“The current debate is a public policy debate with enormous implications.[3] It is no longer about climate. It is about the government, the politicians, their scribes and the lobbyists who want to get more decision making and power for themselves. It seems to me that the widespread acceptance of the global warming dogma has become one of the main, most costly and most undemocratic public policy mistakes in generations. The previous one was communism.”
I believe that the AGW debate is now simply noise to the power brokers of the world. They do not give a toss whether the science is settled or not. They will not engage in the debate because AGW has already done its job for them – namely, to spearhead legislation worldwide which sets the financial foundation for a world government. This is where the fight will move during the next decade. The words of President Vaclav Klaus are chilling as he compares this global eco-political movement to the communism he endured for most of his life.
Exports of gas and electricity have been cut back to provide for increased domestic demand, and the exceptionally cold weather in Siberia has halted oil production in many places.
Russia’s power infrastructure, from power stations to the heating system, has had little investment since the fall of the Soviet Union 14 years ago.
The electricity system, some of it nearly 70 years old, has so far coped with the challenge as people turned up the heating, but there are fears of blackouts.
Record loads
“Every day we are seeing a new record load on the system. Yesterday was a record in both the country and in Moscow,” a UES spokeswoman said. “So far, all the electricity stations are coping with the load.”
On Wednesday, electricity consumption nationwide hit 146,000 megawatts a record high since the Soviet collapse 15 years ago, the head of national electricity monopoly RAO Unified Energy Systems, Anatoly Chubais, said in televised comments.
In Moscow, where a construction boom is in full swing and the gray streets of the Soviet era have turned into glitzy thoroughfares festooned with bright lights, electricity consumption reached a record of more than 15,300 megawatts, RAO UES said.
The cold snap has put many trolley-buses out of action, while passenger numbers on the underground railway system have swelled because drivers cannot start their cars. Big display advertising has been banned to save energy.
Unified Energy System, Russia’s power monopoly, said it may be forced to cut electricity supplies to Finland by as much as 30 percent because it barely had enough to supply its own consumers.
UES said it expected a new spike in domestic power consumption on Thursday as people plugged in their electric heaters for extra warmth.
Russia on Wednesday reduced gas supplies to Europe and trimmed back its oil output because of the extreme cold. Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said the country may draw on its modest strategic fuel reserves. He gave no details.
Moscow’s coldest spell in 26 years brought out the quirkiest in the Russian character with one animal trainer feeding an elephant a bucket of vodka to warm it up — only to watch the drunken beast set about wrecking the central heating system.
Snow and freezing temperatures have severely disrupted airports in Germany and Britain and caused chaos and deaths on roads across Europe.
More than 200 flights were cancelled overnight (NZ time) at Frankfurt airport in Germany, the continent’s third busiest, while southern German states were blanketed by snow.
Large parts of Poland were covered in thick snow, causing hundreds of accidents on the roads and at least four people were killed on snowbound roads in the Czech Republic.
It was so cold in France that electricity network RTE warned of cuts in the supply as the country looked set to top record demand levels while 20 per cent of high-speed train services to the hard hit southeast were cancelled.
Switzerland suffered its coldest November night for 45 years as temperatures plunged below minus 30 degrees Celsius, according to national weather service Meteosuisse.
Even Spain and Portugal were shivering after snow fell in the northern half of the Iberian peninsula.
Continues………
——————————————————————————————————————– Sweden braces for record freeze
Stockholm is forecast to experience its coldest seasonal temperatures for over 100 years this week as winter weather takes hold of the country, according to the Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI).
* Bitter winter on the way: expert (25 Nov 10)
* Swedish military called in to battle winter storm (24 Nov 10)
* Transport agency calls for caution after snow (23 Nov 10)
Temperatures across the country are expected to drop to record lows for the first week of December, with the exception of the far north, with averages coming in 7-10 degrees Celsius below normal.
Stockholm registered -11 degrees Celsius at the weekend, the coldest November temperature since 1965 and the mercury is set to plunge further on Wednesday and Thursday, dropping as low as -15.
“It is far below average temperatures, which usually oscillate around zero at this time of the year,” said Alexandra Ohlsson, a meteorologist with SMHI.
Dalarna and Jmtland in northern Sweden will also be hit with the harsh weather. The Storsjn lake in the heart of Jmtland’s main city stersund has already frozen over in most parts.
SMHI forecasted that in southern and central areas the cold will ease off somewhat come Friday. Northern Norrland will however drop to minus 14-17 degrees Celsius in the middle of the day.
Heavy overnight snowfall disrupted air travel across western Europe yesterday, forcing more than 800 flights to be cancelled and bringing delays in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Germany appeared the hardest hit by the snow, with more than 600 flights cancelled, schools forced to close and highways clogged with traffic after scores of accidents that killed at least three people and injured dozens.
Snow also hindered flights in the Netherlands, where Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport had more than 100 cancellations and serious delays ahead of the Christmas rush.
Dutch weather agency KNMI warned of heavy snow and lethal driving conditions in large parts of the western Netherlands as traffic jams grew around Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.
Snow also forced the cancellation of about 100 flights in Switzerland, where Geneva’s airport was closed for several hours. Flights were also disrupted in Zurich.
In Frankfurt, continental Europe’s second-biggest hub, 470 flights were cancelled and an estimated 1000 passengers were stranded overnight.
[Snip]
Meanwhile, the Italian island of Capri woke up to its first snowfall in 25 years.
Snow also coated beaches on the neighbouring island of Ischia, whose thermal waters attract visitors all year round.
In Denmark, the state postal service reported snow in the past weeks had caused a high number of injuries to the country’s 12,000 letter carriers, including broken limbs.
Even where snow is desperately needed, too much of it proved to be a curse. The women’s World Cup super-G downhill skiing event in Val d’Isere in southeastern France was called off because of too heavy a snowfall overnight and yesterday morning.
Swedish Wind Energy appears in a new increase in the deliberate attempt to conceal the fact that properties near wind turbines drop significantly in value, among others, writes Elisabeth von Brömsen, Föreningen Svenskt Landskapsskydd. Confederation of Swedish Landscape Protection.
Although some activists still rely on scare tactics – witness the launch of an advertisement depicting the bombing of anybody who is hesitant to embrace carbon cuts – many activists now spend more time highlighting the “benefits” of their policy prescription. They no longer dwell on impending climate doom, but on the economic windfall that will result from embracing the “green” economy.
You can find examples all over the world, but one of the best is in my home country, Denmark, where a government-appointed committee of academics recently presented their suggestions for how the country could go it alone and become “fossil fuel-free” in 40 years. The goal is breathtaking: more than 80% of Denmark’s energy supply comes from fossil fuels, which are dramatically cheaper and more reliable than any green energy source.
A number of big ski resorts will open for the winter 2010-11 this weekend, many of them weeks and even months earlier than planned.
Heavy snow in the Alps has led to Schladming in Austria being the first non-glacier ski centre to open, it’s due to be followed by Kitzbuhel, tomorrow.
Snow reporting agency skiinfo.co.uk reports that up to a metre of snow has fallen in the past week bringing great conditions to the 20 glacier ski areas that are already open in the Alps. The Tux glacier next to Mayrhofen and close to Innsbruck is already offering more than 40km (20 miles) of piste to enjoy with a 600m lift served vertical. The Kitzsteinhorm glacier above Kaprun has more than three feet of new snow on its slopes.
In Switzerland the resort of Laax, which will stage the Brits festival next Spring, has decided to open early too because of all the snow. It joins Gstaad’s Glacier 300 which is opening tomorrow too. Engelberg, Zermatt and Saas Fee are also open, the latter with World Cup Snowboarding this weekend.
In Italy Cervinia opens this weekend, joining Passo Tonale and two other glacier centres which are already open. Les 2 Alpes and Tignes are both open in France this weekend too. While up in Scandinavia Ruka in Finland is already open and will be joined by Geilo and Hemsedal in Norway next weekend.
Resorts have also begun opening in North America. Loveland and Arapahoe Basin have opened in Colorado and Sunday River in Maine. Keystone and Copper Mountain are due to open on Bonfire Day next week, however Canada’s first opening for 2010-11m Mount Norquay by Banff, is due to happen tomorrow, October 30th, conditions permitting.
From German Parliamentarians to the German Government
Short Query
from Parliamentarians Dr. Hermann Ott, Bärbel Höhn, Hans Josef Fell, Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, Oliver Kriseher, Undine Kurth (Quedlinburg), Nicole Maisch, Dorothea Steiner and the Parliamentary party BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN (ALLIANCE 90 / THE GREENS)
Subject: Deniers of climate change in the coalition government
The so-called “climate change sceptics” or “climate change deniers” for years have been a permanent fixture in American politics. Their influence on American politics is not insignificant. They are mainly supported and funded by the fossil fuels industry like Exxon (Esso) or Koch Industries. Now it appears that their influence is now growing in Germany and in Europe. In the past weeks various press releases and other reports have appeared in the “Financial Times Deutschland” and news magazine “Der Spiegel” about on how certain climate change deniers were given a discussion forum by the CDU and FDP Bundestag’s factions and that some parliamentarians of the ruling CDU and FDP factions were sympathetic to the ideas put forth by climate denier Fred Singer. This and a range of other activities by the so-called climate sceptics in Germany compel us to ask the German Government for its assessment.
We ask the German Federal Government:
1. Is the German Government aware of a scientifically published paper that has been subjected to peer review that questions climate change caused by man, and that is supported by scientific data?
2. In the view of the German Government’s Leadership, is there a scientific discussion on whether climate change is taking place and whether man has a decisive impact on climate?
3. Is the German Government aware of the publications from American physicist Fred Singer on the subject of climate protection? How does the German Government view the scientific reputation of Mr Singer in regards to climate protection?
4. For the German Government, do the arguments made by Fred Singer and other arguments presented have merit and are they “enlightening”? How do you assess the statements by Mr Singer that “Politicians that are embedded in climate change are more dangerous than climate change itself”?
5. Is the German Government aware of the ideas Mr Singer has previously promoted? What’s your view on the fact that he, for example, questioned the hazards of passive smoke, or that he contested the ozone layer was damaged by CFCs, or that he trivialized acid rain? With this background, how does the German Government judge the credibility of Fred Singer’s activities with regards to climate protection?
6. Is the German Government aware of who financed Mr Singer for his activities? Is the Federal Government aware of the funders who – like Exxon und Koch Industries in den USA – fund the activities of the climate change deniers in Germany?
7. Does the German Government share the opinion that events with Mr Singer provide a forum for the pure interests of the fossil fuel industry, and thus enhance their unscientific work and unserious activities?
8. Are there voices within the German Government who question the anthropogenic causes of climate change?
9. How does the German Government view the activities of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) with regards to climate change? EIKE is supported by Fred Singer. In the Federal Government’s view, does the Institute work on the scientific question regarding the subject of climate change?
10. Is the German Government aware of whether climate denier conferences are also being financed by public funds, for example by the Liberal Institute of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation?
11. In general, does the German Government approve of the use of public funds for spreading the ideas of climate deniers like Fred Singer?
Berlin, 3 November 2010
Renate Künast, Jürgen Trittin and Fraction
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H/T Andy
The reason why EIKE is a target of ALLIANCE 90 / THE GREENS
“The rise of the CO2-content since 1958 cannot have been caused alone by the burning of rising quantities of coal and oil in the post-war period. And there is also no straight-line connection between the CO2-concentration in the atmosphere and the global temperature development.”
Ernst Georg Beck published this analysis three years ago in the British technical periodical “Energy & Environment” and sowed thereby already before “Climategate” in late autumn of 2009 serious doubts about the reliability of the statements of the IPCC. Climatologists who depend on financial funding from the German Government and the European Union and who are closely linked to the IPCC could not forgive him that publication. They tried to denounce Ernst Georg Beck in the Internet as naive amateur and data counterfeiter. Unfortunately, Ernst could hardly defend himself in the last months because of its progressive illness. It is therefore particularly necessary that we as members of EIKE feel obligated to continue the work of our dear colleague, who left us much too early.
Herman van Rompuy, EU president, said this week in Berlin
“We have together to fight the danger of a new Euro-scepticism.
This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries.
In every Member State, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world.
It is more than an illusion: it is a lie!
The time of the homogeneous nation-state is over.”
