The Week That Was: 2022-03-05 (March 5, 2022)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Nature is a source of truth. Experience does not ever err, it is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments.” — Leonardo da Vinci
Number of the Week: Over 2700 degrees Celsius!” [4992 F]
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: This TWTW will begin with a brief discussion of the assurances that the USA, the UK, and the Russian Federation gave to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine and how Putin has tested the US assurances under different US administrations.
Then, it will discuss the poor timing of the latest attack on the use of fossil fuels by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It will go into the shoddy science used by the UN IPCC which approaches absurdity. It will discuss the work of Roger Pielke, Jr., who believes the IPCC is necessary. TWTW will explain why it believes the IPCC is no longer needed.
TWTW will present critical views on the State of the Union message by President Biden, especially its continued attacks on the fossil fuel industry based on the shoddy science of the UN IPCC and its followers.
TWTW will discuss the alternative approach used by van Wijngaarden and Happer (W & H) for understanding the greenhouse effect and compare that to the approach undertaken by the UN IPCC and climate modelers, especially comparing the views of Happer with those of David Karoly, Professor of Atmospheric Science in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, in Australia. Also, TWTW will briefly discuss another paper using the W & H approach, which arrived at somewhat different results and offer a possible explanation.
TWTW will discuss a new paper by Edward Calabrese and Paul Selby explaining the development of statistical techniques misused by government agencies to falsely claim a need for government regulation. The paper explains that US government scientists suppressed evidence contradicting the use of the Linear-No-Threshold model (LNT), popular with the EPA.
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RIP: Admiral Thomas Bibb Hayward (May 3, 1924 – March 3, 2022) was Chief of Naval Operations for the United States Navy from July 1, 1978, until June 30, 1982, after which he retired from military service. A man of exceptional intelligence and curiosity, he spent much of his retirement in education and helped co-found companies focused on reading and math education at all levels. He asked perceptive questions regarding global warming and its effects and coauthored a solid book, Climate Change, Energy Policy, and National Power, published by The Heartland Institute. He will be missed.
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A Scrap of Paper? Writing in the Wall Street Journal two US authors involved with national and international security and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons bring attention to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, a 1994 agreement among the Russian Federation, the United States, and the UK to assure the sovereignty of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to give up their nuclear weapons left over after the implosion of the Soviet Union. At the time Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. The Clinton / Gore administration persuaded Ukraine to accept the agreement.
In 2014 Putin tested the willingness of the US to honor the agreement by seizing Crimea, in clear violation of Ukraine sovereignty. The Obama / Biden administration did nothing but impose economic sanctions. Immediately after taking office in 2021, the Biden / Harris administration removed the remaining sanctions on the expansion of the Russian natural gas pipeline into central Europe, Germany. The authors of the article “The Lesson of Budapest? Hold On to Your Nuclear Weapons” conclude:
“Until this week, only two countries since 1945 had faced an attack quite like Russia’s against Ukraine today—that is, an attack aimed at the total eradication of their national sovereignty. Kuwait was saved by prompt, American-led international action against Iraq in 1991. Israel has saved itself from extinction numerous times.
“Now Ukraine is locked in a battle for its existence. Mr. Putin has repeatedly declared that Ukraine is not a state, and he insists on surrender terms that would leave the country as nothing more than an appendage to his regime. Because Mr. Putin’s forces have failed to achieve the quick and easy win in Ukraine that he expected, he hints at nuclear escalation.
“Whatever the endgame, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sends a powerful signal to all countries with unrealized nuclear ambitions: If you abandon your nuclear program and entrust your security to formal guarantees and conventional deterrence, you gamble with your future. If you give up your nukes, you give up your national security ace-in-the-hole. The U.S. and its allies have an enormous responsibility to get this new security challenge right.”
See Article # 1 and links under Questioning the Orthodoxy.
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Signifying Nothing? The timing of the UN IPCC second grand announcement of the imagined dangers of carbon dioxide-caused global warming was poor. The first grand announcement was the report of Working Group I, the Physical Science Basis, published in April 2021. As expressed in TWTW and by others, the Summary for Policymakers of that report contained the false claim that climate had been stable for 2000 years, until the Industrial Revolution. This was based on scattered bits and pieces of evidence that showed no continuity, no consistency in measurement. As shown by statistician Stephen McIntyre, there was no effort to establish a standardization period whereby different types of evidence have the same basis to justifying extrapolation, drawing conclusions that the trends continue. At best, the work is hyperbole, extreme exaggeration.
Now we have the report of Working Group II, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Perhaps Terence Corcoran writing in the Canadian Financial Post expresses the timing of this report best:
“There can be no greater demonstration of the massive failure — and the paralyzing contradictions and disconnect — revealed this week between two branches of the United Nations that allegedly serve to protect and assure peace and prosperity around the world. One branch is the United Nations Security Council, allegedly dedicated to international peace and security. The other UN operation is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was created to ‘provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options.’
“As Vladimir Putin dropped bombs on Ukraine and invaded its cities, the UN Security Council, along with the UN General Assembly, sank into paralysis and debate, unprepared and unwilling or simply incapable of rousing serious opposition to the Russian military operation. On Monday, the UNIPCC delivered its latest report, ‘Climate Change 2022,’ subtitled ‘Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability.’ A monumental 3,675-page document packed with incomprehensible science and meaningless geopolitical jargon, the report in effect outlines how the global fixation on climate policy and net zero carbon targets laid the groundwork for Putin’s move to invade Ukraine.
“The split UN personality was personified on Monday by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said the IPCC report demonstrated that ‘As climate impacts worsen — and they will — scaling up investments will be essential for survival … Delay means death.’ Then, on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Guterres said ‘civilian deaths’ were totally unacceptable. ‘It must stop now.’
“But Guterres’s warnings fail to acknowledge the climate/invasion links. Without the UN-led climate crusade, it is highly unlikely Putin would have been in a position to launch Ukraine invasion.
“The IPCC, along with political leaders and activists everywhere, portrayed the 21st century war on carbon to be a do-gooding crusade that aims to avoid what they refer to as ‘risks’ associated with climate change. What the UN climate warriors failed to appreciate were the real-world risks associated with political actors who controlled the governments that were being enlisted in the seemingly benign business of protecting the world from climate disaster. Putin, after all, had committed to net zero by 2060.
