Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the BBC, stratospheric cooling proves global warming is anthropogenic, but we should expect a little global cooling during the coming grand solar minimum.
COP26: The truth behind the new climate change denial
By Rachel Schraer & Kayleen Devlin
BBC Reality Check…
The claim: The sun will cool, halting global warming
People have long claimed, incorrectly, that the past century’s temperature changes are just part of the Earth’s natural cycle, rather than the result of human behaviour.
…
A grand solar minimum is a real phenomenon when the Sun gives off less energy as part of its natural cycle.
Studies suggest the Sun may well go through a weaker phase sometime this century, but that this would lead, at most, to a temporary 0.1 – 0.2C cooling of the planet.
That’s not nearly enough to offset human activity, which has already warmed the planet by about 1.2C over the past 200 years and will continue to rise, possibly topping 2.4C by the end of the century.
We know recent temperature rises weren’t caused by the changes in the Sun’s natural cycle because the layer of atmosphere nearest the earth is warming, while the layer of atmosphere closest to the Sun – the stratosphere – is cooling.
…
The claim: Global warming is good
Various posts circulating online claim global warming will make parts of the earth more habitable, and that cold kills more people than heat does.
These arguments often cherry-pick favourable facts while ignoring any that contradict them.
For example, it’s true that some inhospitably cold parts of the world could become easier to live in for a time.
But in these same places warming could also lead to extreme rainfall, affecting living conditions and the ability to grow crops,
…
The claim: Climate change action will make people poorer
A common claim made by those against efforts to tackle climate change is that fossil fuels have been essential to driving economic growth.
So limiting their use, the argument goes, will inevitably stunt this growth and increase the cost of living, hurting the poorest.
…
In many places, renewable electricity – powered by wind or solar energy for example – is now cheaper than electricity powered by coal, oil or gas.
…
The claim: Renewable energy is dangerously unreliable
Misleading posts claiming renewable energy failures led to blackouts went viral earlier in the year, when a massive electricity grid failure left millions of Texans in the dark and cold.
…
“Blackouts are an artefact of poor electricity generation and distribution management,” says John Gluyas, executive director of the Durham Energy Institute.
He says the claim that renewable energy causes blackouts is “nonsensical…. Venezuela has oodles of oil and frequent blackouts“.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59251912
Stratospheric cooling is not as simple as the BBC portrays. A few weeks ago a student in Alaska upended understanding of the cross polar jet, an atmospheric phenomena in the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere, so claims that stratospheric science is settled are dubious.
And there is another, much more powerful Greenhouse Gas which could be influencing conditions in the stratosphere.
Stratospheric water vapour changes as a possible contributor to observed stratospheric cooling
Piers M. de F. Forster, Keith P. Shine
The observed cooling of the lower stratosphere over the last two decades has been attributed, in previous studies, largely to a combination of stratospheric ozone loss and carbon dioxide increase, and as such it is meant to provide one of the best pieces of evidence for an anthropogenic cause to climate change. This study shows how increases in stratospheric water vapour, inferred from available observations, may be capable of causing as much of the observed cooling as ozone loss does; as the reasons for the stratospheric water vapour increase are neither fully understood nor well characterized, it shows that it remains uncertain whether the cooling of the lower stratosphere can yet be fully attributable to human influences. In addition, the changes in stratospheric water vapour may have contributed, since 1980, a radiative forcing which enhances that due to carbon dioxide alone by 40%.
Read more: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999GL010487
There is a strong case that global warming is good for humans – far more people die in winter than summer, especially in cold countries. Winter is deadly for tropical apes, even when we have clothes and warm homes to shelter in. We would need a lot of global warming to redress that imbalance. Tropical regions are already used to dealing with massive rainfall, even our smallest urban drains are around a yard across. A little civic engineering could deal with any plausible change in rainfall.
As for the most absurd BBC claim, the Venezuelan comparison, the claim that renewable energy can be addressed with better power management, that one could actually be done – if by power management you mean switching off all major power consumers, such as residential home heating, when the renewables fail. All the Venezuelan experience proves is governments have unlimited ability to stuff up their basic responsibilities, like keeping the lights on.
Renewable instability and the need for backup exposes the BBC claim that climate action will not make people poorer as a total fiction.
Britain came very close to an involuntary switch off a month ago, when wind and solar failed for a week, and energy hungry mainland Europe consumed most of the available Russian gas. Even now, thanks to cooler than expected temperatures, demand is straining supply. The power shortages created by renewable energy failures cause electricity prices to spike and, in September, caused a string of household energy retail companies to collapse. Renewable energy might be cheap, when it works, but the frequent failures of renewable energy to deliver are very expensive indeed.