During communism, people had to smuggle lots of basic things if they wanted to have them. For example, my father had to smuggle Commodore 64 twice for me. 😉
The communism collapsed by 1989 – in most of the socialist Europe. However, DDR has actually swallowed West Germany, updated its socialist ideology a little bit, and continues to terrorize the people who exchange goods and ideas in between the nations.
Mr Siegfried Rotthäuser and his brother have sold about 4,000 heatballs in the past. See
What is a heatball? It is a miniature source of heat – clearly a perfectly legal device according to the existing law. In order to guarantee that you won’t heat your room when you don’t want to, it also emits light to inform you that the heatball is turned on. An advantage of this piece of operational art is that you can use the sockets for (fluorescent) light bulbs. I am using several 100-Watt heatballs in my apartment, too.
Because the first packages of 4,000 heatballs – sold for EUR 1.69 or USD 2.30 per piece – were instantly sold out, the entrepreneur ordered 40,000 additional heatballs. However, they were immediately confiscated by the DDR custom apparatchiks at the Cologne International Airport and the engineer was actually arrested for a while: he became a kind of dissident in the DDR.
An official propaganda mouthpiece of Business Green describes the business idea as “orchestrated two fingers” to the Brussels. 🙂
To be honest, they authorities are still investigating what the products actually are used for – by polls etc. Why don’t they ask a physicist instead of random consumers what is the primary purpose of the product? As a physicist, I can assure them that a vast majority of the energy in the product is used for heating, so it should be considered a heating device and the regulations invented for light sources shouldn’t apply. 😉
This point doesn’t seem obvious to them and they’re unfortunately in charge. You just can’t import miniature sources of heat to the DDR, stupid! The message is Don’t mess up with arrogant totalitarian ideologies. The DDR and EUSSR comrades have apparently forgotten the weather that German soldiers experienced near Stalingrad so they want to deny their citizens their right to possess heatballs. 😉
Via aktualne.cz (MSM), Wochenblatt (MSM), and klimaskeptik.cz
See also: Germans intercept weapons shipment 🙂 (by Andrew Bolt)
United Nations plan what science will say
The United Nations undersecretary for planning is following in the footsteps of his comrades Stalin, who had 5-year plans, and Hitler, who had 4-year plans. His planning includes the future developments in science. As the AFP reveals, Robert Orr of the U.N. has planned that the next IPCC climate report will be more catastrophic than ever before.
I wonder whether these dishonest parasites are also planning how to move on the electric chair when they get it for their long years of lying to, robbing, and manipulating the world’s public – because, whether it sounds surprising or not, genuine science can’t be pre-ordered to produce results of a certain kind.
PARIS – Heavy snowfall has forced the closure of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport and shut down the Paris bus system.
The Paris airport authority says flights in and out of Paris’ main airport are suspended until around 5 p.m. local time Wednesday (1600 GMT).
Snow quickly turned into a slushy mess in Paris’ streets, stalling traffic. Paris’ RATP transport network says all buses in the capital have stopped running, as have many suburban buses.
Heavy snowfall is unusual in Paris. Some shop owners are busy sweeping slush off the sidewalks, while Parisians and tourists alike are cautiously braving the slippery roads.
PARIS (Reuters) – Several thousand Parisians were forced to spend the night in emergency shelters or their cars, and transport remained chaotic on Thursday, after a blanket of snow fell on the French capital.
City authorities asked residents to avoid using their cars after the heaviest snowfall in nearly a quarter of a century covered city streets with ice and slush, causing traffic jams that prevented commuters getting home on Wednesday night.
“Stuck”, read a headline in the popular daily Le Parisien, while Le Figaro heralded “The great freezing of Paris”. TV images showed people sleeping on mattresses in school gymnasiums and emergency workers serving them food.
The interior ministry said 3,300 people spent the night in some 78 shelters around Paris, as the snow paralysed cars, taxis and buses and slowed suburban trains. Grounded passengers slept in airports after flights were cancelled. Icy conditions kept several highways shut on Thursday despite salting operations.
“We had to deal with a weather phenomenon with no precedent in the last generation,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said on Europe 1 radio. Many motorists had slept in their cars as black ice and slush made driving impossible, he said.
In some places, the snowfall reached 11 cm (4.3 inches), the most since 1987. The Eiffel Tower was temporarily closed.
People packed into the underground metro system, which was crammed full of shuffling commuters on Thursday.
“We formally advise all road users against driving on the greater Paris region road network except in cases of absolute professional need,” the Paris prefect’s office said.
Little Ice Age And Expanding Arctic Ice Coming – “Climate Forecasts Will Have To Be Thrown In The Dustbin”
The cold now sweeping over Europe and other parts of the globe are due to natural cycles, says German meteorologist Thomas Globig. He points out that the first 2 weeks of December in Britain have been the coldest since the last little ice age 350 years ago, and claims some climate models have criminally under-estimated solar influence on climate and that we ought to expect colder winters, and expanding Arctic ice in the years ahead.
“Some climate forecasts will have to be thrown in the dustbin.”
This is interesting – and a difference from the Easterbrook et al scenario.
“It has gone past its high point of its 200-year high-phase and will decrease over the coming decades. Around the year 2040/2050, scientists calculate there will be a new so-called solar minimum, that means much less feed-in of solar energy into the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Don Easterbrook has the cool phase bottoming out circa 2030 and warming again 2040/2050.
The leaking of the East Anglia “Climategate” e-mails and data last November shattered the appearance of a scientific consensus on supposed “man-made global warming” and provided a disturbing insight into the corruption of the scientific process as it relates to the “man-made global warming” hypothesis. The spectacle of scientists stonewalling freedom of information requests, destroying records, hiding unwelcome results, colluding to keep dissenting viewpoints out of scholarly journals, and even suppressing their own acknowledged doubts — all of this made it perfectly clear that other interests were at stake than the pure pursuit of knowledge. The centrality of the quest for funding in the e-mail exchanges made it equally clear that for the scientists in question, money, unsurprisingly, was first and foremost among those interests.
But just who or what had corrupted the science in order to produce the phantom “consensus”? Commentators in U.S. online discussion forums and blogs wasted no time in identifying two prime suspects: the reputed prophet of green energy, Al Gore, and the right’s least favorite leftist billionaire, George Soros. Such speculation said a lot about the top bogeymen in the conservative blogosphere, but it was prima facie implausible or even indeed absurd. After all, no single individual, no matter how wealthy, has the resources that it takes to politicize weather and corrupt the entire global scientific enterprise. Indeed, in the grand scheme of things, one of the named suspects is not even particularly wealthy. Despite the prominent role he has played as a spokesperson for climate alarmism, it is far more likely that the former vice president is a passenger on the global warming bandwagon, not a driver.
If no individual has the money it takes, states — especially if they pool their resources — most certainly do. The real culprit in the corruption of the scientific process and the promotion of climate alarmism is named again and again in the East Anglia e-mails and documents. But the culprit is named with many different names, mysterious combinations of letters and numbers and lyrical code words, names like “dgxii, dgxi fp5 fp6 fp7 life enrich.” What do they mean? In the final analysis, it is but one and the same multinational organization that lurks behind all these designations: the European Union.
This is a HUGE ARTICLE in length and substance
———————————————————————————————————————- The eu funding stream
All the designations refer either to departments of the European Commission or eu funding schemes. “dgxii” is the acronym by which the Commission’s Directorate General for Research was formerly designated, and “ dgxi” was the acronym for the Directorate General for the Environment.
The Research dg is essentially a funding organization. It controls a massive multi-year budget for research support known as the “Framework Programme” — or “fp,” for short. The European Network for Research into Global Change — or “ enrich” — was an early climate change research initiative that was launched already under the fourth Framework Programme (1994–96). The Environment dglikewise has at its disposal a “financing instrument” (albeit a more modest one). The financing program of the Environment dg is called “ life.” The Research Directorate’s Framework Programme 6 — or “fp6” — ran from 2002 through 2006 and comprised a budget of some € 17.5 billion. The current Framework Programme 7 began in 2007 and will run through 2013 It comprises a research support budget of some €50.5 billion.
fp6 funded 26 projects on climate change. The total eu contribution to these projects was a whopping €165,580,451. The University of East Anglia was a partner institution in no less than eight of these projects and it was the coordinating institution for one. Under fp7, the “climate research” manna has flowed even more freely. In just the first three years (2007–09) of the current Framework Programme, the European Commission has already funded 28 projects on climate change for a total eu contribution, according to provisional data, of some €116,271,772. The University of East Anglia is a partner institution in four of these projects.
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And still it continues, this is one big mother article – in Scoop!
I seem to remember reading a version of this article a while back. The WWF – EU – Pauchauri – TERI links have been well explored by Richard North (as acknowledged in the article).
The Euro-marxist agenda is a perfect fit, of course.
Probably is repackaged but it doesn’t hurt for it to be current again – and comprehensively. Also good to see it in NZ media – surprisingly..
This explains why the UN is so desperate to be the big climate dog on the block. The EU is their opposition and is roundly gazumping them. Totalitarians don’t like other Totalitarians muscling in on their patch and taking their action.
I watch the DWTV climate change propaganda “Global 3000” on the regional TV channel Central TV (Waikato). It is amazing how far the global reach of Germany is. North Africa goes without saying but they are into places like Philippines and Mongolia, truly global – the UN wont like that.
Indeed, in the grand scheme of things, one of the named suspects is not even particularly wealthy. Despite the prominent role he has played as a spokesperson for climate alarmism, it is far more likely that the former vice president is a passenger on the global warming bandwagon, not a driver.
WTF – Gore has made millions and millions off this gig. Is this reporter blind as well as dumb and deaf? Gore was a founder of the Chicago Carbon Exchange, as just one example. Is that not a ‘driver’?
IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy (CEESP): CEESP provides expertise and policy advice on economic and social factors for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. As of May 2010[update], CEESP has 1000 members and is led by Chairwoman Aroha Te Pareake Mead
Sharing Power: A New Vision for Development, 11-15 January 2011, Whakatane New Zealand
The six Conference streams are: (i) Pathways to a new vision of conservation and development; (ii) Indigenous Values, Biocultural heritage and the Role of Protected Areas; (iii) Power-Sharing and Shared Governance in Practice; (iv) Grassroots Responses to Land Grabs, Extractive Industries and Climate Change; (v) Re-Thinking Economics and (vi) Inter-Cultural Dialogue, Education and Communicating Change.
i.e. Surrogate (but wishful) government right here in NZ
Cancun wrap up: We’re kicked out, a deal is made and Adrian Macey scores a new job
Lastly, a big shout out to Adrian Macey, the former head of the New Zealand government delegation who has just been promoted from Co-Chair to Chair of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. I hope that despite his history of being a New Zealand negotiator he will act in an unbiased way towards both developed and developing countries. I hope he acknowledges that these negotiations have not been democratic or transparent and that he will act to improve on that in Durban.
The new Dutch right-wing government has announced a radical overhaul of Dutch energy policy. It is cutting subsidies for most forms of renewable energy drastically, and is even putting an end to all subsidies for offshore wind, solar power and largescale biomass. It has also announced a warm welcome for new nuclear power stations – the first time a Dutch government has done so since the Chernobyl-disaster in 1986. However, not all is lost for the renewable energy sector: the cabinet is still brooding on a long-term strategy and a “Green Deal” that might yet put the Netherlands back on a “greener” course.
n a keynote speech to the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Germany’s most eminent science organisation, Helmut Schmidt, Germany’s former Chancellor, has cast serious doubt on the integrity and credibility of the IPCC and called for an independent, scientific investigation into the IPCC’s questionable practices:
Andy,
Thats fantastic. The walls are starting to crumble now. I’m just loving the turmoil in Australia right now. I reckon a couple of the independants will soon withdraw support for Gillard and force a new Election as its becoming clear to those independants that they will be out in the next election if they cant turn it around.
Hat tip to Andrew Bolt for outstanding coverage.
BRUSSELS – Belgium – All non-essential carbon life forms will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 95 per cent over the next 40 years.
The European Commission on Monday unveiled a “single European elite area” aimed at enforcing “a profound shift in population patterns for non-elite carbon life forms” by 2050.
Germany ‘Sliding Head Over Heels Into Eco-Dictatorship’
Germany’s green government advisors admit frankly that decarbonization can only be achieved by the limitation of democracy – both nationally and internationally.
