BBC and Attenborough Accused of Fake News Misinformation on "Change: The Facts"

James Delingpole 27 Apr 2019

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has made a formal complaint to the BBC about the series of gross inaccuracies in its recent documentary "Climate Change: The Facts." Now the GWPF has written to the BBC Complaints department listing just a few of them. The letter can be read here.

According to the GPWF, the programme “went far beyond its remit to present the facts about climate change, instead broadcasting a highly politicised manifesto in favour of renewable energy and unjustified alarm.”  The GWPF says:..........To Read More.......

My Take - This is long overdue.  It's time the put a spotlight on these junk scientists and scare mongers.  Hopefull this will end up in court.  I'm inclined to think the Mann lawsuits may have been inspirational for those who believe all this was nothing more than green fraud by corrupt activists, politicians and scientists. 

When Michael Mann of the Hockey Stick fame sued both Dr. Tim Ball in Canada and Mark Steyn in America with what's called a SLAPP suit.  SLAPP stands for Strategic lawsuit against public participation, which forces someone to back away from things they believe because of the cost of defending themselves in court.  In Canada Tim Ball didn't defend himself based on the idea this was a public domain issue, he defended himself under what Canada calls the Truth Defence, aka, the Scorched Earth Defense.   Mann lost!  And he lost because he refused to turn over the data that would support his views, which were challenged by Ball.  In Canada that's considered an admission of guilt. 

In America the SLAPP suit has been going on for over four years.  This has backfired on Mann and at some point it will go to trial and he will lose.  I'm still not sure why Ball hasn't counter sued Mann and David Suzuki, who was behind Mann on this, but Steyn is definitely counter suing Mann for - if I remember this correctly - 30 million dollars.  Mann is now doing everything in his power to prevent this from going to court, even claiming Steyn's counter suit is a SLAPP suit and should be dismissed.

It appears Mann and Suzuki know as little about law as they do about climate.  Apparently they didn't grasp that once you sue someone it's like riding a tiger.  You can't just get off and say your sorry without getting eaten alive.

Global Warming Policy Foudation Press Release 04/05/18

New Report: Green Policies

Threaten Poor Nations

Efforts to decarbonise will kill millions in poor countries

London 4 May 2018. A new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation finds that climate and green energy policies promoted by development organisations will cause millions of preventable deaths in the developing world.

The report, by eminent epidemiologist Mikko Paunio, says that international bodies and NGOs are trying to prevent poor countries from expanding their use of conventional fuels and have abandoned the so-called “energy ladder” — the gradual shift to cleaner types of fuel that underpinned the clean up of air quality in industrialised nations.

As Dr Paunio explains, this will have devastating consequences:

“Indoor air pollution from domestic fires kills millions every year. But instead of helping poor people to climb the energy ladder and clean the air in their communities, the poorest people are being given gimmicks like cookstoves, which make little difference to air quality, and solar panels, which are little more than a joke.”

What is worse, the greens inside and outside the development community are blaming air pollution on power stations, industry and cars, as a way to prevent any shift to industrial power production. As Dr Paunio makes clear, most air pollution in poor countries is in fact caused by burning low-quality biofuels and coal in domestic stoves:

“Trying to blame power stations for indoor air pollution might make greens feel they are saving the planet, but the reality is that they are allowing millions of deaths from air pollution to continue. The body count is going to rival that of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century.”

200 Million At Risk

Domestic combustion of solid (bio)fuels is by far the number one global pollution problem. 4.3 million deaths annually are directly attributable to indoor air pollution (IAP) according to the World Health Organization.

Domestic combustion of solid biofuels kills almost six million people per year when its effects on ambient air quality are also taken into consideration.

The so called ‘energy ladder’ was introduced as a way of understanding how deaths from IAP might be prevented. The energy ladder seeks to reproduce the experience of rich countries, where households moved away from biofuels and were increasingly connected to electric grids or district heating systems, solving the IAP problem for good.

However, ever-growing resistance from the environmental movement has removed this beneficial approach from the development agenda. Environmentalists fear that by taking steps upwards on the energy ladder, from dirty solid fuels such as cow dung or crop residues, and towards use of electricity, poor countries would become wealthier and so increase their energy use and their carbon intensity. They have managed to persuade all important multilateral development bodies and the WHO to drop the energy ladder entirely. Instead, they are now coercing the poorest countries to adopt utopian energy policies based on renewables. The result is that combatting IAP in, say, sub-Saharan Africa, is becoming impossible.

Aggressive decarbonization is now high on the political agenda. Contrary to the widely disseminated claims of important global actors, this will not solve the problem of IAP. Moreover, it will hamper the expansion of electric grids, which is a critical prerequisite for delivering adequate water supplies, without which it will be impossible to reproduce the public health miracle experienced in the rich countries.

These ‘ambitious’ global climate mitigation policies leave environmental health problems amongst the poor unaddressed and will result in the loss of over 200 million lives by 2050. They are also unlikely – even in theory – to prevent the 250,000 annual deaths that the WHO speculates will be attributable to climate change between 2030 and 2050: high-quality IPCC-linked research has recently shown that solid biomass combustion actually increases CO2 emissions, at least over the next 100 years, compared to fossil fuels.

