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Bishop Hill Oct 9, 2012 Energy: gas Politicians …Owen Patterson, the new Environment Minister, spoke at a fringe event last night, where he showed himself more than capable of rhetoric.
Bishop Hill Bishop Hill Oct 8, 2012 Bureaucrats Recycling Yet more madness from the bureaucrats in Europe...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/10/07/now-the-european-union-starts-to-ban-recycling/
Bishop Hill Oct 8, 2012 Energy: wind Green energy companies are threatening to leave the UK if we don't roll out the subsidies to the promised schedule. This story comes to us via the front page of the Times, which can just about be seen here.
And this is a problem why?
Bishop Hill
The Telegraph's take on the story is here.
Bishop Hill Oct 7, 2012 Climate: other Education Booker's column today tells the story of an A' Level student who dared to question the AGW consensus in his exam. He received a grade E. As Booker explains:
His mother then paid £60 for his paper to be re-marked. It was judged to be “articulate, well-structured” and clearly well-informed, but again he was marked down with “E” for fail.
The UK education system is designed to produce not educated young people, but people who are willing to pay lip-service to the socialist shibboleth du jour.
Bishop Hill Oct 7, 2012 Climate: other Lewandowsky's use of funding from the University of Western Australia to fund the propagation of his political views has rankled for many weeks now. Today, Jo Nova reports on an attempt to bring this abuse of taxpayer largesse to the attention of the university authorities.
Michael Kile (see below) has gone a step further and has raised the issue at the last UWA Convocation meeting on Sept 21 to put it on the official document trail. The Vice Chancellor was in attendance. The Chairman, who is Warden of Convocation, also happens to be on the board of the blog: ShapingTomorrowsWorld, where Lewandowsky writes. Hmm.
It may be purely coincidental, but since this meeting Lewandowsky has not posted anything on his blog.
The academic as publicly funded political campaigner is a problem that is surely rife in other countries too. I'm sure readers can think of examples.
Bishop Hill Oct 6, 2012 Climate: sensitivity A new discussion paper at Climate of the Past presents a new estimate of climate sensitivity from proxy records (H/T Bob Carter). The figure it comes up with is 1.1±0.4°C. This is in line with the Forster and Gregory estimate, and far below the IPCC's figure.
Climate sensitivity is a crucial parameter in global temperature modelling. An estimate is made at the time 33.4Ma using published high-resolution deep-sea temperature proxy obtained from foraminiferal δ18O records from DSDP site 744, combined with published 5 data for atmospheric partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) from carbonate microfossils, where 11B provides a proxy for pCO2. The pCO2 data shows a pCO2 decrease accompanying the major cooling event of about 4 C from greenhouse conditions to icecap conditions following the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (33.7 My). During the cooling pCO2 fell from 1150 to 770 ppmv. The cooling event was followed by a rapid and huge 10 increase in pCO2 back to 1130 ppmv in the space of 50 000 yr. The large pCO2 increase was accompanied by a small deep-ocean temperature increase estimated as 0.59±0.063 C. Climate sensitivity estimated from the latter is 1.1±0.4°C (66% confidence) compared with the IPCC central value of 3 C.
Bishop Hill Oct 5, 2012 Energy: grid Ofgem, the UK's energy regulator, has apparently announced that the UK should expect power outages to begin in the winter of 2015-16.
Britain risks running out of energy generating capacity in the winter of 2015-16, according to the energy regulator Ofgem.
Its report predicted that the amount of spare capacity could fall from 14% now to only 4% in three years.
Ofgem said this would leave Britain relying more on imported gas, which would make price rises more likely.
The government said that its forthcoming Energy Bill would ensure that there was secure supply.
That last bit is not a joke. The government really thinks that throwing money into the wind is going to make things better. Really, I wouldn't like to be Lord Deben, Chris Huhne, Ed Davey, Gregory Barker or Lord Marland when it all goes dark.
Bishop Hill Oct 5, 2012 FOI 
Chris Horner's new book has hit the shops in the US, covering the whole gamut of attempts by bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic to evade their obligations under the FoIA Act. There's plenty for climate geeks to enjoy. Here's a taster. They don't work for you, you know.
Bishop Hill Oct 5, 2012 Science Media Centre The Science Media has also issued this video about how wonderful they are.
Yuk.
Bishop Hill Oct 4, 2012 Climate: Statistics Josh Bishop Hill Oct 4, 2012 Science Media Centre The Science Media Centre is celebrating ten years of doing whatever it is it supposed to do and has issued a glossy brochure to celebrate its greatest hits. Prominent among these is, of course, Climategate.
I've attached an extract below.
It's a pity they don't mention their work on the Oxburgh report, when they managed to wheel out a series of big hitters in the scientific world, all of whom were willing to describe the five pages of the report as "thorough". That one of them was implicated in wrongdoing in the Climategate emails and another in the cover-up added a certain air of unreality to the whole affair.
Bishop Hill Oct 4, 2012 Climate: other Josh Steve sends this photo of him blogging recently.
The number of brickbats being hurled in his direction is clearly getting serious if he is having to wear a hard hat while writing...
Bishop Hill Oct 3, 2012 Climate: Sceptics James Murray, the editor of Business Green website, has penned an extraordinary screed about us wicked sceptics and what to do about us. From conspiracy theorising…
A small band of climate sceptics centred on Lord Lawson's Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) have, through a hugely expert lobbying campaign, convinced an influential and sizable group of Tory MPs and right wing media commentators that climate change is not something to worry about
…to name calling…
Personally, I favour the terms "climate reckless" and "pollutocrats".
…and even hints at his underlying motivations…
The problem is that in the short term the continuing influence of climate sceptic thinking remains a serious threat to green growth.
…the article has the lot. Enjoy.
