Posts Tagged ‘global warming’
January 5, 2013
Alarmism and fostering a fear of future events where the actual risk is well below the perceived risk is the stock-in-trade of insurance companies. A simple case of boosting revenues (premiums from perceived risks) for any given cost (actual risk). It is inevitable that while statistics of past events from insurance companies are detailed and accurate any forecast from an insurance company will (must) exaggerate risks. There is no business if perception of risk is low.
When it comes to weather and global warming fears Munich Re is among the more strident of the alarmists. A fear of coming catastrophes by drought or too much rain or floods or rising sea levels are all actively promoted as new insurance products are touted.
Munich Re has just issued a press release about the statistics of natural and weather related catstrophes showing that costs for 2012 were below average and lives lost were well below average. Needless to say the headline is spun to help sell more insurance:
Overall, losses were significantly lower in 2012 than in the previous year, …..
Some 9,500 people lost their lives in natural catastrophes last year compared with the ten-year average of 106,000. The relatively small number of fatalities was due to the fact that, in 2012, few severe natural catastrophes occurred in emerging and developing countries, where natural catastrophes tend to have far more devastating consequences in terms of human lives.
Prof. Peter Höppe, Head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks Research then adds his spin to try and ensure Munich Re’s business for the future:
“It is not possible, of course, to attribute individual events to climate change, each theoretically being possible in isolation. However, numerous studies assume a rise in summer drought periods in North America in the future and an increasing probability of severe cyclones relatively far north along the US East Coast in the long term. The rise in sea level caused by climate change will further increase the risk of storm surge. And, with no apparent prospect of progress in international climate negotiations like those held recently in Doha, adaptation to such hazards using suitable protective measures is absolutely essential.”
Tags:Alarmism, climate change, global warming, Insurance, Insurance and alarmism, Munich Re
Posted in Alarmism, Business | Comments Off on Munich Re: Natural catastrophe and weather related deaths in 2012 were less than one-tenth of the 10-year average
January 1, 2013
A failure of something utterly unnecessary ought to be a success. But the damage caused by the pursuit of meaningless goals for unsound reasons has been immense.
The Kyoto protocol was adopted in 1997 and came into effect in 2005. “The controversial and ineffective Kyoto Protocol’s first stage comes to an end today, leaving the world with 58 per cent more greenhouse gases than in 1990, as opposed to the five per cent reduction its signatories sought”.
It has been a solution addressing the wrong problem.
Kyoto Protocol aimed for 5% cut in carbon emissions — instead, we got a 58% increase
But in spite of this increase global temperatures have flattened out and may even have decreased slightly.
Global warming stopped 16 years ago
And all that has been achieved is that electricity prices have increased to pay for the massive subsidies for chasing a mirage. The financial crisis was not caused by the Kyoto Protocol but the crisis has certainly been prolonged and the recovery has been delayed by unnecessarily high electrical prices.
Tags:climate change, global warming, Greenhouse gas, Kyoto, KyotoProtocol
Posted in Alarmism, Environment, Renewable Energy | Comments Off on Kyoto protocol fails in all ways: Goals not achieved and for something utterly unnecessary
December 20, 2012
Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death…
Russia is enduring its harshest winter in over 70 years, with temperatures plunging as low as -50 degrees Celsius. Dozens of people have already died, and almost 150 have been hospitalized.
The country has not witnessed such a long cold spell since 1938, meteorologists said, with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than the seasonal norm all over Russia.
Across the country, 45 people have died due to the cold, and 266 have been taken to hospitals. In total, 542 people were injured due to the freezing temperatures, RIA Novosti reported.
The Moscow region saw temperatures of -17 to -18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, and the record cold temperatures are expected to linger for at least three more days. Thermometers in Siberia touched -50 degrees Celsius, which is also abnormal for December.
If this is global warming …. image. RIA Novosti / Aleksey Malgavko
The cold spell, along with snowfalls, has disrupted flights all over the country, and led to huge traffic jams. In the southern city of Rostov-on-Don some highways were closed due to snowfalls over the past two days, triggering a traffic collapse. …
Over the weekend, meteorologists predict temperatures will plunge even lower in the Moscow region, hitting -25. The Russian capital is also expected to be swept with snow, RIA Novosti reported.
Tags:global warming, Russia, weather, winter
Posted in Climate, Russia, Weather, Winter | Comments Off on Harshest Russian winter in 70 years – must be global warming
November 19, 2012
Just in time for the COP 18 meetings in Doha, the Potsdam Institute has produced – for the World Bank – the most apalling mish-mash of baseless fear-mongering I have seen for a long time (one could say that being from Potsdam it is only to be expected). Much about increasing emissions but nothing about the broken link between carbon dioxide and temperature. This is Alarmism at its worst.