Full paper (pdf): Kicking Away The Energy Ladder: How environmentalism destroys hope for the poorest

Contact:

Professor Mikko Paunio
 email: mikko.paunio@outlook.
com tel: +358 505771968

Global Warming Policy Foundation Press Release 4/16/18

New Study: Battery Storage "Not An Economic Prospect"

Consumers warned to avoid battery storage for rooftop solar systems

London 16 April 2018. Rechargeable batteries are said to be a way to extend the appeal of rooftop solar installations, storing the energy generated during the day for use at night. Home energy storage looks set to become big business: Tesla has already entered the marketplace, looking to apply its expertise in batteries to generate a new source of income. Other big-name motor manufacturers are expected to follow.

However, a new paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) reveals that consumers are in danger of being fleeced. The paper's author, power engineer Dr Capell Aris, has examined the economics of battery stores and finds that in the UK their high cost means that they will never pay for themselves. As he explains:

"The price of batteries is relatively high, but the possible savings from adding them to a rooftop solar installation are quite limited, particularly as a fraction of the typical electricity bill. When you add up the costs and benefits, it is quite clear that they are a waste of money."

That could change if the price of batteries were to fall dramatically, but the gap between costs and benefits is currently so wide that this is unlikely in the near term. As Aris explains:

"There is no doubt that battery prices are falling, but even if we make some fairly optimistic assumptions about performance, prices would have to fall by another 50% just to break even. They would need to come down even further than that to give a financial return. It's hard to see this happening any time soon. Battery storage for rooftop solar is simply not an economic prospect, and will likely remain that way."

Full Paper:

Battery Wastage: Why battery storage for rooftop solar doesn’t pay (PDF)

Contact

Dr Capell Aris
e: capell@aris.org.uk
m: +44 1407840556

Press Release 05/03/18: "Climate-Industrial Complex" Wasting £100 Billion And Shutting Down Debate - Warns Lilley

Britain's former Trade and Industry Minister, Peter Lilley warns that vested interests in the renewables industry, politicians of all parties, the bureaucracy and academia have together largely suppressed debate about their reckless waste of public money exposed by the government’s own Review of the Cost of Energy by Dieter Helm.

In a paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Peter Lilley highlights Professor Dieter Helm’s devastating critique, outlined in the Cost of Energy Review which was commissioned by the government.

“Helm shows that the Climate Change Act objective of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide could have been met for a fraction of the £100 billion so far committed, which has already raised the cost of energy by 20%.”

Lilley argues that, even more significant than the reckless waste of public money exposed by Professor Helm is the success of the vested interests – industrial, political, bureaucratic and academic – in dampening any debate about it. “Normally waste on this scale would cause an outcry in Parliament and elsewhere. But the vested interests simply damned Helm’s review with faint praise and consigned it to oblivion.”

It is evidence, Lilley claims, that President Eisenhower’s famous warning against the power of not just the ‘military-industrial complex’ but also similar combinations in areas of civil policy is coming true.

“As Eisenhower presciently warned: ‘...a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity...The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded’. We are seeing the emergence in the UK of a powerful ‘climate-industrial complex’”.

“Moreover, if the climate-industrial complex can show such reckless disregard for basic economic truths, there is a danger that they may be equally careless in exaggerating the risks arising from global warming science (the basic truth of which, as a scientist, I entirely accept). Most scientists remain scrupulously objective in their own work. But they know it is more than their career is worth to question exaggerated claims others may make of the scale, speed or impact of global warming. So, alarmist claims go unchallenged while evidence that we could adapt to global warming rather than try to prevent it is played down.”

The Helm Review and the Climate-Industrial Complex (pdf)

Contact:
Peter Lilley
m: 07720297956

 

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum Press Release

Ocean Cycles, Not Humans, May Be Behind

Most Observed Climate Change

An eminent atmospheric scientist says that natural cycles may be largely responsible for climate changes seen in recent decades.

In a new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Anastasios Tsonis, emeritus distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, describes new and cutting-edge research into natural climatic cycles, including the well known El Nino cycle and the less familiar North Atlantic Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

He shows how interactions between these ocean cycles have been shown to drive changes in the global climate on timescales of several decades.

Professor Tsonis says:

"We can show that at the start of the 20th century, the North Atlantic Oscillation pushed the global climate into a warming phase, and in 1940 it pushed it back into cooling mode. The famous "pause" in global warming at the start of the 21st century seems to have been instigated by the North Atlantic Oscillation too."

In fact, most of the changes in the global climate over the period of the instrumental record seem to have their origins in the North Atlantic.

Tsonis' insights have profound implications for the way we view calls for climate alarm.

It may be that another shift in the North Atlantic could bring about another phase shift in the global climate, leading to renewed cooling or warming for several decades to come.

These climatic cycles are entirely natural, and can tell us nothing about the effect of carbon dioxide emissions. But they should inspire caution over the slowing trajectory of global warming we have seen in recent decades.

As Tsonis puts it:

“While humans may play a role in climate change, other natural forces may play important roles too.”

Full paper: The Little Boy: El Niño and natural climate change (pdf)

 

Contact:

Prof Anastasios Tsonis
e: aatsonis@uwm.edu
t: 001-414-491-0091

 

Press Release August 1, 2017: Global Warming Policy Foundation

Clive James:
'Climate Alarmists Were Bound To Run Out Of Credibility'

London, 1 August -- The legendary author, poet, journalist and humorist, Clive James has recently been casting a weary eye over the state of the climate debate and has concluded that climate alarmists are on the ropes:

"The proponents of man-made climate catastrophe asked us for so many leaps of faith that they were bound to run out of credibility in the end."

