Archives de catégorie : better to know…?

better to know...?, climate-debate

Ocean Temperatures and Climate Hysteria: A Lesson in Perspective

by C. Rotter, Dec 20, 2024 in WUWT

For the past two years, headlines, policy statements, and social media feeds have been flooded with dire warnings about rising ocean temperatures. Every uptick in the graphs was treated as irrefutable proof of humanity’s march toward ecological collapse. The news cycle offered little room for nuance, and as usual, the loudest voices declared the end was nigh. But a recent tweet from Javier Viños, supported by a graph of global sea surface temperatures (SST), reminds us how quickly climate “emergencies” dissolve when confronted with even the faintest hint of natural variability.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Study Debunks Media’s Iceberg Alarmism: Antarctic Calving ‘Statistically Unexceptional’

by A. Watt,  Dec 20, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

…

The climate chicken littles of the media blamed it on climate change then, but today, it looks like an Emily Litella moment has just occurred, as a new peer-reviewed scientific study says it wasn’t anything abnormal, nor should we worry about it.

The new study published in Geophysical Research Letters tosses ice-cold water on those overhyped media claims.

In the study, MacKie et al. (2024) analyzed 47 years of observational satellite data from Antarcticaand found that there has been no trend in annual Antarctic maximum calving size between 1976 and 2023.

The key findings of the study are:

  • There has been no detectable upward trend in the annual maximum iceberg area in Antarctica since 1973, based on satellite measurements.
  • The break-off of Iceberg A-68 from the Larsen C Ice Shelf was not statistically notable.
  • Calving events several times larger than anything observed in the modern record could occur, and still, it would not necessarily be due to climate change.

To be clear, the calving of the A-68 iceberg was “statistically unexceptional” in the historical satellite record. Let that sink in. The authors write:

This finding suggests that extreme calving events such as the recent 2017 Larsen C iceberg, A-68, are statistically unexceptional and that extreme calving events are not necessarily a consequence of climate change.

…

better to know...?, climate and geology

Rising Seas? No, 3 Dozen S. Florida High-Rises Sinking From Land Subsidence

by Geology, New Science, Dec 18, 2024 in ClimatChangeDispatch

miami beach high rises

Top photo by Ryan Parker on Unsplash

Almost three dozen high-rise condos and luxury hotels along the beach in South Florida are sinking or settling in unexpected ways, in some cases because of nearby construction, according to a new study. [emphasis, links added]

The 35 buildings surveyed along an almost 12-mile (19-kilometer) stretch from Miami Beach to Sunny Isles Beach have sunk or settled by 0.8 to 3.1 inches (2 to 8 cm).

About half of the buildings are less than a decade old, according to scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science.

The study was published on Friday.

“The discovery of the extent of subsidence hotspots along the South Florida coastline was unexpected,” Farzaneh Aziz Zanjani, the lead author, said in a statement. “The study underscores the need for ongoing monitoring and a deeper understanding of the long-term implications for these structures.”

It’s not uncommon for buildings to sink a little during and soon after construction, but the scientists called their discovery surprising because some of the changes took place several years later.

Limestone under the South Florida beach is interspersed with layers of sand, which can shift under the weight of high-rises and as a result of vibrations from foundation construction.Tidal flows also play a role.

The study used satellite images to capture the changes, with settling most noticeable in buildings in Sunny Isles Beach.

The scientists said preliminary data also suggests sinking or settling further north, along the beaches of Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The stretch of South Florida communities surveyed included Surfside, where the Champlain Towers South building collapsed in June 2021, killing 98 people.

However, that collapse is thought to have been caused by reinforced concrete that deteriorated due to poor maintenance and flawed design.

better to know...?, climate-debate, energy and fields

IEA Report: Global Coal Demand To Hit Record High In 2024, Defying Predictions Of Decline

by  R. Bryce , Dec 18, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The International Energy Agency has been consistent — and consistently wrong — about global coal demand. [emphasis, links added]

In 2015, the Paris-based agency declared, “The golden age of coal in China seems to be over.” That year, it predicted global coal demand would fall to 5.5 billion tons by 2020.

In its 2017 World Energy Outlook, the IEA said, “China remains a towering presence in coal markets, but our projections suggest that coal use peaked in 2013 and is set to decline by almost 15% over the period to 2040.”

In 2020, the agency said, “Looking ahead to 2025, coal demand is expected to flatten.” It continued,

“Unless there are unforeseen developments that significantly boost coal demand in emerging Asian economies and China, it is likely that global coal demand peaked in 2013 at just over 8B tons.”

Wrong. Wrong. And wrong again.

Today, the IEA released its Coal 2024 report, which says global coal use will grow by another 1% this year to an all-time high of 8.77 billion tons.

The agency also reports that:

“coal demand, production, coal-fired generation, and international coal trade will surpass records reached in 2023 to set new all-time records.”

And here’s the key line:

“The power sector has been the main driver of coal demand growth, with electricity generation from coal set to reach an all-time high of 10,700 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2024.”

Why does this matter? Electricity is the form of energy we crave more than any other. Electricity drives modernity and economic growth.

