For the latest on this shocking fraud click on "HOME"
German turbines which were mangled recently
in a storm.
German turbines which were mangled recently
in a storm.
Will yet another wind farm here " save
the planet " or will the Government's carbon trading scheme simply line state coffers at your expense?
the planet " or will the Government's carbon trading scheme simply line state coffers at your expense?
Claims that wind farms are needed to alieviate "climate change" ( the euphenism for " global warming" ) and so save the world just do not stack up.
IPCC computer modelling of climate change is in doubt. Many AGW scientists have now put off any increase in warming for another decade, citing natural factors. The minute amounts of the trace gas CO2 in the atmosphere, while increasing, do not appear to have any measurable effect on the world's climate. Just 3-4% of the CO2 added to the atmosphere annually is generated by human activity, the rest is from natural and uncontrollable sources. Compelling arguments against catastrophic warming are emerging, it is an ongoing debate. For opposing views see.
NZ scientist Professor Bob Carter talking sense on climate change - video.
also a 4 part video examining Science & social aspects of climate change
Many more here.
The eco-news website "Climate Debate Daily" http://climatedebatedaily.com/ is very useful as it presents the information in two columns. The LHS is "Calls to Action" which is predominantly global warming hysteria and dross, while the RHS is "Dissenting Voices" which is predominantly serious and reliable climate change information. Both sides are added to at the average rate of one new article per day.
El Ninos, La Ninas, Australian droughts and the climate.
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/newsradio/audio/20080707-franks.mp3
Did anyone listen or did vested interests rule the day ?
Did anyone listen or did vested interests rule the day ?
DomPost Thursday, 10 April 2008Climate change forecasts 'invalid' - researcher
Karori researcher Kersten Green has told MPs there was no need to pass the Government's Climate Change (Emissions Trade and Renewable Preference) Bill -- because global warming forecasts are unscientific.
Dr Green, the author of a peer-reviewed paper auditing the forecasting methods of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), opposed the bill because he claimed it was based on "invalid climate forecasts".
He told Parliament's finance select committee that authors of the IPCC fourth assessment report provided sufficient information to observe predic tions violated 72 of 89 accepted principles of forecasting. There was insufficient information to judge how closely a further 51 principles had been followed.
"Some individual principles that were violated are so important that violation of any one of them alone invalidates the IPCC's forecasts," he said.
These IPCC forecasts drew on six years of research by 2500 scientists from more than 130 countries, and said global warming was "unequivocal" with human activity more than 90 percent likely to blame for an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, to 379 parts per million (ppm), up from 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution.
They warned that by 2050, there is very likely to be loss of high-value land, faster road deterioration, degraded beaches, and reduced farm and forestry production in southern and southeastern Australia and parts of eastern New Zealand. The w armer temperatures and decreasing water resources would increase the burden of some diseases, and global sea levels would rise 59cm this century.
Professor Scott Armstrong, of Pennsylvania University -- who wrote the global warming forecast audit with Dr Green -- put in a written submission to the committee, claiming they had been unable to find a single "scientific" forecast of global warming.
Dr Green, the author of a peer-reviewed paper auditing the forecasting methods of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), opposed the bill because he claimed it was based on "invalid climate forecasts".
He told Parliament's finance select committee that authors of the IPCC fourth assessment report provided sufficient information to observe predic tions violated 72 of 89 accepted principles of forecasting. There was insufficient information to judge how closely a further 51 principles had been followed.
"Some individual principles that were violated are so important that violation of any one of them alone invalidates the IPCC's forecasts," he said.
These IPCC forecasts drew on six years of research by 2500 scientists from more than 130 countries, and said global warming was "unequivocal" with human activity more than 90 percent likely to blame for an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, to 379 parts per million (ppm), up from 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution.
They warned that by 2050, there is very likely to be loss of high-value land, faster road deterioration, degraded beaches, and reduced farm and forestry production in southern and southeastern Australia and parts of eastern New Zealand. The w armer temperatures and decreasing water resources would increase the burden of some diseases, and global sea levels would rise 59cm this century.
Professor Scott Armstrong, of Pennsylvania University -- who wrote the global warming forecast audit with Dr Green -- put in a written submission to the committee, claiming they had been unable to find a single "scientific" forecast of global warming.
" The precautionary principle argues that uncertainty is a basis for action; if one lacks knowledge, then some action should be taken—just in case. This happens when interest groups identify an issue that can help them to achieve their ends. If the interest group is successful in lobbying for an issue, politics replaces science, and government dictates follow. It brings to mind the slogan on the Ministry of Truth building in George Orwell’s 1984: “Ignorance is Strength.”We believe that proper scientific principles will lead to better decisions than will political principles, and that people will be better off if politicians have the courage to resist calls to action when uncertainty is high."
The latest paper from Dr Green (December 29 2008 ) shredding IPCC forecasts.
"Averaged over all horizons, IPCC errors were more than seven times greater than errors from the benchmark. Relative errors were larger for longer forecast and backcast horizons."
Benchmark forecasts for climate change:
Dr Green's web site.
http://kestencgreen.com/
----------------------------------
A comprehensive demolition of global warming fears and emissions trading.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON GIVES SENATOR McCAIN A LESSON ON CLIMATE CHANGE
In this 4-part link, Viscount Monckton, in an open letter to US presidential candidate Senator John McCain, treats the Republican candidate to a longish but very readable, and convincing lesson on the whole issue of "global warming" and emissions trading, which ought to be required reading for politicians everywhere. When you get to the end of each section, click on "Continue reading" to take you to the next section.
In this 4-part link, Viscount Monckton, in an open letter to US presidential candidate Senator John McCain, treats the Republican candidate to a longish but very readable, and convincing lesson on the whole issue of "global warming" and emissions trading, which ought to be required reading for politicians everywhere. When you get to the end of each section, click on "Continue reading" to take you to the next section.
A personal journey from an AGW believer to confirmed sceptic with very detailed supporting evidence.
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm
Check out the latest world temperature graphs.
Check out the latest world temperature graphs.
All four of the world’s major surface temperature data sets show seven years of global cooling.
The world has never seen such freezing heat
Politics and the economic " climate "
See the third comment in this post where Bryan Leyland argues against the Emissions Trading Scheme in an article published in the Dominion Post 11/11/2008
Pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today. How and why we are told otherwise?By Dr. Tim Ball Wednesday, December 10, 2008 ( linked here with the express approval of the author )
There’s a lot of rich people backing this cause
A former lawyer for Enron, shocked to discover that his main job would be to help draft a global warming treaty, tells spiked that censorship and conformism are preventing proper investigation of climate change hysteria.See the fourth comment in this post for the full expose.
See the fifth comment for the unabridged version of this article published 8/12/2008 in the Dominion Post or click the link above.
The media is doing a poor job of reporting on climate change. Here is one recent example 10.12/2008 in the Guardian.
The Skeptics Handbook.
The Boston Globe examines climate facts.
Whatever your views on this subject a wind farm in our water supply and dominating our city will not make a scrap of difference to the climate but will certainly ruin our local environment and exacerbate the general decline in property values and saleability throughout the city.
Geographic spread needed
Wind farms in the pipeline greatly exceed projected national electricity demand. Many more wind farms are proposed for Wharite, the Puketoi ranges and a very large one between Linton and Shannon.
Placing too many turbines in the Manawatu increases generating inflexibility. They have to be spread geographically to overcome intermittency and increase reliabilty. This will not be achieved by errecting more turbines in the Manawatu.
Placing too many turbines in the Manawatu increases generating inflexibility. They have to be spread geographically to overcome intermittency and increase reliabilty. This will not be achieved by errecting more turbines in the Manawatu.
Exciting new developments are waiting in the wings.
NZ Herald April 15, 2008
Green light for Cook Strait energy generator trial
Approval has been given for a marine energy trial in Cook Strait, which the project's backers believe has the potential to provide more than the country's current generation capacity.
Neptune Power has been granted resource consent for an experimental turbine capable of producing 1MW of power in 80m of water 4.5km off the south coast of Wellington.
Chris Bathurst, a director of the two-year-old Christchurch company, said installation of the tidal stream turbine could begin next summer.
"When we first started this people said it wasn't technically possible. Then they said the fishermen would never allow it."
But Bathurst said when the plan was outlined in meetings with stakeholders, including fishing groups and Forest & Bird, objections were overcome.
Greater Wellington Regional Council's approval of the trial last week was "big news", he said.
Bathurst, an engineer, and Neptune co-director David Beach, a physicist, have been working on the project for three years.