Nevertheless, he warns that everyone else should be on their guard: scaremongering is such an addictive power that the unscrupulous will soon launch some other scare:

"For as long as the climate change fad lasted, it always depended on poppycock; and it would surely be unwise to believe that mankind’s capacity to believe in fashionable nonsense can be cured by the disproportionately high cost of a temporary embarrassment. I’m almost sorry that I won’t be here for the ceremonial unveiling of the next threat."

Clive James' survey of the state of the climate debate was published in the new book Climate Change: The Facts 2017, a review of the science and policy of climate change recently released by Australia's Institute of Public Affairs. It has been republished as a standalone essay by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Copies of the essay are available online (here) and in hard copy from info@thegwpf.org

To order a copy of Climate Change: The Facts 2017, click here.

Contact

Global Warming Policy Foundation
55 Tufton Street, London SW1P 3QL, United Kingdom
e: info@thegwpf.org
t: (44) 2073406038
https://www.thegwpf.org/
 

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum: Press Release, 28 June 2017

New Report: CCS would make renewables and nuclear energy look cheap Eminent energy economist warns that carbon capture and storage will never be viable

CCS would make renewables and nuclear energy look cheap Eminent energy economist warns that carbon capture and storage will never be viable That is the stark message of Professor Gordon Hughes, Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh and a former adviser to the World Bank. In a new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Professor Hughes says that claims that costs will fall quickly are unlikely to be borne out in practice and even if they are, the total investment required makes CCS little more than a utopian dream. And as Professor Hughes explains: "We have spent countless millions trying to get carbon capture to work for coal-fired power stations. But in the future coal will mostly be used in the developing world, where CCS is going to be too expensive. Everyone else is moving to gas, for which CSS isn't yet an option." And even if the technology can be made to work for gas, it would come at a price that "would make renewables and nuclear look cheap". This is in part because of a lack of joined up policy, as Professor Hughes explains: "Successive governments haven't thought their policies through. The focus on renewables is making CCS - already a marginal technology - even less viable. A coherent strategy could reduce carbon emissions at a fraction of the current cost by switching to gas with the option to install CCS if/when it makes economic sense."   Full paper (pdf) -- The Bottomless Pit: The Economics Of Carbon Capture and Storage   Contact Prof Gordon Hughes e: gordon.hughes@gmx.co.uk  t: 01721 760 258

World’s First Commercial Fusion Reactor Takes First Steps Towards Generating Energy

Switch flipped on UK’s newest

tokamak fusion reactor

 

Brought to you by Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum

 

 

Oxfordshire-based Tokamak Energy has fired up its latest fusion reactor for the first time and aims to reach temperatures of 100m degrees Celsius next year. Known as the ST40, the reactor represents the third of five stages in the company’s plan to deliver fusion energy to the grid by 2030. Controlled fusion requires temperatures in excess of 100m°C, but this has never been achieved by a privately funded company. To reach that goal, Tokamak Energy is focusing on compact, spherical tokamak reactors, as it believes they are quicker to develop and offer the quickest route to commercial fusion power. -- The Engineer, 28 April 2017

Britain’s newest fusion reactor has been fired up and taken the UK one step further towards generating electricity from the power of the stars. The heart of the Tokamak ST40 reactor – a super-hot cloud of electrically charged gas, or plasma – is expected to reach a temperature of 100 million centigrade in 2018. The new reactor was built at Milton Park, Oxfordshire, by Tokamak Energy, a private company pioneering fusion power in the UK. Speaking after the ST40 reactor was officially turned on and achieved “first plasma”, Tokamak Energy chief executive Dr David Kingham said: “Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world. We are unveiling the first world-class controlled fusion device to have been designed, built and operated by a private venture. The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures – 100 million degrees – are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors. This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades.” --Energy Voice, 28 April 2017

Our obsession with cutting carbon emissions has had terrible consequences. Our attempts to be altruistic have harmed rather than helped the most vulnerable. Almost as bad, those 11 million people who now own a diesel car are about to be penalised for following government advice a decade ago that the vehicles would help the country cut CO2 emissions. It is car manufacturers who are still making the most money out of this great green swindle — consumers certainly aren’t. Downing Street policy advisers hint that Theresa May is on the side of the consumer, and sceptical of the latest money-spinning environmental fad. Last year, the prime minister’s joint chief of staff Nick Timothy described the Climate Change Act, which has been at the root of many of these misguided policies, as “a monstrous act of national self-harm”. He was right. As soon as the election is over Britain needs a coordinated energy strategy and a new Clean Air Act, to protect the environment and restore faith in government policy. --Alice Thomson, The Times, 26 April 2017

Drought in the U.S. fell to a record low this week, with just 6.1% of the lower 48 states currently experiencing such dry conditions, federal officials announced Thursday. That’s the lowest percentage in the 17-year history of the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report. The previous record low occurred in July 2010, when 7.7% of the contiguous U.S. was in a drought. “Drought has certainly been disappearing at a rapid rate this spring,” said meteorologist Brad Rippey of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The five-year drought in California is practically over, with only about 8% of the state currently in drought. --Doyle Rice, USA Today, 27 April 2017

One of the many damaging effects of climate change put forward by scientists is that shrinking habitats are causing polar and grizzly bears to mate more. This hybridisation could dilute polar bears’ DNA which will further drive down the animals’ already dwindling numbers, experts suggest. But a new study reveals that this inter-breeding is natural and is in fact not a consequence of global warming. --Harry Pettit, Daily Mail, 20 April 2017

