The Week That Was: 2023-11-18 (November 18, 2023)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Nobody’s honest. Scientists are not honest. And people usually believe that they are. That makes it worse. By honest I don’t mean that you only tell what’s true. But you make clear the entire situation. You make clear all the information that is required for somebody else who is intelligent to make up their mind.” — Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All
Number of the Week: Below Zero F, about minus 20 C
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: The following issues are presented. The US government issued its Fifth US National Climate Assessment which contains some good science and a significant number of misleading claims. Professors van Wijngaarden and Happer are continuing to work on the major issue in all global atmospheric models – clouds. Several groups have proposed to slow climate change by banning the US and UK military establishments, provided “climate reparations” are paid. Steve McIntyre brings up several unresolved questions regarding Climategate issues.
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Non-Science: On November 14, the US Federal government issued the Fifth US National Climate Assessment (NCA5). The government agencies involved are responsible for assessing both human and natural causes of climate change. They ignore the law. For over 3 million years, Earth’s climate has been Icehouse, with ice on both poles and with long periods of glaciation recently lasting about 100,000 years, interrupted by brief periods of warmth. The report does not consider Earth’s climate history. It does not even consider the possibility of glaciation returning.
The opening of the report states:
“The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the scientific foundation to support informed decision-making across the United States.”
Unfortunately, the thirteen government agencies involved have added another, making a total of fourteen. The latest agency is the National Science Foundation, indicating the US government science has shifted from physical science to political ideology. As Roger Pielke, Jr. wrote:
“Fifth US National Climate Assessment is out’ Includes this to justify reliance of RCP8.5:
‘The scenarios do not have relative likelihoods assigned and are all plausible futures.’
This is simply false.”
Honesty is lacking in US climate science.
Actually, TWTW is not surprised that the extreme emissions scenario, RCP8.5, has reappeared. Like all propagandists, government entities do not abandon concepts that are effective, even if they are false. The RCP8.5 scenario was abandoned in the report of Working Group I, The Physical Science, of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report (AR6, 2021). But the unrealistic scenario reappeared under a different name in the politically written Summary for Policymakers and the Synthesis Report, March 20, 2023.
Immediately, news agencies promoted this dishonest claim as a fact. For example, an article in “The Hill” newspaper stated:
“The Fifth National Climate Assessment, released Tuesday, shows the planet will likely heat up by an average of between 4.5- and 7.2-degrees Fahrenheit compared to pre-industrial times — outpacing goals of both the U.S. and international community, The Hill reports. The average U.S. temperature is likely to rise between 4.4 and 5.6 degrees, with northern and western parts of the country likely to experience the warming at disproportionate levels, according to the report.”
Again, in NCA5 there is no effort to establish the warming influence of carbon dioxide based on physical evidence of what is occurring in the atmosphere. It is all speculation from global climate models that are demonstrated to be false. US government agencies will not abandon these defective models, or insist that they be reliable, because they are effective propaganda tools. Climate modelers will continue to adjust the models to comply with recorded history, then drop the adjustments when making predictions / projections. Eventually, the US public will suffer from highly misguided policies, such as wind and solar providing affordable, reliable electricity, and trust in the government will erode.
Perhaps amusingly, the article in “The Hill” reported that “a new federal climate report suggests dependably snowy winters may be in jeopardy.” The prior Saturday, November 11, Tony Heller reported that the ski resort Monmouth Mountain in eastern California opened for the winter season. It closed in August. For 2023, the ski season may be 9 months long. As TWTW is being written, the snow base depth at the lodge is 14 inches and 3 trails out of 175 are open. How long snowy conditions remain is not known. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Defending the Orthodoxy, and Changing Weather.
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NCA5 Specifics: The NCA with many pictures and graphs is difficult to summarize, and TWTW will not try to do so. However, the opening claims [citations omitted]:
How the United States Is Addressing Climate Change
The effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States. Rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions can limit future warming and associated increases in many risks. Across the country, efforts to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions have expanded since 2018, and US emissions have fallen since peaking in 2007. However, without deeper cuts in global net greenhouse gas emissions and accelerated adaptation efforts, severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow.
Future climate change impacts depend on choices made today:
The more the planet warms, the greater the impacts. Without rapid and deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, the risks of accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme weather, and other harmful climate impacts will continue to grow. Each additional increment of warming is expected to lead to more damage and greater economic losses compared to previous increments of warming, while the risk of catastrophic or unforeseen consequences also increases.
However, this also means that each increment of warming that the world avoids—through actions that cut emissions or remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere—reduces the risks and harmful impacts of climate change. While there are still uncertainties about how the planet will react to rapid warming, the degree to which climate change will continue to worsen is largely in human hands.
In addition to reducing risks to future generations, rapid emissions cuts are expected to have immediate health and economic benefits. At the national scale, the benefits of deep emissions cuts for current and future generations are expected to far outweigh the costs.”
There is no discussion of the role of individual greenhouse gases. However, it does state that US emissions have fallen, claiming that the fall is due to the adoption of unreliable sources of electricity such as wind and solar. It ignores that the primary reason for a fall in emissions is the replacement of coal-fired power plants with natural gas-fired power plants.
Further, it goes through, largely imagined, dire impacts to the US from increasing emissions without mentioning that the main source of emissions today is China, which emits twice as much CO2 as the US. Later, it states [Citations omitted Boldface added]:
Disruptions to food systems are expected to increase.
As the climate changes, increased instabilities in US and global food production and distribution systems are projected to make food less available and more expensive. These price increases and disruptions are expected to disproportionately affect the nutrition and health of women, children, older adults, and low-wealth communities.
Climate change also disproportionately harms the livelihoods and health of communities that depend on agriculture, fishing, and subsistence lifestyles, including Indigenous Peoples reliant on traditional food sources. Heat-related stress and death are significantly greater for farmworkers than for all US civilian workers.
While farmers, ranchers, and fishers have always faced unpredictable weather, climate change heightens risks in many ways:
Increasing temperatures, along with changes in precipitation, reduce productivity, yield, and nutritional content of many crops. These changes can introduce disease, disrupt pollination, and result in crop failure, outweighing potential benefits of longer growing seasons and increased CO2 fertilization.
Heavy rain and more frequent storms damage crops and property and contaminate water supplies. Longer-lasting droughts and larger wildfires reduce forage production and nutritional quality, diminish water supplies, and increase heat stress on livestock.
Increasing water temperatures, invasive aquatic species, harmful algal blooms, and ocean acidification and deoxygenation put fisheries at risk. Fishery collapses can result in large economic losses, as well as loss of cultural identity and ways of life.”
In short, the report largely dismisses the tremendous benefits of increased CO2 for photosynthesis, particularly for C3 plants and fruit and nut trees. The report ignores that green life on the planet is flourishing. Additionally, the report states [citations omitted]:
“Homes and property are at risk from sea level rise and more intense extreme events:
Homes, property, and critical infrastructure are increasingly exposed to more frequent and intense extreme events, increasing the cost of maintaining a safe and healthy place to live. Development in fire-prone areas and increases in area burned by wildfires have heightened risks of loss of life and property damage in many areas across the US. Coastal communities across the country—home to 123 million people (40% of the total US population)—are exposed to sea level rise, with millions of people at risk of being displaced from their homes by the end of the century.
