The Week That Was: 2019-09-28 (September 28, 2019)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week – “Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”— Frantz Fanon, French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, revolutionary, [H/t William Readdy]
Number of the Week: 30% fewer labor hours
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
UN Children’s Climate Circus: The conditions for most of the world’s population are improving significantly. Although wars are ongoing, there is no major world war, killing millions. There are no major famines, other than those created by government policies. World grain reserves are full, and production is increasing greatly in tropical countries, which were once considered too hot, with too thin, too acidic soils to be major grain producers. There is still much to do, particularly in Africa, South America and Asia, but, based on the World Bank. the numbers of people living in extreme poverty are declining significantly, with major reductions in Asia. So based on mathematical computer models, the UN and many international organizations are declaring we are in a “climate crisis” – based on projections of the future that are not validated by physical evidence today.
This week, the UN hosted a circus, celebrating fears of carbon dioxide (CO2)-caused climate change featuring children and the fears and horrors their parents and teachers have taught them. Fears of monsters lurking in the dark have been used for generations to control the behavior of children. For example, Inuit artists carved the monsters their parents claimed would await them, if they wandered too far from the camp and the safety of the fire. Particularly, in the winter the fears were real, but the monsters were not. Similarly, Grimm’s Fairy Tales were a collection of folk tales told to children to have them behave.
Given that carbon-based fuels are vital for modern civilization, it is unfortunate that these tales are told to and taken seriously by children. That children believe them, is not a surprise. Children are very gullible to well told stories evoking fears. The tragedy is that the grown-ups believe the children who have been repeatedly told the tale of “climate crisis.”
According to the University of Rochester Medical Center, over the past 25 years great progress has been made in understanding the development of the human brain as one matures. Functional MRIs measuring blood flow in the brain have demonstrated the changes in the way information is processed in the brain as one matures in adolescence, from teenage, to adult. The center of thinking slowly changes from the amygdala, center of instinctive reaction, emotion, to the prefrontal cortex, the center for reasoned judgement with full change about the age of 25. Many parents have been frustrated when they asked their teenager why the teenager did something stupid and heard the reply “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. This is common and has little to do with one’s intelligence. It has to do with mental maturity. The size of the prefrontal cortex is the major distinction between the human brain and that of other primates. It is sad to witness “climate crisis” advocates manipulating children, who naturally respond to fear and cannot yet resist reasonably, for their purposes.
As tragic as some of the child pronouncements were, it is disappointing to realize that the UN and the “climate crisis” promoters must stoop so low to mobilize support for their weakly supported ideas. On this subject, the popular press has lost all reasoned judgement. According to reports, the poster child of the movement and 15 others filed a formal complaint to the UN that Brazil, Germany, France and others had violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child by failing to take sufficiently bold measures to reduce carbon emissions. Germany and France have been among the most ardent promoters of the “climate crisis.” The formal complaint angered representatives of these governments. Did the handlers of the children go too far?
In reviewing some of the documents on the Convention, TWTW found no reference to the right to a stable climate. But this is just another example of the farce the UN’s insistence on a “climate crisis” has become. See links under Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children and Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
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A Fluid Issue: On his web site, No Tricks Zone, P. Gosselin has drawn attention to a short book by Japanese climate modeler Mototaka Nakamura, author of about 20 published papers on fluid dynamics. A new short book is written in both English and Japanese is available in Kindle. Australian reporter Tony Thomas, who has followed the climate issue for years, reviews the book, emphasizing that the certainty claimed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its followers is hollow.
Among other important changing phenomena, the climate system is largely made up of two fluids in dynamic motion, the oceans and the atmosphere, and we simply do not know enough about fluid dynamics to make long-term predictions about the interactions of these fluids. According to Nakamura the climate models are useful tools for academic purposes, but useless for prediction. As quoted by Thomas, Nakamura writes:
“These models completely lack some critically important climate processes and feedbacks and represent some other critically important climate processes and feedbacks in grossly distorted manners to the extent that makes these models totally useless for any meaningful climate prediction.
“I myself used to use climate simulation models for scientific studies, not for predictions, and learned about their problems and limitations in the process.”
Nakamura and his colleagues tried to repair the errors:
“…so, I know the workings of these models very well … For better or worse I have more or less lost interest in the climate science and am not thrilled to spend so much of my time and energy in this kind of writing beyond the point that satisfies my own sense of obligation to the US and Japanese taxpayers who financially supported my higher education and spontaneous and free research activity. So please expect this to be the only writing of this sort coming from me.
“I am confident that some honest and courageous, true climate scientists will continue to publicly point out the fraudulent claims made by the mainstream climate science community in English. I regret to say this, but I am also confident that docile and/or incompetent Japanese climate researchers will remain silent until the ’mainstream climate science community’ changes its tone, if ever.”
Thomas writes some of the gross model simplifications are:
· # Ignorance about large and small-scale ocean dynamics.
