“Germany’s Federal Audit Office has accused the federal government of having largely failed to manage the transformation of Germany’s energy systems.”
“A little more than a year before Germany’s climate-policy “milestone 2020”, the auditing body has concluded a catastrophic assessment of the government’s energy policy. Germany would miss its targets for both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and primary energy consumption as well as for increasing energy productivity and the share of renewable energy in transport. At the same time, policy makers had burdened the nation with enormous costs.”
The audit further concluded that the program is a monumental bureaucratic nightmare where “The Federal Government, incidentally, does not have an overall grasp of the costs or any transparency in this respect.”
by P. Gosselin, September 23, 2018 in NoTricksZone
Last year, August, 2017, a massive rockslide occurred on the north flank of the Piz Cengalo (3369 m) in the Swiss Alps, above the village of Bondo, located near the border to Italy.
…
No data suggesting warming is behind rock slides
In total some 4 million tonnes of rock and mud came tumbling down. The dramatic incident highlighted the hazards posed by rock slides for villages located near the picturesque mountains of the European Alps.
Though rockslides are not unusual, there has been growing scrutiny behind their causes lately. Unsurprisingly climate alarmists are opportunistically pointing the finger at climate warming.
by P. Gosselin, September 19, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch
The German ADAC association, the equivalent of America’s AAA, carried a CO2 comparison for a variety e-autos and combustion engine cars. The results were very surprising, says German magazine Autobild here.
Today’s electric cars are being pushed as a clean and environmentally friendly alternative, while diesel and gasoline burning engines are being villainized as polluters and climate killer …
Yes… I know entropy falls under the Second Law of Thermodynamics… But I doubt the author of the Clean Technica article does. [Author’s note: By “falls under the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I don’t mean decreases; I mean it falls under the “jurisdiction” of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.]
by Ron Clutz, September 17, 2018 in ScienceMatters
One week ago on day 252 MASIE reported the lowest daily extent of the year at 4.43M km2. One week later the image above shows how the ice edges have refrozen and extended. Note also the significant snowfall both in Canada and Russia
The question is how does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determine that an increase in atmospheric CO2 causes an increase in global temperature? The answer is they assumed it was the case and confirmed it by increasing CO2 levels in their computer climate models and the temperature went up. Science must overlook the fact that they wrote the computer code that told the computer to increase temperature with a CO2 increase. Science must ask if that sequence is confirmed by empirical evidence? Some scientists did that and found the empirical evidence showed it was not true. Why isn’t this central to all debate about anthropogenic global warming?
The Northern Territory holds enough natural gas to supply Australia for 200 years-plus and is comparable to the shale resources that have revolutionised the US energy sector, Resources and Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan says.
Such abundant gas should enable Australia to reduce its current high energy prices, which were the fault of southern states preventing development, Senator Canavan told an NT Resources Week conference in Darwin.
by P. Homewood, September 6, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
A lot of people have said they remember the summer of 1976 being hotter than this year. And they would be right.
According to CET data, at their peak temperatures went much higher and for longer than they did this summer. The only factor that kept the two summer remotely close was that in 1976 temperatures fell away during the middle of July to below average for a while.
La Lettre d’information 7 sort légèrement du cadre prévu à l’origine pour ces Lettres. Elle se rapporte à des commentaires qu’elles ont suscités et qui sont parus dansL’1Dex. L’1Dex est un média alternatif valaisan, dont le motto est « Pour un Valais
critique et libertaire ». Grâce au libéralisme de son rédacteur en chef, Me Stéphane Riand, et de son équipe dirigeante, les voix discordantes, les pensées de contre-courant, les points de vue tenus pour hérétiques, tout ce qui se heurte aux interdits des presses bien-pensantes, peuvent se faire entendre. De l’air frais sur la « Panurgie ». C’est ainsi que mes Lettres d’information ont connu une diffusion inespérée. L’1Dex offre aussi à ses lecteurs la possibilité de réagir avec des commentaires, qui sont le plus souvent anonymes. L’ignorance générale où l’on est des questions relatives au climat, ajoutée à l’illusion qu’un consensus se serait établi parmi les scientifiques, comme on le laisse entendre dans les milieux de la climatologie officielle, expliquent la cacophonie et la variété ébouriffante de certains de ces commentaires. Pour des raisons que j’expose plus loin, je ne m’y suis guère arrêté jusqu’ici. De par le contexte même, le contenu de la présente Lettre est plus local. Néanmoins, on passe à la généralité par des extrapolations simples.