“The opening chapter of the new report, a ‘Summary for Policymakers,’ starts with a fleeting mention of risks and warning of ‘violent conflict’ over climate issues, but no mention of inter-state military invasions or conflict. Instead, it baffles its way through a claim that the IPCC ‘recognizes the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies and integrates knowledge more strongly across the natural, ecological, social and economic sciences than earlier IPCC assessments. The assessment of climate change impacts and risks as well as adaptation is set against concurrently unfolding non-climatic global trends e.g., biodiversity loss, overall unsustainable consumption of natural resources, land and ecosystem degradation, rapid urbanization, human demographic shifts, social and economic inequalities and a pandemic.’
“No mention of possible invasions or military attacks. The language is classic UN climate geobabble. The report goes on to state that ‘the subject of risk is central’ to the IPCC report, which ‘recognizes the value of diverse forms of knowledge such as scientific, as well as Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge in understanding and evaluating climate adaptation processes and actions to reduce risks from human-induced climate change.’
“The prospect of ‘violent conflict’ is noted 55 times over the 3,675-page IPCC report, including a warning that ‘climate change may increase susceptibility to violent conflict, primarily intrastate conflicts, by strengthening climate-sensitive drivers of conflict.’ Mostly, the IPCC sees violent conflict as something that could occur in regions where climate change may provoke local populations to react to floods, fires, and extreme weather.”
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Defending the Orthodoxy and Questioning the Orthodoxy.
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More Hyperbole: Roger Pielke Jr. mounts a spirited defense for the need for the UN IPCC. But even he writes in his blog:
“The reliance on implausible scenarios is all the more baffling because these issues have long been aired in the IPCC community. For instance, a 2016 paper from a leading scenario expert warned presciently that the lack of realistic scenarios for where the world is actually heading meant that, “it will be difficult to draw overarching conclusions from mitigation and impacts research in IPCCs 6th Assessment Report.” That has proven correct. So far, the IPCC has largely ignored the issues associated with its reliance on outdated, implausible scenarios, which fundamentally damages the credibility of its work.”
“That is extremely unfortunate and a reflection of the failure of the IPCC to hold itself to its own high standards. That means playing things straight, leaving mitigation to WG3 where it belongs and avoiding the temptation to use the report for advocacy rather than assessment.”
In short, the product of Working Group II is hyperbole built on hyperbole. The philosophical question is when does such hyperbole become a lie? See links under Defending the Orthodoxy and Questioning the Orthodoxy
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State of the Union: During these events President Biden spoke to the American people in the annual State of the Union Address (SOTU). He offered to do little more to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine than the Obama / Biden administration did to stop the Russian invasion of Crimea. In his blog, The Manhattan Contrarian, Francis Menton writes:
“Thankfully, Biden did not spend much of his SOTU promoting his “climate” agenda. But he did include this whopper:
“’[L]et’s cut energy costs for families an average of $500 a year by combatting climate change.’
“Huh? I don’t think it’s even meaningful to apply the term ‘lie’ to a statement this preposterous and unhinged. Multiple people have carefully explained how the intermittency of wind and solar generation impose gigantic costs as the penetration of renewable generation increases on an electrical grid. I have contributed many posts on this subject myself. These posts are based on the simple arithmetic of attempting to balance the intermittency of wind and solar generation using only batteries or other storage. No one has ever provided any refutation to the calculations. The best that can be said for Biden and his speechwriters is that they have no idea what they are talking about.”
In short, Mr. Biden is addressing the hyperbole used by the UN by falsely claiming wind and solar power can provide reliable, affordable electricity – another hyperbole.
Menton points out that during the Obama / Biden administration, Vice President Biden was placed in charge of conducting research to find out why forty-seven job training programs were not working. His solution was another job training program. Now, President Biden stated he will expand job training programs. See links under Change in US Administrations.
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A Virtual Debate: On his website, Ron Clutz posted “Dr. Happer’s Advice from Global Warming Dialogue.” Most of the points have been emphasized in TWTW. A point not previously emphasized is Happer’s belief that advocacy by scientists leads to corruption of science. We have seen that with the IPCC and are seeing it with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) where the modelers are not testing the results of their models against the best physical evidence of trends in the atmosphere. Testing assumptions is different from testing results.
An earlier civil interchange between Happer and David Karoly conducted by The Best Schools in their Civil Global Warming Dialogue has been lost, but it has been somewhat reconstructed by Clutz and Andy May on their websites, using an interview of David Karoly. The exchange is dated but a few points by Karoly stand out:
“However, this question suggests that the climate models are based on empirical data, like economic models. That is wrong. Climate models are based on the mathematical solutions of the predictive equations representing the physical processes that determine the behavior of the climate system, the atmosphere, the ocean, the land surface, and the cryosphere (ice), and the interactions between them. This includes the equations of motion, conservation of energy, conservation of mass, conservation of momentum, and the laws of thermodynamics. These models are used for weather prediction, as well as for simulating the climate. Their performance is evaluated routinely in terms of how well they predict the weather and how well they simulate the mean climate and its variability. Observational data is key to evaluating the performance of the models, but it is not fed into them like empirical models. (p 13)
“Now, let me address these two issues: the weakness of the signal and the difficulty of reliably measuring and combining data from the oceans, and from rural, urban, and remote land areas. It is framed around temperature observations, so I will restrict my answer to them. The answer would be somewhat different for observations of other variables, such as rainfall, or clouds, or wind speed and direction.
“As stated already in my answer of the predictability of the climate system, we have to consider the forced response (the signal) to the internal variability (the noise): the variations in space and time. The internal variability is much smaller at global scales than at a single location or a small region and smaller at decadal timescales than for a single year.” [Boldface added]
After several paragraphs, Karoly gets to a real problem:
“Several different Centers in the US, the UK, and Japan routinely collect observational data and combine it to estimate global temperature variations. Slightly different methods are used at each of these centers to combine these data and to allow for changes in spatial coverage and areas with limited or no observations.