Worse, the people who run the backup systems also demand subsidies or other forms of compensation. Having billions of dollars worth of expensive plant sit idle even some of the time is financially intolerable, when the successs of energy investments is measured in terms of return on investment. Fossil fuel plant operators demand to be compensated at a level comparable to the profit they would have made if they were supplying power all the time, otherwise they cut their losses, decommission the backup power plants, salvage what valuable components they can for use elsewhere, and leave. So it doesn’t matter how cheap renewables are, the cost of maintaining both the renewable system and the hot standby fossil fuel backup system is what makes electricity in renewable heavy nations so expensive.
There was a time the BBC would never have published such half baked nonsense, they would have delved into the detail of their own claims, and pointed out the issues I just listed, in the interests of maintaining the BBC’s high standards of journalistic integrity. I grew up watching BBC documentaries which made an exemplary effort to present all sides of the issues being discussed, and provided evidence to back their editorial position. My teachers used to sometimes show us BBC productions in class, as examples of how to analyse issues and argue both sides of an issue. But in my opinion those days of dedicated objectivity are long gone.
This is cherry-picking favourable facts while ignoring any that contradict them itself!
10x as many deaths from cold, but because some places “could” get extreme rainfall, those 10x as many people must die, apparently. Evil pedo-protecting sons of bachelors, the lot of the BBC.
Quite a flexible and strong argument from this cheer leader.
Whilst she’s correct (or at least as far as I watched), I’m not sure that helps our side of the argument
JMHO
If she’s correct then more power to her. I do get your point though.
LoL. Only problem with this is that if we already know who Revelle was, etc., then she is mainly preaching to us, the already converted.
Nice summary argument though.
I normally avoid ABC products like YouTube but that one was worth it thank you.
Cocaine abuse is a sad thing to see
It’s a trick of utopians everywhere to compare reality with whatever they can dream up.
Of course reality is seriously flawed. As far as I can tell, the reality created by every utopian has been much worse than the admittedly flawed reality that preceded it.
In this case, the utopians will take progress and try to prove that it isn’t an improvement:
We say global warming will make much of the world more habitable and extend the frost free growing season. They say, yeah but it could rain more.
We say CO2 will improve crop yields. They say, yeah but some crops will be less nutritious.
What they’re indulging in is called motivated reasoning. It’s the way folks rationalize the most horrendous behavior imaginable.
Note how many ties the word “could” is used. “Could” is hardly factual.
Or “possibly”…
Waffle words without predictive merit and lots of bafflegab to hide their complete lack of message.
Yes – just look at Western Canada – hit by record, killing temperatures in the ‘heat dome’ and now with its major city cut off in truly devastating rain…
Look at the rain events in Germany and Henan, china (and there are half a dozen more this summer nearly as extreme)
Step off Griff
griff, in Eugene, Oregon it has rained 25 of the last 30 days, the storm system you mention producing floods in Western Canada has also flooded western Washington and Oregon. Yesterday the official Oregon Climatologist kept in place the “Extreme Drought” catagory for most of Western Oregon. Why? because idiots like you believe this stuff and the official Climatologist, an avowed CAGW fanatic, believes he gets more attention if he keeps on lying. BBC and CNN are having a Liars Contest, and the winner is not yet clear.
Yup! The weather is variable across Great Britain-and Western North America is many times that big, with coastal areas, mountains and inland plains, up and down about 30 degrees of latitude. The scale of this place is way beyond the very limited imagination of Guardian readers.
Yes weather can be terrible sometimes.
griff: I take as a working hypothesis that your problem is not in that part of your body that is behind your eyes, so I conclude it must be in your eyes. Please consult quickly with an ophthalmologist, because you are seeing too many trees and at the same time you are not seeing the forests.
It’s different to see the truth when your view is from behind an anal sphincter
Once again, griff is taking normal weather and claiming it as proof that CO2 controlls all.
Agreed, MarkW!
Except giffie is unable to identify exactly how much CO₂ should be in the air.
Nor can it explain what happens if that amount is increased or decreased by 5 ppm.
Everything giffie claims about CO₂ is emotive nonsense.
Once again Griff, you fail to see that weather isn’t constant, and that extremes happen normally. How rare does an event have to be to called extreme? How many people or square miles does it have to effect to be considered significant? Any day that doesn’t have a new once-per-century event that affects at least a million people is below average. If you can’t list more than 300 events at least as rare and significant as the rains in Germany then it is evidence of a mild year, not an indication of an increase in extreme weather.
Half a dozen isolated incidents? Is that all you could dig up. I thought this was a global problem. What you are talking about sounds like unexcetional (in historic terms) weather.
