Monday
Nov282011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Back from Germany
Nov 28, 2011 Climate: Sceptics I got back from Germany last night. The conference was lots of fun and I came away thinking what a nice bunch of people we sceptics are. I think for readers here there was not a great deal to report, apart from the fact that sceptics in Germany have a much bigger mountain to climb than those in the English-speaking world.
Reader Comments (74)
The Austrian, Konrad Lorenz, is pretty high up there in Green lore too. I read his book "The Waning of Humaneness" when I was at University. The Green movement has always been anti-technocracy. It's extremely Conservative in that sense.
@Steve Jones,
In principle I agree with you, but having spoken at some length with a highly educated friend at the weekend, he has (ok, make that had) NO idea that Climategate 2.0 has happened, or that the foetid Hockey Stick is a fabrication on a scale that makes Piltdown Man(n)TM look like stone tablets of unchallengeable truth.
How would he? He's a businessman with a young family - his news comes from the BBC and he hasn't time for a newspaper.
How do we get the news across?
@SayNoToFearmongers:
Disbanding the "science" unit at Al Beeb would be a good first step ...
The banning of conventional light bulbs, rather than simply promoting, or even subsidising low energy alternatives, must have been conceived by utterly green nutters, or utterly incompetent politicians, or both.
Very predictably, the policy has spawned universal irritation in their target audience. From the sceptic viewpoint, it is a magnificent EU/ Greeno own goal. Few policies have done more to groundbait the awakening of a sceptical conciousness in the formerly complacent and compliant man in the street.
HaroldW---
"As far as I can tell, my bulbs last indefinitely when off.
They only fail when I try to turn them on again. ;)"
Well that's a feature then! They automatically indicate need for replacement by failing to illuminate!
James P
CFL's give a horrible light that is almost impossible to correct, as some colour frequencies are virtually absent.
Yes, you are correct, and here's the real kicker -- it isn't necessary. You can make CFL give off any color you want. All it takes is the correct phosphor mixture. I use to have banks of "red" and "blue" florescent tubes in my studio that I could vary the output of each bank with a rheostat. That permitted me to set the color temperature to exactly what I wanted for the studio shot. I could do anything from sunrise/sunset red to high noon bright white.
Today I simply do digital photography and use Photoshop to correct the color temperature. You can easily do it with RAW mode images. Unfortunately Photoshop will not correct my reading lights.
All this says that the people making and selling CFLs and forcing the population to use them by outlawing other light bulbs really don't give a shite about us. That seems to summarize the entire Green movement -- "we know what is good for you and you will do it or else!" But in fact, they don't know Jack Shite about what they are pushing as good for us.
Salopian
Yes, I agree LEDs are the coming light source. Still a little pricey, but in a couple more years the CFL will be history.
HaroldW
Tag -- you got me. I meant "on and off". But of course, if you learn to see in the dark, just think of all the money you can save!
I seem to remember a while back that a bunch of us worked out that many of these idiotic schemes, and much of the EU eco and scientific regulatory insanity, was directly traceable to uncritical and total belief in the contents of the ghastly '50 Simple Things You can Do to Save the Earth'
SayNoToFearmongers,
You have highlighted one of the reasons the BBC's actions and bias, as confirmed in the leaked e-mails, is so criminal. The BBC has failed in its duty by allowing its Environment correspondents to maintain an AGW propaganda output for so long. Just look at the ramping up of scare stories that has occurred in advance of the Durban (tax-payer funded) jamboree. Also, can it be a coincidence that almost none of the rubbish produced by Richard Black recently has a comments section? Viv Evans has the right idea. This abuse of trust cannot go unpunished and I for one resent the fact that I am forced to pay the wages of eco-activists.
Upstream, a mention of the long-lasting incandescent bulb, never turned off. In my youth, I heard that it was one of a very old carbon filament type, not tungsten. Is that still true?
Steve,
I totally agree, but the BBC is in a position to dictate to government in the same way Murdoch's malevolent minions can - do as we say or we'll make you unelectable - it's not answerable to us in any way at all - its role as the propaganda wing of a Greenpeace/Soil Association/FoE seems to be unchallengeable.
Climategate 2.0 keeps on coming. It's huge.
I suppose the good Bishop is taking notes, as somebody should write the whole thing up as soon as it's possible to gain some kind of overview. I look forward to an exellcent espose like the HSI.
In the meantime, Josh could draw a wolf pack of submerged Team submarines chasing the good ship MV de Freitas on it's way to rescue the isolated island of Science... the Team's code now being cracked, and there's hope for survival?
Cheers all, interesting times :-)
on the tangent of CFL's I've had a couple fail early, but the more recent one's seem to be hanging on in there.
