Archive for the ‘Alarmism’ Category
January 20, 2013
It is cold that kills not warmth. It is global cooling that will provide the greater challenge for humans – not global warming. But whether cooling or warming or both, humans will be better served by figuring out the best ways to adapt and not waste time and energy on trying to control the climate based on fanciful theories and religious beliefs about what causes climate change.
It’s the Sun, stupid!
Yesterday we had about -20°C, which is pretty cold but not unusual for this time of year. A friend in Australia was sweltering in +44°C -pretty hot but also not unusual. Another friend in Alberta had a normal winter day at about -25°C. Yesterday across the world humans were living and managing over temperatures ranging from about -50°C to about +49°C. Coping – quite successfully – with a temperature range caused by local weather of almost 100°C .
Snowpocalypse Russia
On Friday, Moscow was on a verge of traffic collapse as more than 10 inches of snow fell on the city, which is more than half of January’s average. Thousands of passengers were stranded overnight in the capital’s major airports, as several dozen flights were delayed. Muscovites woke up and found their cars, driveways and houses buried under a thick layer of snow, with city workers unable to get to smaller streets.
Moscow (Reuters / Sergei Karpukhin)
While the snowstorms have caused inconvenience for large population centers in western Russia, they have been life-threatening further east in the country. The polar circle city of Norilsk has been buried under 10 feet of snow – entire apartment blocks, markets, stores and offices were buried under snow overnight.
Banks of snow were as high as two people put together, reaching the second-story windows of some apartment buildings. Cars, stores, garages were blocked. Norilsk metropolitan workers were forced to dig passageways through the snow banks to create access between the outside world and the barricaded city. Meanwhile, icicles up to three feet in length have formed off the ledges of buildings, breaking at random and causing a lethal hazard for pedestrians below.
Norilsk (Photo from bigpicture.ru)
Tags:climate change, Moscow, Norilsk, Russia, Snow, wintwr
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Russia, Weather, Winter | Comments Off on Just another Russian winter — or is it global warming?
January 19, 2013
I can still remember arriving at airports, checking in and strolling quietly to my departure gate without undressing along the way or unpacking my bag or spending up to an hour standing in a “security” queue. The “airport experience” was still something to look forward to. But that is in my memory like a long-lost dream. Those days seem to have gone forever.
In the name of security we now accept the routine degradation that comes with intrusive pat-downs, small children being frisked by strange men and the impassive reluctance of security staff to use their minds (which is of course what is required of them). I have yet to come across an airport where the time and inconvenience and hassle of the security process has actually decreased but many where extra layers of hassle with new equipment are added. And it is getting worse.
We accept the inconvenience to the many in the hope of finding the -presumed – very few who wish to destroy the plane they are travelling on. Airport security has over the years managed to deprive me of two bottles of whiskey, a few lighters, two nail clippers, a bottle of after-shave lotion, one of perfume and a bottle of extra-hot chilli sauce. At Paris my son has been reduced to an incoherent rage when a security female of little mind confiscated his multi-function “Swiss card”. I have been taken out of the security line and hassled for 90 minutes at Frankfurt when I tried to read the name-tag (purposely worn upside down to avoid identification) of the security moron on duty . At Delhi airport I have been taken aside and questioned why I needed two lighters in my bag. At Singapore they confiscated my nose-hair scissors! Twice – at Dresden – my trousers have fallen down without the support of my belt when I was holding up my arms to be patted down.
The idea is that passengers are both protected from potential terrorist attacks and/or at least are reassured that their safety is being considered. In 2010, the BBC lauded the results of a survey that found that the majority of the flying public was in favour of the measure. But can we trust the results? What the BBC failed to mention was that the consulting company which carried out the survey, Unisys, had financial interests in the body scanner industry.
But I wonder whether all this “security” works and even whether it has ever worked? Is there any evidence at all that all this security has ever found an intending saboteur? It seems remarkably convenient that the security industry has no performance criteria to be judged on – for security reasons of course.
And then I comprehend that the airport security “business” is now worth about $100 billion per year and over $30 billion of that is just in Europe. It becomes obvious then that the “security industry” will not permit the easing of the plethora of unnecessary regulations if this volume of business might decrease. They will never admit to how ineffective they are.
