Guest post by Dr Paul Rossiter
Following my earlier two essays that looked at the new grand narrative of the green/left and the corruption of the cause, I now turn to the main engine driving the climate movement from day to day: the money. I became quite despondent while putting this together as I started to understand the huge, eye-watering amount of money that is dependent upon the unproven notion that atmospheric CO2 arising from the use of fossil fuels is causing catastrophic global warming/climate change/ pestilence and doom. Some headline numbers: the capitalisation of the renewable energy industry is over $1 trillion; the funding of the NGOs being used as alarmist publicity and lobbying agencies exceeds $2 billion; and the amount of government research funding committed to the issue exceeds $1billion. Good luck expecting that the resolution of some matter of scientific importance will cause these agencies to admit that their business is based upon a lie and that they will go away quietly, or at least scale back to a size more commensurate with the real market needs.
A caveat before I begin: the figures I quote are what is available in the public domain through books, web sites and annual and financial reports. I am not an economist and would welcome any further input that readers more informed than I could contribute. For all the examples cited in the following sections the figures are generally for the 2017/18 financial year.
1. Renewable Energy Industry: The Climate-Industrial Complex.
In 2009 Bjorn Lomborg wrote:
Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.
The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about the might of the “military-industrial complex,” cautioning that “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” He worried that “there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.”
This is certainly true of climate change. We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a “climate-industrial complex” is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.
Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is “rent-seeking.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124286145192740987 2009
According to Allied Market Research:
https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/renewable-energy-market
The global renewable energy market was valued at $928.0 Billion in 2017, and is expected to reach $1,512.3 Billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 6.1% from 2018 to 2025. Renewable energy technologies convert the energy from different natural sources such as sun, tides, wind and others, into its usable forms such as electricity.
The global renewable energy market is anticipated to grow significantly during the forecast period owing to increased emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), particularly CO2 due to utilization of fossil fuels for generation of energy. In addition, limited presence of fossil fuel on the earth as well its volatile prices fuels the renewable energy market.
Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. Owing to increase in demand for energy due to rise in industrialization in developing countries such as China, and India. Presence of these countries boosts the renewable energy market owing to factors such as rise in population, rapid industrialization along with favorable policies for the renewable energy sector.
Another forecast, from Acciona:
One out of every eight people on the planet continues to lack access to electricity. Within an energy setting that guarantees access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for everyone, the use of renewable energy must increase from the present 25 % to 38 % by 2025. This would entail an annual investment of 441 billion dollars in renewable electricity generation.
https://www.acciona.com/sustainability/
Taking the projections further, the idiocy of a “zero carbon” target by 2050 has been discussed many times. One recent analysis by Roger Pielke showed that it would require the construction of a nuclear power plant per day for every day from now until 2050! As such, I won’t pursue it any further here.
It can be difficult to comprehend the meaning of figures in the trillion dollar range and so I thought it would be worthwhile to break them down at least to the company level, to help make them more tangible. In so doing I used data obtained from a variety of reports, but it should be regarded as indicative since some companies have a range of interests and it is not always clear if the data refers to the whole company or just the renewable business.
Wind Turbine manufacturers and installers.
Wind power continues to be one of the most commonly used renewable energy sources in the global market. It is forecast that the global additions of new wind power capacity are estimated at 689 GW over the next 10 years, which will bring cumulative installations to 1,160 GW by the end of 2027 – up from today’s 541 GW – meaning that the demand for wind turbines will be higher than ever. Therefore, the future of world’s top 10 wind turbine manufacturers looks very promising with strong opportunities for growth in the next few years.
Some of the major manufacturers of large wind turbines are:
Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Denmark), Market capitalisation $75billion, Sales $14.94billion, world’s largest producer with over 60,000 turbines in total, 112GW in 76 countries
United power (Guodian United Power technology Co Ltd), 100GW.
Enel Spa (Italy), Market capitalisation 67.8billion Euro, 97GW (probably includes some non-renewable activity)
General Electric (US), Market capitalisation $74.3billion. 25,000 turbines in total, 92GW
Other significant companies in the billion dollar range include NextEra Energy, Inc , Suzlon, Envision, Senvion S.A., Goldwind, ENERCON GmbH, Orsted A/S (Denmark), Nordex and Acciona Windpower.
Solar manufacturers.
The global solar energy industry is expected to reach $422 billion by 2022 from $86 billion in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 24.2% from 2016 to 2022. Solar energy is the radiant energy emitted from the sun, which is harnessed by using various technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaic cells, and others. It is an efficient form of unconventional energy and a convenient renewable solution toward growing greenhouse emissions and global warming.
https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/solar-energy-market
First Solar, Market capitalisation $4.5 billion
Canadian Solar Inc., Market capitalisation $3.6 billion
JA Solar Market capitalisation $2.6 billion
Yingli Solar (China), 20 GW shipped to 90 countries’ annual revenue $1.25billion
Other significant manufacturers include Jinko , Qcells, Winiaco, REC, LG energy, Trina Solar, SunPower and Panasonic
Energy distributors with major renewable content.
Avangrid, Assets $32billion, 32GW, wind
Innergex, Assets C$6.5billion, revenue C$57.6billion, hydro, wind, solar
Boralex Market capitalisation $2billion, wind, hydro, thermal, solar
Berkshire Hathaway Energy, 32GW, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal.
Others include Transalta (wind, solar, hydro, coal, gas), Invenergy, (solar, wind), The Tata Power Company Limited (hydro, solar, wind, biomass), Geronimo Energy (wind and solar), EDF energy (Nuclear, wind, solar, gas),
Other technologies.
Ocean Power Technologies, Inc (US) (wave), On Power (geothermal), Tocardo BV (tidal river and ocean water turbine manufacturer), SynTech Bioenergy LLC (power from biomass feedstocks).
Each major manufacturer typically employs around 5000 staff and 10’s of thousands are employed in the support industries.
In addition to the companies directly involved in manufacturing and support of renewable energy products, there are all the companies providing goods and materials that go into the manufacture of the products, as well as the legal and financial services that provide support (see for example http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.05.021).
Bjorn Lomborg again:
Even companies that are not heavily engaged in green business stand to gain. European energy companies made tens of billions of euros in the first years of the European Trading System when they received free carbon emission allocations.
Given the enormous investment in capital and personnel largely dependent in propagation of the myth that anthropogenic CO2 is a threat to the future of the planet, it is no wonder that there is extensive lobbying to reinforce that myth: the Climate-Industrial Complex at its finest. While much of the lobbying is pro-renewable, it would also be naïve to think that there wasn’t also a significant anti-nuclear aspect as well.
Back to Bjorn:
U.S. companies and interest groups involved with climate change hired 2,430 lobbyists just last year, up 300% from five years ago. Fifty of the biggest U.S. electric utilities — including Duke — spent $51 million on lobbyists in just six months
The world’s largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN’s “Climate in Peril” segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas’s earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore’s green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon.
More discussion about the emergence of the Climate-Industrial Complex is given in Green Tyrrany by Rupert Darwall.
2. Research agencies propagating the CAGW myth.
There are a number of research agencies funded by governments, either as single organisations or consortia involving a number of participants. Many of these have programs investigating the effect of climate change on the environment but all (as far as I can ascertain) accept the mantra of an anthropogenic cause of the change, usually based upon IPCC reports, and this pre-determines their projections into the future. Before consider some specific examples, I would like to make clear that I am not criticising the quality of their science or graduate training programmes per se, but I am highlighting their inherent conflict of interest: they depend upon government funding and so there is an imperative to provide a scientific opinion that is commensurate with government policy.
