The Week That Was: 2021-06-12 (June 12, 2021)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important, and theory merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority” – Robert A. Heinlein, Aeronautical Engineer and Science Fiction Writer (1907-1988) [H/t Kip Hansen]
Number of the Week: – 0, Zero
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Identical Mistakes: Those who taught mathematics or statistics before the wide-spread use of electronic calculators often recognized there was a problem with copying or cheating in tests or homework if several papers had identical mistakes in calculations. In a similar fashion, Steve Koonin recognized a pattern in an article published in Scientific American, signed by 12 co-authors, members of the carbon cult. The article made three false assertions about scientific facts in Koonin’s book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters. The facts pertain to 1) temperatures in the 2017 US National Climate Assessment; 2) hurricanes in the same report; and 3) constant sea level rise. The errors appeared in an earlier column by Marc Thiessen published in the Washington Post. It is clear that the 12 co-authors had not bothered to check the book to see whether the assertions in the column were correct.
Also, it is clear that the editors of Scientific American did not bother to check the book to see whether the assertions in the column were correct. Such is the status of peer review at Scientific American. Worse, the editors of Scientific American rejected a rebuttal by Steve Koonin. This demonstrates how far certain journals claiming to be scientific have drifted from the scientific method. “Don’t bother to correct mistakes” instead of rigorously checking all hypotheses against all relevant data and making corrections when necessary. Anthony Watts posted the rejected rebuttal on WUWT, which Ken Haapala received as well. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Defending the Orthodoxy.
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A Red Team Review: In his book, Koonin does not wish to abandon the process of the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) but correct its deficiencies. He proposes a Red Team / Blue Team review of assessment reports before they are published. Koonin writes:
“In such an exercise, a group of scientists (the ‘Red Team’) would be charged with rigorously questioning one of the assessment reports, trying to identify and evaluate its weak spots. In essence, a qualified adversarial group would be asked ‘What’s wrong with this argument?’ And, of course, the ‘Blue Team’ (presumably the report’s authors) would have the opportunity to rebut the Red Team’s findings. Red Team exercises are commonly used to inform high-consequence decisions such as testing national intelligence findings or validating complex engineering projects like aircraft or spacecraft; they’re also common in cybersecurity. Red Teams catch errors or gaps, identify blind spots, and often help to avoid catastrophic failures. In essence, they’re an important part of a prudent, belt-and-suspenders approach to decision-making. (Note that the use of ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ is traditional in the military, where these exercises originated; it has nothing to do with US politics.)
“A Red Team review of a climate assessment report could bolster confidence in the assessment, as well as demonstrate the robustness (or lack thereof) of its conclusions. It would both underscore the reliability of the science that stands up to its scrutiny and highlight for non-experts’ uncertainties or ‘inconvenient’ points that had been obscured or downplayed. In short, it would improve and bolster The Science with science.
“Of course, both the UN’s IPCC and the US government claim that their respective assessment reports are authoritative because they’re already subject to rigorous peer review before publication. So why call for yet another level of review? The most direct answer is that—as the previous chapters of this book have highlighted—these reports have some egregious failures. And an important reason for those failures is the way the reports are reviewed. Let me explain.
“Science is a body of knowledge that grows by testing, one step building on the next. If each step is solid, researchers can get to some amazing places pretty quickly, like rapid vaccine development or modern information technology. To know that a researcher has produced a sound new piece of knowledge, other researchers scrutinize, and often challenge, results from experiments or observations, or formulate new models and theories. Have the measurements been done properly? Were there adequate controls on the experiments? Are the results consistent with prior understanding? What are the reasons for an unexpected result? Satisfactory answers to questions like those are the hurdle for accepting new results into the ever-growing body of scientific knowledge. [Boldface was italics in original
“The peer review of scientific journals is one mechanism for scrutinizing and challenging new research results. In that process, individual independent experts analyze and criticize a draft paper describing the results; the authors’ responses to those criticisms are adjudicated by a third-party referee, who will then recommend publication (or not) to the journal’s editor or suggest how the paper should be revised.”
After a discussion of peer review, Koonin writes:
“But an assessment report is not a research article—in fact, it’s a very different sort of document with a very different purpose. Journal papers are focused presentations written by experts for experts. In contrast, assessment authors must judge the validity and importance of many diverse research papers, and then synthesize them into a set of high-level statements meant to inform non-experts. So, an assessment report’s ‘story’ really matters, as does the language used to tell it—especially for something as important as climate. [Boldface added.]
“The processes for drafting and reviewing the climate science assessment reports do not promote objectivity. Government officials from scientific and environmental agencies (who might themselves have a point of view) nominate or choose the authors, who are not subject to conflict of interest constraints. That is, an author might work for a fossil fuel company or for an NGO promoting ‘climate action.’ This increases the chances of persuasion being favored over information.
“A large group of volunteer expert reviewers (including, for the National Climate Assessment, a group convened by the National Academies) reviews the draft. But unlike the peer review of research papers, disagreements among reviewers and lead authors are not resolved by an independent referee; the lead author can choose to reject a criticism simply by saying ‘We disagree.’ The final versions of assessments are then subject to government approval (through an interagency process for the US government and often-contentious meetings of experts and politicians for the IPCC). And—a very key point—the IPCC’s ‘Summaries for Policymakers’ are heavily influenced, if not written, by governments that have interests in promoting particular policies. In short, there are many opportunities to corrupt the objectivity of the process and product.” [Boldface added]
Chapter 11, “Fixing the Broken Science.” Koonin, Steven E. Unsettled (pp. 197-199). BenBella Books, Inc. Kindle Edition.
In the view of TWTW, these statements come from someone who cares for the system and wishes to make it work properly, not a politically motivated person who purely wishes to eliminate it. Koonin presented his ideas in early February 2017 at the Fourth Santa Fe Conference on Global and Regional Climate Change, where it received a favorable reaction. He writes that subsequently reactions changed.
