Climate change - the POLITICAL debate.
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Golden windfall of UK's Green guru: Firm owned by ex-Tory Minister John Gummer connects up wind turbine power - and it paid him £1,750/
As Committee on Climate Change chief, Lord Deben issued a report last month claiming generating power from natural gas would in the long run prove much more expensive than wind farms – despite the multi-billion pound subsidies wind receives from consumers and taxpayers. His committee advises the Government on energy levies and subsidies under the 2008 Climate Change Act. Thanks in part to its recommendations, the number of onshore wind farms like that at Dalswinton is set at least to double by 2020 – a potentially lucrative source of business.
However, last night Lord Deben maintained ‘there is clearly no conflict of interest’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261546/Go...
As Committee on Climate Change chief, Lord Deben issued a report last month claiming generating power from natural gas would in the long run prove much more expensive than wind farms – despite the multi-billion pound subsidies wind receives from consumers and taxpayers. His committee advises the Government on energy levies and subsidies under the 2008 Climate Change Act. Thanks in part to its recommendations, the number of onshore wind farms like that at Dalswinton is set at least to double by 2020 – a potentially lucrative source of business.
However, last night Lord Deben maintained ‘there is clearly no conflict of interest’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261546/Go...
Daily Mail content..
It all stopped 16 years ago..
So Government policies based on climate change have been a scam to scare the nation into paying more tax. Pennies from heaven.
It all stopped 16 years ago..
So Government policies based on climate change have been a scam to scare the nation into paying more tax. Pennies from heaven.
More trickery from UEA?
Remember this from Whitewashgate:
The Muir Russell inquiry said it found no evidence that the CRU scientists had done this. Observers were incredulous. The chronology seemed straightforward. British sceptic David Holland submitted an FoI request to the university asking for emails in which CRU scientists discussed their work for the IPCC. Two days later, Jones sent an email to colleagues asking them to delete emails relating to the behind-the-scenes work for IPCC. That email, as Montford points out, carried Holland’s FoI number as its subject line. How did Sir Muir miss this? In a development not covered by Montford, the university has since admitted, in correspondence with blogger Steve McIntyre, that it omitted the email from its list of FoI requests sent to Sir Muir. So Sir Muir seems to have been about the only person studying the affair not to have known about it.
This is all, we may hope, cock-up rather than conspiracy. But the university did itself no favours in its own response to Sir Muir last week, when it expressed its satisfaction that he had found no evidence of such culpable deletions. Advice to UEA: when in a hole, stop digging.
Moving on to more current aspects, Climate Audit again, there's this:
In November 2012, David Holland asked pertinent questions about the “extracts” from the statements from Briffa and Jones:
On page Ev 32 of the Report HC 444 of the Commons Science and Technology Committee published on 25 January 2011 are extracts of statements from Professors Jones and Briffa. For your convenience I reproduce them below this request.
[1] Please advise me the date on which each of these statements were given by the Professors.
[2] Please give me an electronic copy of each full statement.
[3] If not shown for any reason on these statements as disclosed please advise me if each was duly signed.
Pretty simple questions about Acton’s “investigation”. A copy of the full statement from which the extracts were made. The date of the statements. Whether they were signed.
Here are the unbelievable answers from the UEA:
[1] Please advise me the date on which each of these statements were given by the Professors.
[Information not held - s.1(1)(a), Freedom of Information Act]
The University holds no recorded information that confirms the exact dates that the statements were prepared by the Professors.
[2] Please give me an electronic copy of each full statement.
[Information not held - s.1(1)(a), Freedom of Information Act]
The University does not hold a copy of the full statement of either Professor Briffa or Professor Jones.
[3] If not shown for any reason on these statements as disclosed please advise me if each was duly signed.
[Information not held - s.1(1)(a), Freedom of Information Act]
The University holds no recorded information that would indicate whether either statement was signed by either Professor Briffa or Professor Jones.
Looks disgraceful to me but then I lack faith in junkscience and the individuals embroiled in it.