· # A complete lack of meaningful representations of aerosol changes that generate clouds.
· # Lack of understanding of drivers of ice-albedo (reflectivity) feedbacks: “Without a reasonably accurate representation, it is impossible to make any meaningful predictions of climate variations and changes in the middle and high latitudes and thus the entire planet.”
· # Inability to deal with water vapor elements.
· # Arbitrary “tunings” (fudges) of key parameters that are not understood.
As Richard Lindzen has stated for years, the models fail to capture changes in clouds including changing cloud area and that the sizes of clouds are too small for grid scale modeling.
Nakamura’s work reinforces what many, including Lindzen, have stated. But it is refreshing to see that a modeler who spent years trying to model the climate system recognizes how unsuccessful this 40 plus year effort has been. As will be discussed in future TWTWs there is a way to understand the influence of additional atmospheric carbon dioxide on the climate without resorting to modeling turbulent, dynamic fluids, which cannot produce reasonable results for prediction. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Number of the Week: 30% fewer labor hours: Promoters of the Green New Deal have been promising thousands of new green jobs. Apparently, members of the US United Auto Workers who went on strike are not impressed by the promise of electric automobiles. Sales of today’s electric autos require huge subsidies which, under current US laws, phase out after a production limit is reached. Unless there are dramatic technological breakthroughs,, which are yet to materialize, electric automobiles will be significantly more costly than vehicles with internal combustion engines, resulting in fewer sales and the weakening of the industry, resulting in fewer jobs. An additional issue is providing charging stations for electric vehicles. Who pays for them? Who powers them?
Further, according to the CEO of Volkswagen, electric cars have fewer moving parts, and production requires about 30% fewer labor-hours, resulting in fewer jobs. Globally the loss of these jobs will be partially offset by increases in mining and material processing jobs in lithium extracted in Argentina, Zimbabwe, Chile, China and Australia, and in cobalt extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. United Auto Workers will not be impressed if advocates of the Green New Deal include these jobs as promised green jobs. Further, what will generate the electricity to power these electric vehicles? See Article # 2.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Science: Is the Sun Rising?
Plasma flow near sun’s surface explains sunspots, other solar phenomena
New Release, University of Washington, Eurek Alert, Sep 19, 2019
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/uow-pfn091819.php
Censorship
Peter Ridd case Appealed by James Cook University.
By Charles the Moderator, WUWT, Sep 22, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/22/peter-ridd-case-appealed-by-james-cook-university/
Uni[versity] Fights $1.2 Million Judgement Over sacked Academic Peter Ridd
By Staff, The Australian, Via GWPF, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.thegwpf.com/uni-fights-1-2-million-judgment-over-sacked-academic-peter-ridd/
Suppressing Scientific Inquiry
How to Evaluate the Evidence of Contrarians – Scientifically
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Sep 21, 2019
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2019/09/how-to-evaluate-the-evidence-of-contrarians-scientifically/
“…Misha Ketchell who is the editor of the influential academic publication The Conversation is quoted claiming to care so much about the evidence that the opinions of ‘sceptics’ must be excluded.”
“But this begs the question: how do we define scepticism, and on what basis do we discount the opinion of a so-called sceptic?
“If their opinions are at complete odds with the evidence: then wouldn’t it be more useful to show this? To use them, and their wrong claims, to explain the truth within the theory of human-caused global warming?”
“Science is a method, science is never settled. We must therefore always be open-minded, tolerant and ready to be proven wrong. But history will eventually show that it is Misha Ketchell who is wrong and that this editor is not using a reasonable, or in any way evidence-based, criteria for deciding what should be published. This is so very wrong and so very harmful to science, democracy and the capacity of other opinion leaders and academics to evaluate the evidence which is so necessary if they are to get to the truth in such matters as climate change.”
[SEPP Comment: Marohasy discusses how she has been suppressed by the climate establishment at the University of Queensland.]
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/CCR-II-Full.pdf
Summary: http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/
Download with no charge:
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge:
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data
By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019
https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/SeaLevelRiseCCRII.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy
A Climate Modeler Spills the Beans
By Tony Thomas, Quadrant, Sep 23, 2019 [H/t James Buell]
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2019/09/a-climate-modeller-spills-the-beans/
“No Climate Emergency” …MIT Climate Expert, 500 Prominent Global Experts Write In Letter To UN
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Sep 24, 2019
See link immediately below.
Prominent scientists warn UN Secretary-General Guterres
Letter, Posted by Door Marcel Crok, Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL), Sep 23, 2019
https://clintel.nl/prominent-scientists-warn-un-secretary-general-guterres/
New Video : The Climate Cynicism Crisis
By Tony Heller, Real Climate Science, Sep 26, 2019
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/09/new-video-the-climate-cynicism-crisis/
Video
Major Climate Paper Withdrawn by Nature
Press Release, GWPF, Sep 26, 2019
https://www.thegwpf.com/major-climate-paper-withdrawn-by-nature/
See link immediately below.