“The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently released the latest estimates of the global average temperature for 2015 from three centers — NASA and NOAA in the US, and the UK Met Office, as shown below — and compared it with variations over the period since 1850.” (p 14) [Boldface added]
NOAA and NASA have altered their data with no record of what they have done. The major issue is what is occurring in the atmosphere with additional greenhouse gases, not what is occurring on the surface, which is subject to natural and other human influences such as urbanization.
On pages 37 & 38 Karoly cites Merchants of Doubt to accuse climate skeptics of bullying climate scientists. That book does not present physical evidence supporting its outrageous claims. Instead, it skillfully alludes to physical evidence that does not exist.
In sum, the advocates of dangerous carbon dioxide caused-global warming ignore the physical evidence from forty years of advances in atmospheric research using satellites. The science is out of date. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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A Different Approach: On WUWT, David Cole posted the results of his research using HITRAN, the same database as used by van Wijngaarden and Happer (W & H). However, Cole et al. have a somewhat different approach than W & H and they do not fully explain their calculations. According the abstract:
“From this data it is concluded that H2O is responsible for 29.4K of the 33K warming, with CO2 contributing 3.3K…”
Cole attributes about 10% of the current greenhouse effect to carbon dioxide, while W & H and Howard Hayden attribute about 20%. Compared to the claims of the UN IPCC, the difference is not huge, but an explanation of possible differences is needed.
The W & H calculations use calculus covering the entire spectrum of outgoing infrared radiation. The calculations are based on cloudless skies, yielding the maximum greenhouse effect. Also, the calculations are checked against physical evidence obtained by satellite observations over Guam, Tropical regions; Sahara, Desert regions; Mediterranean, Temperate regions; and Antarctica, Polar regions.
In what TWTW reviewed, there is no indication of Cole testing the results of his model against physical evidence. This week, TWTW should start posting on the SEPP website the essays by Howard Hayden, which are an extension of the work by W & H. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Statistical Fanaticism? The Linear-No-Threshold model (LNT) can be used to claim that since drinking too much water at one time can kill a person, drinking a thimble full of pure water can kill someone. It was used to destroy the white asbestos industry, which provided useful fire retardants. There are different types of asbestos with different physical properties. Certain types were definitely harmful to health, causing respiratory diseases. To the knowledge of TWTW, white asbestos, the main one mined in North America, was never shown to be harmful. But statistical fanatics applied the LNT model to all types of asbestos, regardless of physical properties.
In “Cover up and cancer risk assessment: Prominent US scientists suppressed evidence to promote adoption of LNT” Calabrese and Selby trace covering up of a major study:
“large-scale lifetime study from 1956 to 1959 showing that exposure of young adult male mice to a large dose of acute X-rays had no treatment effects on male and female offspring concerning longevity or the frequency, severity, or age distribution of neoplasms and other diseases. Despite the scientific, societal, and crucial timing significance of the study, [the researcher] Russell did not publish the findings for almost 35 years, nor did he inform governmental advisory committees, thereby significantly biasing decisions made during this period which supported the adoption of LNT for risk assessment. Of further significance, Arthur Upton, an ORNL colleague of Russell during this study and later Director of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), was also fully knowledgeable of this study, its findings, and its negative impact on the acceptance of LNT. Upton later worked along with Russell to publish these data (i.e., Cosgrove et al., 1993) to dispute the case-specific claim that children developed cancer because of the radiation exposure of their fathers as workers at the Sellafield nuclear plant. Thus, while Russell’s data were available, but were not used to challenge the key radiation and leukemia paper of Edward B. Lewis, (1957) when LNT was being adopted by regulatory agencies, they were used in a major trial in the United Kingdom (UK) for the client (i.e., British Nuclear Fuels Plc) that hired Upton. While the duplicity of Russell’s and Upton’s actions is striking, the key finding of the present paper is that Russell and Upton intentionally orchestrated and sustained an LNT cover up during the key period of LNT adoption by regulatory agencies, thereby showing an overwhelming bias to enhance the adoption of LNT.”
Perhaps climate modelers who ignore modern atmospheric measurements are following the same procedure that proved successful before. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Number of the Week: Over 2700 degrees Celsius! [4992 F]. Eric Worrall writes in WUWT:
“According to data provided to Australian firefighting services, these burning batteries reach temperatures of more than 2700 degrees Celsius!” [4992 F]
TWTW did not confirm the source of this data. But the batteries in electric vehicles burn hot. For comparison: Aluminum melts at 1,221°F (660°C); Iron 2,800°F (1,538°C); Magnesium 1,202°F (650°C); Zinc 787°F (420°C); Silicon 2,577°F (1,414°C). The highest melting point for a metal is Tungsten with 6188°F (3420 °C). The cargo ship, Felicity Ace, carrying about four thousand cars under various Volkswagen group brands sank about 90 miles south of the Azores while being towed. How many were electric vehicles has not been reported. It is doubtful that what started the fire will ever be known, but photos showed there was extensive melting of the hull. No wonder airlines are careful about batteries in the luggage they carry. See links under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Censorship
Is Instagram afraid of truth?
By Rachel Kennedy, American Thinker, Feb 24, 2022
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
Dr. Happer’s Advice from Global Warming Dialogue
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Mar 3, 2022
Attributing global warming to humans
By Andy May, WUWT, Mar 3, 2022
The Great Climate Change Debate – Karoly vs Happer
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 2, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Additional comments on the above two posts.]
Why Blaming Recent Warming on Humans is Largely a Matter of Faith
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Mar 3, 2022
“But climate scientists simply assume that the climate system has been in perfect, long-term harmonious balance, if not for humans. This is a pervasive, quasi-religious assumption of the Earth science community for as long as I can remember.”
Terence Corcoran: Putin blows up NetZero and the green reset
Massive failure of two branches of the United Nations
By Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, Canada, Mar 02, 2022
Climate Change, an Emergency, or Not?
The Impact of CO2, H2O and Other “Greenhouse Gases” on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures
By David Coe, WUWT, Feb 26, 2022
Link to paper: The Impact of CO2, H2O and Other “Greenhouse Gases” on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures
By David Coe, International Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Aug 23, 2021
http://www.ijaos.org/article/298/10.11648.j.ijaos.20210502.12
There were Bigger Floods and Rain-bombs in the 1800’s
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 4, 2022
“One day when the ABC finally gets the Internet they’ll be able to find official pages like “Known Floods in the Brisbane and Bremer River Basin. And one day the half billion-dollar BOM agency will be able to update graphs like this within a week of a new flood peak, like bloggers did (above).”