These claims are contradicted by physical evidence, such as there is no increase in severe storms hitting the US and no increase in sea level rise, which has been rising since the last major Ice Age and the rise has slowed down over the past several thousand years.
“Number 1 of the Key Messages is [Boldface added, citations omitted]:
“Human Activities Have Caused the Observed Global Warming
Human activities—primarily emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use—have unequivocally caused the global warming observed over the industrial era. Changes in natural climate drivers had globally small and regionally variable long-term effects over that period.
Shifts in climate at the global scale occur primarily in response to processes that change the balance between incoming solar energy and the outgoing energy radiated from Earth at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). The drivers of change are both natural and human-caused and may be transient or long-lived. Changes in TOA net radiation balance resulting from a perturbation in climate drivers can be quantified in terms of the effective radiative forcing (ERF), measured in units of watts per square meter (W/m2). The main natural drivers of climate change—variations in solar radiation and volcanic aerosols—have negligible contributions to long-term climate forcing. Warming from fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) is expected to last centuries to millennia, because of the slow rate of the natural processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Changes in climate may be further amplified or diminished through feedbacks in the climate system. Feedbacks are processes changed by the warming that then modify the TOA radiation balance and the overall level of warming. In the surface–albedo feedback, for example, warming melts ice cover over the land and ocean, exposing darker surfaces beneath that absorb more energy rather than reflecting it, contributing to further warming. See Chapter 2 of the Climate Science Special Report3 for further details on emissions sources, radiative forcing, and ERF.
Anthropogenic Drivers
Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gases
Since the release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) in 2018, global atmospheric abundances of the main well-mixed greenhouse gases (WMGHGs), including CO2, methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), have continued to increase. Atmospheric abundances of halogenated gases have also changed, some increasing and some decreasing due to ozone-depletion policies. Preindustrial to present-day (1750–2019) increases in WMGHG concentrations contributed the bulk of the total human-caused forcing, with increases in CO2 contributing an ERF of 2.16 ± 0.26 W/m2, followed by 0.54 ± 0.11 W/m2 from CH4, 0.41 ± 0.08 W/m2 from halogenated compounds, and 0.21 ± 0.03 W/m2 from N2O.2 The ERF due to changes in CH4 abundance is lower than that due to changes in emissions because of offsetting effects of other chemical constituents as discussed below.
The growth in global atmospheric CO2 levels since 1750 was primarily driven by direct emissions from human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, cement manufacturing, and land-use change. About 41% ± 11% of the 700 ± 75 PgC of CO2 (1PgC = 1 billion metric tons of carbon [GtC]) emissions between 1750 and 2019 remain in the atmosphere today, with the rest absorbed by oceans and the land biosphere.
Methane is considered both a WMGHG and a short-lived climate forcer due to its chemical reactivity and an approximate 10-year atmospheric lifetime. Methane is produced by both natural processes and human activities. Observational evidence points to microbial sources (agriculture, waste, and natural wetlands) as the predominant cause of the observed increase in global growth in atmospheric CH4 since 2006, with a smaller contribution from fossil fuel production.
In addition to its direct effect on radiative forcing, CH4 also has an indirect influence through its chemical effects on other climate drivers, including CO2, ozone, stratospheric water vapor, aerosols, and halogenated gases. This leads to an increased effect of CH4 on the amount of energy trapped in the Earth system. Over 20 and 100 years, a given mass of CH4 emissions is about 80 and 30 times, respectively, more efficient at trapping energy in the climate system than the same emitted mass of CO2. This comparison of energy trapped due to a given mass of emitted gas compared to the same emitted mass of CO2 is known as the global warming potential (GWP), and it is always specified for a given time horizon due to the varying chemical lifetimes of non-CO2 greenhouse gases. For CH4, the 100-year GWP is about 30 (relative to a GWP for CO2 being, by definition, equal to 1 over the same 100-year period).
The increase in atmospheric N2O levels since 1750 is small compared to that of CO2 and CH4, although rates have increased in recent years due to increased nitrogen fertilizer use in agriculture. Nitrous oxide has an atmospheric lifetime of about 116 years and is nearly 300 times more efficient at trapping energy than CO2 over a 100-year period.
Many halogenated compounds, which are primarily manufactured gases, also contribute to climate change. These include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), with lifetimes of decades to millennia, and hydrogen-containing halogenated compounds like hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), with lifetimes of months to decades. The atmospheric abundances of most CFCs have continued to decline in response to regulations under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and its amendments. Atmospheric levels of HFCs are increasing, while the rates of atmospheric growth of major HCFCs have slowed down in recent years.
Non-methane Short-Lived Climate Forcers
Short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) are chemically reactive in the troposphere (lower atmosphere), with atmospheric lifetimes typically shorter than two decades, and include ozone, aerosols, and methane. Most SLCFs are also air pollutants or precursors for air pollution. An assessment of the ERF effects for two primary non-methane SLCFs are given below.”
Note that there is no discussion of the role of water vapor, the dominant greenhouse gas. Apparently, these organizations, including the National Science Foundation, do not understand it is what occurs in the atmosphere that is important. The report uses numbers based on no water vapor in the atmosphere. In the 1860s, John Tyndell, who coined the term “greenhouse gases,” recognized that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. Few parts of Earth, such as extreme deserts and the polar regions where water vapor freezes out are without significant water vapor.
Using measurements from the real atmosphere, Professors van Wijngaarden and Happer show in “Atmosphere and Greenhouse Gas Primer” that water vapor is critical for important mechanisms of atmospheric heat transfer including convection and phase change of water, transferring heat from the surface to the troposphere. Further, water vapor diminishes the influence of methane and nitrous oxide on temperatures making their influence on temperatures tiny. Groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund use misleading statements such as the one in boldface above to attack gas fired-power plants that provide reliable, affordable electricity. Such actions prompt the question: for whose benefit are these misleading reports written? See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Defending the Orthodoxy and Article # 3.
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Towards Understanding Clouds: After producing their excellent “Atmosphere and Greenhouse Gas Primer” which is based on a clear (cloudless) sky, Professors van Wijngaarden and Happer have continued work on the big gap in all atmospheric climate models – clouds. In a Zoom lecture, not yet linked, van Wijngaarden stated that, based on satellite observations, he estimates that clouds affect about 70% of the atmosphere over Earth.
Van Wijngaarden and Happer have produced a lengthy paper on the subject containing some 330 equations using matrix algebra, differential, and integral calculus. At the end of the paper is a several page summary that describes the work with fewer mathematical notations. Over the next few weeks TWTW plans to review at least the summary and describe the work in a general way. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Banning the US and UK Military: Two groups produced a report demanding the US and UK ban their military establishments because they are causing climate change. The Executive Summary begins:
“Among all government institutions worldwide, the US and UK militaries bear some of the greatest responsibility for climate crisis. Despite this, emissions from military sources are not addressed in international climate agreements: as a result of US lobbying, overseas military emissions were made exempt from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and military emissions reporting remained optional in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.”
Of course, China is the greatest emitter of greenhouse gases, signed both agreements, and is expanding its military but the groups ignore China. Russia is engaged in a war in Ukraine, but the groups ignore Russia. However, the groups demand that before the militaries of the US and UK are banned, they pay over $100 billion in “climate reparations” to countries affected by “climate change.” The demanded payments are based on the US EPA’s claimed “social cost of carbon” but the links there failed. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science.
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Climategate Deception: After long delays, the libel lawsuit between Mr. Michael Mann and Canadian author and commentator Mark Steyn appears to be headed for trial in District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Both CEI and the National Review have been freed from the case in a ruling that they did not exhibit actual malice in a post from a third party. The possibility of the litigation coming to trial prompted Steve McIntyre to review his writings on the subject some 15 years ago. McIntyre with Ross McKitrick exposed the “hockey stick” as built on poor statistics. After a long pause in Climate Audit posts, McIntyre has a series of posts questioning if Mr. Mann used two different sets of data for testing the statistical validity of his work. McIntyre uses the term “dirty laundry” which comes from an email by Mr. Mann discussing his work.
At the end of the series of posts, McIntyre gets to the most significant issue, He writes:
“Over and above this particular issue, is another even more fundamental issue: the use of calibration period residuals to estimate confidence intervals when there is a massive failure of verification period.”
It is doubtful that Mr. Mann meets Richard Feynman’s definition of utterly honest. See links under Climategate Continued.
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No TWTW Nex Week: Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday, there will be no TWTW next week. It will resume on the weekend of December 2.
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Number of the Week: Below Zero F, about minus 20 C. Under the heading “The greenhouse effect” The British Geological Survey states:
“‘Greenhouse gases’ are crucial to keeping our planet at a suitable temperature for life. Without the natural greenhouse effect, the heat emitted by the Earth would simply pass outwards from the Earth’s surface into space and the Earth would have an average temperature of about -20°C.” [Below Zero F]
It is doubtful that complex life would exist on this planet without greenhouse gases. Yet, the UN, western governments, and the US NCA are demonizing them without presenting physical evidence of harm. They cite only what is claimed in global climate models for the future; but those models fail basic testing, and instead are backed by heated rhetoric. See link under Seeking a Common Ground
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Why IPCC “Scientists” Won’t Look at the Sun
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Nov 12, 2023
Based on a video by Chris Chappell (linked) which includes a discussion of Willie Soon.
Mann’s “Dirty Laundry”
By Stephen McIntyre, Climate Audit, Nov 7, 2023
MBH98 Confidence Intervals
By Stephen McIntyre, Climate Audit, Nov 10, 2023
[SEPP Comment: MBH stands for Michael Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes]
Censorship
NewsGuard: Surrogate the Feds Pay to Keep Watch on the Internet and Be a Judge of the Truth
By Lee Fang, WUWT, Nov 16, 2023
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
Radiation Transfer in Cloud Layers
By W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Oct 16, 2023
Atmosphere and Greenhouse Gas Primer
By W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Pielke Jr. on Today’s Release of the 2023 National Climate Assessment
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Nov 14, 2023
A bad recipe for science
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Nov 17, 2023
“Politically motivated manufacture of scientific consensus corrupts the scientific process and leads to poor policy decisions.
An essay with excerpts from my new book Climate Uncertainty and Risk.”
Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?
By Balázs M. Fekete, Climate Etc. Nov 14, 2023
“Intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind will not be able to replace the firm (dispatchable) power generation from fossil fuels without massive energy storage on the order of several months worth of energy consumption. In the absence of such energy storage technology, one has to conclude that renewables are not viable alternative to fossil fuels. Only nuclear energy is a viable “stock limited” resource where the stocks are much larger than the jack pot from fossil fuels.”
Peak Cognitive Dissonance For The Climate Scare
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Nov 15, 2023
Sahara Expert Says Desert Shrinking, Calls Alarmist Tipping Points “Complete Nonsense”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 11, 2023
“Climate tipping points are much more fantasy than science.”
Defending the Orthodoxy
The Fifth National Climate Assessment
By Crimmins, A.R., et al., U.S. Global Change Research Program, US Government, 2023
US climate report offers dire outlook, with temperatures expected to cross key thresholds
By: Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 14, 2023
Goodbye, snowy winters? New climate report offers dry projections
By Anddy Bink, The Hill, Nov 15, 2023
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Globalist groups demand US close military over ‘climate change’
Think tanks funded by Gates, Soros demand US military pay ‘climate reparations’
By Yudi Sherman, Frontline News, Nov 13, 2023
Link to report: Less War, Less Warming: A Reparative Approach to US and UK Military Ecological Damages
By Patrick Bigger et al.., Common-wealth.com and Climate and Community Project, Nov 2023
Climate change is altering animal brains and behavior − a neuroscientist explains how
By Sean O’Donnell Professor of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science and Biology, Drexel University, The Conversation, Nov 13, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Animals never had to adapt to climate change before? See https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/leading-figures/trofim-lysenko-soviet-pseudoscience-against-darwin/
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Fifth National Climate Change Assessment Propaganda “Science Report” Released
By Larry Hamlin, WUWT, Nov 15, 2023
CLIMATE DATA REFUTES CRISIS NARRATIVE: ‘If you concede the science, & only challenge the policies…You’re going to lose’
By Edward Ring, Via Marc Morano, Climate Depot, Nov 11, 2023
“Edward Ring: ‘If you concede the science, and only challenge the policies that a biased and politicized scientific narrative is being used to justify, you’re already playing defense in your own red zone. You’re going to lose the game. Who cares if we have to enslave humanity? Our alternative is certain death from global boiling! You can’t win that argument. You must challenge the science.’”
#ECS in the real world: Aldrin et al. 2012
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
Link to paper: Bayesian estimation of climate sensitivity based on a simple climate model fitted to observations of hemispheric temperatures and global ocean heat content
By Magne Aldrin, et al. Environmetrics, Feb 24, 2012
“To estimate it they use this famous ‘Bayesian estimation’. Well, famous among statisticians. The method works by starting with a range of guesses at the right coefficient value, then lets actual data narrow the range in a direction that best fits observed facts.
One potential danger is that the answer is constrained by how good the initial range of guesses was. To avoid biasing the outcome Aldrin and his coauthors use a very naïve guess, as if we know almost nothing about the matter, that ECS could be anywhere from 0 to 20°C. Fitting the available data to their climate model whittles that down to a range of 1.1 to 4.3°C, with a best estimate of 2.0°C.”