So it is encouraging to read that TSA to pull revealing scanners from airports. But I am afraid that my cynical view remains that after 9/11: airports ‘wasting billions’ on needless security checks for passengers. As Business Week put it Airport Security Is Killing Us.
It is time to demand that the “security industry” reports on and proves its effectiveness.
Posted in Alarmism, Aviation, Behaviour, Business | Comments Off on Airport security is now more about business than about security
January 14, 2013
Hot on the heels of the criticism in the UK by the Public Accounts Committee of the over-generous licencing of wind-farms comes this criticism by the European Court of Auditors of the €5 billion wasted in the EU ostensibly on energy efficiency projects. (pdf report here).
Subsidies encourage cheating and corruption and green subsidies rarely achieve their objectives and are proving to be an utter waste.
European Court of Auditors:
“The Member States were essentially using this money to refurbish public buildings while energy efficiency was, at best, a secondary concern,” said ECA Member Harald Wögerbauer (AT). Since 2000, the European Union, through its Cohesion Policy funds, spent almost €5 billion for co-financing energy efficiency measures in the Member States. The Court found that the projects selected by Member State authorities for financing did not have rational objectives in terms of cost-effectiveness, i.e. cost per unit of energy saved. The planned payback period for the investments was 50 years on average, and up to 150 years in certain cases.
BBC: The projects examined by the Court of Auditors were in the Czech Republic, Italy and Lithuania. Those countries received the most EU funding for such projects in 2007-2013.
National authorities used the funds to refurbish buildings, but the spending would not be recouped for 50 years on average, the report said. …. The auditors looked at a sample of 24 energy efficiency projects co-financed by the Cohesion Fund and European Regional Development Fund. Under co-financing, the national governments contribute a percentage of the investment themselves.
The auditors say the European Commission, which allocates EU budget funds, should ensure that such projects undergo a thorough needs assessment first, and that proper monitoring for cost-effectiveness is done.
The report complained of a lack of necessary data, because energy audits are not mandatory in Italy and Lithuania. In the Czech Republic, where they are required, the recommended investment options were far too costly.
Tags:Court of Auditors, environmental subsidies, European Union, Green subsidies
Posted in Alarmism, Environment, European Union | Comments Off on European Court of Auditors finds misuse of €5 billion subsidies for energy efficiency
January 14, 2013
The UK PAC calls the over-generous wind farm licences as being shocking. The consumer will just have to pay higher prices.
The problem with subsidies is that it nearly always leads to the subsidies being milked for the benefit of the few and the cost is borne by the many. The purpose of the subsidy is never usually achieved (unless the benefit is taken to be the windfall that a few enjoy). Now the UK Public Accounts Committee points out the many blunders in wind farm licencing which will cost the consumer some £17 billion — but the money goes to those investors who got in early!!
There is nothing wrong with wind power per se and it surely has a limited contribution to make. But it is just not commercial or practical for base-load power generation and no amount of subsidy will make it so. I can’t help thinking that the few investors who benefit – directly or indirectly – have close friends among the powers that be that establish the generous subsidy rules. The subsidies are justified on the basis of “reducing carbon footprint” which is meaningless.
The PAC has published its 20th report of this session on offshore electricity transmission (full report pdf here). The Committee had taken evidence from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority, and industry representatives on the new licensing regime for offshore electricity transmission.
“Not only is it unlikely that this new licensing system for bringing electricity from offshore wind farms onto the national grid will deliver any savings for consumers, it could well lead to higher prices”. ……
….. Margaret Hodge was speaking as the Committee published its 20th Report of this Session. The Department and the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority (the Authority) have introduced an elaborate regime that licences operators of offshore electricity transmission assets following competitions. The terms of the transmission licences awarded so far appear heavily skewed towards attracting investors rather than securing a good deal for consumers.
The transmission operators receive their income from the National Grid which recovers its costs from electricity suppliers and generators. Although all concerned state that no public funds are directly involved, the future payments to licensees, which will amount to around £17 billion, will in fact be passed onto consumers through electricity bills.
The investors’ estimated returns of 10-11% on the initial licences look extremely generous given the limited risks the investors bear. Licensees are guaranteed a fully retail price index-linked income for 20 years regardless of the extent to which assets are used. Yet penalties are limited to 10% of expected income in any one year if the operators fail to provide the transmission facilities when required.
