Is landfill the greener way to recycle?

Another recycling plant has gone up in smoke. This time the facility involved is in Wales, and there is apparently a fear that it could burn for days.

In related news a plastics recycling facility in Thailand was wiped out by fire a few hours ago.

On Saturday, it was a facility in Virginia that proved incendiary.

On Friday, there were two facilities in flames, one in Forth Worth and one in South Carolina.

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EU funds climate propaganda

Updated on Aug 31, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Updated on Aug 31, 2015 by Bishop Hill

John WebsterHot on the heels of the story about the BBC's accepting paid-for programming (aka propaganda) from environmental groups comes the news that the EU has been paying for programmes too. Chief among these were a piece extolling the virtues of...the European Union, which was faithfully aired by the BBC back in March, and a forthcoming show about climate change entitled Little Yellow Boots. A demo reel for the latter can be seen here.

As these things go it's pretty run of the mill, but fairly nauseating and you may prefer just to cast your eyes over the blurb:

Filmmaker John Webster has become ever more concerned about climate change. Together with his imaginary great-granddaughter he sets out to find a solution that will both cure him of the demons that haunt him, but also help her in the very different world she will inherit from us.

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Away with the fairies

Journalist David Appell appears a couple of times in The Hockey Stick Illusion, firstly in Chapter 4, in the section entitled "Mann's mouthpiece", where he is the source (if perhaps not the ultimate source) of the (false) claim that Mann sent McIntyre an Excel spreadsheet. It's worth reading again if you have a moment.

Anyway, in the wake of Mark Steyn's book on Michael Mann, Appell has written to Jonathan Jones enquiring about the latter's comments on the Hockey Stick and the results have been written up in a blog post here. It's hilarious.

For example, Jones observes that bristlecones are not reliable temperature proxies and that principal components analysis requires data to be centred, before following up with similar scientific objections to a couple of other papers that Appell has cited in support of Mann. Appell's response to all of these objections is, in total:

This is clearly just a lot of hand-waving.

Read the rest of it too. The guy is away with the fairies.

Stern words - Josh 341

Stern is Mr Flip Flop.

Cartoons by Josh

Duelling models

Climate models eh? If nothing else, they are at least the cause of some wonderfully convoluted arguments among climate scientists as they pore over the outputs like psychics gazing at the tea leaves in a saucer.

Recall, if you will, the story over the Sahel. GWPF put out a briefing pointing out that earlier claims that global warming was going to lead to perennial drought there were nullified by a long period of greening. This led to a cod debunking from Desmog, but later to a paper by Dong and Sutton, which claimed, on the basis of a GCM study, that the greening was in fact caused by greenhouse gases (background here).

The latest development is a new paper (£) by Alessandra Giannini of the Earth Institute at Columbia, which critiques Dong and Sutton. Her case is that there is a well-established link between sea-surface temperatures and Sahelian drought:

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FITs to burst

It's not a good day to be a green or a crony capitalist: the government has announced its proposals on feed-in-tariffs and it makes pretty ugly reading for all those who feed at the trough of government subsidies.

The headline news is that rooftop solar subsidies are going to be slashed from 12.6p to a token 1.6p per kWh. All those claims that solar is close to being cost-competitive with traditional forms of electricity are therefore now going to be given a fairly rigorous testing. If the claims are true then we can look forward to solar panels spreading to every rooftop.

And if they are not, it will mean the end of all those cold calls.

[Updated to reflect that these are proposals rather than commitments]

Carwyn's car crash

The renewable energy sector is of vital importance to North Wales, [which] is becoming a powerhouse for renewable energy.

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones, December 2014

[W]e’ve been saying for a long time, as have Tata, energy costs in the UK are too high.

“When compared to other countries, even in Europe, it’s very difficult for our industries to use a lot of energy to actually be competitive.

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones, today

Wales has to move to a green economy as fast as possible, says First Minister Carwyn Jones...Mr Jones told a renewable energy conference in Cardiff that he had taken personal responsibility for energy policy within the Welsh government.

BBC News report, 2011

Wasted Green - Josh 340

This week there's news that the Obama administration is to fork out $12 billion in new Federal loan guarantees for renewables businesses - somewhat ironic considering the debt-laden ill wind blowing in from the East at the moment.

Cartoons by Josh

DECC's oil price forecast updated

I thought it might be interesting to see how the DECC fossil fuel price forecast - you know, the one that  is said to justify all those subsidies, feed-in-tariffs and renewables obligations. The comparison is startling - I've added a dot with today's Brent crude price.

The claim that decarbonisation would only cost a few percentage points off GDP seems to have been a fairy story.

In related news, GWPF have again called for DECC to be closed down.

The ever-changing story of Stern

Lord Stern ponders what positions he might adopt after lunchLord Stern has mounted his high horse, ready to slay the dragon of opposition to anything he deems a good idea at the time.

The problem is that Lord Stern's views seem fluid to say the least. Back in 2009 he was telling the world that rich nations would have to forgo growth in order to stop climate change.

Now he is telling us that portraying economic growth and climate change action as being in conflict is "diversionary" and a "misunderstanding of economic development".

The question readers want answered is "Does Lord Stern ever actually mean anything he says?".

(H/T Richard Tol)

Update on Aug 27, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Josh points out that the Guardian, rather hilariously, even has the evidence on the same page as Stern's new article!

Just in from the Nats

This just in from the deputy leader of the SNP in Westminster:

Scottish Tories to roll out red carpet to "rich people" through GM crops and fracking! No thanks! No GM. No Fracking. No Tories. #VoteSNP

— Stewart Hosie (@StewartHosieSNP) August 25, 2015

Words fail me.

The Sun says shun alarmism

Interesting to see a large splash in the Sun taking a pop at climate alarmism. I think the message may be getting through.

Shelling out for windfarm operators

A few weeks ago, and unnoticed by yours truly, David Davis MP took a step to address one of the most egregious practices of windfarm operators.

The big companies that build windfarms tend to put each of their developments in a separate shell company, with a small share capital and funding provided instead through a large loan from the parent company. With profits immediately passed up to the parent, the operating businesses will usually have no net assets, which means that if any large liabilities arise there is nothing available to meet them.

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Scam, scam, scam - Josh 339

Another well known scam that does not seem to bother 'them upstairs'. Astonishing.

Cartoons by Josh

Another view that must not be heard

The BBC's Matt McGrath has been looking at a new report by a green think tank called the Stockholm Environment Institute. No surprise there - there is a general acceptance among BBC environment journalists that green think tanks are the ones that publish interesting stuff.

The report looks quite good, describing how many of the carbon credits awarded to Russia and Ukraine are actually fraudulent. This is, in itself, not surprising either - I made a similar point in the report I wrote for GWPF on the unintended consequences of climate policy.

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