I live here. Get real! We have a foot of snow, just like always. Record temps were in the 1930’s. We got 6 inches of rain overnight in Edmonton in 1980 and 14 inches of rain over 2 days in Saskatchewan in 1985-and that was in the middle of a drought. We’ve had almost 20 years of outstanding growing weather and record crops until last year. Last year was dry, but we have had some rain this fall and now we have some snow already so we are hopeful that the coming year will be back to normal. We had regular drought and early and late frosts when I was young back in the 60’s that devastated crops.. It’s been MUCH BETTER for 30 years. Th world has never had such a surplus of food supplies in its history and that is with about 3 billion more people than there were in the 60’s.Why do you persist in this Socialist driven misinformation campaign?
Anybody who understands anything at all about agricultural production knows that cold weather reduces growing season length, and limits the kinds of crops that can be raised. It is the warm/temperate climate areas of the Earth that produce by far the most yield of agricultural crops, both in terms of longer growing seasons as well as more variety of crops. Go to Canada, northern Europe, or Siberia, and you’re limited to very short growng seasons, under 90 days in many locations. That in turn means you only get one crop a year, and the variety of feasible crops is quite limited, only to cold tolerant crops that produce yields very quickly. Such as wheat, potatoes, barley, etc. You have to be in a temperate zone with longer growing seasons before you can grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and corn. And in the sub-tropical and tropical regions, food crops can be produced at two or even three times a year.
Griff also doesn’t seem to understand that most of these rain events came at *good* times for growing crops or came after most summer crops were already harvested.
I’m sure Griff probably thinks floods are bad for crops without realizing that floods happen in low-lying areas from run-off from higher ground. Crops on that higher ground will benefit from more rain, be it after planting or during the summer dry season. Crops on low lying ground floods regularly already – the farmers are used to that and carry crop insurance in appropriate amounts.
Griff’s real world experience is sadly lacking. It should embarrass him but that doesn’t seem possible – he just keeps on flaunting his ignorance.
Floods also replenish soil along the river which allows for better growth with less fertilizer needed. Why else do folks think the Nile flooding regularly in the past allowed ancient Egyptians to flourish?
The sediment came from somewhere else … so erosion can be a good thing?
(maybe sugar is not really the Devil either 🙂
I think Griff and Peta should do lunch sometime.
lol extreme rainfall
there is literally no place on Earth that is too wet or too hot for modern agriculture with irrigation/flood control
but large proportions of entire continents are too dry or too cold
warm + wet = optima
Shouldn’t “renewables” (in the context of wind and solar) be called intermittents?
…or “unreliables.”
Not cost effective without government based taxpayer profit subsidies and reliable power station generators handicapped to make them less profitable for their owners.
I would just go with “unreliable intermittent” energy producers. covers all bases. Perhaps add in “expensive” to fully convey the complete picture, of weather dependent energy providers,
Let’s not forget that most Unreliables take money out of the pockets of working and middle class people, and shower it over wealthy crooks like Tommy Steyer!
Maybe the griffter can explain why regions with the highest penetration of the grid by Unreliables also have the highest prices, and are subject to blackouts!? I know, he’ll just say that, like the Great Valentines Day Texas Massacre, it is all due to fossil fuels! He thinks that Unreliables are great even when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow; but at least now we know where he sticks his head!
“random breezes and sunlight power”
except for wood chip burning facilities which are renewable AND dependable
Just not efficient.
Except they aren’t really as renewable as wind or solar – the fuel is consumed faster than it is generated. I guess it gets down to a question of time frame and the amount of land needed – just like wood, oil and natural gas are constantly being produced, just not at the same speed needed to satisfy supply indefinitely.
Biofuel is renewable – wood or various crop turned into ethanol/bio-diesel. Wood is just not renewable fast enough for major energy generation. Bio-fuels can be produced in sufficient quantities – but only if we forego eating.
I believe the above is true globally. Probably in some places production can be sufficient for local needs.
…or “unpredictable.”
“Various posts circulating online claim global warming will make parts of the earth more habitable, and that cold kills more people than heat does.
These arguments often cherry-pick favourable facts while ignoring any that contradict them. ”
Project much ?
Mirror mirror on the wall …
The two sides they argue these days are socialist and outright communist. Occasionally they do fascist.
Venezuela is more an example that socialism leads to shortages, than anything about fossil fuels. Similarly, subsidies for wind and solar lead to shortages, as they are but another form of socialism in the form of screwing with the market.
Ultimately, this is why socialism does not work, as the economy will be distorted to the extent one tries to administer prices for any product or service.
Venezuela is an example of the fact that if you have a government the US disapproves of they will institute an economic blockade and destroy your economy if you are lucky. If you are unlucky then the CIA will sponsor a coup as in Chile.
LOL Exactly HOW did the U.S. destroy the Venezuela economy? Socialism did this. Bad policies did this. Corruption did this.