Bathurst's calculations suggest there is enough tidal movement in Cook Strait to generate 12GW of power, more than one-and-a-half times New Zealand's present generation capacity.
But tapping that energy would cost billions of dollars.
Neptune isn't disclosing financial details of the project, except to say technology providers and electricity network companies will be given first options to invest.
Bathurst would like up to a third of the value of the venture to be open to public investment.
An "awful lot of people" had already expressed interest, including a potential investor from China who emailed Bathurst within hours of resource consent being granted. Neptune is confident of the economics of the Cook Strait project, and will use the experimental turbine to study effects on marine life and the general seabed ecology.
A condition of the resource consent, granted for 10 years, is that Neptune submit an annual report to the council based on its observations. With the turbine in 80m of water, lack of sunlight will mean marine growth won't be an issue.
Neptune has been talking to lines company Vector about making use of the trial turbine's power - enough for about 500 homes.SEA POWER
* Installation of a $10m tidal stream turbine in Cook Strait could begin next summer.
Neptune Power has been granted resource consent for an experimental turbine capable of producing 1MW of power in 80m of water 4.5km off the south coast of Wellington.
Chris Bathurst, a director of the two-year-old Christchurch company, said installation of the tidal stream turbine could begin next summer.
"When we first started this people said it wasn't technically possible. Then they said the fishermen would never allow it."
But Bathurst said when the plan was outlined in meetings with stakeholders, including fishing groups and Forest & Bird, objections were overcome.
Greater Wellington Regional Council's approval of the trial last week was "big news", he said.
Bathurst, an engineer, and Neptune co-director David Beach, a physicist, have been working on the project for three years.
Bathurst's calculations suggest there is enough tidal movement in Cook Strait to generate 12GW of power, more than one-and-a-half times New Zealand's present generation capacity.
But tapping that energy would cost billions of dollars.
Neptune isn't disclosing financial details of the project, except to say technology providers and electricity network companies will be given first options to invest.
Bathurst would like up to a third of the value of the venture to be open to public investment.
An "awful lot of people" had already expressed interest, including a potential investor from China who emailed Bathurst within hours of resource consent being granted. Neptune is confident of the economics of the Cook Strait project, and will use the experimental turbine to study effects on marine life and the general seabed ecology.
A condition of the resource consent, granted for 10 years, is that Neptune submit an annual report to the council based on its observations. With the turbine in 80m of water, lack of sunlight will mean marine growth won't be an issue.
Neptune has been talking to lines company Vector about making use of the trial turbine's power - enough for about 500 homes.SEA POWER
* Installation of a $10m tidal stream turbine in Cook Strait could begin next summer.
* Cook Strait has the potential to generate 1.5 times NZ's total existing generation capacity, Neptune Power says.
-----------------
-----------------
The city is built on a flood plain. The foothills, a sensible place to build, has three main elements, housing, a city water supply and an ecologically sensitive reserve.
These uses are not compatible with a massive industrial installation.
The Tararua ranges and foothills south of the Pahiatua track to Linton provide not only a landscape of very high regional importance but also a safe, flood free area for residential and rural residential development. There are already 2,004 dwellings ( 2006 census ) on the Summerhill side of the bridge from Aokautere to Linton and development is continuing apace. The city is built on a flood plain. Wind farm development on the ranges behind the city will have very adverse effects on future development and on the property and amenity values of those who live there currently ( 7,542 - 2006 census , that's 10 % of the city's population )
Natural hazards and the location of Palmerston North.
Sound reasons why a wind farm within the city boundary , in our water supply and in a rapidly developing secure residential area ,contradicts basic risk management strategy and is a foolish idea. The foothills of the Tararua ranges behind Palmerston North are quickly developing as a residential area. Their backdrop is the Turitea Reserve which forms part of what is acknowledged by Horizons as a landscape of regional importance. Palmerson North city is for the most part built upon the flood plain of the Manawatu River. Extensive earth works have been undertaken over the recent past to secure as best as is possible a large area of very valuable real estate from a catastrophic flood. The late summer floods of 2004 demonstrated once more how vulnerable the Manawatu is to a significant rainfall event. Had the weather system dumped its rain just 20 -30 kms eastwood the city would have been in danger
There have been catastrophic floods and storms in the past which predate "global warming" and which if they were to occur again today would put the city at risk. Manawatu-Whanganui could be up to 20% wetter with more varied rainfall patterns and flooding could become up to four times as frequent by 2070 according to one AGW projection.
Cyclone Bola caused extensive flood and wind damage in March 1988, and Cyclone Gisele sank the Wahine in April 1968. They were both examples of decaying tropical cyclones. So too was the great storm of February 1936, which has largely fallen from popular memory, but was arguably the most damaging storm to strike New Zealand in the last 100 years. Palmerston North was hardest hit. Houses lost roofs, chimneys were blown over, and the grand stands of the A&P Association, the Awapuni Racecourse,and the sports grounds were demolished. A man was killed when he was blown off his roof as he was trying to repair it. Hoardings, fences, and brick walls were blown over. Twenty-eight trees came down over the main power lines in a 120 metre stretch of road. The Manawatu River rose five metres and flooded theTaonui Basin, turning it into an inland sea. A train was derailed near Makerua, just south of Palmerston North. The last two carriages and the guards van were caught by a gust of wind and thrown down a bank into the Makerua swamp. Empty railway wagons on sidings at Levin and Linton were blown over and the small railway station at Karere was destroyed. Fallen trees blocked the line between Levin and Otaki,and passengers had to cut through them with axes before trains could pass. At Longburn, the Anglican church was demolished and scattered over the road and railwayline. A horse on a nearby farm was cut in half by a flying sheet of corrugated iron. The Feilding Aero Club hanger was blown away and the two planes inside it destroyed.
The huge floods of 1880, 1897, 1902, were they to occur today would be a disaster for the city as the forest cover and swamps which existed at the time to slow the passage of the water no longer exist. So the danger of floods is one compelling reason for developing the Tararua foothills for residential purposes.
The other factor to take into account is the vulnerability of the city to earthquakes. Much of the soil in the lower lying areas is river silt which is particularly prone to liquefaction. PNCC has identified a number of buildings which are potentially a significant risk. Earthquakes are a given in this part of New Zealand and the " silent " earthquake which occurred in 2004 -5 lowered the Manawatu by up to 30 mm. This occurred without any one knowing it. Here is what was reported in the local newspaper.The Manawatu and Wanganui regions are sinking, according to GNS Science.At the plate boundary far below the earth's surface, the region is about 350mm lower than it was two years ago, Hugh Cowan, research manager at the Earthquake Commission said. The slip at surface level is between 10mm and 30mm, he told nzherald.co.nz. The land around Ashhurst, Wanganui and Dannevirke slipped very gradually between January 2004 and June 2005 as a result of "silent quakes", the Manawatu Standard reported. It would require an earthquake of magnitude 7 to cause the slip in a few seconds, the scientists said. Manawatu-Wanganui region emergency manager Mark Harrison said the slip reported in the latest Earthquake Commission newsletter Ru Whenua highlights the need to be prepared for an emergency. "This is a timely reminder that we live in a very hazardous region of New Zealand," he said.NZPA snipurl.com/15gw5
Altering Natural Events
earthquakes have been made in USA.
The main problem with this approach is that the measures are far from reliable. For example, embankments (stop-banks) in New Zealand may prevent floods of moderate size and frequency, but sooner or later they are breached and/or overtopped when a major flood occurs, as at Paeroa, 1981; Mataura 1978; Opotiki, 1964; Whakatane 2004, Manawatu 2004; and many other places. In the meantime, stopbanks encourage intensification of human settlement in the path of the eventual flood.This problem is illustrated in Figure 8 for the area in Palmerston North affected by flooding from the Mangaone Stream. See page 12
The cross-section through Mangaone Stream shows the way in which stop-banks have enlarged and the stream artificially deepened in response to each major flood starting in the 1920's.
Thus, as for post-disaster relief, pre-disaster measures that try to modify the cause or effects of a natural event may reduce some losses from smaller natural events, yet actually increase the natural hazard and with it disaster potential with respect lo larger more rare events.
Thus, as for post-disaster relief, pre-disaster measures that try to modify the cause or effects of a natural event may reduce some losses from smaller natural events, yet actually increase the natural hazard and with it disaster potential with respect lo larger more rare events.
