Virginia court rules against ATI

I've just had word that the Virginia circuit court has ruled against the American Tradition Institute, declaring that the University of Virginia does not have to release Michael Mann's emails. If I understand it correctly, the ruling is that correspondence between academics is in some way proprietary and therefore it is up to the university whether they release the information.

More once the ruling becomes clearer.

Jo Nova on the fossil fuel "subsidies"

Jo Nova has done an indepth analysis of the "fossil fuels are subsidised" argument, knowingly and misleadingly promoted by environmentalists and their political friends around the world.

Groups like Greenpeace and The Australian Conservation Foundation argue that really, Governments are helping fossil fuel companies far more than green ones. But while governments rewrite national economies to help “green” companies, about half of the help for fossil fuels is simply that the government didn’t take as much off them as it could. The net flow of money is still from Big-Fossil-Energy towards Big-Government. It takes a special kind of grand entitlement to call that a subsidy.

A must-read.

Legal education for climate scientists

The AGU is getting together with green activists the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund to organise a series of webinars:

In recent years, an increasing number of scientists have found themselves involved in legal discussions about their work, their correspondence, and their public statements. To better prepare the scientific community for these challenges, AGU and CSLDF have put together a legal education program for the scientific community. The goal is to both give a primer on the legal issues facing scientists and update them on legal situations currently making their way through the courts.

The legal education program will start with a series of webinars featuring some of the lawyers on the front lines of climate science litigation. These webinars will be followed by a series of legal education events at AGU’s 2012 Fall Meeting.

The first seminars look pretty interesting. The first is on document retention, a subject that someone more cynical than me might characterise as "what can safely be deleted". The second is "an inside look at the Michael Mann case" and seems to have evasion of FOI as its focus.

Deben slapped down

Christopher Booker reports:

Last week saw a truly momentous defeat for the green lobby groups which, in the past decade, have exercised almost complete control over Britain’s future energy policy. The fact that this took the form of a mighty slapdown for Lord Deben (formerly John Gummer), newly confirmed chairman of the Climate Change Committee, makes it all the more telling.

You have to wonder about politicians - appointing someone with a conflict of interest and then publicly humiliating them seems, well, odd. What is going on here?

A new typology for the climate debate

This is a guest post by Lloyd Robertson.

I think we need a new typology for people who comment on climate--better than warmists vs. skeptics or any other "teams". I propose three main analytical categories:

• state of mind
• whether still learning or not
• communicating with public/media honestly or dishonestly.

For state of mind, I want to distinguish ordinary ignorance, Socratic ignorance (knowing when one doesn't know something), and knowledge.

Click to read more ...

Paterson - wind will not work

Owen Paterson has given his first major interview, choosing Farmer's Weekly for this important occasion.

You have a reputation for being a climate change sceptic. Are you?

I’m practical. I’m really amazed by the way this has all blown up. There has been significant opposition in my part of the world to inland wind farms – for the sensible reason there is no wind there.

But I am clear that climate change is happening – climate change has been happening and will continue to happen. And it is quite obvious there is a man-made element to that.

What I want to see is the right measures in the right place delivering the right results.

From my own direct constituency experience I don’t personally think that inland wind farms are effective at reducing carbon. I don’t even think they are effective at producing energy.

Ben biffs Barry

Barry Gardiner, the MP for Brent North has been speaking about renewables at the Energy Live News website. During his interview, he made this remarkable statement about government support for different energy types:

He claimed the third [lie behind government energy policy] is that Government is “neutral” and doesn’t pick favourites in energy: “Last year the OECD announced that in 2010 the UK subsidised fossil fuels by £3.6 billion. In last year’s budget, the Chancellor announced a further £65million to oil and gas in 2011… In contrast the total subsidy paid to onshore wind in 2010 was just £400million.”

This is not the first time he has said this. Back in August he made the same claim in an article for the New Statesman:

Click to read more ...

