bull since the outset. I don’t need a link to tell you that your peak copper in the Bronze Age doesn’t pass the smell test level for an idiot. Anyway, here is a link that tells you that the copper resource base has increased 25 fold over the past 100 years.
http://www.slideshare.net/RichardSchodde/growth-factors-for-copper-schodde-sme-mems-march-2010-final
Here is one with no link: the ten top producers have ~10million metric tonnes a year of refined copper output. You do the homework. Don’t consult Wiki or Club of Rome, or any other sources corrupted by ideologues. These civilization viruses take the “reserves” reported by companies, add them together and then divide by the annual consumption rate. Reserves sufficient for mine evaluation and planning, generally no more than 20 years’ worth, are drilled off. Drilling off more than this at a cost for diamond drilling exceeding $100/metre, is not an economic (check out “present value” accounting) thing do do with your money. Just go back to an annual report 10 years from now and, ‘presto’, they still have the same amount of reserves. Linear thinking nimrods always report peak X to be only a couple of decades away. Well, duh, do I need to say why?
It was that Dodo “Red Ed” Millibrain, leader of the rent-seekers, skivers and crypto-communists (Labour Party) who enacted the Climate Change Act when Labour was last in power. This Act was the wet-dream of an obscure English literature graduate and eco-fascist called Bryony Worthington (now Baroness Worthington, for services to the destruction of British Industry increased fuel poverty and resultant deaths of the elderly).
Regrettably our Parliament is so-stuffed with incompetent cretins, that the Bill attracted overwhelming support.
Time for some clear-thinkers to clear out the numpties. Roll on the General Election!
The reality is that Milliband ( responsible for the Climate Act) will be in power in 5 months time , possibly in coalition with the SNP who want , not just 80% renewables , but 100%. The future is appalling for the UK .
It has been estimated that to generate 35GW from onshore wind would require 7 times the area of the present Greater London – and we have also to squeeze in all the new garden cities that LIB- Lab want.
I have mentioned before the paper that WUWT first brought to my attention, that by Weissbach ,which showed that a backed- up renewables – based power system is not compatible with the quality of life that we have become used to in the developed world and is sheer fantasy for the under developed , primarily agricultural societies with a low population of educated technicians.
All this I found in a few days after alighting on this site as a complete lay person – so MPs , who have generous expenses to allow them to hire an army of researchers, should all be aware of the unaffordable nature of the Climate Act demands . Yet they remain willfully ignorant.
The Germans are heading down a very painful route. WTF would any one want to go there?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/10/the-unsinkable-german-anti-co2-titanic-just-found-its-iceberg/
Kon Dealer
I suspect that your post is intended as a thread bomb.
For the benefit of non-UK readers, I point out that the “Bill attracted overwhelming support” from all the major political parties and that the present Tory & LibDem coalition government has continued to enforce the Climate Change Act and to promote wind powered and solar powered subsidy farms.
These are NOT a party political issues and are NOT left v. right issues in the UK.
Richard
Absolutely hilarious – we support the Lima process 🙂
davidmhoffer@12:56p – The square to triangle wheel analogy is an absolute laugh riot to envision! Kudos!
There is plenty of energy in the world. The problem is too many self-serving politicians supported by hand wringers wining about oil and coal consumption. Those who are objecting to Richard Courtney clear and compelling arguments offer only muddled thinking and seem more intent on forcing a crisis to achieve self-serving purpose. Although it shouldn’t be, in all likely hood oil and coal will be the primary source of energy for over a hundred years; and no we are not in sight of the end of coal or oil. Except in niche markets sun and wind will never be a major source of energy and the handwringers’ objection to conventional fission power and development of fusion energy for fear it will encourage population growth, which offends their misguided Malthusian and Gaia beliefs. We have solutions to our energy problems if only the self-servers would get out of the way. The green movement is doing nothing constructive and only standing the way of progress. They know they are losing on the merits and seem more interested in a scorched earth policy. Would suggest they do some real good and find solutions to others problems we don’t know how to solve, like potable water supplies. They would have the field to themselves and can win converts; who knows I might even be one of they if they make intelligent proposals.