The U.S. disapproves of China and it is doing just fine.
Robert of Texas,
You say,
Oh. I get that. You are claiming Chinese communism works.
Personally, I don’t think any form of totalitarianism is “just fine”.
Good government consists of more than economic success capable of withstanding American “disapproval”.
Richard
As I recall, the US government didn’t need to do anything much to Venezuela. The idiots running it did it all to themselves. The peasants were merely the cannon fodder for Hugo Chavez and his mates.
That is BS, explain to me Sweden who ran a socialist government for 40 years had zero economic growth during that time. Now they are growing again since they now have a more open economy than the US. As Dennis Prager puts is ” the left destroys everything it touches” You only have to look at our major institutions to see that here and now.
China didn’t “work”, until they dumped communism.
They saw what happened in the Soviet Union and didn’t want to suffer the same fate, so they switched over to a quasi-capitalist economy and their economy boomed. However we are seeing cracks in that economy as the ‘quasi’ part is now making itself felt.
Yup. China appears to me to have adopted a Fascist political/ economic model. Private enterprise that steps to the tune of a totalitarian one party government. Many senior party officials enrich themselves on their command position over industry. They seek to improve the economy in order to tamp down the rage at their corruption and blatant abuse of power.
You pretty much nailed it. There isn’t much difference between today’s China and Nazi Germany, or even better Fascist Italy. All of them adopted a Fascist political/economic model, just as you say. China has just substituted Muslims for Jews.
Sweden’s government is not a socialist government. Even the Swedes will tell you that. The government doesn’t own the means of production, doesn’t own all the property, and they don’t ‘run’ the economy like socialist countries do.
Sweden is a welfare state, a big friggin’ difference from being a socialist state. It is also a welfare state that realizes it needs to change that model because they are finding it isn’t sustainable.
The government doesn’t run the economy, they just use regulations to tell everyone what to do.
Sweden is also better off because they didn’t fight in WW2. Instead they called themselves “neutral” (sic) and sold war supplies to both sides. They profited from the war, while everyone else either paid heavily to end it, and/or was devastated by the conflict.
US interference most certainly did NOT create the situation in Venezuela. What DID happen is the Socialists nationalized the oil industry, the cement industry, the steel industry, rice processing, and supermarkets. The socialists were NOT able to operate these assets because, well… Socialists are very stupid. In addition, because of the risk of further nationalizations, private investment dried up in Venezuela. No new businesses. No jobs. Would you invest if your assets would just get taken away? Well, YOU might, Isick, but intelligent people with money won’t invest.
The US embargo, not blockade, didn’t start until Venezuela stole those industries from the US companies that owned them.
Get woke, go broke….
So Izaak the moral of your story is –
“don’t flirt with communism if you don’t want stronger economies to pull the rug from under yours”?
Sounds like good advice to me.
Izaak Walton is an example of someone who will propose any kind of rot. Venezuela’s oil output was tanking long before meaningful US sanctions began in 2017. Please
He’s fully invested in the CO2 is going to kill us rot. Probably because in his “mind” socialism is the solution.
The Left would have us all living like Venezuela. I’ve been scouting the local zoo to figure out which animals to kill for food when we get to that point. Don’t go to the Caracas zoo, Izaak, It’s already been hunted out.
Apparently, Izaak has never heard of the Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary or Manifest Destiny. He acts as if its a big surprise when the US intervenes in policy shifts we don’t like when they occur anywhere in the western hemisphere.
You do insist on making some of the most ridiculous false arguments. Socialism has never worked anywhere it has been tried. The free market always works. Venezuela managed to screw itself up with no assistance from the US. You can’t keep blaming your failures on the US.
Or the FBI, CIA and DOJ will spy on a President 😉
Isaac, you really ought to read ‘Guide to the perfect Latin American Idiot’ in order to stop being one.
You better loosen those blinders because they have cut off the blood to your brain.
1) Embargo, not blockade. Even you aren’t stupid enough to not know the difference.
2) The US is the only country doing an embargo, every other country in the world is free to trade with Venezuela.
3) If you think Chile would have been better off under communism, then you are that stupid.
Yes, just like they claim US embargo of Cuba has “totally devastated” the brave little nation, but it doesn’t stop most of the rest of the world vacationing there, nor has it ever toppled the corrupt government. The self-inflicted embargo in California is doing more damage to the US than it did to Cuba, or Venezuela.
The price of oil over the last two years did more to hurt Venezuela than any economic blockade and socialist policies did the rest. I suppose you might say that the U.S. becoming oil independent promoted the falling oil prices.
There was never a blockade, economic or otherwise.
What really devastated their oil industry was typical socialist mismanagement. They took all of the profits from oil, and spent it on socialist programs to buy the votes of the poor. Oil production facilities have to be maintained. When you don’t do that, production falls off a cliff. Especially when you kick out the Capitalists who know how to keep things running and replace them with government cronies who are clueless.