Primary trade flows in the thermal coal market in 2022 and 2023. Note that most of the arrows point to China and India. Source IEA Coal 2024.
…
better to know...?, climate-debate

Unexplained heat-wave ‘hotspots’ are popping up across the globe

by Columbia Climate School, Nov 26, 2024 in ScienceDaily

Summary :  A striking new phenomenon is emerging: distinct regions are seeing repeated heat waves that are so extreme, they fall far beyond what any model of global warming can predict or explain. A new study provides the first worldwide map of such regions, which show up on every continent except Antarctica like giant, angry skin blotches.

Earth’s hottest recorded year was 2023, at 2.12 degrees F above the 20th-century average. This surpassed the previous record set in 2016. So far, the 10 hottest yearly average temperatures have occurred in the past decade. And, with the hottest summer and hottest single day, 2024 is on track to set yet another record.

All this may not be breaking news to everyone, but amid this upward march in average temperatures, a striking new phenomenon is emerging: distinct regions are seeing repeated heat waves that are so extreme, they fall far beyond what any model of global warming can predict or explain. A new study provides the first worldwide map of such regions, which show up on every continent except Antarctica like giant, angry skin blotches. In recent years these heat waves have killed tens of thousands of people, withered crops and forests, and sparked devastating wildfires.

“The large and unexpected margins by which recent regional-scale extremes have broken earlier records have raised questions about the degree to which climate models can provide adequate estimates of relations between global mean temperature changes and regional climate risks,” says the study.

“This is about extreme trends that are the outcome of physical interactions we might not completely understand,” said lead author Kai Kornhuber, an adjunct scientist at the Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “These regions become temporary hothouses.” Kornhuber is also a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

The study was just published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

…

…

Climbing overall temperatures make heat waves more likely in many cases, but the causes of the extreme heat outbreaks are not entirely clear. In Europe and Russia, an earlier study led by Kornhuber blamed heat waves and droughts on wobbles in the jet stream, a fast-moving river of air that continuously circles the northern hemisphere.

…

Also here

better to know...?, climate-debate

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #621

by K. Haapala,  WUWT, Nov 25, 2024

Scope: This Week begins with Richard Lindzen’s discussion on recent political movements that falsely claim to be based on science. Vijay Jayaraj discusses a conference of important nations that the legacy media missed, or misrepresented. Delancyplace.com discusses a few issues in Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Roy Spencer and John Christy discuss corrections needed to the measurements by satellites when the satellites drift too far from the planned orbit. Owen Klinsky alerts the US to the Winter Reliability Assessment by North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Roger Caiazza continues to express concern over New York’s future reliance on Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR), that appears imaginary. A brief discussion on a Bomb Cyclone concludes this Week.

Rumors State: Some of the most misleading arguments for drastic action to “combat climate change” include phrases such as “The Science says.” Science says nothing; in physical science it is the physical evidence that reveals the validity of a claim. Writing in the American Mind, MIT Professor emeritus of Atmospheric Science Richard Lindzen reveals “How a political movement invented its own scientific basis.” He begins with:

“Modern political movements have frequently laid claim to being based in science, from immigration restriction and eugenics (in the U.S. after WWI), to antisemitism and race ideology (in Hitler’s Germany), to Communism and Lysenkoism (under Stalin). Each of these falsely invoked a scientific consensus that convinced highly educated citizens, who were nonetheless ignorant of science, to set aside the anxieties associated with their ignorance. Since all scientists supposedly agreed, there was no need for them to understand the science.

Of course, this version of “the science” is the opposite of science itself. Science is a mode of inquiry rather than a source of authority. However, the success that science achieves has earned it a measure of authority in the public’s mind. This is what politicians frequently envy and exploit.

The climate panic fits into this same pattern and, as in all the preceding cases, science is in fact irrelevant. At best, it is a distraction which has led many of us to focus on the numerous misrepresentations of science entailed in what was purely a political movement.”

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

The Climate Scaremongers: BBC Admits It Lied About Vanishing Polar Bears

by P. Homewood, Nov 22, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

polar bear mother and cub
In August, the BBC published a news item about a Canadian worker killed by two polar bears. [emphasis, links added]

The article claimed: ‘There are about 17,000 polar bears living in the country – making up around two-thirds of the global population of the species, according to the Canadian government.

‘The species is in decline, and scientists attribute it to the loss of sea ice caused by global warming – leading to shrinking of their hunting and breeding grounds.’

No doubt in BBC World, they actually believe that polar bears are dying out. It is, after all, an article of faith for the global warming cult.

However, far from declining, the world’s population of polar bears has tripled since the 1960s, thanks to the ban on hunting in 1973.

Source

The BBC has now formally upheld the complaint I submitted at the time, and has posted this on their Complaints Page:

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

They’re Trying to Silence Us: The G20’s War on Climate Skepticism

by C. Rotter, Nov 23, 2024 in WUWT

n yet another chilling example of Orwellian overreach, the G20 Summit in Brazil has unveiled a new international effort to stifle dissent under the banner of “fighting disinformation.” This latest scheme, dubbed the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, is spearheaded by the United Nations and UNESCO. With a financial war chest provided by nations like the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden, this initiative isn’t about “truth” or “science”—it’s about control.