“The inaugural March for Science was to take place on April 22 (Earth Day), 2017, with rallies and marches in six hundred cities around the world. Since one of the march’s goals was to call for evidence-based policy in the public’s best interest, I thought it would be a good moment to make an important point about climate science and how it’s communicated to non-experts. The moment seemed especially opportune since a major US government assessment (the first part of NCA2018, the Climate Science Special Report or CSSR) was scheduled to be released in the fall.
“Two days before the March for Science, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece in which I advocated for a Red Team review of climate science assessments. I used NCA2014’s misleadingly alarming description of hurricane data to illustrate the need for such a review and outlined how it could be carried out.
“My opinion piece drew almost 750 online comments from readers, the great majority of them supportive. Some in the Trump administration also took notice and given the administration’s reluctance to publicly accept even the basics of climate understanding, their interest in a climate science Red Team engendered some very strong objections to the proposal. Most prominent were pieces published in late July 2017 by John Holdren (the Obama administration’s science adviser who had been the sponsor of the CSSR), and one published the following week by Eric Davidson (president of the American Geophysical Union) and Marcia McNutt (president of the National Academy of Sciences). Their essential point was that a Red Team exercise was superfluous since climate research, and the assessment reports, were already peer reviewed. As Davidson and McNutt put it, . . .
‘if the idea is to have the red team poke holes in the mainstream scientific community’s (the blue team) consensus on climate change, it discounts that such challenges have already been applied thousands of times while that consensus was gradually developed.’
“Holdren’s language was more pointed:
‘Some proponents may believe, naively, that such a rag-tag process could unearth flaws in mainstream climate science that the rigorous, decades-long scrutiny of the global climate-science community, through multiple layers of formal and informal expert peer review, has somehow missed.’
“It’s telling that neither article addressed the NCA2014 misrepresentation of hurricane data that I had highlighted nor explained how it had survived the ‘decades-long scrutiny’ of ‘multiple layers of formal and informal expert peer review.’ That’s especially disappointing since we scientists are trained to focus on specifics. Instead, the opinion pieces offered only vague and anodyne assurances of the rigor with which the reports are written and reviewed. Of course, as I’ve already noted, while the research contained in them might indeed be subject to the type of peer review the public expects of scientific findings, the reports’ summaries and conclusions are not, and the hurricane example was only one of many report errors and misrepresentations, some of which I’ve described in this book’s earlier chapters.”
Koonin, Steven E. Unsettled (pp. 200-202). BenBella Books, Inc. Kindle Edition. [References were deleted.]
TWTW will leave it to its readers as to who is politicizing climate science. Koonin has written an important book discussing the deficiencies in the IPCC process and how to improve the process so that it may more closely conform to the high standards of the scientific method as explained by his teacher, Richard Feynman. He has provided an important part of a Red Team Review. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Spencer’s Rebuttal: The May 29 TWTW linked to a paper by Benjamin Santer with eleven co-authors comparing atmospheric temperature changes in satellite data with model ensembles of the UN IPCC Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5 and CMIP6). The abstract concludes:
If model expectations of these four covariance relationships are realistic, our findings reflect either a systematic low bias in satellite tropospheric temperature trends or an overestimate of the observed atmospheric moistening signal. It is currently difficult to determine which interpretation is more credible. Nevertheless, our analysis reveals anomalous covariance behavior in several observational data sets and illustrates the diagnostic power of simultaneously considering multiple complementary variables. [Boldface added]
This is a false dilemma because it assumes the models present a realistic interpretation of what is occurring in the atmosphere. They do not. The atmospheric temperature trends taken by satellites are independently confirmed by 4 sets of measurements by weather balloons and by 4 sets of weather re-analysis data. Since the 1979 Charney Report, modelers have been claiming that increases in temperatures from CO2 will cause dramatic increases in water vapor causing significant warming. This is not occurring, and the modelers are becoming desperate.
On his blog, Roy Spencer writes a more complete explanation of what is wrong with the Santer paper. The executive summary states:
“Executive Summary
“A new paper by Santer et al. in Journal of Climate shows that observed trends during 1988-2019 in sea surface temperature [SST], tropospheric temperature [TLT and TMT], and total tropospheric water vapor [TWV] are generally inconsistent, by varying amounts, with climate model trends over the same period. The study uses ratios between observed trends in these variables to explore how well the ratios match model expectations, with the presumption that the models provide ‘truth’ in such comparisons. Special emphasis is placed on the inconsistency between TWV moistening rates and the satellite tropospheric temperature warming rates: the total water vapor has risen faster than one would expect for the weak rate of satellite-observed tropospheric warming (but both are still less than the average climate model trends in either CMIP5 or CMIP6).
“While the paper itself does not single out the tropospheric temperatures as being in error, widespread reporting of the paper used the same biased headline, for instance this from DailyMail.com: ‘Satellites may have been underestimating the planet’s warming for decades’. The reporting largely ignored the bulk of what was in the paper, which was much less critical of the satellite temperature trends, and which should have been more newsworthy. For example: (1) SST warming is shown in the paper to be well below climate model expectations from both CMIP5 and CMIP6, which one might expect could have been a major conclusion; (2) the possibility that the satellite-based TWV is rising too rapidly (admitted in the paper, and addressed below), and especially (3) the possibility that TWV is not a good proxy anyway for mid- and upper-tropospheric warming (discussed below).[That stated “discussed below” is in the text but not in this summary.]
“As others have shown, free-tropospheric vapor (not well captured by TWV) would be the proper proxy for free-tropospheric warming, and the fact that climate models maintain constant relative humidity with altitude during warming is not based upon basic physical processes (as the authors imply), but instead upon arbitrary moistening assumptions implicit in model convective parameterizations. Observational evidence is shown that free-tropospheric humidity does not increase with tropospheric temperature as much as in the GFDL [Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, partially funded by NOAA] climate model. Thus, weak tropospheric warming measured by satellites could be evidence of weak water vapor feedback in the free troposphere, which in turn could explain the weaker than (model) expected surface warming. A potential reason for a high bias in TWV trends is also addressed, which is consistent with the other variables’ trend behavior.”
