OCTOBER 5, 2018 – More than 100 leading scholars from 12 countries have issued a report contending “the global war on fossil fuels … was never founded on sound science or economics” and urging the world’s policymakers to “acknowledge this truth and end that war.”
The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), an independent organization founded in 2003 to fact-check the work of the United Nations on the issue of climate change, today released the Summary for Policymakers of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels. The 27-page Summary provides an early look at a 1,000-page report expected to be released on December 4 at a climate science symposium during the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP-24) in Katowice, Poland.
In the new NIPCC report, 117 scientists, economists, and other experts address and refute the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assertions that the impacts of climate change on human well-being and the natural environment justify dramatic reductions in the use of fossil fuels. The Summary provides more than 100 references to peer-reviewed literature, while the full report provides nearly 3,000 such references.
Click here to read the Summary for Policymakers report in digital form (PDF).
For more information about the Summary for Policymakers, NIPCC, and The Heartland Institute – and to talk to authors or editors of this report – contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org or 312/731-9364 (cell).
Among the findings reported in the Summary for Policymakers:
- Fossil fuels deliver affordable, plentiful, and reliable energy that is closely associated with key measures of human development and human welfare. There is a strong positive relationship between low energy prices and economic prosperity. Economic prosperity in turn is crucial to human health and welfare. Wind and solar power are incapable of delivering the affordable, plentiful, and reliable energy that is delivered by fossil fuels.
- Fossil fuels require the development of substantially less surface area than renewable energy sources, rescuing precious wildlife habitat from development. The power density of fossil fuels enables humanity to meet its need for energy, food, and natural resources while using less surface space, rescuing precious wildlife habitat from development. In 2010, fossil fuels utilized roughly the same surface area as devoted to renewable energy sources yet delivered 110 times as much power.
- The environmental and human welfare impacts of fossil fuels are overwhelmingly positive. Sixteen of 25 identified impacts of fossil fuels are net positive. Eight are uncertain, only one is net negative. Some of the identified impacts include agriculture, air quality, extreme weather events, human health, and human mortality.
- Reducing fossil fuel use to achieve dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions would inflict tremendous economic hardship. Reducing greenhouse gases to 90 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 would require a 96% reduction in world GDP, reducing per-capita GDP to $1,200 from $30,600 now forecast. Per-capita income would be at about the level it was in the United States and Western Europe in about 1820 or 1830, before the Industrial Revolution.
Scientists and experts will be in Katowice, Poland the week of December 4 to publicly release the full volume of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels. Credentialed media are invited to attend the December 4 symposium to learn more about the report and question some of the scientists who agree with its findings. Details on where and when that symposium will be held are coming soon.
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I have said a number of times before and I will say it again: STOP doing things bass ackwards. With the exception of nuclear power, the commercially viable alternatives to fossil fuels are not yet there. The fossil fuel age will not go away until they are. Fourth generation nuclear is in the R&D stage now. Only patience will tell us whether they find their way to commercial viability someday.
Energy generation is and always will be a scientific and engineering issue. Stop making it an eco-ideological and eco-religious one. The latter will not enable the future to get here any faster.
This is with reference to nuclear power-fuel. I received the following from Yahoogroup.
Dear fellow citizens:
Our living space is being polluted with the heavy metal uranium in India creating cancers where there were none. See the following study and leave comments at the space provided which will help towards a better future for life everywhere:
https://livingnormally.blogspot.com/2018/10/causal-inference-of-fatal-cancers.html
With expectant hope for stooping the calamity before it causes the wiping out of all life as we know,:
R. Ashok Kumar, B.E.,M.E.,Negentropist, Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal, 299, Tardeo Road, Nana Chowk, Mumbai-400007.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
When it comes to radiation, some people are ready, willing and able to believe any level of nonsense, so long as uranium/radiation is the “cause”. It’s almost as bad as blaming every bad thing on CO2.
There is no place in this world where there were no cancers. Never have been, never will be.
Wiping out life as we know it? Delusional, utterly delusional.
Are you saying that all uranium mining is impossible to make safe? There are other nuclear reactor designs that do not use radioactive isotopes in the production of nuclear power. I am not sure whether the latest reactors in China and elsewhere use the new non radioactive technology or not.
My thanks to the 100 leading scholars.
A gentle reminder – I told you so, 16 YEARS AGO – in 2002.