Remember this from Whitewashgate:
The Muir Russell inquiry said it found no evidence that the CRU scientists had done this. Observers were incredulous. The chronology seemed straightforward. British sceptic David Holland submitted an FoI request to the university asking for emails in which CRU scientists discussed their work for the IPCC. Two days later, Jones sent an email to colleagues asking them to delete emails relating to the behind-the-scenes work for IPCC. That email, as Montford points out, carried Holland’s FoI number as its subject line. How did Sir Muir miss this? In a development not covered by Montford, the university has since admitted, in correspondence with blogger Steve McIntyre, that it omitted the email from its list of FoI requests sent to Sir Muir. So Sir Muir seems to have been about the only person studying the affair not to have known about it.
This is all, we may hope, cock-up rather than conspiracy. But the university did itself no favours in its own response to Sir Muir last week, when it expressed its satisfaction that he had found no evidence of such culpable deletions. Advice to UEA: when in a hole, stop digging.
Moving on to more current aspects, Climate Audit again, there's this:
In November 2012, David Holland asked pertinent questions about the “extracts” from the statements from Briffa and Jones:
On page Ev 32 of the Report HC 444 of the Commons Science and Technology Committee published on 25 January 2011 are extracts of statements from Professors Jones and Briffa. For your convenience I reproduce them below this request.
[1] Please advise me the date on which each of these statements were given by the Professors.
[2] Please give me an electronic copy of each full statement.
[3] If not shown for any reason on these statements as disclosed please advise me if each was duly signed.
Pretty simple questions about Acton’s “investigation”. A copy of the full statement from which the extracts were made. The date of the statements. Whether they were signed.
Here are the unbelievable answers from the UEA:
[1] Please advise me the date on which each of these statements were given by the Professors.
[Information not held - s.1(1)(a), Freedom of Information Act]
The University holds no recorded information that confirms the exact dates that the statements were prepared by the Professors.
[2] Please give me an electronic copy of each full statement.
[Information not held - s.1(1)(a), Freedom of Information Act]
The University does not hold a copy of the full statement of either Professor Briffa or Professor Jones.
[3] If not shown for any reason on these statements as disclosed please advise me if each was duly signed.
[Information not held - s.1(1)(a), Freedom of Information Act]
The University holds no recorded information that would indicate whether either statement was signed by either Professor Briffa or Professor Jones.
Steve McIntyre said:
If Acton carried out the investigation that he claimed in his evidence to Parliament, how could the UEA not be in possession of the full statements? And how could they not have information on the dates of the statements or whether they were signed? What does this imply about Acton’s “investigation” and the supposed “full” statements by Jones and Briffa?
Did Acton even interview Jones and Briffa about the email deletion? I wonder. At this point, I doubt whether there is anything other than “extracts”? I wonder whether Jones and Briffa even signed off on the statements attributed to them. (If they did, why wouldn’t there be some record?) How did Acton “establish” that the “potential” deletion of emails from UEA property did not take place, given that there is unequivocal documentary evidence that Briffa and others did in fact remove emails from UEA.
I am struggling to try to figure out an honest explanation of these facts, but thus far, cannot think of one. If anyone can provide an interpretation of this information that is not damning to UEA, I’d appreciate it.
http://climateaudit.org/2013/01/09/more-tricks-from-east-anglia/#more-17322Did Acton even interview Jones and Briffa about the email deletion? I wonder. At this point, I doubt whether there is anything other than “extracts”? I wonder whether Jones and Briffa even signed off on the statements attributed to them. (If they did, why wouldn’t there be some record?) How did Acton “establish” that the “potential” deletion of emails from UEA property did not take place, given that there is unequivocal documentary evidence that Briffa and others did in fact remove emails from UEA.
I am struggling to try to figure out an honest explanation of these facts, but thus far, cannot think of one. If anyone can provide an interpretation of this information that is not damning to UEA, I’d appreciate it.
Looks disgraceful to me but then I lack faith in junkscience and the individuals embroiled in it.
Lord Deben, plain stupid company chairman or telling porkies..?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/1/13/d...
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/1/13/d...
A Forecast the Met Office Hoped You Wouldn't See
Christopher Booker Sunday Telegraph 13 January 2013
It is the graph the Met Office didn't want you to see, in an episode
which, according to one newspaper, represents "a crime against science
and the public".