As President Trump’s top advisers prepare to hash out a final policy on the Paris climate agreement dumped onto their laps by President Obama, another option has hit the table: Declare the deal a treaty and send it to the Senate to be killed. The treaty option could emerge as the middle ground in the increasingly tense battle between “remainers” on the one hand, who say the president should abide by Mr. Obama’s global warming deal, and the Paris agreement’s detractors, who say Mr. Trump would be breaking a key campaign promise if he doesn’t withdraw from the pact. Mr. Trump could toss out Mr. Obama’s decision that the Paris accord was an executive agreement, declare it a treaty and send it to the Senate, where it would need a two-thirds vote for ratification. --Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, 27 April 2017

Fresh off the news this week that Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline secured 50 percent of its funding through loans from five European companies, the CEO of the Russian state-owned natural gas firm was positively glowing. “Today, in 2017, we are beating our 2016 record highs by around 10 percent. So we can expect new records this year and Gazprom’s European market share is poised to rise,” Alexei Miller said in an interview with Reuters. Miller has a point here. However much Europe has agitated for diversifying away from Russian natural gas supplies, the continent has in fact increased its reliance on Gazprom since the annexation of Crimea. Gazprom holds the trump card in this relationship, as it has shown both the capability and the willingness to shut off supplies mid-winter in order to express its displeasure with its customers. -- The American Interest, 27 April 2017

GWPF Launches Energy Manifesto

GWPF Manifesto Calls For Reforms That

Ensure Cheap And Reliable Energy Future 

‘The first priority of British energy policy should be to enable business and households alike to have access to cheap and reliable sources of energy.’  This is the key message of the Global Warming Policy Forum’s Energy Manifesto 2017 published today.
 

In the run-up to the general election on 8 June, the GWPF is calling on all parties to adopt policies that prevent further economic harm to the UK economy and halt the rising policy costs to energy bills for households.

The GWPF manifesto calls on the next government to undertake a comprehensive review of energy and climate policies to ensure that the UK can prosper as an independent trading nation after leaving the European Union.

The cost of Britain’s unilateral renewable energy policies is running out of control, the inevitable result of replacing cheap and reliable energy with expensive, intermittent sources.

In 2016, the combined costs of the Levy Control Framework (LCF) and carbon taxes reached over £9 billion.

According to official figures, the Climate Change Act will cost the UK economy over £300 billion by 2030, costing each household £875 per annum.

‘Only through radical reform of current policies can the UK hope to take full advantage of low-cost technologies, tackle the scourge of fuel poverty and improve the competitiveness of the UK economy,’ said Dr Benny Peiser, director for the GWPF.

 

The GWPF Energy Manifesto

The first priority of British energy policy should be to enable business and households alike to have access to cheap and reliable sources of energy.

The new government should take immediate steps to prevent further economic harm and rising policy costs while simultaneously undertaking a comprehensive review of energy and climate policies to ensure that the United Kingdom as a whole can prosper as an independent trading nation after leaving the European Union.

The new government should  

• Undertake a new and up-to-date review of the economics of climate change.
• Suspend commitment to the Carbon Budgets in line with the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee’s recommendation.
• Suspend the Carbon Price Floor, a unilateral carbon tax that puts an unequal and unfair burden on British industry.
• Suspend commitments post-2020 under the EU Renewables Directive which puts an unequal burden on the UK economy.
• Phase out subsidies for renewable energy generators of heat and electricity. The renewables industry repeatedly claims that they are now cheaper than conventional energy. Government should take them at their word and cut all support after 2020.
• Freeze commitments to ethanol and biodiesel under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, which is distorting international food and crop markets.
• Remove mistaken incentives for the use of diesel in passenger vehicles.
• Remove all fiscal obstacles to further realisation of the potential of the North Sea reserves of oil and natural gas.
• Promote hydraulic fracturing to exploit the full potential of the massive UK shale resources.
• Increase research budgets for nuclear fission and fusion, and also for electricity storage.
• Redirect the UK’s international climate diplomacy towards equitable, joint approaches instead of the self-harm of unilateral target and virtue signalling.

Contact

Dr Benny Peiser
Director, Global Warming Policy Forum
55 Tufton Street
London SW1P 3QL
e: peiser@thegwpf.com
tel: 0207 3406038
mob: 07553 361718  

Greens? Nein Danke

Germany’s Once Powerful Green Party Faces Existential Crisis

Brought to you by Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum

 

 

 

For Germany’s long-successful Green Party the political situation is slowly becoming precarious. Meanwhile, their support in the polls is approaching the parliamentary five percent hurdle. On Sunday, the opinion research institute Emnid presented its latest survey. According to the pollsters, the Greens are now on only six percent – the worst support the Institute has measured for the party in 15 years. It is not so long ago that the Greens debated whether they were already a big tent party. In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 the polls saw them on 25 percent while the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg elected a green as prime minister.  No one expected at the time that the party would fear not to get into the next German parliament by failing to jump the five percent hurdle. --Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24 April 2017