At that time, about 87% of global primary energy was from fossil fuels – oil, coal and natural gas – that number is now 85%.
Grid-connected green energy is now about 2%, despite tens of trillions of dollars is wasted subsidies. All this green energy does is reduce grid reliability and drive up energy costs, which increases winter deaths that especially target the elderly and the poor. Green energy is so intermittent and inefficient, it does not even reduce CO2 emissions.
Good people, just listen to your old Uncle Allan, who is doing his best to take good care of you.
_______________________________________
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/30/coldest-september-night-in-the-netherlands-in-47-years/#comment-2474874
[excerpts]
ALL my other predictions from 2002* on climate and energy have proved correct to date. Here are the two major ones from our 2002 PEGG debate:
1) We correctly predicted THE FAILURE OF MOST GREEN ENERGY SCHEMES in 2002, as follows:
“THE ULTIMATE AGENDA OF PRO-KYOTO ADVOCATES IS TO ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUELS, BUT THIS WOULD RESULT IN A CATASTROPHIC SHORTFALL IN GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY – THE WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROPOSED BY KYOTO ADVOCATES SIMPLY CANNOT REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS.”
2) In the same debate, we also wrote that THE ALLEGED GLOBAL WARMING CRISIS DOES NOT EXIST:
“CLIMATE SCIENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT THE THEORY OF CATASTROPHIC HUMAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING – THE ALLEGED WARMING CRISIS DOES NOT EXIST.”
We were correct on both these points 16 years ago – anyone who disputes this is denying reality.
1) Grid-connected green energy is a costly, intermittent, unreliable farce.
2) The climate models that predicted catastrophic global warming are all running ‘way too hot.
In contrast, the global warming alarmists at the IPCC have been consistently wrong to date – nobody should even listen to these climate clowns.
My only remaining prediction from 2002 was for global cooling, staring by 2020-2030 – I‘m now leaning toward the earlier part of that time period, but “the science is NOT settled”.
…
Regards to all, Allan
LOL @ Allan: ” tens of trillions of dollars”
…
Nowhere near that amount of money. You are exaggerating.
…
Post a citation for that idiotic claim.
Almost a trillion dollars was squandered in Germany alone, and just on wind power – it was reported as about $800 billion, from the German National Audit office as I recall, and was reported here on wattsup.
Then there is all the wind power in other countries, and all the solar, and corn ethanol in North America and sugar cane ethanol in Brazil etc. and all the canola and palm oil biodiesel and … and … and ….
Keith Sketchley – perhaps should put your brain in gear before engaging your idiot mouth.
Re: “Keith Sketchley – perhaps should put your brain in gear before engaging your idiot mouth.”
On other threads, I have noticed your many ill-informed comments. You are a remarkably offensive and stupid person Keith Sketchley.
Nevertheless, you provide a useful service to humanity. My friend Dave, a very competent specialist medical doctor and I were having coffee yesterday, and he was railing against human stupidity.
I suggested to him that if it were not for the many very stupid people like you in the world Keith, he might find himself in the lower quartiles of human intelligence – that is, since he is much smarter than the average human, someone else has to be stupider – and you fulfill that role Keith, and we thank you for it.
Einstein said: “Nothing is infinite, except the universe and human stupidity – and I’m not sure about the universe.”
According to the usual suspects, since none of these scientists and scholars are recognized by the existing climate scientists as having expertise in climate science, their opinions are meaningless, and probably paid for by the fossil fuel companies anyway.
Ya beat me to it.
Nobody’s listening.
On the other hand, conservative politicians in various countries are behaving like they got the message even though they pay lip service to CAGW. This is one of those cases where actions speak louder than words.
Very poor writting. It is common way of writing by warmists. In fact when I was with IMD Pune, Prof. Shukla was with IITM Pune. We both knew each other personally. He was in the moddlling group and I was climatology group [my boss (Late) Shri K. N. Rao was the co-author of “Climate Change” manual of WMO in 1966. At that time we are free to work on any subject, though a government servant. After that I joined ICRISAT in Hyderabad [a CGIAR group]. Then moved to The Australian National University. My Ph.D. Thesis covers climatology and later joined with international agencies like IICA, FAO & WMO where I applied adaptation of agriculture to climate change. Published in my books [review appeared in international journal on agriculture and meteorology]. This book was purchased by agriculture groups all over the World. From Cananda, Beir and Robertson group working in the area dry-land agriculture recommended this book to several countries. This book is a reference book at post-graduate level in agricultural meteorology by several universities. I come up on my own scientific capacity. Even now at the age of 75 I published several articles in journals and at conferences on climate change.
