Huzzah!
Our hard-won democratic freedoms and our right to self-determination will be substantially restricted by this powerful treaty. So it is wonderful to hear that it faces severe difficulties and won’t be accomplished easily. Here are some brief observations to ensure that unscientific scandal-mongers are not the only voices on the subject and so our leaders might perhaps learn something vital about it. – RT
The Herald recently carried an article from the Independent lamenting the difficulty of getting 192 nations to agree that mankind can control the climate. Of course it comes as no real surprise, as the keenest megalomaniacs—I mean delegates—among them have been striving for such agreement for about two decades. Each year they meet in an exotic location, disagree on a climate-control treaty and then choose an exotic location to host their disagreement for the following year. All of this they do at our expense, not theirs.
CO2 is not pollution
The grimmest aspect of this piece is the ill-informed, irresponsible belief constantly expressed that dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) is a fact.
The article falsely describes CO2 emissions as “pollution”—a cynical redefinition of a minor, non-toxic, colourless and odourless gas vital to all life on Earth. The scurrilous description is a naked attempt to delude us into hating this innocuous gas and, though not many resist the illusion, an illusion it still is.
Decarbonising is expensive and difficult
Then it says “the biggest sticking point is sharing the pain”, meaning the high cost of reducing our emissions of CO2, because though minor and innocuous, it is emitted from all the internal and external combustion engines that so abundantly power our prosperity and to develop any of the known substitutes will incur great expenditure. It’s important to notice how the author thus acknowledges the enormous price being asked of us to ‘decarbonise’ and in doing so tacitly denies the Greens’ hollow claims that a decarbonised industrial base will produce for no extra cost the same jobs and prosperity as are now powered by high-density hydrocarbon fuels. Nothing could be more risibly wrong.
Spain not long ago demonstrated the economic perils of heavily subsidising solar panels and Germany recently revealed the dangerous financial folly of lavishing subsidies on renewable energy. Both countries have suffered serious fiscal losses from their idealistic anti-DAGW policies.
The article talks about the developing world emitting “a huge portion of CO2,” which apparently “we just can’t put into the atmosphere”, failing to explain why we shouldn’t allow such a natural thing. Presumably they think that by now we all ‘know’ the reasons and they need not trouble themselves to repeat their propaganda, misdirections and lies.
Now for world domination
No treaty will be worth much unless it’s “legally binding” but for the activists the vital point is for emissions to be “internationally monitored.” This is diplomat-speak for granting unelected representatives of the United (“a just world for all, like it or not”) Nations the sovereign power to enter countries, inspect anything, demand information, assess and collect taxes, track treaty compliance, investigate violations and impose fines. These will not be fair-minded, independent jurists but faceless bureaucrats with the will to rule the world, may God defend us. The various Christian Inquisitors were toothless pussycats compared with the powers these climate tigers will wield.
Helen Clark could be the next leader of the UN. She must be dizzy at the thought of holding this great power over every nation on earth (at least, the ones that sign the climate treaty). Remember that in December, when it was again proposed in Lima that richer nations should pay poor countries $100 billion a year to protect them from runaway global warming, the UN’s chief spokesman, Christiana Figueres, dismissed this as “a very, very small sum”. What is needed to decarbonise the global economy, she said, is “$90 trillion over the next 15 years.” – Christopher Booker, 6 Dec 2014.
That’s a gigantic sum to match the gigantic powers the UN will get. We will lose much.
False foundation of the DAGW theory
The article trots out the now-obligatory false statement claiming there’s an “overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is warming and humans are largely responsible.” With its token mention of science, most people tend to trust these claims. But they’re wrong and simply reiterate three iconic phrases that encapsulate the basic claims of the climate alarmists (did I mention all three are false?).
- Because it’s an overwhelming scientific consensus it’s criminal to deny it.
- Warming is real and has been happening for a long time.
- We selfish westerners did it and must atone for it.
Claim 1 suggests (but does not say) that scientists from different fields agree that dangerous global warming is being caused by mankind. But among climate scientists (who understand the field) there is no “overwhelming” consensus that humans are responsible for significant warming. The very proposition that there is a consensus is controversial, the only “evidence” in unconvincing, flawed studies (at least one of which has been withdrawn over its errors) of the climate literature and inflamed by bickering, refusal to disclose data and outright deception.
Claim 2 is partly true and partly false. It has been warming and cooling over various periods, so it’s impossible to agree with this statement unless you define the period. The climate has not warmed significantly in the last 20 years, so it’s misleading to claim that the earth “is warming” if you’re implying that we are the cause. However, on a longer scale, such as since the end of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, you might readily accept that the world has been warming for about 165 years—but not by our doing. On page 17 of the AR5 SPM (2013) the IPCC makes a guess that humanity might have caused “about half” the warming from 1951 to 2010, which amounted to about 0.6°C–0.7°C, which means they think we caused about 0.3°C–0.35°C. Since the IPCC also hypothesises that the natural climate system would, through increasing atmospheric water vapour, ‘amplify’ the direct warming caused by our emissions, we directly caused perhaps a third of that warming—so, about 0.1°C, but that’s controversial. It could be more, it could be less. Either way, it’s tiny.