A few examples based upon information available to the public:
NOAA (USA), $5.5 billion.
The NOAA budget was under pressure in the March 2019 House Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. The Trump administration proposed cutting NOAA’s budget to about $4.5 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2020, a drop of nearly $1 billion, compared with the agency’s FY 2019 enacted budget. The budget cuts targeted the climate and ocean research programs and also slash education initiatives, grants, and other agency programs.
Under questioning from subcommittee member Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) about climate change, Neil Jacobs (then NOAA Acting Administrator) reacknowledged the validity of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which states, “Global average temperature has increased by about 1.8°F from 1901 to 2016, and observational evidence does not support any credible natural explanations for this amount of warming; instead, the evidence consistently points to human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse or heat-trapping gases, as the dominant cause.” After the hearing, Jacobs elaborated, telling journalists that the National Climate Assessment “was built on peer-reviewed literature.”
So the leadership view of NOAA is aligned with the IPCC and there is no question of natural causes of climate change.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EO119557
Australian Institute of Marine Science (Australia), $67.9million
The AIMS Strategy 2025 outlines how AIMS will support Australia’s blue economy by delivering long-term impacts that create national benefits, improve tropical marine health, and protect coral reefs from climate change.
However, its reports claim:
The Great Barrier Reef is indisputably one of the world’s most important natural assets. We work with others to protect and restore the reef, which is under severe pressure from climate change and other stressors. Cumulative impacts include rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, pollution, declining water quality and outbreaks of the destructive crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS).
So AIMS seems to accept from the outset that damaging climate change is occurring, in line with IPCC projections.
CSIRO (Australia)
In 2016, the chief executive of CSIRO, Dr Larry Marshall, announced that research into the fundamentals of climate science was no longer a priority for CSIRO, leading to job losses from the climate research section(s) of the Oceans and Atmosphere Unit. After overwhelming negative reaction both within Australia and overseas, the Australian Government intervened with a directive and promise of new money to support the restoration of 15 jobs and the creation of a new Climate Science Centre to be based in Hobart with funding guaranteed for 10 years from 2016. The main overseas reaction came from former US vice-president Al Gore and the World Climate Research Program. A narrow escape for the global climate alarmist cabal.
CSIRO Climate Science Centre. 100 staff, A$20 million
The centre has a wide range of research programmes, two of which are concerned with the effects of climate change. The Sea levels, waves and coastal extremes research program claims:
Many observations show that the ocean has been changing over the last several decades. About 93% of the excess heat produced by greenhouse gases has been absorbed by the oceans. Sea-level rise is a response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the consequent changes in the global climate.
The Atmospheric Composition and chemistry research program similarly claims: Climate change is being driven primarily by increasing concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases (GHGs), in our atmosphere.
No suggestion of the possibility of any significant natural cause of climate change here.
Australian Universities centres of excellence.
The Australian Research Council (ARC) is one of the main sources of funding for university research in Australia. The larger programmes are administered through a Centres of Excellence programme that encourages collaboration between universities, other government research agencies and industry.
The ARC Centre for Climate Extremes receives A$4.4m from the ARC and A$6.7m in kind from the partners. It evolved from the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science that concluded in 2018. The final report of that Centre stated:
Australia is getting hotter, heatwaves are becoming more common and more intense and these trends will continue into the future. Climate models suggest Australia’s record hot summer of 2013 was made 5 times more likely by anthropogenic climate change and this record summer may be representative of Australian climate by 2035 under high emission scenarios.
The 2015/16 marine heatwave in the Tasman Sea was more intense and substantially longer than any previously recorded. This change is consistent with a response to anthropogenic climate change
The new Centre will:
improve our understanding of the processes that trigger or enhance extremes and build this understanding into our modelling systems. The improved predictions of climate extremes will enable improvements in how Australia copes with extremes now and in the future.
It includes a program on global climate sensitivity that employs climate model ensembles in the same way as IPCC modelling. Again no allowance for natural causes, though many of the experimental programmes do seem to be more open-minded.
The ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies has revenue of A$11.2m.
Its mission is: To lead the global research effort in the provision of scientific knowledge necessary for sustaining the ecosystem goods and services of the world’s coral reefs during a period of unprecedented environmental change.
The Coral Reef Ecosystem research programme is interested in examining the organisms and processes that underlie the structure and function of coral reef ecosystems. Current projects investigate the effects of climate change.
The Reef Fish ecology and climate change programme focuses on understanding and predicting the impacts that climate change and ocean acidification will have on populations and communities of marine fishes, both directly through changes in the physical environment and indirectly through effects on coral reef habitat.
One of the university partners of this Centre is James Cook University that achieved notoriety through its sacking of Dr Peter Ridd for questioning the quality of their Barrier Reef research (and hence possibly threatening their funding).
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (UK, no financial data available).
Our Vision: We provide evidence to inform society’s transition to a sustainable low-carbon and climate resilient future.
The Tyndall Centre is a partnership of universities bringing together researchers from the social and natural sciences and engineering to develop sustainable responses to climate change. We work with leaders from the public and private sectors to promote informed decisions on mitigating and adapting to climate change.
One of the research partners is the University of East Anglia, of Climategate fame. Another partner is the University of Manchester which is using science-based targets to help local authorities calculate their carbon budget and cut their emissions in line with climate science and the UN Paris Agreement.
Not much hope for the consideration of natural causes of climate change there.
3. NGOs
Non-Government organisations (NGOs) are non-profit organisations funded from a variety of sources, including individual donations, philanthropic trusts, government grants, commissioned research from business, unions and non-government organisations, and sales of merchandise. Some are more particular than others about the sources of funding (for example, some will not accept government grants lest they are seen to be pushing a partisan political agenda) and often the major donors are not identified to preserve their privacy. This can make the money trail difficult to follow, even more so with those who employ the services of third party fund distribution agencies.
It would be a grave mistake to regard NGOs as a semi-organised bunch of ageing hippies. They are highly organised, usually with a very high level of expertise on their governing boards often including senior public figures (some with State awards), people with tertiary qualifications and years of experience in the field, and one in Australia lists a (real) Nobel prize winner as its patron (Doherty). The larger ones employ a staff of research, publicity and marketing personnel and boast memberships in the millions. Smaller ones with more modest means tend to rely more on voluntary support. However, they represent a major force in maintaining the myth of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming/climate change.
Climate Action Network International
NGOs with an interest in climate change are coordinated internationally through the Climate Action Network International (CAN), a body registered in Germany and boasting 1300 NGO member organisations in over 120 countries. The home page also provides links to the member NGOs.
http://climatenetwork.org/
From the CAN mission statement and press releases:
Life on earth is under severe threat from catastrophic climate change, which is being caused by humans through our constant production of greenhouse gases.
CAN is working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels.
CAN members work to achieve this goal through information exchange and the coordinated development of NGO strategy on international, regional, and national climate issues. CAN has regional network hubs that coordinate these efforts around the world.
So action against climate change is now has local and international coordination involving significant financial resources, dedicated staff and many millions of willing foot soldiers.
The number of NGOs from the main countries participating in CAN are:
- USA 193
- Canada 103
- Australia 69
- India 46
- UK 30
- Denmark 25
- France 23
- New Zealand 16
- China 9
- Russia 9
- Norway 9
- Sweden 5
- Germany 7
- Finland 7
- Hungary 4
- Austria 3
- Italy 3
(Greenland, North Korea, Somalia 0)
Not all the NGOs identified with the Climate Action group have climate change as a primary concern (some church aid groups, for example). However, most either have environmental concerns that are predicated upon climate change (save the spotted quoll, coral reefs, rainforests etc.), or they have preventing climate change as a primary concern and central to their mission. All are against the use of fossil fuel and nuclear energy sources.