Please don’t generalize your outbursts.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
You have fallen afoul of Muphry’s Law (not to be confused with Murphy’s Law). 🙂
It has been discovered that Murphy’s law was written by another man with the name of Murphy.
Muphry != Murphy
Forgive me if I misinterpreted your remark.
The writer of Murphy’s Law, Murphy, is a fictitious character. Much later, a wag decided to invent another fictitious character, Murphy, and claim that character actually wrote Murphy’s Law, not the prior fictitious Murphy.
Sorry, but my digressions have nothing to do with someone misspelling Murphy nor humorous comments about it.
Sigh …
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy complained about “very poor writting” thereby demonstrating the truth of Muphry’s Law.
Thank you for the info.
As usual, you don’t even attempt to address the subject at hand.
Since determining normal climate progression is signal analysis and clearly from the methods used since climate scientists are 300 years behind the times at least peer review is not a sound method of assessing this part of the equation.
When it comes to the data, peer review is accepting standards considered below the baseline ever presented by any company by suppliers of Poundland a budget commercial outlet in the UK . Hardly a recommendation for peer review.
The thermometers used for most of the period data is available were analogue mercury ones only readable to half a degree the use of any numbers less than that are unsound but accepted by peer review. Again hardly a recommendation for peer review/
Qualified scientists who do not accept CO2 man made climate change have to submit grant applications to scientist who have made names and good positions on the basis of climate change so do not get grants and are working in other fields. Again a non recommendation for peer review.
If peer review is sound then lets use it in legal cases and have the police tested to prove they believe only criminals come before the courts. Have only prosecution lawyers as any defence is unqualified as it will not be employed in that system. Have judges and jury also tested for belief that the defendant is guilty as he or she in in court. This is what you are telling us is a great system. It actually stinks to high heaven.
Many fields use the same tools and are far more advanced than climate scientist and have far better trained staff using them.
War on Fossil Fuels
Has the electrically charged warrior Elon Musk flipped (the brain short-circuited)?
… yeah, he’s hip now … that’s what pot does …
If you google for musk mad scientist you will get many results. It could be that he’s been influenced by his hero Nikola Tesla.
Why not look at educating children about having smaller families when they grow up and so forth. Problem solved. Economics could be re-invented to look at quality rather than growth. More detail was not included in this comment due to the mind boggling simplicity of the concept and the solution.
Since too many people is not a problem we face now or will ever likely face, why do anything to brainwash the little ones even more than they already are?
to Mike From Au
Economics is not invented, it is discovered. Economics is ruled by human nature and its fundamental is that people in groups behave according to their individual self-interest. To change their behavior you must change what they believe is their self-interest. If you as an elitist try to change other people you think of as the masses, you will fail if you do not understand the people and their point of view. That is why the anti-CO2, anti CAGW movement is an epic fail. It has been unable to convince people that their interest lies in being poorer, colder, more beholden to political masters, less able to rely on turning on their lights, less able to get a job, etc., all for a theoretical benefit of a 2 degree cooler world one hundred years from now. Ordinary people are not driven by the noble-cause gratifications that an elite person such as most of the anti-CAGWers are. Ordinary people are driven by real things.
Mike, Sure the People’s Republic of China has just such a “education program” it was called the one child policy. It was enforced throughout their education system, including re-educating farms. It was enforced through other means as well.
When I visited China on a technical delegation in the mid-1980s every session started with a lecture on China’s one child policy. They also insisted the world needed to enforce just such policies in other countries. They used India as their primary example.
It is counter intuitive but improved economic conditions in third world countries lead to smaller families. About the only group of people promoting larger families as policy are radical Islamists.
My mind was far more boggled in 2004….the more people there are to divide and conquer, the more successful the operation is.
From: https://www.theage.com.au/national/so-will-you-do-it-for-your-country-20040515-gdxur4.html
“So, will you do it for your country?”