Spencer goes on to show that there is nothing new in the paper “that would cast doubt on the modest nature of tropospheric warming trends from satellites — unless one believes climate models as proof, in which case we don’t need observations anyway.”
In the comments section of the post, Roger Pielke Sr. linked to earlier papers with evidence that questioned the assumption by modelers that rising temperatures from CO2 (or whatever cause) will cause significant increases in water vapor. Without this assumed strong positive feedback in the models it is unlikely that any warming from CO2 would be considered dangerous. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Academic Science v. Scientific Method: On her website Climate Etc, Judith Curry, a former academic, posted two essays suggesting academic social sciences may be abandoning the scientific method and are becoming highly politicized. An essay by Patrick Michaels discusses a study by Eric Kaufmann of the University of London produced by a small think tank, California’s Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. Michaels writes:
“In the academy the free interchange of competing ideas creates knowledge through cooperation, disagreement, debate, and dissent. Kaufmann’s landmark study proves that the last three in that list are severely suppressed and punished. The pervasiveness of such repression may be a death sentence for science, free inquiry, and the advancement of knowledge in our universities.
I am led to that dire conclusion because the universities appear to have no way to prevent this fate. No solution can arise from within the academy because it selects its own lifetime faculty, which is largely left wing—increasingly so—and makes the promotion of dissenters highly unlikely. Kaufmann demonstrates profoundly systemic discrimination by leftist faculty against colleagues they find disagreeable.
In an essay discussing an October 2018 conference on Anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming (AGW), Geoffrey Weiss and Claude Roessiger expressed surprise at how polarized the conference was in particular the reaction of local university scientists to it. They write:
“In addressing why academic scientists spurned the conference, we might begin by considering how scientific truth differs from faith—in this case, faith in the AGW consensus. We sought the insights of a scholar of philosophy to guide our thesis. Generally speaking, faith leads from theory to a search for evidence, whereas scientific truth derives from empirical evidence that defines a theory. The distinction suggests philosophy’s query: What is truth? Rather than conflating truth and majority opinion, science pursues a measured truth that, at least for a time, can meet the rigorous test of the scientific method. If we seek any form of absolute truth, we shall find it only in faith—and not in empirical science. As the philosopher Karl Popper suggested in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), a theory that cannot be falsified is faith, not science.’ [Boldface italics in original.]
As the Quote of the Week states, there may be two views of science. One academic (scholastic), the other based on the scientific method. Paul Homewood posted a brief video of ecologist Allen Savory expressing a similar view on academic peer review and on breakthroughs in science. See links under Seeking a Common Ground.
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14th ICCC: The 14th International Conference on Climate Change presented by The Heartland Institute will be October 15 to 17, 2021, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. See https://climateconference.heartland.org/
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SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD
THE JACKSON
SEPP is conducting its annual vote for the recipient of the coveted trophy, The Jackson, a lump of coal. Readers are asked to nominate and vote for who they think is most deserving, following these criteria:
The past recipients, Lisa Jackson, Barrack Obama, John Kerry, Ernest Moniz, Michael Mann, Christiana Figueres, Jerry Brown, AOC, and Neil Ferguson are not eligible. Generally, the committee that makes the selection prefers a candidate with a national or international presence. The voting will close on July 31. Please send your nominee and a brief reason why the person is qualified for the honor to Ken@SEPP.org. Thank you. For a list of past recipients and their accomplishments in earning this honor see http://www.sepp.org/april-fools-award.cfm
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Number of the Week: – 0, Zero. Since 2007, NOAA has been classifying tornadoes by the Enhanced Fujita Scale. An EF Number of 3 or greater has an estimated 3-second wind gust of at least 136 mph (219 kph, 61 m/s) resulting in uprooted trees and walls torn off of traditional homes (mobile homes are more easily damage with lower wind speeds of a EF-2 tornado).
Traditionally in the US, May is the most dangerous month for tornadoes. 2021 was the first year since record-keeping began in 1950 in which no EF-3 storms, or greater, were reported. No doubt some in the media will claim that a big storm must have hit a cornfield somewhere. But this is like fish stories of the big one that got away. Given the popularity of storm chasing in the US, highly unlikely. See links under Changing Weather.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Magnitude Of Recent Surface Solar Radiation Forcing Over US Is Tens Of Times Greater Than From CO2
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 7, 2021
Link to US paper: Variability of Surface Radiation Budget Components Over the U.S. From 1996 to 2019—Has Brightening Ceased?
By John A. Augustine and Gary B. Hodges, JGR Atmospheres, Mar 20, 2021
Back to Basics
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, June 4, 2021
Climategate Continued
BBC – Twelve Years Of Covering Up Climategate
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 10, 2021
Censorship
Facebook goes after Koonin
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 2, 2021
Dare you to post it on Facebook
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 9, 2021
John Stossel Pushes Back Against FB Censorship
By Charles Rotter, Video, WUWT, June 8, 2021
NoTricksZone Twitter Account Sent To The Gulag…Dissent, Criticism Of Authorities Unwelcome
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 5, 2021
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
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/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:
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
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters
By Steven E. Koonin, BenBella Books, May 4, 2021
[TWTW used the Kindle version, the Hardcover was sold out.]
Biased Media Reporting on the New Santer et al. Study Regarding Satellite Tropospheric Temperature Trends
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, June 9, 2021
Link to paper: Using Climate Model Simulations to Constrain Observations
By Benjamin D. Santer, et al. Journal of Climate, May 20, 2021
Gas of Life; The EPA Disappears More Inconvenient Climate Data, Including 1930s U.S. Dust Bowl
CO2 not Pollution but the Gas of Life
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, ICECAP, June 4, 2021
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/co2_gas_of_life_and_the_real_temperature_story1/
Oreskes and the climate gang penned a smear in Scientific American @sciam refuses to print response by Koonin
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, June 3, 2021
Steve Koonin responds to an article in SciAm
By Lubos Motl, The Reference Frame, June 3, 2021
Koonin gets it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 9, 2021
No sign of a climate emergency
Press Release, GWPF, May 29, 2021
Link to report: The State of the Climate: 2020
By Ole Humlum, GWPF, 2021
Memory Holes Are Greatly Improved
By Sam Kazman, Real Clear Energy, June 08, 2021
“When George Orwell first introduced memory holes in his novel 1984, published 72 years ago today, these machines for erasing the past were filthy incinerators in the bowels of ominous government ministries.”