When it comes to environmental and climate policy, Germany’s Scientific Advisory Council on Global Environmental Change (WBGU) is an influential advisory committee for the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The chairman of the council is Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The Stockholm Memorandum and The Great Structural Solution:
Keep global warming below 2ºC, implying a peak in global CO2 emissions no later than 2015 and recognise that even a warming of 2ºC carries a very high risk of serious impacts and the need for major adaptation efforts
Not sure about that 2015 date. Fours years might be a bit ambitious to completely re-engineer the world’s economy.
LUXEMBOURG – European Union environment ministers — responsible for only 11 percent of global carbon emissions — said they would commit to a new phase of the Kyoto climate change pact, on the condition that nations blamed for the rest join up too.
[…]
“What’s the point of keeping something alive if you’re alone there? There must be more from the 89 percent,” EU Environment Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told Reuters.
The European Union stated the need for a road map that would indicate when the biggest emitters — led by the United States, China and India — would sign up.
There’s pretty much a consensus across the political spectrum – and especially in the public – that global warming alarmism is a fashionable disease that plagues the brains of pampered and brainwashed people in the West who are either champions of a statist political ideology or their own profits, or those who want to be “hip”, who are naive and detached from reality, and who don’t understand how it easy it is to hijack a part of the scientific institutions and turn them into tools of shameless and cynical political propaganda.
[..]
Ms Rosenthal also mentions an irrelevant woman, a Ms Hedegaard or what’s her exact name, from Denmark who is apparently a climate alarmist and an EU commissioner responsible for promoting the scientific emotions of female journalists such as Ms Hedegaard with intelligence matching that of poultry across the continent.
It’s surely politically correct in certain mentally degenerated circles to praise stupid women in politics – we need more women in politics, don’t we? – except that this particular Danish woman is stupid beyond imagination. But she’s not the worst one. Another woman, Jill Duggan or Hoggan, is in charge of the carbon tax in the whole EU. If you click at the previous link, you may listen to an interview with Andrew Bolt (and another guy) in Australia showing that this woman doesn’t have the slightest clue about a single fact that is relevant for climatology or the proposed carbon regulation.
Germany Plans Solar-Subsidies Cut, May See Installation Rush
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Germany, the world’s biggest solar- panel market, will cut subsidies for photovoltaic power by a record amount next year as the government tries to control the pace of installations and wean the industry off support.
Rates under the feed-in-tariff system will be reduced 15 percent from Jan. 1, 2012, after Germany added about 5.2 gigawatts of panels in the year through Sept. 30, the Bundesnetzagentur, the federal grid regulator, said in a statement on its website today. Power from panels will earn 17.94 euro cents (25 cents) to 24.43 euro cents a kilowatt-hour.
“The cut is part of the push down toward competitive pricing without subsidies,” Charles Yonts, an analyst at CSLA in Hong Kong, said by e-mail.
A statement outlining the conclusions of the latest meeting of finance ministers showed EU states had provided €4.68bn in 2010 and 2011 towards the $30bn “fast-start” climate fund agreed at the 2009 climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Dozens freeze to death as temperatures plunge to MINUS 26C in parts of Eastern Europe
Severe cold snap kills at least 36 people across region
Ukraine: 18 die of hypothermia, 500 people seek medical help
Poland: At least 10 people dead as cold reaches -26C
Serbia: 3 dead and two missing; Romania: 4 people dead; Bulgaria: 1 dead
Wolves scavenge as Italians take shelter from biting cold
Biting temperatures and widespread snow and ice have caused up to 500 million euros ($610 million) worth of damages to Italy’s agriculture sector so far, the Confagricoltura association said.
The economic development ministry activated a plan to maximise gas supplies to vulnerable households by reducing gas supplies to industrial clients and switching from gas to oil-fired power stations
In blaming mankind for causing snow across Europe, Greens sound eerily like 16th-century witch-hunters
By Brendan O’Neill
Brendan O’Neill is the editor of spiked, an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms.
Whenever it snows these days, there will always be an eco-miserabilist at hand to tell us it is our fault – that freakish wintery weather is as much “manmade” as is hot weather and droughts. And so the Independent, having told us in March 2000 that, as a result of climate change, “snow is starting to disappear from our lives”, now tells us that, as a result of climate change, snow will become a more regular feature in our lives. Under the headline “Science behind the big freeze: is climate change bringing the Arctic to Europe?”
[…]
I wonder if environmentalists ever stop to think how much they sound like the witch-hunters of yesteryear? Because however radical Greens think they are, the truth is that this isn’t the first time in history there has been a fashion for blaming long or dark or weird winters on foul individuals and their apparently problematic lifestyles. No, the sixteenth-century hunters of evil witches did likewise, pinning the blame for cold weather on sinning mankind long before the Independent and other modern Greens had the same idea.
One of the key mad beliefs behind witch-hunting in Europe between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries was the idea that these peculiar creatures had warped the weather, that they had caused “climate change”. As the German historian Wolfgang Behringer argued in his 2004 book, Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History, “large-scale persecutions were clearly linked to years of extreme hardship and in particular the type of misery related to extreme climatic events”. During the Little Ice Age, the period of unusual coldness that kicked off in the mid-1500s, there was an upsurge in witch-hunting. There was another outburst in 1628, described by historians as “the year without a summer”, because once again people’s crops failed as a result of very cold weather and they were desperate to find someone to blame – usually a cranky old woman who could be labelled a “witch”.
I wonder if Bryan Walker, Hot Topic Officionado and author of ‘Uncomfortable parallels’ (“…what I see as parallels between the defence of slavery in earlier times and today’s persistence with fossil fuel-based economies”), has read this article?
Portugal has had in the last weeks a big increase in the total number of deaths. As can be seen in the graph below (original here – in Portuguese), the last weeks have seen several hundreds of excess deaths in Portugal:
Seen at Climate Change Dispatch comments under ‘Study: climate alarmists represent 30% of OCD psychiatric patients’
# Red Jeff 2012-03-10 01:18
Europeans are already 40% crazy! “Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/04/europe-mental-illness-idUSL5E7JV2R320110904
“Mental disorders have become Europe’s largest health challenge of the 21st century,” the study’s authors said.
Ya just can’t make this stuff up!!!!
PS… as an amazing coincidence 38% of the population is employed with the Eurozone government!
@ScotClimate: Scottish Government found to have lied on key figure. Is the Scottish Climate Bill dead?. Will the minister resign? http://bit.ly/OwkVl1
The Scottish government lied to politicians about key financial data which was central to the argument for the bill when they passed the Scottish Climate Change Bill. The government citing Stern said that the economic cost of a 2-3°C rise would be “between 5-20% of GDP”. In fact Stern suggests there may not be any net economic harm quoting figures of 0-3%
The figures are so key to justifying the bill, that it really is difficult to see how this bill could withstand a legal challenge.
… but the scandal gets worse. The Scottish paper (The Courier) which broke this story seems to have been lent on to remove the story. Presumably by someone in government.
This is about as bad as we can get. It appears the world’s most enthusiastic government for climate change is now embroiled in lies & cover-up.
European power producers benefit from cheaper coal
While shale gas production has provided a glut of cheap energy in the U.S. it has also driven out an oversupply of lower-cost coal to Europe.
U.S. coal exports to Europe rose 29 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same time in 2011, a trend that has curbed European gas demand by around 3 billion cubic feet per day, according to Bernstein Research.
[…]
Germany offers a stark illustration of this price difference. Its power producers have so far this year earned an average of 6.5 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) for power produced the following month in coal plants, compared with a 7.9 euro per MWh loss when burning gas, Reuters data showed.
Coal burn varies as utilities constantly assess profit margins of gas compared with coal-fired plants. Figures depend on costs for fuel, carbon permits and electricity prices.
“In Europe it would take a 50 per cent increase in coal prices to erase the price advantage over natural gas,” said Paolo Coghe, senior analyst at Societe Generale.
In France, which is mainly powered by nuclear plants but uses coal and gas when demand dictates, coal plants generated 44 per cent more electricity over the first eight months of 2012 than in the same period in 2011.
Britain’s coal use was 43 per cent higher in the first half of this year compared with a year ago, grid operator data from both countries showed.
Trend could end after winter […]
Some of the coal plants in question are set to shut at the end of the winter as generators expect to race through operating hours allocated under the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) on curbing harmful emissions.
Drax Group Plc will spend $1 billion to turn the U.K.’s biggest coal-fired plant into western Europe’s largest clean- energy producer. The U.K. utility plans to convert one of the facility’s six units to burn wood pellets by June, Chief Executive Officer Dorothy Thompson said in an interview. Drax at a later date plans to switch over two more units to the fuel, investments that if completed would mean the facility harvests a forest four times the size of Rhode Island each year.
Timber waste biomass is a major energy source in NZ, but burning the primary product? I don’t think so unless it’s non-marketable like poplar or something but how much energy in wood like that and would it even be profitable to ship?
They’d be better burning the equivalent oil burnt in shipping it.
” The fairest way to do the comparison is to compare coal and nuclear or gas on it’s own – with something else that can do the same job. Wind can’t. The fair comparison is between, coal, nuclear, gas and ‘gas+wind’.
From the perspective of the man at the National Grid the best kind of power station is hydro-electric. Turn it on when you want it, turn it off when you don’t. And you can go from nothing to full power in about ten seconds. The second best power stations are nuclear, coal, and gas. Switch ’em on and leave ’em running. A poor third is wind which may be there when you need it or may not.
ow for a country with loads of hydro, wind is really quite attractive, when the wind blows you switch off the hydro and that means you have more water behind the dam for when the wind isn’t blowing. But in the UK we need to have 1GW of gas for every 1GW of wind, and the best we can hope to achieve is about a 30% reduction in gas consumption – compared to just running the 1GW gas station 24×7.”
BH – “The defence of windfarms put forward by Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall, which was discussed a couple of days ago, has now had a response from Gordon Hughes. Hughes is less than impressed with the two greens’ table manners: [Hughes quote]”
“He seems even less impressed with their analysis of the electricity grid: [Hughes quote]”
30% of the trees goes to waste. I think a good proportion of that is all that is used for biomass fuel in NZ. Looks like it’s not just Drax and UK, SMH article:-
Drax isn’t alone in seeking to convert from coal to biomass. RWE last year turned its 1,131-megawatt Tilbury facility into a 750-megawatt plant running on wood pellets rather than coal. Dong Energy, Denmark’s state-controlled utility in April said it plans to invest about 500 million pounds to convert three of its coal- and gas-fired power plants to burning wood pellets.
A typical tree plantation produces about 1 million metric tons of wood from 200,000 acres annually, enough to make around 500,000 metric tons of biomass pellets, according to RWE. Using those numbers, Drax’s annual requirement for 7.5 million tons of biomass by 2017 would need plantations totaling 3 million acres. That’s more than four times the size of Rhode Island.
It’s a significant challenge, given that collection systems are nascent, pellet plants too small and port facilities lacking. Drax is designing its biomass storage and conveyor belts in a way to minimise the risk of fire. A blaze at a wood storage facility in February halted generation at Tilbury for 4 months.
Thinned trees
As much as 30 per cent of the branches, bark and thinned trees that Drax is burning is considered waste and left to rot,
Eighteen people have died of cold in Ukraine so far this month, most of them last weekend, as temperatures dropped below minus 10 Celsius, the government said.
The Health Ministry said 12 people were found dead on the streets, three in their homes and three died while receiving medical treatment. Last Friday the death toll stood at six.
Night temperatures are expected to drop to -28 C in northern, central and eastern Ukraine this week, weather forecasters said on Monday.
The cold snap followed heavy snowfall which left some areas covered with as much as 53 cm of snow.
Over a hundred people have been admitted to hospital with cold-related ailments and the Emergencies Ministry said it was setting up tents where people could get hot drinks and receive first aid.
The Ministry and the army were deployed to rescue people with cars buried in snow during strong blizzards. Around 2000 vehicles stuck on roads were freed from snow during the last 24 hours, the Emergency Ministry said.
Last February, as Ukraine went through its coldest winter in six years, over 130 people died of cold in the country of 45 million.
Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits
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.
“In the Ukraine, more than 150 deaths have been registered. Sixty-eight people have reportedly died in Poland from the cold, 64 in Russia and an estimated 70 in Belarus. In Romania, the official death toll has risen to 68. In Lithuania, 23 deaths have been reported, 24 in the Czech Republic and 10 in Latvia. At least 16 people have died so far due to the cold in Bulgaria, 13 in Hungary, and a total of 50 in the successor states of Yugoslavia.
