Climate Policy: Ideological Jabberwocky, Corruption and Bad Predictions

Benny Peisers Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports Obama Is Rebuffed As Superpowers Refuse To Sign Arctic Climate Agreement.  Is This The New Cold War And The Battle For Arctic Riches?

Obama Rebuffed As Superpowers Refuse To Sign Arctic Climate Agreement - On Sunday and Monday, foreign ministers and other international leaders met in Anchorage, Alaska to attend the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic. As a sign of the importance the United States placed on the Alaska forum, President Barack Obama attended. He used the conference as a platform for urging swifter action to combat climate change. After the conference, the representatives of the Arctic Council members signed a joint statement affirming “our commitment to take urgent action to slow the pace of warming in the Arctic.” China said that it needed more time to review the document before signing. But RT had a different take, saying that China and India “opted not to sign the document” because “reducing emissions entails huge expenditure and loss of economic effectiveness.” The failure to come to an agreement at the GLACIER conference sends a troubling signal for the Paris summit, and for U.S.-China cooperation in general. --Shannon Tiezzi, The Diplomat, 1 September 2015

My Take - This isn't troubling at all.  Everyone in the world knows there has been no warming for over 18 years.  Make no mistake about this - On January 21st, 2017 the stock market will shoot up, those trillions of dollars industry is setting on will start being put back into the maketplace and global warming will make its way to the ash heap of historical leftist failures, along with wind and solar energy and bio-fuels.  And when we stop putting food into our gas tanks we will see the price of beef drop like a stone.  WE need to get this.  There's a direct relationship between the price of corn and the price of beef.  Imagine that!

 

Russia Today: Kerry's Roadmap Not Melting Hearts In Russia, China and India – The US-led GLACIER environmental conference in Anchorage ended with a joint declaration calling for more international action to tackle climate change. But Russia (the world’s leading oil and gas producer), China (the world largest producer of goods), and India with its huge emerging economy opted not to sign the document, however nonbinding it might appear. For China and India reducing emissions entails huge expenditure and loss of economic effectiveness, and for Russia the upcoming environmental deal brings additional costs to the oil and gas extraction industries. Moscow is boosting Russia’s presence in the Arctic, including militarily, for at least two reasons: future hydrocarbons extraction and the Northern Sea Route, a much shorter way from Asia to Europe, which could soon be operable year-around because of less ice in the Arctic Ocean. --Russia Today, 1 September 2015

The Ice War Cometh? - While visiting Alaska and becoming the first American president to enter the Arctic Circle, President Obama announced Tuesday he would speed up the acquisition of icebreakers to help the U.S. Coast Guard navigate an area that Russia and China increasingly see as a new frontier. The announcement is the latest power play in the Arctic north, where melting ice has led to a race for resources and access. Forty percent of the world's oil and natural gas reserves lie under the Arctic. Melting ice also would lead to new shipping routes, and Russia wants to establish a kind of Suez Canal which it controls. More than a Cold War, Russia may be preparing for an Ice War, and the Pentagon is taking note. --Jennifer Griffin, Fox News, 2 September 2015

China And India Go Arctic - In February this year, the foreign ministers of India, China and Russia met in Beijing. The three ministers, Sushma Swaraj of India, Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Wang Yi of China, highlighted the potential for cooperation in oil and natural gas production, which raises the question of whether India and China could partner with Russia in exploring the mineral wealth of a fast thawing and navigable Arctic. Both India and China are now observing members of the Arctic Council. While mostly ceremonial, this illustrates how the two Asian economies are spreading their wings in unlikely places. While India still maintains that its interests in the Arctic are largely scientific, China has taken a more assertive stance, referring to itself as a “near Arctic state.” It is reportedly building up to 12 new specialized ice-breaker ships for use in both the Arctic and Antarctic. --Kabir Taneja, Politico, 14 August 2015

My Take - Pay attention to this for future events. 