UN Climate Message: “We are rapidly reaching the point of no return”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 5, 2021
Defending the Orthodoxy
That ‘Obama Scientist’ Climate Skeptic You’ve Been Hearing About …
His track record on getting climate science right is extremely poor
By Naomi Oreskes, Michael E. Mann, Gernot Wagner, Don Wuebbles, Andrew Dessler, Andrea Dutton, Geoffrey Supran, Matthew Huber, Thomas Lovejoy, Ilissa Ocko, Peter C. Frumhoff, Joel Clement. Scientific American, June 1, 2021 [H/t William Happer]
Global warming already responsible for one in three heat-related deaths
New estimates suggest Central and South America and South-East Asia most affected regions
Press Release, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, May 31, 2021 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: The burden of heat-related mortality attributable to recent human-induced climate change
By A. M. Vicedo-Cabrera, et al. Nature Climate Change, May 31, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Since it is claimed that humans are causing recent warming, without physical evidence, any deaths from recent warming must be human caused! The human species which evolved in the tropics cannot tolerate heat? The article does not give temperature data showing by how much the tropics have warmed.]
G7 summit: Broken promises of rich nations casts shadow over climate deal, says UN chief António Guterres
By Daily Briefing Staff, Carbon Brief, June 10, 2021
“UN secretary general António Guterres has criticised the G7 group of major economies for their part in the failure to meet a $100bn target for international climate finance by 2020, in comments to the Times.”
[SEPP Comment: Send $100 Billion in cash quick!]
New Zealand Climate Commission Report Recommends Fewer Cars, More Electric, Fewer Cows
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 9, 2021
Antarctica wasn’t quite as cold during the last ice age as previously thought
Press Release, Oregon State University, June 3, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Link to paper: Antarctic surface temperature and elevation during the Last Glacial Maximum
By Christo Buizert, et al. AAAS Science, June 4, 2021
“Buizert et al. used borehole thermometry, firn density reconstructions, and climate modeling to show that the temperature in East Antarctica was actually only ∼4° to 7°C cooler during the Last Glacial Maximum. This result has important consequences for our understanding of Antarctic climate, polar amplification, and global climate change.”
[SEPP Comment: Seeking to demonstrate what is assumed? Boldface added.]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Heat stress in U.S. may double by century’s end
Areas with increasing populations at higher risk
Press Release, NSF, June 7, 2021
Link to paper: Anthropogenic Warming and Population Growth May Double US Heat Stress by the Late 21st Century
By Sourav Mukherjee, Ashok Kumar Mishra, Michael E. Mann, Colin Raymond, Earth’s Future, April 26, 2021
From abstract: “Using observations, climate projections from the CMIP5 model ensemble, and historical and future population estimates, we apply the IPCC risk framework to examine present and projected future potential impact (PI) of summer heat stress for the contiguous United States (CONUS) as a function of non-stationary HS characteristics and population exposure”
[SEPP Comment: In the US, people are moving south to die early?]
Heat related deaths since 1991 propaganda study just alarmist climate science incompetence
By Larry Hamlin, WUWT, June 5, 2021
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Language Corrupting Thought (Part 2)
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 9, 2021
Cold climate droughts
The Economic Costs Of Climate Change–Swiss Re
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 10, 2021
The Forest Prime-Evil
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, June 7, 2021
Change in US Administrations
Biden warns climate change is ‘greatest threat’ to US security: ‘This is not a joke’
The president said he would speak to key European allies about a unified approach to combating climate change
By |Thomas Barrabi, Fox News, June 9, 2021 [H/t William Readdy]
Biden warns climate change is ‘greatest threat’ to US security: ‘This is not a joke’ | Fox News
[SEPP Comment: Where do we deploy the troops to fight nature?]
Lies, Damned Lies, And Biden Fire Statistics
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 6, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Video. Hiding decades of data!]
Russia Laughing All The Way To The Bank!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 2, 2021
“As Dan Foster put it, ‘Killing energy jobs in Oklahoma and creating them in St. Petersburg is so comically inept and villainous you could never even try it without the entire press in your back pocket.’”
Climate Order Will Undermine U.S. Financial Stability
By Peter Murphy, Real Clear Energy, June 03, 2021
Joe Biden’s Climate Plan Will Make Us Even More Dependent on China
By Steve Milloy, Real Clear Energy, June 02, 2021
Joe Biden’s energy gift to dictators
China, Russia and Iran will exploit the U.S. retreat on fossil fuels.
Editorial, WSJ, Via GWPF, June 10, 2021
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Social Cost (Benefit) of Carbon Dioxide from FUND with Corrected Temperatures, Energy and CO2 Fertilization
By Ken Gregory, P.Eng., WUWT, May 26, 2021
Problems in the Orthodoxy
More money than brains
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 2, 2021
India, Australia, China, Russia pushing ‘massive’ coal expansion
They are collectively responsible for 77% of new mining activity.