Inevitably last week it didn't take long for the bush fires set off by
Australia's "hottest summer ever" to be blamed on runaway global
warming. Rather less attention was given to the heavy snow in
Jerusalem (worst for 20 years) or the abnormal cold bringing death and
destruction to China (worst for 30 years), northern India (coldest for
77 years) and Alaska, with average temperatures down in the past
decade by more than a degree. But another story, which did attract
coverage across the world, was the latest in a seemingly endless
series of embarrassments for the UK Met Office.
Some of this story may be familiar - how on Christmas Eve the Met
Office sneaked on to its website a revised version of the graph it had
posted a year earlier showing its prediction of global temperatures
for the next five years. Not until January 5 did sharp-eyed climate
bloggers notice how different this was from the graph it replaced. It
was blogged about, quickly picked up by the Global Warming Policy
Foundation and soon whizzed around the media.
The Met Office's allies, such as the BBC's old warmist warhorses Roger
Harrabin and David Shukman, were soon trying to downplay the story,
claiming that the forecast had only revised by a fifth, and that even
if the temperature rise had temporarily stalled, due to "natural
factors", the underlying warming trend would soon reappear. But they
were only able to get away with this by omitting to show the contrast
between the two graphs.
In 2011, the Met Office's computer model prediction had shown
temperatures over the next five years soaring to a level 0.8 degrees
higher than their average between 1971 and 2000, far higher than the
previous record year, 1998. Whereas the new graph shows the lack of any
significant warming for the past 15 years as likely to continue.
Apart from how this was obscured by the BBC, there are several reasons
why this is of wider significance for the rest of us.
For a start, the Met Office has played a central role in promoting the
worldwide scare over global warming. The predictions of its computer
models, through its alliance with the Climatic Research Unit at the
University of East Anglia (centre of the Climategate emails
scandal) have been accorded unique prestige by the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ever since the
global-warming-obsessed John Houghton, then head of the Met Office,
played a key part in setting up the IPCC in 1988.
A major reason why the Met Office's forecasts have come such croppers
in recent years is that its computer models since 1990 have assumed
that by far the most important influence on global temperatures is the
rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Yet as early as 2008, when
temperatures temporarily plummeted by 0.7 degrees, equivalent to their
entire net rise in the 20th century, it was already clear that
something was fundamentally wrong with this assumption. The models
were not taking proper account of all the natural factors governing
the climate, such as solar radiation and shifts in the major ocean
currents. Even the warmists admitted that it was a freak El Nino event
in the Pacific which had made 1998 the hottest year in modern times.
But the Met Office was not going to abandon easily its core belief
that the main force shaping climate was that rise in CO2. As its chief
scientist, Julia Slingo, admitted to MPs in 2010, its short-term
forecasts are based on the same "numerical models" as "we use for our
climate prediction work", and these have been predicting "hotter,
drier summers" and "warmer winters" for decades ahead. Hence all those
fiascos which have made the Met Office a laughing stock, from the
"barbecue summer" that never was in 2008, to the "warmer than average
winter" of 2010 which brought us our coldest-ever December, to its
prediction last spring that April, May and June 2012 would probably be
"drier than average", just before we enjoyed the wettest April and
summer on record.
Such a catastrophic blunder is scarcely mitigated by the Met Office's
sneaky attempt to hide that absurd 2011 graph. One day it will be
recognised how the Met Office's betrayal of proper science played a
key part in creating the most expensive scare story the world has ever
known, the colossal bill for which we will all be paying for decades
to come.
Meanwhile, it is not just here that this latest fiasco, reported in
many countries, has been raising eyebrows. Our ministers love to boast
that British science commands respect throughout the world, They
should note that the record of our Met Office is beginning to do that
reputation no good at all.
Christopher Booker Sunday Telegraph 13 January 2013
It is the graph the Met Office didn't want you to see, in an episode
which, according to one newspaper, represents "a crime against science
and the public".