Resplandy et al. Part 5: Final outcome
By Nic Lewis, Climate Etc. Sep 25, 2019
https://judithcurry.com/2019/09/25/resplandy-et-al-part-5-final-outcome/#more-25271
“I believe that this saga, as well as showing how ineffective journal peer review tends to be in spotting problematic issues in papers, illustrates the need for a much closer involvement of statisticians in climate science research. That was a point also made in one of the articles highlighted in Judith’s latest Week in Review post: Climate science needs professional statisticians [link].”
[SEPP Comment: A point made very clear by McIntyre and McKitrick’s critique of Mr. Mann’s hockey stick.]
Global Warming: Fact or Fiction?
Featuring Physicists Willie Soon and Elliott Bloom
Video, Independent Institute, Aug 19, 2019
http://www.independent.org/multimedia/detail.asp?id=6073
In the footsteps of Greta, on the road to slavery
Statement of IVK
By Dr Jiří Weigl, on behalf of the Institute of Czech Ex-President Václav Klaus, Sep 23rd, 2019, (translation by LM), The Reference Frame, Sep 24, 2019
https://motls.blogspot.com/2019/09/in-footsteps-of-greta-on-road-to-slavery.html
“…the scientific knowledge is always limited, evolving, and the history provides us with an uncountable number of examples of scientific blunders and tragic implications of the abused and vulgarized partial scientific insights (Nazism, communism etc.).”
How Climate Change Pseudoscience Became Publicly Accepted
By Nir Shaviv, The Epoch Times, Sep 25, 2019
https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-climate-change-pseudoscience-became-publicly-accepted_3093372.html
A Clean Kill of the Carbon Dioxide-Driven Climate Change Hypothesis?
By David Middleton, WUWT, Sep 25, 2019
Defending the Orthodoxy
Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate
By IPCC, Sep 25, 2019
https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/home/
UN climate report warns of warming oceans, sea level rise
By Rebecca Beitsch and Maranda Green, The Hill, Sep 25, 2019
Don’t Debate the ‘Climate Crisis’? (Mann, Dessler, etc. want to assume, not discuss)
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.masterresource.org/debate-issues/debate-not-assume-climate-crisis/
New Climate Report Paints Grim Picture for Pacific Northwest Fishing Industry
A climate report dedicated to study what global warming will do to oceans if carbon emissions don’t change show a significant marine life die-off.
By Staff K5 News, Sep 26, 2019
From Ken Schlichte
“the NOAA National Climatic Data Center Climate at a Glance website at www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/ reports the official Washington climate change data indicating that:
“Washington’s meteorological winter (December – February) temperatures have officially trended downward at a rate of 0.2 degrees F per decade during the last 30 winters from 1990 to 2019, even as our atmospheric CO2 concentrations have continued to increase.”
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/
New IPCC report on ocean warming cites a flawed and retracted paper
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Sep 27, 2019
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Caution: Logic approaching
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 25, 2019
https://climatediscussionnexus.com/2019/09/25/caution-logic-approaching/
St. Greta Spreads the Climate Gospel
A movement that believes in sin, penance and salvation doesn’t sound very scientific
By Gerard Baker, WSJ, Via GWPF, Sep 22, 2019
https://www.thegwpf.com/st-greta-spreads-the-climate-gospel/
Amazon Fires Update
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 25, 2019
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/09/25/amazon-fires-update/
Protesting Warmth? Greta’s Home, Sweden, Is 3°C COLDER Today Than Nearly All Of The Last 9000 Years
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Sep 26, 2019
After Paris!
Russia joins Paris climate accord
By Maria Antonova, Moscow (AFP) Sept 23, 2019
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Russia_joins_Paris_climate_accord_999.html
Change in US Administrations
Remarks by President Trump at the United Nations Event on Religious Freedom | New York, NY
By Staff, White House, Sep 23, 2019
Seeking a Common Ground
The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
By Carl Sagan, Fermat’s Library, Accessed Sep 25, 2019 [H/t William Readdy]
https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-fine-art-of-baloney-detection
The Yawning Gap Between Climate Rhetoric and Climate Action
By Roger Pielke, Forbes, Sep 19, 2019
“So long as we favor exhortation to act in the absence of practical actions that can meet real-world tests of policy and politics, climate change will continue to be a potent political symbol, but with little connection to actual decarbonization of the global economy.”
Understanding the climate movement: the impotence of science.
Guest post by Dr Paul Rossiter, WUWT, Sep 26, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/26/understanding-the-climate-movement-the-impotence-of-science/
Measurement Issues — Surface
Delingpole: Environment Canada Airbrushes 100 Years of Inconvenient Climate Data out of History
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 20, 2019
Down the temperature hole
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 25, 2019
https://climatediscussionnexus.com/2019/09/25/down-the-temperature-hole/
Climate Emergency Tour: Winnipeg Edition
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 25, 2019
https://climatediscussionnexus.com/2019/09/25/climate-emergency-tour-winnipeg-edition/
Changing Weather
Lessons from Dorian and more
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM , AMS Fellow, ICECAP, Sep 24, 2019
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/lessons_from_dorian_and_more1/
“Nothing is new in weather. Great Colonial hurricanes in the northeast with storm surges up to 20 feet occurred in 1635 and 1675. In the Caribbean, the Great Hurricane of 1780 killed an estimated 27,500 people while ravaging the islands of the eastern Caribbean with sustained winds estimated to top 200 mph. It was one of three hurricanes that year with death tolls greater than 1000.”
Arctic Express Coming to the Northwest
By Cliff Mass, Weather and Climate Blog, Sep 26, 2019
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2019/09/arctic-express-coming-to-northwest.html
This Date In 1934 – The End Of Colorado’s Longest Heatwave
By Tony Heller, Real Climate Science, Sep 27, 2019
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/09/this-date-in-1934-the-end-of-colorados-longest-heatwave/
Changing Climate
Is theory on Earth’s climate in the last 15 million years wrong?
By Staff Writers, New Brunswick NJ (SPX) Sep 24, 2019
Reduced continental weathering and marine calcification linked to late Neogene decline in atmospheric CO2
By Weimin Si & Yair Rosenthal, Nature Geoscience, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0450-3
Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations
The climate theory casting new light on the history of Chinese civilisation
Researchers say that when 500-year-long sun cycles brought warmth, communities flourished, but when the Earth cooled, ancient societies collapsed
By Stephen Chen, South China Morning Post, Sep 24, 2019 [H/t GWPF]
Link to paper: Synchronous 500-year oscillations of monsoon climate and human activity in Northeast Asia
By Deke Xu, et al., Nature Communications, Sep 11, 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12138-0
Changing Seas
No Evidence That Climate Change Is Accelerating Sea Level Rise
By Ralph Alexander, Science Under Attack, Sep 23, 2019 [H/t GWPF]
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Because Greenland really needs more ice
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Sep 25, 2019
https://climatediscussionnexus.com/2019/09/25/because-greenland-really-needs-more-ice/
No Climate Emergency for Polar Bears or Walruses
Press Release, GWPF, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.thegwpf.com/no-climate-emergency-for-polar-bears-or-walruses/
Changing Earth
New evidence of the Sahara’s age
By Staff Writers, Boulder CO (SPX) Sep 24, 2019
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/New_evidence_of_the_Saharas_age_999.html
Tinkering with Tectonics
A new view of plate tectonics is emerging.
By Lucas Joel, EOS, Sep 6, 2019
https://eos.org/articles/tinkering-with-tectonics
Acidic Waters
Some Notes on Coral and the Great Barrier Reef
Guest post by Mike Jonas, WUWT, Sep 26, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/26/some-notes-on-coral-and-the-great-barrier-reef/
Lowering Standards
American Meteorological Society Takes On Income Inequality
By Charles the Moderator, WUWT, Sep 23, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/23/american-meteorological-society-takes-on-income-inequality/
No Amount Of Journalistic Malpractice Embarrasses The New York Times
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Sep 26, 2019
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
A Climate Silver Bullet?
By David Keith, et al. Project Syndicate, Sep 26, 2019
https://www.project-syndicate.org/bigpicture/a-climate-silver-bullet
Tipping Point
Bill McKibben On A Planet In Peril
By David Barsmanian, The Sun Mag, October 2019
https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/526/tipping-point
“I think humans as a species are in the process of finding out whether our big brains are a good adaptation or not.”
WMO Climate Panic: “If emissions don’t start falling there will be hell to pay.”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 24, 2019
Climate change: Impacts ‘accelerating’ as leaders gather for UN talks
By Matt McGrath, BBC, Sep 22, 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49773869
The Climate Strikers Are Completely Unhinged
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-9-23-the-climate-strikers-are-completely-unhinged
“Estimates of the number of protesters that turned out range (according to the New York Times) from 60,000 (NY Police Dept.) to 250,000 (organizers).”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
How to create panic by cherry picking the start date. Lessons from NOAA and NASA
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Sep 25, 2019
Link to: New Video : My Gift To Climate Alarmists
By Tony Heller, Real Climate Science, Sep 21, 2019
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/09/new-video-my-gift-to-climate-alarmists/
Video
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children
Greta has united Czechs, urgently needs psychiatric care
By Lubos Motl, The Reference Frame, Sep 23, 2019
https://motls.blogspot.com/2019/09/greta-has-united-czechs-urgently-needs.html
Greta Thunberg, Indisputable Proof That Our World Has Gone Mad
By J. Frank Bullitt, I&I Editorial, Sep 24, 2019
https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/24/greta-thunberg-indisputable-proof-that-our-world-has-gone-mad/
The Climate Brainwashing Of Our Youth
By Lynne Balzer, Climate Change Dispatch
https://climatechangedispatch.com/climate-brainwashing-youth/#comment-36834
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
Understanding the Teen Brain
By Staff, Health Encyclopedia, University of Rochester Medical Center
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051
Nothing Blissful About Kids’ Ignorance of Science, History
By Larry Bell, Newsmax, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.newsmax.com/larrybell/noaa-harvey-wilma-ipcc/2019/09/23/id/933824/
Eco-worriers new strategy: use Greta as a human shield against debate
The only reason Climate Scare Machine played the Child card was because they’ve given up the adult contest of persuasion.