A long time ago, possibly a couple of decades, I bought a Casio solar power calculator. It's served me wonderfully well over the years. The internal battery is struggling, but even in diffuse daylight it will still work well. I recently changed over my desk lamp to CFL. Whereas before I could work on the desk with no problem, now I need to hold the calculator up to within 6" of the desk lamp before there is enough juice to power it.
OT, news from Norway:
The test turbin in Øygarden, Norway, supposed to be representing a new generation of windmills at sea, disappeared in the cold (or hot or whatever) waters of the North Sea in the storm some hours ago.
The test windmill seems to have been located pretty close to shore, but the problem that overwhelmed it was, eh, winds.
"Now the test turbine is gone":
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/N-er-testturbinen-borte-6708992.html
H/T Jostemikk, www.klimaforskning.com
the sooner the EU and Euro collapses the better!
28 Nov: Reuters: Can carbon for the price of a pizza save the planet?
By Jeff Coelho and Nina Chestney
Climate negotiators meeting in South Africa this week face fresh worries over saving the planet from global warming now that a tonne of carbon trades at the price of a pizza...
A European steel plant producing a ton of steel pays as little as $12 for the resulting carbon emissions, spelling trouble for Europe's carbon emissions trading scheme, the world's largest.
At those prices, there is little incentive for industry to lower its carbon output, meaning one of Europe's major tools in fighting climate change is broken.
Analysts say carbon prices would need to return to 2008 levels in order start making a difference...
***"I look at the price in the morning and don't want to get out of bed," said a London-based emissions trader.
London is the EU carbon market's hub, with traders, brokers, power generators and project originators responsible for the bulk of trade.
But with carbon prices down more than 50 percent since June, some have decided to cut their losses and have left the market...
The EU Commission declined to comment on current carbon prices when asked by Reuters but speaking in Brussels last Thursday, Denmark's climate, energy and building minister Martin Lidegaard acknowledged concern.
"Carbon prices are low because there is a crisis. This is a serious problem that threatens stability for investors," Lidegaard said, adding the Commission would be looking at ways to support prices...
"We want to see the CO2 price strengthened to give a clearer signal for EU businesses to move to a low-carbon economy," UK energy and climate change minister Chris Huhne told Reuters.
"That will come down to the EU economy recovering and making sure we bring more ambition in terms of carbon reductions in the EU," he said...
The EU carbon market, valued at $120 billion last year, has been caught out badly by an excess in carbon permits and credits which analysts expect to outpace demand until 2020...
Shares in clean energy project developers, including UK-based Camco International and Trading Emissions', are among those feeling the heat.
"Some of the weaker, independent project developers could inevitably be affected at these price levels and it is likely that some of these may not survive," said Paul Soffe, an associate director at Ecosecurities, a clean energy project developer owned by JP Morgan Chase.
Fears of economic recession have added to analysts' pessimism in recent weeks, with Barclays Capital and Societe Generale among those downgrading their forecasts for carbon.
Gone are the hopes, held just two years ago, of a trillion dollar carbon market by 2020...
***Some are looking beyond schemes or market intervention for help as Nigel Brunel, a carbon trader from New Zealand, wrote recently in the Reuters Global Carbon Forum: "Dear Lord - please make the carbon market rally."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/28/us-carbon-price-idUSTRE7AR0DA20111128
27 Nov: News24: UN climate boss cries, thanks churches
Durban – UN climate change boss Christiana Figueres on Sunday cried when she thanked religious organisations for their contribution to fighting climate change.
“We have heard your voice and your prayers. Don’t give up, continue with your prayers,” she said with tears in her eyes…
Religious leaders said they were deeply touched by Figueres’ speech…
Ashwin Hemraju of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University said Figueres’ speech created an awakening and awareness on how important the environment is to people.
“Her speech showed that everyone has to do something to address climate change,” he said…
Organisers of the event said they were disappointed the stadium was not full, but the conference proper only starts on Monday.
Over 11,800 delegates from 194 countries have been registered by home affairs to attend the conference…
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/UN-climate-boss-cries-thanks-churches-20111127
My bathroom is now lit by 6 tiny little LEDs. Probably could do with another 6 in there, but I gotta say my teeth look great in there when I'm brushing them! ;o)
My first CFL (kitchen) failed a couple of weeks ago after about a year, replaced with another which is much brighter, but I don't like them and I'll be going LED if/when I can get a decent colour balance. Amateur photographer here, did some shooting under LEDs the other week and found white balance easy to correct - not nearly so easy under CFLs though.
MangoChutney Nov 28, 2011 at 4:26 PM: "I wonder if it's possible to make a Hocky Stick graph out of coke sales and then make a fortune telling people it's the cause of global warming based on correlation?"