By Edward J Calabrese & Paul B Selby, Pub Med, Feb 17, 2022
Defending the Orthodoxy
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
The Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report assesses the impacts of climate change, looking at ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities at global and regional levels. It also reviews vulnerabilities and the capacities and limits of the natural world and human societies to adapt to climate change.
Summary for Policymakers, SAPM-2, Feb 27, 2022
Figures:
Technical Summary
Full Report
A Rapidly Closing Window to Secure a Liveable Future
The IPCC goes all in with implausible scenarios and political exhortation
By Roger Pielke Jr. The Honest Broker Newsletter, Mar 2, 2022
Five takeaways from the UN’s climate report
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Feb 28, 2022
Humanity faces ‘grave and mounting threat’ of climate change — unless we act, IPCC report reveals
By Mindy Weisbergr, Live Science, Feb, 28. 2022
In-depth Q&A: The IPCC’s sixth assessment on how climate change impacts the world
By Multiple Authors, Carbon Brief, Feb 28, 2022
From the Africa section
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Are We Doomed?
Editorial, The BreakThrough Weekly, No Date
The green dream goes lethal
Through its obsession with “climate change,” the west handed Putin his greatest weapon
By Melanie Phillips, Her Blog, Feb 23, 2022
UN Climate Report: Send Money, “Delay Means Death”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 28, 2022
It’s hard to look away
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Mar 2, 2022
“But we in turn remind you that the whole “yaaaaaah we’re all gonna fry” scare is essentially over temperatures having risen 1.1°C since the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister of Great Britain, and threatening to rise by another 0.4°C or, possibly, 0.9°C depending who you ask.”
A new assessment of extreme weather trends: extreme rainfall
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Mar 2, 2022
“Most places exhibit no trend, and in the specific locations with trends there are typically more exhibiting an increase than a decrease.”
A Flooded Condition
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Feb 27, 2022
Video
Energy and Environmental Review: February 28, 2022
By John Droz, Jr., Via Master Resource, Feb 28, 2022
The Delusional SOTU
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Mar 3, 2022
The climate crisis disappearing act
By Benjamin Zycher, AEIdeas, Mar 2, 2022
The climate crisis disappearing act | American Enterprise Institute – AEI
White House knocks down talk of banning Russian oil imports
By Brett Samuels, The Hill, Mar 3, 2022
White House Hosts Roundtable Focusing on Climate Denialism
By Nicole Wells, Newsmax, Feb 25, 2022
Elon Musk: US needs to increase oil, gas production ‘immediately’
By Caroline Vakil, The Hill, Mar 5, 2022
No Energy Realism In Bidenland
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Feb 28, 2022
Biden Recycling The Same Lies From 14 Years Ago
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 3, 2022
Biden Continues To Flip-Flop On Crude Oil Policies – OpEd
By Ronald Stein, Eurasia Review, Feb 28, 2022
Biden’s green agenda becoming casualty of Russia’s Ukraine invasion
Putin forcing him into ‘no easy’ pivot
By Susan Crabtree, WND News Services, Feb 28, 2022
John Kerry: Putin’s Useful Climate Idiot
By Rupert Darwall, Real Clear Energy, March 03, 2022
“Despite Kerry’s claim about the thawing of their frozen north, Russians’ indifference to climate change predates Putin’s rise to power. During preparation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) first assessment report in 1990, Soviet scientists argued that warming might be beneficial at northern latitudes. Yuri Izrael, the Soviet academician and chair of the IPCC’s working group examining potential impacts of global warming, emphasized the doubt and uncertainty of climate change and disputed claims that it would be harmful.”
Nord Stream 2: Biden waives US sanctions on Russian pipeline
By Staff, BBC News, 20 May 2021
Nord Stream 0
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Mar 2, 2022
“The Biden administration had been intermittently opposed to Nord Stream 2. But not as fiercely and decisively as it was to Keystone XL to bring Canadian oil to the U.S.”
Psaki pushes renewable energy to stop dependence on foreign oil instead of increasing US production
Comments come as fears that energy prices could continue to rise amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
By Michael Lee, Fox Business, Feb 27, 2022
Link to Forbes article: Russia Is United States’ Top Source Of Imported Gasoline
By Ken Roberts, Forbes, Feb 24, 2022
White House eyes reducing Russian oil imports
By Morgan Chalfant, The Hill, Mar 4, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Without doing anything meaningful.]
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
2 More New Studies Affirm CO2 Will Continue Greening (And Thus Cooling) The Planet Through 2100
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Feb 28, 2022
Link to latest paper: Vegetation-based climate mitigation in a warmer and greener World
By Ramdane Alkama, et al. Nature Communications, Feb 1, 2022
From the abstract: Results show that by 2100, under high-emission scenario, greening will likely mitigate land warming by 0.71 ± 0.40 °C, and 83% of such effect (0.59 ± 0.41 °C) is driven by the increase in plant carbon sequestration, while the remaining cooling (0.12 ± 0.05 °C) is due to biophysical land-atmosphere interactions.
Problems in the Orthodoxy
NYT Tiptoes Toward Energy Reality (“this debate is changing”)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Mar 4, 2022
Seeking a Common Ground
How we have mischaracterized climate risk
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Feb 19, 2022
“Moralizing surrounding the issue of climate change has regarded the climate change problem as a simple, righteous values choice: Are you for the planet or against it? This moralizing neglects to understand that people engage in activities which are of value to them that happen to emit carbon as a byproduct. Further, this narrow moralizing systematically excludes important ethical values, such as improving the lives of the billion people presently living in unacceptable poverty or protecting other aspects of the environment.”
Putin’s miscalculation
The president has misread not only Ukrainians, but also Russians.
By Zoya Sheftalovich, Politico, Feb 26, 2022
“Or, to put it another way: How do you control a country of 44 million Ukrainians who suddenly have something to believe in? And how do you keep your own people on board?”