More than 330,000 German households had their electricity turned off last year. Germany’s green energy obsession is hurting the poor and vulnerable hardest. The DPA German press agency reported yesterday on the rapidly spreading energy poverty now engulfing the country. The main driver is Germany’s skyrocketing electricity prices – primarily due to the legally mandatory feeding-in of wind and solar power. Currently regular household consumers are paying nearly 30 cents a kilowatt-hour – almost three times the rate paid in the USA. Many households are no longer able to afford electricity and are seeing themselves catapulted back to the 19th century. --No Tricks Zone, 3 March 2017 

While claiming to care deeply about the poorest among us, environmentalists ignore the harm their policies inflict: soaring electricity prices, fewer jobs, lower living standards in the West – and perpetual poverty, disease, malnutrition and premature death in developing countries. We pay more and more each year for de minimis further improvements in environmental quality, combined with ever-expanding government and activist control of our lives, and steadfast opposition to reliable, affordable energy in the Third World. For the wealthy and increasingly powerful radical environmentalist movement, it is no longer about addressing real pollution problems, protecting the environment or improving human health. As UN climate officials have proudly proclaimed, it’s really about ending fossil fuel use and capitalism, redistributing the world’s wealth, and controlling people’s livelihoods, living standards and liberties. --Paul Driessen,
GWPF Opinion, 24 April 2017

A new report ranking countries with “the most environmentally friendly people” shows the greenest nations are also some of the poorest in the world. A MoneySuperMarket report listed Mozambique, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe as having “the most environmentally friendly people in the world,” while ranking Americans as being some of the least eco-friendly people on the planet. That may not be a bad thing, though, given the greenest countries also tend to be poor and run by authoritarian regimes. --Andrew Follett, Daily Caller, 22 April 2017 

Now that coal has been toppled from its perch as America’s biggest source of power, environmentalists are ready to move on down the fossil fuel list and tackle what they perceive as another enemy of the planet: natural gas. U.S. environmentalists have vowed to go after gas-fired power plants with the same vengeance they’ve used to force the retirements of hundreds of coal facilities. Even coal miners are warning their fossil fuel kin to beware. Gas producers “will be next on the list of the industries to be destroyed,” says Robert Murray, chief executive officer of U.S. coal miner Murray Energy Corp. This is a farce, if for no other reason than because natural gas — not environmentalist lobbying or renewables — is responsible for dethroning Old King Coal. If there’s any silver lining to this sorry example of the folly of the modern environmental movement, it’s that greens have been proven to be as ineffective as they are misguided. --The American Interest, 23 April 2017

Student thuggery against non-leftist viewpoints is in the news again. Agitators at Claremont McKenna College, Middlebury College, and the University of California’s Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses have used threats, brute force and sometimes criminal violence over the past two months in efforts to prevent Milo Yiannopoulos, Charles Murray, Ann Coulter and me from speaking. This soft totalitarianism is routinely misdiagnosed as primarily a psychological disorder. Campus intolerance is at root not a psychological phenomenon but an ideological one. At its center is a worldview that sees Western culture as endemically racist and sexist. The overriding goal of the educational establishment is to teach young people within the ever-growing list of official victim classifications to view themselves as existentially oppressed. One outcome of that teaching is the forceful silencing of contrarian speech. --Heather Mac Donald, The Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2017 

Shale Gas Could Heat British Homes By Early 2018

Theresa May Accused Of 'Stealing' Energy Price Cap Manifesto Pledge From Ed Miliband

 

Brought to you by Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum

Ed Miliband’s allies have accused Theresa May of “stealing” his flagship plan for an energy price cap for the Conservative’s manifesto as part of her bid to win seats in Labour’s northern heartlands. Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, yesterday gave the strongest indication yet that the Tories will put the policy at the heart of their manifesto as he vowed to take “muscular and strong action” to protect consumers. An ally of Mr Miliband said: “These policies were widely panned by the Conservatives as Marxist interventions. Now Theresa’s nicking them.” --Steven Swinford, The Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2017

Matt Lambert, director of government and public affairs at Cuadrilla, said homes in Lancashire could be heated by shale gas as early as the beginning of next year. He told editor Chris Maguire that there has been a great deal of “scaremongering” about the potential damage fracking does to the environment and said the opportunity to explore huge natural reserves of shale gas in the county is “too good to miss”. With the prospect of tens of thousands of jobs being created in the semi-rural county, Lambert believes that more people will look favourably on the industry when it becomes operational. “We need to get that started here and make Lancashire a hub for the industry in Europe.” --Business Cloud, 20 April 2017

British unconventional exploration company Cuadrilla plans to start the drilling stage of its shale gas exploratory plans in northwest England within the next “couple of months,” company CEO Francis Egan said this week. --Kallanish Energy News, 14 April 2017
The UK is set to spend its first full day without generating electricity from coal on Friday, the National Grid says. It said it had run coal-free before, but the longest continuous period was 19 hours, first achieved last May. It comes as less-polluting natural gas and renewables play a bigger role in supply - although the demand for power is also lower on Fridays. The grid said it would only know for sure if it had achieved the feat by "22:51 on Friday". --BBC News, 21 April 2017

Energy bills could soar by up to 54 per cent in hundreds of thousands of households when many popular fixed deals expire at the end of the month. Consumers are being warned their bills could rise by up to £414 if their supplier automatically puts them on a more expensive new tariff. It comes as many big energy firms have already announced further price increases this year. --Ben Wilkinson, Daily Mail, 21 April 2017