In all cases the climate change science reference point is the IPCC. Again, from CAN documents:
Consecutive (IPCC) scientific reports are sounding the alarm. The window to act is closing. Current targets take us to 3 C or 4 C warming, which ends any chance for human and other species’ survival. We are seeing deadly impacts at only 1 C . All countries must half emissions by 2030 to keep warming below 1.5 C and they have a year to develop the policy tools to operationalize decarbonization.
In 2019 we only have 11 years left to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis as warned by the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C.
The latest IPCC Special Report on the Oceans and the Cryosphere (SROCC) lays out the full extent to which the world’s marine life, oceans, glaciers, mountains, polar ecosystems are being disrupted by the climate crisis. These changes, happening at an unprecedented pace and scale, are impacting hundreds of millions of people who are being pushed to dangerous limits of adaptation and suffering the consequences of loss and damage.
The report shows that rising sea levels, rapidly melting ice sheets and the drastic warming of the oceans come with a steep ecological and social price- one that will increase with delayed action and will demand difficult choices with complicated trade-offs to protect people and our natural world. It reaffirms the main findings of the IPCC 1.5C Report on Global Warming.
And so it goes on. This total reliance on IPCC reports carries through to the individual NGOs, as will now be evident by looking at some of the larger ones. Not all are represented in every country, but a few of the larger ones are active in Australia, USA: Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Friends of the Earth (FoE).
Union of Concerned Scientists (USA), $39.8m
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based non-profit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
Global warming is already having significant and harmful effects on our communities, our health, and our climate. Sea level rise is accelerating. The number of large wildfires is growing. Dangerous heat waves are becoming more common. Extreme storm events are increasing in many areas. More severe droughts are occurring in others.
We must significantly reduce the heat-trapping emissions we are putting into the atmosphere. As individuals, we can help by taking action to reduce our personal carbon emissions. But to fully address the threat of global warming, we must demand action from our elected leaders.
350.org (international), $19m
To preserve our planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 392 parts per million to below 350 ppm. But 350 is more than a number—it’s a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.
In October of 2009 we coordinated 5200 simultaneous rallies and demonstrations in 181 countries, what CNN called the ‘most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.
Greenpeace Australia, $19.7m
Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organisation that uses non-violent direct action to expose global environmental problems and to force solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace has also worked in the Pacific to eliminate toxic pollution and to prevent harmful climate change.
Basic physics and sophisticated modelling predict that a warmer atmosphere and importantly a warmer ocean are likely to create more extreme events such as cyclones, hurricanes, drought, heatwaves and cold.
The Reef is under unprecedented threat. The mining and burning of fossil fuels is warming our atmosphere, and our oceans.
But we can paint a different future. Climate modelling shows us that to keep reefs around the world intact, we have to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C. That means we need a sharp slow-down of coal, gas and oil extraction, and a transition to 100% renewable energy – as soon as possible.
Greenpeace USA, $39.7m total $28.2m contributions, 25000 members.
Demand Green New Deal now!
The Australia Institute, A$4m total, A$3m donations.
The Australia Institute has taken over the climate change advocacy role from the former Climate Institute of Australia that ceased operations in 2017. It is active in promoting global warming mitigation measures, and has been critical of the Australian federal government’s perceived lack of action on climate change.
Pacific Island leaders have made clear to the world what is required of its neighbours, including Australia, to ensure their ongoing survival: the survival of Pacific Island nations requires No New Coal Mines.
In 2017-18, we produced over 150 research pieces, including 120+ research reports, 25 submissions to government inquiries and project assessment processes, and 12 National Energy Emissions Audits. It also presented a petition for action to the 2019 UN Climate Change conference.
The Australia Institute estimates its impact through the $55.4m value of its advertising and 82.7million person cumulative audience.
It has carried out a survey assessing the attitudes of Australians to climate change, its impacts, the science, potential responses, the opportunities it presents and the performance of our leaders in relation to it. The results indicated strong support for climate action and were published in The Climate of the Nation in 2018, presumably in the hope of influencing the Federal Election that was held in May 2019. Fortunately they did not and the Labour party that ran on a climate change platform lost the “unlosable” election.
https://www.tai.org.au/content/climate-nation-climate-change-concern-reaches-five-year-high
Wilderness Society (Australia), A$13m total, A$10m donations, A$2m bequests.
We work to safeguard our sources of clean water and air, to tackle devastating climate change, to create a safe future for life on Earth, and to give a better world to our children.
The society boasts: 8 campaign centres; 26 local organising groups; 8 campaign teams; 32 Movement For Life trainers; 34 training programs held this year; 440 Movement For Life graduates; 1,974 active volunteers; 28,309 active members.
World Wildlife Fund USA (head office).
$335.1m total operating revenue, $69.6m contributions, $46.8m govt. grants contracts, salaries $1.8m in USA, $53.3m international.
17 member senior management team, mainly lawyers and financiers. 66 experts, 1million members, 8 million activists.
To adequately slow climate change we must urgently reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. We are leveraging the power of WWF’s network of organizations around the world to build support for global climate action.
Promoting domestic and international efforts to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases to at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, WWF is calling on the U.S. Congress and Administration to act decisively on climate change.
As glaciers and ice sheets shrink, less snow falls, and permafrost thaws, global sea rise is now happening 2.5 times faster than it was in the last century. Scientists have indicated that oceans may rise by as much as 8 feet by 2100, possibly displacing hundreds of millions of people around the world.
World Wildlife Fund Australia, A$28m, A$20m donors A$6m corporate, govt., legacies.
Our climate is now rapidly changing and threatening the people, animals and places we love.
What we now know is activities such as burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, and cutting down forests is polluting our atmosphere and warming our planet, causing an increase in extreme weather events, sea level rise, and a warming and acidification of the oceans. Our precious wildlife and ecosystems can’t adapt fast enough.
We’re helping companies set science-based emissions reduction targets and supporting large companies to buy renewable energy more cost effectively. This includes working with governments to eliminate barriers and provide incentives to industry and business to accelerate the shift to zero carbon pollution.
WWF-Australia is committed to: Limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century; Achieving net-zero carbon pollution in Australia before 2050; Achieving 100% renewable energy in Australia before 2050, including 100% renewable electricity before 2035.
World Wildlife Fund Canada C$24.2m 70% donations 16% foundations
Friends of the Earth Australia A$1.4m, A850k donations.
Over a century of industrial development has pumped greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming the globe and pushing the climate perilously close to dangerous tipping points. The alternative we seek to implement is a sustainable society. This involves a reliance on the use of renewable resources which are equitably distributed. It involves the recognition that there is an inextricable link between people and the environment. FoE recognises that organised resistance and action are necessary catalysts for environmental, economic and social change. Such action is essential if we are to achieve a sustainable society based on the equitable distribution of resources and power and recognition of the rights of all people.
Friends of the Earth are actively working with frontline communities around the country to resist the spread of the nuclear, coal and gas industry
Friends of the Earth USA US10.9m total, $6.7m grants, bequests, contributions, 45 paid staff.
We have spent the past two years resisting, mobilizing and engaging in deep solidarity work against the Trump administration’s dangerous agenda.
With regard to climate & energy:
The climate crisis is the definitive environmental issue of our time, but it will take more than just greenhouse gas-reducing technologies to address it. We will need to change how we produce our energy, grow our food, conduct our politics, organize our economies, and more. We need to make a wholesale transition from an extractive to a regenerative economy, and protect vulnerable communities in the process. Friends of the Earth fights to end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power; and promotes solutions like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and tropical forest protection. All while putting communities, not corporations, at the centre.
