Archive for the ‘Alarmism’ Category
September 26, 2012
Not that there is anything wrong with using coal when it makes commercial sense. The demonisation of carbon dioxide is a religion built on a hypothesis which in turn is based on “it must be the cause of global warming” and not on any evidence whatever. In consequence the world-wide drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is an unnecessary, expensive and ultimately pointless exercise.
The religious and thoughtless opposition of the “greens” to any use of fossil fuels has led them – especially in Europe – to trying to block exploration, production and exploitation of shale gas. But as with so many “environmentally correct” decisions it turns out to be counter-productive to their own misguided objectives. In Europe this together with the availability of cheap US coals has only served to promote the greater use of coal and an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The blind pursuit of renewable energy in Europe has already given the highest electricity prices in the world. While the increased emissions of carbon dioxide through greater coal use does not itself matter, the consumer will have to pay even higher electricity prices than would prevail if shale gas were exploited.
Reuters reports:
BRUSSELS/LONDON, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Shale gas has jolted traditional roles in the planet’s climate drama, giving cleaner fuel to the United States, whose displaced coal has headed to Europe to pollute the old continent.
It is an ironic twist for the European Union, whose energy policy is largely based on promoting renewables and a target to cut emissions b y 20 percent by 2020. The U.S. did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol to combat global emissions and its national goals are far less ambitious than Europe’s.
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Tags:European Union, Kyoto Protocol, Shale gas, United States
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Europe, US | Comments Off on Opposition to shale gas and cheap US coal only leads to greater use of coal in Europe
September 24, 2012
The hype about electric cars is just one more example of environmental alarmism leading to bad decisions. The list of “bad decisions” made to appease environmentalism is long and getting longer. Wind power before its time and solar power before it was commercially viable have only helped to increase the costs to the consumer but they have been a windfall for those who have managed to “milk” the subsidies. The electric car fiasco is no different. Billions have been wasted in subsidising something that is not commercial and in trying to skew the market in the hope of artificially creating a demand where there is none. But a few have managed to live very well off the subsidies. Some day electric cars may well become commercially viable and when they do it will not be because an environmental lobby group or a government merely wished for it but because the technology and supply network then will be sufficiently developed to offer the consumer a superior product at a reasonable price.
The simple reality is that:
- electric car batteries are still too heavy and take too long to charge
- the range they provide is too short
- the cars are too expensive
More importantly the ostensible reason for subsidising the technology – as being for the cutting of carbon dioxide emissions to try and reverse natural climate change – is both based on a false premise and futile.
“The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge,” said, Uchiyamada, who spearheaded Toyota’s development of the Prius hybrid in the 1990s.
Reuters reports:
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Tags:Alarmism, Electric car, Electric vehicle, subsidies, Toyota, Toyota Prius
Posted in Alarmism, Automobiles, Energy, Engineering, Technology | Comments Off on Now Toyota sees sense and backs away from all-electric cars
September 22, 2012
The fantasy world of subsidies is compounded when the subsidies are for irrational but “politically correct” ends.
Reuters:
U.S. federal policies to promote electric vehicles will cost $7.5 billion through 2019 and have “little to no impact” on overall national gasoline consumption over the next several years, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report issued on Thursday.
Consumer tax credits for buying electric vehicles, which can run as high as $7,500 per vehicle, will account for about 25 percent of the $7.5 billion cost, the CBO said.
The rest of the cost comprises of $2.4 billion in grants to battery makers and projects to promote electric vehicles as well as $3.1 billion in loans to auto companies designed to spur production of fuel-efficient vehicles. …….
Tags:CBO, Congressional Budget Office, Electric car, Electric vehicle
Posted in Alarmism, Automobiles, Energy | Comments Off on Electric cars in the US: $7.5 billion of taxpayers money for “little or no impact” on gas consumption
September 22, 2012
The costs of coal fired power generation in Europe have been artificially inflated for some time now by the imposition of various forms of carbon taxes. These taxes and penalties – which are quite arbitrary – serve political and electoral goals and generally pander to the alarmist view of climate change. The electricity consumer has taken the hit.
Bloomberg reports:
Coal Era Beckons for Europe as Carbon Giveaway Finishes
European utilities are poised to add more coal-fired power capacity than natural gas in the next four years, boosting emissions just as the era of free carbon permits ends.
Power producers from EON AG to RWE AG (RWE) will open six times more coal-burning plants than gas-fed units by 2015, UBS AG said in a Sept. 5 research note. Profits at coal-fired power stations may more than double by then, according to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. report published on Sept. 13.
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Tags:carbon credits, coal-fired power generation, Electricity generation, European Union
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, European Union | Comments Off on In Europe, coal now offers both lower prices for electricity consumers and higher profits for utilities
September 17, 2012
I am always irritated when the regulations regarding in-flight electronics are announced at the start of a flight. I dutifully switch my phone off not because I have any perception of causing danger but only because I don’t want to be denied travel.
There is no evidence whatsoever that using electronic devices on flights – whether during take-off and landing or while cruising – has any deleterious effects on aircraft navigation or any other technical operations during the flight. But this regulation – like so many others – was based originally on fears. Getting rid of an existing regulation even when there is no evidence that the fear is justified is extremely difficult. Once any irrational – but fear-based – regulation is in place the onus of proof shifts from showing something to be unsafe to proving instead that it is not unsafe. And proving a negative is not very easy.
An FAA regulator is walking down the street snapping his fingers continuously. A guy stops him and asks, “Why are you snapping your fingers all the time?” “To keep wild elephants away.” “That’s ridiculous!“, says the guy. The regulator replies, “Oh, yeah? You don’t see any wild elephants around do you?”
The Wall Street Journal writes:
Do Our Gadgets Really Threaten Planes?
The ban on electronic devices rests on anecdotes, not on hard evidence—because there isn’t any.
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Tags:Air safety, Alarmism, FAA, in-flight electronics ban, Precautionary Principle
Posted in Alarmism, Aviation, Behaviour | Comments Off on In-flight electronics ban is based on fears – not on any evidence
September 12, 2012
That climate changes and will continue to change is obvious. That this is primarily due to solar effects via the oceans also seems obvious to me. It seems the height of arrogance when – like Canute attempting to hold back the tides – climate-politicians attempt to hold back the sun and its effects. The sun cannot be carbon-taxed into submission.
That CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has little impact on climate is the reality that climate-politicians continue to deny. That the effects of man-made carbon dioxide emissions are of even less significance is becoming increasingly obvious.
Over the last 16 years global temperatures have been pretty flat (actually the trend is very slightly downwards). During this same time the atmospheric mean CO2 concentration has continued its increasing trend of between 1.5 and 2.5 ppm /year.
The data show no causality between CO2 concentration and global mean temperature. How much or how little man-made emissions of CO2 contribute to the global mean concentration is still open to much question.
Global mean temperatures from woodfortrees.org
The following plot of mean annual atmospheric CO2 concentrations is from NOAA data
(ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt)
NOAA ESRL data
Tags:carbon dioxide, Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, climate, climate change, National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Science | Comments Off on Global temperature dependence on CO2 concentration goes missing
September 11, 2012
I perceive Greenpeace to be an organisation which was once well-intentioned but which has degenerated to become an extremist, semi-religious group where advancing of its beliefs justifies the use of even unethical means. The fundamental error – as I see it – is that it sees “humans” as somehow being separate from “environment” and the development of humanity as a threat to environment. Greenpeace and other similar organisations have lost sight of the fact that humans and their works are part of the “environment” and that the environment needs to be subservient to the needs of human development. They have become part of the coercive and alarmist movement that is eco-fascism.
Greenpeace has been known to exaggerate, mislead, cherry-pick data and even fake data in pursuing its religious goals. They may have done some good in the past but lately they have become one of the forces against improvements of the human condition.
So when Patrick Moore – a co-founder of Greenpeace – accuses them of crimes against humanity I am inclined to listen. Patrick Moore has been disillusioned with Greenpeace for some time and writes this article in Climate Depot which I have reproduced in full.
Special to Climate Depot
Greenpeace’s Crime Against Humanity
By Patrick Moore, PhD
September 10, 2012
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Tags:Climate Depot, Golden Rice, Greenpeace, Patrick Moore
Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Environment, Politics | 1 Comment »
August 20, 2012
Reality of course is that coal, gas, hydro and nuclear are the cheapest sources of electricity generation and will be with us for some time to come. And there is no need – for the sake of idiotic scenarios of nuclear holocaust and nonsense theories about AGW – to move away from them.
Bloomberg:
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government says RWE AG (RWE)’s new power plant that can supply 3.4 million homes aids her plan to exit nuclear energy and switch to cleaner forms of generation. It’s fired with coal.
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Tags:Coal, Coal firing, Electricity generation, EON, Germany, Nuclear power, RWE
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Germany | 1 Comment »
August 18, 2012
I have a theory that within a hundred years we will be bemoaning the lack of world population. The collapse of society will be forecast as an impending catastrophe as the total world population stabilises at less than 10 billion with the proportion of the young working population decreasing relative to the increasing numbers of the “leisured” population. And that apocalypse too shall not come to pass.
Matt Ridley has a new essay in Wired which needs to be read. Just some excerpts below:
Apocalypse Not: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About End Times
When the sun rises on December 22, as it surely will, do not expect apologies or even a rethink. No matter how often apocalyptic predictions fail to come true, another one soon arrives. And the prophets of apocalypse always draw a following—from the 100,000 Millerites who took to the hills in 1843, awaiting the end of the world, to the thousands who believed in Harold Camping, the Christian radio broadcaster who forecast the final rapture in both 1994 and 2011. ………
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Tags:Alarmism, climate change, Doom-sayers, Harold Camping, Innovation, Limits to Growth, Matt Ridley, Thomas Robert Malthus
Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Engineering, Environment, Politics, Science | 1 Comment »
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