Mistake or mistakes? - by Richard... Friday, March 19, 2010

Mistake or mistakes? - by Richard... Friday, March 19, 2010

Little Rajendra can't even make up his mind whether the IPCC has made "mistakes" (plural) or a "mistake" (singular). And this is the man whom the BBC and others cast as the world's leading "climate scientist".

Hillariously, Sharon Begley of Newsweek then offers us a piece headed, "Their Own Worst Enemies", with the strap: "Why scientists are losing the PR wars."

I say "hillariously" because la Begley goes on to cite, with evident agreement, a certain Randy Olson, who tells us: "Scientists think of themselves as guardians of truth ... Once they have spewed it out, they feel the burden is on the audience to understand it" and agree.

Clearly, that is the driving assumption behind erstwhile railway engineers and self-proclaimed "climate scientist" Rajendra Pachauri. La Begley might care to reconsider her thesis that climate scientists have problems because they are poor communicators and because have failed to master "truthiness".

Another, possibly more plausible explanation is that many of the lead figures – like Pachauri – are pathological liars and they have been caught out.

But what is also a massive turn-off is the airy arrogance of so many of the warmists, such as Chris Smith, chairman of the UK's Environment Agency. He tells us, in what is obviously an agreed line, often repeated, that "we cannot allow a few errors to undermine the overwhelming strength of evidence that has been painstakingly accumulated, peer-reviewed, tested and tested again."

Yet, almost in the same breath he tells us, "We need to take the argument back to the sceptics, and make the powerful, convincing and necessary case about climate change much clearer to everyone." Compare the two statements and what is on offer is neither powerful nor convincing.

And that is their problem ... and they don't have the first idea of how to fix it. 

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME

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What energy crisis? - by Richard... Thursday, March 18, 2010

You can tell that civilisation as we know it is coming to an end when they call a car "The Leaf", the new Nissan electric fantasy which is going to cost the British taxpayer £20.7 million in grants, topped up with a soft loan from the European Investment Bank of £197.3 million.

We are told that this thing will have an average range of 100 miles and a top speed of 90mph, although the egregious hacks writing this stuff forget to tell us that it is one or the other – not both. They don't tell either that you need a calendar rather than a speedometer to gauge the acceleration.

Nor, of course, do they tell you that, in terms of net efficiency, the electric car performs far less well than a petrol-driven motor, by the time you have taken into account the power station and transmission losses, to say nothing of the conversion losses in charging the batteries.

And then, since about 40 percent of our electricity comes from coal, and will do so until it is replaced by gas generation, the odds are that this wonderful "green" car will be driven by fossil fuels, only very inefficiently at one stage removed.

None of this, of course, will impinge in the slightest on the greenie brain – or that of Mr Brown who is so proud of this exercise in applied fatuity. But, not only – as we saw yesterday – do green issues bring out the meanness, they make you stupid as well.

A far better option – in terms of energy efficiency, thus reducing your "carbon footprint", if that's what turns you on – is to use gas power directly. Or, rather than use coal to produce electricity, use it to produce petrol and drive a sensible car.

That is certainly an option the being looked at. According to the Globe and Mail, researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have developed an economic and clean way to turn lignite, the cheapest kind of coal, into synthetic crude which can then be refined into petrol.

This is the answer to a gas-guzzler's prayer. Canada, for instance, has more energy in its "proven, recoverable" reserves of coal than it has in all of its oil, natural gas and oil sands combined: 10 billion tons. The world has 100 times more: one trillion tons. These reserves hold the energy equivalent of more than four trillion barrels of oil. They are scattered in 70 countries, mostly in relatively easy-to-mine locations and mostly in democratic countries.

The United States alone has 30 percent of the world's reserves, and if the technology can be scaled up successfully, this could represent a historic moment in energy production – a secure supply of petroleum and liberation from the tyranny of the Middle East and other unstable regions.

What with the promise of shale gas and the potential for thorium-powered nuclear reactors – and access to a plentiful supply of fuel – there is no prospect of an energy shortage some time soon, not for a hundred years or more. And by that time, we will doubtless have other technological solutions, not that any of us will be around to care.

But, of course, that does not account for today's greenies, who are intent on driving us back into the economic dark ages, saddling us with dead-end technology, all in pursuit of their mad obsession over global warming. Thus, do we see public money frittered away on "The Leaf". I cannot wait for autumn.

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Increasingly out of touch - by Richard...

Warned by the invaluable Climate Depot, we learn of a Gallup Poll that tells us Americans are less worried about each of eight specific environmental problems than they were a year ago.

Furthermore, on all but global warming and maintenance of the nation's fresh water supply, concern is the lowest Gallup has ever measured. Americans worry most about drinking-water pollution and least about global warming.

Making for a fascinating snapshot, we see that, over time, Americans' concerns about environmental problems have generally declined. After this year's drop, for six of the eight items, the percentage who worry "a great deal" is at the lowest point Gallup has measured, which in some cases dates to 1989. 

The two exceptions are global warming (low point was 24% in 1997) and maintenance of the nation's fresh water supply for household needs (35% in 2001).


Gallup hazards that one major reason why Americans may be less worried about environmental problems is that they perceive environmental conditions in the United States to be improving. And if that is the case, it seems they are prepared to believe their own eyes, rather than listen to the hype.

It would be fascinating to learn whether the UK parallels this trend. Most likely it does – but even the US experience suggests that the green movement has failed to sustain its Armageddon agenda.

Another issue though, of special importance, is the degree of concern about tropical rain forests. Despite being a poster child of the warmists, the level here is at an absolute all-time low, down to 33 percent from 42 percent in 1989.

What makes this special, amongst other things, is that as public subscriptions to environmental groups such as WWF is actually going down, the proportion of their income from trusts and foundations, governments and corporate is actually going up, with a huge increase in spending on Amazon projects.

Thus, these figures – to a certain extent – measure not only public sentiment but the growing divide between us and our rulers and the corporate world. Never in the field of human history, perhaps, have so few been so out of touch with so many.

CLIMATE CHANGE – END GAME