Tags:£17 billion, Margaret Hodge, Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Public Accounts Committee, Wind farm
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Renewable Energy, UK, Wind power | 2 Comments »
January 11, 2013
Swedish Radio is one of the more rabid and unthinking supporters of global warming orthodoxy (as are all the main stream media in Sweden). So I was rather surprised to see them giving prominence today to Per Krussel, Professor of Economics at Stockholm University. Normally Swedish Radio is so biased and bigoted on this subject that they would have made no mention of this if Krussel had not been a Swedish Professor. Of course – for balance – they then also interviewed a Professor on Environmental Economy who just happens to be a member of the IPCC and clearly backed the alarmist line — what else? He was less than impressive. For representing the IPCC they might just as well have interviewed someone from Greenpeace!
Krussel skewers the Stern Report on fundamental methodology but this itself is nothing new. The Stern Report from 2006 is another one where the content has been massaged to come to a pre-determined conclusion and is almost embarrassingly bad. In my view any document today which cites the Stern Report as support is itself discredited.
Swedish Radio: (free translation from the Swedish)
Many researchers believe that the threat from climate change is the critical issue of our time. But Per Krusell, professor of economics at Stockholm University, and leading a major international effort to calculate the economic costs of climate change, believes that the threat is not that critical in financial terms
“Climate change is a threat, it’s pretty big, but it’s not that huge when translated into dollars and cents” says Per Krusell.
Per Krusell leads an international research project to develop an economic model, which the world’s countries can use to figure out their future costs of climate change. The model should be finished in about a year and will be the world’s most advanced tools in this context, according to Per Krusell. So far, they have concluded that GDP in the worst case will only drop by a few percent in most countries, such as Sweden. This differs from the widely publicized Stern Report in 2006 pointing to significantly higher costs.
…….. above all, Krusell is critical of Stern for putting together all anticipated costs, without discounting these costs properly in the way economists usually do for future costs. …
(The Stern report used a discounting factor of 0.1% – but it is normal to use a discount rate of 1%, which therefore lowers the cost of future generations substantially.) …. Economist Per Krusell agrees that climate change is a big problem, but thinks it’s more important to focus on the economic development of the poor countries rather than combating climate change.
“When we consider the effects of climate change, we expect also that there will be a cost especially in poor countries, but it sums up to no great critical issue for the world. It is more important to get the poor countries to develop. I’m a little worried that “environmental thinking” leads to more important issues being ignored.”
Tags:climate change, climate change costs, Per Krusell, Stern Review, Stockholm University, Sweden
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Economics, Sweden | Comments Off on Climate change costs are not that critical compared to economic development of poor countries – Prof. Per Krussel
January 10, 2013
Back in July the World Food and Agriculture Organsiation was warning about run-away food prices and a potential world food crisis. Yet two reports today would suggest that alarmism about food is just as unreal as that about man-made global warming:
1. Economic Times: Global food prices fell by 7.0 per cent in 2012 from the level the previous year, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday, assuaging worries a few months ago that the world could be heading for a food crisis.
The FAO added that prices had fallen in December for the third month in a row.
The Rome-based FAO’s Food Price Index averaged 212 points in 2012, a drop of 7.0 per cent owing largely to falls in the prices of sugar, dairy products and oil.
According to the FAO’s index, a monthly measure of changes in a basket of food commodities, prices dropped in December by 1.1 per cent to 209 points, down for the third month from the 263 points registered in August.
“The result marks a reversal from the situation last July, when sharply rising prices prompted fears of a new food crisis,” said Jomo Sundaram from FAO’s Economic and Social Development Department.
2. BBC: As much as half of the world’s food, amounting to two billion tonnes worth, is wasted, a UK-based report has claimed.
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers said the waste was being caused by poor storage, strict sell-by dates, bulk offers and consumer fussiness. The study also found that up to 30% of vegetables in the UK were not harvested because of their physical appearance. The institution’s Dr Tim Fox said the level of waste was “staggering”.
The report said that between 30% and 50% of the four billion tonnes of food produced around the world each year went to waste. It suggested that half the food bought in Europe and the US was thrown away. Dr Fox, head of energy and environment at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering. This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. …..