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Sep 27, 2019
Boss of Czech child psychiatrists on Greta
Greta perceives fear and anxiety, she sees a black-and-white world
The whole family needs to find a help by psychiatrists
By Lubos Motl, The Reference Frame, Sep 26, 2019
https://motls.blogspot.com/2019/09/boss-of-czech-child-psychiatrists-on.html
World’s leaders turn on Greta Thunberg after legal move over carbon emissions [Sues France & Germany]
By Oliver Moody, The Times, Via GWPF, Sep 26, 2019
https://www.thegwpf.com/worlds-leaders-turn-on-greta-thunberg-after-she-sues-france-germany/
“National leaders have rebuked Greta Thunberg after the climate campaigner criticised their inaction and started a legal challenge against France and Germany’s environmental policies.”
And now it’s time for Children’s Hour
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, WUWT, Sep 25, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/25/and-now-its-time-for-childrens-hour/
‘People are dying’: Teen activist urges new climate action at UN
By Brooks Hays, Washington (UPI) Sep 23, 2019
The best pushback to the misinformation of @GretaThunberg you’ll find
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Sep 21, 2019
Surprise! Climate Activists Declare UN New York Climate Conference a Failure
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 25, 2019
UN climate summit flops despite the children’s rent-a-crowd crusade
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Sep 25, 2019
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/09/un-flops-despite-the-childrens-rent-a-crowd-crusade/
Climate Messiah Greta Thunberg “Stares Down” President Trump
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 24, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/24/climate-messiah-greta-thunberg-stares-down-president-trump/
Questioning European Green
Green Dreams Sputter in Central and Southeast Europe
By Srecko Latal, et al., Balkan Insight, Sep 23, 2019 [H/t GWPF]
https://balkaninsight.com/2019/09/23/greens-dreams-splutter-in-central-and-southeast-europe/
Plus ca Change–UK Climate Trends
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 27, 2019
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/09/27/plus-ca-change-uk-climate-trends/
Link to report: Plus ca Change–UK Climate Trends in 2018
By Paul Homewood, GWPF, 2019
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2019/09/UKClimate2018web.pdf
“Clean Energy”–But At What Cost?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 21, 2019
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/09/21/clean-energy-but-at-what-cost/
“If anybody had suggested ten years ago that we should spend £165 billion in order to develop a new energy source that still cost more than the existing one, they probably would have been regarded as barmy.
“Unfortunately, the barmy has become normal these days.”
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Terence Corcoran: From Amazon to the Financial Times and Trudeau, the big push is underway to ‘reset’ capitalism
And this revolution may not be as benign as some think
By Terrence Corcoran, Financial Post, Can, Sep 20, 2019
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-tie-a-yellow-ribbon-round-capitalism
Funding Issues
Caltech lands second-largest donation ever for climate research
By Rebecca Klar, The Hill, Sep 26, 2019
“The wealthy owners of the company that produces Fiji Water and Pom Wonderful are reportedly donating $750 million to the California Institute of Technology for climate change research.”
[SEPP Comment: How much fossil fuel energy is used to bottle and ship Fuji water from Fiji to the US which has outstandingly public water?]
The Political Games Continue
Democrat Candidate: One Year Climate Crisis Mandatory National Service for 18-26 Year Olds
Guest essay by Eric Worrall, WUWT, Sep 21, 2019
Climate change activism: The left’s new power play
By Tammy Bruce, Washington Times, Sep 25, 2019
More buckets of icy cold energy reality
By Paul Driessen, WUWT, Sep 23, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/23/more-buckets-of-icy-cold-energy-reality/
Brexit Party Deceived By St Greta
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 22, 2019
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/09/22/brexit-party-deceived-by-st-greta/
Litigation Issues
Greta Thunberg & Allies File Climate Complaint Against 5 Countries (Not China)
By Joshua Caplan, Breitbart, Sep 23, 2019
“’This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you,’ said the Swedish teenager in her planned remarks.”
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Energy subsidy confusion
By Roger Bezdek, World Oil, September 2019
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/Energy%20Subsidy%20Confusion.pdf
[SEPP Comment: Since people are living healthier, longer lives from the use of fossil fuels, should the cost of say 80% of the world’s GDP also be included as a subsidy? Then the IMF can get some real eye-opening numbers!