Silver Ralph
Review the bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager
Seeing as we’re all comparing prices I’m seeing 90 cents a litre plus the extra 9.5 cents off if you are a CO-OP member (so close to 80 cents) out in the prairies north of the 49th.
I’m very curious how long oil will stay low. The shale oil in production will stay in production but the drilling has all but ceased. Just conventional plays that are profitable over $40 barrel. The tar sands are very long term plays so you can’t stop once you’ve started developing that but projects where ground has not been broken or money spent yet would probably be on hold.
As to the Lima conference it is obvious to all by now that the good ship “Wishful Thinking” has hit the iceberg called reality but the band still plays on. With this being a mild el-Nino year then la-Nina should arrive just in time for Paris to get a chilly reception.
You forget that oil companies sell short and make money to offset the losses, if they are smart. they must be hedged with put options or short futures contracts, i don’t believe that they are that reckless.
The Lima Conference has officially crashed and burned, summed up best by Shakespeare’s famous line, “Much sound and fury signifying nothing.”
The CAGW world-wealth redistributionists have been relegated to using Casablanca’s famous line, “We’ll always have Paris”….
The Paris Conference will fair no better than Lima because people around the world are slowly realizing CAGW hypothesis has become a complete joke:
-No global warming trend for 18+ years.
-Falling global temp trends for 14+ years.
-No global increasing trends of severe weather for 50~100 years.
-Arctic ice is recovering and isn’t ice free.
-The Antarctic set a 35-yr record size this year.
-Sea Level rise stuck at 6 inches per century.
-Ocean pH stuck at 8.1.
-Kids still know what snow looks like…..
-Households are sick of paying “skyrocketing” electricity bills because of “green energy” fiascos.
All the CAGW world-redistributionists have left are: the long-debunked “97% meme”, a supportive MSM, waning leftist government support and busted doom and gloom models:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
Other than a compliant MSM, they got nothin’, and even the MSM is starting to lose faith.
Academia’s tacit CAGW support is still troubling, but even this is starting to wane.
How can the CAGW hypothesis possibly survive another 5 years when virtually all CAGW’s predictions will be well outside their 95% confidence intervals for a statistically significant duration by 2020?
2020 will also be the year when a plethora of natural climatic cooling phenomena will be collectively be conspiring against “The Cause”:
-Start of the weakest solar cycle since the Dalton or perhaps even the Maunder Minima.
– PDO cool cycle will be in its coolest phase.
-Fewer/weaker El Nino cycles because of 30-yr PDO cool cycle.
-Cooler and more frequent La Nina events because of a 30-yr PDO cool cycle.
-The AMO 30-yr warm cycle (started 1994) will be winding down or even be starting its 30-yr cool cycle.
-Because of the AMO and PDO cool phases, Arctic Ice Extents will be slowly continue to recover.
“The planet plus plastic”
As of late and past there has been reports of several bankers ‘ jumping ‘ from 10th floor . I suppose a tinge of honour and integrity causes it .
In my fifty five years as an adult i don’t recall a politician or professor in academia ‘ jumping ‘ !
Here’s an easy test of the peak theory. Name five minerals that are needed in today’s industry, that are no longer available. If there is anything to peak oil, we should be able to name other resources that have been lost through over exploitation.
There may be some that are required for Chinese Traditional Medicine.
It seems that substitution is difficult there.
Ralfellis: good try. But logic rarely leaves a mark on ideologically driven dogmatism. You say: if we use some of a finite resource, that means there is less left; which is incontrovertibly true. They say, however: no matter how much we use of a natural resource it will never run out (this is the minimum they claim- but we’ll go for that) . . . which might be true on the grounds that we’ll move onto something else when it becomes uneconomical to extract it. But it is still as true that there is less of it left, and similarly when we use a lot of it that means there is lot less of it left, as you obviously imply.