The long term future of the city is at stake. For what were once logical reasons the city was built beside the Manawatu River, but if the opportunity presented itself again, with what we now know of the natural hazards facing the city, it would be built on elevated land on the Summerhill side of the city right beneath the Tararuas. Remember Hokowhitu was once a large swamp area fed by the Manawatu River. A huge wind farm will leave the city sandwiched between " hell " and "high " water and as the above academic paper says, the measures taken to protect the city, will in a catastrophic flood, eventually fail. A prudent review of what basic geography and geology can teach us can save the city from a disaster. Still as one poster, ThermalGeneration said...
"Who cares about Palmerston North anyway?"
"Who cares about Palmerston North anyway?"
Well we do.
What comes first, a wind farm or a city ???
Wind generation facts.
I
It's very obvious from this graph that energy production fluctuates wildly at the windiest time of the year in the Manawatu. Peak demand in the hours from 5pm to 10 pm during the winter months has had a dismal contribution from Manawatu wind farms. For the last three years during these peak hours in winter when electrical energy demand is highest the three Manawatu wind generation facilities have produced at less than 1% of their installed capacity. Wind farms are not about reliable electrical generation. So why is an SOE like Mighty River Power attempting to sacrifice local amenity values on the altar of renewable energy generation?????? To claim that additional wind generation in the Manawatu increases reliability and security of supply is a joke at the expense of local residents.
Representation of electricity production over 24 hours, showing base, intermediate, and peak loads -- only peak load plants are able in most places to respond sufficiently quickly to variations in wind energy production. The Manawatu is already over-represented in intermittent wind energy production. 
Turbines have to shut down in high winds. This causes additional wear and tear on componentry.
Wind in California was unable to meet peak demand when it was needed most. It's no different here in the Manawatu.
A week of wind energy production in German Eon Netz grid -- huge swings. Similar variability in output is the norm here in the Manawatu. Thermal backup is required to be on hot standby. No wind farm or combination of wind farms has replaced a conventional generation facility anywhere in the world.The Halkema report is an authoritative examination of the viability of wind generated electricity.
http://www.countryguardian.net/halkema-windenergyfactfiction.pdf
LESS FOR MORE: THE RUBE GOLDBERG NATURE OF INDUSTRIAL WIND DEVELOPMENT:
BC WORLD SERVICE Thursday 5 June 2008One Planet – Carbon Trading Ep 1/2Thursday 5 June 10.30-11.00am BBC WORLD SERVICE
Major flaws in carbon offsetting, the UN's main mechanism for dealing with climate change, are investigated in this One Planet two-parter.
Carbon offsetting allows the developed world to offset its carbon emissions by paying for emission-cutting projects in the developing world. Integral to this is the "additionality" test whereby the developing world projects must show that without the additional (carbon-credit) money, the projects would not, and could not be, implemented.
If these projects would have taken place in any case, then no emissions are being saved and millions of dollars will have been wasted.
Presenter/Mark Gregory, Producer/David Edmonds
Major flaws in carbon offsetting, the UN's main mechanism for dealing with climate change, are investigated in this One Planet two-parter.
Carbon offsetting allows the developed world to offset its carbon emissions by paying for emission-cutting projects in the developing world. Integral to this is the "additionality" test whereby the developing world projects must show that without the additional (carbon-credit) money, the projects would not, and could not be, implemented.
If these projects would have taken place in any case, then no emissions are being saved and millions of dollars will have been wasted.
Presenter/Mark Gregory, Producer/David Edmonds
Here is a link to the podcast.
See also
Carbon trading in
trouble
GAO Unable to Verify Effectiveness
of International Carbon Markets
December 2, 2008
WASHINGTON – The
Government Accountability Office today released its report about the European
Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme and international carbon offset scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism. GAO found that the available information on the Emissions Trading Scheme could not substantiate either emissions reductions or clear economic benefits, and that negative economic effects could occur if the European Union further reduced emissions allowances.
In July 2007, following news reports raising questions about the cost-effectiveness and integrity of the ETS and CDM, U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., then-ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, asked GAO to examine the experience to date of the ETS and CDM. U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Domestic Policy Subcommittee, also joined the request.
The Republicans wanted to know how well the two markets
actually control greenhouse gases and whether available information substantiates the net benefits of the programs. They also sought GAO’s assessment of lessons from the international experience that might apply to upcoming congressional deliberation of carbon-energy rationing or reduction schemes.
“As European nations attempt to deal with the hardships of the current economic crisis, the harsh reality of carbon-energy rationing schemes is hitting home. Across Europe at this moment, environmental technocrats’ plans for larger emissions reductions and restraints on carbon-based energy supply are literally melting away in the heat of economic reality,” Barton said. “This report identifies some of the potential risks and concerns about regulatory cap and trade and related rationing schemes. It further underscores my concerns that we should not follow Europe’s course as it creates potential economic disaster for its citizens.”
“The GAO’s studies of both the European and
domestic carbon emissions reduction schemes have raised serious doubts about their effectiveness,” Issa said. “The federal government certainly shouldn’t spend taxpayer dollars on uncertain and unverified benefits until critical questions are fully answered.”
“The GAO report indicates that enacting a cap
and trade system in the midst of a recession would only further harm our economy,” said U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., current ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. “In addition, the
whole idea of a cap and trade system isn't a proven method of actually reducing
carbon emissions. The American public will end up the victims and will have to pay more for energy and many other products.”
A copy of the report
can be found here
The 10,000 turbines in the US generate less power than a single coal-fired plantIndustry forced toImpact on the land - images from Tararua 3
admit environmental benefits of wind power only half of what previously
claimed.
Wind farm benefits
'overstated' 21 Dec 2008
So if so called wind farm "CO2 reduction benefits" have been exposed as lies, as in the UK, does this mean that to have similar " benefits " here there would need to be 1,012 turbines on the hills behind the city and not the projected total of 506 ??
So will this also mean that they will stop clear felling the CO2 absorbing pine forests which are currently well below the existing turbines, or are they being felled because of the fire risk ??
The person in the distant background is approx 1.9 metres tall.
Published Date: 30 August 2008 By Jenny HaworthEnvironment Correspondent
A LEADING power company has claimed wind energy is so unreliable that even if 13,000 turbines are built to meet EU renewable energy targets, they could be relied on to provide only 7 per cent of the country's peak winter electricity demand.
E.On has argued that, during the coldest days of winter, so little wind blows that 92 per cent of installed wind capacity would have to be backed up by traditional power stations.It argues this would require new coal-fired power stations to be built so they could be used in an emergency when little wind blows.This, E.On suggests, will mean that, to meet renewable targets of 20 per cent of energy being provided from renewables by 2020, the UK's installed power base will need to rise from 76 gigawatts today to more than 100GW.The company estimates this could cost £100 billion.
The Scotsman online.
Wind forces Texas power cuts.
The US waking up to the pitfalls of wind farms.
December 8, 2008
President-elect Obama has said that he would promote “wind farms” as one way to create more jobs. This idea is consistent with popular wisdom about wind energy and, therefore, sounded good while Mr. Obama was in the Senate and during his presidential campaign. The problem for Mr Obama now is that this popular wisdom is wrong. Contrary to reports issued by various wind energy advocates, “wind farms” provide few energy, environmental, or economic benefits and create very few jobs – far fewer than could be achieved if the money was used for other investments. Also, wind energy has adverse impacts that advocates like to ignore.
More here:http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/obama_wind_energy_plan.pdf
Alarm bells ringing
in Britain.
22 Nov 2008
An area the size of Wales would need to be covered in wind turbines to meet just a sixth of the nation's daily energy needs, according to a new study that has cast doubt over the Government's push for wind energy.
Professor David MacKay, a physicist at Cambridge University, said ministers would have to look at other forms of alternative energy, like tidal power, if they were to meet their ambitious renewable energy commitments.
Ministers have pledged to provide 20 per cent of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020 and have relied on wind energy to provide almost all of the capacity.
By analysing the average power output possible from wind turbines and comparing it to the amount of land needed to house each turbine, Professor MacKay believes wind farms will need at least five times more land than has been previously estimated.
His research has raised further doubts over the viability of the Government's push for wind power.
Critics insist that wind energy is too unreliable to replace the creaking network of fossil fuel power stations and would require an extensive network of back up power stations to provide energy on calm days.
Wind farms have also faced intense opposition from rural campaigners who say the huge turbines, which can be up to 400 feet tall, are spoiling the countryside and pose a risk to wildlife.
Professor MacKay, who has published a new book that examines a range of different renewable energy sources, insists he is a strong supporter of wind energy.
His calculations show, however, that current plans to build wind farms with a capacity of 33 gigawatts offshore would produce only enough energy to provide each person in the UK with 4.4 kilowatt hours of energy per day.
