Germany Is a Coal-Burning, Gas-Guzzling Climate Change Hypocrite

by P. Hockenos, November 13, 2017 in FPNews


Yet Germany’s image as selfless defender of the climate, which was once largely deserved, is now a transparent fiction. Germany has fallen badly behind on its pledges to sink its own greenhouse gas pollutants. In fact, Germany’s carbon emissions haven’t declined for nearly a decade and the German Environment Agency calculated that Germany emitted 906 million tons of CO2 in 2016 — the highest in Europe — compared to 902 million in 2015. And 2017’s interim numbers suggest emissions are going to tick up again this year.

A conversation with Patrick Moore

by P. Moore,  March 13, 2018 in A. Watts, WUWT


Patrick Moore is a Canadian activist, and former president of Greenpeace Canada. Since leaving Greenpeace, which he helped to found, Moore has criticized the environmental movement for what he sees as scare tactics and disinformation, saying that the environmental movement “abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism.” He has sharply and publicly differed with many policies of major environmental groups, including Greenpeace itself on other issues including forestry, biotechnology, aquaculture, and the use of chemicals for many applications. (…)

U.S. monthly crude oil production exceeds 10 million barrels per day, highest since 1970

by PennEnergy Editorial Staff, February 2, 2018


U.S. crude oil production reached 10.038 million barrels per day (b/d) in November 2017, according to EIA’s latest Petroleum Supply Monthly. November’s production is the first time since 1970 that monthly U.S. production levels surpassed 10 million b/d and the second-highest U.S. monthly oil production value ever, just below the November 1970 production value of 10.044 million b/d.

Within the Lower 48 states, November 2017 production reached a record high in Texas at 3.89 million b/d, followed by North Dakota at 1.18 million b/d. Production in the Federal Gulf of Mexico reached 1.67 million b/d, up 14% from the October 2017 level as the region recovered from Hurricane Nate.

 

Modern humans flourished through ancient supervolcano eruption 74,000 years ago

by University of Cap Town, March 12, 2018 in ScienceDaily


Early modern humans living in South Africa around 74,000 years ago prospered through the cataclysmic eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Sumatra. The Toba eruption was one of the Earth’s most explosive volcanic events. The environmental effects of this event have been heavily debated, with some researchers having previously proposed that the eruption led to a worldwide volcanic winter that devastated contemporaneous human populations.

An eruption a hundred times smaller than Mount Toba — that of Mount Tambora, also in Indonesia, in 1815 — is thought to have been responsible for a year without summer in 1816. The impact on the human population was dire — crop failures in Eurasia and North America, famine and mass migrations. The effect of Mount Toba, a super-volcano that dwarfs even the massive Yellowstone eruptions of the deeper past, would have had a much larger, and longer-felt, impact on people around the globe (…)

New Research Finds Polar Bear Numbers Up 42% Since 2004 – Survival Rates Unaffected By Sea Ice Availability

by K.  Richard,  March 12, 2018 in NoTricksZone


 (…) “A recent aerial survey of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation concluded that the abundance of polar bears has remained steady since 1986 (943 bears; SE: 174) (Obbard et al., 2015). The survey included the entire coastal range and offshore island habitat of the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation, except for the eastern James Bay coast. Taken together, the results of the aerial survey and the participant responses from Wemindji and Chisasibi indicate that the local population has remained stable. However, the unanimous responses from participants in Whapmagoostui/Kuujjuarapik suggest that there has been a localized increase in the number of bears near Whapmagoostui/Kuujjuarapik.”

Scientific American Turns Down The Heat Over Global Warming

by Dr. B. Peiser, March 12, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch


Greens fear that optimism will foster complacency and hence undermine activism. But I find the essays of Pinker and Boisvert inspiring, not enervating.

I plan to assign the essays to my students, who have become quite gloomy lately. These days, despair is a bigger problem than optimism. —John Horgan, Scientific American, 8 March 2018

Qu’est-ce que l’Alliance solaire internationale ?

by Connaissance des Energies, 12 mars 2018


L’ Alliance solaire internationale est une initiative lancée par l’Inde et la France lors de la COP21 qui vise à « augmenter de manière significative la production d’électricité solaire » dans les 121 pays situés en totalité ou en partie entre les tropiques du Cancer et du Capricorne (des pays en voie de développement pour la grande majorité).

(…)

En juin 2017, l’Alliance solaire internationale indiquait que 33 pays avaient signé son accord-cadre et que 6 l’avait ratifié : l’Inde, la France et 4 territoires insulaires (Fidji, Maurice, Nauru, Tuvalu)(5). Il est nécessaire que 15 pays ratifient cet accord-cadre pour qu’il entre en vigueur. En mars 2018, l’Alliance solaire internationale a été officiellement lancée à New Delhi, en présence d’Emmanuel Macron et d’une vingtaine de dirigeants d’Asie, d’Afrique et d’Océanie.

