Margaret Thatcher - green saint

William Connelly observes, correctly, that in effectively destroying the coal industry, Margaret Thatcher

is responsible for any faint hopes that the UK has of meeting its Kyoto targets.

This is yet another example of how good economics can drive good environmentalism. I wonder if any of my greener readers would care to call for the environmental beatification of the Blessed Margaret. Joe? Repeat after me: "Maggie is a saint".

Subsidising al-Qaeda

There's an interesting article at Marginal Revolution looking at some of the unintended consequences of Pigou taxes as applied to the perceived need to keep fossil fuels underground. There seems to be a serious risk that the imposition of a Pigou tax will either simply redistribute oil to non-Pigou-taxing countries, or simply accelerate production as producers seek to avoid ever-rising tax levels.

The bottom line is this: paying countries to blow up their oil fields may be more effective than taxing the resource.

As Tyler Cowen notes, we know of several freelance groups who will do this kind of thing for free.

...which kind of makes you wonder how long will it be until the Greens call for al-Qaeda to receive state subsidies, in view of the selfless work they are doing in the fight to save us from global warming.

Ozone hole - conviction unsafe

Nature has reported that there is now strong evidence that the current understanding of how the hole in the ozone layer comes into being is wrong.

Markus Rex, an atmosphere scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, did a double-take when he saw new data for the break-down rate of a crucial molecule, dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2). The rate of photolysis (light-activated splitting) of this molecule reported by chemists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was extremely low in the wavelengths available in the stratosphere — almost an order of magnitude lower than the currently accepted rate. "This must have far-reaching consequences," Rex says. "If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being."

Dodgy thing, scientific consensus, wouldn't you say?

(Via Jennifer Marohasy) 

Silly greens

Luboš Motl has a very funny piece about a university professor who has voiced his concerns that Greenlanders are now growing their own potatoes.

A Greenland's brainy son, Professor Minik Rosing, argues that this cultural tradition - the country's inability to grow anything - is priceless and can't be compensated by any economical benefits. The priceless character of the cold weather in Greenland is a likely reason why Professor Rosing chose to live in Copenhagen.

Read the whole thing. 

Relevant skills

The Adam Smith Institute has a report on Terry Leahy's speech, in which he said that there was a growing problem schools failing to equip children with the skills they need to operate in the workforce.

From my perspective the chief skills, if you can call them that, which my children's state school tries to teach are recycling, greenery and a correct attitude to the environment. I don't feel that these are likely to be highly saleable attributes once they reach the workforce.

Having just been elected to the Board of Governors (or whatever it is they call it these days) I hope to do my bit to remedy this - watch this space. My straw polls of parental opinion suggest that I'm not alone in my concerns. It is rather surprising just how many parents have said to me that they view the emphasis on recycling as more akin to brainwashing than education. But despite this I'm rather dubious as to whether I will actually be able to remedy the situation.  It's a state school, after all, so why should anyone at the school or at the council give a stuff about what I, or even the whole of the parent body think?

An insider's view on EU environment policy

Bacon Butty is a blog written by a British civil servant working in environmental policy which I read occasionally. There's a very interesting posting up at the moment about the folly of the EU's renewable energy policy. Bureaucrats usually only stir themselves to a little gentle concern after a disaster has struck - when their jobs, perks and administrative empires are under threat in the glare of public attention. That they are concerned about EU policy already would seem to suggest that things have gone very badly awry.

The hole in the ozone science

Remember the dear old Montreal Protocol which outlawed CFCs and was going to save us all from a hole in the ozone layer (it's painful apparently)?

According to Reuters, the hole is still growing despite falling levels of CFCs in the atmosphere, and its appearance this year was earlier than usual, suggesting that its growth is likely to continue this year.

Which sort of leaves one wondering if we haven't been had. Can I have my old fridge back?

Do as I say, not what I do?

Sunny Hundal is off to a protest called the Camp for Climate Action. This year the focus is on the aviation industry and the camp is going to be at Heathrow where they will fight to achieve their aim of 90% cuts in CO₂ emissions.

I reproduce one of Sunny's earlier posts without comment:

Hello! As you may imagine, I’m writing this from sunny Los Angeles. I love this place - the people are really friendly, the weather is great and the side-streets are immaculately manicured.

Not that I want to add to your already growing sense of envy, but my preliminary holiday plans are as follows. I’m off to Mexico for a few days just before Christmas. Then the whole extended family gets together for food and presents on Christmas day. Then just before new years eve I’m planning to head down to San Diego for the big beach parties there with a few friends and family. In the new year I’m planning to drive up with a few people to San Fransisco and then over to Yosemite park, and then to a skiing resort nearby. Oh yeah, it’s gonna be crazy. I’m itching to write something about American politics but I think I’ll give it a rest. What are your holiday plans?

 None this year actually, Sunny.

Environmentalists damaging environment yet again

This is turning into a bit of a recurring theme isn't it? The lastest example of our green friends ability to trash the environment is a U-turn on the advice issued to local councils on collecting domestic rubbish. Having previously suggested alternate weekly collections of waste, WRAP is now telling them to collect food waste every week. So instead of having one visit per week, we are now going to have one and a half. That's a 50% increase in related emissions.

Source here. 

Environmentalist population growing out of control

A couple of weeks ago a body calling itself the Optimum Population Trust called for families in the UK to limit themselves to a single child. The Times had this to say:

Britain’s birthrate, growing at its fastest for nearly 30 years – at 1.87 children per couple – is, says the author of its report, Professor John Guillebaud, an environmental liability. “Each new UK birth, through the inevitable resource consumption and pollution that UK affluence generates, is responsible for about 160 times as much climate-related environmental damage as a new birth in Ethiopia.”