Reminds me of Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Kicked all of the white farmers out of the country and gave the farms to his cronies, who couldn’t figure out which end of the cow you were supposed to feed.
Crop production immediately plummeted and now the country is starving.
The U.S. was buying oil from Venezuela for years while the economy slid into the ditch from gross mismanagement and corruption. It could be better argued that the U.S. kept Venezuela alive for many years. The gov’t of Venezuela stripped the state oil company of funds needed for reinvestment in order to buy votes with populist policies and exhorbitant pay for the generals so they wouldn’t join coups against the un-democratically elected gov’t. Them’s the facts, son. Populist, Socialist economic mismanagement. Examples all over the globe. It’s never worked once, anywhere!
Izaak,
Pick a country to move to: Venezuela or Chile.
I;ll help you pack.
BBC logic less than logical.
Inner city cafe gossip
Nothing works in Venezuela, so it’s hardly surprising that fossil fuel plants fail frequently there.
This is evidence against socialism, not fossil fuel power.
Mark, what I remember of Venezuela, amongst many other things, was when Chavez saw ‘some’ farmers doing really well and making a good living so he decided to nationalize all farming and pay all farmers alike. Farmer Y who was profitable and successful didn’t like this but continued to work his normal 18 hour days. After a while he realized that Farmer X along the road was only working 2 or 3 hours a day and receiving ‘exactly’ the same as he was getting. It didn’t take too long before all the hard working farmers decided to sit on their shovels for the majority of the day, and, lo-and-behold, a number of months later Supermarket shelves were empty! And people still fantasize about Socialism!!
Those who fantasize about socialism, are usually those who imagine themselves getting rich while no longer having to work.
Socialism has one major flaw that keeps it from succeeding: human nature. It always ignores human nature, or worse, figures it can change human nature. 400 years of experiments in socialism have proven it fails again and again, always because it ignores human nature.
Exactly. Humans are by nature a selfish animal (survival of the fittest) and socialism relies on a complete lack of selfishness. It will never work.
Capitalism and the free market are (currently) the best systems for accommodating that selfishness.
Humans are more complex than that. They care for others but in most cases not as much as themselves and their family or tribe. Myself, and most people I know give some money to charitable causes. Yet I believe my investments probably do more to improve the human condition (by providing opportunities for others which trickles down into more/better job opportunities). Capitalism = God working in mysterious ways.
Capitalism has more to do with efficiency than anything else. That’s why the same money in the hands of government is wasted. It is spent on political goals that have nothing to do with efficiency or productivity. Just short sighted apparent needs. In addressing needs they make no assessment of the underlying reason for that need. People who have done nothing for themselves for 30 years have needs and they vote so they get “help” to keep doing nothing.
Socialism/Communism are inherently coercive. They demand that humans change their nature. In this sense the philosophies are anti-human .It isn’t possible for them to work without using force to make people comply. that’s what makes them not just wrong but evil.
In the end, even that fails. Hence the old Stalinist joke: “we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”.
Amen to that. And what regimes in US glorify socialism? Barry and Brandon!
Venezuela proves what happens when the richest country, with abundant oil, in Latin America adopts socialism. I wonder if it hurts to be as stupid as the BBC? or is it painless? I’m guessing it’s painless to be that stupid.
Griff can confirm
Many a day,
The griffter smiles.
Ignorance is bliss!
It is just weather
Say not so wise skeptics
Greater rains still fall
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t.
You haven’t proven any of your claims.
So stupid that you do not understand that you are stupid.
Chaswarnertoo,
The griffter is in training right now. He’s trying to win the Dunning-Kruger Man-of-the-Year Award! The prize includes having your picture added at every scholarly citation of the DK Effect!
More rain actually *helps* crops. Most reins occur when cold fronts move in. This happens in spring after crops are already planted and actually need the sub-soil moisture to spur growth. If it also happens to rain during the summer dry season when crops are setting then you get higher yields. It’s only when it rains during harvest that problems with rain occurs but that’s also usually at the end of the summer dry season so doesn’t affect crops very often.
Why do come on here so often and do nothing but show your ignorance of the real world?
Well, sometimes it rains so much that you can’t get in the paddock to work it.
The timing of rain varies from place to place. Late spring/early summer rain is a bugger in northern NSW and southern Qld when cereal harvest is underway.
Come to think of it, growing seasons can be quite different as well. Our oats and wheat planting is in late autumn (April/May) but can be as late as early July in a pinch. It doesn’t snow, so winter rain kicks the young crop along nicely.
Based on the seasons listed above, the reference seems to have been to summer crops such as maize. That certainly makes a difference to when rain is useful or detrimental.