Theresa May needs an energy policy adviser. I hasten to add that this is not a job application – but someone is needed to pull together the necessary reforms and to help the UK prime minister avoid self-destructive mistakes such as an attempt to take charge of fixing energy prices. The predominant view in Whitehall – from the Treasury to the business department which is now responsible for energy – is that current policies are mistaken and require radical reform. Those policies take no account of the structural fall in energy prices; the failure of new nuclear to live up to its promise; the changing pattern of demand; and, most important of all, the transformation in the global energy market being brought about by a range of new technologies. Each of those factors requires some adjustment in policy but taken together they justify a complete reset. Reform, however, is very difficult. There are numerous vested interests and an army of lobbyists. --Nick Butler, Financial Times, 17 April 2017

By mistakenly using inappropriate data from the OECD, The Energy and Climate Information Unit (ECIU) misled The Times into claiming that per capita GDP in the UK grew by 130% in the period 1992 to 2014, when the correct figure, from the UK’s Office of National Statistics is 44%. This error led both the ECIU and The Times into thinking that the UK had cracked the ‘clean’ growth conundrum by decoupling emissions and economic growth. The truth is more complicated and much less clear. --John Constable, GWPF Energy, 18 April 2017

Tomorrow’s March for Science will draw many thousands in support of evidence-based policy making and against the politicization of science. A concrete step toward those worthy goals would be to convene a “Red Team/Blue Team” process for climate science, one of the most important and contentious issues of our age. Given the importance of climate projections to policy, it is remarkable that they have not been subject to a Red Team exercise. Here’s how it might work: The focus would be a published scientific report meant to inform policy such as the U.N.’s Summary for Policymakers or the U.S. Government’s National Climate Assessment. A Red Team of scientists would write a critique of that document and a Blue Team would rebut that critique. Further exchanges of documents would ensue to the point of diminishing returns. A commission would coordinate and moderate the process and then hold hearings to highlight points of agreement and disagreement, as well as steps that might resolve the latter. The process would unfold in full public view: the initial report, the exchanged documents and the hearings. A Red/Blue exercise would have many benefits. --Steven Koonin, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2017

A group of prominent US climate experts have told a Congressional committee hearing that climate science is dysfunctional, beset by bias and groupthink, and is using a profoundly unscientific approach. Speaking before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Professor John Christy told representatives that “consensus science”, as practiced by much of mainstream climatology, was “not science” at all, while Professor Judith Curry explained that “self-deception” had got the better of far too many climatologists. Both concluded that there had been a wholesale failure to use the scientific method in climatology, something that could only be put right by the introduction of official “red teams” – groups of eminent scientists, who would be asked to challenge and provide dissenting opinions on official climate assessments. --Global Warming Policy Foundation
  

Trump Administration May Not Find Middle Ground On Paris Climate Deal

White House Divided Over Trump’s Election Pledge To Cancel Paris Climate Deal

We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs. -- Donald Trump, election pledge, 26 May 2016

 

As the Trump administration debates whether to stay in the Paris climate agreement, observers are skeptical that opposing wings of the administration will reach a middle ground. Trump has been critical of the Paris deal’s potential effect on the U.S. economy, and told Reuters during last year’s presidential campaign that he may “renegotiate” the deal. But it seems unlikely that the debate could lead to a compromise in which the U.S. stays in the Paris agreement while reducing its commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Michael McKenna, an energy lobbyist who led the Department of Energy’s transition team, said the text of the deal does not allow countries to reduce their commitments, and anything but a full-fledged withdrawal would undermine Trump’s focus on rolling back environmental regulations. The agreement’s text specifically allows a country to adjust its greenhouse gas targets if it is “enhancing its level of ambition,” but not to reduce promises. --Jack Fitzpatrick, Morning Consult, 17 April 2017

President Trump’s divided policy advisers will meet Tuesday afternoon to hash over whether Mr. Trump should withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accord of 2015, and the side pressing the president to remain in the deal enters the pivotal meeting with the upper hand. Mr. Trump plans to make a final decision on the fate of the Paris agreement before a meeting of the Group of 7 leading economies at the end of May, according to Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump vowed to “cancel” the climate deal, and his most politically conservative advisers, including his senior strategist Stephen K. Bannon, have pushed him to follow through. But Mr. Bannon’s influence has waned in recent weeks, while authority has risen for Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who advocate staying in the accord. --Coral Davenport, The New York Times, 18 April 2017

The conservative free-market think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute started an online campaign Tuesday to urge President Trump to keep his campaign promise and withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement. “The Paris climate treaty requires the United States to make drastic cuts in fossil fuel energy use by 2025, which will raise energy prices and slow economic recovery from our decade-long slump,” said Myron Ebell, who leads the free-market group’s environment program. Ebell was Trump’s former head of transition for the Environmental Protection Agency. In recent weeks, he has criticized Trump for appearing to be giving way to “swamp creatures,” who are urging him not to leave the Paris Agreement. Ebell warned that not withdrawing from the Paris accord would undercut Trump’s plans to undo former President Barack Obama’s climate change agenda by making Trump’s plans “vulnerable to legal challenges.” It would give environmental groups a perfect argument before the courts in persuading federal judges, and even the Supreme Court, to rule in favor of the climate rules because they underpin the climate deal, even though it is nonbinding, Ebell has argued. --The Washington Examiner, 18 April 2017