And just because previous peak oil predictions have been wrong that doesn’t mean that all future peak oil predictions will be wrong, which I also suspect you’ll agree with being a logical kinda guy . . More than that there is little point in saying. . .. the rest is just as obvious. I admire your stamina . . . but there is no point in arguing with people who can’t see simple things because of ideological blinkers. . .
jim hogg
You say to Ralfellis
Yes, but nobody argues ‘peak oil’ with Ralfellis in hope of getting him to understand that ‘peak oil’ is illogical and ideological nonsense with no relation to reality: his “ideological blinkers” blind him to that truth.
The ideological nonsense of ‘peak oil’ asserted by e.g. Ralfellis is refuted so people are not misled by his twaddle.
There are real problems to address in this world. Efforts to deal with them should not be deflected by non-issues such as goblins under the bed, or unicorns eating the food supply, or ‘peak oil’, or etc..
Richard
Dbstealey
…
Here is a write up on the OISM petition by a real “skeptic”
..
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12/
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12/…..and a majority of the comments debunked the author’s view.
If David went to the OISM site and actually READ it, he would find that they debunk his list. I am still waiting for David’s list of scientist signing a petition that states “AGW will be catastrophic to the world.”
Since zero such petitions exist, then ZERO percent of the worlds scientist support CAGW as a valid scientific theory.
(Notice how the logic used above by failed alarmists like David and village idiot have now trapped themselves, as any such petitions he finds, will then be placed against ALL the worlds scientists.)
Talking about ‘peaking’ …..The Peak District, Derbyshire, England.
Mined from Bronze Age onwards, the Romans had lead smelters there. However, from the 16th century onwards the mineral and geological wealth of the Peak became increasingly significant. Not only lead, but also coal, fluorite, copper, zinc, iron, manganese and silver have all been mined here
Lead mining, peaked – 18th century
Coal, peaked – 19th century
Millstone Grit, peaked – 19th century
Fluorite or fluorspar (Blue John), peaked -1990
Limestone, peaked -1990
Dale Dyke Dam, peaked -1864 killed 240 http://www.mick-armitage.staff.shef.ac.uk/sheffield/flood.html
The largest textile printworks in the world in Glossop, peaked -1929
The Railways, peaked -1960s
And then there’s the Peaks – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hills_in_the_Peak_District
That’s a few reasons its called The Peak District – see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_District -sorry its a wiki,( but it’s not to bad on these facts !! )
Shameless tourist plug – http://www.visitpeakdistrict.com/ – I used to live there !!!
Richard Courtney, please don’t forget your medication.
Kon Dealer
No chance of that! I am up to 11 different medications now, and it is a tricky job keeping track of which to take when throughout the day.
Thankyou for you concern.
Richard
“As Richardscourtney pointed out there is no peak problem in theory, but as result of the dissipation issue(dS), in the very long run it will become more and more expensive to reclaim resources. Haber already tried to recover gold from seawater, to have an idea about the difficulties.”
The shale oil revolution is all about technology that captures dispersed oil or gas. The ‘peak oil’ that we’ve experienced is the peak in big, easy oil fields of pooled oil. It’s a specific geological process that squeezes oil into caprock. Tight oil or oil shale hasnt gone through that process, so ‘fracking’ is the human engineered equivalent. As a result, we have access to a lot more oil, albeit at higher cost.
In the long run, it does become more expensive to reclaim limited resources, but technology brings that cost down. With 1 trillion barrels of equivalent oil in US oil shale deposits in Colorado and Wyoming, we’ll never run out of oil … but we may find cheaper energy. … FHTR Nuclear, anyone?
I spent a good amount of time this morning watching The British Prime Minister Cameron, talking back and forth with some British climate custodian kind of chap, about Britain’s carbon tax policy, on some C-SPAN channel.
The two of them rambled on back and forth about what UK should do in UK’s interests, and what they should do vis-à-vis what EU’s interests or reactions might be.
I don’t think the two of them together said as much as on intelligent comment, on why they were even talking about climate, or what to do about it.
I’m sure that US Congressional debates or committee machinations, aren’t much different.
It’s no wonder they don’t have time to study important bills before they all sheepfully sign them.