Fish story
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
“And, we might add, it’s a natural consequence not of capitalism but of its absence, the lack of defined property rights that lets pirates roam (for instance China’s vast and destructive fleet).”
Credibility that could disappear by 2030
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
“One of our complaints about global warming alarmism here at CDN is that unlike normal science, climate science rarely puts forward testable predictions ahead of time against which we can measure the predictive power of its theories.”
“Global Warming: A Dialogue” (Adler’s Judicial Activism Considered)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Nov 16, 2023
After Paris!
South Africa to Break Paris Agreement Promises Because It Cannot Shut Down Coal
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 12, 2023
“The World Bank already loaned South Africa’s state utility company, Eskom, $497 million in 2022 to decommission one of its coal power plants. The plant, an aging facility located near the city of Komati east of Johannesburg, was shuttered last October, but the ‘transition to cleaner energy’ was a disaster.”
“Eskom estimates that roughly 80 percent of South Africa’s power comes from its coal-fired plants, which are becoming unreliable due to mismanagement and corruption. Instead of ‘transitioning’ to green energy, South Africa is leaning on its coal plants harder than ever as it experiences the worst blackouts in its history.”
Problems in the Orthodoxy
US, China agree to bolster renewables in effort to replace fossil fuels
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 15, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Really? See links immediately below.]
China promised to strictly control coal then started 182 coal power plants instead
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 15, 2023
China Pledged to ‘Strictly Control’ Coal. The Opposite Happened.
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 15, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Graph of China’s approvals of new coal power plants.]
India To Increase Coal Production By 60%
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 15, 2023
Discovering Geology — Climate change
By Staff, British Geological Survey, Accessed Nov 16, 2023
Short Summary of Observations Until October 2023
By Ole Humlum, Climate4you, Nov 18, 2023
BBC forced to correct misleading flood scare
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 15, 2023
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Prioritizing Justice in New York State Climate Policy
By Roger Calazza, WUWT, Nov 13, 2023
Link to report: Prioritizing Justice in New York State Climate Policy: Cleaner Air for Disadvantaged Communities?
By Alan Krupnick, et al. Resources for the Future, Sep 13, 2023
“We modeled the impact of policies on the electric power, on-road transportation, ports, and residential building sectors; the effects these policies have on emissions of direct fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and its precursors nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds (NOx, SO2, and VOCs); and the resulting PM2.5 concentrations experienced by disadvantaged communities and non-disadvantaged communities alike.”
[SEPP Comment: No physical evidence that fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are harmful to human health.]
Models v. Observations
Models versus observations: AMOC edition
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
Link to paper: Can we trust projections of AMOC weakening based on climate models that cannot reproduce the past?
By Gerard D. McCarthy and Levke Caesar, Philosophical Transactions A, 2023
“And if they know the models can’t get the AMOC right, yet the IPCC declares high confidence in their projections for that one phenomenon, why should we believe any of their projections including those that involve unreliable estimates of a series of interlocking systems?”
[SEPP Comment: Paper discussed in last week’s TWTW.]
Measurement Issues — Surface
Bad Climate Data Brings Wrong Conclusions
By Larry Bell, Newmax, Nov 8, 2023
Climate Fact Check: October 2023 Edition
The usual media tricks with a treat from Norway
By Steve Malloy, Junk Science.com, November 2023
“As remarked in September, regardless of the data used to estimate it, ‘average global temperature’ is not an actual physical metric. It is a flawed notion contrived by and for global warming alarmism. Its estimation is fraught with problems. We only discuss it because the alarmists do.”
[SEPP Comment: An anomaly is valuable if the entire dataset is considered. But it does not give a trend.]
Modeling HadCRUT5 with CO2 and without CO2
By Andy May, WUWT, Nov 16, 2023
From the endnotes: “All the input time series used in these multiple regression models are autocorrelated, which simply means each value in the series is highly dependent on its previous values not independent of one another as required by the rules of regression. This artificially inflates the statistical measures often used to evaluate the quality of a regression, such as the R2 value shown in some of the plots.”
Changing Weather
Settled Science
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 11, 2023
The End Of Snow In California
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 11, 2023
Link to paper: Emissions pathways, climate change, and impacts on California
By Katharine Hayhoe, et al., PNAS, Aug 16, 2004
The Pacific Northwest: Where Fronts Come to Die
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Nov 12, 2023
“And if the coastal mountains don’t do a good enough job, the higher terrain of the Cascades helps to finish the weakening process.
But don’t worry about the poor fronts…. once the remnants cross the Rockies a new life is ahead.”
The Storm Of The Century
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 11, 2023
“Terms like Superstorm and Storm of the Century are often bandied about, but what caused the ‘No Name Storm’ which hit the US in March 1993 definitely warranted these epithets.
It spawned a derecho and tornadoes in Florida, where the storm surge wiped out coastal communities. The storm then headed north bringing record snowfall, floods and hurricane force winds in its wake as far as Canada. The whole of the eastern third of the US was affected, with 318 left dead.”
Changing Seas
New Study: East Asian Sea Ice Extent Increasing Since 2005 … Region Is Now Colder Than 1700s-1800s.
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Nov 13, 2023
Link to paper: Spatiotemporal Patterns of Sea Ice Cover in the Marginal Seas of East Asia
By Lei Zhang, et al., Atmosphere, Jun 19, 2023
[SEPP Comment: More reliable research from China.]
A New Perspective on North Atlantic’s Marine Productivity
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Nov 17, 2023
Link to article: North Atlantic’s marine productivity may not be declining, according to new study of older ice cores
Press Release, University of Washington, Nov 13, 2023
Link to paper: Industrial era decline in Arctic methanesulfonic acid is offset by increased biogenic sulfate aerosol
By Ursula A. Jongebloed, et al. PNAS, Nov 17, 2023
From the abstract: “Here, we share the first long-term record of both MSA and DMS-derived biogenic sulfate concentration in Greenland ice core samples from 1200 to 2006 CE. While MSA declines on average by 0.2 µg S kg–1 over the industrial era, biogenic sulfate from DMS increases by 0.8 µg S kg–1. This increasing biogenic sulfate contradicts previous assertions of declining North Atlantic primary productivity inferred from decreasing MSA concentrations in Greenland ice cores over the industrial era. The changing ratio of MSA to biogenic sulfate suggests that trends in MSA could be caused by time-varying atmospheric chemistry and that MSA concentrations alone should not be used to infer past primary productivity.”
From the WUWT post: “The University of Washington’s research offers a balanced view of marine productivity trends in the North Atlantic. It reminds us that environmental changes are often more intricate than they appear, necessitating a comprehensive approach to scientific inquiry and policymaking.”