By Staff, Economic Times of India, June 5, 2021
Russia bets big on coal, gas, fossil fuels, and not on renewables
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 3, 2021
China, India, US & EU spur rebounding global CO2 emissions
By Staff, E & E News, Via GWPF, June 4, 2021
Building back blacker, China drives rise in coal-fired power plants
By Staff, The Daily Telegraph, Via GWPF, June 2, 2021
Death spiral of American academia
By Patrick Michaels, Climate etc. June 9, 2021
Truth or consequences: global warming consensus thinking and the decline of public debate
By Geoffrey Weiss and Claude Roessiger. Climate Etc. June 1, 2021
Book Review: Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
By David Legates, Washington Times, Via Independent Institute, June 9, 2021
Allen Savory Exposes Consensus Science
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 3, 2021
A few common bacteria account for majority of carbon use in soil
Press Release, Northern Arizona University, June 7, 2021
Science, Policy, and Evidence
The Covid lab leak theory is looking increasingly plausible
By Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist, May 29, 2021
Climate and Covid: beware of Experts Selling ‘Settled Science’
By Larry Bell, America Out Loud, June 7, 2021
Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science
The Response of Seven African and Ten Asian Rice Genotypes to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment
Masuya, Y., Kumagai, E., Matsunami, M. and Shimono, H. 2021. Dry matter partitioning to leaves differentiates African and Asian rice genotypes exposed to elevated CO2. Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science 207: 120-027, doi: 10.1111/jac.12445. June 2, 2021
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V24/jun/a1.php
Plant Growth Database
By CO2 Science, Accessed June 11, 2021
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
“In this section of our web site we maintain an ever-expanding archive of the results of peer-reviewed scientific studies that report the growth responses of plants to atmospheric CO2 enrichment. Results are tabulated according to two types of growth response (Dry Weight [Biomass] and Photosynthesis [Net CO2 Exchange Rate])’.
Models v. Observations
Climate models fail in key test region
By David Whitehouse, GWPF, June 7, 2021
Link to earlier paper: Comparing climate time series – Part 1: Univariate test
By Timothy DelSole and Michael K. Tippett, Adv. Stat. Clim. Meteorol. Oceanogr., Oct 12, 2020
Link to current paper: Comparing Climate Time Series. Part II: A Multivariate Test
By Timothy DelSoleand Michael K. Tippet, Preprint
ftp://cola.gmu.edu/pub/delsole/papers/dt_compareTS2.pdf
Only off by a factor of 3
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 9, 2021
Model Issues
Simplified climate modelling. Part 1: The role of CO2 in paleoclimate
By Thomas Anderl, Climate Etc. May 29, 2021
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH Global Temperature Update for May 2021: +0.08 deg. C
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, June 1, 2021
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/06/uah-global-temperature-update-for-may-2021-0-08-deg-c/
Link to Global Temperature Report
Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, May 2021
Report: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/
Maps: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2021/May2021/202105_Map.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2021/May2021/202105_Bar.png
NASA Map Gives Most Accurate Space-Based View of LA’s Carbon Dioxide
Press Release, NASA, June 7, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Changing Weather
May snaps long-standing streak for strong tornadoes in US
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 11, 2021
The 2021 Hurricane Season Has Begun
By Ryan Maue, WUWT, June 2, 2021
Wildfire Outlook for the Pacific Northwest
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, June 10, 2021
High-magnitude flooding across Britain since AD 1750
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 8, 2021
“Perhaps if the Environment Agency really want to understand the changing risks of flooding to dams and other infrastructure, they should look to the past instead of the Met Office’s computer models.”
UK Extreme Rainfall Trends
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 7, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Truncating the data to establish a new trend by getting rid of the old trend.]
It’s Drought Hype Season Again
By H. Sterling Burnett, The Heartland Institute, June 10, 2021
While “Experts” Like To Have Us Believe Germany Is Still In Drought – Real Observations Tell Us Another Story
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 6, 2021
Changing Climate
Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis Takes Another Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound
By David Middleton, WUWT, June 12, 2021
Changing Seas
Geologist’s New Book: Climate Change “Natural”… “Still An Archaic Fear Of Natural Weather Phenomena”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 2, 2021
“The temperatures of the Earth’s atmosphere have been steadily increasing since the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago, albeit with interruptions, associated with a rise in global sea level. If the current warming reached the level of the last Eemian warm period about 120,000 years ago, sea levels would also rise another 6-9 meters. In response to steadily rising sea levels, dike and dam construction has been forced in the Netherlands, for example, since the High Middle Ages. This will also have to be stepped up in other regions of the world.”
[SEPP Comment: Sea level rise is a long-term concern. The current warm period started about 20,000 years ago interrupted by the Younger Dryas, about 13,000 years ago lasting to about 11,500 years ago. There is no generally accepted explanation for the Younger Dryas.]
Miami-Dade Back Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management Feasibility Study
By Staff, US Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, May 29, 2020
Link to report: https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p16021coll7/id/14453
[SEPP Comment: The purpose of the study was to examine the feasibility of storm surge barriers such as used in Holland, The Thames, etc. Not to protect against sea level rise.]
Study pinpoints key causes of ocean circulation change
Press Release by University of Exeter, June 1, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Link to paper: Distinct sources of interannual subtropical and subpolar Atlantic overturning variability
By Yavor Kostov, et al. Nature Geoscience, May 31, 2021
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
June Arctic Ice Returns to Mean
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 9, 2021
[SEPP Comment: After a cold April-May.]
Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf is ripping apart, speeding up key Antarctic glacier
Press Release, University of Washington, June 11, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
“‘Sediment records in front of and beneath the Pine Island ice shelf indicate that the glacier front has remained relatively stable over a few thousand years,’ Dutrieux said. ‘Regular advance and break-ups happened at approximately the same location until 2017, and then successively worsened each year until 2020.’”
[SEPP Comment: A three-year, long-term trend happening at glacial speed? More scientists caught in a false dilemma and who cannot tell the difference between facts and exaggerations.]
New survey estimates 10x as many polar bears in Russian section of Chukchi Sea as in USA portion
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, June 2, 2021
“This study required rather more models and associated assumptions than usual to come up with its population estimates.”