President Obama negotiated the Paris Climate Agreement to confer a treaty-like status on his domestic climate policies—often called the “war on coal” but effectively a war on affordable energy—without actually going through the treaty process, an acknowledgement that all parties knew would doom such a pact. The ultimate aim of the agreement is to make coal, oil, and natural gas increasingly uneconomical to produce, export, and consume. Remaining a party to the Agreement thus endangers the energy price edge underpinning the U.S. manufacturing renaissance President Trump seeks to launch. --Christopher C. Horner and Marlo Lewis, Jr., Competitive Enterprise Institute, 17 April 2017

Buried in an otherwise humdrum jobs report for March was the jaw-dropping pronouncement by the Labor Department that mining jobs in America were up by 11,000 in March. Since the low point in October 2016 and following years of painful layoffs in the mining industry, the mining sector has added 35,000 jobs. What a turnaround. ‎It comes at a time when liberals have been saying that Donald Trump has been lying to the American people when he has said that he can bring coal jobs back. Well, so far he has brought them back. It turns out that elections do have consequences, after all. Regime change in Washington has brought King Coal back to life since late 2016 when coal production had fallen by almost half from its peak. --Stephen Moore, The American Spectator, 17 April 2017

China’s natural gas production surged to a record last month and coal output rebounded as economic growth accelerated power use in the world’s largest energy user. Natural gas production in March rose 8.2 percent from the average of the first two months of the year to a record 13.6 billion cubic meters, according to data Monday from the National Bureau of Statistics. Coal output rose almost 13 percent over the same period to average 9.67 million tons a day, the highest daily level since December, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the data. --Bloomberg, 17 April 2017

It is now the wettest year on record in the Northern California mountains, National Weather Service officials said Thursday. An index of precipitation at eight sensors showed that just under 90 inches of rain and snow have fallen this winter in the northern Sierra Nevada. The previous record of 88.5 inches was set in the winter of 1982-1983. The average for the region is 50 inches a year, according to the state Department of Water Resources. The record was surpassed less than a week after Gov. Jerry Brown officially declared an end to California’s drought emergency. --Associated Press, 15 April 2017 

EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Calls For U.S. To Exit Paris Climate Agreement

HUGE!

Geologists Discover The US’s Largest Natural Gas Deposit

Brougth to you by Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum

 

President Trump’s top environment official called for an “exit” from the historic Paris agreement Thursday, the first time such a high-ranking administration official has so explicitly disavowed the agreement endorsed by nearly 200 countries to fight climate change. Speaking with “Fox & Friends,” Pruitt commented, “Paris is something that we need to really look at closely. It’s something we need to exit in my opinion.” “It’s a bad deal for America,” Pruitt continued. “It was an America second, third, or fourth kind of approach. China and India had no obligations under the agreement until 2030. We front-loaded all of our costs.” --The Washington Post, 14 April 2017

 

The Paris Climate Agreement, far from securing a reduction in global CO2 emissions, is fundamentally a blank cheque that allows China and India to increase their emissions as they see fit in pursuit of economic growth. This is the conclusion of a paper by Law Professor David Campbell (Lancaster University Law School) and published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Indeed, the Paris Agreement contains a categorical statement that countries such as China and India will not be obliged to undertake any reductions. --Global Warming Policy Foundation, May 2016
 

  

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) discovered the largest continuous natural gas deposit in the country, stretching across the Gulf Coast states of Texas and Louisiana. USGS estimates between 4 billion barrels of oil and 304.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas sit untapped in the Haynesville and Bossier shale formations. More natural gas was found in these two formations than any other continuous assessment the USGS has ever conducted. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke tweeted “HUGE!” on news of the find Thursday. The Trump administration has promised to roll back regulations on oil and gas drilling. --Andrew Follett, Daily Caller, 14 April 2017
 
The number of solar panels being installed in the UK has fallen by more than 80 per cent, according to an analysis of new figures in the latest sign that the industry is being strangled by government policies despite being one of the cheapest (sic) sources of electricity. The Solar Trade Association (STA), which produced the figures based on recently released government statistics, found the first three months of this year had seen a catastrophic collapse in the number of solar panels being put up following the withdrawal of virtually all subsidies, a stunning business rate hike of up to 800 per cent and the imposition of “red tape”. --Ian Johnston, The Independent, 14 April 2017

Ireland is unlikely to avoid having to pay multimillion-euro fines for missing emissions targets, the Environmental Protection Agency has warned. The country is “doomed” to face hundreds of millions of euros in sanctions. Emissions from the agriculture and transport sectors are increasing at a rapid pace, the watchdog said yesterday. It forecasted that by 2020 the country would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only 4 to 6 per cent from 2005 levels, despite a 20 per cent target it is legally bound to achieve. Environmentalists and opposition parties condemned the government yesterday for failing to act and said that the country was “doomed” to face hundreds of millions of euros in sanctions. --Catherine Sanz, The Times, 14 April 2017

 In a statement announcing the latest round of auctions for Contracts for Difference the UK government has reported capital investment of £52 billion in renewable electricity generation over the period from 2010 to the present day, which implies an average capital cost of about £2.5m/MW, five times the cost of Combined Cycle Gas Turbines. This represents a convenient measure of both the opportunity cost and the scale of the potential malinvestment. --John Constable, GWPF Energy, 12 April 2017

Paris Accord Is A Dead Deal Walking As $100 Billion Climate Fund Disappears

China's New Coal Boom

 