Professor Guillebaud has three children.  As does Sir Crispin Tickell, a patron of the Trust. The majority of the other patrons, and Prof Guillebaud's co-chair, Val Stevens, have two children each.

Renewables wreck the environment

So says Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University in New York, writing in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology. The paper appears to be an analysis of the amount of land required per Watt of energy produced.

Biomass energy is also horribly inefficient and destructive of nature. To power a large proportion of the USA, vast areas would need to be shaved or harvested annually. To obtain the same electricity from biomass as from a single nuclear power plant would require 2500 square kilometers of prime Iowa land. "Increased use of biomass fuel in any form is criminal," remarks Ausubel. "Humans must spare land for nature. Every automobile would require a pasture of 1-2 hectares."

Obvious to everyone except greens. 

Where's the food going to come from?

Further to my recent post on Scottish Power's plan to use 12% of agricultural land to grow biomass sufficient to power a couple houses in Linlithgow, the Englishman reports that Friends of the Earth are resisting the idea of using genetic modification to reduce food price inflation. They, of course, are in favour of organic farming (or "faeces farming" as I prefer to call it), which requires four times as much land as conventionial crops.

So if they get their way, there won't be any land left to grow the trees to make power for Linlithgow, or anywhere else for that matter.

Whoops. 

Meaningless gestures

Scottish Power has announced that it is going to convert two of its coal-fired power stations to burn wood - coppiced trees in other words. They aim to replace fully 5% of their coal requirement (that's their coal requirement, not the country's coal requirement, mind) with this "carbon neutral fuel".

In order to do this, they need to use 12% of the agricultural land in Scotland.

So it's an expensive, but meaningless gesture.

Update:

It's a very expensive meaningless gesture. According to this, biomass fuel is more expensive than oil or coal, even if set-aside subsidies are still paid!! It's daylight robbery!

Bird scaring

The BBC's daily climate change scare for today is this:

Disastrous season for seabirds
Scotland's seabirds are having a "disastrous" breeding season, according to RSPB Scotland. It said mid-season reports had found cliffs, where there should be thousands of birds, almost empty.

You don't need to read the report to know that it's climate change to blame.

However, if you look carefully at the related stories bit in the margin you will also see the following:

From 18 September 2006

Seabirds found starving to death
...Over-fishing and global warming are thought to have been affecting the birds' normal food supply.

From 31 August 2005 

Worst seabird season on record
Seabird colonies in Scotland have suffered one of the worst breeding seasons on record, experts have warned. Breeding has been poor in guillemot, puffin, kittiwake and razorbill colonies, particularly in the west coast reserves.

This is the first time the west has been affected and we can only speculate as to why but climate change must be considered as a factor.

 A little further digging reveals this from 28 July 2004

Experts warn over seabird numbers
Some of the most important seabird colonies in Western Europe are under threat because their main source of food seems to be disappearing.

Shetland fishermen have stopped catching [sandeels], but scientists believe climate change could be to blame for their continued decline, which is causing the birds to starve. 

Frankly it's amazing that there are any seabirds left at all, what with all the disasters befalling them in recent years. You have to wonder whether the PR department at the RSPB has a diary entry for every summer entitled "Seabird disaster (probably climate change) story".

Now of course we can't discount the possibility that there is a genuine problem with seabird numbers. With this in mind, I've taken a look at the official government numbers (yes, we have a government body responsible for counting birds) for one species which seems to have been particularly affected - the common guillemot.

The recent poor breeding success shows up clearly in their figures, but there's a bit of a mystery here. Breeding numbers are pretty stable

 

The graph starts at 1986. And here's another surprising thing - according to the same report in 2002, the 1987 population figure was itself up 118% on 1969.

So as far as I can tell, breeding numbers are stable, total population is way up on what it was in the past, but there's a bit of mystery about where all these birds are coming from. (Perhaps they're just hiding their eggs from all the bird counters?). And this is apparently a disaster which is yet more evidence of global warming.

Colour me unconvinced.  

Shameless BBC still peddling porkies for greens

This time it's the story of a City lawyer cum environmentalist called Lewis Gordon Pugh, who has gone for a dip at the North Pole "to highlight the effects of climate change". Mr Pugh's website shows him to be a man with no qualms about blowing his own trumpet. He describes his ability to swim in cold water thusly:

As soon as I enter cold water my body shunts all my warm blood to my core to protect my vital organs. It then generates incredible heat. However, before I even enter the water, I am able to elevate my core body temperature by as much as 1.4°C (35F). This phenomenon, now known as "anticipatory thermogenises", has to our knowledge not been noted in any other human being.

Golly. A superhuman physical specimen then. So, what about the dip in the Arctic then?

The City lawyer said the swim was a triumph but it was "a tragedy that it's possible to swim at the North Pole. I hope my swim will inspire world leaders to take climate change seriously," he said.

What a load of old twaddle. We've been here before haven't we? Remember this from a few years back?

An American scientist says a large expanse of ice-free water has opened up at the North Pole this year. Dr James McCarthy, an oceanographer, says he found a mile-wide (1.6 km) stretch of open ocean on a recent trip to the region.

Unfortunately for Dr McCarthy (an IPCC man, by the way) and for the attention hungry superman, Mr Pugh, it was pointed out by the late great John Daly that expanses of open sea water had been observed at the poles for decades. They even had a name - polynyas - and they could be tens of miles wide.

 

The McCarthy scare story was widely reported, although some reputable outlets like the New York Times withdrew it once it was shown to be arrant nonsense.  The BBC doesn't seem to operate to these kind of standards though and McCarthy's tall tale is still available on their website. And now, of course, they are recycling it again for the benefit of Mr Pugh and the environmental movement, presumably hoping that no-one will notice that it was utterly debunked seven years ago.