Acidic Waters
Fish adapt to ocean acidification by modifying gene expression
Press Release, The University of Hong Kong, May 29, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Link to paper: Natural CO2 seeps reveal adaptive potential to ocean acidification in fish
By Natalia Petit-Marty, et al. Evolutionary Applications, Apr 8, 2021
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Solar geoengineering may be effective in alleviating impacts of global warming on crops
By Staff Writers, Boston MA (SPX), June 04, 2021
Link to paper: Solar geoengineering can alleviate climate change pressures on crop yields
By Yuanchao Fan, et al. Nature food, May 20, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Especially since tropical Brazil has become a dominant exporter during the current “climate crisis.”]
Un-Science or Non-Science?
Granholm launches ‘Earthshot’ goal of reducing hydrogen energy cost to $1
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, June 7, 2021
[SEPP Comment: No matter what the Secretary of the DOE calls the program, making hydrogen on earth requires energy.]
Lowering Standards
Or the manatee gets it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 9, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
A fiery past sheds new light on the future of global climate change
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 31, 2021
Link to paper: Improved estimates of preindustrial biomass burning reduce the magnitude of aerosol climate forcing in the Southern Hemisphere
By Pengfei Liu, et al. AAAS Science Advances, May 28, 2021
“In fact the science points the other way. As [HH] Lamb knew years ago, Australia was a much wetter place when the world was warmer a few thousand years ago. It was this same epoch when the Sahara was also fertile. And there is a very good reason; a warmer world is a moister one.
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Climate change: Rise in Brecon Beacons landslips ‘a clear warning’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 1, 2021
“And, of course, a couple of cherry-picked weather events are not evidence of ‘climate change’, and certainly not man made.”
The insurance company gets it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 9, 2021
“Just as you are advised not to ask your barber if you need a haircut or your vet whether your dog looks sick, you should not ask your insurer if you really should increase your coverage in case there’s more flooding, more fires, a Martian invasion or something.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
IEA, Roadmap To Net Zero
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 2, 2021
IEA’s Unrealistic Energy Roadmap Sends Wrong Message for Agency, Developing Nations
By Guy F. Caruso, Real Clear Energy, June 03, 2021
Climate change: Thousands of people in the UK have already died because of global warming
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 31, 2021
BBC Victoria Falls Complaint Escalated
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 10, 2021
“The aforesaid ‘drying up’ is a normal annual event, which occurs every dry season because the eastern side of the falls is at a higher elevation, and not because the river dries up to a trickle.”
Climate scientist admits key climate change metric is just something experts ‘chose’: ‘Symbolic marker’
By Chris Enloe, The Blaze, May 29, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
The People With Something To Hide
By Tony Heller, His Blog, June 4, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
CO2 concentration levels hit record high, show no impact from pandemic
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 6, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Great propaganda photo of chimneys emitting invisible greenhouse gases.]
CJR [Columbia Journalism Review]: Climate Reporting is Like Covering the Invasion of Poland
By Eric Worrall, June 4, 2021
Greenhouse gases: Causes, sources and environmental effects
By Tiffany Means, Marc Lallanilla – Live Science, June 9, 2021 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Greenhouse gases help keep the Earth at a habitable temperature — until there is too much of them.
“Global warming isn’t a recent scientific concept. The basics of the phenomenon were worked out well over a century ago by Swedish physicist and chemist Svante Arrhenius, in 1896. His paper, published in the Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, was the first to quantify the contribution of carbon dioxide to what scientists now call the ‘greenhouse effect.’”
Energy Infrastructure Terrorism Taking Root in Germany, Europe As Radical Activists Carry Out Attacks
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, June 9, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
Greta’s Dishonest Alarmist Rubbish
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 10, 2021
Video
Questioning European Green
Garry White: We’re going to pay a high price for the Net Zero agenda
By Garry White, The Daily Telegraph, Via GWPF, June 8, 2021
The crippling cost of Net Zero
Green technocrats are utterly indifferent to the lives of ordinary people.
By Ben Pile, Spiked, May 26, 2021 [H/t Paul Homewood]
The EU’s Net Zero plan faces political blowback
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 1, 2021
Non-Green Jobs
Climate Targets Could Shutter UK Steel Industry
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 8, 2021
Funding Issues
Chief scientist: NOAA is ‘$12 billion agency trapped in a $5.5 billion budget’
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, June 7, 2021
Litigation Issues
The Current Legal Onslaught Is Unlikely To Limit World Oil Production Significantly
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, May 30, 2021
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA Scientific Integrity Stakeholder and Partner Meeting
By Francesca Grifo, EPA Scientific Integrity Official, June 4, 2021
EPA, Army Announce Intent to Revise Definition of WOTUS
Press Release, Office of Public Engagement, EPA, June 9, 2021
http://mail.haapala.com/interface/root#/email
[SEPP Comment: See Article # 1.]
EPA Heavily Redacts Official’s Recusal Information
By Christopher Horner, Government Accountability & Oversight, June 9, 2021
Energy Issues – Non-US
Power shortage: Chinese factories forced to shut down
By Staff, Financial Times, Via GWPF, June 5, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Need more coal-fired power plants!]
A viable alternative to Chinese minerals hegemony
The long and winding road to building a Free-World rare-earths supply chain
By Duggan Flanakin, WUWT, May 31, 2021
Energy Issues — US
The Future Of Energy: One Of These Things Is Not Real
By Francis Menton, June 7, 2021
“OK, but the Europeans have built thousands of offshore wind turbines and have lots of these specialized construction ships. Why not just hire them? There’s a simple answer: it is prohibited by something called the Jones Act, a U.S. statute that forbids use of foreign flag ships for any intra-U.S. shipping.”
PUCT Leaders in Denial: Erasing Renewables from Blackout Causality
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, June 10, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Exposing the Texas cover-up.]