Shocking news—the magic $100 billion climate fund appears not to be taking shape! First world donors have been busily relabeling other foreign aid as contributions to the climate kitty. For developing countries, this is a cheat — they expect $100 billion in new money. Or, to put it more accurately, they are not nearly stupid and naive enough to believe the lies Western diplomats tell when trying to bamboozle naive green voters at home that they are “Doing Something” about climate change. So they don’t really expect all that money, but hope to use these commitments to pry something out of the West. This, one notes, is the house of cards that the last Administration claimed was a big piece of its legacy. --The American Interest, 11 April 2017

 
China, Brazil, India and South Africa have urged industrialized countries to honor financial commitments made in Paris in 2015 to help developing countries fight against global climate change, they said in a statement on Tuesday. Following a meeting in Beijing, climate change ministers from the “BASIC” bloc of four major emerging economies called on rich countries “to honor their commitments and increase climate finance towards the $100 billion goal”, and said more clarity was needed to “track and account for” those pledges. --Reuters, 11 April 2017


Climate ministers from Europe, India, Brazil and South Africa have gone to Beijing in recent weeks, hoping to sustain momentum from the Paris talks despite the Trump administration’s dismantling of US regulations meant to limit American emissions. But discussions have quickly run up against the issue of financing.  “Developed countries have not met their commitments. In their reports a lot of their commitment is in the form of development aid. That doesn’t meet the commitment to contribute to new funds,” China’s top climate change negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, told a briefing on Tuesday. –Lucy Hornby, Financial Times, 11 April 2017
 
G7 energy ministers have failed to agree a statement on climate change this afternoon because of ‘US reservations’, it has emerged. Top officials from the Group of Seven industrial nations gathered in Rome, Italy today amid growing concerns over the US administration’s moves to unravel policies aimed at stalling global warming. However, the US ‘reserved its position’ on the text about commitments made by G7 countries under the Paris accord, said Carlo Calenda, the Italian minister for economic development, who chaired the meeting in Rome. Lacking unanimity, Italy, which currently presides the Group of Seven, decided against proposing the joint statement, Calenda said. --Daily Mail, 10 April 2017

  President Donald Trump’s abrupt turnaround on U.S. climate policy is fueling tension with several of America’s closest allies, which are resisting the administration’s demands that they support a bigger role for nuclear power and fossil fuels in the world’s energy supply. The dispute blew up at this week's meeting of G-7 energy ministers, at which Trump administration officials pushed to include stronger pro-coal, pro-nuclear language in a proposed joint statement on energy policy. G-7 officials, led by the Europeans, refused to agree to stronger language touting fossil fuels without assurances from the United States that it would stay in the Paris climate change agreement, according to officials briefed on the discussions. --Andrew Restuccia, Politico, 11 April 2017


Water-guzzling coal-conversion projects are springing to life in arid western China, setting the stage for the large-scale deployment of what was previously a niche industry. A three-year downturn in coal prices has revived projects that convert coal to motor fuel, petrochemical feedstock or gas, after many were shelved in 2008 because of concerns about water supply and pollution. Successful development in China opens the door to the export of coal-intensive technologies, undercutting international efforts to limit emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases. --Lucy Hornby, Financial Times, 12 April 2017


Fracking looks set to go ahead on a Lancashire site after campaigners lost a High Court challenge. Opponents urged the court to find a government decision approving planning for the site in Fylde either unfair or unlawful. But following a public inquiry, the planning inspector recommended the scheme. Environmentalists and local campaign groups reacted angrily to the decision, which they said went against the wishes of residents. --ITV News, 12 April 2017 

UK To 'Scale Down' Climate Change For Post-Brexit Deals

Britain Looking To Renege On Climate Goals Post-Brexit

 

Brought to you by Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum

 

Civil service documents, photographed on a train, reveal that Britain plans to scale down its concern over climate change and the trade in illegal wildlife to clear the way for post-Brexit trade deals. Details of the policy change were contained in the papers of a senior civil servant at the Department for International Trade (DIT) photographed by a passenger earlier this month. The notes show he will tell diplomats and trade negotiators that they need to change their focus if the UK is to fulfil Theresa May’s vision of Britain as “a great, global trading nation”. --Tim Shipman, The Sunday Times, 9 April 2017

The British government is assessing ways to scrap pledges made to hit 2020 clean energy targets without incurring any penalties, reports Bloomberg, in a first sign of the country reneging on mandatory environmental action made under EU membership. The U.K.’s treasury and business department is seeking ways to scrap the country’s binding EU target of sourcing 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, reports Bloomberg. If the U.K. is successful in wriggling out of its obligations, it would be another tangible sign that the country is increasingly out of step with the majority of mainland Europe. --PV Magazine, 6 April 2017

Last week, I was asked in conversation: ‘Why is it that almost all these green schemes seem to end up as a fiasco?’ To which I replied: ‘You’ve only got one word wrong there. You can leave out the word “almost”.’ The truth is that every single green scheme the politicians have fallen for has proved to be a total fiasco: failing to achieve any of the results claimed for them and costing us more billions with every year that passes. --Christopher Booker, Daily Mail, 8 April 2017

California’s current rainy season can no longer lay claim to being No. 1. After relatively modest rainfall in March, this season now ranks as the second wettest in 122 years of record-keeping, according to data released Thursday by federal scientists. --The Mercury News, 7 April 2017

Wind farms could be paid to switch off their turbines this summer as the growth of solar panels leaves the national network swamped with too much power. --Emily Gosden, The Times, 7 April 2017