June | 2013

Heated climate debate continues

29/06/2013 2:57 pm \ 43 Comments \ by Richard Treadgold

Professor Bob Carter

It can’t be over yet. When people are still being fired for not believing in global warming, it’s far from over. The war continues.

Professor Bob Carter (an expatriate Kiwi) lost his job the other day at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville. He had worked there for 31 loyal years, his professional life devoted to stratigraphy, understanding events in the deep past recorded in ocean sediments, and teaching.

Significantly, because it led to his dismissal, Bob made an honourable name for himself and earned a world-wide reputation for remaining faithful to scientific principles while analysing the outrageous predictions from global warming alarmists. He was never afraid to speak out against the alarmists and their dubious claims. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: Australia, Bob Carter, Climate science, Sceptics, What is the evidence

Taxing Air out soon

29/06/2013 12:17 pm \ 1 Comment \ by Richard Treadgold

Brochure for Taxing Air. Download the pdf (986 KB).

From our good friend, the always-in-touch Val Majkus, comes a reminder about Bob Carter’s new book (which she’s ordered already!) and encouragement to pass it on to anyone you know who may be interested.

Bob says the book will be available from July 1st, and he would appreciate any support or publicity we can give it. It’s especially significant in the context of the forthcoming Australian election and the new-old PM’s just-announced ditching of the hated carbon tax.

The book has its own web site, and a Twitter account is available.

Posted in: General \ Tagged: Australia, Bob Carter, Sceptics, What is the evidence

Billions burned in German solar debacle

21/06/2013 12:59 am \ 25 Comments \ by Richard Treadgold

Just last year the German solar power industry was predicting good times.

A year ago, as this impressive growth forecast out to 2029 shows, the German solar thermal power industry was predicting good times. Today, it’s nearly dead. The German solar industry association Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft (BSW Solar) officially presented its Roadmap for Solar Heat at Intersolar Europe in June 2012. The roadmap describes scenarios for developing solar thermal power in Germany and shows the policies needed to implement them. While the roadmap’s outlook was criticised for sounding too optimistic, one of the authors, Matthias Reitzenstein, emphasised that the paper was not meant to be a prediction of what would happen but rather a guide about what needed to be done.
Not only wasn’t it a prediction, wasn’t it a short-lived prediction!

Large German companies such as Siemens and Bosch are abandoning the solar industry. Their strategies resulted in debacles – their investments in solar power companies cost them billions. Compared to what investors have lost as a result of their investments in solar stocks, however, these sums are almost negligible amounts. The former stars at the stock exchange, SolarWorld and Q-Cells, have destroyed tens of billions of capital. –Thiemo Heeg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 June 2013

via latest newsletter from the Global Warming Policy Foundation – h/t Benny Peiser at the GWPF.

The following is adapted from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Posted in: General \ Tagged: Germany, Green economy, Solar power

Wild Bill McKibben: “Outlaws of physics”

14/06/2013 1:21 am \ 45 Comments \ by Richard Treadgold

Bill McKibben, climate crackpot

Claims big oil a “rogue industry”

This web site’s masthead proclaims: “For the first time in history, people shouting ‘the end is nigh’ are somehow the sane ones, while those of us who say it is not are now the lunatics.”

That’s how it used to be, but climate change is changing. The true lunatics are clearly seen. They were always alarmist, long before global warming, shrieking our environmental sins, Luddites razing the factories, breaking the machines, clamouring for havoc to save us all from ruin. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: Activists, Alarm, Bill McKibben, Hot Topic, What is the evidence

Relationship between greenhouse gases and global temperature

12/06/2013 11:58 pm \ 20 Comments \ by Richard Treadgold

From the GWPF comes this link to NoTricksZone who has a video of an outstanding presentation (opens in a new tab) three days ago by Professor Murry Salby.

The video begins in German, but after only 41 seconds shifts permanently to English (and later American), so don’t be dismayed. Stick with it.

The German professor, in his words of welcome, describes Professor Salby, from Macquarie University in Sydney:

He is known all over the world as one of the few specialists who really have a view over the whole area of climate development. Despite his long relationship with the most renowned climate institutes, he has preserved his own critical and constructive reasoning, which in some parts is in real contradiction to the official expert opinion and also [opposes] the assessment of the IPCC.

Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: Climate science, Disproving AGW, Murry Selby, Scientists, What is the evidence

Sun sets on solar subsidies

12/06/2013 6:45 pm \ 4 Comments \ by Viv Forbes

Lotus Tesla with amazing new solar power umbrella! You’ll all want one of these! Click for larger version.

— by Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition

In the days of Queen Victoria they could say truthfully: “the sun never sets on the British Empire.”

But it does set on Australia, every single day. Even the green power engineers in Parliament must have noticed that the sun also sets on all those solar panels that their mandates and subsidies have plastered onto Australian roofs.

Solar energy is most intense on the equator but weakens towards the poles. It disappears when the sun sets or cloud obscures the sun. For just six hours or so per day during summer, in a clear tropical desert area, solar energy is reasonably reliable and collectible, although always very dilute. But at times of peak demand, about 6.30pm in winter, solar panels contribute nothing to electricity supply. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: Australia, Carbon Sense, Coal, Solar power

Strike three for TVNZ

07/06/2013 11:40 pm \ 18 Comments \ by Richard Treadgold

Sorry, I’ve been trying to post this for a week. – Richard Treadgold

Wrong, but no apology

TVNZ now admits to me that its press release was wrong in claiming that Dr Renwick blamed the recent drought on global warming.

But TVNZ don’t apologise to us or the New Zealand public — or even to Dr Renwick. The Corporate Affairs Department is entirely absorbed in explaining their mistake, rather than caring that they made it.

That’s the third strike against these public relations masters.

Un – be – lievable. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: Climate science, Global warming, James Renwick, TVNZ

Climate delegates in dark

07/06/2013 10:59 pm \ 32 Comments \ by Richard Treadgold

Expect no wisdom

UNFCCC Climate Change Conference

The thirty-eighth sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 38) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 38), as well as the second part of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 2-2) is taking place at the Maritim Hotel from 3-14 June, 2013 in Bonn, Germany.

via Bonn Climate Change Conference – June 2013.

According to the Irish Times, the eleven-day conference has 670 delegates from 176 countries and is working towards a global agreement in 2015.

The CFACT video posted earlier today has drawn criticism. It shows interviews with nine delegates, asking if they knew of the lack of warming since 1997. Most of them confess complete ignorance about the lack of warming but one or two actually dismiss it, saying it’s unimportant. Continue Reading →

Posted in: General \ Tagged: CFACT, Global warming, United Nations

We won’t be dissuaded from our global goal

07/06/2013 11:47 am \ 21 Comments \ by Richard Treadgold

No global warming for 16 years — hardly significant

Delegates to the United Nations, naturally, are well informed in their chosen field, right?

Wrong. Listen to these ones.

Far from having nothing to worry about because the world is in good hands, Kiwis have everything to worry about because chumps and cretins are now permitted to wander the corridors of power.

What will you do about it?