Texas governor signs bills to improve power grid after deadly winter storm
By Tal Axelrod, The Hill, June 8, 2021
“One of the bills Abbott signed would require the weatherization of power generation facilities, natural gas facilities and transmission facilities to be better prepared for severe weather…”
Beijing Power Players Poised to Pull Plug on Prospects to Go ‘All-Electric’
By Larry Bell, Newsmax, June 7, 2021
Don’t Get Discouraged About The Preposterous Plans To Eliminate Fossil Fuels
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, June 5, 2021
Let’s Accelerate, Not Reverse, Energy Progress Since 1970s Gas Station Lines
By Mike Sommers, Real Clear Energy, June 01, 2021
Washington’s Control of Energy
Lessons from the Demise of ANWR and Keystone XL
By Ben Lieberman, CEI, June 11, 2021
Terence Corcoran: Keystone XL shutdown signals the real climate risk facing Canada and the world
What if the actions of global policy makers to cut carbon emissions pose equal or even greater risks than the ones they are trying to eliminate?
By Terence Corcoran, Financial Post (Canada), June 11, 2021
“The result of this upside-down bottoms up approach is the creation of real green swan risks, with Keystone XL being a little fluttering example of bigger swans to come.”
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Russia Begins Development on Arctic Oil Project That Will Produce 25 Million Tons of Oil Per Year
By Molly Taft, Gizmodo, May 28, 2021
Climate Activists Are Setting Up Oil Prices For New Boom
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 3, 2021
Return of King Coal?
China’s coal shortage may lead to more power rationing
More Chinese provinces are considering electricity rationing because of a surge in consumption and tighter coal supplies for power generation.
By Kelvin Leong, Argus Coal, June 8, 2021
Vijay Jayaraj: Despite COP26 pressure, Asia and Africa remain committed to coal
By Vijay Jayaraj, India, GWPF, June 2, 2021
Guest post: Hundreds of planned coal mines ‘incompatible with 1.5C target’
By Ryan Tate, Carbon Brief, June 10, 2021
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Gates to the rescue
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 9, 2021
“By the way, this splendid announcement was tarnished by the intrusion of a politician, Wyoming governor Mark Gordon, who apparently wants to have his oil and eat it too. ‘Earlier this year, I set a goal for Wyoming to be a carbon negative state and continue to use fossil fuels.’ Evidently ‘carbon negative’ means the state will capture more CO2 than it emits through some sort of magic power, while continuing to spew the stuff out:”
Let’s Talk About Radioactive Waste
By Andrew Karam, Ph.D., CHP, ACSH, June 10, 2021
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
The Dirty Secret of ‘Clean’ Energy
By Helen Raleigh, National Review, June 1, 2021
“In 2010, China attempted to weaponize its monopoly in rare earth against Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry responded by introducing an initiative to escape China’s chokehold on rare earth. The initiative included three components: expanding rare-earth suppliers outside of China, investing in countries that have rare earth but lacked financial and technological ability to extract and process them, and reducing rare-earth use in end products through technological innovations.”
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this solar farm
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 2, 2021
“Environmental Racism” as Second-class Energy (E&E News article)
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, June 9, 2021
[SEPP Comment: In Virginia, real estate developers were intensely opposed by environmentalists in developing in Civil War areas where industrial wind and solar now propose to go.]
Blocking The Wind
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, June 8, 2021
“The wind is free … but everything else costs money”.
Darker shades of green
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, June 9, 2021
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Hydrogen and Climate Change,
By Donn Dears, Special Report, Power for USA, June 8, 2021
Revisiting Hydrogen and the Hindenburg
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, June 11, 2021
Water Required to Produce Hydrogen
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, June 8, 2021
Construction beginning for $80 million wave energy testing facility
By Michelle Klampe The World Guest Article, Jun3 6, 2021
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Hawaii Five-Oy!
By Clarice Feldman, The Pipeline, June 1, 2021
“This means that to replace its soon-to-be retired coal plant, Hawaii Electric will soon be charging its giant battery … with oil. In other words, Hawaiians will be trading one fossil fuel (coal) for another, albeit one far more expensive.”
Why is Energy so Difficult to Store? Why is Stored Energy so Difficult to Use?
By Kelvin Kilty, WUWT, May 29, 2021
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Are EVs as ‘Green’ as They Appear
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 5, 2021
An Inconvenient Truth: EVs May Offer A “Negligible” CO2 Difference From ICE Vehicles
By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, June 5, 2021 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Vehicle to Grid “Savings” Based On Subsidised Trials–Not Real World Data
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, June 3, 2021
Carbon Schemes
Underground storage of carbon captured directly from air
By Staff Writers, Fukuoka, Japan (SPX). Jun 04, 2021
Link to research paper: Geological storage of CO2–N2–O2 mixtures produced by membrane-based direct air capture (DAC)
By Takeshi Tsuji, Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology, June 1, 2021
California Dreaming
California May Be Crazy In Its “Climate” Initiatives, But New York Wants To Be Even Crazier
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, June 3, 2021
Infinity-Woke: Is there anything more racist than pushing anti-racist maths?
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, June 12, 2021
[SEPP Comment: California’s new counting: Three numbers: one, two, and many?]
California’s Costly “Cap and Trade” Forest Emission Offsets Program Just Climate Alarmism Incompetence
By Larry Hamlin, WUWT, June 1, 2021
Health, Energy, and Climate
3 New Studies Conclude 21st Century Cold Temps Led To 7-10 Times More Deaths Than Warm Temps
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 10, 2021
Biden’s coming war on farmers
Team Biden will reassert that PM2.5 kills hundreds of thousands annually and that there’s no safe level of exposure
By Steve Milloy, Washington Times, May 31, 2021
The burden of heat-related mortality attributable to poor modeling
By Pasi Autio, WUWT, June 3, 2021
Environmental Industry
ExxonMobil’s Appeasement Strategy Backfires (Milloy has had enough)
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, June 1, 2021
ESG Movement Threatens Us All
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, June 10, 2021
Other News that May Be of Interest
Remembering The Critical D-Day Forecast
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, June 6, 2021
“The forecast team [hesitated?] until Stagg predicted the low would continue to move northward, producing conditions just good enough for D-Day on June 6th. The actual weather map for June 6th (below) suggests that Stagg and associates made the right forecast for the wrong reason.”
