Category Archives: climate

The Climate Emergency

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There is no climate emergency.

That’s the opening sentence of a letter from Professor Guus Berkhout of The Hague and 500 other scientists and climate science professionals to António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, and Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Berkhout, et al., did expand on that.

The general-circulation models of climate on which international policy is at present founded are unfit for their purpose. Therefore, it is cruel as well as imprudent to advocate the squandering of trillions on the basis of results from such immature models.

This is a preview of The Climate Emergency. Read the full post (428 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Brazilian Forest Fires

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Deutsche Welle‘s Loveday Wright wondered about the Amazon forest fires in northern Brazil:  Can international pressure help put them out?

Not when the Brazilian government, for good or ill, exposes them to fire by allowing clear-cutting in favor of agriculture.

But more importantly, not when climatistas openly lie about the extent and level of destruction of the fires.

Several of the most widely shared images aren’t actually from this month’s fires.
Some are old photographs of the Amazon, and some aren’t even from the area at all.

For instance:

This is a preview of Brazilian Forest Fires. Read the full post (310 words, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

Freeze the North Pole

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…or keep it frozen.  Or add more ice to it.  Or something.

Here’s an idea:

A team of designers led by Faris Rajak Kotahatuhaha proposes re-freezing sea water in the Arctic to create miniature modular icebergs using a submarine-like vessel, in a bid to combat climate change.
The Indonesian designer worked on the prototype with collaborators Denny Lesmana Budi and Fiera Alifa for an international competition organised by the Association of Siamese Architects.

And they won a consolation prize for that.  After all, as Kotahatuhaha said,

This is a preview of Freeze the North Pole. Read the full post (463 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Green Cow Gas

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…or something.  The Wall Street Journal opined Monday on the alleged hypocrisy of California’s Progressive-Democrats on the matter of going carbon-neutral in a shade over a decade.

California has plowed billions of dollars into green energy to wean the state off fossil fuels. But now progressives are complaining that biofuel producers are milking government subsidies intended to help dairy farmers cut emissions. Here is another illustration of the left’s anti-carbon contradictions.

The Editors went on in that vein, describing those Progressive-Democrats’ dismay over two companies thoroughly dominating the cow manure and flatulence emissions carbon credits market, even taking advantage of California’s laws governing those emissions.

This is a preview of Green Cow Gas. Read the full post (229 words, estimated 55 secs reading time)

Much Ado About Another Nothing

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The claim, now, is that atmospheric CO2 has reached 415 parts per million (ppm), according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

That is, as the panicky scream goes, the highest level ever in human history.

And

Earth science analyses show that the atmosphere last contained this much CO2 some three million years ago, when global sea levels were higher and parts of Antarctica were blanketed in forest.

There’s a hint there regarding the lushness of life on Earth.

This is a preview of Much Ado About Another Nothing. Read the full post (217 words, estimated 52 secs reading time)

Cowards

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The Senate voted on the Green New Deal, but the proposal, first offered in the House (and yet to be voted on there), failed a cloture vote to let it come to the floor for discussion, debate, and subsequent vote up or down.

The Senate on Tuesday failed to advance the Green New Deal, the ambitious plan to combat climate change proposed by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after what Democrats said was a politically-motivated show vote.
The measure, which needed 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle, failed in a 0-57 vote, with 43 Democrats voting present.

This is a preview of Cowards. Read the full post (289 words, estimated 1:09 mins reading time)

Thoughts on Climate

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George Melloan had some in a recent Wall Street Journal, and so do I.

Melloan pointed out that the hoi polloi around the world aren’t sold on the climate funding industry’s panicky wailing about atmospheric CO2 and how we have to do something—anything—give money—and how we have to do it Right Damn Now.

Never mind that

Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard Lindzen posited two immense, complex and turbulent fluids—the oceans and the air in the atmosphere—are in constant reaction with each other and the land, causing what we experience as storms and temperature changes. Variations in the sun’s radiation and the rotation of the planet play parts as well. And yet, he said, climate modelers claim that only one tiny component of this enormous churning mass, CO2, controls the planet’s climate.
This borders on “magical thinking,” he said….

This is a preview of Thoughts on Climate. Read the full post (363 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

Carbon Dioxide and Bias at the EPA

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Cass Sunstein thinks there’s bias in the Trump EPA in the way the agency handles CO2.  He’s right, but not in the way he thinks.

The only way to solve the climate-change problem, and to prevent massive harm in the US, is for all the world’s big emitters [of CO2] to agree to take account of the global damage.

There’s the heart of the political concern and a demonstration of Sunstein’s bias.

Carbon’s role in the environment is its contribution to acid rain through its role as a constituent of CO2. That problem has been solved, years ago.

This is a preview of Carbon Dioxide and Bias at the EPA. Read the full post (196 words, estimated 47 secs reading time)

Exxon’s Carbon Tax

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Exxon Mobil Corp is throwing $1 million at the move to produce a national carbon tax.

Exxon’s move is an attempt to manage what it sees as the risk of a similar movement in the US, in ways that it hopes will simplify requirements on its industry….
Exxon sees a carbon tax as an alternative to patchwork regulations, putting one cost on all carbon emitters nationwide, eliminating regulatory uncertainty….

On the contrary, Exxon is looking for short-term competitive political advantage at the expense of long-term economic—real—advantage.  That’s unfortunate.

This is a preview of Exxon’s Carbon Tax. Read the full post (236 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

Climate Change and Wildfires

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Much is being made about how anthropogenic global warming is causing all those wildfires in California.  Cliff Mass had a different view [emphasis in the original].

there is a lot misinformation going around in the media, some environmental advocacy groups, and some politicians.   The story can’t be a simply that warming is increasing the numbers of wildfires in California because the number of fires is declining.  And area burned has not been increasing either.

And [emphasis added]

[N]ow we get into the real interesting questions that many are not considering.   What is driving the ups and downs in wildfires?  There are so many factors that must be considered, such as:

This is a preview of Climate Change and Wildfires. Read the full post (290 words, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)