Inevitably last week it didn't take long for the bush fires set off by
Australia's "hottest summer ever" to be blamed on runaway global
warming. Rather less attention was given to the heavy snow in
Jerusalem (worst for 20 years) or the abnormal cold bringing death and
destruction to China (worst for 30 years), northern India (coldest for
77 years) and Alaska, with average temperatures down in the past
decade by more than a degree. But another story, which did attract
coverage across the world, was the latest in a seemingly endless
series of embarrassments for the UK Met Office.
Some of this story may be familiar - how on Christmas Eve the Met
Office sneaked on to its website a revised version of the graph it had
posted a year earlier showing its prediction of global temperatures
for the next five years. Not until January 5 did sharp-eyed climate
bloggers notice how different this was from the graph it replaced. It
was blogged about, quickly picked up by the Global Warming Policy
Foundation and soon whizzed around the media.
The Met Office's allies, such as the BBC's old warmist warhorses Roger
Harrabin and David Shukman, were soon trying to downplay the story,
claiming that the forecast had only revised by a fifth, and that even
if the temperature rise had temporarily stalled, due to "natural
factors", the underlying warming trend would soon reappear. But they
were only able to get away with this by omitting to show the contrast
between the two graphs.
In 2011, the Met Office's computer model prediction had shown
temperatures over the next five years soaring to a level 0.8 degrees
higher than their average between 1971 and 2000, far higher than the
previous record year, 1998. Whereas the new graph shows the lack of any
significant warming for the past 15 years as likely to continue.
Apart from how this was obscured by the BBC, there are several reasons
why this is of wider significance for the rest of us.
For a start, the Met Office has played a central role in promoting the
worldwide scare over global warming. The predictions of its computer
models, through its alliance with the Climatic Research Unit at the
University of East Anglia (centre of the Climategate emails
scandal) have been accorded unique prestige by the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ever since the
global-warming-obsessed John Houghton, then head of the Met Office,
played a key part in setting up the IPCC in 1988.
A major reason why the Met Office's forecasts have come such croppers
in recent years is that its computer models since 1990 have assumed
that by far the most important influence on global temperatures is the
rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Yet as early as 2008, when
temperatures temporarily plummeted by 0.7 degrees, equivalent to their
entire net rise in the 20th century, it was already clear that
something was fundamentally wrong with this assumption. The models
were not taking proper account of all the natural factors governing
the climate, such as solar radiation and shifts in the major ocean
currents. Even the warmists admitted that it was a freak El Nino event
in the Pacific which had made 1998 the hottest year in modern times.
But the Met Office was not going to abandon easily its core belief
that the main force shaping climate was that rise in CO2. As its chief
scientist, Julia Slingo, admitted to MPs in 2010, its short-term
forecasts are based on the same "numerical models" as "we use for our
climate prediction work", and these have been predicting "hotter,
drier summers" and "warmer winters" for decades ahead. Hence all those
fiascos which have made the Met Office a laughing stock, from the
"barbecue summer" that never was in 2008, to the "warmer than average
winter" of 2010 which brought us our coldest-ever December, to its
prediction last spring that April, May and June 2012 would probably be
"drier than average", just before we enjoyed the wettest April and
summer on record.
Such a catastrophic blunder is scarcely mitigated by the Met Office's
sneaky attempt to hide that absurd 2011 graph. One day it will be
recognised how the Met Office's betrayal of proper science played a
key part in creating the most expensive scare story the world has ever
known, the colossal bill for which we will all be paying for decades
to come.
Meanwhile, it is not just here that this latest fiasco, reported in
many countries, has been raising eyebrows. Our ministers love to boast
that British science commands respect throughout the world, They
should note that the record of our Met Office is beginning to do that
reputation no good at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/14/...
Shock, windmills will cost us money rather than lead to cheaper energy.
Shock, windmills will cost us money rather than lead to cheaper energy.
London424 said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/14/...
Shock, windmills will cost us money rather than lead to cheaper energy.
Thanks for the link - though as you say, it's not cheerful reading.Shock, windmills will cost us money rather than lead to cheaper energy.