Bringing together countries, international organizations, and stakeholders worldwide, it aims to promote and defend information integrity on climate change, address disinformation, and enhance climate change awareness and action. It includes a global fund which will finance research into disinformation on climate change and initiatives to promote information integrity.

https://www.unesco.org/en/information-integrity-climate-change

Let’s call this what it is: a blatant attempt to silence anyone questioning the so-called climate crisis narrative. Under the guise of combating “misinformation,” these global bureaucracies aim to crush free thought and erase critical voices from the public square. This isn’t just an attack on skeptics—it’s an assault on open discourse itself.

The Initiative: A Wolf in Green Clothing

According to their public statements, the Initiative seeks to fund nonprofits for “research” and “public awareness campaigns.” They’re also creating what they call an “international research network” to identify and suppress so-called disinformation. In other words, they’re building an apparatus to label opposing viewpoints as dangerous lies and to justify censoring them into oblivion.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, with his characteristic paternalism, declared disinformation a threat to climate action and even democracy itself. The not-so-subtle subtext? If you dare question their dogma, you’re the problem.

The History: Silencing Skeptics Since Day One

This isn’t the first time climate skeptics have been targeted. As far back as 2010, Google began manipulating search results to demote skeptical voices. A French study highlighted how skeptics dominated online search rankings at the time, leading to a concerted effort to bury their views beneath mountains of alarmist propaganda. Blogs like Pensée Unique and works by Claude Allègre drew enough attention to provoke the ire of the establishment.

Now, thanks to collusion between Big Tech, governments, and nonprofits, the “censorship industrial complex” has become a powerful and insidious force. Groups like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the United States, along with private entities like NewsGuard, routinely conspire to flag, suppress, and delegitimize dissenting voices.

We’ve seen this play out before. The Twitter Files laid bare the extent of this collusion, revealing how social media platforms partnered with government agencies to suppress stories and deplatform users who strayed from the approved narrative. This is not about protecting the public from falsehoods—it’s about eliminating debate.

Why the Fear?

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

News Outlet Relies On Flawed ‘Attribution Studies’ To Blame Climate Change For Extreme Weather

by A. Watts, Nov 19,2024 in ClimateChaneDispatch

On Monday, November 18, The Guardian published an “explainer” piece titled “How do we know that the climate crisis is to blame for extreme weather?” This is false. [emphasis, links added]

Actual data on extreme weather does not support their claim, and the claim is mostly based on flawed “attribution studies.”

The narrative that severe weather events are worsening due to climate change has become a mainstay in today’s media. However, a closer look at the data and the science behind these claims often reveals inconsistencies that should give us pause.

Attribution studies, which are widely used to link specific extreme weather events to climate change, frequently lack rigorous peer review and are published hastily to garner headlines, raising significant concerns about their reliability.

Attribution studies work by using climate models to simulate two different worlds: one influenced by human-caused climate change and another without it. These models then assess the likelihood of extreme weather events in each world.

Yet the validity of such studies is only as good as the models and assumptions underpinning them.

This methodology is prone to overestimating risks because climate models often reflect overheated worst-case scenarios rather than actual observations.

Moreover, these studies are often published without proper peer review. Climate Realism has documented how media outlets run stories based on these model-driven studies, ignoring real-world data that often contradicts the alarming conclusions.

For example, articles frequently cite reports that heatwaves, floods, or hurricanes are “worsening” without disclosing that these claims rely on theoretical simulations rather than measured evidence.

Empirical data does not support claims of worsening severe weather. In fact, long-term trends for many extreme weather events have remained stable or even declined.

According to Climate at a Glance, heatwaves in the United States were most severe in the 1930s, with temperatures and frequency outstripping recent records.

The number of strong hurricanes making landfall in the United States has not increased either. The country even experienced a record 12-year lull in major hurricanes between 2005 and 2017.

Additionally, droughts have not intensified in the U.S. The nation saw historically low levels of drought in recent years, with 2017 and 2019 setting records for the smallest percentage of the country affected by drought. These data points highlight a crucial disconnect between what is reported and what is actually happening.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

German Researcher: Doubling Of Atmospheric CO2 Causes Only 0.24°C Of Warming …Practically Insignificant

by P. Gosselin, Nov 19, 2024 in NoTricksZone

The CO2 scam and “climate denial”

German researcher concludes CO2 warming immensely exaggerated…. IR radiation of clouds considerably reduces the greenhouse effect of CO2.”

The prosperity and political stability of our countries are in grave danger. The reason for this is an ideology that claims catastrophic climate change caused by the alleged “greenhouse gas” CO2 and is intent to destroy our civilization and prosperity. Its supporters are spreading a witch-hunt atmosphere against anyone who questions their ideology. So-called “climate deniers” are also denied any scientific expertise.

Every Swiss person can already see the first financial consequences on their electricity bill: In this country, the price of a kilowatt hour has shot up by up to 300% for some households in just four years. And this is just the beginning, as the Swiss government is pursuing the goal of switching to solar and wind power and thus to sources that cost 20 instead of 6 rp/kWh.

…

…

Conclusions

In his summary, Prof. Reinhart comes to the following conclusions:

“- The heat retention (“forcing”) by atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 ) causes a maximum temperature increase of 0.24 K (0.24°C) when the concentration doubles from 400 ppm to 800 ppm, based on a simplified absorption model that is independent of climate.

– This value depends only on the accepted mean earth temperature, T = 288 K, and is relatively insensitive to its uncertainty of 2 K.

– The temperature increase since the industrial revolution amounts to a maximum of 0.12 K, which is within the range of measurement accuracy. The anthropogenic contribution is therefore practically insignificant.

– The behavior of glacial and current temperature trends is not causally linked to carbon dioxide concentrations.

– The causes of global warming have not been clarified. However, they are most likely linked to the solar system and the water cycle.

– Measures to control CO2 emissions and the earth’s temperature are unsuitable, even dangerous means”.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate scientists officially declare ‘climate emergency’ at an end

by ClintelGroup, Nov 20, 2024 in WUWT

The Chamber of Deputies in session

Climate scientists have issued a shock declaration that the “climate emergency” is over.

A two-day climate conference in Prague, organised by the Czech division of the international Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel), which took place on November 12-13 in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague, “declares and affirms that the imagined and imaginary ‘climate emergency’ is at an end”.

The communiqué, drafted by the eminent scientists and researchers who spoke at the conference, makes clear that for several decades climate scientists have  systematically exaggerated the influence of CO2 on global temperature.

The high-level scientific conference also declared:

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which excludes participants and published papers disagreeing with its narrative, fails to comply with its own error-reporting protocol and draws conclusions some of which are dishonest, should be forthwith dismantled.”

The declaration supports the conclusions of the major Clintel report The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC [presented to the Conference by Marcel Crok, Clintel’s co-founder].

Moreover, the scientists at the conference declared that even if all nations moved straight to net zero emissions, by the 2050 target date the world would be only about 0.1 C cooler than with no emissions reduction.

So far, the attempts to mitigate climate change by international agreements such as the Paris Agreement have made no difference to our influence on climate, since nations such as Russia and China, India and Pakistan continue greatly to expand their combustion of coal, oil and gas.

The cost of achieving that 0.1 C reduction in global warming would be $2 quadrillion, equivalent to 20 years’ worldwide gross domestic product.

Finally, the conference “calls upon the entire scientific community to cease and desist from its persecution of scientists and researchers who disagree with the current official narrative on climate change and instead to encourage once again the long and noble tradition of free, open and uncensored scientific research, investigation, publication and discussion”.

The full text of the communiqué follows:

The International Scientific Conference of the Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel), in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague assembled on the Twelfth and Thirteenth Days of November 2024, has resolved and now declares as follows, that is to say –

  1. The modest increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that has taken place since the end of the Little Ice Age has been net-beneficial to humanity.
  2. Foreseeable future increases in greenhouse gases in the air will probably also prove net-beneficial.
  3. The rate and amplitude of global warming have been and will continue to be appreciably less than climate scientists

Continuer la lecture de Climate scientists officially declare ‘climate emergency’ at an end →

better to know...?

The Climate Case of the Century

by L. Bergkamp, Nov 14, 2024 in WUWT

On the 12th of November, the Hague Court of Appeal ruled in the “climate case of the century” that Milieudefensie (“FoE”) filed against Shell in 2019. FoE demands that Shell reduce emissions throughout the entire chain by at least 45% by 2030. The foundation “Man & Environment” (M&E) joined the case to represent the interests of Dutch citizens.

The Court of Appeal was not impressed by FoE’s “go green or go extinct” rhetoric and rejected its claims.  Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal’s ruling leaves much to be desired and did not eliminate the threat of activist NGOs launching climate cases to effect “system change,” i.e., set aside democracy, subordinate citizens and destroy the economy.

Climate science

Although M&M had offered strong rebuttals with expert reports, the Court of Appeal uncritically adopted many of FoE’s factual statements about the urgency and seriousness of the climate problem.  In doing so, the Court relied on the authority of the IPCC and the alleged “consensus” that would emerge from their reports, in particular the SPMs.

The Court not only took the IPCC reports as irrebuttable proof, but also attributed normative force to them. For example, the Court ruled that climate scientists have determined that the average temperature on earth may not rise by more than 1.5 degrees. In doing so, the Court, like the Dutch Supreme Court, ignored that science cannot set norms and that scientists are not authorized to set social standards. The Dutch judiciary’s scientistic tendency is extremely worrisome and does not bode well for future climate-related judgments.

…

better to know...?

Climatologists Shocked By Nature Op-Ed Arguing Objectivity In Climate Science Is Problematic

by K. Killough, Nov 13, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

protest 15 degrees

Three climate researchers took to the pages of Nature to argue that objectivity in climate science is problematic because it hinders their political advocacy, which they argue is too important to deny. [emphasis, links added]

Therefore, the authors argue, the values of objectivity in scientific research should be reconsidered.

“The public has watched as national and sub-national governments have declared climate emergencies, all the while continuing to grant new permits for the extraction of fossil fuels, seemingly ignoring increasingly urgent scientific messages that this locks the world into passing 1.5 °C of warming above preindustrial levels by 2030, if not sooner,” the researchers explain.

While the researchers equate a refusal to stop the production of fossil fuels with ignoring science, energy experts argue these policies will result in enormous economic problemsand widespread poverty.

The authors of the Nature op-ed, seemingly unaware or unconcerned with the impacts of such policies, argue that it’s unfair to expect climate researchers not to get emotional when governments don’t adopt these policies. 

“Scientists who express their feelings and worries about climate change are often not encouraged by their colleagues and are instead expected to carry on without acknowledging or communicating the continued inadequacy of action required to secure a liveable and sustainable future,” the authors state.

By just about every measure — including life expectancy, wealth, and deaths from natural disasters— the human race is doing better than ever. Despite this, the authors believe their fears are based on indisputable facts. 

Climate advocacy versus straight reporting

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Azerbaijan’s COP29 Speech: A Masterclass in Irony So Thick, It’s Flammable

by C. Rotter, Nov 13, 2024 in WUWT

Picture this: COP29, the annual climate circus where the world’s leaders gather to wag fingers and wring hands over carbon emissions, is hosted in none other than Azerbaijan—a country whose economy runs on fossil fuels like a muscle car guzzling premium gas. Then comes the pièce de résistance: Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev steps up to the mic and declares oil and gas to be “God’s gift” to his nation.

…

You can’t make this up. It’s like hosting a vegan potluck and having the guest of honor arrive with a tray of prime rib.

The “Climate” Conference in an Oil Nation

Let’s start with the hilarious choice of venue. Azerbaijan is one of those countries where crude oil isn’t just a commodity—it’s practically a national sport. Hosting COP29 in Baku is akin to holding a Weight Watchers meeting in a donut shop. And yet, the global climate elites packed their bags and flew to the Land of Hydrocarbons to sit through speeches about how we’re all doomed unless we ban the very thing that keeps Azerbaijan afloat.

The irony was lost on precisely no one except, apparently, the COP29 organizers.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Green Grifters: Another elite-laden conference demonstrates the staggering hypocrisy of climate-change activism

by H. Mac Donald, Nov 12, 2024 in /CityJournal

The latest global climate conference opened Monday in Azerbaijan. The timing is excellent. Any doubt regarding the wisdom of the next Trump administration’s likely pullout from such meetings should be dispelled by the conference photos alone. Here are tens of thousands of well fed, well-dressed members of the global elite—activists, employees of lavishly funded NGOs, armies of government bureaucrats, hundreds of heads of state—who have all travelled via jet and private plane to this remote corner of the Earth and who expect that every minute of their day will be supported by abundant, magically available energy. None has sacrificed a single personal comfort to save the planet. They assume that their smartphones will draw on an invisible web of transmitters and that they will be able to search the Internet and run AI queries at will, notwithstanding that doing so requires voracious energy use from a growing archipelago of server farms. They expect their PowerPoints to be well lit and their conference and hotel rooms to be heated or air conditioned as needed. They’re never without their bottled water, which is carried thousands of miles by carbon-emitting trucks and planes and kept sterile by plastic containers whose manufacture requires petrochemicals and plenty of energy. They do not wait on the sun to shine or the wind to blow to light their rooms, run their elevators, or power up their devices; they want energy now and without interruption.

You don’t have to be a “climate denier” to see that climate-change politics have become the largest global grift in history, one that grows in proportion with each new conference. It was just a matter of time before Third World basket-case countries exploited the First World’s virtue signaling. This year’s UNFCC COP 29 conference in Azerbaijan (COP stands for Conference of the Parties) features the demand that developed countries fork over billions, if not trillions, more dollars to the Global South, ostensibly to help it adjust to climate change. Those billions will follow all previous foreign aid into the same sinkhole of corruption and incompetence.

…

better to know...?

Hague court denies claim for reduction in Shell’s CO2 emissions

by The Hague, 12 November 2024, in deRechtspraak

The Hague Court of Appeal today handed down its judgment in the appeal proceedings between Milieudefensie and Shell. At issue in the appeal was whether Shell must have reduced its CO2 emissions by 45% in 2030 compared to 2019. The court of appeal ruled that Shell is obliged to reduce its CO₂ emissions, but that it was unable to determine which percentage should apply. The court of appeal therefore rejected the claims of Milieudefensie.

According to Milieudefensie, Shell is acting unlawfully. Milieudefensie is of the opinion that under the social standard of care, Shell is obliged to reduce its CO2 emissions. Milieudefensie and several other environmental organisations submitted a claim for Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45% in 2030 compared to 2019. This includes Shell’s own CO2 emissions as well as those of its suppliers and customers, known as scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

The Hague District Court upheld the claim of Milieudefensie, after which Shell lodged an appeal. The Stichting Milieu en Mens joined as a party in the proceedings before the court of appeal on the side of Shell.

In today’s judgment, the court of appeal held that Shell has an obligation towards citizens to limit its CO2 emissions. This obligation is based on the human right to protection against dangerous climate change. It is first and foremost up to governments to ensure the protection of human rights, but indirectly those rights also have a bearing on the social standard of care which companies like Shell must observe. In its assessment of whether Shell is acting unlawfully, the court of appeal therefore took as a starting point that citizens also have a right vis-à-vis Shell to protection from dangerous climate change.