War in Ukraine: We Need to Talk About Fossil Fuels The E.U.’s dependence on Russian oil and gas greatly complicates the current conflagration
By Vaclav Smil, IEEE Spectrum, Feb 28, 2022
“This will be harder and more painful than most people realize. Economically punishing Russia is difficult to do, for a variety of reasons. One is that the road to new energy realities in Europe will be long, rough, and twisty. Russia’s energy resources are enormous and Europe’s dependence on them is deep and pervasive. Rapid severing of Europe’s Russian supplies would create an unprecedented economic and existential emergency on the continent.”
Ukraine-climate nexus
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Mar 2, 2022
How to think about thinking
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Mar 2, 2022
“Or that modern economies were too entwined to fight, a theory which failed in 2022 for the same reasons it failed in 1914 but with less excuse.”
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Ukraine And Energy Realism
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Feb 26, 2022
US, allies to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Mar 1, 2022
[SEPP Comment: A political emergency caused by inane political policies.]
Biden and Europe Should Respond to Russian Aggression by Scrapping Extremist Climate Policies
By H. Sterling Burnett, Townhall, Feb 25, 2022
Measurement Issues — Surface
Australia’s Broken Temperature Record, Part 3
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Mar 3, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Keeping it low enough to prevent it from exceeding the dreaded “tipping point.”]
The sunburnt lands up north: Cambridge Bay
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Mar 2, 2022
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH Global Temperature Update for February 2022: 0.00 deg. C
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Mar 1, 2022
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2022/03/uah-global-temperature-update-for-february-2022-0-00-deg-c/
“The linear warming trend since January 1979 still stands at +0.13 C/decade (+0.12 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.18 C/decade over global-averaged land).”
Global Temperature Report
By Staff, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Feh 2022
Map: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2022/February2022/202202_Map.png
Graph: https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2022/February2022/202202_Bar.png
Changing Weather
Where Can You Secure the Most Skillful Weather Forecast? And a Sunny, Dry Weekend Ahead.
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Mar 4, 2022
Podcast
Brisbane Flooding, Again
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Feb 27, 2022
The devastating floods of Brisbane in 1893
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 3, 2022
“An incredible 907mm or 35.7 inches of rain fell in a single 24 hour period. That was at Crohamhurst on the Sunshine Coast. If that isn’t a rain-bomb, what is?”
Some Remarkable Precipitation Totals Around the Region
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Mar 1, 2022
“Our atmospheric river event is over, but the effects–from flooding and avalanches to landslides–are not.”
Drought, famine are Ethiopia’s worst ever ‘enemy’, says PM
By AFP Staff Writers, Nairobi (AFP), Feb 25, 2022
“’There has never been an enemy in history that has tested us as much as drought and starvation that recurs every 10 years,’ Abiy said in a statement posted on Facebook and Twitter.” [Boldface added.]
Are Our Winters Getting Warmer?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 2, 2022
March 2, 1906, Tornado
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 4, 2022
The Reason Why Floods Are So Bad–And It’s Not Climate Change!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 4, 2022
“A remarkably astute analysis of why floods these days are so bad, written by people who understand their river systems.
“But it is astonishing that they too have fallen for the climate change nonsense:”
Changing Climate
Increasing Cold Extremes Worldwide: Is Global Cooling on the way?
By Madhav Khandekar and Ray Garett, Via ICECAP, Mar 2, 2022
Changing Seas
Misinformation about Sea Level Rise
There are few environmental issues with more unsupported claims than the effects of global warming on sea-level rise.
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Mar 3, 2022
Media’s Recent Sea Level Rise Claims Fall Short – The Data Doesn’t Support It
By Anthony Watts, Climate Realism, Feb 21, 2022
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Greenland’s Melting Ice Is No Cause for Climate-Change Panic–Steve Koonin
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 28, 2022
“There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Greenland will get significantly warmer anytime soon. Indeed the opposite appears likely.
“Historically, the Greenland icecap has been smaller than now for most of the Holocene, so the current situation is not in anyway unusual.”
New Study: Alpine Glaciers Were Smaller Than Today For 7,400 Of The Last 10,000 Years
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Mar 3, 2022
Link to paper: Glacier response to Holocene warmth inferred from in situ 10Be and 14C bedrock analyses in Steingletscher’s forefield (central Swiss Alps)
By Irene Schimmelpfennig, et al. Climate of the Past, Jan 14, 2022
“These findings agree with existing Holocene glacier chronologies and proxy records of summer temperatures in the Alps, suggesting that glaciers throughout the region were similar to or even smaller than their 2000 CE extent for most of the early and mid-Holocene.”
State of the Polar Bear 2021: polar bears continued to thrive
By Susan Crockfored, Polar Bear Science, Feb 26, 2022
Link to report: State of the Polar Bear 2021:
By Susan Crockford, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 2022
“Reports that polar bears seem to be moving from Alaska to Russia in a ‘mass exodus’ may describe a real phenomenon that reflects the excellent feeding conditions for bears in the Chukchi Sea compared to Alaska, fueled by continued increases in primary productivity across the Arctic.”
Changing Earth
Sinking Sea Level Alarmism: Study By Nevada Scientists Show Surface Motion of Continents “On Average Upward”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 27, 2022
Lowering Standards
OECD Climate Plan: Freeze in the Dark until the Green Revolution
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Mar 5, 2022
Link to plan: How Europe can cut natural gas imports from Russia significantly within a year
By Staff, International Energy Administration (IEA), Mar 3, 2022
IEA provides 10-Point Plan to European Union for reducing reliance on Russian supplies by over a third while supporting European Green Deal, with emergency options to go further
[SEPP Comment: Replace reliable electricity generation from natural with unreliable wind and solar – genius!]
The bleakest assessment yet of climate change risk-Met Office
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 28, 2022
”It’s worse than we thought!!
“Now where have we heard that before?”
Worse Than The BBC Thought
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 3, 2022
Video Showing false predictions from the IPCC and BBC.
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Countries commit to develop legally binding plastics agreement
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Mar 2, 2022
“Heads of state and environment ministers from 175 countries endorsed a resolution on Wednesday to develop a legally binding pact to address a global plague of plastic pollution.”