Italy has also been severely affected by the cold, with 40 registered victims.”
Tens of thousands of trees have disappeared from parks and woodlands this winter across Greece as the crisis-hit country’s impoverished residents, too broke to pay for electricity or fuel, turn to fireplaces and wood stoves for heat. –Nektaria Stamouli and Stelios Bouras, The Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2013
When the mercury falls, the theft of wood in the country’s woodlands goes up as people turn to cheaper ways to heat their homes. With energy costs escalating, more Germans are turning to wood burning stoves for heat. That, though, has also led to a rise in tree theft in the country’s forests. The problem has been compounded this winter by rising energy costs. The Germany’s Renters Association estimates the heating costs will go up 22 percent this winter alone.–Spiegel Online, 17 January 2013
“The climate system of the Earth is very complex. There are still many interrelationships, factors, and feedbacks affecting the climate that are not known or still not adequately researched. Thus a combination of the above factors is possible for explaining the stagnation in worldwide temperature. But also a completely unknown phenomenon that climate science knows nothing about is possible. Even a natural variation of the climate cannot be excluded.”
Statistics from the Met Office Central England Temperature Record from the year 2000 onwards show: 2000 – 2012 annual trend figures: -0.7°C. This is equivalent to almost all the agreed global warming since 1850.
Richard North discusses “Vehicle to Grid” systems that allow excess charge to be taken from electric cars to power the grid
It’s all an attempt to load balance the wind and solar energy that is intermittent and unreliable
A clue to just how distant the thinking is from the real world lies in the COM final, which blithely tells us that “snow tourism” is one of the economic sectors which is “already facing the impact of climate change”, despite the industry just having enjoyed a record season.
But now, with “adaptation” embedded in the very heart of Commission policy, there will be no rooting it out. This is the intellectual equivalent of the herpes virus – the only sure way of destroying it is to destroy the host. And, before we can rid ourselves of it, that is what we will have to do.
Meanwhile, the juggernaut rolls on, and on, and on …
“This is the intellectual equivalent of the herpes virus – the only sure way of destroying it is to destroy the host.” gets comment of the day from me.
>” “snow tourism” is one of the economic sectors which is “already facing the impact of climate change” ”
A couple of possible reasons from casual observation:-
1) Skiers already taking that mode on their work commute don’t feel the need to journey to the Alps to indulge.
2) Difficulty finding the car under overnight snow and the effort required to clear snowdrifts to get to the airport isn’t what skiing is all about. That and finding the flight canceled due to heavy snowfall anyway on arrival at the airport.
Or is the impact of a more economically technical nature?
‘EU policy on climate change is right even if science was wrong, says commissioner’
Regardless of whether or not scientists are wrong on global warming, the European Union is pursuing the correct energy policies even if they lead to higher prices, Europe’s climate commissioner has said.
By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels
Connie Hedegaard’s comments come as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to admit that previous scientific predictions for global warming and the effects of carbon emissions have been proved to be inaccurate.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Europe’s most senior climate change official argued that the current policies are the correct ones because a growing world population will put pressure on energy supplies regardless of the rate of global warming.
“I personally have a very pragmatic view.
“Say that 30 years from now, science came back and said, ‘wow, we were mistaken then now we have some new information so we think it is something else’. In a world with nine billion people, even 10 billion at the middle of this century, where literally billions of global citizens will still have to get out of poverty and enter the consuming middle classes, don’t you think that anyway it makes a lot of sense to get more energy and resource efficient,” she said.
“Let’s say that science, some decades from now, said ‘we were wrong, it was not about climate’, would it not in any case have been good to do many of things you have to do in order to combat climate change?.”
[…]
Bjorn Lomborg, a professor at the Copenhagen business school and the author of Cool it, a book arguing that too much climate change policy is based on scaremongering, accused the commissioner of being “both callous and wrong”.
“EU climate policies have directly increased energy costs and caused more energy poverty – 300,000 households in Germany lost their power last year because they couldn’t pay the bills, and millions are energy poor in the UK. EU climate policies will cost £174 billion annually by 2020, the EU commissioner seems to suggest wasting £174 billion is no problem,” he said.
“To the extent the EU climate policies have affected the world, it has made energy more costly, reduced growth and consigned more people to poverty.”
‘Robin Hood’-like subsidies for Green power are driving the EU towards an energy-crisis, this according to Europe’s top utilities firms. The problem, they say, is – billions in hand-outs are killing innovation and competitiveness and the results are there for all to see.
Germany, though, has found a way around it. Instead of taxing businesses and factories it puts the entire burden of subsidies on ordinary households. RT’s Peter Oliver reports.
The number of people living in extreme poverty in Spain has doubled in just five years – according to a new report from charity groups there. Around three million Spaniards now have to survive on under 307 euros per month, while the cost of living continues to climb.
That’s as the number of families where not one person is employed, has gone up five-fold since the start of crisis, that’s 1 point 8 million households.
And now the Spanish government is set to become the first in Europe to tax something that’s been free and available to everyone since the dawn of time – sunlight. Madrid wants to impose a levy on solar power, to help plug its yawning energy debt, as Sara Firth reports
Europe Climate Policy Blows Engine…”Giant Failure” … Scientists “Failed Tricking Their Way Past Democracy” … Mood Of Resignation
By P Gosselin on 30. November 2013
Good news!
This is about one of the most damning pieces on the European climate movement I’ve read all year, and that from Germany’s equivalent of the Washington Post. An atmosphere of resignation is truly sweeping through Germany’s climate movement. Flagship media are waking up.
“Failed tricking their way past democracy”
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has written a blistering criticism of Hans Schellnhuber’s WBGU and climate activists’ efforts to impose a green authoritarian society over the rest of the world.
German professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is the director of Germany’s infamously alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which includes alarmist climate radicals like Stefan Rahmstorf, Anders Levermann, and economist Ottmar Edenhofer. For years Schellnhuber’s institute has busily and relentlessly crafted data showing alarming climate change and putting out doomsday scenarios in an attempt to get spooked policymakers to stampede into enacting radical climate policy.
Schellnhuber is also the director of the WBGU, the German Advisory Council on Global Change. The Council is made up of nine “renowned scientists”. Their primary task: to advise policymakers in Germany and worldwide on how society should proceed in the face of dangerous climate change.
Master-plan for transforming global society
Three years ago the WBGU authored and released a 446-page “Master Plan” for “The Great Transformation of Global Society” designed to put global society on the fast-track to “sustainability” and an almost carbon-free society by 2050. In it the council even called for policies to water down democracy. One journalist once summarized: The WBGU is in favor of democracy, but only so long as the people make the right decisions.
The master-plan called for a so-called future council, made up of prophet-like wise men, who would have the power to veto democratic decisions it felt were not in the best interest of future generations.
“Climate protection as moral as abolishing slavery”
The FAZ writes that one of the fundamental aims of the WBGU was changing Germany’s constitutional law: climate protection was to become an official state priority and that going green was “as morally imperative as the abolition of slavery“. More importantly, the “transformation to a climate-protective society would have to happen very rapidly“. Dissenters would have to be stigmatized and marginalized, and so denied real participation.
Ah – I didn’t see the UK thread in my excitement. I think any alarmist who gnashes his teeth about the “well-funded denial machine” should be directed at these articles. The UK Government using taxpayer dollars to “educate” the state-funded news machine leaders on how to report the alarm and disregard level-headed and questioning views.
French Foreign Minister: ‘500 Days to Avoid Climate Chaos’
we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos. And I know that President Obama and John Kerry himself are committed on this subject and I’m sure that with them, with a lot of other friends, we shall be able to reach success on this very important matter.
In several European countries – such as Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Germany, Slovenia, France and Belgium – apples, pears, cherries and grapes were frozen.
Eighty percent of Cherries, 60% of Apricots, 6% of Wheat, 13% of Austrian wine production.
Speech by President of Czech Republic : Climate Control or Freedom?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/20/president-vaclav-havel-climate-control-or-freedom/#more-26734
“The current debate is a public policy debate with enormous implications.[3] It is no longer about climate. It is about the government, the politicians, their scribes and the lobbyists who want to get more decision making and power for themselves. It seems to me that the widespread acceptance of the global warming dogma has become one of the main, most costly and most undemocratic public policy mistakes in generations. The previous one was communism.”
(Have also posted this under ETS & Economics)
I believe that the AGW debate is now simply noise to the power brokers of the world. They do not give a toss whether the science is settled or not. They will not engage in the debate because AGW has already done its job for them – namely, to spearhead legislation worldwide which sets the financial foundation for a world government. This is where the fight will move during the next decade. The words of President Vaclav Klaus are chilling as he compares this global eco-political movement to the communism he endured for most of his life.
And when you overlay that with the sort of eco-bureaucratic nightmare eroding property rights in Western Australia the times, they are a-changing. http://joannenova.com.au/2010/10/thompsons-update-protest-in-perth-on-monday/
Moscow Shivers Through Coldest Winter in 26 Years
Scores die in record Russia freeze
-30 degrees Celsius
Exports of gas and electricity have been cut back to provide for increased domestic demand, and the exceptionally cold weather in Siberia has halted oil production in many places.
Russia’s power infrastructure, from power stations to the heating system, has had little investment since the fall of the Soviet Union 14 years ago.
The electricity system, some of it nearly 70 years old, has so far coped with the challenge as people turned up the heating, but there are fears of blackouts.
Record loads
“Every day we are seeing a new record load on the system. Yesterday was a record in both the country and in Moscow,” a UES spokeswoman said. “So far, all the electricity stations are coping with the load.”
On Wednesday, electricity consumption nationwide hit 146,000 megawatts a record high since the Soviet collapse 15 years ago, the head of national electricity monopoly RAO Unified Energy Systems, Anatoly Chubais, said in televised comments.
In Moscow, where a construction boom is in full swing and the gray streets of the Soviet era have turned into glitzy thoroughfares festooned with bright lights, electricity consumption reached a record of more than 15,300 megawatts, RAO UES said.
The cold snap has put many trolley-buses out of action, while passenger numbers on the underground railway system have swelled because drivers cannot start their cars. Big display advertising has been banned to save energy.
Unified Energy System, Russia’s power monopoly, said it may be forced to cut electricity supplies to Finland by as much as 30 percent because it barely had enough to supply its own consumers.
UES said it expected a new spike in domestic power consumption on Thursday as people plugged in their electric heaters for extra warmth.
Russia on Wednesday reduced gas supplies to Europe and trimmed back its oil output because of the extreme cold. Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said the country may draw on its modest strategic fuel reserves. He gave no details.
Moscow’s coldest spell in 26 years brought out the quirkiest in the Russian character with one animal trainer feeding an elephant a bucket of vodka to warm it up — only to watch the drunken beast set about wrecking the central heating system.
Moscow Cold – Google Search
Andy says:
October 23, 2010 at 11:34 am
Earliest snowfall in Bergen, Norway in 37 years
(in Norwegian)
h/t Richard North
Atrocious weather across Europe
Dec 1, 2010 – NZ Herald
Snow and freezing temperatures have severely disrupted airports in Germany and Britain and caused chaos and deaths on roads across Europe.
More than 200 flights were cancelled overnight (NZ time) at Frankfurt airport in Germany, the continent’s third busiest, while southern German states were blanketed by snow.
Large parts of Poland were covered in thick snow, causing hundreds of accidents on the roads and at least four people were killed on snowbound roads in the Czech Republic.
It was so cold in France that electricity network RTE warned of cuts in the supply as the country looked set to top record demand levels while 20 per cent of high-speed train services to the hard hit southeast were cancelled.
Switzerland suffered its coldest November night for 45 years as temperatures plunged below minus 30 degrees Celsius, according to national weather service Meteosuisse.
Even Spain and Portugal were shivering after snow fell in the northern half of the Iberian peninsula.
Continues………
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Sweden braces for record freeze
30 Nov 10 – Sweden’s news in English
Stockholm is forecast to experience its coldest seasonal temperatures for over 100 years this week as winter weather takes hold of the country, according to the Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI).
* Bitter winter on the way: expert (25 Nov 10)
* Swedish military called in to battle winter storm (24 Nov 10)
* Transport agency calls for caution after snow (23 Nov 10)
Temperatures across the country are expected to drop to record lows for the first week of December, with the exception of the far north, with averages coming in 7-10 degrees Celsius below normal.
