US carbon emissions, shale gas and Europe

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US shale gas production

Clarence drops in

Under our post about US carbon dioxide emissions flattening out, Clarence gave a pithy analysis. I promote it and add links to verify the points he makes because they’re so devastating to the warmist cause. Clarence’s comments indented and bold.

The Forbes article deals only with USA emissions. This is no surprise, as they have been declining quite quickly over the past decade – since the advent of shale gas. It is ironic that US emission reduction has handily exceeded that of Europe throughout the entire Kyoto Commitment Period.

The graph above shows the startling increase in shale gas output over the last few years. Continue Reading →

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A lie repeated gains no truth

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Looking for information on China’s coal use I came across this fact-free summary of the “fight” against CO2 (emphasis added).

Coal already contributes 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions—the IEA projects this figure to grow to 50 percent over the next 25 years. Greenhouse gas emissions—which again reached record levels this year—are driving global climate change, the impacts of which we’re already seeing through more extreme weather events, droughts, and rising sea levels.

Say it ten times every day for 20 years and it becomes part of the air we breathe — people accept it.

But it’s hideous, because it’s still a pack of lies.

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I’m a tree — why not feed me?

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old oak tree

Old oak tree.

Open letter to environmentalists from A. Tree

Dear Greenies,

You love trees – you’re even called tree-huggers. Yet I’m a tree, and you don’t love me. You won’t even feed me!

One of my indispensable foods is carbon dioxide. But you’ve demonised it by fabricating the story that it’s the most important “greenhouse” gas. You pretend that one of the world’s rarest gases, a mere 0.00039 of the atmosphere, will overheat the climate. You never mention that water vapour, up to 4% of the atmosphere (10,000 times more plentiful than CO2), is also the most powerful greenhouse gas of all, with each molecule having about 26 times more warming effect than carbon dioxide.

To support your corrupt fib about CO2, you’ve started referring to this tasteless, odourless, invisible, non-toxic, life-giving plant food as a pollutant. So you try to restrict my diet.

Imbeciles! Continue Reading →

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Merry Christmas, fresh start, who knows?

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Murrays Bay beach in ambiguous mood last May.

The picture was taken long before Christmas, but the image is emblematic of the endless dualities presented by life even in its essential neutrality. We receive good and bad, sorrow and joy, luck and hardship, wealth and poverty, sickness and vigour – we play with nothing but what we’re given and for which if we’re wise we’re thankful. Christmas and the New Year is a season for reflection, as light and dark alike reflect on the moist land. See, there is the oh so neutral water you are obliged to live in — you might as well dive in boldly as timidly dip your toe. May you be at home there. May your prosperity be prolonged. May you be inspired and inspiring. May your joy soar.

Merry Christmas to all

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Climate change threatens future of pasta

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This is from Newsweek on 10 December and I know it’s been expertly dealt with elsewhere, but it’s so questionable I can’t ignore it. From notes I made at the time, the links below start to argue with their alarming premise.

Hurricane Sandy’s recent devastation of New York and neighboring states reminded Americans of what Hurricane Katrina demonstrated in 2005: global warming makes weather more extreme, and extreme weather can be extremely dangerous. But flooding coastlines aren’t our only worry. Climate change is also imperiling the very foundation of human existence: our ability to feed ourselves.

Three grains—wheat, corn, and rice—account for most of the food humans consume. All three are already suffering from climate change, but wheat stands to fare the worst in the years ahead, for it is the grain most vulnerable to high temperatures. That spells trouble not only for pasta but also for bread, the most basic food of all. (Pasta is made from the durum variety of wheat, while bread is generally made from more common varieties, such as red spring.)

“Wheat is a cool-season crop. High temperatures are negative for its growth and quality, no doubt about it,” says Frank Manthey, a professor at North Dakota State University who advises the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Already, a mere 1 degree Fahrenheit of global temperature rise over the past 50 years has caused a 5.5 percent decline in wheat production, according to David Lobell, a professor at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment.

via Bakken Oil Boom and Climate Change Threaten the Future of Pasta – Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

But here are production figures that contradict that story: Continue Reading →

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Carbon emissions could slow for decades

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Only in the USA

Carbon Emissions Projected to Remain Flat for Decades – Forbes.

So the good news is the alarmists might be slightly pleased and quieten down a bit.

The bad news is the price of slowing the pace of the Western industrial miracle that’s been relentlessly pulling the world out of poverty, ignorance, sickness, early death and misery for over two centuries.

Will the alarmists reflect on the poverty, lack of medical care, loss of education and general reduction in levels of happiness this will bring?

Anyway, this slow-down concerns emissions only from the US. Considering they emit less than China does, it can’t make much difference to the global climate.

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Tornadoes not part of increase in extreme weather

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Peter Griffin: Tornadoes don’t indicate extreme weather is increasing – NZ Herald.

Old news alert (6 Dec) – I’m catching up.

This is good news. Nobody wants tornadoes to increase. Of course, there are other indications that extreme weather will increase – is perhaps already increasing – so please don’t stop worrying.

But it’s disappointing to see the Herald recycling posts from SciBlogs.

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Will release of AR5 draft help IPCC make good?

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Let us hope so

From Judith Curry comes a remark of such simple goodness I pause in admiration and slowly nod my agreement. Of course there’s hope for the IPCC!

In a learned comment on Matt Ridley’s analysis of the draft AR5 discussion of climate sensitivity, including aerosols, clouds and water vapour, Professor Curry concludes:

JC summary: The leak of the SOD was a good thing; the IPCC still has the opportunity to do a much better job, and the wider discussion in the blogosphere and even the mainstream media places pressure on the IPCC authors to consider these issues; they can’t sweep them under the rug as in previous reports.

via Climate sensitivity in the AR5 SOD | Climate Etc..

There’s nothing difficult in that statement; it’s quite ordinary, really. So it would be easy to overlook the obstacles to making it. Like the instinct for revenge against the IPCC for making so much of a non-existent climate problem to so many for so long. Continue Reading →

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Worst freeze in 70 years, 600 dead… but who owns the water?

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From P Gosselin at NoTricksZone on 21 December 2012 – h/t Climate Depot.

It’s the worst cold snap in Russia in over 70 years. Hundreds have already frozen to death across Eastern Europe. But you won’t be hearing about this in the mainstream media.

The spate of cold weather that has lasted for weeks in many parts of Europe has now claimed at least 600 lives. Eastern Europe is the worst affected. Continue Reading →

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What drives climate change?

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Actually, what IS climate change, again?

From page 7 of the leaked Summary for Policymakers from the IPCC WGI Fifth Assessment Report comes this statement about CO2 “driving” climate change (emphasis added):

Natural and anthropogenic drivers cause imbalances in the Earth’s energy budget. The strongest anthropogenic drivers are changes in greenhouse gas concentrations and aerosols. These can now be quantified in more detail, but the uncertainties of the forcing associated with aerosols remain high.

Globally, CO2 is the strongest driver of climate change compared to other changes in the atmospheric composition, and changes in surface conditions. Its relative contribution has further increased since the 1980s and by far outweighs the contributions from natural drivers. CO2 concentrations and rates of increase are unprecedented in the last 800,000 years and at least 20,000 years, respectively. Other drivers also influence climate on global and particularly regional scales.

It’s a mere fragment of grit from a mountain of a report, but still curious enough because it raises the definition of the problem, and statements about climate change have no clearer meaning just because we stopped questioning it. Continue Reading →

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Full AR5 draft leaked

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From http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/

Full AR5 draft leaked here, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing

Posted by Alec Rawls, 12/13/12

I participated in “expert review” of the Second Order Draft of AR5 (the next IPCC report), Working Group 1 (“The Scientific Basis”), and am now making the full draft available to the public. I believe that the leaking of this draft is entirely legal, that the taxpayer funded report is properly in the public domain under the Freedom of Information Act, and that making it available to the public is in any case protected by established legal and ethical standards, but web hosting companies are not in the business of making such determinations so interested readers are encouraged to please download copies of the report for further dissemination in case this content is removed as a possible terms-of-service violation. My reasons for leaking the report are explained below. Here are the chapters:

Continue reading at Full AR5 draft leaked here.

Also available at WUWT. [Thanks to Mike for reporting my broken WUWT link. My 404 message is: “Sorry, but you are looking for something that is not here” which isn’t nearly as good as the Haiku he gave me: “You step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not here.” Thanks, Mike – RT]

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Open thread: 13 Dec 2012

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open thread

I’m sorry for my absence.

I hate not writing here; it’s as though there’s been a death in the family. But academic proofreading at the end of the year goes through the roof and earning money takes precedence over everything.

In case you have things to say, here’s a fresh thread to say it in. Goodness knows, there’s plenty to talk about.

Stay well. I’ll be back in a week or so.

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