Article said:
Not only is it unlikely that this new licensing system for bringing electricity from offshore windfarms on to the national grid will deliver any savings for consumers, it could well lead to higher prices. Indeed the terms of the licences appear to have been designed almost entirely to attract investors at the expense of securing a good deal for consumers.
Picked up another link via the Guardian item.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/12/...
Glanced at the 'report' (seems that it it an analysis study of the trends of the conclusionso of other reports ... sigh.) and noted that it is one of those pre-press jobs - so may never see the light of day and would be out of date if it did. Probably.
Anyway, I skipped to the comments.
Things don't improve do they?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/12/...
Glanced at the 'report' (seems that it it an analysis study of the trends of the conclusionso of other reports ... sigh.) and noted that it is one of those pre-press jobs - so may never see the light of day and would be out of date if it did. Probably.
Anyway, I skipped to the comments.
Things don't improve do they?
Guam said:
Keenan destroying Sligo
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/1/7/climate-c...
"the analysis did not properly model autoregression"http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/1/7/climate-c...
LongQ said:
"Another claim by the Met has also drawn fire - as the criticism directly addresses the validity of the Met's science, rather than its communications strategy.""It is very kind of Julia [Slingo] to tell us now that she knew all along it was likely to be wetter. It is just a pity, though, that she forgot to tell us at the time."
Just like the Mystic Met winter forecasts (note, plural) for the same winter period 2010-11 which was Scorchio for the public and Coolio for ministers. At least that's what they claim. Harrabin got himself into all sorts of difficulties over that episode.
We know the Mystic Met and what it is, none of this is surprising but it is damning given the approach of putting spin before science.
It's now little more than advocacy, as per IPCC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21009707
BBC in undermining the EU and ecomental projects in one fell swoop shocker.
BBC in undermining the EU and ecomental projects in one fell swoop shocker.
Diderot said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21009707
BBC in undermining the EU and ecomental projects in one fell swoop shocker.
The last part is quite informative too.BBC in undermining the EU and ecomental projects in one fell swoop shocker.
"Last September the EU adopted a new Energy Efficiency Directive, in a drive to reach the 20% savings goal.
It calls on energy companies to cut by 1.5% annually the amount of energy they sell to customers and requires national authorities to refurbish at least 3% of public buildings"
So against the background of an increasing population and comsumption that will be likely to be somewhat variable as technology is introducs and then changes and houses and workplaces are rebuilt and modified one way otf "persuading" people to cut their usage is to increase the prices. Presumably that is over and above the other consumption control mechanisms - like "renewables" subsidies.
I'm guessing the EU thinks its populations are too stupid to spot this. Perhaps some are - or too propagandised to care.
Forecast just in more red faces over green faeces
If one doesn’t anticipate catastrophe, one must be vilified, and equated with those who deny the Holocaust. Yet the real deniers are those who don’t just claim that the pause is insignificant, but that it doesn’t exist at all. Such deniers also still insist that the ‘science is settled’. The truth is that the unexpected pause has triggered a new spate of research, in which many supposed ‘consensus’ conclusions are being questioned. How have the Green deniers been so successful in concealing such debates? Partly it is the web of commercial interests that both fund and are sustained by Green climate orthodoxy. But it is also their dissenter-trashing machine.
David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 13 January 2013
If one doesn’t anticipate catastrophe, one must be vilified, and equated with those who deny the Holocaust. Yet the real deniers are those who don’t just claim that the pause is insignificant, but that it doesn’t exist at all. Such deniers also still insist that the ‘science is settled’. The truth is that the unexpected pause has triggered a new spate of research, in which many supposed ‘consensus’ conclusions are being questioned. How have the Green deniers been so successful in concealing such debates? Partly it is the web of commercial interests that both fund and are sustained by Green climate orthodoxy. But it is also their dissenter-trashing machine.
David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 13 January 2013
The Express has a piece on the GW scam I wondered if you have seen
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/370670
The Express has been very vocal on this lately
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/370670
The Express has been very vocal on this lately
Good to see the Express on the case.
Meanwhile, Monckton is considering whether Mystic Met has committed fraud.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/14/has-the-met-...
Meanwhile, Monckton is considering whether Mystic Met has committed fraud.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/14/has-the-met-...
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