North Atlantic deep-water formation
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
From the CO2Science Archive:
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Walrus and polar bear population size changes in the N. Atlantic over the last 20k years
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Nov 14, 2023
New Study: Antarctic Sea Ice Completed Half Its Deglacial Retreat 1000s Of Years Before CO2 Began Rising
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Nov 16, 2023
Link to paper: Early sea ice decline off East Antarctica at the last glacial–interglacial climate transition
By Henrik Sadatzk. Et al, AAAS Science Advances, Oct 12, 2023
Polar bear sea ice habitat update at 15 November & problem bears in Western Hudson Bay
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Nov 16, 2023
Includes neat videos
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Climate Alarmists Ignore Nitrogen Deficiency
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Nov 16, 2023
Phony Nitrogen Crisis for Making War on Farmers
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, Nov 15, 2023
Lowering Standards
Fossil Fuel Pollution and Climate Change
Conference, NEJM group, Nov 16, 2023
“This new reality prompts crucial questions for clinicians and health care leaders as to how to collectively move forward to prevent and mitigate current and future health and health care system impacts.”
[SEPP Comment: How low can the New England Journal of Medicine go?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Biden Must Confront China’s Xi on Looming Climate Disaster
By Paul Bledsoe, The Messenger, Nov 15, 2023
[SEPP Comment: As evidence, links to Washington Post article: “World is on brink of catastrophic warming, UN climate change report says.”]
While Media Obsess About Some Warmth, Globe Seeing Plenty Of Unusual Cold Events
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 15, 2023
“Christian Freuer’s Cold Report (EIKE)”
Climate Free for All on GB News
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Nov 12, 2023
Climate is accelerating, hottest year for more than 125,000 years!
L A Times Fails to Comprehend the Difference between “Average Temperature Anomaly” & “Absolute Maximum Temperature” Climate Data
By Larry Hamlin, WUWT, Nov 11, 2023
No, WABE, Climate is Not Making the State of Georgia “Vulnerable”
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Nov 14, 2023
Climate change: Fewer wild swans returning to UK in winter–BBC
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 17, 2023
“Ian’s [Magness] Response:
Let’s start with the title ‘Climate change: Fewer wild swans…’. What we are strictly dealing with here are the numbers of Bewick’s swans. However, that’s not what the title says so lets’s look at the bigger picture. To do this, we must look at the Bewick’s very close relatives the Whooper swans. Certainly in terms to the whole of southern and central British Isles, both birds are strictly non-breeding winter visitors. Both breed in Arctic wastelands and just come here when weather and ground/feeding conditions become untenable in October or November. Both would SURELY follow similar overall population responses to global warming, other factors being equal.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
How BBC Hype Windspeeds
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 13, 2023
“How the BBC exaggerate stormy weather, by suddenly switching wind speeds from average speeds to gusts, and then back again.”
Storm Debi? – A Strong Breeze!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 14, 2023
“Yet again we find that a normal autumn storm has been blown out of all proportion:”
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
A Smoking Gun for Biden’s Big Climate Decision?
A new analysis suggests that L.N.G. exports may well be worse for the environment than burning coal.
By Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, Oct 31, 2023
[SEPP Comment: McKibben claims “new data” but none is given, and none is linked. Assume it applies to the false claim of methane causing more warming than carbon dioxide.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda
Victims of a dead-end religion — Too anxious about climate to have children
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 14, 2023
In today’s climate news…
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
“Because here’s what is not happening and isn’t going to: People are not shutting down the power plants and watching furnaces, fridges, hospitals and farm machinery go off-line because you wrongly detect a trend toward worsening weather that, if it did show up at some point, might make things a bit more difficult in 2050.”
While Media Obsess About Some Warmth, Globe Seeing Plenty Of Unusual Cold Events
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 15, 2023
“Christian Freuer’s Cold Report (EIKE)”
Expanding the Orthodoxy
Chile’s Climate Constitution
By Douglas Pollock, WUWT, Nov 11, 2023
Questioning European Green
‘During winter our heat pump sounds like the howl of a small jet engine’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 16, 2023
[SEPP Comment: In many UK homes there is no room to install them with proper sound insulation.]
School Told to Remove Heat Pumps That Are So Loud Neighbors Are “Unable to Open Windows”
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 17, 2023
Wood burners more costly for heating than gas boilers, study finds
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 11, 2023
“The pollution from wood burners has always been obvious to sane people. After all our ancestors decided hundreds of years ago that it probably was not a particularly good idea, though an improvement on burning dung I suppose.
But the climate change fundamentalists decided a long time ago that CO2 emissions were a much more important consideration than people’s actual health.” [Boldface added]
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Climate Enron May Be Heading for a Crash
By Duggan Flanakin, Real Clear Energy, Nov 15, 2023
Link to: Non-Fuel Products of Oil and Gas
Plastics, fertilizers, synthetic fibers, pharmaceuticals, detergents, and more
By E. Allison and B. Mandler, American Geoscience Institute, 2018
Watch: Morano on Rebel News: The ‘Green energy’ scam is starting to collapse – ‘This is an ideology like the Soviet Union’
Video, Marc Morano, Rebel News, Via WUWT, Nov 13, 2023
This oughta do it
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
“Also, the Globe & Mail touts a new outfit ‘Carbon Removal Canada’ that was just launched by the ‘climate charity Clean Prosperity Foundation’ promising ‘that the industry could create more than 300,000 Canadian jobs and $143-billion in GDP by 2050.’ Or not.”
Green Jobs
Siemens Cancel Virginia Wind Blade Factory
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 11, 2023
“Either the blades will come from China, or the offshore wind farms won’t be built at all.”
Funding Issues
Claim: $5.9 Trillion Government Money Grab Required for Climate Action
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 11, 2023
Litigation Issues
Court dismisses effort to restrict Gulf drilling over endangered whale
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 14, 2023
Coalition Files Notice of Intent to Sue Federal Agencies to Stop Whale-killing Virginia Wind Project
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Nov 14, 2023
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
The Domestic Carbon Tax That Isn’t But Will Hurt American Consumers
By Kristen Walker, Real Clear Energy, Nov 15, 2023
“The tariffs on washing machines that commenced in 2018 drove the price of washers up 12%, cost consumers more than $1.5 billion in its first year alone, and the consumer cost per job ‘saved’ amounted to $815,000. Even the price of dryers increased.”
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Awkward – Canada creates a brand new fossil fuel subsidy just in time for COP28, a reminder that sticks hurt and carrots are healthy
By Terry Etam, BOE Report, Nov 7, 2023
[SEPP Comment: Why is the elimination of a tax a subsidy?]
Energy Issues – Non-US
Government has surrendered to green lobbyists
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Nov 16, 2023
“Generators awarded large and open-ended price increases to new offshore wind, with a minimum 66% increase.”
Govt Cave In To Wind Lobby, And The Public Will Pay The Cost
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 16, 2023
Offshore Wind Costs
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 17, 2023
“Based on current market prices, we are paying a total annual subsidy of £4.8 billion to offshore wind, on top of the wider system costs. With a government offshore target of 50GW capacity by 2030, this subsidy will rise to over £11 billion a year.”
Solar Power Auction Prices Raised By 30%
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 16, 2023
“£61/MWh works out at about £85/MWh, which gives the lie to repeated claims of just how cheap solar power is.