Why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided (Summary pdf)
Tags:Alarmism, climate change, COP18, Doha, global warming, Potsdam, World Bank
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Potsdam Institute for the World Bank showcases alarmism at it its very worst
October 9, 2012
Even if anthropogenic effects on climate were significant – which they are not – the arrogance of politicians and bureaucrats is astounding when they believe they can
- control the climate, and
- achieve this control by a “rebranding exercise”
The sun will continue on its merry way and our climate will perforce follow willy-nilly, even if our politicians and bureaucrats and so-called climate scientists think that modern day “rain dances” will give them climate control.
Perhaps they truly believe that man can control climate – and then it would not be arrogance – just gullibility or just plain stupidity! The modern-day King Canute syndrome.
Tags:climate, climate change, climate control, global warming, Politician, rebranding green energy
Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Politics | Comments Off on Climate control – no less!! “A world you like – with the climate you like”
September 27, 2012
The orthodoxy of the Temple of Climate Science have been busy this summer trying to link every “unusual” weather event to global warming. But every time I see a headline that some weather event has been the worst for 30 or 40 or 100 years, it only serves to illustrate that the same weather events also occurred 30 or 40 or 100 years ago. And when weather events today are similar to events before 1950 then they can only be further indicators that they are not linked to carbon dioxide emissions.
Even the IPCC realises that weather is not climate.
(more…)
Tags:climate change, environment, extreme weather events, forest fires, global warming, IPCC, Tornado, weather, Wildfire
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Weather | Comments Off on Tornadoes and forest fires drastically down – It must be global warming
July 14, 2012
I am off again on an assignment for a few days and blogging will be light.
It’s summer and where I’m going torrential rain or blistering sunshine with temperatures over 45 °C are quite normal for this time of year. If it is raining the temperature may be down to 25°C. So I’m prepared for a possible variation of some 20 deg C. It’s just weather.
I note the usual summer stories from around the world of heat waves in some places and “coldest” Junes in a 100 years in others. Some farmers are complaining about droughts and others are complaining about floods. Where societies have ignored repairs or have not built up their infrastructure to match the changing concentrations of urban populations – disasters occur. But I also note that when parts of the US declares that they have just had the hottest period for 50 years or 100 years or whatever and that this is “proof” of global warming they conveniently forget that 50 years ago or 100 years ago or whenever, man-made emissions of carbon dioxide were orders of magnitude lower. When weather records from a hundred years ago are broken it only proves that it was hotter/colder/stormier/wetter/drier or whatever long before the modern industrial age and before any significant man man-made carbon dioxide emissions. Breaking an old record only shows cyclic behaviour – not “runaway” behaviour!
It’s summer and people are on vacation and journalists are looking for stories and the silly season has begun!
Tags:climate, climate change, environment, global warming, Silly season, weather
Posted in Climate, Natural Phenomena, Weather | Comments Off on Breaking weather records from a century ago only shows that it was hotter before CO2 emissions began
June 9, 2012
One would think that after Climategate, climate scientists would be a little more careful with their “trickery”.
When a supposedly peer reviewed paper in the American Meteorological Society Journal is withdrawn / “put on hold” after publication when the on-line community (Jean S / Steve McIntyre) find the authors to have cherry picked and improperly “massaged their data, it says 2 things:
- that the peer review process at the AMS is either incompetent or corrupt (in that it is especially friendly to papers propounding the global warming orthodoxy), and
- that the “tricks” revealed by Climategate are still being actively used by so-called climate scientists to support their beliefs
That one of the authors – probably responsible for this cock-up – a Joelle Gergis from the University of Melbourne, is more an “activist” than a “scientist” does not help matters . Going through the abstracts of her list of publications suggests that she often decides on her conclusions first and then selects data and writes her papers to fit the conclusions. Cherry picking data is bad enough but when it is done because of confirmation bias it is perhaps the most insidious form of scientific misconduct there is.
Interestingly
joellegergis.wordpress.com is no longer available.
The authors have deleted this blog.
The AMS Journal “peers” who reviewed this paper don’t come out of this very well either. But of course they will receive no strictures for a job done badly.
Sources:
Gergis et al “Put on Hold”
American Meteorological Society disappears withdraws Gergis et al paper on proxy temperature reconstruction after post peer review finds fatal flaws
Gergis paper disappears
Another Hockey Stick broken
Tags:American Meteorological Society, Confirmation bias, data manipulation, global warming, hockey stick, hockey stick withdrawn, Joelle Gergis, peer review, Scientific misconduct, Steve McIntyre
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Another warming hockey stick is withdrawn/”put-on-hold” for bad data
The k2p blog 