Does thick first year ice on Hudson Bay mean a late date ashore for WH polar bears in 2018?
The Sound Of Settled Science
Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry explains her conversion to skeptic as she is set to debate Michael Mann…
The 1992 UN Climate Change treaty was signed by 190 countries before the balance of scientific evidence suggested even a discernible human influence on global climate. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was implemented before we had any confidence that most of the warming was caused by humans. There was tremendous political pressure on the IPCC scientists to present findings that would support these treaties, which resulted in a manufactured consensus.
O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas
Blowout 232
An eclectic mix of energy and climate news stories from around the world compiled by Roger Andrews.
This week’s feature story returns us to the UK, which despite previous failures is once more looking into carbon capture & storage. But this time it will be done with a “profoundly large scale sequestration system” big enough to ” arrest the progression of climate change”. This is a hard act to follow, but we do our best with stories on OPEC; renewables, solar subsidies, coal and Rosatom in China; Germany finally sets up a coal phaseout commission; Sweden approves Nordstream 2; too much solar in California and Australia; not enough wind in UK; Drax plans more biomass; Swansea tidal lagoon numbers are “awful”; another way of extracting CO2 from air; liquid air energy storage and why we haven’t found aliens yet – climate change killed them.
Earlier in the week:
Y2Kyoto: This Fevered Rock
Some people waking up in parts of Newfoundland got a wintry jolt when they looked out their window this morning and saw white. Areas around Gander and St. John’s got a light dusting of snow as temperatures dipped to about -1 C, with a wind chill of about -7 C.
Y2Kyoto: Score 1 For Chevron
Funny we didn’t hear about this in the news. Chevron Wins $38M From Enviros Behaving Badly: Extortion, Fraud, Corruption, More
Y2Kyoto: Breathe Easy
Despite their reputation, flatulent cows aren’t capable of destroying the world, an environmental politics professor argues in forthcoming research paper. But still, livestock are saddled with an outsized share of the blame for climate change. And if that misunderstanding persists, and pushes policymakers to force a societal shift from meat-eating, it could lead to disaster, says Ryan Katz-Rosene at the University of Ottawa’s school of political studies.
The idea that eating meat is bad for the environment is a drastic oversimplification of an incredibly complex subject, born from a 2006 study that suggested livestock production was as bad as the transportation sector, counting for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Katz-Rosene said in an interview. There were several problems with the 18 percent figure, he said, but it still managed to brand livestock as one of the villains in the war on climate change.
h/t Bob
Blowout 230
An eclectic mix of energy and climate news stories from around the world compiled by Roger Andrews.
Topping the list this week is Germany, which has again delayed setting up the committee that will decide how to phase out its coal plants. Could it be that Germany is finally coming to realize that it can’t phase out its coal (and nuclear) plants and keep the lights on? We follow up with stories on OPEC; Venezuela and Russia; the North Sea makes a comeback; the “Bulgarian Stream” pipeline; the US-led international alliance to push nuclear power; cheap coal edging out gas generation in Europe; India running out of coal; the UK to pay to stay in Euratom; synchronous condensers instead of batteries in South Australia; solar panels that generate energy from raindrops and a renewed search for the Loch Ness Monster.
The Sound Of Settled Science
@JudithCurry —“A new angle on climate model uncertainty: changing the order in which different climate processes are computed can vary climate feedback parameter by half the full CMIP5 spread in climate feedback. “
Y2Kyoto: Those Po, Po, Poley Bears
Things You’re Gonna See On The CBC
…the public broadcaster’s repackaging of Lamoureux’s exclusive was far from the first time it had been accused of re-reporting another outlet’s scoop without credit. CANADALAND, through online searches and interviews with journalists at other outlets, has found that the CBC often appears to go out of its way to avoid crediting others’ scoops — by independently verifying information from another outlet, the CBC frequently sidesteps acknowledgement of the original source.
“They do it all the time. Just last week, [Globe and Mail reporter] Sean Silcoff had an exclusive on new IP policy two days ahead of the announcement,” Robert Fife, The Globe’s Ottawa bureau chief, said in a recent email. “The following day, it was ‘CBC has learned’ that same story that was published on the front page of Report on Business.