It’s a lot to pay for something that despoils good farmland and does not even produce any electricity for most of the time.”
Energy Issues — US
Electrifying Everything Raises Energy Costs in Winter
The latest federal data reveals electrifying everything increases winter heating costs.
By Staff, The American Coalition, Nov 10, 2023 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Based on essay by Robert Bryce, below.
Federal Data Shows, Again, That The Electrify Everything Push Means Higher Energy Costs
EIA Winter Fuels Report: heating with electricity will cost 77% more than heating with natural gas; NuScale SMR project gets cancelled
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, Nov 10, 2023
Link to: Winter Fuels Outlook 2023–24, Short-Term Energy Outlook
By Staff, EJA, Nov 7, 2023
“EIA: Heating with electricity will cost average U.S. homeowner 77% more than heating with gas this winter.”
[SEPP Comment: EIA assumes that the US average of monthly heating degree days will be the same as last year. Using Heating Oil is estimated to be three times more than natural gas. Propane heating costs in the Northeast are highly sensitive to temperature, indicating an inelastic (restrictive) supply.]
PJM fiddles while grid sickens
By David Wojick, CFACT, Nov 14, 2023
Split Ruling From the Kentucky Public Service Commission on Closing Coal Plants
By Debra McCown, Real Clear Energy, Nov 16, 2023
Petroleum Follies
Fifty Years Since the Oil Crises
By Michael C. Lynch, Energy Policy Research Foundation, October 2023
Washington’s Control of Energy
Biden administration uses wartime authority to bolster energy efficient manufacturing
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 17, 2023
Link to Press Release: Biden-Harris Administration Announces $169 Million to Accelerate Electric Heat Pump Manufacturing as Part of Investing in America Agenda
Office of Public Affairs, Department of Energy
“Funding from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and the Defense Production Act Will Boost U.S. Manufacturing, Grow the Clean Energy Workforce, and Lower Energy Costs for Families” [Boldface added]
Biden administration proposes limiting environmental reviews to speed up renewables
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 16, 2023
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
The U.S. Just Recorded Its Highest Oil Production Month In History
By Robert Rapier, Oil Price.com, Nov 14, 2023
Link to: U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil (Thousand Barrels per Day)
By EIA, Petroleum & Other Liquids, Monthly, Latest month, August 2023
IEA Raises Oil Demand Outlook For 2023 And 2024
By Tsvetana Paraskova, Oil Price.com, Nov 14, 2023
Supplying 65% of Our Energy, America Must Lead on Oil and Gas
By Rick Whitbeck, Real Clear Energy, Nov 16, 2023
Nuclear Energy and Fears
A Nuclear Renaissance Is the Best Path Forward
By RJ Roux & Yaël Ossowski, Real Clear Wire, Nov 8, 2023
Illinois Nuclear Bill: A Promising Step With Troubling Limits
By Eric G. Meyer, Real Clear Energy, Nov 14, 2023
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
Europe’s Largest Wind Farm Facing Bankruptcy
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 12, 2023
“In other words, the wind farm is obliged to pay the costs of its own intermittency. And, of course, when wind power is low, spot market prices rise.
This highlights the worthlessness of wind power, as when there is plenty of wind, the value of the product is low.
In this country [UK & US] it is energy consumers who have to pay the costs of intermittency, something which needs changing.”
Orsted Demand Government Cash To Subsidise Hornsea Offshore Wind
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 15, 2023
Orsted Pull Out Of Norway Wind Auctions
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 15, 2023
Environmental Industry
Recycling Eco-Myths Is the Existential Threat
By J. Peder Zane, Real Clear Wire, Nov 17, 2023
Other News that May Be of Interest
Lions and Tigers? No, Beavers and Wolves
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, Nov 16, 2023
Link to paper: Wolves alter the trajectory of forests by shaping the central place foraging behavior of an ecosystem engineer
By Thomas D. Gable, et al. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Nov 8, 2023
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
From The Archives: The Great Cranberry Scare Of 1959
By ACSH Staff, ACSH, Nov 21, 2023
“’No additive shall be deemed to be safe if it is found to induce cancer when ingested by man or animal.’
As we have discussed recently, it was based not on agricultural science but the extrapolated data from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We’re history
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
“’ The assessment for the last 125,000 years has been based on Copernicus’ data, which goes back to 1940, and data from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has longer-term statistics including readings from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral deposits.’”
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 15, 2023
“In a tense exchange before the Canadian House of Commons ethics committee the chair of the federal Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology admits she not only voted for, but herself moved, to grant COVID relief payments to a range of companies including $217,000 to a storage battery firm of which she is, coincidentally, the CEO and owner. Reproached by MPs she sneered “’I think you need a refresher on what a conflict of interest really means.’”
[SEPP Comment: This MP has no conflict in interests because they are personal interests?]
ARTICLES
1. California Wants to Ban Your Choo-Choo
Biden’s EPA approves Sacramento’s plan to kill diesel locomotives.
By The Editorial Board. WSJ, Nov. 17, 2023
TWTW Summary: The editorial begins:
“Gavin Newsom wants to be President, but in some respects the Governor already is, as the Biden Administration lets California impose its climate rules on the other 49 states. In the latest example, the Environmental Protection Agency has green-lighted Sacramento’s plan to outlaw diesel locomotives.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) in April approved a regulation that would require railroads to replace diesel with ‘zero emission’ locomotives. Diesel locomotives typically have a useful life of 40 years or more, but the regulation would bar those that are 23-years or older from running in the state after 2029.
Passenger locomotives made in 2030 or later would be required to ‘operate in a ZE [zero-emission] configuration’ in California. By 2035 new locomotive engines for long-haul freight trains would also have to be ZE. Railroads don’t switch locomotives when they cross state lines, so California’s mandate would cover trains nationwide.
CARB’s plan dovetails with its ban on internal combustion engines in cars and heavy-duty trucks. Aside from their high cost, EVs have a limited battery range and extended charging time. Zero-emission battery-powered locomotives will have the same problems—if and when they are brought to market.
Wabtec Corp. recently unveiled the world’s first battery-powered, heavy-haul locomotive for mainline service, which would operate like a hybrid car. It would recharge its battery through regenerative braking and could also tap diesel engines for fuel. But a freight train entirely powered by batteries is still a dream.
Replacing diesel fuel with batteries in long-haul trains is impractical because of their enormous weight and size. Battery components can also overheat and cause explosions that release toxic gas. Norfolk Southern’s East Palestine derailment last winter would have been worse had the trains been powered by batteries.
Even if the technology for zero-emission locomotives eventually arrives, railroads will have to test them over many years to guarantee their safety. CARB tacitly acknowledges this by requiring railroads to set aside billions of dollars each year to finance future purchases of zero-emission locomotives.
BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad estimate that each railroad will have to deposit $700 million to $800 million a year in a special spending account. These costs will be passed on to customers nationwide, meaning retailers, farmers and other businesses.’