[SEPP Comment: Boldface added. Plague?]
David King Unhappy With Democracy [Telegraph UK]
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 28, 2022
How a little-discussed revision of climate science could help avert doom
We can reduce global temperatures faster than we once thought — if we act now
By Mark Hertsgaard, Saleemul Huq and Michael E. Mann, The Washington Post, Feb 3, 2022 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Comments by Richard Courtney: “I note that the article by the Mann et al. says. ‘Nonscientists can reasonably ask: What made scientists change their minds? Why should we believe their new estimate of a three-to-five-year lag time if their previous estimate of 30 to 40 years is now known to be incorrect?’
“The article poses those questions but gives a silly answer to them.
“It says we should believe their change of mind because they say we should believe them despite them having claimed their “science is settled” for decades prior to changing their minds.
“In reality, the correct answers to their questions are
(a) they changed their minds because the failure of their predictions had become obvious
and
“(b) there is no reason to believe any of their predictions when even they admit their previous predictions were wrong.”
IPCC issues ‘bleakest warning yet’ on impacts of climate breakdown
By Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, Feb 28, 2022
“Report says human actions are causing dangerous disruption, and window to secure a liveable future is closing
“Analysis: This report asks: what is at stake? In short, everything”
“Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly, many of the impacts will be more severe than predicted and there is only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Climate Prediction: Australia will become Drier but with More Rain
By Eric Worall, WUWT, Mar 2, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Government abandons official Net Zero cost estimate
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Mar 2, 2022
“Parliament was misled by Climate Change Committee”
Why Europe Needs Russian Gas
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 4, 2022
“Even Denmark, the poster boy for the wind lobby, has got most of its electricity in the last few days from gas, coal and wood, with wind power almost non existent.
“According to the IEA, the answer to the continent’s reliance on Russian gas is to build more wind farms!”
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
90% Have No Intention Of Buying Electric Cars
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 28, 2022
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
UN climate report: ‘Atlas of human suffering’ worse, bigger
A new United Nations report on how climate change harms people and the environment reads like an atlas of human and planetary suffering
By Seth Borenstein, AP, Feb 28, 2022 [H/t Bill Balgord]
Expanding the Orthodoxy
UN to agree on plan for ‘historic’ plastics treaty
By Nick Perry, Nairobi (AFP), Feb 26, 2022
“A legally-binding treaty to combat the crisis would be the greatest coup for the planet since the 2015 Paris climate agreement, said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) chief Inger Andersen.”
[SEPP Comment: Another UN entity that prefers fiction over fact.]
Questioning European Green
An invasion of reality
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Mar 2, 2022
How the Government will push your energy bills even higher
By Andrew Montford, GWPF, Via Net Zero Watch, Feb 28, 2022
Questioning Green Elsewhere
The West’s Green Delusions Empowered Putin
While we banned plastic straws, Russia drilled and doubled nuclear energy production.
By Michael Shellenberger, Common Sense, Mar 1, 2022 [H/t Paul Homewood]
“Putin’s relentless focus on energy reality has left him in a stronger position than he should ever have been allowed to find himself. It’s not too late for the rest of the West to save the world from tyrannical regimes that have been empowered by our own energy superstitions.”
Standing Up to Putin Means Ditching Net-Zero
By Rupert Darwal, Real Clear Energy, Feb 24, 2022
The True Cost Of The Green Energy Boom Is Now Being Realized
By Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Feb 26, 2022
Frustrated And Furious Marshall Fire Victims Blast City Leaders Over New Green Building Codes: ‘Why Make it So Hard for Us?’
By Shaun Boyd, CBS4, Denver, Feb 28, 2022
Non-Green Jobs
Britain’s steel industry hammered by climate change taxes
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 27, 2022
Funding Issues
Exxon to exit Russia, leaving $4 bln in assets
By Sabrina Valle, Reuters, Mar 2, 2022
The Political Games Continue
Democrat Senators Demand That Oil Companies Increase Production
By David Middleton, WUWT, Mar 4, 2022
Priorities, priorities
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Mar 2, 2022
“’We really think we can have our oil and renounce it too. And we can… provided we’re willing to buy it from Russia. Which we do. Something like half a billion dollars’ worth a year. Premier Legault, we might add, has called Alberta oil ‘dirty’. And we elect these people.”
Litigation Issues
Supreme Court wrestles with EPA power to regulate climate change
By John Kruzel and Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Feb 28, 2022
EPA and other Regulators on the March
Endangered Species Act: Turning Species Extirpation on Its Head
By William D. Balgord, Townhall, Feb 26, 2022
“Owners have become sufficiently savvy that if they suspect a member of a listed species inhabits their property, they may quietly make it disappear, rather than report it to federal authorities and risk the economic consequence.”
[SEPP Comment: We should reward landowners that harbor endangered species rather than punish them.]
Energy Issues – Non-US
After The Ukraine Invasion: Energy Realism Emerges In Germany While The US Doubles Down
By Tilak Doshi, Forbes, Mar 2, 2022
Germany’s Absurd Energy Policy Of Shortage And Hardship: Energy Inflation Soars To 22.5% Year On Year!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 1, 2022
“Inflation is like toothpaste. Once it’s out, you can hardly get it back in again.” – Karl Otto Pöhl, German economist, former President of the Bundesbank.
Ukraine war puts plans for German LNG terminals back on the table
By Rachel Waldholz, Benjamin Wehrmann, & Julian Wettengel, Clean Energy Wire, “Journalism for the energy transition” Mar 1, 2022
Germany plans strategic gas and coal reserves
By Sören Amelang, Benjamin Wehrmann & Julian Wettengel, Clean Energy Wire, Feb 25, 2022
“Germany will safely get through this winter even if Russia cuts of energy supplies, the country’s economy and climate minister Robert Habeck has said. In order to prevent future supply shocks and reduce dependence on Russia, the government plans to establish strategic coal and gas reserves.”
“A key component of new import sources will be liquefied natural gas (LNG), of which deliveries to Europe from countries like Qatar or the USA have already increased rapidly throughout the past months.”
Just like that: Germany U-turns, and wants unfashionable energy like nuclear, coal, and gas
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 1, 2022
“All it took was a War.”