“”Come on, come on, your nation needs you,” he implored. By their own measure, both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have done their duty – they each have three children. But will a $3000 maternity bonus and a fistful of family payments entice average Australians to reproduce – and, more importantly, to do it repeatedly?”
They should have focused on “Practice makes perfect” and left it at that…
Edwin,
You might want to get out more: “About the only group of people promoting larger families as policy are radical Islamists.”
Countries across the globe encourage their citizens to get married, have kids, and have more kids. Nothing to to with Islam–radical or otherwise: Singapore, Japan, France, Scandavian countries all provide marriage, birth, and related subsidies, or other encouragement to be fruitful and multiply. And it works. Scandanavian countries are passing the replacement rate of fertility.
“In Russia’s Ulyanovsk province, amorous couples got the day off on Wednesday to have sex for the official Day of Conception. Anyone who has a baby nine months from now—on June 12, Russia Day —can compete for money, an SUV, and other prizes. The program is part of Russia’s effort to combat the population decline that’s been taking place for 15 years. Other nations in Europe and Asia also want to raise their fertility rates (PDF). What’s the best way to convince people to have more kids?”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/09/what-can-governments-do-to-make-fertility-rates-go-up.html
I am amazed at the mind boggling simplicity of thinking simply telling little kids what you want them to think will work. If it did, I wouldn’t be a climate change skeptic.
SR
It actually does work. The denizens of this site are the 1% or 2% (or 100%-97%?) who are sufficiently contrary by nature that we resist assimilation unless we can satisfy ourselves that the cause is just and worthwhile.
Further to the comment from Mike, which I agree with; it is a demonstrable fact that affluence of a society in general naturally leads to a dramatically lower birth rate.
Again the solution is VERY simple, help the rest of the world achieve wealth and all this nonsense will stop. That means helping others to achieve wealth where they are now, not displacing people. Of course that won’t satisfy the globalist ideologues, but there will be proof then that there is no need to follow their foolery, people can live where they they were born in relative peace and wealth and the world can work in harmony to develop energy sources that actually work rather than ramming 14th century answers down our throats.
Good post, Al.
It really does look like the birthrate will take care of itself naturally under the right economic circumstances.
… and if world population declines, then with fewer offspring to inherit their parents’ estate – the more affluent the succeeding generations will become.
With parents living longer, most of those estates are all but gone long before the kids have a chance at them.
Life expectancy is more involved than that. You mostly hear about it from birth, but that’s only gone up because improvements in pregnancy and childhood (especially early), not because of improvements in the tail end. It’s well documented that male members of the English aristocracy that reached 21 years old in 1500-1550 could expect to see their 70s.
The percentage of people who live past 65 is way, way up.
That’s one of the reasons why Social Security is in so much trouble.
Al Miller: “Further to the comment from Mike, which I agree with; it is a demonstrable fact that affluence of a society in general naturally leads to a dramatically lower birth rate.”
—
I think the causation is a bit misunderstood though, ‘affluent’ children are expensive little critters. Have a few and it’s bye-bye to your affluence. People just have fewer of them, so government tax commissioners and cabinet bait them with family-subsidy payments, and catch-phrases like, “One for Mum, one for Dad, and one for the Nation.” Without the baby-subsidies the demographics would tank in a couple of decades, simply because of the unaffordability disincentives.
I note that “more than 100 scholars from 12 countries” is the phrase used. Perhaps we have something here – surely a consensus of more than 100 international scholars has considerably more wisdom than a consensus of 97% of mere scientists. Scholars actually THINK while climate ‘scientists’ merely model!
Well, well what a surprise. My opinion, we can thank our intrepid President for this reversal, he really has the UN on the run.
You don’t have to be a scholar to acknowledge the importance of fossil fuels. It should be obvious to everyone.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-liberal-green-energy-blunders-costing-you-big-time
Also, people need to check out pg 15 2015 OSPE presentation “Ontario’s Electricity Dilemma” to understand why the Liberal government in Ontario was recently ‘decimated. They lost their party status.
Just flash the cash in front of rural land owners and wind and solar projects will be done.
Rural community boards can’t afford to fight the lawsuits that renewable energy developers can bring against them.
Subsidies are used as a means to promote renewable energy projects. Use unfccc.int search to locate information on the ways that renewable energy is promoted by using financial incentives.
Global war on fossil fuels must be seen as a crime.
