The old fabulist of Fleet Street

Sometimes the sheer brazenness of the Guardian can take you completely aback. Having spent the last five years hyping every tall story from the environmentalists to high heaven and back again the old fabulist of Fleet Street has come up with a portentous editorial saying that the government is ignoring "genuine anxieties" that people have about this "novel" process.

Bribes and bullying are no way of dealing with genuine anxieties about a novel process

To the extent that the anxieties are genuine this is simply because environment correspondents across the media, but particularly at the Guardian, have been systematically misleading the public. As if to provide support for this view, the suggestion that fracking - a process that has been used for half a century without anyone noticing - is "novel" is simply untrue.

A glance at the rest of the article brings further examples, such as the endless repeated canard that warming above 2°C is somehow dangerous. No it isn't. No it isn't. No it isn't. No it isn't.

Predictions

Climate Change Predictions is a new blog on the climate block, which introduces itself thus:

We are a small group who have followed the global warming/ climate change issue for some years. Initially we didn’t know which version was correct but we noticed several things. One was the frequent use of predictions, often scary, that seemed on the surface to be believable. We wondered whether anyone ever went back to see if the predictions turned out to be true.

This blog presents predictions that have been made over the past 40 years or so and we leave it to you to make up your own mind about them.

Jo Nova points out that the post category of "hardest hit" is hilarious. Take a look.

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.

Green-not-so-peaceful - Josh 310

Shocking.

Cartoons by Josh

More Greenpeace death threats

Updated on Jan 23, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Who can forget the infamous threat from Greenpeace's Gene Hasmi?

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few.

But was this a one-off? The evidence is suggesting otherwise. In the comments thread to a particularly sick Guardian post, which was adorned with a photo of a severed head, and which I will not therefore dignify with a link, comes this from commenter Bluecloud:

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A shameful lecture in St Andrews

Anthony leads this morning with a report about a new study from the University of Minnesota, which shows that a third of crop yield variability is down to changes in climate, although it's not clear to me if they really mean climate or if they actually mean weather.

By coincidence I was in St Andrews last night for a lecture on the subject of climate change and food security given by David Battisti of the University of Washington, currently on a sabbatical in Scotland funded by the Carnegie Trust. A part of his duties appears to be to travel around Scottish universities doing public relations for the green movement by talking about food security. As far as I can see from his publications, this is not actually Prof Battisti's specialism, so the description as PR is not unwarranted.

There was a good turnout for the event last night - with the lecture theatre almost all full with a mixture of green-minded students and green-minded townsfolk. The principal did the introduction, suggesting a degree of importance was attached to the occasion.

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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]

Live Earth 2

The news from Davos is that Al Gore is going to have another go at doing a Live Earth global telethon event.

A Live Earth music event to demand action on climate change will take place on June 18 across seven continents, including Antarctica, former US vice-president Al Gore and pop star Pharrell Williams announced on Wednesday.

Concerts will be staged in six cities - Paris, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, Sydney and Cape Town - in what will be the largest event of its type ever staged. The final Antarctic gig will be played by a band of scientists at a research station, Gore said.

It will be interesting to see if the BBC decides to get involved. Last time round the green fraternity with in the corporation moved heaven and earth to get the weight of the BBC behind it (see the Propaganda Bureau). However, there was something of an uproar and the corporation backed down. Ten years on, and with the CMEP scandal out in the open, one assumes that they will steer clear. But with bureaucracies you never can tell.

Thought for the day

Saying that humans cause climate change is like saying alcohol causes babies. Sure, you might get some more, but it rather misses the point.

Plans coming to fruition

The tsunami of deception and misinformation that has characterised the greens' response to the prospect of an unconventional oil and gas industry in the UK seems to have had the desired effect:

Fracking should not be allowed to take place at two sites in Lancashire due to concerns about noise and traffic, the council's planning officer has said, in a major blow to the Government's plans for shale gas development.

Proposals by Cuadrilla to drill and frack at Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood should both be refused by councillors at a vote next week, the official said, in documents published on Wednesday.

Fracking at both sites would lead to "unacceptable" levels of noise pollution for neighbouring properties, the planning officer said.

This is pretty remarkable stuff. Preston New Road (here) is a field next to an A-road. The idea that the noise levels will be unacceptable is patently absurd.

On namecalling

Readers will remember Amelia Sharman for her work on the EU's biofuels scandal and also for her paper on global warming sceptics. Her latest paper (£), in WIRES Climate Change and coauthored with Candice Howarth of Anglia Ruskin, is on the subject of namecalling, again with particular reference to the climate debate. It includes a survey on the literature on the subject, taking in all the silly papers on the subject by people like Rahmstorf and Lewandowsky (citing the Moon Hoax paper, apparently with a straight face!).

It also reviews various terms of art, concluding in passing that there are no appropriate terms for people who are not covered by the extremes of warmist and alarmist or sceptic and denier. The authors don't seem to have heard of "lukewarmers". They seem to uncritically accept arguments that "sceptic" is an unsuitable label for dissenters on climate change.