Banning Russian energy is just the start: Britain needs to ratchet up domestic gas production if it wants to win the war
By Staff, Net Zero Watch, Mar 1, 2022
“Additional LNG supplies are likely to come from the US, Qatar and Australia, although these countries alone will not be sufficient to make up for the shortfall in Russian imports.”
North Sea Tax Revenues
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 26, 2022
[SEPP Comment: These appear to have a different impact on the government’s budget than North Sea wind farms.]
Former Head of MI6 calls for ‘immediate lifting of fracking moratorium’
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Mar 4, 2022
No Kwasi, Wind Power Cannot Replace Gas
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 2, 2022
“It is very alarming when the Business Secretary is being so badly briefed by his energy advisors:”
Expensive and wasteful heat pumps are not the solution to Britain’s energy crisis
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 27, 2022
Energy Issues — US
Are We Nuts? American Energy Is Key to Undermining Putin’s War
By Gene Yaw, Real Clear Energy, Mar 3, 2022
“Our country still bans liquified natural gas (LNG) cargo ships from delivering between domestic ports unless registered in the United States. Of the more than 400 existing LNG carriers, none fly the U.S. flag.
“This law, known as the Jones Act, was enacted in 1920 and leaves us entirely dependent on foreign transports to deliver LNG when pipelines aren’t feasible. The same law prevented production facilities in the southern U.S. from delivering to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island in 2017.”
Claim: Hawaii relies on Russian oil — but clean energy could change that
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 27, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Remove the obsolete, 100-year-old Jones Act, the ship Alaskan oil to Hawaii.]
Washington’s Control of Energy
American ‘Energy Independence’ Should Be Really Simple
By Larry Behrens. Real Clear Energy, March 03, 2022
“It’s a sad situation that we need a bill to demand the energy independence that for decades nearly everyone agreed was critical. However, Senator Hawley’s bill is necessary because too many leaders in Washington believe a green agenda is more important.”
Rick Perry: Biden admin. gave Putin ‘leverage’ by blocking American pipelines and drilling
Several other Republicans and conservative pundits have echoed Perry’s assessment.
By Andrew Mark Miller, Fox News, Feb 24, 2022
Will Biden’s Freezing Of Oil And Gas Leases Exacerbate The Energy Crisis?
By ZeroHedge, Oil Price.com Feb 25, 2022
“On Tuesday, the Biden Administration halted new leases on federal oil and gas drilling, amid a legal fight on climate cost.
“Just one day later, however, Russia advanced into Ukraine, sparking fears of potential energy supply shortages.”
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Oil and petroleum products explained
Oil imports and exports
The United States became a net annual petroleum exporter in 2020
By Staff, EIA, Apr 13, 2021
“The United States became a net annual petroleum exporter in 2020.”
“The top five sources of U.S. total petroleum (including crude oil) imports by share of total petroleum imports in 2020 were: Canada 52%; Mexico 11%; Russia 7%; Saudi Arabia 7%; Columbia 4%; Iraq 3%.”
“The majority of total U.S. petroleum exports are petroleum liquids and refined petroleum products.”]
Fracking in Poland
By Andy May, WUWT, Feb 26, 2022
[SEPP Comment: An important issue remains: how fractured is the shale from geological processes? Shale is a “source rock” without large deposits of oil or gas, but from which oil and gas seep out to form deposits in other types of rock. East of today’s Rocky Mountains, a large part of North America was a shallow inland sea for millions of years, at various times, laying down sediments which later formed “source rock.”. Geological processes have not shifted this source rock significantly, making horizontal drilling practical. By contrast, the Monterey formation in California has many breaks, discontinuities, making horizontal drilling impractical.]
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Energy & Environment — Russian takeover sparks nuclear jitters
By Zack Budryk and Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Mar 4, 2022
Update: Building outside Nuclear Power Plant in Eastern Ukraine Catches Fire in Attack; No Damage to Reactors: Reports
By Zachary Evans, National Review, Mar 3, 2022
Poland Secures NuScale SMR as Urgency for Nuclear Energy Ramps Up Across Central, Eastern Europe
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Feb 15, 2022
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Offshore wind farms reshape the North Sea
Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon have found shifts in airflows and sea currents, which are connected to offshore wind farms
Press Release, Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Feb 23, 2022
Link to paper: Emergence of Large-Scale Hydrodynamic Structures Due to Atmospheric Offshore Wind Farm Wakes
By Nils Christiansen, Frontiers in Marine Science, Feb 3, 2022
From abstract: “Based on the unstructured-grid model SCHISM, we present a new cross-scale hydrodynamic model setup for the southern North Sea, which enables high-resolution analysis of offshore wind farms in the marine environment.”
“Induced changes in the vertical and lateral flow are sufficiently strong to influence the residual currents and entail alterations of the temperature and salinity distribution in areas of wind farm operation.”
US offshore wind power lease sale nets record $4.3 bn
By AFP Staff Writers, New York (AFP), Feb 25, 2022
“’The investments we are seeing today will play an important role in delivering on the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to tackle the climate crisis,’ Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.”
[SEPP Comment: And major increases in the retail costs of electricity for New Yorkers!]
America’s National Renewable Energy Lab warns a “tidal wave” of wind and solar waste is coming
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Mar 2, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Unable to link to any report wind and solar waste from NREL]
Graveyard of the green giants: It’s the hidden cost of our dash for windpower – thousands of decommissioned blades that are so difficult to recycle, they are just dumped as landfill, writes
By Tom Leonard, The Daily Mail, Feb 27, 2022 [H/t Jo Nova]
Bald Eagle ‘Takings’: Biden’s Interior Department Protects Big Wind
By Jim Wiegand, Master Resource, Mar 2, 2022
NYC Mayor Adams to turn Brooklyn port into offshore wind hub
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Mar 3, 2022
Construction of the site will help achieve New York’s goals of producing 100 percent clean electricity by 2040, a news release from NYCEDC [New York City Economic Development Corporation] said.