I hope the U.S. delegation continues to insist on removing the insane, socialist-driven sustainable development, gender equality and social justice wording from the SPM. This crap permeates all of the IPCC reports/documents, even though it is not in the IPCC’s remit.
This has not yet been reported by Matt McGrath of the BBC. I can’t wait.
Well done NIPCC ! The scientific community has been bullied and bought for far to long and politicians
no longer have cover for the mass genocide they have enabled under the false banner “save the planet ” .
Politicians who continue to push the global warming con -game are now starting to pay a price
but it is small in comparison to 10’s of thousands who die from completely unnecessary fuel poverty
each year this international hoax festers . Politicians, flim flam hot air salesmen and unscrupulous scientists need to be held to account .
Why is it that people that don’t know what they are talking about have this overwhelming compulsion to be heard?
The arrogance of ignorance in the ocean of emotion?
Ooooops, swept away on a wave of my own . . petard by my own hoist . .! Others hear therefore I am?
[.mod ?Cyberspace in yourself to talking by away swept,again and /yoda ]
And your claim to authority, pochas94?
A war on fossil fuels is like a war on nitrogen in the atmosphere.
David,
Please provide the attribution for this chart. Where did it come from? What are the data sources?
The nice thing about an IPCC report is that virtually anyone can comment and criticize during the
writing period.
NIPPC
no review by outsiders and it shows
“The geological record, reviewed in Section 5.1.3,
shows (a) the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
today is far below levels that existed during most of
the geological record, (b) CO2 concentrations in the
atmosphere typically rise several hundred years after
temperatures rise, making it impossible for CO2 to be
responsible for the temperature increase,”
C02 both leads and lags temperature increases. There is nothing in in logic or physics that makes
this impossible.
It would be like seeing sparks shooting out from a fire and concluding that sparks could not cause
fires.
Now, once we have the list of authors we can ask them. Does c02 have the ability to increase warming, or is C02 not a GHG.
You see why folks want to use the “D” word. Across the blogesphere and twitter you will hear skeptics
say.. I dont deny that c02 could cause warming, BUT its a small effect.
But the NIPPC, full blown skey dragons: C02 cannot cause warming.
Not one once of physics supports that.
A good review would have caught this. A good review would have pointed out that c02 can cause warming
but distangling the anthro effect from natural variation is hard or ambiguous.
but no, they went full blown sky dragon c02 is not a GHG.
Also figure 2 is bogus, Paleo is hard, and there is not one single study that gives you a final answer.
Promoting that chart is like manns HS only worst cause its 10 years old and wrong
Steven,
Why do you consider Figure 2 to be bogus? Thanks.
This part of the statement you cite is correct: “the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
today is far below levels that existed during most of the geological record”. Except for the coldest parts of the Carboniferous-Permian glaciation, during the rest of the Phanerozoic Eon (beginning about 543 Ma), CO2 was always higher than now, by single to double digit multiples. That includes the Ordovician-Silurian glaciation, when CO2 was about ten times higher than now. Solar power was however some four percent lower than now.
The latest from the NIPCC continues their efforts to discredit the scientific work to understand our planet’s changing climate. In the NIPCC SPM, Figure 2 is a prime example, taken from Loehle’s E&E 2008 “correction” to his earlier E&E 2007 paper, a work which contained serious errors. The newer paper was also flawed and can not be taken as an absolute indication of the variation in global temperature over the period shown, which is implied by the NIPCC.
As I showed in a subsequent Letter to the Editor, of the 18 proxies used, only 3 are from the Southern Hemisphere, thus the resulting graphic can not be considered representative of global temperature history. Worse, the data series are combined without area weighting, which further emphasizes the higher latitude Northern Hemisphere. Then too, one of the series appeared in 2 of the proxies, thus is over representing it in the combination. As in the original Loehle paper, the SPM Figure 2 graph provides no error bars for either the data or the date models of the resulting combined curve, a serious flaw given the uncertainties in the original data series. In my Letter, I presented the results of a simple effort to area weight the series, which resulted in a reduced MWP spike, compared with Loehle’s results.
The NIPCC’s latest can only be seen as part of a politically motivated disinformation campaign, not serious science. In future, humanity will suffer as a result of their short sighted attacks.
It’s about time! Think of how much of the world’s scarce resources have been wasted on “fighting” climate change. I wonder why these experts remained silent for so long?