Nevertheless, the court of appeal denied the claims of Milieudefensie because the court was unable to establish that the social standard of care entails an obligation for Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45%, or some other percentage. There is currently insufficient consensus in climate science on a specific reduction percentage to which an individual company like Shell should adhere. Moreover, Shell is already working to reduce its own scope 1 and 2 emissions. Lastly, the court of appeal is of the opinion that an obligation for Shell to reduce CO2 emissions caused by buyers of Shell products, scope 3 emissions, by a particular percentage would be ineffective in this case. Shell could meet that obligation by ceasing to trade in the fuels it purchases from third parties. Other companies would then take over that trade. This would consequently not result in a reduction in CO2 emissions.

In conclusion, The Hague Court of Appeal overturned the district court’s judgment and denied the claims of Milieudefensie. An appeal in cassation against this ruling may be brought before the Dutch Supreme Court.

Also here

Climate Litigation: The Dutch Case and a Pattern of Vexatious Lawsuits

better to know...?, climate-debate

Media Hypes Report That 2024 Will Break 1.5°C Limit, But Data Doesn’t Back It Up

by L. Lueken, Nov 11, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

valencia flood aftermath

Multiple outlets have posted articles covering a report from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (“Copernicus”) which says that 2024 will be the first to surpass 1.5°C warming since preindustrial times, which the media claims will cause untold weather disasters. [emphasis, links added]

This is mostly false.

Although 2024 will likely have higher average temperatures than in recent decades, it is not the end of the year yet, and there is limited evidence to support the claim that it will represent the highest temperatures humans have ever experienced and no evidence whatsoever that weather disasters have gotten or will get worse.

The BBC and CNN are among the numerous mainstream media outlets reporting on Copernicus’ report.

CNN describes the report as “devastating news for the planet that comes as America chooses a president that has promised to undo its climate progress both at home and abroad.”

The Copernicus group estimates that 2024 will end up 1.55°C hotter than the 1850-1900 average, which is 0.05°C above the warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. This may be true, but there is no evidence that the 1.5℃ threshold is some kind of deadly tipping point for weather disasters.

The same organization sounded the alarm last year that the “limit” was breached for several months in a row while ignoring natural factors like an underwater volcano eruption.

As for the 1.5-degree limit itself, it was not established by professional climate scientists. Only one of the people who were on the panel who came up with the value was even a meteorologist.

Two other points worth noting. The claim is a bit of sleight of hand, cherry-picking the data for comparison. Earth was only just coming out of the Little Ice Age at the onset of the 1850 period, one of the coldest periods during the past millennia.

When you pick an unusually cold period for comparison, modest warming seems more dramatic than it is.

Second, the 1.5℃ is an arbitrary temperature choice. As Climate Realism has discussed repeatedly here, here, and here, it was chosen by politicians for political reasons.

There is no scientific evidence it represents some tipping point for catastrophic climate change. The world has likely warmed more than 2°C since the 1700s, with no apocalypse.

One would think that if warming causes more extreme weather there would be solid data and identifiable consistent trends showing an increase in extreme weather, but there is none.

Three of the weather events CNN cites at the end of their article as proof of a supposed climate emergency, Hurricane Milton, the flooding in Spain, and low snow amounts at Mt. Fuji are not proof of a climate emergency.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study: Human Contribution To Enhancement Of Earth’s Greenhouse Effect A Negligible 0.2 Percent

by K. Richard, Nov 12, 2024 in NoTricksZone

“[T]he contribution of CO2 to the greenhouse effect is 4% – 5%. Human CO2 emissions represent 4% of the total, which means that the total human contribution to the enhancement of the greenhouse effect is 0.16% to 0.20% – a negligible effect.” – Dr. Demetris Koutsoyiannis (2024)

New research exposes the vacuousness of the “imaginary world” models proclaiming CO2 the dominant regulator of the Earth’s climate.

A CO2-less or CO2-only atmosphere…an imaginary-world thought experiment

An oft-heard claim is that, due to the prominence of CO2 as the Earth’s climate “control knob” (see Lacis et al., 2010), the greenhouse effect could not exist – indeed, it would collapse – if there was no CO2 in the atmosphere.

However, it should go without saying that this CO2-less atmospheric condition itself is an imaginary-world conceptualization. Thus, fantasizing about what would happen if the atmosphere was comprised 0 ppm CO2, 1,000,000 ppm CO2, 0 ppm water vapor…are all just untestable, never-observable thought experiments. They cannot be subjected to the scientific method. Thus, they are unfalsifiable.

CO2’s climate effects are undetectable

Of course, this very unfalsifiable thought experiment is what believers in the CO2-is-the-climate-control-knob narrative rest their case on. But even if we do use this imaginary-world premise, the existing models (MODTRAN, HITRAN) that allegedly support the CO2-controls-climate orthodoxy actually undermine it.

For example, as Dr. Koutsoyiannis points out in his extensively-referenced paper, the MODTRAN data show that the Earth’s temperature remains at the default greenhouse-effect value if the water vapor scale is adjusted upwards slightly, by just 30%. The greenhouse effect does not “collapse” as claimed by Lacis et al. disciples – the control-knob believers.

The HITRAN database also indicates the imaginary-world condition of doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm would only alter the radiation flux at the top of the atmosphere by -1.1%, a hypothetical realization that could not even be detected in future macroscopic measurements (if the atmosphere ever were to reach a CO2 concentration of 800 ppm).

MODTRAN models further affirm that (1) there is only a 1% temperature difference between either doubling (800 ppm) or halving (200 ppm) the atmospheric CO2 concentration, and (2) the change in the downwelling radiation resulting from an increase from 300 ppm (1900) to 420 ppm (2023) is only 0.5%. These tiny changes “could not be discerned by observations.”

…

better to know...?

«The Monster That Challenged the World»

by D. Middleton, Oct 10, 2024 in WUWT

Guest “When Sci-Fi predicted paleontology” by David Middleton

Anyone else out there remember this classically awful 1957 science fiction movie?

…

By James Ashworth

First published 9 October 2024

Well-preserved fossils uncovered in France have revealed new insights into one of the biggest invertebrates to ever walk on Earth.

Arthropleura was a millipede-like animal which lived more than 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous Period, with some individuals reaching more than two metres long.

The head of one of history’s biggest arthropods has been revealed in detail for the first time.

Arthropleura is an arthropod, the group containing insects, crustaceans, arachnids and their relatives. For many years, only fossils of its body survived, which saw it placed among the earliest millipedes. Now, the discovery of the first complete head has revealed a surprising twist.

While the new fossils are not from fully grown Arthropleura, some of which reached 2.6 metres long, they reveal important characteristics. Most notably, the head has some features of early centipedes, suggesting millipedes and centipedes might be more closely related than previously accepted.

[…]

Natural History Museum

While Arthropleura wasn’t a mollusk, the first thing I thought of when I read the article was The Monster That Challenged the World.

 

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Prophets Of Doom: Why A New 2024 Climate Report Is Fueled By Fear, Not Facts

by Dr M. Wielicki, Oct , 2024 in ClimateChange Dispatch 

The recent article published in BioScience, “The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth,” is a parade of exaggerated claims and half-truths, a propaganda piece designed to scare the public into adopting misguided policies while turning a blind eye to the real drivers of human progress. [emphasis, links added]

While it projects an image of scientific rigor, a closer look reveals that most of these dire warnings don’t even align with the IPCC‘s latest report, particularly when scrutinizing the IPCC AR6’s scientific foundations.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate Activists Frustrated by IPCC’s Refusal to Link Extreme Weather with Carbon Emissions

by C. Morrison, Oct 10, 2024 in WUWT

Last June, the state-reliant BBC reported that human-caused climate change had made U.S. and Mexico heatwaves “35 times more likely”. Nothing out of the ordinary here in mainstream media with everyone from climate comedy turn ‘Jim’ Dale to UN chief Antonio ‘Boiling’ Guterres making these types of bizarre attributions. But for those who closely follow climate science and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “such headlines can be difficult to make sense of”, observes the distinguished science writer Roger Pielke. In a hard-hitting attack on the pseudo-scientific industry of weather attribution, he states: “neither the IPCC nor the underlying scientific literature comes anywhere close to making such strong and certain claims of attribution”.

Pielke argues that the extreme position of attributing individual bad weather events is “roughly aligned” with the far Left. “Climate science is not, or at least should not serve as a proxy for political tribes,” he cautions. But of course it is. The Net Zero fantasy is a collectivist national and supra-national agenda that increasingly relies on demonising bad weather. With global temperatures rising at most only 0.1°C a decade, laughter can only be general and side-splitting when IPCC boss Jim Skea claims that British summers will be 6°C hotter in less than 50 years. Two extended temperature pauses since 2000 have not helped the cause of global boiling. In addition there are increasing doubts about the reliability of temperature recordings by many meteorological organisations that seem unable to properly account for massive urban heat corruptions.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study: Human Emissions ‘Irrelevant’ In Determining Changes In Atmospheric CO2 Since 1959

by K. Richard, Sept 2, 2027 in NoTricksZone

“The main factor governing the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the SST [sea surface temperature] rather than human emissions.” – Ato, 2024

Another day, another new scientific paper has been published reporting efforts to curb anthropogenic CO2 emissions are “meaningless.”

In this study multiple linear regression analysis was performed comparing SST versus anthropogenic CO2 emissions as explanatory factors and the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 as the objective variable over the period 1959-2022.

The model using the SSTs (NASA, NOAA, UAH) best explained the annual CO2 change (regression coefficient B = 2.406, P = <0.0002), whereas human emissions were not shown to be an explanatory factor at all in annual CO2 changes (regression coefficient B = 0.0027, P = 0.863).

Most impressively, the predicted atmospheric CO2 concentration using the regression equation derived from 1960-2022 SSTs had an extremely high correlation coefficient of r = 0.9995.

Thus, not only is the paradigm that says humans drive atmospheric CO2 changes wrong, but “the theory that global warming and climate change are caused by human-emitted CO2 is also wrong.”

“SST has been the determinant of the annual changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and […] anthropogenic emissions have been irrelevant in this process, by head-to-head comparison.”

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

The Atlantic Is Cooling at a Mysteriously Fast Rate After Record Warmth

by P. Homewood, Aug 25, 2024 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

For over a year, surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean hit new highs, but that trend has reversed at record speed over the past few months, and nobody knows why.