It only reinforces the view that the world will be well able to feed its 9 billion + people by 2050. But being able to will not ensure that everybody is fed. There will no doubt be distribution issues and food supplies may not be equitably available to all the world’s population. There will still be cases of starvation and malnourished children even if more people than ever before will be adequately fed and clothed. But there will be no catastrophic global food crisis.
Tags:Food and Agriculture Organization, Food prices, food waste, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, No food crisis, UN
Posted in Alarmism, Food | Comments Off on What food crisis? Global food prices drop 7% while UK study says half of all food is wasted
January 10, 2013
What’s going on? Suddenly”official” figures for global polar bear populations are being shown to be quite substantial and increasing. What happened to all the fanatics of the “endangered species lobby”? Where is the WWF? I don’t think polar bears are in any danger of extinction and their endangerment is greatly exaggerated, but are they actually thriving? Are polar bear culls now on the cards?
Perhaps the “real” scientists are beginning to see that continuing with the alarmism touted by eco-fascists is not sustainable and is counter-productive?
PolarBearScience has the story:
According to a dynamic summary report on the home page of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group website called State of the Polar Bear, there are now 22,600-32,000 polar bears worldwide, when tallied by nation.
Here are the numbers, by nation, listed in the State of the Polar Bearsummary report (see map below):
Canada 13,300-17,500
USA 1,200-1,800
Russia 2,700-4,800
Norway 1,900-3,600
Greenland
(Denmark) 3,5000-4,400
Total 22,600-32,000
![The “Nations” page of the Polar Bear Specialist Group’s “State of the Polar Bear,” a dynamic summary that can be launched from the home page of the IUCN PBSG http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/dynamic/app/ [published Oct. 15, 2012] Click to enlarge.](https://polarbearscience.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/pbsg-state-of-the-polar-bear_nations.jpg?w=350&h=227)
The “Nations” page of the Polar Bear Specialist Group’s “State of the Polar Bear,” a dynamic summary that can be launched from the home page of the IUCN PBSG http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/dynamic/app/
This is a big change from the 20,000-25,000 that has been touted as the global polar bear population since 2005.
……
If there could be as many as 32,000 polar bears worldwide, why have we not heard of this before? Is this another example of data being kept secret?[see previous discussion here and here]. Or is something else going on?
Tags:Polar bear, polar bear population
Posted in Alarmism, Wildlife | Comments Off on World polar bear population is now up to 22,600 – 32,000
January 10, 2013
Yet another doomsday for us to look forward to (it gets boring looking back at doomsdays from the past that have failed to come to pass). This time it is a 325 m wide asteroid – named Apophis (Apep) after the Egyptian God of darkenss and chaos – which could crash into the Earth on 13th April 2036 (a Sunday).
My own hypothesis is that if we can increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to around 1200 ppm, a collision could be avoided. All I need is some funding (just a few million would do) and I’m sure I could develop a suitable mathematical model to “prove” this. Maybe Greenpeace and WWF could contribute. After all it would save so many species on Earth – not to mention humans.
Daily Mail: The European Space Agency’s orbiting telescope has captured striking new images of the huge ‘Doomsday’ asteroid Apophis that could smash into Earth in 2036 – revealing it is larger than previously thought.
Long billed as a potential cause of an Extinction Level Event (ELE) for humanity, today ESA officials announced that its Herschel Space Observatory discovered that the asteroid is 1,066 feet wide, 20 percent larger than the previous estimate of 885 feet.
Whizzing past Earth at the relatively close distance of nine million miles tonight, Apophis is being closely tracked because of a 2004 study that predicted the rock has a 2.7 percent chance of hitting Earth in April 2029, which was later revised to 2036.
BBC: The large rocky mass was first discovered in 2004. At the time, it raised alarm when scientists calculated that it had a one-in-45,000 chance of smashing into the Earth in 2029. Later revisions, lifted this threat; instead on the Friday 13 April 2029, it will make a close pass at a distance of about 30,000km. However, astronomers say there is still a one-in-200,000 chance that it could strike Earth in 2036.
Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, said: “In 2029, it will pass so close to us that Earth’s gravity will change its orbit. Most of the potential orbits it will end up on will mean we are safe for the next 100 years. But there is a small region of space – something we call a keyhole – and if it passes through that keyhole in 2029, it will come back and hit us on 13 April in 2036.”