So, global warming is going to cause volcanos in Canada? Our state broadcaster literally broadcast that. They’ll say anything to please their political master, Justin Trudeau. They’ll look like utter fools. But they’ll get their $1.5B/year. https://t.co/EBUYbWGCy8
— Ezra Levant 🇨🇦 (@ezralevant) May 24, 2018
Y2Kyoto: Hypevironment Canada
LOL a "heat warning" for a high of 29 degrees and an overnight low of 14.
Yeah, that's a real scorcher. 🙄
Pretty obvious what you are trying to do here @environmentca. https://t.co/vCrsitmv4I
— John Groves (@jfgroves) May 21, 2018
Y2Kyoto: Bees Freeze
The United Nation’s food agency and the European Union on Saturday called for global action to protect pollinators, and bees in particular, which are crucial for ensuring food security.
Oh yeah? Maybe they should lighten up on the Climate Cool-Aid.
Beekeepers in Alberta are reporting losses of between 30 and 50 percent of their hives mostly due to the cold, harsh winter…. Winter hits Sask. bees much harder than usual…. Winter bee deaths ‘excessively high,’ say Ontario beekeepers
Y2Kyoto: Climate Dumbo
Shake, shake, shake that money tree…
Woolly mammoths have been extinct for more than 4,000 years, but with new gene-editing techniques, they could help mitigate the effects of a modern problem: climate change. […]
When mammoths roamed in a northern area known as the “mammoth steppe,” that ecosystem was rich in grasses. But after the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) went extinct and other grazers left the area, grasses gave way to shrubs and a tundra ecosystem, an environment that the Harvard Woolly Mammoth Revival team says is “contributing to human-driven climate change.” […]
The elephants on our planet right now can’t tolerate the cold climate of the steppe. So the idea is to use gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR to insert the ancient robust genes from mammoths into Asian elephant cells and create embryos that may grow up to be elephant-mammoth hybrids that can.
Just what I need coming through the windshield of my truck.
Wynneing!
If Ontario’s carbon pricing scheme is such a great idea, why aren’t Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne, and the NDP’s Andrea Horwath, who supports it, praising it to the skies on the campaign trail?
Thanks to a new Ipsos-Global TV poll, now we know why.
Y2Kyoto: Location, Location, Location
Blowout 228
An eclectic mix of energy and climate news stories from around the world compiled by Roger Andrews.
The big news this week is Trump’s re-imposition of sanctions on Iran, which will cut Iran’s oil production to the point where, combined with cratering oil production from Venezuela, it could cause another oil price spike. We follow with our usual mix – more on Iran, Venezuela and OPEC; oil in Norway; gas pipeline constraints in Europe; Japan moves to coal; British Columbia misses its renewables target; stalemate at the Bonn Climate Conference; California to mandate rooftop solar on new houses; Tesla’s 1GW battery; hydrogen storage in UK; the Swansea Bay tidal standoff; more cracks at Hunterston and how the ravages of climate change threaten historical records.
Blowout 227
An eclectic mix of energy and climate news stories from around the world compiled by Roger Andrews.
This week’s lead story features media hysteria over the alleged dangers of nuclear power. Russia’s first floating nuclear plant has begun its journey from St. Petersburg to Murmansk and is already being described as a “floating Chernobyl” even though it doesn’t have any fuel loaded. We follow up with a mix of hopefully more educational stories on OPEC and Angola; oil company profits rise; Nord Stream; US nuclear plant closures; Allianz to stop insuring coal miners; coal miners making money because of the “war on coal”; Denmark’s EV debacle; Mercedes exits the US home battery market; the enormous pumped hydro potential of Indonesia; frustration at the Bonn Climate Conference; Ireland faces EU emissions fines; energy efficiency rollouts in the UK and how you can now earn UN carbon credits by riding your bicycle:
Y2Kyoto: I’ll Miss The Mountain Pika
Previously, when researchers visited pika habitat sites warmer or drier than usual in the Great Basin, where they had historically lived, they found that many of these sites no longer were occupied. It was thought that pikas had been forced to higher ground to escape the warming temperatures or had died, and it was concluded that pikas were in threat of extinction in the Great Basin due to climate change.
Or, in the words of a wise elder – “Pikas move.”
It’s Probably Nothing