UN Delegates Scramble To Pare Down “Bewildering” Climate Text - Negotiators have again descended on Bonn, Germany to kick off what looks to be an increasingly desperate scramble to pare down the bloated draft text delegates will be using at December’s climate summit in Paris. Things got off to a rough start, though, with UN climate chief Christiana Figueres telling those assembled that a scheduled meeting next month and the final summit itself had both yet to be paid for. “We don’t have the funding for participation for the October session or the [Paris summit]”, she said. That’s hardly an encouraging opening announcement, considering that funding is one of the core stumbling blocks for the Global Climate Treaty. Failing also to secure full funding for talks that are now just weeks away is more than just a PR embarrassment for the UN—it’s a warning sign for the world’s already wary industrializing nations. --The American Interest, 1 September 2015

Eleventh Hour Panic: UN Summons Leaders To Closed-Door Climate Meeting - Frustrated by slow progress in global climate talks, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to invite around 40 world leaders including President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to a closed- door meeting next month. The meeting will take place in New York on September 27, a day ahead of the UN general assembly, said three people with knowledge of the matter. While Obama, Modi and other world leaders have declared support for the goal, negotiations are moving slowly and Ban has complained repeatedly about the slow pace of the talks. Deep divides remain about the legal structure of the agreement, how to provide financial help to poorer countries and other issues. --Ewa Krukowska and Alex Nussbaum, Bloomberg, 31 August 2015

My Take - Is there any doubt this whole global warming initiative is now become nothing more that a way to scam hundreds of billions - and eventually trillions - of dollars from the United States.  The only nation in the world with the natural ability to generate capital in massive quantities.  Money that will be squandered on third world nations run by tyrants and socialists.  Nations that deserve to be third world nations because they won't fix themselves.  And South Africa is a classic example of how socialists can turn a successful economic system into a violent third world mess.   

Obama’s Arctic Climate Hype Highlights Absence Of Climate Issue In Canadian Elections - An international summit on Arctic issues that seems designed to burnish the green legacy of U.S. President Barack Obama is highlighting the absence of climate debate so far in Canada’s federal election. Opposition parties have been railing against the environmental policy record of Stephen Harper’s governing Conservatives for almost a decade but the Alaska summit in Canada’s northern backyard raised nary a peep from the various campaigns. In fact, a month into the official election race and with seven weeks remaining before Canadians go to the polls Oct. 19, climate change as been largely absent from the election dialogue to date. --Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press, 1 September 2015

Another BBQ Summer Fiasco: Met Office Gets It Wrong (Again)

Warm Bias: The Met Office's Disastrous Track Record

My Take - And everyone's surprised?  What else can be expected when you start out with a conclusion and dismiss anything that disagrees with that conclusion.  Since they never look at - or see - anything that contradicts their conclusion they conclude they must be right.  But time is only on the side of truth.  And truth is the sublime convergence of history and reality. 

 

Another BBQ Summer Fiasco: Met Office Gets It Wrong (Again) - The Met Office has defended its forecast for a hot, dry summer despite some areas looking set to have the most rain since records began. As summer officially came to a close amid extreme downpours on Monday, the forecaster was left facing questions about why it predicted a ‘drier-than-average’ season even though a strong El Nino climate event was expected. In May the Met Office said that it ‘wouldn’t expect (El Nino) to be the dominant driver of our weather’ in the summer months. Yet this weekend Met Office chief scientist Professor Dame Julia Slingo said that the El Nino phenomenon had disturbed weather patterns, which might have been predicted. “We all know that forecasting months and seasons ahead is still in its infancy and much more research needs to be done.”--Sarah Knapton, The Daily Telegraph, 31 August 2015