If this happened, it would strike the Earth with 100 times the energy in our largest nuclear bombs, said Prof Fitzsimmons.
Tags:99942 Apophis, Apophis, Doomsday, European Space Agency, Extinction event
Posted in Alarmism, Trivia | 2 Comments »
January 9, 2013
UPDATE! The important point of this story is not whether global warming has stopped or is continuing or if the world is cooling. Climate will go the way it will. The real significance of this story is that climate models are not just far from perfect – they are plain wrong. And what is worse is that when a model is not borne out by reality, the “politically correct” but false assumptions (such as that man-made CO2 causes significant warming or that solar effects are minor) are not even reviewed.
This has been doing the rounds for a few days now but the BBC – which tends to be one of the pillars of the Global Warming religion – has finally come round to reporting that the British Met Office has predicted that global temperatures could decrease somewhat over the next decade. Of course it is good to see that a climate model is being revised in the face of reality. Unfortunately most climate models just retain their assumptions and add fudge factors every time reality fails to meet their forecasts where – instead – they ought to be questioning the very assumptions their models are built on. But that loss of face would be too expensive in terms of the funding already flowing into continuing with discredited models and would be too much to take in one go. But the fundamental requirement of good science is that when models don’t fit it is time to question the assumptions in the model – not to find fudge factors.
BBC: Climate model forecast is revised
The UK Met Office has revised one of its forecasts for how much the world may warm in the next few years. …. If the forecast is accurate, the result would be that the global average temperature would have remained relatively static for about two decades.
…. Climate scientists at the Met Office and other centres are involved in intense research to try to understand what is happening over the most recent period.
The most obvious explanation is natural variability – the cycles of changes in solar activity and the movements and temperatures of the oceans.
Infographic (Met Office): The forecasts are based on a comparison with the average global temperature over the period 1971-2000
Of course the BBC report then goes on to proclaim that this not a global cooling and that global warming will continue.
But of course neither this or any of the other exaggerated models will remove the assumed global warming – man-made carbon dioxide link for which there is no direct evidence whatever.
Tallbloke reported on the story here a few days ago.
Tags:carbon dioxide, climate change, Climate model, global warming, Met Office, Temperature record
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | 1 Comment »
January 7, 2013
When a report produces a conclusion you don’t like, political correctness has a simple solution. Suppress the report and commission a new report to reach the “correct” conclusions because the original report “is out of date”.
WNYC News: A document from Governor Cuomo’s Administration assessing the health impacts of hydro fracking, written in early 2012, says the gas drilling process is likely safe if proper precautions are taken by the governor’s environmental agency. ….
While the report says there are potential health risks involved in hydro fracking, it concludes that in each instance, proper mitigation measures that will be required by the state Department of Environmental Conservation will minimize any potential harm and reduce risks. The report, written in February of 2012, says “significant adverse impacts on human health are not expected from routine HVHF (hydro fracking) operations.”
…… The report appears to have been intended for inclusion in the state’s ongoing environmental review of fracking. It also advises against trying to do a site specific quantitative risk assessment of fracking, saying there are too many variables and that too many assumptions would have to be made.
The Administration did not like the conclusion and now a spokeswoman for the DEC says the report is “outdated,” and that no conclusions should be drawn.
“The document is not a health assessment, is nearly a year old, and does not reflect final DEC policy,” said DEC spokeswoman Emily DeSantis in a statement. “The final SGEIS will reflect the review currently underway by DOH and its outside experts. No conclusions should be drawn from this partial, outdated summary.”
Goodness gracious! A year old!
I suppose the required conclusions have already been written and the review will continue until the desired conclusions are reached.
It’s only politics.
Tags:fracking, Governor Cuomo, New York, political correctness
Posted in Alarmism, Business, Energy, Environment, Politics | Comments Off on Pro-fracking health report suppressed by New York Governor
![The “Nations” page of the Polar Bear Specialist Group’s “State of the Polar Bear,” a dynamic summary that can be launched from the home page of the IUCN PBSG http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/dynamic/app/ [published Oct. 15, 2012] Click to enlarge.](http://polarbearscience.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/pbsg-state-of-the-polar-bear_nations.jpg?w=500&h=323)
The k2p blog 