[SEPP Comment: Will it power New York’s subway and elevators?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Ethiopia Produces First Power at GERD Mega-Dam
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Feb 20, 2022
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
Solar Developer Has Plan to Turn Oil Wells Into Energy Storage
By Darrell Proctor, Power Mag, Feb 24, 2022
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Claim: Electric Vehicles are being Shipped in Fire Retardant Bags
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Feb 27, 2022
Climate Change Weekly #427: With New Energy Technologies, Beware of Spontaneous Combustion
By H. Sterling Burnett, Environment & Climate News, March 3, 2022
Why your swanky EV is more likely to break down than your banger
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 4, 2022
Carbon Schemes
Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS)
Guest Post by Howard Dewhirst, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 3, 2022
California Dreaming
Large-Scale Green Hydrogen Infrastructure System Unveiled for California
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Feb 17, 2022
“The Angeles Link proposes to utilize between 25 GW and 35 GW of curtailed or new solar, wind, or battery output to power 10 GW to 20 GW of “advanced” electrolyzers and produce carbon-free hydrogen. The hydrogen would then be delivered—via a new hydrogen pipeline system spanning 200 miles to 750 miles—from outside the Los Angeles Basin to industrial consumers in California.”
Environmental Industry
Investigate Russia’s covert funding of US anti-fossil fuel groups
By Merrill Matthews, The Hill, Mar 1, 2022
Other News that May Be of Interest
Africa faces tough job not to become world’s plastic ‘dustbin’
By Stephane BARBIER with AFP’s African bureaus
Abidjan (AFP) Feb 26, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Now that many Asian countries are rejecting dumping from European recycling programs!]
Ukraine Can Teach Us Much About Leadership, Patriotism
By Larry Bell, Newsmax, Feb 28, 2022
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Cold Weather Affects Your Health–Met Office
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 3, 2022
[SEPP Comment: Who imagined that?]
Climate Scientists Want To Go On Strike
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 2, 2022
[SEPP Comment: May it be a long one!]
EU climate chief Frans Timmermans: ‘Putin threatens Ukraine because he wants to divert attention from climate problem’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 3, 2022 https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/eu-climate-chief-frans-timmermans-putin-threatens-ukraine-because-he-wants-to-divert-attention-from-climate-problem/
Flannery’s 2006 Forecasts
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Mar 3, 2022
“James Hanson, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute, is arguably the world authority on climate change. He predicts that we have just a decade to avert a 25-metre rise of the sea. Picture an eight-story building by a beach, then imagine waves lapping its roof. That’s what a 25-metre rise in sea level looks like.”– October 28, 2006
ARTICLES
1. The Lesson of Budapest? Hold On to Your Nuclear Weapons
Ukraine voluntarily surrendered its post-Soviet arsenal. Now that seems like a mistake.
By John Ullyot and Thomas D. Grant, WSJ, March 2, 2022
TWTW Summary: The key points by Mr. Ullyot who served as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs and National Security Council spokesman, 2019-21 and Mr. Grant who served as senior adviser for strategic planning in the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, 2019-21, and is author of “Aggression Against Ukraine: Territory, Responsibility, and International Law” are discussed in the main text above.
***************
2. Ukraine Changes Everything
Europe’s long failure to deter Putin was the equivalent of ‘defund the police.’
By Daniel Henninger, WSJ, March 2, 2022
The veteran journalist begins:
Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is a ‘this changes everything’ event. 9/11 was a ‘this changes everything’ event. They happen, and at that moment most sentient people recognize that the way we lived before is going to need adjustment.
Europeans—from the island of Britain to the border between Poland and Ukraine—obviously see Mr. Putin has changed their world.
The American president had a chance to recognize this new reality in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night. It didn’t happen. Mr. Biden spoke stirringly of Ukraine and its defense, then reverted to the domestic-policy status quo for the Democratic Party.
An argument is going to emerge in Washington that spending on defense and national security needs to rise significantly in light of both the Putin armies moving west and the threat from China.
On this, Mr. Biden said nothing, and the ‘response’ to his speech by progressive House Squad member Rashida Tlaib suggests why he did not.
‘We can’t seek peace by spending three-quarters of a trillion dollars every year on weapons of war, making defense contractors and companies wealthier,’ Rep. Tlaib said. ‘We must put human rights and dignity first.’
After discussing Mr. Biden’s weak response, the journalist states:
Mr. Scholz’s decision this week to increase German spending on defense and send Ukraine lethal weapons was unthinkable just 10 days ago. In 2006 NATO established 2% of gross domestic product as the minimum each of its member nations should spend on the alliance’s common defense. Most did not. Instead, they spent everything on nondefense priorities such as climate and welfare.
This was Europe’s equivalent of ‘defund the police.’
Mr. Biden said Tuesday he was for the police and funding them. But his speech made clear his primary goal for our embattled cities is ‘equal justice.’ His Justice Department will ‘hold law enforcement accountable.’ There was no suggestion that progressive theories on crime and prosecution need revision. Like Europe’s dangerous minimizing of self-defense, Mr. Biden was whistling past the graveyard. The crime will persist.
Europe is learning a hard ‘this changes everything’ lesson. In the U.S. we’re shocked at the images from Ukraine. Whether we’re willing to change our own complacent status quo in the face of manifestly real external and internal threats to our security is less clear. At least now we have a baseline for discussion: Do nothing, and disorder descends.”
RETD US COL DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: UKRAINE – 3:53
The LNT is possiblity the single most harmful scientific fraud in history.
When nuclear power plants were regulated like other power plants, they were cheaper to build than coal plants and cheaper to operate than anything. There’s just not that much to them.
The LNT was used to justify sufficient regulations to stall and slowly kill the industry. Essentially all work to build and operate a nuclear power plant today is paperwork to deal with regulations. Regulations are the only reason nuclear energy is expensive.
Without LNT, many more countries would have as much nuclear energy as France does. 80%+.
Many deaths from coal extraction and pollution would have been avoided.
March temperatures in North America will remain below average due to SSW.
If the weak La Niña persists over the next year due to weak solar winds, it could be the tipping point for a winter temperature drop in the Northern Hemisphere.
http://www.bom.gov.au/archive/oceanography/ocean_anals/IDYOC007/IDYOC007.202203.gif
Another great photo by Charles! From the perspective of the camera it looks like you could climb up on the rocks and stick your head into the cloud! It may be the best yet!