More evidence that the IPCC is a busted flush

Roger Pielke Jr's latest post outlines how the IPCC responded to his evidence that the Fourth Assessment Report was flawed as regards trends in weather-related disasters. I think it's fair to say that they have an almost comical inability to admit error.

I've gone on the record before as saying that the Fifth Assessment Report is dead in the water already.

It looks as if I was right.

Tamsin on the jet stream

Tamsin Edwards has posted a link to a recent interview she gave BBC radio on the subject of the jetstream, among other things. Paul Matthews comments:

If most climate scientists were like @flimsin, there'd be hardly any sceptics.

I've only managed to listen to the first five minutes or so, but I can see what he means.

Fisking Renewable UK

Delingpole is seeking help in fisking the claims made about wind power by RenewableUK (formerly the British Wind Energy Association). The specific claims are in this article by the organisation's deputy CEO, Maf Smith:

Why I don’t think wind costs the earth

By Maf Smith Deputy Chief Executive, RenewableUK

Britain is the windiest country in Europe so let’s use it to the full. We have enough wind energy installed to supply nearly five million households all year round. We already get five per cent of our electricity from wind turbines – we’re on course to get 25 per cent of it by 2020. Turbines don’t need much wind to start turning that’s why they generate electricity for at least 80 per cent of the time.

Click to read more ...

The futility of the EU

Some months ago I covered Amelia Sharman's paper on the way the EU mandate on biofuels had come into being - a tale of corruption and graft if ever there was one.

Having spent the last five years enforcing the use of biofuels, the commisison has now changed course:

The European Union will impose a limit on the use of crop-based biofuels over fears they are less climate-friendly than initially thought and compete with food production, draft EU legislation seen by Reuters showed.

The draft rules, which will need the approval of EU governments and lawmakers, represent a major shift in Europe's much-criticized biofuel policy and a tacit admission by policymakers that the EU's 2020 biofuel target was flawed from the outset.

Flawed from the outset? That's a strange way of summarising what happened. The policy was never intended to reduce carbon emissions - it was designed to benefit a handful of farmers.

H/T Roddy Campbell.

Barker under investigation

Greg Barker, the energy minister whose relatioship with a lobbyist raised eyebrows here a few days ago is apparently under investigation by the cabinet office.

The prime minister has disclosed that the close ties between Greg Barker, the climate change minister, and the energy consultant Miriam Maes have raised such concern within Whitehall that the cabinet secretary and a permanent secretary have been asked to examine whether she was properly appointed.

I can't say I'm holding my breath. Experience of suggests that Whitehall investigations, and particularly those involving green tinged politicians, end with a nod and a wink.

Porcine politics - Josh 184

Cartoons by Josh

More trouble for DECC

No sooner has DECC appointed Lord Deben to head the Climate Change COmmittee than one of its ministers finds himself in a spot of who-is-he-working-for-anyway bother.

Minister Greg Barker has been holding meetings with an eco-company called Air Products. Unfortunately it turns out that Air Products is a client of one of his DECC advisers.

Oh dear. DECC seems to be staffed by the corrupt and advised by the dishonest, doesn't it? It really is time for a clean sweep of both ministers and officials.

Update on Sep 11, 2012 by Bishop Hill

The noise on Twitter is that Air Products is closely linked to AFC Energy, which is chaired by Tim Yeo. It seems the two companies are working on a project together.

Yeo resigns one of his interests

Tim Yeo has decided to resign from his role in EcoCity Taxis, a position that had led to accusations of conflict of interest in recent weeks. Guido has the story:

Yeo has quit as a director of the company. Da Costa is also standing down. With the lobbying mission accomplished, now Yeo is running for cover…

With Deben being accepted by the Energy and Climate Change Committee and Yeo still retaining several problem positions in eco businesses this move is nevertheless unlikely to do much to improve the perception of certain corners of the Conservative party as still retaining their troughing ways.