Le gouvernement indien s’est engagé à abriter le secrétariat de l’Alliance solaire internationale pour une durée de 5 ans (jusqu’en 2021).

Climate Science’s Dark Knight, Marc Morano, Body Slams Climate Agenda In New Bestseller

by P Gosselin, March 6, 2018 in NoTricksZone


I couldn’t possibly recommend the following new book enough: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.

It is authored by the person whom leading German center-left “intellectual” weekly Die Zeit once portrayed (black vs white) as the Godfather of the global warming denial and doubt syndicate: Marc Morano of CFACT’s Climate Depot.

Oceanic plastic trash conveys disease to coral reefs

by B. Friedlander, January 25, 2018 in CornellChronicle


“Plastics make ideal vessels for colonizing microscopic organisms that could trigger disease if they come into contact with corals,” Lamb said. “Plastic items – commonly made of polypropylene, such as bottle caps and toothbrushes – have been shown to become heavily inhabited by bacteria. This is associated with the globally devastating group of coral diseases known as white syndromes.”

When plastic debris meets coral, the authors say, the likelihood of disease increases from 4 to 89 percent – a 20-fold change. The scientists estimate that about 11.1 billion plastic items are entangled on reefs across the Asia-Pacific region, and that this will likely increase 40 percent over the next seven years.

The Modern Warm Period Delimited

by David Archibald, March 10, 2018 on WUWT


This recent post discussed the end of the Modern Warm Period and the year that global cooling began. That post was inspired by a comment to a post on WUWT six to eight years ago to the effect that climate is controlled by the Sun’s magnetic flux – no need to worry about much else. The comment seemed to come from a warmer scientist – they are well funded, have plenty of time on their hands, some are smart and idle curiosity would get a few looking into what controls climate. The results would not be published of course. To paraphrase Mussolini, everything within the narrative, nothing outside the narrative, nothing against the narrative. If the Sun’s magnetic flux controls climate, you don’t have to worry about what goes on under the hood – the effect of EUV on the NAO, the GCR flux, the F10.7 flux, any other flux apart from the magnetic flux (…)

LES CONFLITS D’ INTERET AU GIEC

by Jo Moreau, 9 mars 2018, in Belgotopia


Complémentairement à l’article de Donna Laframboise, il semblerait que les différents groupes de travail du GIEC n’aient pas la même définition d’un conflit d’intérêt. On peut identifier deux formes principales de conflit d’intérêt : soit l’utilisation d’une étude rédigée par un auteur ou coauteur du GIEC, ce qui revient à publier des études qu’on utilisera ensuite dans une auto-justification, (voir aussi à ce sujet un billet précédent : http://belgotopia.blogs.lalibre.be/archive/2013/01/03/methodes-interpellantes-au-sein-du-giec.html ), soit la présence en ses rangs d’un salarié de l’industrie ou d’un membre ou d’un proche d’une ONG militant dans le domaine idéologico-politique.

On se rappelle que des contributeurs du GIEC, salariés de l’industrie chimique, avaient été accusés par diverses sources de conflit d’intérêt en 2016, que dire alors de membres ou proches d’ONG militantes, qui semblent de plus en plus se substituer aux organes démocratiques dans la direction de nos sociétés…

Unique diamond impurities indicate water deep in Earth’s mantle

by University of Nevada, March 9, 2018 in ScienceDaily


A UNLV scientist has discovered the first direct evidence that fluid water pockets may exist as far as 500 miles deep into the Earth’s mantle.

Groundbreaking research by UNLV geoscientist Oliver Tschauner and colleagues found diamonds pushed up from the Earth’s interior had traces of unique crystallized water called Ice-VII.

See alos here

BP Energy Outlook

by BP Global, March 2018


The Energy Outlook explores the forces shaping the global energy transition out to 2040 and the key uncertainties surrounding that transition. It shows how rising prosperity drives an increase in global energy demand and how that demand will be met over the coming decades through a diverse range of supplies including oil, gas, coal and renewables.

Looking forward to 2040

Extending the Energy Outlook by five years to 2040, compared with previous editions, highlights several key trends.

For example, in the ET scenario, there are nearly 190 million electric cars by 2035, higher than the base case in last year’s Outlook of 100 million. The stock of electric cars is projected to increase by a further 130 million in the subsequent five years, reaching around 320 million by 2040.

Another trend that comes into sharper focus by moving out to 2040 is the shift from China to India as the primary driver of global energy demand. The progressively smaller increments in China’s energy demand – as its economic growth slows and energy intensity declines – contrasts with the continuing growth in India, such that between 2035 and 2040, India’s demand growth is more than 2.5 times that of China, representing more than a third of the global increase.

Africa’s contribution to global energy consumption also becomes more material towards the end of the Outlook, with Africa accounting for around 20% of the global increase during 2035-2040; greater than that of China.