He said: "The average energy used per person in the UK is 125 kilowatt hours per day. To achieve even 20 kilowatt hours per day per person it will require enough wind turbines to cover an area the size of Wales.
"It is an incredibly large area and with the difficulties in getting planning, it is hard to imagine how it could be achieved. The government needs to look at some of the other options such as tide energy. We need a plan that adds up."
Professor MacKay's calculations will alarm opponents of wind farms who fear the countryside is already blighted with unsightly turbines that are failing to provide a reliable alternative to fossil fuels.
Wind farm developers already rely upon extensive subsidies to help them earn a profit and energy experts fear paying such subsidies for technology that is already in use is stifling development of alternative sources of energy.
There are currently more than 189 wind farms, with 2,136 turbines, in operation around the UK. According to the British Wind Energy Association, the body that represents the wind industry, another 173 wind farms, are either being constructed or awaiting construction.
Plans for a further 266 wind farms are being considered by planning authorities.
Ministers have pledged to provide 20 per cent of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020 and have relied on wind energy to provide almost all of the capacity.
By analysing the average power output possible from wind turbines and comparing it to the amount of land needed to house each turbine, Professor MacKay believes wind farms will need at least five times more land than has been previously estimated.
His research has raised further doubts over the viability of the Government's push for wind power.
Critics insist that wind energy is too unreliable to replace the creaking network of fossil fuel power stations and would require an extensive network of back up power stations to provide energy on calm days.
Wind farms have also faced intense opposition from rural campaigners who say the huge turbines, which can be up to 400 feet tall, are spoiling the countryside and pose a risk to wildlife.
Professor MacKay, who has published a new book that examines a range of different renewable energy sources, insists he is a strong supporter of wind energy.
His calculations show, however, that current plans to build wind farms with a capacity of 33 gigawatts offshore would produce only enough energy to provide each person in the UK with 4.4 kilowatt hours of energy per day.
He said: "The average energy used per person in the UK is 125 kilowatt hours per day. To achieve even 20 kilowatt hours per day per person it will require enough wind turbines to cover an area the size of Wales.
"It is an incredibly large area and with the difficulties in getting planning, it is hard to imagine how it could be achieved. The government needs to look at some of the other options such as tide energy. We need a plan that adds up."
Professor MacKay's calculations will alarm opponents of wind farms who fear the countryside is already blighted with unsightly turbines that are failing to provide a reliable alternative to fossil fuels.
Wind farm developers already rely upon extensive subsidies to help them earn a profit and energy experts fear paying such subsidies for technology that is already in use is stifling development of alternative sources of energy.
There are currently more than 189 wind farms, with 2,136 turbines, in operation around the UK. According to the British Wind Energy Association, the body that represents the wind industry, another 173 wind farms, are either being constructed or awaiting construction.
Plans for a further 266 wind farms are being considered by planning authorities.
This may possibly solve all the western world's energy needs.
http://www.nss.org/news/releases/pr20080909.html
Submissions on the Kahuterawa Outdoor Recreation Area draft management plan closed August 13th, 5 days after MRP lodged its application for a resource consent. This timing is no coincidence.
Submissions on the Kahuterawa Outdoor Recreation Area draft management plan closed August 13th, 5 days after MRP lodged its application for a resource consent. This timing is no coincidence.
The plan - see link below - draws attention to the opposition to wind turbines in the area.
Note, as of 4/11/08 access to this online
document has been denied. No surprise as to why.
document has been denied. No surprise as to why.
NB The John Love quoted at the end of the news release is a wind farmer whose property dominates the Kahuterawa valley and Ngahere Park subdivision. The Kahuterawa stream is an important trout spawning stream for the Manawatu river, already it has suffered sedimentation as the result of careless roading development on private land. The proposed wind farm poses a major threat.
Wind turbines block radar.( An issue for Palmerston North airport and Ohakea )
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL has become the second big energy company to abandon the UK wind-energy sector in the last month.
Shell, Danish firm Dong Energy and Scottish Power have cancelled the £800m Cirrus Array project off the northwest coast after five years and millions of pounds in investment.
The consortium blamed Ministry of Defence concerns over radar interference from turbines.Less than a month ago, Shell denied a Sunday Times report that it had exited the project. However, on Friday the company confirmed that it had no plans for further investment in the UK wind sector.
Shell, Danish firm Dong Energy and Scottish Power have cancelled the £800m Cirrus Array project off the northwest coast after five years and millions of pounds in investment.
The consortium blamed Ministry of Defence concerns over radar interference from turbines.Less than a month ago, Shell denied a Sunday Times report that it had exited the project. However, on Friday the company confirmed that it had no plans for further investment in the UK wind sector.
December 7 2008
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5299195.ece
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5299195.ece
The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.
See quotes from this Government submission 28 August 2008.
See quotes from this Government submission 28 August 2008.
Central Wind windfarm
Ministry for the
Environment
Government submission
While supporting the proposal because of its national significance the Defence Force has concerns about the potential for radio frequency interference from the windfarm to affect military communications in the area. The issue has arisen recently and is the subject of ongoing consultation between the Defence Force and Meridian.
Wind is an intermittent source, and this intermittency needs to be carefully factored into the electricity systems operations. However, the Central Wind windfarm will also promote a reliable electricity supply through its geographical location. Most of New Zealand’s wind generation at present is in the Manawatu. Spreading windfarms across New Zealand reduces the risk of disruptions to the electricity supply if the wind is not blowing at a particular location.
Wind is an intermittent source, and this intermittency needs to be carefully factored into the electricity systems operations. However, the Central Wind windfarm will also promote a reliable electricity supply through its geographical location. Most of New Zealand’s wind generation at present is in the Manawatu. Spreading windfarms across New Zealand reduces the risk of disruptions to the electricity supply if the wind is not blowing at a particular location.
Well at last something we can agree on.
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/rma/central-wind/html/appendix1.html
13 comments:
I am extremely concerned by the prospect of such large turbines being built so close to so many homes. What protection will be offered by the resource consent process?
You pose a very important question and we offer the following for you to consider.
When large power companies apply for wind farm consents under the RMA,
opposing local parties are severely disadvantaged. In reality there is no
equality and fairness because opposing locals lack the time, expertise and
financial resources of large SOE's such as Mighty River Power.
Mighty River Power (MRP) will have landscape, noise and other experts
working full time on their resource onsent application along with teams of
RMA lawyers. When MRP file their resource consent application the public
will have 20 working days to prepare opposing/ supporting submissions.
Unless opposing parties prepare compelling evidence the resource consent
will be granted. Property devaluation and reduced saleability are not
considerations under the RMA, i.e. local amenity will be sacrificed for the
percieved national good and Government renewable energy targets, regardless
of whether the wind farm will actually contribute sensibly to energy supply
issues.
PNCC has signed an agreement with MRP to put wind turbines in Turitea
Reserve and the surrounding private land as one project. This agreement
requires PNCC to do all it can to ensure the wind farm proceeds. Thus, PNCC
cannot act in defence of potentially affected residents. Similarly, Horizons
Regional Council has not classified the backdrop to Palmerston North as
being worthy of protection against massive wind farm development.
For the above reasons it is essential to have wide spread opposition to this
project with well prepared submissions.
An excellent tool for you to use in your submission is the Local Government Act 2002 which clearly sets out the conditions under which a local body must act.
"Purpose of local governmentThe purpose of local government is—
(a) to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and
(b) to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities, in the present and for the future"
As you can see the intent of the act is very specific and PNCC has not followed it at all.
The full act is accessible here.
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/
act/public/2002/0084/latest/DLM170873.html
Emissions trading and the impact on New Zealand from " Climate change "
The Dominion Post | Tuesday, 11 November 2008
SUNSPOSTS SPELL END OF CLIMATE MYTH.
It is disturbing that many recent statements on climate change by influential people are not supported by hard evidence.
For instance, Professor Ralph Chapman's statement that the globe risks a tipping point if emissions are not reduced by 2015 is unsupported by hard evidence, as is David Parker's claim that if we do nothing to reduce emissions, New Zealand could be up to $500 million worse off by 2012.
This is not true because, if we adopt the Emissions Trading Scheme, electricity bills alone will increase by more than $500 million each year.
On Kyoto, lawyer Alistair Hercus recently claimed that "as a country we have to pay". In fact, the Kyoto protocol says nothing about enforcement and as yet there are no international emissions enforcers to act as judge, jury and executioner.
We can opt out of Kyoto whenever we like or, like most other countries, pretend to support the protocol and, at the same time, do little or nothing.
These statements and government policies on greenhouse gases, carbon trading and promoting renewable energy are based on the beliefs that the world is warming due to man-made greenhouse gases; that promoting renewable energy will make a substantial difference to New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions; and that if New Zealand reduces its greenhouse gas emissions it would affect the world climate. All these beliefs are not true.
The evidence is unequivocal. Measurable, let alone dangerous, manmade global warming is not happening, and is not likely to happen in the future. The major cause for concern is the possibility of severe cooling.
Global climate has always changed and recent climate changes are not unusual. The world was warmer in the mediaeval warm period, in the Roman warm period and on many occasions before then. During these periods agriculture and civilisations flourished. During cold periods like the little ice age there was famine, plague and war.
Both surface temperature records and the much more accurate records from satellite observations show there was a brief warming period from 1975-98. Since then, the world has cooled and is now at the same temperature it was in 1995. Nobody knows when, or if, world temperatures might increase.
Since the research for the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was completed in mid 2006, researchers have discovered that warming since 1975 is not caused by greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gas warming would be at a maximum 10,000m above the tropics.
Observations from balloons and satellites have shown that warming is not happening. Therefore greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are not a major factor in the world climate. This fact alone is sufficient to sink the manmade global warming hypothesis.
Computer-based climate models provide the only "evidence" supporting claims that the world is warming, that it will be dangerous, that there will be rapid rises in sea levels and the like, yet these same models failed to predict the temperature peak in 1998 and the steady cooling trend that set in from 2002.
It is obvious that the models have failed to predict major climatic events such as El Nino (1998) and La Nina (2007-08).
The models are not an accurate representation of the world climate system and their input data is inaccurate, therefore their outputs are worthless. This fact alone is sufficient to sink the manmade global warming hypothesis.
It is often claimed that because a "consensus" of scientists agree that manmade global warming is happening, it must be true. This is nonsense for two reasons. The first is that many distinguished scientists strongly disagree. So, by definition, there is no consensus.
But even if a consensus did exist, it would make no difference to the real world. For instance, it would not be hard to find a consensus of reverends who firmly believe the world was created a few thousand years ago. But the existence of this consensus would not stop evolution in its tracks. Science is about evidence and facts, not beliefs.
Carbon dioxide is, most definitely, not a pollutant. It is as essential to life on earth as is oxygen or water. Pollutants are, by definition, something that we would be better off without. Without carbon dioxide most of the life on earth would die within a few weeks.
But there is one fact that we can be sure of: the moderate increase in carbon dioxide in the last 100 years or so has benefited mankind because it has boosted plant growth and food production by at least 15 per cent.
More evidence is gathering that the sun, not greenhouse gases, drives our climate. Records going back thousands of years show a close correlation between sunspots and climate.
The theory is that sunspot- related effects influence the number of high-energy cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere and that these cosmic rays affect cloud formation.
Very soon, a major experiment will be set up to test this theory. If it is shown to be correct, that alone will be sufficient to sink the hypothesis of manmade global warming.
There have been very few sunspots over the past few years and the next sunspot cycle, 24, is beginning but weak.
History tells us that such circumstances are associated with quite severe cooling, possibly similar to the little ice age.
If this happens, the present financial upheavals will be exacerbated by reduced agricultural output, stormy weather and, possibly, famine.
There is more authoritative scientific information in the report Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate at the website http:/ /nzclimatescience.net.
* Bryan Leyland is a consulting electrical engineer.
Friday 21 November 2008
‘There’s a lot of rich people backing this cause’
A former lawyer for Enron, shocked to discover that his main job would be to help draft a global warming treaty, tells spiked that censorship and conformism are preventing proper investigation of climate change hysteria.
Rob Lyons
You’re a corporate lawyer who has got a new job doing government relations with an energy company. You would expect to be battling to prevent restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, right? Not in the topsy-turvy world of climate change politics.
Consider Christopher Horner’s bizarre experience in 1997. ‘I was innocently practising law about 11 years ago when a little energy company called Enron hired me away from my law firm to be director of federal government relations’, Horner tells me. ‘I was told on my first or second day that my number one priority was to get a global warming treaty. I was despatched to a meeting of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. I was seated next to the American Gas Association, Niagara Mohawk Power and BP, and on my other side was the Union of Concerned Scientists and so forth.’
That big players in global energy should be in cahoots with environmentalists and climate change alarmists came as something of a shock to Horner. ‘Though I was a fully grown man, I had yet to understand the concept of “rent seeking” or even these “baptist and bootlegger” coalitions.’ Just as prohibitionists and drink smugglers had a common interest in maintaining a ban on alcohol, so big companies that want massive subsidies for renewable energy schemes and the right to sell emissions permits – the nearest thing yet to selling thin air – can find common ground with those who want us all to reduce our ‘carbon footprints’.
Horner, now a senior fellow at the DC-based American think-tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute, continues: ‘I came back to my office and sent an email, essentially saying “Houston, we have a problem”. Did they have any idea what this group, which I was essentially chairing in [former Enron boss] Ken Lay’s stead, was doing? That didn’t go over well. They reminded me that they knew exactly what they were doing, that they had cobbled up businesses on the relative cheap that would – if they got their way – be worth a fortune. That was now their number one priority: windmills, owned by General Electric; gas pipe, owned by General Electric and Warren Buffet; solar panels, now held by BP, and so on.’
While Lay, later convicted of a massive accounting fraud at Enron, was visiting the Oval Office just a few weeks later to give Bill Clinton and Al Gore tips on how to negotiate at Kyoto, Horner decided to jump ship and go over to the ‘other side’. Or maybe, if you’re a climate change activist, that should be called ‘the dark side’. And that would be just the kind of black-and-white, critics-are-evil worldview that Horner takes to task in his new book, Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.
If the book title seems a little in-your-face, then that only illustrates the nature of the battle that is going on over climate change and what it means for the future direction of public policy. The current public debate about climate change is not so much a disinterested examination of the science and economics and more a down-and-dirty streetfight, as Horner reveals.
Horner’s argument is that we are getting a one-sided discussion of climate change because most media outlets, politicians, activists and a substantial section of big business have – in a variety of ways – got an interest in keeping it that way. He tells me: ‘This affirms a worldview of many people: “Man is wretched, an agent of doom”; “There’s just about enough of [the moral people] and way too many of everyone else”; “Markets are horrible and the state needs to be much bigger”; “Development is terrible”. All of those movements find refuge in the global warming industry.’
Horner is, if anything, even more disparaging about politicians: ‘[Global warming] allows them the option of cheap virtue – cheap to them, expensive to us – of satisfying constituencies for something that’s never solved. They get to emote and spend; there’s something in it for everyone.’ And rumour has it that they now get to bypass the legislature, too. According to Horner, there is talk that Barack Obama will attempt to get a climate change treaty ratified by simply reclassifying the necessary legislation as an ‘executive agreement’, making passage through the Senate considerably easier. That would be at odds with the spirit of the American Constitution, which demands the Senate’s ‘advice and consent’ on major treaties (1).
The result, as Horner’s book explains, is an outlook in which criticism of the global warming consensus is regarded as heresy. The world, we are told, is going to burn unless a particular set of emissions-restricting policies are introduced. Anyone who even dares suggest otherwise is ridiculed or smeared as being in the pay of Big Oil – a baseless slander which was directed at spiked by a national newspaper earlier this year. Meanwhile, the wealthy benefactors and corporate interests that have the potential to gain enormously from climate change legislation are barely mentioned.
‘There’s a lot of rich people backing this cause’, says Horner. ‘Al Gore has just raised $300million. Over the past few years, the greens continue to say we receive Exxon Mobil support – and we do not. But where did Al Gore get $300million, far more than the entire sceptic community has received ever from any source? No one seems to care. How much of this is from George Soros? How much of it is from his buddies at the venture capital companies that are invested in a bunch of dogs-with-fleas that won’t be at all attractive until this regime is put in place? We don’t know – and we don’t have a curious media or state.’
So what is Horner’s position on the future of our climate? ‘Climate changes. Always has, always will. That makes me a “climate change denier”. The question is: what is man’s role?’, he says. The answer, he believes, is that humanity’s effect is much smaller than suggested by climate alarmists. ‘The notion that “the science is settled, you have to shut up” is offensive. All other things being equal, man should have an impact. We don’t know how much. What we do know is that CO2 doesn’t drive temperature. And here’s the thing: as George W Bush prepares to leave office, the planet is cooler than when he entered office. That’s a tough one for a lot of people to deal with.’
Whether Horner is right or wrong about what makes our climate tick is, in many ways, immaterial. What matters is that even raising questions about the veracity of the popular presentation of the problem now attracts the label ‘denier’. The term has sinister parallels to ‘Holocaust denier’; some commentators have even called for ‘deniers’ and their alleged supporters to be prosecuted. For example, at a congressional hearing in June this year, the daddy of climate alarmism, NASA’s James Hansen, declared: ‘CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.’ Indeed, Horner himself has featured on a ‘Field Guide to Climate Criminals’ circulated by Greenpeace.
At every level, there are forces attempting to forestall a wider debate. Sceptical scientists often prefer to keep their heads down rather than admit publicly that they have doubts – and no wonder. Horner recounts the firestorm that hit Bjorn Lomborg after the publication of his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001. Lomborg was subjected to sustained attempts to rebut his arguments ‘in the name of science’ in prestigious publications like Scientific American and Nature, and was even condemned as ‘dishonest’ by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty – a modern equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition intent on torturing Lomborg’s reputation rather than his body. Yet, as Horner notes, Lomborg is far from a sceptic when it comes to manmade global warming, merely a critic of the policies put forward to counter it.
Similar controversy surrounded Martin Durkin’s film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, and the contribution of Carl Wunsch, a scientist based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Wunsch argued in the film that the oceans play an important part in affecting CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. As they get warmer, they tend to release CO2. That suggests that even today, CO2 concentrations may be following temperature rise rather than causing it. Wunsch went on to talk more generally about the way climate science is done and how certain results from computer models get picked up rather than others: ‘There is a bias, there’s a very powerful bias within the media and within the science community itself towards results which are dramatisable.’
When the very politically incorrect Swindle came out, Wunsch rushed to declare that he had been quoted out of context and would never have taken part if he had known about the polemical nature of the film. But, in truth, he was not misquoted or taken out of context – he was simply terrified to be seen to be on the side of the sceptics. When the British TV regulators ruled on the film, their only findings against the makers and Channel 4 was that they should have given the participants a little more time to respond to the draft version. Horner admits that Swindle has its flaws, but he argues that they are far fewer than the inaccuracies in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning movie which is compulsory viewing in English schools.
The invective against climate change ‘deniers’ is justified on the basis that sceptics are a tiny minority who do not accept the scientific consensus. The problem is that science is not a straw poll; it is supposed to be a disinterested search for truth in which heretical positions do, from time to time, prove to be correct. It is extremely important, therefore, for open debate to continue. As it happens, Horner argues that the much-vaunted ‘consensus’ is rather weaker than alarmists would have us believe. As he notes in his book: ‘The actual consensus that does exist is that temperatures have risen a degree in 150 years since the end of the Little Ice Age and, all other things being equal, more CO2 and man’s contribution of greenhouse gases should play some role. That’s it, and we spend billions trying to narrow it down further, but sceptics don’t deny it.’
Those who seek to claim that a business-as-usual increase in greenhouse gas emissions will lead to planetary disaster like to declare that ‘the science is settled’. But on every aspect of the science, economics and politics of climate change, there are huge uncertainties and major debates still to be had. That’s why a desire to close down debate should worry us all, and why Horner’s litany of skewed science, explicit and implicit censorship and scaremongering should be required reading for those whose only experience of the debate has been An Inconvenient Truth and the mainstream, doom-laden coverage about how the end is nigh.
If Horner’s account of the climate change debate only had implications for energy policy or taxation, that would be bad enough. But a close-minded approach to political life more generally seems to be emerging. Our conversation concludes with an anecdote. ‘I served on a panel of the International Association of Political Consultants this week with a man who has made his money. He’s a former CEO and he retired at what seems to be a young age. His position now is that this issue is too important to be left to things like democracy and individual liberties – we need to suspend them for this issue. We need a supernational organisation that we can’t object to, we can’t fight, to create something to control us. That alarmed me beyond belief.’
Rob Lyons is deputy editor of spiked.
Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Force, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed, by Christopher C Horner, is published by Regnery Publishing. (Buy this book from Amazon(UK).)
(1) For a fuller explanation of this point, see Vigilance Required, Planet Gore, 6 November 2008
reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/5956/
NATIONAL CLIMATE POLICY FIASCO
The IPCC model of dangerous, human-caused global warming has failed: a new middleground climate policy is needed
The Dominion Post, Wellington, p. B5, Dec. 8, 2008
All this pain for less than one-thousandth of a degree gain?
The IPCC model of dangerous, human-caused climate change has failed. Independent science relevant to supposed human-caused global warming is clear, and can be summarised in four brief points.
First, global temperature warmed slightly in the late 20th century and has been cooling since 2002. Neither the warming nor the cooling were of unusual rate or magnitude.
Second, humans have an effect on local climate, but, despite the expenditure of over US$50 billion looking for it since 1990, no globally summed human effect has ever been measured. Therefore, any human signal must lie buried in the variability of the natural climate system.
Third, we live on a dynamic planet; change occurs in Earth’s geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and oceans all the time and all over the world. No substantive evidence exists that modern rates of global environmental change (e.g., ice volume; sea-level) lie outside historic natural bounds.
Last, cutting CO2 emissions, be it in New Zealand or worldwide, will likely result in no measurable change in future climate, because extra increments of atmospheric CO2 cause diminishing warming for each unit of increase; at most, a few tenths of a degree of extra warming would result from a completion of doubling of CO2 since pre-industrial time.
These facts notwithstanding, the Clark government wormed their CO2 taxation bill (euphemistically termed an Emissions Trading Scheme) through parliament just before they lost power, based on two spurious grounds. They presumed, first, that dangerous warming caused by human emissions is occurring, or will shortly occur. And, second, that cuts to emissions will prevent significant amounts of future warming.
There is, therefore, now a dramatic disjunction between scientific reality and the stranglehold that global warming alarmism has on planned New Zealand climate policy.
Current public views about climate change are based upon 20 years of promulgation of dangerous global warming by what has become a hugely powerful coalition of self-interested groups and agencies. Beneficiaries of warming alarmism include individual scientists, managers of research centres, morally pretentious environmental NGOs, prestigious science academies and societies, bureaucrats from government greenhouse and climate agencies, big businesses poised for carbon dioxide trading (think Enron and Lehman Bros.), alternative energy providers, those in the media who remorselessly promulgate environmental alarm stories, and, last but not least, those uninformed politicians who seek political advantage from cynical exploitation of the public’s fear of global warming.
The previous New Zealand government did not possess a national climate policy; instead, it relentlessly promulgated an imaginary global warming policy that was based upon sub-prime science, sub-prime economics and sub-prime politics.
In dealing with the certainties and uncertainties of real climate change, the key issues are prudent risk assessment and adaptive response. As is the case for other unpredictable and unpreventable natural planetary hazards, policy to deal with climate change should be based upon adaptation to change as it happens, including the appropriate mitigation of undesirable socio-economic and environmental effects.
We therefore need, first, to monitor climate change accurately in an ongoing way; and, second, to respond and adapt to any changes – including long term warmings, the likely more damaging coolings, and severe weather or climatic events such as cyclones – in the same way that government and voluntary disaster services now deal with hazardous natural events such as earthquakes, bushfires and floods.
The main certainty is that natural climate change and variation are going to continue, and that some manifestations – droughts, storms and sea-level change, for example – will be expensive to adapt to.
Adaptation will not be aided by imprudent restructuring of the world’s energy economy in pursuit of the chimera of “stopping” an alleged dangerous human-caused global warming that can neither be demonstrated nor measured. In reality, too, our lack of understanding of all the climatic feedback loops is such that cutting CO2 emissions is as likely to "harm" as to "help" future climate.
New Zealand already has a national monitoring and response system in place for earthquake, volcanic and flood disasters (GeoNet). This is linked, appropriately, to a parallel compensation and insurance system that recompenses innocent victims of natural disaster (the Earthquake Commission).
Even were generous additional funding provided to GeoNet towards a similar preparation for climatic disasters (of which drought, storm and flood relief are part), the net cost would still be orders of magnitude less than will be engendered by a fundamentally misconceived emissions trading scheme. To boot, contingent damage to the economy, the standard of living and the world food supply would be avoided.
Attempting to "stop global warming" by limiting carbon dioxide emissions is simply an arcadian fantasy, since making deep cuts to New Zealand’s emissions would at best help to avert or delay future warming by less than a miniscule one-thousandth of a degree.