Environmental Defence Fund Inc., $223m from contributions, memberships, foundations.
With your help, Environmental Defence Fund has successfully held the line against the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back bipartisan environmental safeguards over the past two years.
The stakes are high. Recent scientific reports show that air pollution is killing 7 million people a year, the world is losing wildlife and ocean life at an alarming rate, and the window of time remaining to avert dangerous climate change is rapidly closing.
Some of their actions:
Michael Dourson, a chemical industry hired gun, was nominated to oversee the EPA’s chemical safety office. The EDF derails Dourson’s nomination by introducing key senators to families of toxic chemical victims. EDF also helps stop the nomination of climate denier Kathleen Hartnett White to head the Council on Environmental Quality.
President Trump proposes crippling budget cuts at the EPA. The EDF lobbies Congress, while Moms Clean Air Force, an EDF partner organization with one million members, meets with officials in 20 states. EDF’s campus program Defend Our Future organizes visits to elected officials. The EPA’s budget remains largely intact.
The Trump administration proposes to restrict the EPA’s use of important public health studies when making decisions, thereby suppressing vital evidence supporting strong protections. The EDF mobilizes a broad coalition of experts, provides expert testimony and files Freedom of Information Act requests to reveal the EPA’s rationale. For now, the proposal is stalled.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry seeks to force power companies to burn coal, while the EPA moves to roll back limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, mercury and arsenic. Under pressure from EDF and others, Perry’s plan is shelved. EDF ramps up the fight to defend the Clean Power Plan and the crucial limits on toxic mercury and arsenic from coal-fired power plants.
The above are just a small sampling of the activist climate change groups. There are comparatively few groups or organisations presenting the counter point of view that climate change is largely due to natural causes and any “decarbonisation” actions are futile and an expensive waste of money.
Opportunists and Globalists
In September 2018, 29 philanthropists pledged $4 billion over the next five years to combat climate change—the largest-ever philanthropic investment focused on climate change mitigation. The announcement, made at the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) in San Francisco, represents a broad global commitment to advance affordable, low- and zero-carbon solutions to reduce the harmful emissions that cause climate change. Much of this investment will support NGOs working on the frontlines of climate change: The funding will propel the expansion of successful local efforts to solve the climate crisis and allow those most affected by the climate crisis to shape the solutions to it.
Each day brings new evidence of climate change affecting lives—from extreme weather events, to increased food insecurity, to tragic impacts on human health. We see the suffering that a steadily warming planet is causing to people around the world.
Over the past two decades, the NGO sector—supported by philanthropy—has made important progress in the fight to solve climate change, including broadening access to low-cost, reliable wind and solar energy; designing policies that are revolutionizing the integration of a new generation of electric vehicles; and providing critical support to countries working to meet the requirements of the historic Paris Agreement.
By working together, sharing knowledge, welcoming new partners, and harnessing the actions of governments, the private sector and everyday citizens, the philanthropic community can be a catalyst in the fight against our world’s greatest threat.
Climate Action Network (CAN) International welcomed the announcement: “By supporting a strong base of mobilizers, influencers and change agents in local communities around the world, this commitment can help accomplish that.”
Philanthropic Community Announces $4 Billion Commitment to Combat Climate Change
There are also foundations that have provided funds for individual projects in the renewable/climate/sustainability areas. These include Rockefeller Brothers Fund Inc., ($1.1billion assets, $34m grants, $7.5m on sustainable development). William and Flora Hewlett foundation (assets 9.8billion, $465m grants, $30m on climate projects), (Elon) Musk Foundation (no financial data available) and the David and Lucille Packard foundation.($7.6billion assets, $288m grants, $2m in conservation and science).
Finally on the money trail, there are individuals who have made large sums of money from renewable/Green schemes, like Al Gore whose personal worth is now estimated to be around $350m:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/11/03/blood-and-gore-making-a-killing-on-anti-carbon-investment-hype/#50efd89332dc
Other foundations are less open, for example George Soros and the Open Society Foundations (around $15billion):
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/open-society-foundations/
Conclusion.
The total amount of money invested in businesses and organisations that are dependent upon the myth that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels is causing dangerous global warming (and all the follows) is probably between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. That is about the same size as the total GDP of Australia or Canada. With that comes enormous incentive to maintain the myth, to lobby government and disparage or destroy any opinion to the contrary. Many of the groups supporting the whole shoddy edifice are highly coordinated, as one might expect from their socialist leanings, and very effective at stirring public emotion and lobbying government. Add to the mix a UN hell bent on globalisation and redistributing wealth from successful industrialised countries to the rest of the world and you get what Patrick Moore described as The Perfect Storm. In contrast, the few voices of opposition, mainly ethical individuals and conservative think tanks, tend to be much less coordinated (possibly reflecting their leaning towards free enterprise), and seem to be less successful in capturing public attention and sentiment.
It seems to me that the “science” will only be settled (or forgotten) when Mother Nature does exactly what she wants: the temperature may go up and the alarmists will rejoice in having sounded the alarm (even though it has little to do with CO2), or it will stay unchanged or go down, in which case they will either claim success in taming the monster or quietly fade away and find some new cause to dump on the long-suffering public. Whichever way it goes, the Climate Industrial Complex and all that supports it is now probably too big to fail.
Many thanks are owed for this article by Dr Paul Rossiter which is a thorough, extensive, detailed and completely depressing survey of the extent and flow of money sustaining the ‘Climate Change/Global Warming’ money train.
The monumental scam is wasting money that could be directed to humanitarian causes or medical research or any other worthwhile endeavour. I am glad that Dr Paul Rossiter was overcome his depression and finish his writing.
I agree with your comment, nicholas tesdorf, about this excellent article by Dr. Paul Rossiter. If Dr. Rossiter wants to re-visit depression he, and anyone else interested in the theme, should go for a walk underneath a line of giant wind turbines in a grassy area, and on an early Monday morning. Because, the other side of follow the money is how in the hell is an industry permitted to engage in this level of carnage? I personally saw around two dozen dead birds, NE of Casper, Wyoming, and that included a dead golden eagle. Any other industry producing this level of wildlife carnage would be shuttered instantly, certainly those gold mines (and their brothers, those black gold operations) would be hammered. Follow the money AND look at the carnage!
All very depressing!
It is getting impossible to listen to the BBC without getting bombarded with climate change and extinction propaganda.
IIRC the BBC has its pension fund heavily into renewables.
Is this true, and how much
Is there a conflict of interest?
Same in New Zealand with TVNZ and the print media perpetuating the myth at every opportunity. Says a lot about the standards of “journalists”!
Another “myth”.
Loydo,
Two parameters are each rising and somebody has adjusted their scales on a graph so they are plotted on top of each other.
Impressive! What next, successfully adding 2 + 2 ?
Richard
Did you see that in the article? Where?
I saw some one trying to ignore the nose on his face as a “myth”.
Loydo,
It would be helpful if you were to explain what you think that graph shows and whatever “myth” you think is exposed by it.
At the moment all anybody knows is that your post links to two plots of two unrelated parameters which are plotted beside each other.
Richard
Ask him to plot expenditure on climate change research over the top of the graph in a suitable scale 🙂
What are you writing about?
My guess is obfuscation is your friend 😉
And if Pinocchio were Michael Mann, his would encircle the earth.
Ocean Heat Content at that scale translates to sum total Ocean Temperature measured and known to 0.01 deg. C.
Over the whole planet. Since 1960.
HaHaHaHaHa.
Loydo, show a glimmer of actual thought. Please.
That’s above her pay grade.
Why wouldn’t OHC increase coming out of the Little Ice Age? Makes sense.
A totally bogus graph.
The graph allegedly show joules along the right side.
Except the deployed instrumentation on buoy’s are somehow capturing an accuracy that is less than their capability. Yet, the error bars mysteriously decline.
The graphic also combines ship temperature measurements, early buoy deployment along commercial shipping lanes and the latest version of sinking/rising buoys.
Isn’t it amazing when fake science is allowed to combine vastly different temperature measurements into a single graphic?
Then, if one takes the total change in temperature of joules and converts into °C, it turns out that the alleged temperature increase is less than two tenths of a °C per decade. Again, alleged accuracy greater than the ability of the instruments.
Once again, lolly goes far off topic to foist unreal bizarre numbers on WUWT commenters.
Loydo the master of the random graph that never makes any sense or relevance to anything.
Anyone who believes that we can measure the temperatures of the oceans to within 0.01C is either a flaming moron, or being paid off.
In Loydo’s case, the possibility of both being the case can’t be ignored.
So right there you disprove the link between CO2 and warming. Any warming effect from CO2 in KNOWN to be logarithmic. You know, simple physics, the science is settled, all of that. You remember don’t you?
Since your purported heat content is rising in tandem with CO2, CO2 cannot be the cause.
Co-correlates perchance? Add in graph lines of global population, volume of agricultural produce exported from the USA, membership of environmental organizations, amount of money spent on environmental causes ….. All excellent co-correlates which prove nothing causally.
There you are, Loydo! Triggered much? Can you do arithmetic? Whole lotta money there festering in the hands of the climate-change industrial complex, wouldn’t you say? Massive (mostly tax-payer) money that metastasizes into equally massive greed & corruption?
Hello Loydo — are you there? Are you “woke”?
That’s a big stinking pile of bullshit. Anybody who is tracking the science (REAL science) on this issue knows that CO2 saturates in the atmosphere. A doubling of CO2 does not create a doubling of warming, yet that is *exactly* what this chart is claiming.
Go sell your bullshit to the ignoramuses.
Paul Rossiter,
You correctly report,
“In all cases the climate change science reference point is the IPCC.”
As a reminder, I again post the following.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)only exists to produce documents intended to provide informationselected, adapted and presented to justify political actions.
The facts are as follows.
It is the custom and practice of the IPCC for all of its Reports to be amended to agree with its political summaries. And this is proper because all IPCC Reports are political documents although some are presented as so-called ‘Scientific Reports’.
Each IPCC Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is agreed “line by line” by politicians and/or representatives of politicians, and it is then published. After that the so-called ‘scientific’ Reports are amended to agree with the SPM. This became IPCC custom and practice when prior to the IPCC‘s Second Report the then IPCC Chairman, John Houghton, decreed,
“ We can rely on the Authors to ensure the Report agrees with the Summary.”
This was done and has been the normal IPCC procedure since then.
This custom and practice enabled the infamous ‘Chapter 8′ scandal
( http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/WSJ_July11_96.pdf )
so perhaps it should – at long last – be changed. However, it has been adopted as official IPCC procedure for all subsequent IPCC Reports.
Appendix A of the most recent IPCC Report (the AR5) states this where it says.
“4.6 Reports Approved and Adopted by the Panel
Reports approved and adopted by the Panel will be the Synthesis Report of the Assessment Reports and other Reports as decided by the Panel whereby Section 4.4 applies mutatis mutandis .”
This is completely in accord with the official purpose of the IPCC.
The IPCC does NOT exist to summarise climate science and it does not.
The IPCC is only permitted to say AGW is a significant problem because they are tasked to accept that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” that can be selected as political polices and the IPCC is tasked to provide those “options”.
This is clearly stated in the “Principles” which govern the work of the IPCC.
These are stated at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf
Near its beginning that document says
“ROLE
The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies. “
This says the IPCC exists to provide
(a) “information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change”
and
(b) “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”.
Hence, its “Role” demands that the IPCC accepts as a given that there is a “risk of human-induced climate change” which requires “options for adaptation and mitigation” which pertain to “the application of particular policies”. Any ‘science’ which fails to support that political purpose is ‘amended’ in furtherance of the IPCC’s Role.
The IPCC achieves its “Role” by
1
amendment of each IPCC ‘scientific’ Report to fulfil the IPCC’s political purpose
2
by means of the politicians and representatives of politicians approving the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers (SPM)
3
then the IPCC lead Authors amending the so-called ‘scientific’ Reports to agree with the approved SPM.
In other words, all IPCC Reports are pure pseudoscience intended to provide information to justify political actions; i.e.Lysenkoism.
And if people want more information about this including specific examples of IPCC misrepresentations and bias then there is
http://allaboutenergy.net/environment/item/2208-letter-to-senator-james-inhofe-about-relying-on-ipcc-richard-courtney-uk
Richard
Richard,
I completely agree. That was the thrust of my “Noble Cause Corruption” essay.
I look at it this way.
Imagine that the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on the Common Cold, and the role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of catching a cold by going outside on a cold day without a warm jacket, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.
All research submitted to the IPCC for review is based on the idea that the common cold is caused by inadequate insulation, i.e., not dressing warmly enough. All other causes are either ruthlessly suppressed or ignored. Clothing manufacturers form a powerful lobby petitioning Congress to fund research grants showing an irrefutable correlation between inadequate insulation and incidence of the common cold in the general population. Computer models show an alarming trend that is associated with the failure of cotton crops in the upper Nile region of Egypt.
Someone smarter than me can generate wittier whatifisms, but I hope the general idea comes across. If you start out with the idea that X causes Y, then you’re not “doing science.” You’re “doing politics.”
KilgoreHoover,
You say of the IPCC,
“If you start out with the idea that X causes Y, then you’re not “doing science.” You’re “doing politics.”
But it is worse than that!
The IPCC fabricates information that purports to be an indication of a problem when that indication does not exist.
Please read the Section titled “Misrepresentation of scientific data by the IPPC‘ on pages 11 to 13 of my link
http://allaboutenergy.net/environment/item/2208-letter-to-senator-james-inhofe-about-relying-on-ipcc-richard-courtney-uk
and note that my Conclusion of that Section says,
“There are other misrepresentations of data by the IPCC, but this example is so blatant and has so clear a purpose that it alone is sufficient to demonstrate that the IPCC’s Reports cannot be trusted as a guide to policymaking.”
Richard
The analogy is good enough except I would say you’re “doing theology”
Hmmm… perhaps it would have been more honest to also examine the eye watering amounts of money fed into skeptic think tanks and lobby groups and document where that comes from? It isn’t at all as if the non climate science side is entirely funded by altruistic average income individuals, is it?
griff,
I have been opposing the AGW scare for three decades, and I want to gorge from the trough of “eye watering amounts of money fed into skeptic think tanks and lobby groups”.
Please tell me where I can find the trough and how I can get my snout in it.
Or are you refusing to say because you are stealing my share?
Richard
Richard
I am deluged by the streams of money coming from Big coal, Big Oil, Big Gas and now also Big wind and Big solar (as they don’t stand close scrutiny) I am in talks with a nervous Big cow, which can see the way the winds are blowing.
I fear that tucked away where you are the stream of money doesn’t reach you, but I have 3 spare cars and two houses bought on the largesse fed into the sceptic groups that you are welcome to have.
The wheels on one of the cars is solid gold so in truth doesn’t ride very well, but it looks nice in the air conditioned garages my sceptics money has enabled me to construct
tonyb
Evidence?
Anyone who disagrees with a liberal is evil. All that’s left is determining which flavor of evil.
Griff, my pay cheque from Big Oil has gone missing again this month. Since you are obviously an expert on this topic, can you take up my case and ensure that I get the funding I so richly deserve?
wtf are you smoking griff?
whats listed here for the warmists agenda is prob as much as ever spent by bigoil in total setting up their systems over decades at a guess.
but we mugs pay many times the price for the energy they do/nt produce
and whats not listed here is the profits made by biggreen after the massive spends we see here
because they sure are NOT altruistic and all the donations alone are tax free income
What is listed here is just a glimpse. A lot of non English sources have not been checked. Every country has their own little groups.
Griff never really replies back, so no point wasting time on him.
The only appropriate response to Griff is to point and laugh.
Ok guys it is confession time.
Forgive me father for I have sinned against the goddess Gaia.
I am in receipt of a “check” (american speak) each month from one of the oil majors.
That is because I spent over 20 years working in a ‘hostile’ environment offshore.
Be that as it may, I was fortunate enough to learn basic primary school science to discern the essential life giving benefits of that demon gas carbon dioxide. Having exhaled it for 77 years, I am hoping that I continue to so do for a few more years to continue greening this lovely world.
Great article here. Only one caveat.
You could do a piece about the established religious role in this new pagan farce.
‘My’ pope for instance, together with most Catholic charities, (have swallowed hook line and sinker) the diabolical concept of man made global warming and are collecting monies from gullible parishioners at Sunday masses to fund jaunts to ippc fests around the world.
giffiepoo, once again makes utterly false claims.
You got proof of sceptic funding?
Post it, with links to real evidence; not bogus articles making fake claims that fail to buttress your claims.
There is no evidence of any large amounts of money being spent on skeptics except in the fantasies of greens and lefties. Most of the skeptical side thrives because the provided argument is so weak and makes ridiculous claims.
The converse of that it is easy to see the money being spent on the CAGW side and being siphoned by NGO’s promoting it.
The modus operandi of leftist identity politics – accuse the opposition of doing exactly what they themselves are doing in order to sow confusion and divert attention away from their crimes. Isn’t that one of Alinsky’s rules for radicals?
Perhaps it would be more honest to actually document this “eye watering amounts of money”.
As always, when the data doesn’t back the alarmists, they just make something up.
Griff-please provide proof of your assertion that skeptics are the “non climate science side”. Good luck.
griff
I would think that if your innuendo were true, you would jump on it and make your solid case. But, in the absence of any hard facts from you, it appears to be, at best, wishful thinking or delusions — at worst, propaganda or purposeful lies!
I’m still waiting for you to apologize for saying that Susan Crockford was not a scientist. How do you expect to have any credibility when you won’t own up to your mistakes?
See my WUWT guest thread, “Notes From Skull Island – why climate skeptics aren’t ‘well funded and well organized’”
If our side were well funded and well organized, as warmists charge, it would have the following 22 characteristics–which it doesn’t.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
PS: Warmist ,groups like Greenpeace misleadingly and knowingly and continually claim that^ $*** million goes to climate change denial groups,^ when only a tenth of that amount gets spent on climate contrarianism. These think tanks etc. are pro-business organizations that spen 90% of their donations on other topics.
Warmist ,groups like Greenpeace misleadingly and knowingly and continually claim that^ $*** million goes to climate change denial groups,^ when only a tenth of that amount gets spent on climate contrarianism. These think tanks etc. are pro-business organizations that spen 90% of their donations on other topics.
+100. How can such simple, publicly-available facts be so ignored?
grifter bloviates:
Hmmm… perhaps it would have been more honest to also examine the eye watering amounts of money fed into skeptic think tanks
Hmmm indeed. Can you do simple arithmetic? Did you read the post? Do you know how much loot trillions of dollars are? Did you read where that money is going? Do you have the slightest idea of how enormous the climate-scare industrial complex is? Do you have ANY clue?
Men go mad in crowds and recover only individually.
There is no doubt that a large proportion of the citizenry are insane with this ‘climate’ nonsense.
Kids from day one they enter the school system are bombarded with climate panic. Not strange that by age 12 they are completely brainwashed.
Who controls the school system ?
Government
Who controls Government ?
The money printers
And people wonder why kids today suffer from so much anxiety, how many world ending problems are they tasked to deal with that they have no real ability to change or that aren’t even real in the first place?
I have no respect for our education systems, they are removing children from the joyful carefree lives they should have and replacing it with anxiety and guilt for things that aren’t controllable or even real.
Many thanks to Dr Rossiter for this and his other essays on the broader subject and I totally agree with the now manifest risk of a confederation of self interests forming a rent seeking complex out of the issue.
On a positive note, there has been some pushback against the green-left-globalist putsch attempt recently by Trump and Oz PM Morrison (‘ScoMo’) and the likes of the Dutch farmers have obviously had enough of the regulatory sledge hammer in that corner of the EU.
In the light of the behaviour of the Russians, Chinese, Turks, Saudi’s, Iranians and other thugocracies, let alone the likes of the Venezualans and facion ridden disater zones like Libya, it seems to me the core message needs to be what do people think will happen to the chances for international peace, prosperity and rule of law when the thugocracies decide to call out the CAGW theory as just so much crap and a true reflection of the limp wristed moral affectation of the ‘West’ and how shallow its true intellectual depth really is.
It will be a strong point for them to make in the eyes of the ‘developing world’ and you have to ask yourself ‘how did it come to this?’
I note in this week’s Sunday Times that the Royal Society thinks it must disinvest from fossil fuels. The Royal Society. Chartered in 1660 . Darwin, Hook, Boyle, Charles, Herschel- I’m too ignorant to go further. Oh, even the Royal Society. I despair
They are listening to Bank of England chief Mark Carney – and await a tsunami of synthetic green credit, as promised at the UN and Jackson Hole.
Only one slight problem – it is doomed to implode and might well take the Royal tribe down with it.
The bankers desperation, facing a 2008 crash-of-everything, is palpable.
Remember Newton as Royal Society bigshot, was also Master of the Mint, a story in itelf of silver and war credits.
I’ve always suspected something more sinister at play in addition to the money. Power. Who excercises it. Who gets it and how much. Who produces it and who doesn’t. Etc., etc.
The implications are enormous.
The money changers/printers in the temple.
I once looked up the annual report of the WWF, UK. It was the 2011 one, I seem to remember. What I do remember very vividly was the renumeration at the top; not ‘salary’ or ‘wages’, that’s for the plebs, ‘remuneration’. In the UK alone there were 12 ‘officers’ with a pay check of over 60K£ with 6 of them over 120K£. Just for a comparison: a scientist with a PhD in a real science and decades of experience rarely earns more than 40K£. It really pays to be a professional activist.
I did the same exercise for Greenpeace and you know what: there’s no information about how much they pay in wages and perks. It is all hidden in the ‘expenses’ for support of activism. But you can’t tell me that the captain of the Rainbow Warrior does his job Pro Deo, not to mention his pension provision. It was always a mystery to me how they got away with the audits, being a charity I mean. But of course, they are only a charity in name, to cover the multinational company underneath.
First of all thanks Dr Paul Rossiter, the numbers and the rich summary of information is awsome and sad at the same time.
One little notice though: “The number of NGOs from the main countries participating in CAN are…”, there you mention Greenland have none and Denmark has 25. Greenland has home rule, like Scotland, but is a part of Denmark, which has paid large sums annually for eons, to run the very tiny population on the enormous island. There are probably also no NGOs on St. Thomas!
I though money must involve banks, today’s Central Banks.
The Central Banks Bank itself, the Bank of International Settlements, makes no secret of its greeniness :
BIS launches green bond fund for central banks
https://www.bis.org/press/p190926.htm
Londons GFI, Green Finance Institure, paraded by Bank of England chief Mark Carney, intends to replace the dollar, with a global experts committee, unelected, no national government, for strictly green investiment. They call this “regime change”.
Not just eye-watering vast sums are involved, but politicians already smell the trough, and are slavering at the thought, such as the GND crowd, already there for coctails.
Paul
“the capitalisation of the renewable energy industry is over $1 trillion; the funding of the NGOs being used as alarmist publicity and lobbying agencies exceeds $2 billion; and the amount of government research funding committed to the issue exceeds $1billion. ”
I am a bit confused if you are writing about Global expenditure or figures for the U.S.? If the former the figures of 2 billion and 1 billion seem very small
tonyb,
You are quite correct, thanks for spotting the error. The global figures are around 10 times greater.
I’m not sure how to correct the posting though.
Another very depressing article here at WattsUpWithThat.
Are you the Paul Rossiter of FAO?
And if so don’t you work for Antonio Guterres the climate guy?
Hope that is not going to be a problem.
Anyway, thank you for these three chapters of an honest and relevant survey of the climate movement.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/03/31/wmo/
chaamjamal,
I have no connection with FAO. My background was summarized briefly at the end of the two earlier essays.
yes, i found your background on the first post. very impressive indeed. sorry my mistake.
btw, with regards to paid professional activists, i wonder if david wallace wells is one of them
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/26/the-scary-reality-of-climate-change/
depressing doesnt cover how sick n angry I feel reading this
Ive put 11 yrs into trying to inform people and make em think
and I sure dont get a brass razoo and neither does anyone else I know trying to restore sanity in our own small zones of influence
making me happier to be older and not having to handle the shitfight of the disaster this deluded mob will make of what were fairly coherent nations, for that many more years
This excellent paper should be sent to all governments across the world, the BBC and all other broadcasting corporations, all major newspapers on every continent, and all scientific publications. They are not likely to comment on it but it will help to press the point home, and might just have the effect of making them think a little more before they publish so much rubbish.
The phrase ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink’ comes to mind I’m afraid.
You can lead a liberal to knowledge, but you can’t make them think.
I work as a researcher in an institute that is greatly focused on climate change. A series of meetings were called by the director to address new travel policies. I thought to myself that perhaps there was going to be some initiative to reduce travel and, hence, emissions. No.
Contrary to this, the director almost bragged about how many trips were taken by staff. I was dismayed that the main issue was related to how many “personal days” can be taken by travelers during the course of an approved institute trip. Basically, as many personal days can be taken as the number of days needed for the business at the destination, not including travel days and weekends.
There is a great incentive to get the institute (taxpayer funded) to subsidize vacations of staff.
Good point, as part of government emissions reduction programs, airfares, car rentals, taxi rides could be all “unallowed” as business expense deductions for tax purposes…..that should cut down on frivolous travel…..
All of this is very interesting, however:
RGHE theory claims that the atmosphere warms the earth.
By reflecting away 30% of the incoming solar radiation the albedo cools the earth like that reflective panel in the car windshield.
Without an atmosphere the earth receives 27% more energy from the sun and gets hotter.
This is supported by the lunar/earth comparison studies by Nikolov and Kramm and data collected by the UCLA Diviner lunar mission.
Zero RGHE, Zero GHG warming, Zero CAGW.
And a trillion dollar global scam is instantly unemployed.
Hi Paul
Wonderful summary and you invite some comment from the economics side.
I am not an economist, but in researching financial markets for more than 50 years am in a position to criticize economics.
The state chooses the theory that enhances it power and revenues.
Thus the dominance of Keynesian economics of intrusion. The German edition of his book “General Theory…..” has a preface that argues, in 1936, that his theories would work best in a totalitarian system.
And, of course, the state has promoted a theory about climate that enhances it power and revenues.
Hugely.
However there is a saying from the old and dreadful Vancouver Stock Exchange that makes the point.
The definition of a promotion:
“In the beginning, the promoter has the vision and the public has the money.
At the end of the promotion, the promoter has the money and the public has the vision.”
And the public will eventually realize it is being scammed.
The next recession has likely started and the public will look at the trillions of taxpayers’ money spent to prevent “bad things” and become critical.
Much the same could happen with one colder than usual winter.
I’m optimistic that both huge scams will be discovered and condemned.
A few facts from one who’s not been educated beyond their intelligence:
(1) The UN only has the power sovereign states willingly cede it. Don’t write the checks, it ceases to exist.
(2) It’s pretty darn freakin’ hard to get consumers to consume a product they refuse to buy (electric cars).
(3) Most real people don’t give a rat’s ass about ANY of this–they’re not even aware of it.
Cheers!
A most enlightening article.
Huge thanks to Dr. Paul Rossiter & the sane commenters.
John Doran
PS: a very encouraging thought is that about 97% of the general public remain unconvinced.
Poll after poll shows the warming/climate fraud at the bottom of sane peoples’ concerns.
No matter how much money the Banksters & cohorts pour into it.
“Too big to fail” about covers it. And they’re playing a “heads – we win, tails – you lose” game with any climate change. The only things to derail them would be 1) an actual existential crisis, or 2) a rebellion against them. The second alternative is preferable, if far less likely.
NGOs also influence elections. As we are seeing right now in Canada. There is a federal election in October, and all the climate activists are trying to make global warming the most important issue.
Climate action protest shuts down major bridges in Halifax, Toronto, Edmonton
Commuters in different parts of Canada forced to seek alternative routes during rallies
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/macdonald-bridge-halifax-climate-change-1.5310569
Finally a thorough debunking of all the socialist world government nonsense from this site. This is, and always has been, a thoroughly capitalist scheme executed by scruples-free bureaucrats, politicians, scientists, media conglomerates and other tools of the global elites. It’s a money pit like the Cold War. Be prepared to be fleeced again.
Follow the money to China….
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-coal-power-giants-seen-160100058.html
Shouldn’t renewable fuels (e.g. ethanol) be included in this summary? They started life out as fuel security issue back in the day, but are now supported by providers (if not the NGOs) as a response to CO2 emissions.
Yup… you bet. Scams all the way down.
The Left are really, really, angry activists, clueless about what is really happening, and are working as hard as they can to take over our governments to spread chaos policies that do not work.
Biofuels (cutting down forests to grow single species plants in poor countries, that are cut down and processed into “biofuel”) is unquestionably an environmental disaster, that does not significantly reduce CO2 emissions is a pathetic waste.
“His Oxfam interviewee Marc-Olivier Herman tells the filmmaker that the biofuels lobby has as much firepower as the tobacco lobby in Brussels. He says they have spent millions to influence EU rules on biofuels.”
https://energypost.eu/green-gold-a-documentary-filmmaker-unearths-the-shocking-story-behind-biofuels/
Together, you uncover the rise to political prominence of biofuels and see “how a political decision taken in Brussels can cause a tornado on the other side of the planet”.
Ghizzardi moves from Brussels to Rotterdam, “the European door for agro-fuels”. Next up, Indonesia, with dramatic images of forests burned to the ground to make way for palm oil plantations (a feedstock for biodiesel).
One reason the film took nearly a decade to complete is that Ghizzardi tried – and failed – three times to get a permit to film in Indonesia.