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Deep Bore Into Antarctica Finds Freezing Ice, Not Melting as Expected

by Douglas Fox, February 16, 2018 in NationalGeographic


Scientists have peered into one of the least-explored swaths of ocean on Earth, a vast region located off the coast of West Antarctica. It is locked beneath a crust of ice larger than Spain and more than 1,000 feet thick, making its waters perpetually dark—and extremely difficult for humans to access. Now, a team of researchers has bored a hole through the ice and sampled the ocean beneath it. Their work could shed light on a poorly understood, but ominous episode in Antarctica’s recent past… (…)

The Source Of The Heat

by W. Eschenbach, March 9, 2018 in WUWT


I’m sure you can see the problem with Dr. Judith’s question—temperatures can rise without ANY new sources of heat or ANY change in existing sources of heat.

For example, regarding the climate system, every year there is more and more oil that goes into the ocean. This oil floats on the surface in a monomolecular layer, and it reduces both conduction and evaporation. As a result, the oceans end up slightly warmer than they would be without the oil … where is Dr. Judith’s mysterious “source of heat” supposedly driving that change?

Here’s another example … (…)

“Climate-Pope” Schellnhuber Stepping Down …Growing Impression He Had Become “More Activist Than Physicist”

by P. Gosselin, March 9, 2018 in NoTricksZone


Schellnhuber is often worshipped by the fringe-element climate alarmists as a sort of Climate Pope, whose every uttered word is to be regarded as infallible.  Now he may be paying the price for his entrenched, radical positions on climate change.

We now seriously need a Schellnhuber timeout. […] We do hope the new PIK leadership will correct the extreme direction the institute is currently on and rapidly puts an end to the flow of climate-alarmist press releases.“

Crucial Climate Verdict, Naked Conflict-of-Interest

by D. Laframboise, January 29, 2018 in BigPicturesNews…


BIG PICTURE: In November 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared for the first time that humans were changing the climate. Its verdict turned on a single piece of then-unpublished research. Four months after the fact, the research was submitted to a prominent journal. Three months later it was published.

The world then learned that 25% of the IPCC personnel tasked with making its most crucial determination were involved with this research. In a naked a conflict-of-interest, these nine people, led by IPCC chapter head Ben Santer, had evaluated the persuasiveness of their own fledgling scientific work – and had judged it sound enough to change history.

See also here (in French)

Clean Coal: Carbon Capture and Enhanced Oil Recovery, Part Deux

by D. Middleton, March 8, 2018 in WUWT


Not quite a year ago (April 18, 2017) I authored a post on the completion of the Petra Nova carbon capture project at the W. A. Parrish coal-fired power plant in Fort Bend County, Texas.  Petra Nova was billed as “the largest post-combustion carbon capture project in the world.”  In addition to capturing CO2 from a very large coal-fired power plant, Petra Nova was also designed to serve a useful purpose: Deliver CO2 for enhanced oil recovery to West Ranch Oil Field in Jackson County, Texas.  The ultimate goal is to boost production in the field from around 500 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) to 15,000 BOPD and recover about 60 million barrels that would otherwise have been left in the ground.

EIA had an update on the carbon capture aspect back in October…

A ‘Major Second Wave’ of U.S. Fracking Is About to Be Unleashed Upon the World

by J. Worland, March 6, 2018 in Time


The widespread adoption of fracking in the U.S. opened billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to production and transformed the global energy sector in a matter of a few years. Now, a leading global energy agency says U.S. natural gas is about to do it again.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a new forecast this week that growth in U.S. oil production will cover 80% of new global demand for oil in the next three years. U.S. oil production is expected to increase nearly 30% to 17 million barrels a day by 2023 with much of that growth coming from oil produced through fracking in West Texas.

The Next Entrant in the Shale Revolution? OPEC’s Saudi Arabia

by W. Mahdi and B. Stanley, March 7, 2018 in Bloomberg


Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil exporter, is set to join the shale revolution with plans to start producing unconventional natural gas this month and exploit a deposit that could rival the Eagle Ford formation in Texas.

Saudi Arabia’s gas resources from shale and other alternative supplies are “huge,” Khalid Al Abdulqader, general manager of unconventional resources at Aramco, said Wednesday in Manama, Bahrain. Production at the kingdom’s North Arabia basin will start by the end of March and reach its target by the end of this year, he said, without giving details.

New U.S. Record-Level Oil Production! Peak Oil Theory Disproven! Not.

by R. Heinberg, March 6, 2018 in Resilience.org


Well, I’m amazed and impressed. Tight oil production has pushed total United States petroleum output to more than 10 million barrels a day, a rate last seen almost a half-century ago. It’s a new U.S. record. Fifteen years ago I was traveling the world with a Powerpoint presentation featuring a graph of U.S. oil production history. That graph showed a clear peak in 1970 and a long bumpy decline thereafter. (…)

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse