Quote of the day, witchhunt edition

Mr. Grijalva’s letters convey an unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate should cease lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive inconvenience and expense—and scientists holding such views should not offer testimony to Congress. After the Times article, Sens. Edward Markey (D., Mass.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) also sent letters to numerous energy companies, industrial organizations and, strangely, many right-of-center think tanks (including the Cato Institute, with which I have an association) to unearth their alleged influence peddling.

Richard Lindzen in the Wall Street journal

More sauce

Another few hours and another FOI request. This time it's the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who are targeting correspondence of the hard-left senators who have been at the forefront of harassing sceptic scientists:

To EPA’s National Freedom of Information Officer,

On behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), please consider this request pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552 et seq.

Click to read more ...

Sauce for the goose

This was probably predictable:

Washington, D.C. -- Today, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), in conjunction with the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic (FMELC) and the Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI), filed a Delaware Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) with the University of Delaware related to Dr. John Byrne, Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy and Distinguished Professor of Energy and Climate Policy.

Click to read more ...

Congressional hearings?

According to the Daily Caller, Republicans in the US Congress seem set to announce hearings into the surface temperature records. This intelligence was based on a tweet from Dana Rohrabacher, the vice chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

@caerbannog666 expect there to be congressional hearings into NASA altering weather station data to falsely indicate warming & sea rise

— Dana Rohrabacher (@DanaRohrabacher) February 20, 2015

It seems fairly clear that the surface stations are a shambles. It is not so obvious that this has led to a material overstatement of warming. But I think we can say with some certainty that a congressional hearing is probably not going to get to the bottom of the scientific issues.

Dealing with Davey

You have to pity the poor energy companies trying to deal with someone quite as erratic as Ed Davey. As he lurches from ridiculous policy measure to preposterous policy statement, people's livelihoods are trashed and trampled with the occupant of DECC apparently careless of what he is doing.

The Guardian has obtained a letter written by the head of Oil and Gas UK to Davey, essentially inquiring if he has thought through the implications of what he is doing and saying:

Webb wrote to Davey a few days later: “[Newspaper] articles reported you backing moves that would encourage investors to think about moving their money out of ‘risky’ fossil fuel assets, suggesting global emissions limits could make hydrocarbon reserves unburnable, therefore stranding assets and rendering them worthless.”

Click to read more ...

Happy Mr Farage

There will be much happiness in UKIP circles today, with the announcement that Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg are to sign a joint declaration on climate change, a move which has been brokered by green NGOs.

The prime minister, deputy prime minister and leader of the opposition have all clashed over green issues, but the joint declaration states: “Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing the world today. It is not just a threat to the environment, but also to our national and global security, to poverty eradication and economic prosperity.”

“Acting on climate change is also an opportunity for the UK to grow a stronger economy, which is more efficient and more resilient to the risks ahead,” the joint statement says. “It is in our national interest to act and ensure others act with us.” A senior UK military commander has warned previously that climate change poses as grave a threat to the UK’s security and economic resilience as terrorism.

A better way of making their parties look as if they are completely out of touch and/or working to NGOs' agendas is hard to imagine. That said, one of the pledges they make is to do away with coal-fired electricity generation. This may actually mean that the underlying message is "frack baby, frack".

Diary dates, intellectual conformity edition

The Energy and Climate Change Committee are holding an end of session public event to chew the fat over the policy quagmire into which Westminster has driven energy policy. Although that's not exactly how they put it themselves.

To launch its final report of this Parliament, Fuelling the debate: ECC Committee successes and future challenges, the Energy and Climate Change Committee is to host a morning conference in the City of London on 12 March for energy investors, specialists and campaigners to discuss future challenges and opportunities in energy and climate change policy.

Energy and Climate Change Committee Chair, Tim Yeo MP, said: 

Click to read more ...

The sheep in Wales

With the Scottish Government having made its absurd - if understandable - decision to put a moratorium on shale gas developments, lawmakers in Cardiff have noted the benefits to their own careers and have followed suit.

The Welsh parliament has voted against the use of shale gas fracking in Wales, just one week after Scotland passed a fracking moratorium, highlighting growing discontent with the British government's push to tap shale gas resources.

A proposal against shale gas fracking was voted through in the Welsh Assembly late on Wednesday, effectively making it impossible for shale gas developments to receive planning permits in Wales.

As ever with the public sector, you see that decisions are made for the benefit of the staff rather than those they allegedly work for. There are 100,000 unemployed people in Wales.

SNP accused of fabrication

The news that the Scottish government has kicked the shale gas question into the long grass until well after the general election has elicited a pretty forthright response from one of the experts involved in the official review of unconventional oil and gas north of the border.

SNP ministers are deliberately misleading the Scottish public by pretending their fracking ban is about health and environmental concerns instead of political posturing, an expert they asked to research the controversial practice has said.

In a damning intervention, Professor Paul Younger, Rankine Chair of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, said the Scottish Government’s justifications for unveiling an indefinite moratorium on fracking were “all made up” and “completely feigned”.

Read the whole thing.

Update on Feb 2, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Prof Younger has apparently posted the following in the comments to the Telegraph article:

Just for the record, re the following reported comment of Stewart Maxwell MSP: "... Mr Maxwell insisted the panel’s report did not provide all the evidence required but could not specify what was missing ... He claimed it did not address the public health impact but the interviewer pointed out this was tackled in the document. Pressed on his error, he then claimed that many experts disagreed with its findings ...".

The final line shows that, not abashed by having failed to read the report himself before the interview (otherwise he would have known its contents), Stewart Maxwell has now made up a story about disagreements from "many experts" disagreeing with our report's findings. Let me categorically state: no such disagreements from any scientist or engineer has been brought to the attention of the former members of the expert panel by the Scottish Government, and none have been directed to me, either publicly or privately. The "many experts" are therefore a complete fabrication on the part of Stewart Maxwell MSP. Shameful.

The long grass

The Scottish Government has announced a moratorium on new unconventional oil and gas operations, pending a public consultation, a public health impact assessment, and changes to the regulatory regime.

This reeks of the political classes kicking an awkward political football into the long grass, at least until the election is over. It is also of note that the moratorium seems not to cover fracking for geothermal energy.

Remarkably, the UKOOG, the industry body for the onshore oil and gas industry, has welcomed the move. I wonder if the time for emollience has passed. Shipping gas in from overseas rather than producing it locally is foolish in the extreme. The Scottish Government is actively damaging the economy and the environment.

Why not just say so?

Update on Jan 29, 2015 by Bishop Hill

The Scotman reckons there are now serious question marks over the long-term future of Grangemouth and all because shale has become a political football.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that yesterday’s announcement by Fergus Ewing, the Scottish energy minister, was a simple attempt to trump a Labour position which itself was a misguided piece of political posturing.

A big day for shale gas

Today sees Parliament consider an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill that would introduce a moratorium on unconventional gas wells in the UK. To coincide with the vote, the Environmental Audit Committee has produced one of its normal sham reports saying that industrial activity will all end in disaster, based as always on a series of interviews with environmentalists and pretty much nobody else. In fact, as Emily Gosden in the Telegraph amusingly notes, they have outdone themselves today:

The EAC also cites evidence from Paul Mobbs, a self-described “freelance campaigner, activist, environmental consultant, author, lecturer and engineer” and former “electrohippie”, who runs a “dysorganisation” called the ‘Free Range Activism Website’.

It's good to know that the views of the electrohippies are not being overlooked.

I gather that the commmittee's chairman Joan Whalley has been all over the BBC this morning, no doubt given the usual free pass by the eco-nutters who present programmes for the corporation.

I'll update this page throughout the day as news comes in.

Update on Jan 26, 2015 by Bishop Hill

James Verdon notes how Whalley and her colleagues have weighed up the evidence.

The EAC report cites the "Frack Free Balcombe Residents Association":

"The Frack Free Balcombe Resident’s Association raised concerns that 'wells or fractures intersecting with natural faults could easily become conduits for leaking gases and liquids'

but completely ignores the evidence provided by myself and Professor Kendall, which provides extensive documentation from peer-reviewed scientific literature that this is extremely unlikely to happen.

Update on Jan 26, 2015 by Bishop Hill

INEOS seem a bit annoyed with the EAC:

The UK needs Shale gas and we know that INEOS has the skills to safely extract it from the ground without damaging the environment. We have committed to public consultation and to share 6% of the entire revenue from any of our Shale gas wells with the local community. Without Shale gas, UK manufacturing is starting to collapse so we need to kick start the Shale gas industry, not put it on hold”.

Update on Jan 26, 2015 by Bishop Hill

The debate in the House of Commons is now under way here. Julian Huppert vocal in favour of banning fracking, Tim Yeo speaking against.

16:30 My impression is that Labour are going to get some regulations to console their supporters. I'm guessing that means that the banning amendments will fail.

Climate policy is harming the poor

Roger Pielke Jr's post on the PhD thesis of Eija-Riitta Korhola is a must-read. Korhola is the wife of Atte Korhola, some of whose thoughts on climate science form the epigraph to Chapter 15 of The Hockey Stick Illusion.

As an MEP, Dr (as I assume we must call her now) Korhola has an insider's view on mainstream climate policy, which she views as a failure so monumental that it is actively harmful.

I agree with those who regard the UN’s strategy – and the EU’s follow-up strategy – not only as ineffective but also harmful.

And the greens must carry much of the blame.

The environmental movement regards economic growth as an enemy of the environment although practice has proven that in precisely those quarters of the world where economic well-being prevails and basic needs are satisfied, people are more interested in taking care of their environment. Poverty, in its turn, is the biggest environmental threat,although it has been romanticised in environmentalist rhetoric.

[I note that The Hockey Stick Illusion is cited in the thesis]

Money talks

Two related stories caught my eye over the last couple of days, which seem to put our choices at election time in a fairly stark light.

At Guido's we learn that David Cameron has received a donation from one of the partners in his father-in-law's windfarm venture.

Meanwhile, the Times (£) reports that Labour have secretly told windfarm businesses that subsidies will flow unabated should they win the election. Indeed there seems to be a suggestion that the flood of money will turn into a tsunami.

A vote for either seems to be a vote to have your wallet emptied.

Interesting

Well here's a turn up for the books, from the pages of Hansard:

David TC Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether members of the Climate Change Committee are permitted to have financial interests in businesses which might be affected by energy and climate change policy.

Amber Rudd: The Government and the Committee on Climate Change takes very seriously the need to ensure that board members have no conflicts in fulfilling their public duties. When appointing to the board, the Government follows Cabinet Office guidance about making public appointments that sets out the rules and transparency requirements which must be satisfied before public appointments can be made.

I wonder if a follow up question along the lines of "What steps would be taken against committee members who were found to have made false statements about their business interests during the recruitment process?" might be interesting.

Environmental risks of fracking

The House of Commons is to hold an inquiry into the environmental risks of fracking.

Submissions of written evidence are invited addressing the following points:

• The risks from fracking operations in the UK, including potential risks to water supplies and water quality, emissions, habitats and biodiversity, and geological integrity
• Necessary environmental safeguards, including through the planning/permitting system
• The implications for our carbon emissions reduction obligations

It's being held under the auspices of the Environmental Audit Committee, so I think it's fair to say that it will be a complete farce.