Claim 3 might be true if Claim 2 were true, though I hasten once again to remind the sceptical reader that the fact of warming says nothing of its cause.
To my mind there’s no doubt about these doubts
The Herald article says “sceptics are effective at sowing seeds of doubt,” as though the ‘sceptic’ manufactures doubt where doubt is unjustified. But it’s spontaneous and natural, because when you observe that global average surface temperatures have not increased significantly for the last 20 years, while agitated people shriek that the globe is dangerously warming, you scarcely need to think about it: doubts arise by themselves.
When you’re told that the air will warm the ocean so you search for how it could happen and you find the physics is against it and no paper has been written that describes that warming process, you don’t need to think about it: doubts arise by themselves.
When you hear that our CO2 emissions will raise the air temperature, which creates more water vapour which will raise the temperature even further, but you observe less water vapour and no temperature rise, you don’t need to think about it: doubts arise by themselves.
We sceptics don’t need to manufacture doubt—the statements of the alarmists and the facts of the climate themselves contain the doubts. We can scarcely describe them if they’re not there. Also, these are not mere seeds of doubt—they’re strong, full size, adult doubts that thump the table and demand answers now.
Finally the article says:
The collapse in oil and gas prices also threatens the green agenda, making renewable energy sources such as wind and solar even more expensive by comparison [with] fossil fuel power, meaning that even bigger subsidies are likely to be needed to attract investment. It’s a tough sell for politicians with short-term goals.
And that is good news indeed, because it may be the saving of us all from the most weakly-justified alarm in human history.
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I moved from New Zealand to the UK to live about 4 years ago. I have been struck by how poor even the ‘serious’ media is here. In NZ plenty of my friends gave it that, in their opinion, the Independent was a decent newspaper, although I hadn’t read it at that stage. It isn’t. On the matter of the world’s climate it is just as poor and one-eyed as the BBC or Guardian, printing a daily diet of what I hold to be nonsense on the matter. So shame on the Auckland Herald for reproducing this. But then that newspaper has collapsed in quality, too, in recent years.
Yes, it’s hard to know what’s gone so wrong so fast. It probably happened by degrees—university degrees! One must laugh or take to weeping. The important thing is to decide what to do about it, and in the case of the climate schemozzles I try to find new ways of restating the truth.
>”Decarbonising is expensive and difficult”
I’m still waiting for how international shipping is to be “decarbonised”. I live in view of the Port of Tauranga, into and out of which there’s steady traffic of reefers, container carriers, log carriers, fuel tankers, steel carriers, and in this season, passenger cruises. There’s two of the latter here now and there will be three tied up on Wednesday.
Not that I’m concerned in the slightest about CO2 emissions (I’m not), I’m just curious about the practicalities.
Given the real pollution from shipping is only just beginning to be addressed, the likelihood of a radical decarbon “transformation” (whatever that is) is remote. For example:
‘Big polluters: one massive container ship equals 50 million cars’
By Paul Evans, April 23, 2009
Unregulated emissions
In international waters ship emissions remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system. The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the same as asphalt and is so thick that when cold it can be walked upon . It’s the cheapest and most polluting fuel available and the world’s 90,000 ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each day, or more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest oil exporter.
Shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter in the world. There are 760 million cars in the world today emitting approx 78,599 tons of Sulphur Oxides (SOx) annually. The world’s 90,000 vessels burn approx 370 million tons of fuel per year emitting 20 million tons of Sulphur Oxides. That equates to 260 times more Sulphur Oxides being emitted by ships than the worlds entire car fleet. One large ship alone can generate approx 5,200 tonnes of sulphur oxide pollution in a year, meaning that 15 of the largest ships now emit as much SOx as the worlds 760 million cars.
http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/
‘How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world’
By Fred Pearce, 21 November 2009
Emma – dubbed SS Santa by the media – brought Christmas presents to Europe in October and is now en route from Algeciras in Spain to Yantian in southern China, carrying containers full of our waste paper, plastic and electronics for recycling.
But it burns marine heavy fuel, or ‘bunker fuel’, which leaves behind a trail of potentially lethal chemicals: sulphur and smoke that have been linked to breathing problems, inflammation, cancer and heart disease.
James Corbett, of the University of Delaware, is an authority on ship emissions. He calculates a worldwide death toll of about 64,000 a year, of which 27,000 are in Europe. Britain is one of the worst-hit countries, with about 2,000 deaths from funnel fumes. Corbett predicts the global figure will rise to 87,000 deaths a year by 2012.
Robert Pedersen, of Maersk, said: ‘The sulphur content varies according to where you get your fuel. Our average sulphur content is, I believe, 2.5 per cent. It’s rather rare you get anything close to 4.5 per cent.’ He added that ‘the sulphur issue is one for the whole industry’ and that there would be a ‘huge cost implication’ to switch to cleaner fuel.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html#ixzz3Ntq6Eve0
# # #
If the shipping industry’s sulphur issue is financially insurmountable by switching to cleaner fuel, either fossil or nuclear, then any idea that it will ever be “decarbonised” is fantasy thinking.
Wow! That’s shocking. Think of the expense the car manufacturers have been driven to (sorry, no pun intended) by the green activists to reduce emissions! All of it rendered useless for climate change. Our cars remain at higher, unjustified prices because of these uninformed decisions that owe more to superstition than to science.
>”Think of the expense the car manufacturers have been driven to…”
Yes, the costs keep piling up:
‘Report: Ford’s Best-Selling F-150 to Lose 700 lbs to Meet EPA Fuel Standards’
The Ford F-150 will make extensive use of aluminum which could add $1,500 to the cost of the truck
Upcoming fuel standards proposed by the Obama Administration are affecting all auto manufacturers. The regulations would see the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rise every year for manufacturers from 2017 through 2025. By 2025, auto manufacturer will be expected to meet a fleetwide 54.5 mpg CAFE average.
The Department of Transportation says that meeting the 54.5 mpg CAFE average will save customers nearly $7,000 in lifetime fuel costs, but that figure will be mostly offset by the increase in costs associated with more advanced powertrains and lightweight materials needed to achieve that goal (the National Automobile Dealers Association claims that “fuel saving technologies” will add $5,000 to the cost of a 2025 model year vehicle).
I. Aluminum to the Rescue
II. Extra Aluminum Means Added Costs for Customers
However, the intensive use of aluminum in the next generation F-150 doesn’t come without its downsides. Aluminum is harder to work with than steel when it comes to building vehicles. In addition, aluminum body parts are costlier and harder to repair which in turn leads to higher insurance premiums.
And then there’s the issue of costs for the buyer when it comes time to sign on the dotted line for new truck. It’s estimated that Ford’s new aluminum obsession will add roughly $1,500 in material costs to the F-150 (which would most likely be passed on to the customer). This is a risky bet for a vehicle that is a cash cow for Ford.
See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Fords+BestSelling+F150+to+Lose+700+lbs+to+Meet+EPA+Fuel+Standards/article25267.htm#sthash.aFXtEMWJ.dpuf
‘With aluminium F-150, Ford places a billion-dollar bet’
http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20141017-ford-bets-the-house
F-150 engines:
2.7L EcoBoost V6 325 hp (237 kW), 3.5L EcoBoost V6 365 hp (266 kW). 50% of F-150 sales.
3.5L Ti-VCT V6 282 hp (206 kW), 5.0L Ti-VCT V8 385 hp (281 kW). 50% off-150 sales.
Mærsk container ship engine from the gizmag article upthread:
“One of the eight longest container ships in the world, the 1,300 ft Emma Mærsk also has the world’s largest reciprocating engine. At five storeys tall and weighing 2300 tonnes, this 14 cylinder turbocharged two-stroke monster puts out 84.4 MW (114,800 hp) – up to 90MW when the motor’s waste heat recovery system is taken into account. These mammoth engines consume approx 16 tons of fuel per hour or 380 tons per day while at sea.”
Built to Mærsk specs for economy of scale with no regulatory limitations on pollution or performance whatsoever.
>”On page 17 of the AR5 SPM (2013) the IPCC makes a guess that humanity might have caused “about half” the warming from 1951 to 2010, which amounted to about 0.6°C–0.7°C, which means they think we caused about 0.3°C–0.35°C.”
Accompanied by SPM Figure 1:
http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/wp-content/IPCC-AR5-WG1-Fig-SPM1.png
Out of the 6 decades 1951 to 2010, only 20 years (2 decades 1980 – 2000) exhibited the warming attributed to the entire 60 year period.
Problematic for the conjecture – to say the least.
Exackly!
If I win Lotto, I shall buy myself a BIG Yank tank, preferably a GMC King-cab ute with a big, lazy vee-eight engine and automatic tranny and very noisy headers, also fitted with a decent sound system so I can play Wagner’s Ring Cycle very loudly, just to piss off the idiot Greenies. Well, Wagner has to be played loudly!
The rig will be given a really rockin’ flame paint job, and I’ll use it to audibly and visually harass Greenie protests