From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Defeat For Green Lobby As EU Panel Rejects Cap-And-Trade Reforms

Richard Lindzen: Climate Alarmism Is a Doomsday Cult

The European Parliament’s industry committee failed to agree on a recommendation for a draft measure to curb a glut of carbon permits. The panel, which has an advisory role in the legislative process, rejected a report on a mechanism to withhold surplus allowances. In today’s final ballot, the industry committee voted 31 to 28, with seven abstentions, against an entire report even after approving individual amendments. --Ewa Krukowska and Ian Wishart, Bloomberg, 22 January 2015

European Union carbon allowances posted their biggest drop since April after a panel in the bloc’s parliament failed to agree on how to modify a measure curbing a glut of carbon permits. Permits fell as much as 8.1% after the European Parliament’s industry committee, which has an advisory role in the legislative process, rejected a recommendation on a mechanism to withhold surplus allowances. --Ewa Krukowska and Ian Wishart, Bloomberg, 22 January 2015

The Nasa climate scientists who claimed 2014 set a new record for global warmth last night admitted they were only 38 per cent sure this was true. Yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all. --David Rose, Mail on Sunday, 18 January 2015

Last week, according to our crackerjack mainstream media, NASA announced that 2014 was the hottest year, like, ever. No, really. The New York Times began its report with: “Last year was the hottest in earth’s recorded history.” Well, not really. As we’re about to see, this is a claim that dissolves on contact with actual science. But that didn’t stop the press from running with it. --Robert Tracinsk, The Federalist, 19 January 2015 

It is perhaps the world’s most famous environmental parable. A settler on Easter Island stood beside the island’s last tree. He or she looked around the treeless horizon, every one of those trees removed by man, and chopped it down anyway. Afterwards, the island died — the nutrients washed away, the landscape stripped. The population collapsed into warfare and cannibalism. It is a compelling tale, but may be completely false, according to research published yesterday. The Easter Island population did collapse, not due to this “ecocide”, but instead something less remarkable: the arrival of Europeans, bringing syphilis, smallpox and slavery. --Tom Whipple, The Times, 7 January 2014

The paper by Benny Peiser tackles head on the evidence Jared Diamond uses to assert that the residents of Easter Island (aka Rapa Nui) committed ecological suicide, or ecocide. According to Peiser, the primary evidence Diamond relies upon are oral traditions from the residents of Rapa Nui and from historical sources, not from the archaeological record. But what is most disturbing is the extent to which Diamond seems determined to avoid looking at the actual genocidal violence of the colonial encounter. --Kerim Friedman, Savage Minds, 11 September 2005

It might well have been environmental folly to remove the trees, but, the scientists write in the paper, “the concept of ‘collapse’ is misleading”. “Starvation is not an automatic result of tree removal, and neither is warfare,” said Professor Hamilton. Past research found what appeared to be layers of obsidian spearheads — implying brutal conflict, but further analysis showed they had been used for peeling vegetables. Similarly, while islanders might have lost the ability to go out on the sea to fish, there is evidence that they kept more chickens. It appears that civilisation survived long after the last tree — and collapsed only when the first ship appeared. “Their story is one of ingenuity, resilience, and resourcefulness,” said Professor Hamilton. -- Tom Whipple, The Times, 7 January 2014

The ‘decline and fall’ of Easter Island and its alleged self-destruction has become the poster child of a new environmentalist historiography, a school of thought that goes hand-in-hand with predictions of environmental disaster. Why did this exceptional civilisation crumble? What drove its population to extinction? These are some of the key questions Jared Diamond endeavours to answer in his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. According to Diamond, the people of Easter Island destroyed their forest, degraded the island’s topsoil, wiped out their plants and drove their animals to extinction. As a result of this self-inflicted environmental devastation, its complex society collapsed, descending into civil war, cannibalism and self-destruction. While his theory of ecocide has become almost paradigmatic in environmental circles, a dark and gory secret hangs over the premise of Easter Island’s self-destruction: an actual genocide terminated Rapa Nui’s indigenous populace and its culture. --Benny Peiser, Energy & Environment, September 2005

 

In a twist of irony, the very country green activists are trying to “save” from global warming has turned on them for allegedly comprising its economic security. The Indian government has cracked down of Greenpeace and other U.S. environmental groups for protesting its use of coal-fired electricity, India’s biggest source of energy. Last year, India’s Intelligence Bureau issued a report declaring Greenpeace “a potential threat to national economic security…growing exponentially in terms of reach, impact, volunteers and media influence.” The report added that Greenpeace was finding “ways to create obstacles in India’s energy plans” and to “pressure India to use only renewable energy.” --Michael Bastsch, The Daily Caller, 15 January 2015

The drastic fall in global crude oil prices over the past six months could reduce the chance of a universal agreement on climate change policy this year, according to HSBC. Falling oil prices will challenge countries’ ability to implement climate policy, HSBC said in a recent report. --Nyshka Chandran, CNBC News, 12 January 2015