A remarkable essay by esteemed oceanographer Carl Wunsch.
While doing a literature survey for my paper on Climate Uncertainty and Risk, I came across a remarkable paper published in 2010 by MIT oceanographer Carl Wunsch, entitled Towards Understanding the Paleocean.
The paper is remarkable for several reasons — not only that it was published but that the paper was apparently invited by journal editor.
The paper is well worth reading in its entirety, for a fascinating perspective on paleo-oceanography and paleoclimatology. Here I provide excerpts of relevance to the sociology of climate science:
by F. Sotiropoulos, September 2018, in Stony Brook University/ published in Nature
The use of in-stream flow (or hydrokinetic) energy converters in rivers appears to offer another workable and effective option to expand renewable energy and limit carbon emissions in the United States. While the potential for in-stream flow energy harvesting systems has already been demonstrated for rivers with fixed beds, researchers now developed a scaled demonstration of hydrokinetic energy generated from a river channel with a sandy bed. Their findings, detailed in a new paper published in Nature Energy, showed that the model hydrokinetic power plant can generate energy effectively and safely without undermining the stability of the river geomorphic environment.
Opinion: New facts have emerged from the filmmaker behind the cruel and deliberate exploitation of a dying bear in quest to advance climate change agenda.
It was tragedy porn meant to provoke a visceral response — the gut-wrenching video of an emaciated polar bear struggling to drag himself across a snowless Canadian landscape made billions of people groan in anguish. Taken in August 2017 by biologist Paul Nicklen, a co-founder of the Canadian non-profit SeaLegacy, the video was posted on Instagram in December 2017, stating “This is what starvation looks like” as part of a discussion about climate change.
Remember this? The ill-fated “Spirit of Mawson” expedition to Antarctica (in the Akademik Shokalskiy) that set out to bring attention to “global warming” only to be trapped in ice?
It’s deja vu all over again. (with h/t to Yogi Berra)
Les nouvelles politiques énergétiques et le choix des énergies renouvelables sont-ils en train de nous mener droit dans le mur ?
Hervé Machenaud a mené toute sa carrière professionnelle dans le secteur de l’énergie, où il a notamment contribué à la création de centrales nucléaires en France et à l’étranger et à la conception de l’EPR, le réacteur franco-allemand.
C’est en spécialiste des questions industrielles liées à l’énergie qu’il tire la sonnette d’alarme, mettant en cause des orientations politiques périlleuses, susceptibles selon lui de causer des dommages colossaux à nos sociétés dans leur ensemble.
UN CONSTAT IMPLACABLE
Au cours de la dernière décennie, ce sont des montants gigantesques de dépréciations qui ont été essuyés par les grands électriciens européens. Plus de 100 milliards d’euros rien qu’en quatre ans depuis 2014. Constat qui se paye par un désengagement préoccupant des grandes compagnies dans la production d’électricité. Au total, ce sont en effet 60 GW de moyens conventionnels d’électricité qui auront été arrêtés en Europe à la fin de la décennie, précise-t-il, soit l’équivalent du parc nucléaire français.
Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo caused in part by Indonesian volcanic eruption
Electrically charged volcanic ash short-circuited Earth’s atmosphere in 1815, causing global poor weather and Napoleon’s defeat, says new research.
Historians know that rainy and muddy conditions helped the Allied army defeat the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo. The June 1815 event changed the course of European history.
Two months prior, a volcano named Mount Tambora erupted on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, killing 100,000 people and plunging the Earth into a ‘year without a summer’ in 1816.
Now, Dr Matthew Genge from Imperial College London has discovered that electrified volcanic ash from eruptions can ‘short-circuit’ the electrical current of the ionosphere – the upper level of the atmosphere that is responsible for cloud formation.