The editorial discusses some of the objections railroads are raising the concludes with:
“Even as California’s climate goals prove to be unattainable and costly, its progressive regulators charge ahead while the Biden Administration removes the brakes.”
************************
2. Companies That Can’t Make Money
The SEC pushes a plan to misallocate capital by buying land and taking it out of productive use.
By Marlo Oaks, WSJ, Nov. 15, 2023
TWTW Summary: The Treasurer of Utah writes:
“The Biden administration last month began laying the groundwork for a misguided plan that threatens to misallocate vast amounts of capital, encumber natural resources, and destroy rural economies by removing land from productive use in the name of solving climate change.
On Sept. 27, the New York Stock Exchange quietly submitted a substantial and financially material proposed change to its rules. The proposal would allow the formation of a new type of company. Natural Asset Companies, or NACs, would purchase the rights to control public and private lands, such as parks, forests and farms. But a NAC wouldn’t be able to put the land to economic use. Instead, it would preserve its acquisitions to maximize the value of the land’s ‘ecological services.’
NACs would register to go public on the NYSE. The money raised would purchase land and effectively lock it away from human impact. Grazing, energy extraction and other economically critical activities would disappear on NAC-protected land. Farmland used to feed the nation and world would go back to natural landscape, erasing human activity. The resulting conversion of investor money into unusable wildlands has the potential to be one of the most significant misallocations of capital in history.
Normally, corporations are formed for investors to make money. But since NACs are clearly noneconomic, a rule is required to allow their formation. The land placed in a NAC, a private entity, must support only ‘replenishable’ activities. Since no economic activity can occur, the property is assigned an arbitrary value and traded on that basis. In any other situation, this proposal would be identified as sanctioning fraud.
Why would anyone invest in a company that can’t make money? Initial buyers would likely be ‘impact investors,’ committed to sacrificing returns to advance the climate agenda. But it seems clear the goal is to sell NACs to endowments, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other investors demanding greater direct and immediate ESG presence in their portfolio. Demand from ‘values-driven investing’ alone could drive up NAC share prices even as the value of the assets they purchase decrease by virtue of the NAC’s ownership of them. More disturbing, reducing U.S. mineral extraction could be intriguing to Chinese, Russian or Saudi sovereign wealth funds.
Environmental offsets in the form of carbon credits or government transfers for ‘conservation uses’ could also generate ostensible revenues. The supposedly temporary Wind Production Tax Credit is an example of government policy used to benefit dubious investment choices at the behest of well-connected private-equity firms.
Both private and public land is eligible for a NAC to purchase. Federal and state governments will surely sell public land to NACs, appeasing environmentalist constituencies under the guise of generating revenue.”
The author discusses several possible scenarios then concludes with:
“The SEC’s job is to protect investors and promote capital formation. Today’s SEC seems intent on destroying markets and ushering in a new economic system. States must push back against this shortsighted and ill-conceived plan—an experiment in social engineering that is likely to have disastrous consequences.”
************************
3. To Slow Climate Change, Curb Methane First
It can trap 80 times as much heat as CO2 in the first 20 years after being emitted.
By Fred Krupp, WSJ, Nov. 16, 2023
TWTW Summary: The key part is discussed under Anthropogenic Drivers, Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gases in the This Week section above.
“Scientists are not honest. And people usually believe that they are”
One only has to check the current Parliamentary enquiry into covid to see that. It’s an exercise in whitewashing their entire record – the censorship of dissenting scientists, the cover ups etc – between 2020 and 2022, and trashing the politicians – especially that bloke who got Brexit done. (How they loathe him!)
They are after all the new clerisy. The new priesthood; the wise ones who know what’s best for you…
My favourite moment thus far at the enquiry was the testimony of Carl Heneghan, who was given the full cancellation treatment during the pandemic.
“Carl Heneghan, a professor of evidence-based medicine and leading lockdown sceptic, was treated with contempt. His only involvement in the Covid response was a single Zoom meeting with Johnson in September 2020, in which he called for ‘focussed protection’ of the elderly and an end to lockdowns.
Yet, at the inquiry, he was subjected to hostile and adversarial questions, as if he were personally culpable for Britain’s Covid death toll. His academic credentials were called into question. And he was asked to account for the Great Barrington Declaration, an anti-lockdown open letter that he did not even sign. He was also shown text messages from senior officials calling him a ‘fuckwit’. This was nothing short of a character assassination of an expert who dissented from the SAGE line.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/01/the-covid-inquiry-is-a-liberal-elite-whitewash/
The whole thing is a complete, total and utter farce. History is being rewritten and faces saved.
“Scientists are not honest. And people usually believe that they are”
One only has to check the current Parliamentary enquiry into covid to see that. It’s an exercise in whitewashing their entire record – the censorship of dissenting scientists, the cover ups etc – between 2020 and 2022, and trashing the politicians – especially that bloke who got Brexit done. (How they loathe him! I’m no fan, myself, but….)
They are after all the new clerisy. The new priesthood; the wise ones who know what’s best for you…
My favourite moment thus far at the enquiry was the testimony of Carl Heneghan, who was given the full cancellation treatment during the pandemic.
“Carl Heneghan, a professor of evidence-based medicine and leading lockdown sceptic, was treated with contempt. His only involvement in the Covid response was a single Zoom meeting with Johnson in September 2020, in which he called for ‘focussed protection’ of the elderly and an end to lockdowns.
Yet, at the inquiry, he was subjected to hostile and adversarial questions, as if he were personally culpable for Britain’s Covid death toll. His academic credentials were called into question. And he was asked to account for the Great Barrington Declaration, an anti-lockdown open letter that he did not even sign. He was also shown text messages from senior officials calling him a **‘fnuckwit’. This was nothing short of a character assassination of an expert who dissented from the SAGE line.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/01/the-covid-inquiry-is-a-liberal-elite-whitewash/
The whole thing is a complete, total and utter farce. History is being rewritten and faces saved.
** my adjustment….
“”Excess deaths in 2023
Dr. John Campbell
(from my old home-town in Cumbria)<stupid inane grin>
on youtube 4days ago
For my money, the figures can be argued about, but the strategy… that was more than wrong, and they knew it. And they used models to base it on. From doctor legover.
“Honesty is lacking in US climate science.”
understatement of the past 1,000 years
“For 2023, the ski season may be 9 months long.”
Thank God- if it was only 8 months, it would be an emergency! 🙂
Joseph,
Did you miss this factual and indisputable evidence of Man-Made climate change. This post from Northstar is the type of proof the climate folks can use:
Northstar California@Northstar_CA Nov 15
While we were hoping to ski and ride with you this weekend, Mother Nature threw us warmer temps– as a result, our target opening day will be delayed. We’re monitoring the forecast minute-by-minute, & will provide you all with an update on a new target opening as soon as possible.
They said they would open and they did not. The severe impacts include many of us who have to go to another mountain at least a mile further away that is open. Clear devastation already happening.
Unfortunately, for these climate folks this would qualify as the true scientific method in action.:(
Cheers
“Immediately, news agencies promoted this dishonest claim as a fact.”
Another topic I’m interested is the UAP/alien topic. Some people suggest the aliens are already here and mixing in with the human population. When I read that journalists show such brain damage, those claims about aliens are beginning to make sense. 🙂
Nice, easy way to take over the planet- bring its civilization to its knees.
There’s a lot of this stuff on TV
I don’t buy the alien teenager theory – they come and buzz the Earth for laughs etc.
I’m not convinced that they travelled who knows how many light years only to crash into Roswell. But the Black Forest event sounds possible.
Today? I bet they all watched Fox Mulder….
Well, amazingly, there’s actually SOME open debate about the UAP/alien topic- not much since the governments are all lying about it- but many people are interested and talking about it- hundreds of web sites- specialty magazines- actual congressional hearings- the chatter is getting louder. Maybe it’s all a waste of time. My point being there is debate and discussion on THAT topic- and by comparison, almost none on the climate topic, outside a few web sites and a few physicists with guts. For me, the UAP topic is just entertainment- though I had a UFO sighting- one of the well known Hudson Valley sightings- back in ’83. I don’t know that it was an alien spaceship- but whatever it was, it was amazing.
What bothers me though is that- it seems that most if not all of the pro UAP/alien crowd seem to believe the climate idiocy. Maybe it’s just that they haven’t focused on it. For me, opening up to challenge the climate “consensus” also means being attuned to other bullshit we’re exposed to.
“The effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States.”
Wow, that’s indicative of severe mental disease. Whoever wrote that needs some powerful medicine. It’s trivially warmer here in New England than when I was a kid and I see nobody complaining. Everyone here has always complained about the weather- usually because it’s too dam cold or we’re hoping it’ll rain because our tomato plants like the water. The past several years we’ve gotten plenty of rain- my garden, flower beds, lawns and half acre forest never seemed so happy. There does seem to be fewer insects but who is going to complain about that other than an entomologist?
This “debate” that doesn’t happen because it’s one sided- isn’t like past political debates. One side is severely mentally disturbed and the other side barely exists- outside a few web sites and the rare physicist daring to speak up while being ignored.
“Whoever wrote that needs some powerful medicine.”
A head replacement and a reboot…
It’s looking to me that the climate insanity is now so lunatic that we’re going to need some kind of revolution to stop them but I don’t know what it is. I don’t think it’s Trump. Some of his comments lately are just way to weird for me. Even if he got elected- I don’t think he’d focus on this issue. I don’t support any sort of violence as that won’t work. Maybe some sort of civil disobedience of the Gandhi variety- I dunno. Like the other side- maybe it’ll just take years- with a focus on young people. That’s why I like Alex Epstein. He’s gotta be one of the youngest intellectuals opposed to the climate lunacy. We need more people like him.
It is certainly a political issue. The other side is well organized and smart. They are and have been using well established techniques from infiltrating our schools at all levels teaching only their dogma, to impacting our government from local levels to Presidents. They have shut down any opposition – if you want to keep your job (especially true in academia) you must toe the party line. Unfortunately science has become a joke and the Scientific Method is no longer regarded. To me this is truly some freighting stuff. It was also quite disturbing to hear Nikki Haley toe the climate line in one of the debates. Regardless of your politics, she is up there, so how do we educate her campaign? It all matters.
So what to do?
We need to stop being afraid of voicing our opinions, of course based on facts. A protest like you mentioned needs organization and would be an appropriate time to share messaging.
My own frustrations include going back and forth with the local Air Resources Board here in California regarding asthma and natural gas ban/heat pumps they are mandating. I asked for the asthma studies they are using to link the two, which they shared with me . OMG, I reviewed the studies and replied with my review -it is all BS. Not surprisingly they don’t care. The email exchange went downhill from there. Next step is to share the email string with my local politicians and copy I guess the WSJ. This local board and CARB are unaccountable to the public, very powerful, and full of extremist political appointees. CARB also sets standards followed by other states. At one point, years ago, they did good work. Today, they frighten me. Somebody needs to tell the story. Not sure what else to do….
Then there’s Joe Manchin from a once great coal state. I don’t think he’s swallowed all of the cool aid yet, but much of it.
Trying to have a rational discourse with burro-crats is impossible, at least in some regions.
Here is one new 2023 study that says that depending on the surface temperature and solar irradiance datasets that one uses, one can show anything from mostly human-caused warming to mostly natural warming.
‘Challenges in the Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Trends Since 1850’
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-4527/acf18e
The datasets are historical so there is not much that can be done about them.
Story Tip
Evidence to the UK Covid enquiry Sir Patrick expressed concern that only one in ten people in the civil service had science backgrounds.
Only ten per cent of the individuals hired through the civil service’s graduate programme had STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) degrees, he said.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/20/uk-covid-inquiry-latest-patrick-vallance-live/#1700477864369
It explains a great deal
You can rest assured that most of the 10% have STEM degrees are climate change related.
also keep a close eye on Helion Energy over the next year
been following FRCs and polywells for some decades now
formerly intractable issues of timing seem to have been resolved in the past few years with recent advancements in electronics
their 7th-gen Polaris should achieve net power production (actual net electricity, mind you!) in 2024
probably going to be something like 1.1MW power back into the capacitor bank after a 1MW pulse
not quite a reactor but it still might start a gold rush of competitors
reportedly China is already imitating the design
> “Monmouth Mountain”
Surely you mean Mammoth Mountain.
Getting rid of “climate change” is quite easy.
Just get rid of the new definition of “climate” to be only 30 years and return “climate” to its usual definition of something that lasts thousands to millions of years and then there is no “climate change.”
When some particular type of economic activity receives a tax credit, or some other type of tax reduction, not available to others, it is a subsidy that favors that particular economic activity, giving it a financial benefit not available to the general population or general business sector.
This seems very similar to stamp collecting except that it is being given a special government backed incentive. Collecting stamps, beer bottle caps, and multiple other things that have no intrinsic value is similar to the choice to believe flying saucers or elusive beasts in deep water lakes, a personal, choice. Here different values could be assigned to different plots of land based on various group esthetics and the land type’s relative rarity, leading to the type of trading seen at stamp collector’s conventions.
Also, like the “permanent” green zone forest in Virginia (West Virginia?) recently reported as turned over to clear cutting for solar facilities, savvy investors might figure out what parcels “permanently” banned from productive use might suddenly come up as available for housing tracks, shopping malls, wind turbine installations, etc., gaining a huge profit.
The polar vortex in the lower startosphere is broken up, and within a few days, winter will be calling across Europe for an extended period of time.
Is eastern Australia threatened by drought due to El Niño? No. Is the Great Barrier Reef threatened? No.
http://www.bom.gov.au/radar/IDR00004.jpg?20231121102508
On the night of 21/22.11, the northeast of the US may experience severe snowstorms.
An Arctic front in the Midwest will bring winter to the US. Winter in the US and Europe will begin on Nov. 25.
