Climate Change and Wildfires

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:

Climate and Atmospheric CO2

In a piece on Watts Up With That, Eric Worrall explored the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and temperature.  (Yes, yes, I know the science is settled, but the fact is the only thing settled is the pseudo-science nesting in the fetid imaginations of climate “science” funding industry personages.  The rest of us keep asking rude questions.)

There’s Collusion

…and there’s collusion.  Not only did Vladimir Putin share a bed with Donald Trump as they worked together to get Trump elected, but Putin was busy in the climate bed, too.

Boslough’s logic builds, as folks point out his initial foolishness.

Now the big tie-in:

That Putin, he is vigorous.

 

h/t Watts Up With That?

YGTBSM

Yet again.  This one is from Watts Up With That.

A bloke bought a sheep property of half a million acres in western Queensland for $2.0 million. Instead of running sheep on it, he now gets $350,000 per annum under the federal government’s Direct Action scheme for not using the grass on his property. The idea being that the grass locks up carbon and reduces Australia’s carbon emissions. A neighbouring property gets $600,000 per annum.

EPA Jobs?

The Environmental Protection Agency has sent out more than 1,000 buy-out notices to its employees….

The positions are being eliminated, and the incumbents aren’t being offered positions elsewhere on the government’s teat payroll.  The horror.  The union-demanded, if not God-given, sinecures are not sinecures, after all.  American Federation of Government Employees Local 704 President Michael Mikulka is quite vocal with his dismay.

EPA wants over 1,200 of us to leave, purportedly to save money going forward and claiming that they no longer need the positions occupied by staff that in some cases worked at EPA for over 30 years[.]

A Climate Trial Legal Outcome

…is in the offing.  The piece by John O’Sullivan in Principia Scientific International is a bit optimistic, but the outcome is legitimately expected under Canadian law.  The offing-ed outcome concerns Penn State pseudo-scientist Michael Mann and his slander lawsuit against Canadian climatologist Dr Tim Ball in a British Columbia court.

It turns out that there are two legal factors of interest here.  One is that Canadian courts always grant adjournments before a trial in their belief that an out of court settlement is preferable, and Mann had moved for such an adjournment of the lawsuit’s trial that was scheduled to months ago on 20 Feb.  Ball agreed (of course), but he was able to get conditions imposed on that adjournment, one of which was that Mann would produce the data underlying his suit in court by 20 Feb.

Is There a Mass Extinction in Progress?

Nope.  Eric Worrall, writing at the link, quoted Doug Erwin, a Smithsonian Paleontologist on whether we’re in the middle of one, as many climatistas (not all) insist [emphases in the original]:

Many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were[.]

And

Pseudo-Science

I got an email ad over the weekend, inviting me to join the American Association for the Advancement of Science—AAAS, which used to be a respectable organization.  The ad said in part,

Organizations that have propelled us forward—NIH, NOAA, and the EPA, just to name a few—are facing major funding cuts.

Because fraud, waste, and abuse are important only when it’s the other guy’s FWA.  We wouldn’t been involved with any of that.  Not us.

No, even were these organizations sound, their spending can be tightened, and they can absorb budget cuts.  They can do the same amount of work, or more, did they only spend with efficiency rather than profligacy.

Climate…Contrast

The US has reduced its CO2 emissions steadily, and by lots, since the 1990s while Europe is lately increasing its emissions, yet the EU is chastising us for going out from a foolish Paris Climate Accord, whose pseudo-commitments—by design not enforceable—would not have materially reduced global temperature rises even if fully met.

And this:

The report suggests a slightly colder winter across Europe also contributed to increased emissions, due to higher demand for heating.

Wait, wait—colder winter?  But, global warming….

At Least Some Integrity

David Rank, Chargé d’affaires at our embassy in the People’s Republic of China, has resigned his position and is retiring from the foreign service over President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Accord.

Although Rank is wrong on the matter, he has displayed considerable with his retirement: unlike so many Obama administration hold-overs (he held several senior diplomatic positions throughout Asia during those eight years), he’s chosen to leave the service rather than stay on and sabotage the new administration’s policies from within.

Related to this, albeit tangentially, is the AP’s carefully slanted final paragraph in its piece carrying this report of Rank’s resignation and retirement.