In June, temperatures in the Atlantic were 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) hotter than normal in much of the ocean, with some areas getting as much as 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) warmer than average. Those temperatures weren’t a one-off, as the Atlantic had regularly seen record-breaking levels since March 2023. That year marked the fourth in a row that the world’s oceans set new heat records.

The hot water was partially a result of human-caused climate change, but it was also due to a particularly strong El Niño in 2023 and 2024. But that system appears to have passed, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA data shows Atlantic sea surface temperatures have cooled at a surprising rate since May. Since June began, temperatures have been a degree or two Fahrenheit colder than normal for this time of year. That means El Niño will likely be replaced by its counterpart, La Niña, a weather system that allows cold water to rise to the surface of the Atlantic, some time between September and November. Both El Niño and La Niña are complex systems driven by trade winds, solar heating, and rainfall in the tropic regions, and can be difficult to predict. Still, the sudden shift in Atlantic temperatures has been puzzling, and nobody seems to know why it’s happened so quickly.

“We’ve gone through the list of possible mechanisms, and nothing checks the box so far,” Frans Philip Tuchen, a postdoctoral student at the University of Miami, told New Scientist.

https://gizmodo.com/the-atlantic-is-cooling-at-a-mysteriously-fast-rate-after-record-warmth-2000488967

.So they do not have a clue why the Atlantic has suddenly got colder, but they think they know that global warming made it hotter in the first place, even though there is no physical for the claim that a slightly warmer atmosphere can make any measurable difference to ocean temperatures!

They also get their knickers in a complete twist stating that El Ninos in the Pacific raise SSTs in the Atlantic!

…

better to know...?, energy and fields

Yet More Reasons Why Green Hydrogen Is Going Nowhere

by F. Menton, Aug 28, 2024 in WUWT

In the fantasy of the zero-emissions electricity future, there will either be regular devastating blackouts, or something must back up the intermittent wind and solar generation. In New York we call that imaginary something the “DEFR” (Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource). But what is it? Nuclear has been blocked for decades, especially in the blue jurisdictions that are most aggressively pursuing the wind/solar future. Batteries are technologically not up to the job, and also wildly too expensive. That leaves hydrogen. Anybody with another idea, kindly speak up.

I’ve had several posts discussing the question of whether hydrogen could do this job, for example this one on February 14, 2024, and this one on July 20. Those posts focused on the initial cost of making hydrogen by electrolysis from water. That cost turns out to be a multiple of the cost of producing natural gas by drilling into rock (for comparable energy content). From time to time I have alluded to other potential problems with having hydrogen replace natural gas in the electricity system — things like leaks, explosions, and the need for an entire new infrastructure of pipelines and trucks to carry the stuff and power plants to burn it. But until now I haven’t found a detailed study on just how bad these additional problems might be.

Now comes along an August 18 article in a peer-reviewed journal called Energy Science & Engineering, with the title “A review of challenges with using the natural gas system for hydrogen.” The article was linked on August 23 by Paul Homewood at the Not a Lot of People Know That site, and then further linked by Watts Up With That on August 24.

The lead author is a guy named Paul Martin. Unusually for an article in such a journal, no academic affiliation is given for Mr. Martin. Looking him up on LinkedIn, I find that he is not an academic, but rather identifies himself as a “chemical process development expert” who has spent “years in industry,” and is currently with Spitfire Research, Inc., which in turn states that it specializes in “consulting for a decarbonized future.” Mr. Martin then identifies several of his co-authors on the paper as a “team of people at the Environmental Defense Fund.” That information may well color your perception of what Martin, et al., have to say in their paper.

…

better to know...?, climate-debate

Math Confirms Foolishness of Climate Alarmism

by G. Wrightstone, Aug 11, 2024 in WUWT

The science of climate change often is presented in complicated language that speaks of computer models and the theoretical inputs and outputs thereof and concludes that the globe is on the verge of “boiling.” Well, leave it to three physicists — steeped in calculus and such arcane matters as the behavior of molecules and the nuclear charge of atoms — to simplify the analysis and arrive at a much less alarming determination.

“Straightforward calculations … show that eliminating U.S. CO2 emissions by the year 2050 would avoid a temperature increase of 0.0084 degrees Celsius,” states a brief paper authored by Drs. Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; William Happer, Princeton University; and William A. van Wijngaarden, York University, Toronto. On the Fahrenheit scale, the value of averted warming is 0.015 degrees.

In short, the amount of warming averted by eliminating CO2 emissions in the United States would be too small to measure. The paper bolsters the position of those who argue that a changing climate is the product of natural forces, that human-induced carbon dioxide emissions can have only a minuscule effect on global temperature, and that CO2 is a valuable plant food and not a pollutant.

Rather than using theoretical assumptions about various factors that are fed into computers, the paper’s calculation relies almost exclusively on “observable data” that are widely accepted and publicly available, says Dr. Happer.

“This is something anybody with a calculator can figure out,” said the scientist, who may be best known for his contribution to a laser-based technology for destroying incoming ballistic missiles as part of the so-called Star Wars program of the 1980s. Continuer la lecture de Math Confirms Foolishness of Climate Alarmism →