New Zealand needs a national climate policy that is rooted in sound science, sensible precaution, prudent risk assessment, and efficient and effective disaster relief. Lacking all such elements, the previous government’s global warming policy fails the basic test of duty to care for the citizenry. The ball is now in your court, John Key and Rodney Hide.
Professor Bob Carter is a Research Fellow at James Cook University, Townsville, and studies ancient environmental and climatic change. More information: http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/new_page_1.htm
ETS a big pain for little gain
Bob Carter
December 19, 2008
Article from: The Australian
THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model of dangerous, human-caused climate change has failed. Independent science relevant to supposed human-caused global warming is clear, and can be summarised in four briefpoints.
First, global temperature warmed slightly in the late 20th century and has been cooling since 2002. Neither the warming nor the cooling were of unusual rate ormagnitude.
Second, humans have an effect on local climate but, despite the expenditure of more than $US50 billion ($70 billion) looking for it since 1990, no globally summed human effect has ever been measured. Therefore, any human signal must lie buried in the variability of the natural climate system.
Third, we live on a dynamic planet; change occurs in Earth's geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and oceans all the time and all over the world. No substantive evidence exists that modern rates of global environmental change (ice volume; sea level) lie outside historic natural bounds.
Last, cutting carbon dioxide emissions, be it in Australia or worldwide, will likely result in no measurable change in future climate, because extra increments of atmospheric CO2 cause diminishing warming for each unit of increase; at most, a few tenths of a degree of extra warming would result from a completion of doubling of CO2 since pre-industrial times.
These facts notwithstanding, the Rudd Government is poised to introduce a CO2 taxation bill on doubly spurious grounds. It presumes, first, that dangerous warming caused by human emissions is occurring, or will shortly occur. And, second, that cuts to emissions will prevent significant amounts of future warming.
There is, therefore, now a dramatic disjunction between scientific reality and the stranglehold that global warming alarmism has on planned Australian climate policy.
Today's public views about climate change are based upon 20 years of promulgation of dangerous global warming by what has become a hugely powerful coalition of self-interested groups and agencies.
Beneficiaries of warming alarmism include individual scientists, managers of research centres, morally pretentious environmental non-government organisations, prestigious science academies and societies, bureaucrats from government greenhouse and climate agencies, big businesses poised for carbon trading (think Enron and Lehman Brothers), alternative energy providers, those in the media who remorselessly promulgate environmental alarm stories, and, last but not least, those uninformed politicians who seek political advantage from cynical exploitation of the public's fear of global warming.
The Australian Government does not possess a national climate policy; instead, it has an imaginary global warming policy, based on sub-prime science, sub-prime economics and sub-prime politics.
In dealing with the certainties and uncertainties of real climate change, the key issues are prudent risk assessment and adaptive response. As is the case for other unpredictable and unpreventable natural planetary hazards, policy to deal with climate change should be based on adaptation to change as it happens, including the appropriate mitigation of undesirable socioeconomic and environmental effects.
We therefore need, first, to monitor climate change accurately in an ongoing way; and, second, to respond and adapt to any changes -- including long-term warmings, the likely more damaging coolings, and severe weather or climatic events such as cyclones -- in the same way that government and voluntary disaster services now deal with hazardous natural events such as bushfires, droughts and floods.
The main certainty is that natural climate change and variation are going to continue, and that some manifestations -- droughts, storms and sea-level change, for example -- will be expensive to adapt to.
Adaptation will not be aided by imprudent restructuring of Australia's energy economy in pursuit of the chimera of "stopping" an alleged dangerous human-caused global warming that can neither be demonstrated nor measured. In reality, too, our lack of understanding of all the climatic feedback loops is such that cutting CO2 emissions is as likely to "harm" as to "help" future climate.
New Zealand already has a national monitoring and response system in place for earthquake, volcanic and flood disasters (GeoNet). This is linked, appropriately, to a parallel compensation and insurance system that recompenses victims of natural disaster (the Earthquake Commission).
Even if generous funding were to be provided in Australia towards a similar preparation for climatic disasters (of which drought and flood relief are part), the net cost would still be orders of magnitude less than will be engendered by a fundamentally misconceived emissions trading scheme. To boot, contingent damage to the economy, the standard of living and the world food supply would be avoided.
Attempting to "stop global warming" by limiting CO2 emissions is simply an arcadian fantasy, since making deep cuts to Australia's emissions would at best help to avert or delay warming by about a miniscule one-thousandth of a degree.
Australia needs a national climate policy that is rooted in sound science, sensible precaution, prudent risk assessment, and efficient and effective disaster relief. Lacking all such elements, the Australian Government's global warming policy fails the basic test of duty to care for the citizenry.
Bob Carter is an adjunct research fellow at James Cook University, Townsville, and studies ancient climate change.
From the Dominion Post January 6, 2009.
As the world invests trillions in emissions reductions, there are signs theses efforts may be futile.
Christopher Booker reports.
TIDE HAS TURNED ON GLOBAL WARMING
Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items.
The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow".
The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming.
Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three
significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare.
Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades.
This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.
Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed.
At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change".
Suddenly it has become less appealing to divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent.
All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.
As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt.
After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.
Telegraph Group
The warmaholics' fantasy
Jon Jenkins |
January 06, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE warmaholics are fond of using the phrase "official records going back to 1850", but the simple facts are that prior to the 1970s, surface-based temperatures from a few indiscriminate, mostly backyard locations in Europe and the US are fatally corrupted and not in any sense a real record.
They are then further doctored by a secret algorithm to account for heat-island effects. Reconstructions such as the infamously fraudulent "hockey stick" are similarly unreliable.
The only precise and reliable temperature recording started with satellite measurements in the 1970s. They show minuscule warming, all in the northern hemisphere, which not only stopped in 2000 but had completely reversed by 2008 (see graph).
The warmaholics also contend that global mean temperature and sea level rises are at the upper range of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change's projections. Well, no, actually they are not.
Sea level rises since 1900 are of the order of 1-2mm a year, which is indistinguishable from tectonic movement, and the IPCC computer projections are simply completely wrong.
The warmaholics argue that they have been able to model all of the complex processes occurring on the earth, below the oceans and in the atmosphere, and yet also admit in the same breath that they cannot predict the single biggest transfer of energy that dwarfs all others on the planet: ElNino.
How can the two statements be resolved? They can not: the computer models cannot predict either weather or climate.
Some scientists argue that human-induced changes to CO2 levels are more sudden, but this also does not stand up to scrutiny.
Cataclysmic volcanic eruptions have often placed more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in few minutes than man induces in a decade. But, more importantly, they fail to explain how it is possible for concentrations of CO2 to have exceeded 6000 parts per million (about 20 times present levels) and yet for temperatures to have been cooler than today's average? How is this possible if CO2 is the predominant driver of temperatures?
Clear and unambiguous evidence against the warmaholics is dismissed with consummate ease. For example, freezing temperatures across the northern hemisphere and growing Antarctic ice sheets are explained away with unproven theories such as deep ocean currents and ozone hole-induced winds.
And this in the same year that the theory of human-induced ozone depletion was shattered by hard scientific findings that the rate constant for one of the critical reactions in the computer models of chlorofluorocarbon-induced ozone depletion was in error by a factor of 10 and as a result CFCs alone cannot be responsible for observed ozone depletion.
The warmaholics, drunk on government handouts and quasi-religious adulation from left-wing environmental organisations, often quote the consensus of scientists as being supportive of the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory and use the phrase "4000 scientists agree with the IPCC report" repeatedly.
But again this does not stand up to scrutiny. The vast majority of the IPCC report is what-if scenarios, but all the what-if scenarios are centred around chapter nine, because it is this chapter that says "we humans are responsible".
If chapter nine is wrong (that is, if the computer models are wrong) then the rest of IPCC computer projections are just useless hand-waving.
More than two-thirds of all authors of chapter nine of the IPCC's 2007 climate science assessment are part of a clique whose members have co-authored papers with each other and, we can surmise, very possibly at times acted as peer reviewers for each other's work.
Of the 44 contributing authors (no, not the 4000 often quoted, just 44) to chapter nine, more than half have co-authored papers with the co-ordinating lead authors of chapter nine. It is no surprise, therefore, that the majority of scientists, who are sceptical of a human influence on climate, were unrepresented in the authorship of chapter nine.
So that's the real consensus: about 44 scientist mates who have vested interests in supporting IPCC computer modelling agreed that "we did it", and this has become the "consensus of thousands of the world's meteorologists". Compared with 31,000 (including 341 meteorologists) in the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine petition, the IPCC's 44 have no right to claim consensus at all.