I seem to remember reading (?WUWT) of something similar being done with piracy. There seems to be a direct correlation between the increase in CO2 and piracy in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean area. Bound to be causative, of course.
RichieP,
The pirate relationship to the climate is inversely proportional. As pirating declined the world warmed. In recent years temperatures have plateaued so there must have been an upswing in buckles being swashed. The problem is that the pirate change numbers still seem too low despite making adjustments for the increased productivity of today's much better equipped pirates versus their salty bearded predecessors. The fact is that we can't account for the lack of pirates at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.
Simon Hopkinson
Basically, if you are doing digital work, no issue if you take the image in RAW mode and adjust the color with Photoshop. No so easy to do with real film. You need to use the right filter, of which I have a complete set of 50 or so for my Nikon F and F2. However, all that is obsolete now.
I bought a Gossen Sixticolor many years ago (about 50) for the then princely sum of $60. While I rarely use it (I can estimate the color temperature close enough for Photoshop to fix) I still have it, and being the German gem of engineering it is, the thing still works as great as the day I bought it. It uses no batteries so is "green." Except the Greens won't like what it says about their #$#$% CFLs.
For the fun of it, I just dug it out and put it on to a CFL bulb I have. 2600°K to 2800°K -- almost on the bottom end of the scale. No wonder you couldn't color correct it -- you will need a very deep blue filter to correct it. Photoshop will go to about 2100°K but it is UGLY!
I have not tried a LED Bulb, but I have seen them. I would say that they are in the 4000 - 5000 ° K range; basically morning sun.
For those of you wondering what we are talking about -- as you should know, the hotter the metal, the whiter the glow. This is done in the Kelvin scale. The light that a CFL gives off is roughly like that of a tungsten wire heated to 2700° K which is about the color of a sunrise. Very pretty, but hard for your eyes to see in as they much prefer 5000° K.
Below is a handy-dandy scale that relates temperature to typical light sources.
Color Temperature Scale
I have enough old fashion cheap incandescent bulbs to last until the LEDs come way down in price, which they will.
29 Nov: UK Telegraph: Durban Climate Change Conference 2011 opens in disarray
The United Nations climate change summit opened in disarray after violent storms, the late arrival of the host president and a major rift emerging between some of the world’s biggest polluters.
By Aislinn Laing, Durban and Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Artur Runge-Metzger, the EU’s negotiator at the summit, said both developing and developed countries had to make firm commitments to emissions caps this year or risk the public “losing confidence in this travelling circus”…
Canada has already said it will not commit to a second term and yesterday it emerged that it could withdraw before the original deal expires. The country’s national broadcaster said it would be announced next month that Canada will withdraw from the protocol – a move its Green Party warned would make it a “global pariah” at Durban.
Within the European Union grouping, which speaks at the summit with one voice, cracks were already beginning to emerge after the publication of a report suggesting the UK was backing a controversial plan by Canada to extract oil from swampland – something the EU has made clear it is against because of the levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
Those watching the talks begin said it was an inauspicious start…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8921491/Durban-Climate-Change-Conference-2011-opens-in-disarray.html
Pat, can you believe they have 17000 at the beanfeast!!!! Then add into that all the nutters erecting plastic windmills etc and all the time the sensible governments are falling over themselves to pull out of this IPCC money pit.
17000!!!!!! How many planes loads was that! Still, the hotel owners in Durban must be laughing all the way to the bank and I guess with people like Huhne, the airlines would not have a first/business class seat available for weeks!
I seem a bit late on the light bulb issue but for lower-mid wattage applications I have been using adapters for G9 halogen bulbs which go up to 60W, but are (apparently) equivalent to 80W in traditional incandescent. These adapters are available in ES and BC fittings and you can also get "globes" which make them look like the real thing. A much more pleasant light than either mercury or LED
As a final plus point they are dim-able. Can be found on the usual auction websites.
steveta_uk says,
"Well, there is an 100-year-old Edison (the maker) light bulb in a San Francisco Fire Department fire house that has NEVER been turned off."
Close, but not quite.
(pedantic mode ON) :-)
It is a Shelby Electric Company lamp, now 110 years old and is in Livermore, California (about 45 miles from downtown San Francisco). It has been in four separate fire houses. It was cycled on and off a number of times in it's first 75 years, but not since being moved to it's present location ("with a full police and fire truck escort,") in 1976. Originally run at it's rated 60 watts, it's now at 4 watts on what I presume is a high quality UPS.
It's own website is here: http://www.centennialbulb.org/facts.htm#anchor3216
Carbon market isn't working says UBS
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL5E7MI18O20111118
Meanwhile all the parasites fly into Durban to work on measures preventing everyone else from flying.