All things considered, a couple of wet years are certainly preferable to a couple of dry years.
With the farming techniques of today you don’t need much access into the fields after planting. Not much cultivation of growing crops is done like it used to be. Insecticide and fertilizer take care of needing access.
We grow lots of winter wheat here in Kansas. We like a covering of snow in the winter, it protects the wheat and provides subsoil moisture while it is growing. Once the ground unfreezes then spring rains help. Our harvests are in the fall here, August – October. That’s when a lot of rain hampers harvest. But we don’t get a lot of rain during that time either. Corn, milo, soybeans, sunflowers, etc. Usually get planted around the time of harvesting the winter wheat.
Wow, griffter!
You’re particularly active today! Did you get the Ritalin enhanced in your dose, or did you cut back on the downers?
The griff collective seems to have a new member.
No sense, no feeling.
Yes, if only they’d vote in a US proxy gov, then the economic sanctions can be lifted.
Prior to going communist, Cuba was the richest country in Latin America.
Argentina has a similar history.
Chile is now one of the richest countries in Latin America, and yet the usual suspects are still PO’d that they didn’t go communist when they had the chance.
True of Vernezuela back in the 1930’s as well. S. American populism is just another form of Socialism and just as devastating economically.
No Brain, no Pain
Is it complex, possibly multi-factorial, but does anyone have a good explanation why supposed grown-ups get together and, what seems to be passionately, think of some really good ways to spout shite and lie to their fellow humans ad nauseam?
I know they get paid for it, and probably with good salaries too but, beyond that, why?
Phil, The so-called grownups are only supposed. Most having missed the factual care with which you were raised, have been ‘educated’ to believe that the truth is instead little more than one’s fond wish conforming to the narrative of the day that lends some meaning to their lives. Former standards and testings have been jettisoned in favor of political correctness in the eyes of their handlers. Thus we have terrorized Gretas racing around ‘saving us all’ with extreme measures at our expense from the phantom of the hour and increasingly frustrated to find so many of the supposed grownups are actually self-interested hypocrites protected from the results of their favored policies.
There was once an acknowledged God who had identified His very Self with the truth that we could confidently steer by, but He’s much forgotten now and there are bound to be consequences. Also ignored are all the fossil fueled concentrated energies that initially built up (including the metal mining and the CO2 releasing cement production to solidly anchor them to the ground); currently maintain (including lubricate their metal bearings); and must some day provide for replacement (including of their worn composite plastic blades) of these supposedly self-sufficient ‘renewable’ energy resources to make them seem ‘cheaper’ than the those same traditional backup energy resources that must be standing by to fill in for any immediate deficiencies . . . or phttt — powerless; and even Venezuela won’t be able to save us.
It appears to work for some, Phil. Who heads up your state?
I think you left out the approval from the mob, and the protection from cancel culture. And of course, if you are at the top levels in WDC, you get invited to the best parties. Many formerly lukewarm “conservatives” find that social pressure in DC to be utterly seductive.
Or more likely, the blackouts prove socialist governance is no more reliable than BBC reporting.
Wow, that’s dangerously stupid about Venezuela.
Look at Izaak above, he’s convinced that had only the US not stopped trading with Venezuela, that country would now be a paradise on earth.
A corrupt government, socialized control of industries, and no investment in infrastructure have NOTING TO DO with the power outages in Venezuela. (“See the Wookiee..It makes no sense; it doesn’t fit; if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit. – The Chewbacca Defense Strategy)
Either the BBC is insanely stupid or they are completely corrupt…or maybe both.
The fact that Venezuela has ‘oodles of oil’ and blackouts is irrelevant to his argument as “most of Venezuela’s power comes from one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world” (Wiki).
Even if the executive director of the Durham Energy Institute incorrectly assumed Venezuela’s electricity came from burning oil he has a problem with logic.
Electricity from renewables without the necessary but non-existent storage or fossil fuel backup is inherently unreliable by its very nature.
All renewables (B) are unreliable (E) fossil fuels (M) can be unreliable if poorly managed:
The blackouts in Venezuela are due to electrical infrastructure, not generation!
The BBC are on their last legs, the extreme “woke” culture that infests this once great institution will bring it down.
Every now and again, I ask myself am I being too critical of the BBC? I stopped watching or listening to any of their output years ago. I literally will not have the BBC broadcasting in my house.
Then something as banal and pointless as this comes out from the BBC to remind me of just how pathetic they have become, and how right I am to simply ignore them. They now regard this form of juvenile listing of flawed reasoning as a scientific rebuttal of climate scepticism.
It doesn’t get much more pathetic than this woke effort from the BBC..
So: not watched any of the string of programmes on climate change on ITV lately?