Reminder: Warm Bias - The Met Office’s Disastrous Track Record - The Met Office’s prediction for the summer issued at the start of June led us all to believe it would be hot and dry. Instead, it has been one of the coldest and soggiest holiday seasons for nearly 30 years. The level of rainfall was already up 13% on average across Britain by last Wednesday, at 11in. It means it has been wetter than all but five summers since 1988 and the wettest since 2012 – which was the soggiest for 100 years. At the same time, temperatures have fallen to an average of 14C, which is 0.4C down on normal. It means it has been colder than all but four summers since 1988 and the coldest since 2012’s average of 13.9C. --Alistair Grant, Daily Star, 30 August 2015

Christopher Booker: Met Office Sacked By The BBC – But The Truth Is Even Odder - The chief reason why the Met Office has been getting so many forecasts spectacularly wrong, as reported here ad nauseam, is that all its short, medium and long-term forecasts ultimately derive from the same huge computer model, which is programmed to believe in manmade global warming. Hence the fun we’ve all had with those “barbecue summers” when rain never stopped, and “warmer than average” winters, which promptly saw Britain freezing under piles of snow. --Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 30 August 2015

Forecast failure: how the Met Office lost touch with reality, Ideology has corrupted a valuable British institution - In September 2008, the Met Office forecast a trend of mild winters: the following winter turned out to be the coldest for a decade. Then its notorious promise of a ‘barbecue summer’ was followed by unrelenting rain. Last year, it forecast a ‘drier than average’ spring — before another historic deluge that was accompanied by the coldest temperatures for 50 years. Never has the Met Office had more scientists and computing power at its disposal — yet never has it seemed so baffled by the British weather. But there is no paradox. It is precisely the power of this technology in harnessing climate scientists’ assumptions about global warming that has scuppered the Met Office’s predictions — and made it a propagandist for global warming alarmism. It has become an accomplice to a climate change agenda that now affects where and how we travel, the way houses are built, the lights we read by. And its errors are no laughing matter to tourism industry chiefs in Cornwall and the north-west, who say the Met Office’s false warnings of dire summers cost hundreds of millions of pounds in cancelled bookings. –Rupert Darwall, The Spectator, 13 July 2013

I Wonder Where David Viner Is Holidaying This Summer? – Another Bank Holiday, another washout! It was not meant to be like this! Back in 2006, climate genius David Viner told us: Climate change could "dramatically" change the face of British tourism in the next 20 years, with European tourists flocking to the UK to escape unbearably hot continental summers, experts say. Research shows that European tourists may choose to holiday in Britain as resorts nearer to home become too hot.Weather changes may provide revival opportunities for northern seaside towns such as Blackpool and put new strains on roads and development in southern coastal resorts, a study in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism said. Academic David Viner, a researcher at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Norwich, produced the report after analysing the work of experts around the globe. "The likelihood [is] that Mediterranean summers may be too hot for tourists after 2020, as a result of too much heat and water shortages," the study said. Apparently nobody thought to tell the tourists! --Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 31 August 2015

Ten Years After Katrina, Insurers Could Use More Calamity – A decade ago, Hurricane Katrina slammed Florida and then the Gulf Coast, creating a humanitarian catastrophe in New Orleans. While memories of that devastation remain vivid, there would be 16 more named storms before that year was out, more than in an entire typical Atlantic hurricane season. The record level of activity in 2005 exhausted the traditional alphabetic list of names, ushering in Alpha through Zeta. It might seem disasters on the ground would become financial ones for companies that shoulder those risks. But, if anything, the opposite is true. --Spencer Jakab, The Wall Street Journal, 31 August 2015

Surprise: EU Funds TV Climate Propaganda - European Union bureaucrats sank more than £10 million into subsiding television shows last year, it was revealed yesterday. The money went to make programmes promoting the merits of the EU and warning of the dangers of climate change as well as to support popular series that are already highly successful. A number of the subsidised programmes have been seen on British television – and one, The Great European Disaster Movie, was broadcast by the BBC to widespread derision from critics. Other shows backed by Brussels included one in which a climate change activist searches the world for ways to save the planet. --Steve Doughty, Daily Mail, 1 September 2015