Finally, to say "the question is not whether there is absolute certainty about the extent of global warming or its effects" is scientific blasphemy.
Science is only about certainty and facts. The real question is in acknowledging the end of fossil fuels within the next 200 years or so: how do we spend our research time and dollars?
Do we spend it on ideologically green-inspired publicity campaigns such as emissions-trading schemes based on the fraud of the IPCC, or do we spend it on basic science that could lead us to energy self-sufficiency based on some combination of solar, geothermal, nuclear and renewable sources? The alternative is to go back to the stone age.
Jon Jenkins is an adjunct professor of virology specialising in computer modelling at Bond University, and a former independent member of the NSW Legislative Council
Global warming “bait-and-switch”
Scientific “consensus” and other shady sales tactics promote alarmist theories
Paul Driessen
Fred Schwindel’s TV City ad promises 40” flat screen televisions for $200. You rush to his store, to learn he’s “fresh out” – but has some 42” models for $1000.
That’s “bait-and-switch,” and Fred could be prosecuted for consumer fraud.
In the political arena, however, bait-and-switch is often rewarded, not punished – especially in the case of global warming alarmism. Instead of fines or jail time, politicos get committee chairs, presidencies, speaking fees and Nobel Prizes. Scientists and bureaucrats receive paychecks, research grants and travel stipends for Bali. Activists get secretive government payments for “public education” campaigns. Companies get government contracts, subsidies and seats at the bargaining table. And all are lionized or canonized for supporting Climageddon theories and policies.
Global warming bait-and-switch starts with simple statements that few would contest – then shifts seamlessly to claims that are hotly disputed and supported by little or no evidence.
The bait: Global warming is real. The switch: Global warming is intensifying and threatens agriculture, human civilization and the fabric of life everywhere on earth.
Bait: 99% of scientists agree on the presence of human-caused global warming. Switch: The debate is over. Humans are the primary cause of temperature increases.
Bait: Atmospheric carbon dioxide from human activities is increasing. Switch: CO2 is the dominant greenhouse gas and is reaching unprecedented and dangerous levels.
Bait: Earth warmed during the twentieth century, as CO2 levels increased. Switch: Runaway warming is increasing hurricanes, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and causing species extinction.
Bait: Even little things like reducing personal energy consumption help the environment. Switch: We can stop climate change by switching to wind and solar energy.
The perpetrators of these B/S schemes may never be chastened or prosecuted. However, as in the case of consumer fraud, an informed public is less likely to get fleeced.
President Obama and congressional Democrats support a $650 billion carbon cap-and-trade tax on every household, business and factory in America. If they introduce legislation amid this recession, voters, energy consumers and more responsible legislators should keep important facts in mind.
Global warming (aka climate change) has been “real” since time began. Witness the Ice Ages, interglacial periods, Medieval Warm Period (950-1350), Little Ice Age (1400-1850), Anesazi drought, Dust Bowl, and conversion of verdant river valleys into the Sahara Desert some 4,000 years ago.
No one yet knows what solar energy fluctuations, planetary orbit shifts, recurrent oscillations in ocean currents, cloud cover variation and other natural forces combined to cause these potent climatic changes. But there is no evidence that they have suddenly been displaced by human CO2 emissions.
Growing numbers of scientists say the climate change debate is far from over, and global warming was never a crisis. Over 650 certified meteorologists and climate scientists are on a US Senate compilation of climate cataclysm skeptics – and 32,000 scientists have signed the Oregon Petition, saying they dispute claims that humans are causing climate change, and the changes will be disastrous.
Many of them are meeting in New York March 8-10, at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change. They may not drive the final nails into the coffin of climate hysteria, but their findings and analyses underscore the lack of evidence for scary “forecasts” that are routinely generated by woefully inadequate computer models and self-interested researchers, activists and politicians. They will point out
that planetary temperatures are no longer rising, hurricanes are not increasing in number or intensity, ice caps are not disappearing, and moderate temperature and CO2 increases benefit plant growth.
The UN’s Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change claims to be the world’s “most authoritative body” on the subject. However, only “something on the order of 20%” of the panel’s scientists “have some dealing with climate,” admits a senior member. Even the IPCC chairman is an economist, not a scientist.
Worse, says atmospheric scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, the IPCC insists that human carbon dioxide emissions drive global warming. It has “never seriously investigated” the possibility that climate change might be natural. The IPCC sees only what it is looking for; it sees nothing it is not looking for.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels may have “soared” from 280 ppm to 385 ppm over the last century. But this represents an almost trivial rise from 0.03% of the atmosphere to 0.04% – the equivalent of an increase from 3 cents to 4 out of $100, or from 1.08 inches to 1.44 inches on a football field. The dominant greenhouse gas is water vapor, which nature controls via evaporation and precipitation.
Planetary temperatures may have increased during the last century, as CO2 levels increased. But not in a straight line. They rose 1900-1940 (1934 was the century’s warmest year), fell 1940-1975, rose again 1975-1998, then stabilized and even declined slightly from 1998 to 2008.
New York, Holland and Bangladesh might be inundated by a 49-foot rise in sea level, if the entire West Antarctic ice sheet melted. But that would require a global temperature spike far greater than even Al Gore has prophesied. The average temperature for the peninsula’s two-month summer is barely 36 F; in the winter, temperatures are below minus 50.
Unplugging unused appliances and switching to CFL bulbs may help jet-setting Hollywood celebrities feel better. But they will not stabilize Earth’s climate. Even grounding Al Gore and John Travolta’s private jets, scrapping every US automobile, mothballing America’s coal-fired power plants, and slashing US CO2 emissions by 80% (back to 1905 levels), as President Obama wants to do, will have little effect.
Even the IPCC recognizes that perfect compliance with the Kyoto Protocol by every country would reduce global temperature increases by only 0.2 degrees by 2050 (assuming CO2 does drive global warming). But Europe has put its greenhouse gas reduction programs on hold. Australia is poised to reject cap-and-trade plans. China and India are building new coal-fired power plants every week.
Nearly 85% of US energy is hydrocarbon based, whereas wind turbines currently provide 0.5% and generate electricity only 25% of the time. Even absent the deepening recession, taxing and penalizing hydrocarbon use and CO2 emissions will drive up energy costs and extinguish far more jobs than can possibly be created via government-subsidized renewable energy and green-collar job initiatives. The impacts on poor families, economic civil rights, living standards and civil liberties would be severe.
Not surprisingly, the more people understand these facts, the worse the hysteria gets. Al Gore: Soaring global temperatures will “bring human civilization to a screeching halt.” Energy Secretary Stephen Chu: “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California.” NOAA scientist Susan Solomon: “In ten years the oceans will be toxic, and all life in them will die.” NASA astronomer James Hansen: “Death trains” are carrying poisonous fuel to “coal-fired factories of death.”
Hollywood horror movie writers couldn’t possibly top this stuff.
So when Congress and the President call for more economic pain through energy restrictions and cap-and-trade bills, demand solid evidence for catastrophic warming and human causation. Don’t accept worthless computer models and worst-case scenarios. And don’t be conned by bait-and-switch tactics.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – black death
Great work on this blog. We ALL have to somehow stop this ignorance that has completely enveloped the world. It is the worst example of group think. Here in the USA we have gone from the tech stock bubble to Enron to Iraq to the Housing Bubble. Now we are on to the Wind Turbine fiasco!
www.nofreewind.com
Wind farms have a time and place - that place just isn't in Palmerston North.
Good luck with the campaign,
Cheers,
James
PS Thanks for your posting of my movie
Just found your Blog from here in the UK while reading WattsUpWithThat.
You should be praised for the superb job you are doing - great information - hard-hitting editorials and great humour in the graphics and cartoons.
It would really help 'out-of-towners' like me to have a 'splash page' that explains where you are; I have been to NZ but I have no idea where Palmerston North is? Is it in Wellington?
Anyway - keep up the good work, I think you need help from a Blog designer to help navigate around the huge archives.
Great page! You are clearly showing the panic that the IPCCC is propagating among us.
There might be global warming or cooling but the important issue is whether we, as a human race, can do anything about it.
There are a host of porkies and not very much truth barraging us everyday so its difficult to know what to believe.
I think I have simplified the issue in an entertaining way on my blog which includes some issues connected with climategate and “embarrassing” evidence.
In the pipeline is an analysis of the economic effects of the proposed emission reductions. Watch this space or should I say Blog
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Please feel welcome to visit and leave a comment.
Cheers
Roger
PS The term “porky” is listed in the Australian Dictionary of Slang.( So I’m told.)
Post a Comment