EPA and other Regulators on the March
Air Quality Trends Show Clean Air Progress
Nationally, concentrations of air pollutants have dropped significantly since 1990:
Press Release, EPA, 2019
https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2019/#highlights
Trump EPA chief says agency’s authority to address climate change is ‘limited’
By Owen Daugherty, The Hill, Sep 24, 2019
Energy Issues – Non-US
Labour’s reckless net zero promise
By Rupert Darwall, The Spectator, Via GWPF, Sep 25, 2019
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/09/labours-reckless-net-zero-promise/
Energy Issues – Australia
Bubble pops: Australian renewables investment down 80% as RET subsidy ends
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Sep 26, 2019
Energy Issues — US
Examining Market Structure for Electricity
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Sep 24, 2019
https://ddears.com/2019/09/24/examining-market-structure-for-electricity/
[SEPP Comment: In the US, RTO (Regional Transmission Organization) is an electric transmission operator that coordinates, monitors, and controls a multi-state electric grid under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). ISOs (Independent System Operators) have similar responsibilities under FERC. Usually they are lumped together.]
Despite Proven Record of Climate Progress, Natural Gas Suspiciously Missing from NYC Climate Week
By Spencer Walrath, Energy in Depth, Sep 23, 2019
Florida’s Natural Gas Boom
By Dave Middleton, WUWT, Sep 24, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/24/floridas-natural-gas-boom/
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Fracking has Benefitted Everyone
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Sep 27, 2019
https://ddears.com/2019/09/27/fracking-has-benefitted-everyone/
EIA Projects Fossil Fuel Consumption Will Continue To Rise
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Sep 24, 2019
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Electricity in the realm of the Lion King
Small Modular Reactors, especially Pebble Bed Modular Reactors, are Africa’s best future
Dr. Kelvin Kemm, WUWT, Sep 22, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/22/electricity-in-the-realm-of-the-lion-king/
French-developed SMR design unveiled
By Staff, WNN, Sep 17, 2019
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/French-developed-SMR-design-unveiled
Three Mile Island retired after 45 years
By Staff, WNN, Sep 23, 2019
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Three-Mile-Island-retires-after-45-years
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
After $5 Billion in Losses, China’s NIO Battles for Survival
By Staff, Bloomberg, Sep 22, 2019
E-Cars Dead At Birth? Singapore Says No To E-Cars As Asian Giants Increasingly Place Bets On Hydrogen Propulsion
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Sep 25, 2019
Explainer: Why Asia’s biggest economies are backing hydrogen fuel cell cars
By Kevin Buckland, Reuters, Sep 24, 2019
Another Green Con: Flawed Test Inflate Range of Electric Cars
By Staff, The Times, Via GWPF, Sep 21, 2019
https://www.thegwpf.com/green-con-flawed-tests-inflate-range-of-electric-cars/
California Dreaming
EPA Administrator Wheeler calls out California’s Environmental Protection Failure
State’s homelessness crisis threatens human health and the environment
Press Release EPA, Sep 26, 2019
Health, Energy, and Climate
Much Of The Buzz About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Is Wrong
By Henry Miller, ACSH, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/09/23/much-buzz-about-genetically-engineered-mosquitoes-wrong-14302
Oh Mann!
PODCAST: Dr. Ross McKittrick on climate, hockey-sticks, and Mann
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Sep 27, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/27/podcast-dr-ross-mckittrick-on-climate-hockey-sticks-and-mann/
Environmental Industry
Green Giants: Axios Finds Skyrocketing Donations to Enviro Groups
By Spencer Walrath, Energy In Depth, Sep 24, 2019
https://eidclimate.org/green-giants-axios-finds-skyrocketing-donations-to-enviro-groups/
Trump administration begins internal review of grants to wildlife organizations accused of abuse
By Justine Coleman, The Hill, Sep 24, 2019
“A BuzzFeed News investigation published in March revealed that local guards and rangers associated with the World Wide Fund of Nature (WWF) allegedly participated in the abuses of indigenous communities, including rape, torture and murder.”
“Documents obtained by BuzzFeed News revealed the U.S. government has provided WWF with $157 million in the last 15 years, after Interior declined to provide specific funding amounts for WWF to the news outlet. Out of that, $10 million was given to ‘armed guards, rangers and enforcement.’
Other Scientific News
NASA to build telescope for detecting asteroids that threaten Earth
By Paul Voosen, Science, Sep 23, 2019 [H/t Toshio Fujita]
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/nasa-build-telescope-detecting-asteroids-threaten-earth
Other News that May Be of Interest
North Atlantic haddock use magnetic compass to guide them
Study shows that haddock larvae orient toward the northwest
News Release, NSF, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=299243&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1
Understanding the Teen Brain
By Staff, Health Encyclopedia, University of Rochester Medical Center
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE:
Swiss hold high-altitude wake for lost glacier
By Eloi Rouyer with Agnes Pedrero in Geneva
Mels, Switzerland (AFP) Sept 22, 2019
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Swiss_hold_high-altitude_wake_for_lost_glacier_999.html
[SEPP Comment: Did the glaciers shrink in response to religious pleas in the early 1800s? ]
Ox-drawn plows to blame for increased inequality in Eurasia beginning in 4,000 BC
By Brooks Hays, Washington (UPI), Sep 18, 2019
Walrus sinks Russian Navy boat in the Arctic Ocean
By Rory Sullivan and Darya Tarasova, CNN, Sep 24, 2019 [H/t Richard Botteri]
California police officer must call off chase after Tesla patrol car’s battery runs low
By Morgan Phillips, Fox News, Sep 25, 2019
[SEPP Comment: Apparently, a half-charge was not enough.]