You are correct, I do not watch any string of climate change programs.
He missed all the lies and propaganda, and you consider that to be a bad thing.
Well Venezuela is a poor example – should have used Texas last winter, where a failure in the natural gas system caused chaos.
Was that weather induced or climate induced griff?
Just curious.
Just imagine if Texas were powered by 100% wind. After the freeze they would have had about 5% capacity available and 90% of Texans would have frozen to death in the dark or left the state
As usual, there is no lie so venal that griff won’t repeat it ad infinitum.
The failure was in the ‘green’ power generation.
Gas, coal and nuclear all increased their output during the crisis, they just couldn’t increase enough to cover the near complete drop out of wind and solar, plus the additional load caused by the cold temperature.
Converting many homes from natural gas to heat pumps exacerbated the problem.
griffter,
That lie has already been debunked here several times!
Wait; don’t tell me that you still believe that Putin and the Russians stole the 2016 election! Whatever you’re using to alter your view of reality must be some really powerful $h!t!
Tis an Anal Sphincter
Ill informed, or lying? Always so hard to tell with Griff.
The Texas grid was not adequately prepared for the weather they experienced. Gas lines froze up, wind turbines froze up and solar is just generally useless anyway. Better protected gas lines is the only thing that could have made a difference. The wind and solar was bound to fail under those conditions regardless.
griff seems to feel that as long as wind and solar aren’t 100% at fault, then they aren’t at fault.
Plus the Greens had forced the power plants to convert the control of the gas lines from gas, which would have still worked, to electricity, which was unavailable. So then even the gas fired plants ended up nonfunctional. Stupid is as stupid does….
Apparently you think you know more about Texas than the people living in Texas.
There were supply problems with natural gas brought on by power companies not investing in local storage. Why invest in local gas storage when all the money in the form of subsidies is being funneled into wind and solar?
The big Elephant-in the-Room that green-power fanaticals try to bury is that almost 50% of wind turbines and much solar was unavailable at the beginning of the crisis (despite there being strong winds at that time). Once into the crisis the wind stopped blowing and many of the solar panels were covered in snow. So when the crisis was in full swing and people were desperately trying to find more power, wind power just…failed. There is no other word for it…it failed utterly and completely.
Meanwhile impacted fossil and nuclear power was quickly fixed and brought back online saving countless thousands of lives.
Had we spent all that wind-power money on reliable infrastructure, there never would have been a power crisis – PERIOD. But seeing as how we have structured payments to favor wind and solar over reliable power, we can count on this problem growing ever worse.
He’s a leftist, he’s convinced that 5 minutes of research is enough to become an expert in any subject.
To be fair, 5 minutes of research IS enough to make predictions as good as any that the “experts” make.
How do they, how can they, why do they, get away with confusing ‘oil‘ with ‘blackouts‘
When it comes to making electricity, the lack of same = ‘blackout”, oil usage is trivial to nil most everywhere round this world.
e.g. The UK has completely no ‘oodles of oil‘ so by their logic should be permanently black. But it is isn’t. yet.
There-in is The Real Problem with all of modern science journalism and its creators/propagators. Similar to the confusion of energy with temperature AND, get away with it.
But what is it ‘really’, how many words?
grandstanding, finger-wagging, guilt-inducing, virtue-signalling, sympathy (fake Empathy), buck-passing, mendacity, laziness, good intentions, self-aggrandizement or just plain old misanthropy (mistrust leading to hatred of everyone else)
i.e. Making your self feel better at everyone else’s expense
(describes most every ‘big’ thing don’t it, climate, health/medicine & politics not least)
Thus: why
So what did Venezuela actually do to deserve such a hit-piece? Why this random attack based on a false premise?
By the mouth-piece of UK Government not least……
Cue: wicked evil grin – they’ve got their eyes on Venezuela’s oil haven’t they
The most egregious of the BBC propagandist fact-checking is undoubtably the Venezuela item because
1) Fossil fuels are not a major provider of electricity generation in Venezuela.
2) The socialist administrations are hopelessly corrrupt and inept.
The aforementioned problems are exacerbated by Venezuela’s near-complete reliance on hydropower from just one dam. The Guri Dam located in the eastern state of Bolívar accounts for 80% of the country’s electricity production and its systems are woefully neglected. The dam currently operates at a capacity considered unsustainable, “jeopardizing the machine room in the case of a flood,” according to experts. In a region where flooding is common, this is cause for concern.
Whereas other countries that rely heavily on hydroelectric power like Brazil and China have made large investments into other forms of energy, Venezuela’s ability to shift away from hydropower is crippled by underfunding, a lack of engineering power from within the country and corruption.