Stockholm registered -11 degrees Celsius at the weekend, the coldest November temperature since 1965 and the mercury is set to plunge further on Wednesday and Thursday, dropping as low as -15.
“It is far below average temperatures, which usually oscillate around zero at this time of the year,” said Alexandra Ohlsson, a meteorologist with SMHI.
Dalarna and Jmtland in northern Sweden will also be hit with the harsh weather. The Storsjn lake in the heart of Jmtland’s main city stersund has already frozen over in most parts.
SMHI forecasted that in southern and central areas the cold will ease off somewhat come Friday. Northern Norrland will however drop to minus 14-17 degrees Celsius in the middle of the day.
Continues…..
Snow hits holiday travel
5:30 AM Sunday Dec 19, 2010 – NZH
Heavy overnight snowfall disrupted air travel across western Europe yesterday, forcing more than 800 flights to be cancelled and bringing delays in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Germany appeared the hardest hit by the snow, with more than 600 flights cancelled, schools forced to close and highways clogged with traffic after scores of accidents that killed at least three people and injured dozens.
Snow also hindered flights in the Netherlands, where Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport had more than 100 cancellations and serious delays ahead of the Christmas rush.
Dutch weather agency KNMI warned of heavy snow and lethal driving conditions in large parts of the western Netherlands as traffic jams grew around Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.
Snow also forced the cancellation of about 100 flights in Switzerland, where Geneva’s airport was closed for several hours. Flights were also disrupted in Zurich.
In Frankfurt, continental Europe’s second-biggest hub, 470 flights were cancelled and an estimated 1000 passengers were stranded overnight.
[Snip]
Meanwhile, the Italian island of Capri woke up to its first snowfall in 25 years.
Snow also coated beaches on the neighbouring island of Ischia, whose thermal waters attract visitors all year round.
In Denmark, the state postal service reported snow in the past weeks had caused a high number of injuries to the country’s 12,000 letter carriers, including broken limbs.
Even where snow is desperately needed, too much of it proved to be a curse. The women’s World Cup super-G downhill skiing event in Val d’Isere in southeastern France was called off because of too heavy a snowfall overnight and yesterday morning.
Wind power reduces the value of homes
Swedish Wind Energy appears in a new increase in the deliberate attempt to conceal the fact that properties near wind turbines drop significantly in value, among others, writes Elisabeth von Brömsen, Föreningen Svenskt Landskapsskydd. Confederation of Swedish Landscape Protection.
[Wait 10 secs – Google Translate]
Climate Activists learn their ‘solutions’ are absurd
Bjørn Lomborg, Sunday, October 24, 2010
Although some activists still rely on scare tactics – witness the launch of an advertisement depicting the bombing of anybody who is hesitant to embrace carbon cuts – many activists now spend more time highlighting the “benefits” of their policy prescription. They no longer dwell on impending climate doom, but on the economic windfall that will result from embracing the “green” economy.
You can find examples all over the world, but one of the best is in my home country, Denmark, where a government-appointed committee of academics recently presented their suggestions for how the country could go it alone and become “fossil fuel-free” in 40 years. The goal is breathtaking: more than 80% of Denmark’s energy supply comes from fossil fuels, which are dramatically cheaper and more reliable than any green energy source.
Ski Season Begins Early In Europe
Friday, October 29th, 2010
A number of big ski resorts will open for the winter 2010-11 this weekend, many of them weeks and even months earlier than planned.
Heavy snow in the Alps has led to Schladming in Austria being the first non-glacier ski centre to open, it’s due to be followed by Kitzbuhel, tomorrow.
Snow reporting agency skiinfo.co.uk reports that up to a metre of snow has fallen in the past week bringing great conditions to the 20 glacier ski areas that are already open in the Alps. The Tux glacier next to Mayrhofen and close to Innsbruck is already offering more than 40km (20 miles) of piste to enjoy with a 600m lift served vertical. The Kitzsteinhorm glacier above Kaprun has more than three feet of new snow on its slopes.
In Switzerland the resort of Laax, which will stage the Brits festival next Spring, has decided to open early too because of all the snow. It joins Gstaad’s Glacier 300 which is opening tomorrow too. Engelberg, Zermatt and Saas Fee are also open, the latter with World Cup Snowboarding this weekend.
In Italy Cervinia opens this weekend, joining Passo Tonale and two other glacier centres which are already open. Les 2 Alpes and Tignes are both open in France this weekend too. While up in Scandinavia Ruka in Finland is already open and will be joined by Geilo and Hemsedal in Norway next weekend.
Resorts have also begun opening in North America. Loveland and Arapahoe Basin have opened in Colorado and Sunday River in Maine. Keystone and Copper Mountain are due to open on Bonfire Day next week, however Canada’s first opening for 2010-11m Mount Norquay by Banff, is due to happen tomorrow, October 30th, conditions permitting.
Branding of Dissenters Has Begun – Clearing The Path To A Climate Science Pogrom
By P Gosselin on 11. November 2010
——————————————————————————————————–
From German Parliamentarians to the German Government
Short Query
from Parliamentarians Dr. Hermann Ott, Bärbel Höhn, Hans Josef Fell, Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, Oliver Kriseher, Undine Kurth (Quedlinburg), Nicole Maisch, Dorothea Steiner and the Parliamentary party BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN (ALLIANCE 90 / THE GREENS)
Subject: Deniers of climate change in the coalition government
The so-called “climate change sceptics” or “climate change deniers” for years have been a permanent fixture in American politics. Their influence on American politics is not insignificant. They are mainly supported and funded by the fossil fuels industry like Exxon (Esso) or Koch Industries. Now it appears that their influence is now growing in Germany and in Europe. In the past weeks various press releases and other reports have appeared in the “Financial Times Deutschland” and news magazine “Der Spiegel” about on how certain climate change deniers were given a discussion forum by the CDU and FDP Bundestag’s factions and that some parliamentarians of the ruling CDU and FDP factions were sympathetic to the ideas put forth by climate denier Fred Singer. This and a range of other activities by the so-called climate sceptics in Germany compel us to ask the German Government for its assessment.
We ask the German Federal Government:
1. Is the German Government aware of a scientifically published paper that has been subjected to peer review that questions climate change caused by man, and that is supported by scientific data?
2. In the view of the German Government’s Leadership, is there a scientific discussion on whether climate change is taking place and whether man has a decisive impact on climate?
3. Is the German Government aware of the publications from American physicist Fred Singer on the subject of climate protection? How does the German Government view the scientific reputation of Mr Singer in regards to climate protection?
4. For the German Government, do the arguments made by Fred Singer and other arguments presented have merit and are they “enlightening”? How do you assess the statements by Mr Singer that “Politicians that are embedded in climate change are more dangerous than climate change itself”?
5. Is the German Government aware of the ideas Mr Singer has previously promoted? What’s your view on the fact that he, for example, questioned the hazards of passive smoke, or that he contested the ozone layer was damaged by CFCs, or that he trivialized acid rain? With this background, how does the German Government judge the credibility of Fred Singer’s activities with regards to climate protection?
6. Is the German Government aware of who financed Mr Singer for his activities? Is the Federal Government aware of the funders who – like Exxon und Koch Industries in den USA – fund the activities of the climate change deniers in Germany?
7. Does the German Government share the opinion that events with Mr Singer provide a forum for the pure interests of the fossil fuel industry, and thus enhance their unscientific work and unserious activities?
8. Are there voices within the German Government who question the anthropogenic causes of climate change?
9. How does the German Government view the activities of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) with regards to climate change? EIKE is supported by Fred Singer. In the Federal Government’s view, does the Institute work on the scientific question regarding the subject of climate change?
10. Is the German Government aware of whether climate denier conferences are also being financed by public funds, for example by the Liberal Institute of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation?
11. In general, does the German Government approve of the use of public funds for spreading the ideas of climate deniers like Fred Singer?
Berlin, 3 November 2010
Renate Künast, Jürgen Trittin and Fraction
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H/T Andy
The reason why EIKE is a target of ALLIANCE 90 / THE GREENS
“The rise of the CO2-content since 1958 cannot have been caused alone by the burning of rising quantities of coal and oil in the post-war period. And there is also no straight-line connection between the CO2-concentration in the atmosphere and the global temperature development.”
Obituary: Ernst Georg Beck
Posted on September 23, 2010 by Anthony Watts
Ernst Georg Beck published this analysis three years ago in the British technical periodical “Energy & Environment” and sowed thereby already before “Climategate” in late autumn of 2009 serious doubts about the reliability of the statements of the IPCC. Climatologists who depend on financial funding from the German Government and the European Union and who are closely linked to the IPCC could not forgive him that publication. They tried to denounce Ernst Georg Beck in the Internet as naive amateur and data counterfeiter. Unfortunately, Ernst could hardly defend himself in the last months because of its progressive illness. It is therefore particularly necessary that we as members of EIKE feel obligated to continue the work of our dear colleague, who left us much too early.
Herman van Rompuy, EU president, said this week in Berlin
“We have together to fight the danger of a new Euro-scepticism.
This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries.
In every Member State, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world.
It is more than an illusion: it is a lie!
The time of the homogeneous nation-state is over.”
DDR stole 40,000 little heatballs
Luboš Motl, Pilsen, Czech Republic
During communism, people had to smuggle lots of basic things if they wanted to have them. For example, my father had to smuggle Commodore 64 twice for me. 😉
The communism collapsed by 1989 – in most of the socialist Europe. However, DDR has actually swallowed West Germany, updated its socialist ideology a little bit, and continues to terrorize the people who exchange goods and ideas in between the nations.
Mr Siegfried Rotthäuser and his brother have sold about 4,000 heatballs in the past. See
http://www.heatball.de
What is a heatball? It is a miniature source of heat – clearly a perfectly legal device according to the existing law. In order to guarantee that you won’t heat your room when you don’t want to, it also emits light to inform you that the heatball is turned on. An advantage of this piece of operational art is that you can use the sockets for (fluorescent) light bulbs. I am using several 100-Watt heatballs in my apartment, too.
Because the first packages of 4,000 heatballs – sold for EUR 1.69 or USD 2.30 per piece – were instantly sold out, the entrepreneur ordered 40,000 additional heatballs. However, they were immediately confiscated by the DDR custom apparatchiks at the Cologne International Airport and the engineer was actually arrested for a while: he became a kind of dissident in the DDR.
An official propaganda mouthpiece of Business Green describes the business idea as “orchestrated two fingers” to the Brussels. 🙂
To be honest, they authorities are still investigating what the products actually are used for – by polls etc. Why don’t they ask a physicist instead of random consumers what is the primary purpose of the product? As a physicist, I can assure them that a vast majority of the energy in the product is used for heating, so it should be considered a heating device and the regulations invented for light sources shouldn’t apply. 😉
This point doesn’t seem obvious to them and they’re unfortunately in charge. You just can’t import miniature sources of heat to the DDR, stupid! The message is Don’t mess up with arrogant totalitarian ideologies. The DDR and EUSSR comrades have apparently forgotten the weather that German soldiers experienced near Stalingrad so they want to deny their citizens their right to possess heatballs. 😉
Via aktualne.cz (MSM), Wochenblatt (MSM), and klimaskeptik.cz
See also: Germans intercept weapons shipment 🙂 (by Andrew Bolt)
United Nations plan what science will say
The United Nations undersecretary for planning is following in the footsteps of his comrades Stalin, who had 5-year plans, and Hitler, who had 4-year plans. His planning includes the future developments in science. As the AFP reveals, Robert Orr of the U.N. has planned that the next IPCC climate report will be more catastrophic than ever before.
I wonder whether these dishonest parasites are also planning how to move on the electric chair when they get it for their long years of lying to, robbing, and manipulating the world’s public – because, whether it sounds surprising or not, genuine science can’t be pre-ordered to produce results of a certain kind.
Snow shuts Paris airport, bus system
Wed Dec 8, 10:10 am ET – AP
PARIS – Heavy snowfall has forced the closure of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport and shut down the Paris bus system.
The Paris airport authority says flights in and out of Paris’ main airport are suspended until around 5 p.m. local time Wednesday (1600 GMT).
Snow quickly turned into a slushy mess in Paris’ streets, stalling traffic. Paris’ RATP transport network says all buses in the capital have stopped running, as have many suburban buses.
Heavy snowfall is unusual in Paris. Some shop owners are busy sweeping slush off the sidewalks, while Parisians and tourists alike are cautiously braving the slippery roads.