Eating meat is a crime against humanity and should be BANNED, says top barrister Michael Mansfield as he calls for new offence of ‘ecocide’
By Victoria Allen, Daily Mail, Sep 22, 2019
ARTICLES
1. A Climate Change for Lawsuits
Will the Supreme Court leave it to juries to decide contested public issues?
By William McGurn, WSJ, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-climate-change-for-lawsuits-11569279287?mod=hp_opin_pos_2
TWTW Summary: The journalist writes:
“When National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. was alive, the American Civil Liberties Union was a frequent target of his barbs. Once he even devoted an episode of ‘‘Firing Line” to a debate on the proposition ‘‘Resolved: The ACLU is full of baloney.’‘
“So give the ACLU credit for rising above policy differences. When a combative climatologist, Penn State’s Michael Mann, filed a defamation lawsuit in 2012 against National Review, Mark Steyn, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Rand Simberg, the conservative magazine found itself fighting alongside the left-leaning civil-liberties outfit.
“District of Columbia courts denied National Review’s motion to dismiss the case under the local anti-Slapp law, meant to thwart lawsuits aimed at silencing advocates on issues of public concern. The ACLU filed two friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the magazine’s appeals. One argued that the statements at issue are ‘‘constitutionally protected opinion and fair comment.’‘ (News Corp, this newspaper’s owner, joined another brief on National Review’s behalf, filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.)
“Thus far, alas, the courts have found largely in Mr. Mann’s favor, most recently in March. If the ruling by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals is allowed to stand, parties will have an incentive to sue their adversaries and ask juries to settle what are essentially differences of opinion.”
An exception to this is the Canadian Courts which have found in favor of Tim Ball because Mr. Mann failed to produce the physical evidence supporting his claims.
The only hope now is that the Supreme Court—which considers National Review’s petition Oct. 1—will hear the case. The defendants say the statements in question were ‘‘a subjective opinion about a matter of scientific or political controversy,” protected by the First Amendment. Mr. Mann says they were false factual assertions. The D.C. judges say it’s up to a jury to distinguish fact from opinion.
Mr. Mann is famous in global-warming circles as the originator of the ‘‘hockey stick” graph. The graph charts the Earth’s temperatures since the year 1000, showing a slow, steady decline that turned sharply upward in the 20th century. Mr. Mann’s critics have questioned both his statistical methods and the proxies he used to estimate medieval surface temperatures.
“In an inflammatory 2012 CEI blog post, Mr. Simberg likened Mr. Mann to a notorious Penn State figure: ‘‘Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.” Mr. Steyn quoted Mr. Simberg’s post on National Review’s website. Mr. Mann sued, saying he was being accused of ‘‘academic fraud.” He noted that academic and governmental investigations had cleared him of scientific wrongdoing.”
A previous Penn State investigation had cleared Mr Sandusky as well.
“The legal issue hinges on whether what Mr. Simberg said is subjective opinion that should be decided in public debate, as NR contends, or a factual assertion that a jury could find false and defamatory, as Mr. Mann claims. By sending the case to a jury, the D.C. Court of Appeals has rewarded Mr. Mann’s attempt to use the courts to settle the science and silence the criticism. That sets a dangerous precedent.
“In some senses the Mann suit may represent the perfect storm for litigation because so many consider climate science beyond question. The opinion of the appellate court, for example, carries the whiff of a religious authority rendering final judgment—the idea being that university faculties and other authorities have spoken so debate must be closed.
“There’s also the venue. This lawsuit didn’t go through the federal courts but through D.C.’s equivalent of state courts, where judges and juries probably aren’t the friendliest to conservatives. With so many publications, think tanks and activists keeping offices in the nation’s capital, it isn’t hard to see how Washington could quickly become the venue for similar lawsuits.”
This distinction is important because the District of Columbia Court of Appeals is not the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is frequently called the second most powerful court in the country, after the Supreme Court.
“The larger point is that while so-called climate deniers might be the first defendants, they are unlikely to be the last. If the D.C. ruling stands, National Review asks in its petition to the high court, what’s to prevent, say, Charles Koch from suing Greenpeace for accusing him of having funded a ‘‘junk study . . . loaded with lies and misrepresentations of actual climate change science”? Or Steve Bannon from founding a deep-pocketed organization to sue Trump opponents and then shopping for a venue where a friendly jury might agree that an over-the-top opinion is a defamatory statement of fact?
‘‘’The only way to protect free speech for our allies is to protect it for our adversaries,’ says Art Spitzer, legal director for the ACLU of D.C. ’Today it’s unacceptable to deny climate change, but yesterday it was unacceptable to deny that homosexuality was sinful, and tomorrow it may be unacceptable to deny that robots are better parents than humans. Society can’t progress unless people are free to express and consider heretical ideas, because there’s no way to predict which heretical ideas will be tomorrow’s truths.’”
The views of people are not the same as physical evidence.
*********************
2. Endangered Green Auto Workers
The striking union figures out that electric cars will cost jobs.
Editorial, WSJ, Sep 23, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/endangered-green-auto-workers-11569280762
TWTW Summary: The editorial states:
“Democratic presidential candidates have promised that they know how to create millions of green jobs to replace the ones they plan to kill in fossil-fuels production, but it seems that not even their friends at the United Auto Workers believe them. This is one reason that auto workers at GM are striking.
“Auto makers around the world are pumping billions of dollars into electric-car production to comply with government mandates. Some CEOs including GM’s Mary Barra believe electric cars will become more popular as batteries improve and decline in cost. But EVs make up only 2% of U.S. auto sales despite state and federal subsidies that can exceed $10,000 per car.
“The economic risks are clear even to the UAW, which published a paper this spring warning that electric cars could cause thousands of job losses because they require fewer parts and less labor. An electric powertrain for a Chevy Bolt has 80% fewer moving parts compared to an internal combustion engine, but it is about three times as expensive.
“Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has said that ‘building an electric car involves some 30% less effort than one powered by an [internal combustion engine]. That means we will need to make job cuts.’ GM will have to do likewise to compete. According to the paper, Ford has told investors ‘the product simplification that comes from EVs’ can lead to ‘a 30% reduction in labor hours per unit compared to ICE production.’”
The editorial continues with a discussion of how electric cars will crimp sales and profits, Further, it concludes with:
“Auto makers will also have to cut labor costs as electric cars crimp profits. The UAW says that
China leads the world in lithium-ion battery production. Most lithium is extracted in Argentina, Zimbabwe, Chile, China and Australia while about 60% of cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where kids earn $1 to $2 per day, according to the UAW. Environmentalists have opposed lithium mining in the U.S.
“One of the myths of the climate warriors is that remaking the global economy to purge fossil fuels is a free lunch. Someone will pay, as the auto workers have figured out.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/29/polar-bears-arctic-sea-ice-environment
“This year’s annual minimum of the Arctic sea ice tied with the second-lowest extent on record, a mere 1.6m sq miles, and badly affected polar bear populations that live and hunt on the north slope of Alaska, plus those that live on the ice floes in the Bering Sea.
“Now the ice has gone way offshore we know that the bears aren’t feeding, and the bears that are forced on to land don’t find much to eat. The longer the sea ice is gone from the productive zone the tougher it is on the bears,” said Polar Bears International’s Steven Amstrup.”
Good catch Griff, I suppose you believe that is true because the Guardian would not lie to us, right?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/30/activist-biologist-filled-with-eco-anxiety-shares-unfounded-fear-of-polar-bear-catastrophe/
Griff,
nonsense
Look that !!
Amstrup and Guardian spread BS.
Greg, if the Poarbears wouldn’t eat all the ice immediately and then rinse with salt water
then the other Poarbears could eat all the ice immediately and flush with salt water.
Kinda bipolar bears.
https://twitter.com/ThinGrayLine01/status/1178486647282917377
Even if one could prove that juries had the requisite understanding of many technical controversies to render an informed and rational judgement, my past experience on jury duty suggest that the opposing lawyers would spend weeks finding just the right jurors–biased, uneducated, inattentive, and prone to groupthink. Is jury of peers like peer-review?
Peers groups promote devastating performances.
‘building an electric car involves some 30% less effort than one powered by an [internal combustion engine]. That means we will need to make job cuts.’
Probably because the batteries will be imports.
Ken Haapala,
I always appreciate your TWTW reports for their factual presentations and logical counter arguments to the climate establishment narratives. Keep up the good work.
Anyone know what’s happened to Tim Ball’s website? It’s been down for several weeks – pretty much since his court victory against MM in fact. Don’t want to get all conspiracy-loike, but it’s a bit odd. Any info anyone? And if you’re out there Dr. Ball, belated congratulations, and do let us know that all is ok…
Here’s another category for , Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup, It’s called ,Best videos of the week.
And here they are .
Wal Thornhill: SAFIRE and the Future of Science, part 1& 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FohQsaxf4ho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7znD0VDhPJU
EXCLUSIVE – SAFIRE Contacted me in RESPONSE to my REACTION video to ANSWER MY QUESTIONS!