Biden’s Jan. 6 Narrative Just Got Even More Ridiculous
By T.R. Clancy, American Thinker, June 9, 2021
[SEPP Comment: The $1.5 million cost discussed in the essay is an estimate of damages. In addition, the Architect of the Capitol has estimated an increase of subsequent security expenses, such temporary perimeter fencing, to be more than $30 million. There was no wide-spread rioting.]
Suddenly, ‘The Population Bomb’ Is a Population Bust
By Stephen Moore, The Patriot Post, Via GWPF, June 2, 2021
Remembering Robert A. Heinlein [1907 to 1988]
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, June 2, 2021
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Claim: Climate change is making ocean waves more powerful, threatening to erode many coastlines
By Thomas Mortlock, Macquarie University; et al. The Conversation, Via WUWT, June 8, 2021
In The 1700s It Was Said Women Cause ‘Unnatural’ Weather. Now Mainstream Science Says Men Do Too.
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, June 4, 2021
New study says endangered whales have shrunk in size three feet over 20 years
By Joseph Choi, The Hill, June 3, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Unable to find the study which was conducted by airplanes and drones.]
Walrus Makes A Wally Of Olivia Rudgard
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 29, 2021
[SEPP Comment: The warming of the Arctic drove the walrus to France? Will he summer in the South of France?]
The Guardian: Climate Tipping Points “Could Topple Like Dominoes”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, June 3, 2021
Link to the paper: Interacting tipping elements increase risk of climate domino effects under global warming
By Nico Wunderling, Earth System Dynamics, June 3, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Tipping points like sailing too far from the sight of land?]
ARTICLES
An Anti-Development Water Rule
Biden’s EPA is back with a rule that won’t help build infrastructure.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, June 11, 2021
TWTW Summary: After discussing the infrastructure bill, the editorial states:
“The EPA this week announced plans to revise the Trump Wotus rule ‘to better protect our nation’s vital water resources that support public health, environmental protection, agricultural activity, and economic growth.’ Translation: The EPA is preparing a private land grab that will limit farming, fracking, home building and economic activity.
“Recall how the Obama -era Wotus rule expanded federal jurisdiction over ‘waters of the U.S.’ under the 1972 Clean Water Act, which authorized the feds to regulate ‘navigable waterways’ like the Hudson River. The Obama EPA claimed jurisdiction over any waterways with a ‘significant nexus’ to ‘waters of the U.S.’
“This included all land within a 100-year floodplain and 1,500 feet of the high-water mark or 4,000 feet of waters already under its jurisdiction, as well as ‘ephemeral’ ponds, ditches and creeks that occasionally filled with storm runoff. The rule was intended to give the feds a veto over fossil-fuel development on private land.
“But it also meant that farmers would have to get permits to fill ditches. Road and highway construction projects would need to undergo federal review if their storm runoff could affect waterways a mile or so away. The Trump EPA sensibly revised the rule to exclude unnavigable bodies of waters, including those that fill with water after a rainfall.
“Now the Biden EPA complains the Trump regulatory rollback constrained its regulatory power too much, particularly in arid states like New Mexico and Arizona, and eliminated federal permitting requirements for 333 projects. Ergo, the agency plans to launch another amphibious assault on private land.
“To recap: President Biden wants Congress to shovel out hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure, which the EPA then will tie up in a permitting morass—unless, of course, the projects advance climate or social-justice goals. Republicans shouldn’t agree to any infrastructure deal that doesn’t include permitting and regulatory efficiencies.”
TWTW Comment: How much of the proposed $1 Trillion infrastructure bill will go to lawyers arguing what are navigable waters of the US/
That’s a great Quote of the Week. Describes perfectly the state of climate and medical sciences.
Meanwhile, a proposed 180 MW solar “farm” in upstate NY.
https://www.nny360.com/communitynews/business/town-of-brasher-supervisor-provides-update-on-proposed-solar-project/article_a9b40fc1-a0a6-5620-92de-ead43fe2c71e.html?utm_source=Energy+News+Network+daily+email+digests&utm_campaign=f5b77bd3eb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_05_11_11_42_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_724b1f01f5-f5b77bd3eb-89312636
“The project area is 2,200 acres, but the actual solar facility area encompasses 961 acres.”
Most likely it’s forest- to be utterly destroyed.
I am slowly being drawn into opposition to a local wind project that I think will be an unmitigated disaster if it actually gets built. About half will be built on crystalline bedrock in a terrain of rolling hills and arroyos. The community is apparently quite divided over it as I gather from spending four hours at a recent county commission meeting. Those opposed were largely residents closest to the proposed project, and those in favor largely make the argument that this will bring badly needed revenue to the county, or jobs, or it is the future and we should embrace it, or “there is the reality of climate change”, or other magical thinking. Some even insist that all these turbines will enhance the background view of the Colorado Rockies to the south. It is fascinating to listen to peoples’ explanations on either side, but it is obvious that few can actually envision what hundreds of wind turbines, 675 feet to the extreme blade tip, is actually going to look like.
“Wind Turbines and Birds: Latest from the American Bird Conservancy”
https://www.masterresource.org/cuisinarts-of-the-air/wind-turbines-birds-abc-2021/
If a person looks carefully at “national intelligence findings” or “cyber security” what one sees are a lot of failures — big, expensive failures. Does Red team/Blue team actually work, or is it another layer of biased analysis to help people decide to do what they wanted to do anyway?
I propose as the current recipient of the Jackson Award — Dr. Anthony Fauci. Can it be unanimous?
David Attenborough’s newest video, “Breaking Boundaries” on Netflix. I haven’t watched it yet. I’d like to see a new thread on this video. Editors?
The clouds in the heading are absolutely gorgeous!
And the Manti La Sal mountains in the background. It’s cool up there today.
A large number of power plants in Texas are offline, but it could not provide details as to what may be causing the number of outages. At the same time, the state is experiencing near-record demand for electricity in June. But fortunately, many carmakers, such as Proton, have been aware of their social responsibilities and been devoted to make their models more energy-efficient.