He was told it was too dangerous to travel there without it. In the end, after one-and-a-half years of trying, he subcontracted to a local cameraman.
From Indonesia to Argentina, where Ghizzardi meets local farmers who have been dispossessed of their land by big business wanting to grow soybeans (another biodiesel feedstock).
Setting the record straight
Biofuels are a notoriously controversial subject. For every advocate, there is an equally ardent skeptic. Why did Ghizzardi decide to plunge into this can of worms? One, the EU’s first climate and energy package was a big part of the French EU presidency.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy made a deal on this one of his priorities.
Two, Ghizzardi realised that biofuels are a microcosm for the cut-and-thrust of political power play. “You see how the lobbies function and you get access to the importance of energy and the core of the decision-making process [in Brussels],” he explains. “Through these small guys you get to see how the world functions.”
My summary of Paul Rossiter’s work
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/07/the-paul-rossiter-assessment/
To put this in perspective: the global oil industry generates around $2 trillion a year according to IBISworld.
If Dr. Rossiter’s numbers are anywhere near correct, the spending is clearly on the side of the panicmongers.
This is an excellent though depressing paper. But through all the alarmists’ warnings runs the theme that emissions of greenhouse gases by humans is the only cause that explains “the data”. If so how can they explain the natural and often large variations in climate that occurred before humans started emitting greenhouse gases?
Hilarious fake concern here.
First, one must be either defending a political or fossil fuel bias to claim that Climate Change caused by human use of fossil fuels is “unproven”. There’s plenty of expert climate science and over 97% of universities climate scientists, climate centers, and climate researchers that agree on Climate Change. NASA’s high quality data on the scientific consensus on global climate warming, on the research data, and on the causes can be found here:
https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ But I don’t advise you to read the clear facts if you are biased and determined to support fossil fuels in the face of global climate warming. You will be facing undeniable facts illustrating that “Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree*: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.”
As a businessman and an investor in solar energy, I applaud the fact that as of 2018, renewable energy is creating more jobs, cheaper energy, and cleaner energy than the fossil fuel industry. This shows that human intelligence and the competitive energy market is driving a market transition to renewable energy and that it will gradually make up more of our energy power as the transition occurs and major markets change. The large investment in clean energy exemplifies this transition and is totally appropriate and healthy for business and the planet. Supporters of the horse and buggy did not accept the automobile and IBM never thought that small computers would ever become market driven. The doubters of human-caused climate change and of clean energy growth are in the same sinking boat. I suggest you hedge your bets soon, just as most of the global energy companies have done.
Joseph,
If you have any interest beyond just making money you should take some time to inform yourself about the 97% myth:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=97%25
or just type “97%” into the search box on this site,
and IPCC corruption:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/02/understanding-the-climate-movement-part-2-noble-cause-corruption/
At least you admit you talk your book.
Solar PV has its uses, but reliable base load isn’t one of them.
You’ve enjoyed enormous tax subsidies paid out for your investments, but the rest of us taxpayers are considerably less happy – being the source of these subsidies.
Lastly, you picked the wrong crowd to try the lame SkS 97% nonsense. The consensus is made up of other people talking their book like you, and/or people who don’t actually know anything about climate, and/or people who are simply going along with the “consensus” – yes, that’s circular.
no need to worry about paying any fines:
12 Jul: Guardian: US philanthropists vow to raise millions for climate activists
by Matthew Taylor
A group of wealthy US philanthropists and investors have donated almost half a million pounds to support the grassroots movement Extinction Rebellion and school strike groups – with the promise of tens of millions more in the months ahead.
Trevor Neilson, an investor and philanthropist who has worked with some of the world’s richest families, has teamed up with Rory Kennedy – daughter of Robert Kennedy – and Aileen Getty, whose family wealth comes from the oil industry, to launch the Climate Emergency Fund…
Neilson said the three founders were using their contacts among the global mega-rich to get “a hundred times” more in the weeks and months ahead. “This might be the single best chance we have to stop the greatest emergency we have ever faced,” he told the Guardian.
The new fund has the author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, who set up 350.org, and David Wallace Wells, who wrote international best seller Uninhabitable Earth, on its advisory board…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/12/us-philanthropists-vow-to-raise-millions-for-climate-activists
I didn’t see any rebuttal here from the Stokes/Mosher pit
They are phoning headquarters to get the latest talking points memo.
“…the capitalisation of the renewable energy industry is over $1 trillion…”
Looking for the cost of a nuclear power plant on Google is an exercise in futility. It obfuscates relentlessly. But on DuckDuckGo, one finds results immediately. The range is from $1.20 to $4.5 per installed kilowatt. Wind turbines are on the order of $2 per installed (i.e. “nameplate”) kilowatt. But they work at most 30% of the time. It’s tempting to say that wind is therefore $6 per kilowatt, but that isn’t true. Wind is $2 per installed kilowatt, but it will only be available 30% of the time. Installing 3 times as many wind turbines won’t get us to having power all the time. We’ll just have 3 times the capacity sitting idle 70% of the time.
But with $1 trillion, we could build 222 nuclear plants of an output of 1,000 MWe, at a cost of $4.5 per installed kilowatt. The same amount of money would buy us 500,000 wind turbines of 1 MWe nameplate rating, which would work 30% of the time.
I don’t know how this can be lost on any serious person.
@Micheal
If you’re looking at cost of produced energy there’s a measure called levelized cost of energy (Joules or Watt*hrs). And in that measure wind and combined cycle natural gas are the cheapest options.
Yes there are grid balance challenges, but we aren’t at a point were it’s insurmountable. 20-30% non dispatchable renewables is where those challenges begin. Also capacity factor is largely a design decision, choice of site, height of the hub, turbine size, and swept area of the blades all affect it. If grid operators were willing to pay more to get 50-60% capacity you could build a farm that way.
Also your quoted capital prices are off by a factor of a thousand. My research puts current nuclear at $3-6 per Watt (not kW) and Wind at $1.50-$2.25 per Watt. (A Gigawatt Nuclear site is in the 5 billion range and a 1 MW wind turbine is in the million dollar range) However for wind this includes roads and pad sites, as well as the substation and internal transmission lines. At the end of life you can re-power (install new nacelles, generators and blades) quite a bit more cheaply than starting a new project from scratch)
Ethics in business. Adopting new practices that are environmentally sound, yet produce revenue is a win. Comparing the clean energy industry to making weapons during war time is as myopic a view as can be stated. The entire premise of resisting a change for cleaner practices over greed is sealed with repeated trump support hat ads throughout this blog. Biased and unworthy of serious discussion by anyone informed (and ethical).
“Ethics in business. Adopting new practices that are environmentally sound, yet produce revenue is a win”
Maybe so but the issue is whether the LIA was ended by the industrial economy and whether the warming since then is caused by fossil fuel emissions of the industrial economy.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/10/23/a-natural-recovery-from-the-lia/
Maybe NOAA should take a look at this; unfortunately, the narrative, aka, truth, does not scare people nor does it generate funds or allow for government control:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-07-12-climate-change-hoax-collapses-new-science-cloud-cover.html
CO2 is not a pollutant and the current narrative is backwards; the planet warming results in higher CO2, not the other way around: https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
Heat from sun goes up, oceans get warm, release gas and water vapor, protects the planet
Heat from sun goes down, oceans cool, release less gas and water vapor, protects the planet
Pretty darn simple; ol’ Mother Nature is quite clever at protecting her Kids!
Maybe this is a better “scare tactic”, the earth flipping on its axis; that would definitely be a game changer! Not sure there is much that can be done, but if it means more money and government control, “something” will be proposed.