The findings, published today in Geology, could confirm the suggested link between the eruption and Napoleon’s defeat.
by Chris Money, September 2, 2015 in TheWashingtonPost
In a blockbuster study released Wednesday in Nature, a team of 38 scientists finds that the planet is home to 3.04 trillion trees, blowing away the previously estimate of 400 billion. That means, the researchers say, that there are 422 trees for every person on Earth.
However, in no way do the researchers consider this good news. The study also finds that there are 46 percent fewer trees on Earth than there were before humans started the lengthy, but recently accelerating, process of deforestation.
“We can now say that there’s less trees than at any point in human civilization,” says Thomas Crowther, a postdoctoral researcher at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies who is the lead author on the research. “Since the spread of human influence, we’ve reduced the number almost by half, which is an astronomical thing.”
Over the years there has been a sustained effort to portray human exposure to very high levels of CO2 as toxic. A new study undercuts these claims, as the decision-making performances of controlled-experiment participants were not impaired when exposed to CO2 concentrations as high as 15,000 ppm.
From the “science eventually self-corrects” department, new science showing coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef is a centuries-old problem, well before “climate change” became a buzzword and rising CO2 levels were blamed.
Marc Hendrickx writes:
New paper shows coral bleaching in GBR extending back 400+ years.
Aerial photos show that the 15 temperature observation stations the JMA is using to determine mean temperature anomalies are likely impacted far more by urbanization than the agency claims.
…
…
Abashiri is in the middle of buildings and streets.
This study reveals that animal fats preserved in pottery vessels from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site of Çatalhöyük recorded the abrupt 8.2-thousand years B.P. climatic event in their hydrogen isotopic compositions. In addition, significant changes are observed in the archaeology and faunal assemblage of the site, showing how the early farming community at Çatalhöyük had to adapt to climate change. Significantly, this contribution shows that individual biomolecules preserved in ancient animal fats can be used to reconstruct paleoclimate records and thus, provides a powerful tool for the detection of climatic events at well-dated onsite terrestrial locations (i.e., at the very settlements where human populations lived).
by Ernest Mund, 13 aoüt 2018, in ScienceClimatEnergie
La fourniture d’électricité est essentielle au développement économique d’une nation et à son harmonie politique et sociale. Les profondes mutations subies actuellement par le système électrique dans lequel la part des énergies renouvelables intermittentes ne cesse d’augmenter, présentent des risques pour cette fourniture. Il importe d’en assurer la sécurité. Evaluer le coût d’un blackout est donc un élément d’information essentiel, qui devrait être pris en compte dans toute décision future d’investissement en matière de génération de puissance.
Quelle aubaine pour les doctrinaires du développement durable ! Au moment de leur jour du dépassement il fait chaud, très chaud. Évidement ni l’écologisteHulot, ni France 2, ni France 24, ni la RTBF ni la ribambelle de médias impréparés ne pouvaient rater pareille occasion pour lier les deux évènements et nous culpabiliser pour introduire le contrôle de tous les détails de nos vies.
Ce premier août était donc le jour où, d’après Global Footprint Network (GFN), qui possède l’argent pour employer des dizaines de chercheurs souvent financés par les deniers publics, nous vivons désormais à crédit. À sa suite, toutes les ONG environnementales (ONGE) et nombre de politiciens se font les mégaphones de cette supercherie qui ne repose sur aucune base scientifique. Le jour du dépassement global (earth overshooting day) prétend être un indicateur dont l’objectif est de conscientiser et responsabiliser les pays développés à la notion d’empreinte écologique. Bien entendu, à part les Européens endoctrinés par les ONGE, cette théorie n’a guère d’écho dans le reste du monde.
Also FoxNews: Photographer behind viral image of starving polar bear raises questions about climate change narrative
Il y a juste un an, l’image d’un ours décharné et titubant avait fait le tour du monde. Elle était supposée représenter la réalité du réchauffement de l’atmosphère. Pourtant cette hypothèse n’était pas plus probable qu’une autre, par exemple: ours vieux, malade, mourant de mort naturelle.
…
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