French motorists camp out as snow smothers Paris
PARIS | Thu Dec 9, 2010 5:13pm IST
PARIS (Reuters) – Several thousand Parisians were forced to spend the night in emergency shelters or their cars, and transport remained chaotic on Thursday, after a blanket of snow fell on the French capital.
City authorities asked residents to avoid using their cars after the heaviest snowfall in nearly a quarter of a century covered city streets with ice and slush, causing traffic jams that prevented commuters getting home on Wednesday night.
“Stuck”, read a headline in the popular daily Le Parisien, while Le Figaro heralded “The great freezing of Paris”. TV images showed people sleeping on mattresses in school gymnasiums and emergency workers serving them food.
The interior ministry said 3,300 people spent the night in some 78 shelters around Paris, as the snow paralysed cars, taxis and buses and slowed suburban trains. Grounded passengers slept in airports after flights were cancelled. Icy conditions kept several highways shut on Thursday despite salting operations.
“We had to deal with a weather phenomenon with no precedent in the last generation,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said on Europe 1 radio. Many motorists had slept in their cars as black ice and slush made driving impossible, he said.
In some places, the snowfall reached 11 cm (4.3 inches), the most since 1987. The Eiffel Tower was temporarily closed.
People packed into the underground metro system, which was crammed full of shuffling commuters on Thursday.
“We formally advise all road users against driving on the greater Paris region road network except in cases of absolute professional need,” the Paris prefect’s office said.
Little Ice Age And Expanding Arctic Ice Coming – “Climate Forecasts Will Have To Be Thrown In The Dustbin”
The cold now sweeping over Europe and other parts of the globe are due to natural cycles, says German meteorologist Thomas Globig. He points out that the first 2 weeks of December in Britain have been the coldest since the last little ice age 350 years ago, and claims some climate models have criminally under-estimated solar influence on climate and that we ought to expect colder winters, and expanding Arctic ice in the years ahead.
“Some climate forecasts will have to be thrown in the dustbin.”
http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/14/little-ice-age-and-expanding-arctic-ice-coming-climate-models-will-have-to-be-thrown-in-the-dustbin/
This is interesting – and a difference from the Easterbrook et al scenario.
“It has gone past its high point of its 200-year high-phase and will decrease over the coming decades. Around the year 2040/2050, scientists calculate there will be a new so-called solar minimum, that means much less feed-in of solar energy into the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Don Easterbrook has the cool phase bottoming out circa 2030 and warming again 2040/2050.
Hmmm……….. tricky times far a coolist/warmist.
The EU Connection in Climate Research
Tuesday, 14 December 2010, 4:02 pm – Scoop
Opinion: Hoover Institution
by John Rosenthal
Millions of euros come with an agenda
The leaking of the East Anglia “Climategate” e-mails and data last November shattered the appearance of a scientific consensus on supposed “man-made global warming” and provided a disturbing insight into the corruption of the scientific process as it relates to the “man-made global warming” hypothesis. The spectacle of scientists stonewalling freedom of information requests, destroying records, hiding unwelcome results, colluding to keep dissenting viewpoints out of scholarly journals, and even suppressing their own acknowledged doubts — all of this made it perfectly clear that other interests were at stake than the pure pursuit of knowledge. The centrality of the quest for funding in the e-mail exchanges made it equally clear that for the scientists in question, money, unsurprisingly, was first and foremost among those interests.
But just who or what had corrupted the science in order to produce the phantom “consensus”? Commentators in U.S. online discussion forums and blogs wasted no time in identifying two prime suspects: the reputed prophet of green energy, Al Gore, and the right’s least favorite leftist billionaire, George Soros. Such speculation said a lot about the top bogeymen in the conservative blogosphere, but it was prima facie implausible or even indeed absurd. After all, no single individual, no matter how wealthy, has the resources that it takes to politicize weather and corrupt the entire global scientific enterprise. Indeed, in the grand scheme of things, one of the named suspects is not even particularly wealthy. Despite the prominent role he has played as a spokesperson for climate alarmism, it is far more likely that the former vice president is a passenger on the global warming bandwagon, not a driver.
If no individual has the money it takes, states — especially if they pool their resources — most certainly do. The real culprit in the corruption of the scientific process and the promotion of climate alarmism is named again and again in the East Anglia e-mails and documents. But the culprit is named with many different names, mysterious combinations of letters and numbers and lyrical code words, names like “dgxii, dgxi fp5 fp6 fp7 life enrich.” What do they mean? In the final analysis, it is but one and the same multinational organization that lurks behind all these designations: the European Union.
The eu funding stream
Continues……….
MUST READ – Follow the money
This is a HUGE ARTICLE in length and substance
———————————————————————————————————————-
The eu funding stream
All the designations refer either to departments of the European Commission or eu funding schemes. “dgxii” is the acronym by which the Commission’s Directorate General for Research was formerly designated, and “ dgxi” was the acronym for the Directorate General for the Environment.
The Research dg is essentially a funding organization. It controls a massive multi-year budget for research support known as the “Framework Programme” — or “fp,” for short. The European Network for Research into Global Change — or “ enrich” — was an early climate change research initiative that was launched already under the fourth Framework Programme (1994–96). The Environment dglikewise has at its disposal a “financing instrument” (albeit a more modest one). The financing program of the Environment dg is called “ life.” The Research Directorate’s Framework Programme 6 — or “fp6” — ran from 2002 through 2006 and comprised a budget of some € 17.5 billion. The current Framework Programme 7 began in 2007 and will run through 2013 It comprises a research support budget of some €50.5 billion.
fp6 funded 26 projects on climate change. The total eu contribution to these projects was a whopping €165,580,451. The University of East Anglia was a partner institution in no less than eight of these projects and it was the coordinating institution for one. Under fp7, the “climate research” manna has flowed even more freely. In just the first three years (2007–09) of the current Framework Programme, the European Commission has already funded 28 projects on climate change for a total eu contribution, according to provisional data, of some €116,271,772. The University of East Anglia is a partner institution in four of these projects.
——————————————————————————————————————–
And still it continues, this is one big mother article – in Scoop!
I seem to remember reading a version of this article a while back. The WWF – EU – Pauchauri – TERI links have been well explored by Richard North (as acknowledged in the article).
The Euro-marxist agenda is a perfect fit, of course.
Good read, as you say.
Probably is repackaged but it doesn’t hurt for it to be current again – and comprehensively. Also good to see it in NZ media – surprisingly..
This explains why the UN is so desperate to be the big climate dog on the block. The EU is their opposition and is roundly gazumping them. Totalitarians don’t like other Totalitarians muscling in on their patch and taking their action.
I watch the DWTV climate change propaganda “Global 3000” on the regional TV channel Central TV (Waikato). It is amazing how far the global reach of Germany is. North Africa goes without saying but they are into places like Philippines and Mongolia, truly global – the UN wont like that.
“It is amazing how far the global reach of Germany is”
And why “capacity building” is a big thrust by the UN because they’re in catch-up mode.
Indeed, in the grand scheme of things, one of the named suspects is not even particularly wealthy. Despite the prominent role he has played as a spokesperson for climate alarmism, it is far more likely that the former vice president is a passenger on the global warming bandwagon, not a driver.
WTF – Gore has made millions and millions off this gig. Is this reporter blind as well as dumb and deaf? Gore was a founder of the Chicago Carbon Exchange, as just one example. Is that not a ‘driver’?
“millions and millions off this gig” – “Is that not a ‘driver’?”
millions and millions off this gig = beneficiary
millions and millions into this gig = driver
Hey – Where can I get me some of dem drivers / beneficiaries?????
You gotta book a ride on the Climate Change Gravy Train, Mike.
Tickets available at Greenpeace, OXFAM, UNICEF, NIWA, MAF and many other approved outlets.
IUCN, not UNICEF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Union_for_Conservation_of_Nature
e.g. This ticket
IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy (CEESP): CEESP provides expertise and policy advice on economic and social factors for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. As of May 2010[update], CEESP has 1000 members and is led by Chairwoman Aroha Te Pareake Mead
http://www.iucn.org/about/union/council/members/chairs/
Upcoming Events
Sharing Power: A New Vision for Development, 11-15 January 2011, Whakatane New Zealand
The six Conference streams are: (i) Pathways to a new vision of conservation and development; (ii) Indigenous Values, Biocultural heritage and the Role of Protected Areas; (iii) Power-Sharing and Shared Governance in Practice; (iv) Grassroots Responses to Land Grabs, Extractive Industries and Climate Change; (v) Re-Thinking Economics and (vi) Inter-Cultural Dialogue, Education and Communicating Change.
i.e. Surrogate (but wishful) government right here in NZ
And this ticket
Cancun wrap up: We’re kicked out, a deal is made and Adrian Macey scores a new job
Lastly, a big shout out to Adrian Macey, the former head of the New Zealand government delegation who has just been promoted from Co-Chair to Chair of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. I hope that despite his history of being a New Zealand negotiator he will act in an unbiased way towards both developed and developing countries. I hope he acknowledges that these negotiations have not been democratic or transparent and that he will act to improve on that in Durban.
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/news/blog/cancun-wrap-up-were-kicked-out-a-deal-is-made/blog/30936
The Dutch lose faith in windmills
The new Dutch right-wing government has announced a radical overhaul of Dutch energy policy. It is cutting subsidies for most forms of renewable energy drastically, and is even putting an end to all subsidies for offshore wind, solar power and largescale biomass. It has also announced a warm welcome for new nuclear power stations – the first time a Dutch government has done so since the Chernobyl-disaster in 1986. However, not all is lost for the renewable energy sector: the cabinet is still brooding on a long-term strategy and a “Green Deal” that might yet put the Netherlands back on a “greener” course.
http://energiaadebate.com/the-dutch-lose-faith-in-windmills/
The headline angle turns this into a real story. Like saying ‘Eskimos give up igloos.’
If you add in the pollution angle that I posted yesterday from the Mail then you have a real story
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
Yes, that’s true. These two reports introduce a disturbing perspective on our unthinking rush to radical green technology.
Helmut Schmidt calls for IPCC enquiry.
n a keynote speech to the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Germany’s most eminent science organisation, Helmut Schmidt, Germany’s former Chancellor, has cast serious doubt on the integrity and credibility of the IPCC and called for an independent, scientific investigation into the IPCC’s questionable practices:
http://thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/2591-helmut-schmidt-calls-for-ipcc-inquiry.html
Andy,
Thats fantastic. The walls are starting to crumble now. I’m just loving the turmoil in Australia right now. I reckon a couple of the independants will soon withdraw support for Gillard and force a new Election as its becoming clear to those independants that they will be out in the next election if they cant turn it around.
Hat tip to Andrew Bolt for outstanding coverage.
Europe pushes ahead with tighter emissions targets and the de-industrialisation of the continent:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/3/8/as-if-things-werent-bad-enough.html
(Satire)
EU to Ban Carbon Life Forms From Cities by 2050
BRUSSELS – Belgium – All non-essential carbon life forms will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 95 per cent over the next 40 years.
The European Commission on Monday unveiled a “single European elite area” aimed at enforcing “a profound shift in population patterns for non-elite carbon life forms” by 2050.
Read more…
http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/world/2702-eu-to-ban-carbon-lifeforms-from-cities-by-2050.html
And more satire…..
Global warming real again
16-05-11
RECORD spring temperatures across the UK have raised concerns that global warming might be a real thing after all.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/global-warming-real-again-201105163817/
Germany ‘Sliding Head Over Heels Into Eco-Dictatorship’
Germany’s green government advisors admit frankly that decarbonization can only be achieved by the limitation of democracy – both nationally and internationally.
When it comes to environmental and climate policy, Germany’s Scientific Advisory Council on Global Environmental Change (WBGU) is an influential advisory committee for the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The chairman of the council is Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
http://www.thegwpf.org/international-news/3095-germany-sliding-head-over-heels-into-the-eco-dictatorship.html
A similar theme is explored at Shub’s blog:
The Stockholm Memorandum and The Great Structural Solution:
Keep global warming below 2ºC, implying a peak in global CO2 emissions no later than 2015 and recognise that even a warming of 2ºC carries a very high risk of serious impacts and the need for major adaptation efforts
Not sure about that 2015 date. Fours years might be a bit ambitious to completely re-engineer the world’s economy.
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/the-stockholm-memorandum-and-the-great-structural-solution/
Why do European’s think Climate Change is the world’s biggest issue?
Maybe it’s the wording in the surveys…
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/10/sacre-bleu-eees-climate-change.html
EU sets conditions for signing up to Kyoto II
(Reuters) 10 October 2011
LUXEMBOURG – European Union environment ministers — responsible for only 11 percent of global carbon emissions — said they would commit to a new phase of the Kyoto climate change pact, on the condition that nations blamed for the rest join up too.
[…]
“What’s the point of keeping something alive if you’re alone there? There must be more from the 89 percent,” EU Environment Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told Reuters.
The European Union stated the need for a road map that would indicate when the biggest emitters — led by the United States, China and India — would sign up.
>>>>>>>
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/environment/2011/October/environment_October13.xml§ion=environment
Hey but NZ is only 0.11% of global CO2 emissions and we are doing “our bit”.
Don’t you feel proud? /sarc
Lubos Motl in fine form again:
There’s pretty much a consensus across the political spectrum – and especially in the public – that global warming alarmism is a fashionable disease that plagues the brains of pampered and brainwashed people in the West who are either champions of a statist political ideology or their own profits, or those who want to be “hip”, who are naive and detached from reality, and who don’t understand how it easy it is to hijack a part of the scientific institutions and turn them into tools of shameless and cynical political propaganda.
[..]
Ms Rosenthal also mentions an irrelevant woman, a Ms Hedegaard or what’s her exact name, from Denmark who is apparently a climate alarmist and an EU commissioner responsible for promoting the scientific emotions of female journalists such as Ms Hedegaard with intelligence matching that of poultry across the continent.
It’s surely politically correct in certain mentally degenerated circles to praise stupid women in politics – we need more women in politics, don’t we? – except that this particular Danish woman is stupid beyond imagination. But she’s not the worst one. Another woman, Jill Duggan or Hoggan, is in charge of the carbon tax in the whole EU. If you click at the previous link, you may listen to an interview with Andrew Bolt (and another guy) in Australia showing that this woman doesn’t have the slightest clue about a single fact that is relevant for climatology or the proposed carbon regulation.
More of this at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-york-times-on-disappearance-of-agw.html
Germany Plans Solar-Subsidies Cut, May See Installation Rush
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Germany, the world’s biggest solar- panel market, will cut subsidies for photovoltaic power by a record amount next year as the government tries to control the pace of installations and wean the industry off support.
Rates under the feed-in-tariff system will be reduced 15 percent from Jan. 1, 2012, after Germany added about 5.2 gigawatts of panels in the year through Sept. 30, the Bundesnetzagentur, the federal grid regulator, said in a statement on its website today. Power from panels will earn 17.94 euro cents (25 cents) to 24.43 euro cents a kilowatt-hour.
“The cut is part of the push down toward competitive pricing without subsidies,” Charles Yonts, an analyst at CSLA in Hong Kong, said by e-mail.
>>>>>>>>
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-27/germany-plans-solar-subsidies-cut-may-see-installation-rush.html
EU finance ministers confirm €7.2bn climate financing
But green campaigners warn development aid has simply been repackaged as climate aid
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2123775/eu-finance-ministers-confirm-eur72bn-climate-financing
A statement outlining the conclusions of the latest meeting of finance ministers showed EU states had provided €4.68bn in 2010 and 2011 towards the $30bn “fast-start” climate fund agreed at the 2009 climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Dozens freeze to death as temperatures plunge to MINUS 26C in parts of Eastern Europe
Severe cold snap kills at least 36 people across region
Ukraine: 18 die of hypothermia, 500 people seek medical help
Poland: At least 10 people dead as cold reaches -26C
Serbia: 3 dead and two missing; Romania: 4 people dead; Bulgaria: 1 dead
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093891/Dozens-freeze-death-temperatures-plunge-MINUS-26C-parts-Eastern-Europe.html#ixzz1kyg9qnwA
Wolves scavenge as Italians take shelter from biting cold
Biting temperatures and widespread snow and ice have caused up to 500 million euros ($610 million) worth of damages to Italy’s agriculture sector so far, the Confagricoltura association said.
The economic development ministry activated a plan to maximise gas supplies to vulnerable households by reducing gas supplies to industrial clients and switching from gas to oil-fired power stations
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-08/italy-hit-by-big-freeze/3817114
Shades of Argentina a couple of years ago.
Amazing pictures of the big freeze across Europe
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097779/Europe-weather-Snow-covers-continent-temperatures-plunge-MINUS-40C.html
In blaming mankind for causing snow across Europe, Greens sound eerily like 16th-century witch-hunters
By Brendan O’Neill
Brendan O’Neill is the editor of spiked, an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms.
Whenever it snows these days, there will always be an eco-miserabilist at hand to tell us it is our fault – that freakish wintery weather is as much “manmade” as is hot weather and droughts. And so the Independent, having told us in March 2000 that, as a result of climate change, “snow is starting to disappear from our lives”, now tells us that, as a result of climate change, snow will become a more regular feature in our lives. Under the headline “Science behind the big freeze: is climate change bringing the Arctic to Europe?”
[…]
I wonder if environmentalists ever stop to think how much they sound like the witch-hunters of yesteryear? Because however radical Greens think they are, the truth is that this isn’t the first time in history there has been a fashion for blaming long or dark or weird winters on foul individuals and their apparently problematic lifestyles. No, the sixteenth-century hunters of evil witches did likewise, pinning the blame for cold weather on sinning mankind long before the Independent and other modern Greens had the same idea.
One of the key mad beliefs behind witch-hunting in Europe between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries was the idea that these peculiar creatures had warped the weather, that they had caused “climate change”. As the German historian Wolfgang Behringer argued in his 2004 book, Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History, “large-scale persecutions were clearly linked to years of extreme hardship and in particular the type of misery related to extreme climatic events”. During the Little Ice Age, the period of unusual coldness that kicked off in the mid-1500s, there was an upsurge in witch-hunting. There was another outburst in 1628, described by historians as “the year without a summer”, because once again people’s crops failed as a result of very cold weather and they were desperate to find someone to blame – usually a cranky old woman who could be labelled a “witch”.
>>>>>>>>
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100135504/in-blaming-mankind-for-causing-snow-across-europe-greens-sound-eerily-like-16th-century-witch-hunters/
I wonder if Bryan Walker, Hot Topic Officionado and author of ‘Uncomfortable parallels’ (“…what I see as parallels between the defence of slavery in earlier times and today’s persistence with fossil fuel-based economies”), has read this article?
Dying from cold
Portugal has had in the last weeks a big increase in the total number of deaths. As can be seen in the graph below (original here – in Portuguese), the last weeks have seen several hundreds of excess deaths in Portugal:
http://ecotretas.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/dying-from-cold.html?m=1
Seen at Climate Change Dispatch comments under ‘Study: climate alarmists represent 30% of OCD psychiatric patients’
# Red Jeff 2012-03-10 01:18
Europeans are already 40% crazy! “Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/04/europe-mental-illness-idUSL5E7JV2R320110904
“Mental disorders have become Europe’s largest health challenge of the 21st century,” the study’s authors said.
Ya just can’t make this stuff up!!!!
PS… as an amazing coincidence 38% of the population is employed with the Eurozone government!
http://climatechangedispatch.com/home/10039-study-climate-alarmists-represent-30-of-ocd-psychiatric-patients#comment-35065
Breaking news: Worst flooding in a hundred years in Russia – high death toll. Watch for MSM claims of CAGW!
http://www.rt.com/news/toll-dead-region-floods-633/
This from twitter:
@ScotClimate: Scottish Government found to have lied on key figure. Is the Scottish Climate Bill dead?. Will the minister resign? http://bit.ly/OwkVl1
The Scottish government lied to politicians about key financial data which was central to the argument for the bill when they passed the Scottish Climate Change Bill. The government citing Stern said that the economic cost of a 2-3°C rise would be “between 5-20% of GDP”. In fact Stern suggests there may not be any net economic harm quoting figures of 0-3%
The figures are so key to justifying the bill, that it really is difficult to see how this bill could withstand a legal challenge.
… but the scandal gets worse. The Scottish paper (The Courier) which broke this story seems to have been lent on to remove the story. Presumably by someone in government.
This is about as bad as we can get. It appears the world’s most enthusiastic government for climate change is now embroiled in lies & cover-up.
Shunned US coal sends Europe’s emissions higher
European power producers benefit from cheaper coal
While shale gas production has provided a glut of cheap energy in the U.S. it has also driven out an oversupply of lower-cost coal to Europe.
U.S. coal exports to Europe rose 29 per cent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same time in 2011, a trend that has curbed European gas demand by around 3 billion cubic feet per day, according to Bernstein Research.
[…]
Germany offers a stark illustration of this price difference. Its power producers have so far this year earned an average of 6.5 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) for power produced the following month in coal plants, compared with a 7.9 euro per MWh loss when burning gas, Reuters data showed.
Coal burn varies as utilities constantly assess profit margins of gas compared with coal-fired plants. Figures depend on costs for fuel, carbon permits and electricity prices.
“In Europe it would take a 50 per cent increase in coal prices to erase the price advantage over natural gas,” said Paolo Coghe, senior analyst at Societe Generale.
In France, which is mainly powered by nuclear plants but uses coal and gas when demand dictates, coal plants generated 44 per cent more electricity over the first eight months of 2012 than in the same period in 2011.
Britain’s coal use was 43 per cent higher in the first half of this year compared with a year ago, grid operator data from both countries showed.
Trend could end after winter […]
Some of the coal plants in question are set to shut at the end of the winter as generators expect to race through operating hours allocated under the EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) on curbing harmful emissions.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/shunned-us-coal-sends-europes-emissions-higher-20120925-26jfe.html#ixzz27YmjFQt6
and as a side effect of renewables and the German phase out of nuclear, they make Coal Fired Power compulsory
but wait there’s more….
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/9/26/wood-insanity-be-the-reason.html
Timber waste biomass is a major energy source in NZ, but burning the primary product? I don’t think so unless it’s non-marketable like poplar or something but how much energy in wood like that and would it even be profitable to ship?
They’d be better burning the equivalent oil burnt in shipping it.
Another interesting thread on BH about the CO2 savings of wind in the UK.
Lynas, Hickman and others in comments – worth reading
Here’s a relevant comment from that BH thread:
” The fairest way to do the comparison is to compare coal and nuclear or gas on it’s own – with something else that can do the same job. Wind can’t. The fair comparison is between, coal, nuclear, gas and ‘gas+wind’.
From the perspective of the man at the National Grid the best kind of power station is hydro-electric. Turn it on when you want it, turn it off when you don’t. And you can go from nothing to full power in about ten seconds. The second best power stations are nuclear, coal, and gas. Switch ’em on and leave ’em running. A poor third is wind which may be there when you need it or may not.
ow for a country with loads of hydro, wind is really quite attractive, when the wind blows you switch off the hydro and that means you have more water behind the dam for when the wind isn’t blowing. But in the UK we need to have 1GW of gas for every 1GW of wind, and the best we can hope to achieve is about a 30% reduction in gas consumption – compared to just running the 1GW gas station 24×7.”
BH – “The defence of windfarms put forward by Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall, which was discussed a couple of days ago, has now had a response from Gordon Hughes. Hughes is less than impressed with the two greens’ table manners: [Hughes quote]”
“He seems even less impressed with their analysis of the electricity grid: [Hughes quote]”
Ouch >>>>>
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/9/28/ouch.html
30% of the trees goes to waste. I think a good proportion of that is all that is used for biomass fuel in NZ. Looks like it’s not just Drax and UK, SMH article:-
Drax isn’t alone in seeking to convert from coal to biomass. RWE last year turned its 1,131-megawatt Tilbury facility into a 750-megawatt plant running on wood pellets rather than coal. Dong Energy, Denmark’s state-controlled utility in April said it plans to invest about 500 million pounds to convert three of its coal- and gas-fired power plants to burning wood pellets.
A typical tree plantation produces about 1 million metric tons of wood from 200,000 acres annually, enough to make around 500,000 metric tons of biomass pellets, according to RWE. Using those numbers, Drax’s annual requirement for 7.5 million tons of biomass by 2017 would need plantations totaling 3 million acres. That’s more than four times the size of Rhode Island.
It’s a significant challenge, given that collection systems are nascent, pellet plants too small and port facilities lacking. Drax is designing its biomass storage and conveyor belts in a way to minimise the risk of fire. A blaze at a wood storage facility in February halted generation at Tilbury for 4 months.
Thinned trees
As much as 30 per cent of the branches, bark and thinned trees that Drax is burning is considered waste and left to rot,
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/britain-turns-back-the-clock-as-wood-displaces-coal-20120926-26km1.html#ixzz27f1hFzaQ
3 million acres of trees annually just for Drax and questions over carbon release and growth life-cycle in the article too.
Freezing temperatures kill 18 in Ukraine
Eighteen people have died of cold in Ukraine so far this month, most of them last weekend, as temperatures dropped below minus 10 Celsius, the government said.
The Health Ministry said 12 people were found dead on the streets, three in their homes and three died while receiving medical treatment. Last Friday the death toll stood at six.
Night temperatures are expected to drop to -28 C in northern, central and eastern Ukraine this week, weather forecasters said on Monday.
The cold snap followed heavy snowfall which left some areas covered with as much as 53 cm of snow.
Over a hundred people have been admitted to hospital with cold-related ailments and the Emergencies Ministry said it was setting up tents where people could get hot drinks and receive first aid.
The Ministry and the army were deployed to rescue people with cars buried in snow during strong blizzards. Around 2000 vehicles stuck on roads were freed from snow during the last 24 hours, the Emergency Ministry said.
Last February, as Ukraine went through its coldest winter in six years, over 130 people died of cold in the country of 45 million.
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/freezing-temperatures-kill-18-in-ukraine-5296978
Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits
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.
http://rt.com/news/russia-freeze-cold-temperature-379/
Free the carbon! Warm good. Cold bad.
Not just Russia:-
“In the Ukraine, more than 150 deaths have been registered. Sixty-eight people have reportedly died in Poland from the cold, 64 in Russia and an estimated 70 in Belarus. In Romania, the official death toll has risen to 68. In Lithuania, 23 deaths have been reported, 24 in the Czech Republic and 10 in Latvia. At least 16 people have died so far due to the cold in Bulgaria, 13 in Hungary, and a total of 50 in the successor states of Yugoslavia.
Italy has also been severely affected by the cold, with 40 registered victims.”
http://notrickszone.com/2012/12/21/cold-blast-claims-over-600-lives-across-eastern-europe/
Cold bad – unless you’re a ski bunny.
Welcome To Green Europe
Tens of thousands of trees have disappeared from parks and woodlands this winter across Greece as the crisis-hit country’s impoverished residents, too broke to pay for electricity or fuel, turn to fireplaces and wood stoves for heat. –Nektaria Stamouli and Stelios Bouras, The Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2013
When the mercury falls, the theft of wood in the country’s woodlands goes up as people turn to cheaper ways to heat their homes. With energy costs escalating, more Germans are turning to wood burning stoves for heat. That, though, has also led to a rise in tree theft in the country’s forests. The problem has been compounded this winter by rising energy costs. The Germany’s Renters Association estimates the heating costs will go up 22 percent this winter alone.–Spiegel Online, 17 January 2013
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/regions/europe/
Collapsing Consensus – Another German Meteorology Site Wonders About The Global Temperature Stagnation
An interesting comment on long term temperature trends in the UK
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/27/a-sea-change-on-climate-sensitivity-at-the-economist/#comment-1258741
I saw that Economist article Mike, must be the first semi-MSM article on the CS issue..
And yes, interesting WUWT comment. The CET temperature is back where it was in 1659 I think it is.
but Ken will claim you are cherry-picking because you are a dishonest liar clouded by political ideology
Actually gone a bit lower than 1659 now:-
http://junksciencearchive.com/MSU_Temps/HadCET_an.png
But I suppose it’s not statistically significant – it is only 2 datapoints 354 yrs apart after all.
Great to see absolute temperatures for a change instead of the usual anomalies anyway.
My daily Skype conversation with my UK colleague was delayed by him doing a nighttime cross country ski trip after work.
It’s not too often that happens, even if I dishonestly cherry pick the last 5 years of cold and snowy winters that the UK has had,
“Energy: they really are serious”
Richard North discusses “Vehicle to Grid” systems that allow excess charge to be taken from electric cars to power the grid
It’s all an attempt to load balance the wind and solar energy that is intermittent and unreliable
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83851
Also,
“Climate change: the juggernaut rolls on ”
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83853
“This is the intellectual equivalent of the herpes virus – the only sure way of destroying it is to destroy the host.” gets comment of the day from me.
>” “snow tourism” is one of the economic sectors which is “already facing the impact of climate change” ”
A couple of possible reasons from casual observation:-
1) Skiers already taking that mode on their work commute don’t feel the need to journey to the Alps to indulge.
2) Difficulty finding the car under overnight snow and the effort required to clear snowdrifts to get to the airport isn’t what skiing is all about. That and finding the flight canceled due to heavy snowfall anyway on arrival at the airport.
Or is the impact of a more economically technical nature?
“Or is the impact of a more economically technical nature?”
Massive unemployment might have something to do with the downturn in the European ski sector. It certainly isn’t lack of snow
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22017112
Italy seizes record assets from wind farm tycoon
Vahrenholt Thrashes Leading IPCC, Former NCAR Scientist In Hamburg Debate! “The Wound Of Climate Science”
By P Gosselin on 15. August 2013
Spiegel journalist and geologist Axel Bojanowski reports on a heated climate debate in the online Spiegel today.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/08/15/vahrenholt-thrashes-leading-ipcc-former-ncar-scientist-in-hamburg-debate-the-wound-of-climate-science/#comment-647892
‘EU policy on climate change is right even if science was wrong, says commissioner’
Regardless of whether or not scientists are wrong on global warming, the European Union is pursuing the correct energy policies even if they lead to higher prices, Europe’s climate commissioner has said.
By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels
Connie Hedegaard’s comments come as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to admit that previous scientific predictions for global warming and the effects of carbon emissions have been proved to be inaccurate.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Europe’s most senior climate change official argued that the current policies are the correct ones because a growing world population will put pressure on energy supplies regardless of the rate of global warming.
“I personally have a very pragmatic view.
“Say that 30 years from now, science came back and said, ‘wow, we were mistaken then now we have some new information so we think it is something else’. In a world with nine billion people, even 10 billion at the middle of this century, where literally billions of global citizens will still have to get out of poverty and enter the consuming middle classes, don’t you think that anyway it makes a lot of sense to get more energy and resource efficient,” she said.
“Let’s say that science, some decades from now, said ‘we were wrong, it was not about climate’, would it not in any case have been good to do many of things you have to do in order to combat climate change?.”
[…]
Bjorn Lomborg, a professor at the Copenhagen business school and the author of Cool it, a book arguing that too much climate change policy is based on scaremongering, accused the commissioner of being “both callous and wrong”.
“EU climate policies have directly increased energy costs and caused more energy poverty – 300,000 households in Germany lost their power last year because they couldn’t pay the bills, and millions are energy poor in the UK. EU climate policies will cost £174 billion annually by 2020, the EU commissioner seems to suggest wasting £174 billion is no problem,” he said.
“To the extent the EU climate policies have affected the world, it has made energy more costly, reduced growth and consigned more people to poverty.”
>>>>>>>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10313261/EU-policy-on-climate-change-is-right-even-if-science-was-wrong-says-commissioner.html
Power Is Money: Green energy costs bundle to EU taxpayers, prompts crisis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl_kBtl7pCA
Published on 21 Oct 2013
‘Robin Hood’-like subsidies for Green power are driving the EU towards an energy-crisis, this according to Europe’s top utilities firms. The problem, they say, is – billions in hand-outs are killing innovation and competitiveness and the results are there for all to see.
Germany, though, has found a way around it. Instead of taxing businesses and factories it puts the entire burden of subsidies on ordinary households. RT’s Peter Oliver reports.
Tax Sunshine: Spain govt’s bright idea to tackle energy debt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yt5wBTMl8I
Published on 20 Oct 2013
The number of people living in extreme poverty in Spain has doubled in just five years – according to a new report from charity groups there. Around three million Spaniards now have to survive on under 307 euros per month, while the cost of living continues to climb.
That’s as the number of families where not one person is employed, has gone up five-fold since the start of crisis, that’s 1 point 8 million households.
And now the Spanish government is set to become the first in Europe to tax something that’s been free and available to everyone since the dawn of time – sunlight. Madrid wants to impose a levy on solar power, to help plug its yawning energy debt, as Sara Firth reports
Europe Climate Policy Blows Engine…”Giant Failure” … Scientists “Failed Tricking Their Way Past Democracy” … Mood Of Resignation
By P Gosselin on 30. November 2013
Good news!
This is about one of the most damning pieces on the European climate movement I’ve read all year, and that from Germany’s equivalent of the Washington Post. An atmosphere of resignation is truly sweeping through Germany’s climate movement. Flagship media are waking up.
“Failed tricking their way past democracy”
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has written a blistering criticism of Hans Schellnhuber’s WBGU and climate activists’ efforts to impose a green authoritarian society over the rest of the world.
>>>>>>>>
http://notrickszone.com/2013/11/30/europe-climate-policy-blows-engine-huge-failure-scientists-failed-tricking-their-way-past-democracy-mood-of-resignation/#
Background – the Potsdam doomsday factory
German professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is the director of Germany’s infamously alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, which includes alarmist climate radicals like Stefan Rahmstorf, Anders Levermann, and economist Ottmar Edenhofer. For years Schellnhuber’s institute has busily and relentlessly crafted data showing alarming climate change and putting out doomsday scenarios in an attempt to get spooked policymakers to stampede into enacting radical climate policy.
Schellnhuber is also the director of the WBGU, the German Advisory Council on Global Change. The Council is made up of nine “renowned scientists”. Their primary task: to advise policymakers in Germany and worldwide on how society should proceed in the face of dangerous climate change.
Master-plan for transforming global society
Three years ago the WBGU authored and released a 446-page “Master Plan” for “The Great Transformation of Global Society” designed to put global society on the fast-track to “sustainability” and an almost carbon-free society by 2050. In it the council even called for policies to water down democracy. One journalist once summarized: The WBGU is in favor of democracy, but only so long as the people make the right decisions.
The master-plan called for a so-called future council, made up of prophet-like wise men, who would have the power to veto democratic decisions it felt were not in the best interest of future generations.
“Climate protection as moral as abolishing slavery”
The FAZ writes that one of the fundamental aims of the WBGU was changing Germany’s constitutional law: climate protection was to become an official state priority and that going green was “as morally imperative as the abolition of slavery“. More importantly, the “transformation to a climate-protective society would have to happen very rapidly“. Dissenters would have to be stigmatized and marginalized, and so denied real participation.
A scandalous BBC suppression of information is breaking today (dubbed “28gate”):
BBC’s six-year cover-up of secret ‘green propaganda’ training for top executives
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537886/BBCs-six-year-cover-secret-green-propaganda-training-executives.html
The story has also been run here, here and here, but the Daily Mail article referenced above has the best coverage imo.
Also in the ‘UK’ thread Mike:
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/regions/uk/#comment-468363
Ah – I didn’t see the UK thread in my excitement. I think any alarmist who gnashes his teeth about the “well-funded denial machine” should be directed at these articles. The UK Government using taxpayer dollars to “educate” the state-funded news machine leaders on how to report the alarm and disregard level-headed and questioning views.
Only “breaking” in the Daily Mail. This is old hat in the blogosphere
Yeah, JN made that observation too. At least it’s breaking in the MSM even it’s taken a while.
Who else but David Rose though?
Sorry, my mistake
French Foreign Minister: ‘500 Days to Avoid Climate Chaos’
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/french-foreign-minister-500-days-avoid-climate-chaos_792736.html
OMG! 500 days until we’re DOOMED! Pay more taxes NOW!!!
Extreme crop damage in Europe due to cold
May 4, 2016
http://iceagenow.info/extreme-crop-damage-europe-due-cold/
Northern hemisphere crop losses Spring 2016
In several European countries – such as Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Germany, Slovenia, France and Belgium – apples, pears, cherries and grapes were frozen.
Eighty percent of Cherries, 60% of Apricots, 6% of Wheat, 13% of Austrian wine production.
http://iceagenow.info/northern-hemisphere-crop-losses-staggering-video/
Top Environmentalists Aghast As Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ Turns Into A Green Dystopia!
http://climatechangedispatch.com/top-environmentalists-aghast-as-germanys-energiewende-turns-into-a-green-dystopia/