Corpoelec has stagnated progress as well. The company, “paid millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to political connections,” to maintain its dominance. Projects to build new dams and other forms of electricity production like thermal or wind have routinely been stalled due to a lack of funding and inadequate staffing.
Blackouts: The Issue of Electricity in Venezuela – The Borgen Project
My irony alarm just exploded…
The notion that more rainfall resulting from warming will harm agricultural production is preposterous! Obviously no farmers contributed to that mindless assertion.
More rainfall always means more total biomass production. Is it possible to get too much rainfall? In particular places at particular times under extremely variable weather conditions – not climate – sure you can get too much rain, just as you can get too little rain. That’s why farming has always, I repeat always, been subjected to normal variations in crop production. If you’re growing wheat, and you get too much rain just prior to harvest when the grain stalks are drying and browning – ie ripening – that will reduce the yield. But get more rain during the green growing season and that boosts production.
But overall, more rain means more green. Duh!!! Anybody over the age of five understands that.
What do you need farmers for? Don’t you know you just “dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn” so sayeth former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
One of the most ignorant statements ever uttered. Proving SCott Adams statement that all of us are somewhat idiot-savants. Bloomberg smart enough to make billions, but so stupid as ro make that comment.
Sorry to disappoint you all about the BBC, for you must remember that George Orwell based his Ministry of Information on the BBC…..
I will say, that BBC article is completely full of that super special smugness one expects to see, especially just before an impressive burst of irony.
“ Venezuela has oodles of oil and frequent blackouts“.
Yup, oodles of oil they can’t extract, can’t refine, and a power grid that has been poorly maintained. It has nothing to do with their ‘oodles of oil” and everything to do with their unreliable power grid. It wouldn’t matter how they generate their electricity if the means of getting it where it needs to go is breaking down.
It’s not an ‘oil’ thing. It’s an ‘infrastructure’ thing, period.
DCE,
More than just infrastructure; they have a government full of Marxists who don’t know how anything works!
The average Marxist has about as much expertise as your average climate alarmist; they don’t know shit about creating, building or maintaining ANYTHING!!
You probably have to go back to the early 80s to say when the BBC was last a respected broadcaster. It has submerged itself under a cloak of leftwing drivel ever since and should be defunded by not buying a licence.
more evidence that nothing is so reliable that socialism can’t screw it up
BBC Panorama: Spaghetti grows on trees.
BBC Reality Check: Some posts have ridiculed this claim. However, it is totally correct. How do we know it is correct? We say it is correct. Ergo, it is correct. Also, Professor Emeritus Sir Kenneth Dodd OBE, KBE, OPEC of the prestigious University of Knotty Ash has shown that it is correct. And he was tickled to tell the BBC it was so.
You do know the ‘Spaghetti growing on trees’ was a famous april fools prank, don’t you? Back when the BBC actually had a sense of humour.
What happens if Socialism wins in Sahara?
Not much for a couple years, but then they run out of sand.
🙂
It’s easy to make false claims when there is no opposing voice. Sort of like Newton’s first law of motion. Or perhaps the BBC is dithering it’s message.
“That’s not nearly enough to offset human activity, which has already warmed the planet by about 1.2C over the past 200 years and will continue to rise, possibly topping 2.4C by the end of the century.”
So what was causing warming 200 years ago? There wasn’t any CO2 production to speak of, actually proving their CO2 narrative as a lie. And “possibly topping…”? Or possibly NOT topping at that. Or, POSSIBLY not going much higher than it is now. I could say possibly about anything. Idiots! Keep your indoctrinated fear mongering to yourselves and stick to facts.
Venezuela is their case study? No, blackouts in Venezuela prove socialism is no more reliable than free-market capitalism.
“socialism is no more reliable than free-market capitalism”
I suggest you go live in Chile for a month, and then live in Venezuela for a month, and then get back to us…..
“There was a time the BBC would never have published such half baked nonsense, they would have delved into the detail of their own claims… in the interests of maintaining the BBC’s high standards of journalistic integrity… those days of dedicated objectivity are long gone.”
Ditto PBS.
The corrupt media machine can rant all it wants, but reality has finally surfaced. It’s over. These guys have destroyed the climate change boondoggle. They show convincingly that almost all of the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere follows from increased natural emission.
https://scc.klimarealistene.com/2021/10/new-papers-on-control-of-atmospheric-co2/
Similar is shown here, based on the UN’s own estimates of carbon.
https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/the-worlds-most-costly-scientific-error/
The new research pulls the carpet out from under the UN. It explains why CO2 didn’t flinch during the global COVID lockdown, even though human emissions dropped sharply.
It’s the government, not the fuel, Who is actually this ignorant.
BBC = Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation
Let’s go Brandon….
I gave up watching the BBC years ago. I don’t even have a TV licence.
That’s always got me – you need to get government permission to own a television?