Encouragingly, however, their conclusion is that that namecalling by academics isn't helping.

It is critical that policy-makers continue to use the academic literature as an evidence base, therefore it is also vital that researchers are attentive to the ways in which their use of, and focus on labels in the climate debate may not be contributing constructively toward a more inclusive dialog about climate change.

I can't help think that this misses the point though. "Contrarian" and "denier" are used precisely to prevent inclusive dialogue on climate change. It is no coincidence that eco-activists academics and eco-activist politicians  and media people are both enthusiastic users of the d-word and enthusiastic complainants - to newspapers and broadcasters and media regulators - whenever dissenting views are aired.

An oldie and a goodie

For reasons not entirely clear to me, Martin Durkin just posted a link to his 2011 blog post about just how posh environmentalists tend to be. If you haven't read it before, you really, really should.

It is not exclusive, expensive delicatessens, but rather the wicked low-cost supermarkets frequented by everyday folk which they find repellent.  It is a commonly heard complaint from Greens that things ‘aren’t expensive enough’.  The ‘rebels’ down from Eton for the anti-globalisation rallies threw bricks through windows – but not the windows of high-class restaurants.  Instead they smashed up and ransacked a working class MacDonalds when they marched down Piccadilly.  It is not the luxurious Heals furniture shop that makes them angry, but the proletarian IKEA, with its affordable sofas and lamps.

A lukewarmer's history

Matt Ridley has an excellent post up at the Times, recounting his involvement in the climate debate, from believer to lukewarmer, and the story of how those who once stood beside him as believers have moved from polite disagreement with his scepticism to a new approach of smear and abuse.

It's paywalled, but there are extensive excerpts here.

The unintended consequences of climate change policy

I have a new paper out at GWPF, looking at the unintended consequences of climate change policy. This has been a long time in gestation, but I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results. Those promoting climate change alarm should really be ashamed of themselves.

London, 19 January: A new paper by Andrew Montford and published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation examines the unintended consequences of climate change policy around the world.

We are constantly told about the risks of what climate change might bring in the distant future. In response, governments have adopted a series of policy measures that have been largely ineffective but have brought with them a bewildering array of unintended consequences.

From the destruction of the landscape wrought by windfarms, to the graft and corruption that has been introduced by the carbon markets, to the disastrous promotion of biofuels, carbon mitigation policies have brought chaos in their wake.

The new paper surveys some of the key policy measures, reviewing the unintended consequences for both the UK and the rest of the world. Mr Montford is a prominent writer on climate change and energy policy and has appeared many times in the media.

“The most shameful aspect of the developed world’s rush to implement climate change mitigation policies is that they have often been justified by reference to ethics. Yet the results have been the very opposite of ethical.” said Mr Montford.

“Andrew Montford has reviewed the sad truth about various schemes to ‘save the planet’ from the demonized but life-giving gas CO2: from bird-killing windmills, native peoples expelled from their ancestral lands, to fraud in the trading of carbon credits. Every thinking citizen of the planet should read this,” said William Happer, Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

Munk's sea-level enigma

In the text of last week's paper by Hay et al on sea-level rise I noticed a claim that the results "may contribute to the ultimate resolution of Munk’s sea-level enigma". I'd never heard of this enigma before, and with a name like it was hard to resist a bit of further study. I found a copy of the relevant paper here.

Changes in sea level (relative to the moving crust) are associated with changes in ocean volume (mostly thermal expansion) and in ocean mass (melting and continental storage): ζ(t) = ζ_steric(t) + ζ_eustatic(t). Recent compilations of global ocean temperatures by Levitus and coworkers are in accord with coupled ocean/atmosphere modeling of greenhouse warming; they yield an increase in 20th century ocean heat content by 2 × 10²³ J (compared to 0.1 × 10²³ J of atmospheric storage), which corresponds to ζ_greenhouse(2000) = 3 cm. The greenhouse-related rate is accelerating, with a present value ζ̇_greenhouse(2000) ≈ 6 cm/century. Tide records going back to the 19th century show no measurable acceleration throughout the late 19th and first half of the 20th century; we take ζ̇_historic = 18 cm/century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attributes about 6 cm/century to melting and other eustatic processes, leaving a residual of 12 cm of 20th century rise to be accounted for. The Levitus compilation has virtually foreclosed the attribution of the residual rise to ocean warming (notwithstanding our ignorance of the abyssal and Southern Oceans): the historic rise started too early, has too linear a trend, and is too large. Melting of polar ice sheets at the upper limit of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates could close the gap, but severe limits are imposed by the observed perturbations in Earth rotation. Among possible resolutions of the enigma are: a substantial reduction from traditional estimates (including ours) of 1.5–2 mm/y global sea level rise; a substantial increase in the estimates of 20th century ocean heat storage; and a substantial change in the interpretation of the astronomic record.

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