Y2Koto: Follow The Money

Climate Cult 21 Comments

The professional profile for Dr. Mark Schoeberl is available under NASA’s “Who’s who” section, so I suspect he still works there;

Dr. Mark Schoeberl is an atmospheric scientist who specializes in stratospheric processes including wave dynamics, ozone depletion and trace gas transport. He has over 152 refereed publications and over 4200 citations in atmospheric science journals. Since the early 1980’s he has worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and is currently the Chief Scientist for the Earth Sciences Directorate and the Aura Project Scientist.
Dr. Schoeberl is past President of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). He is the former Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS) Project Scientist. He was the Co-Project Scientist for the airborne VOTE/TOTE mission (1996) and was Co-Project Scientist for the airborne SOLVE I and II missions (2000). He is also a past member of the National Academy’s Board of Atmospheric Sciences.
Dr. Schoeberl is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (1996), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1996), and the American Meteorological Society (1996). He was awarded Goddard’s William Nordberg Memorial Award for Earth Sciences (1998), NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1991), NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal (1996) and Distinguished Service Award (2000), the latter being NASA’s highest award of this type. Dr. Schoeberl grew up in Iowa, and received his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Illinois in 1976

On the other hand, they haven’t updated the page to include his felony conflict of interest conviction, so who knows?
h/t Phillip G. Shaw

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Great Moments In Socialism 18 Comments

Once again, the research staff here at SDA outperform the forces of the CBC and CTV combined! Where else in our green-obsessed Canadian “media” will you find this study mentioned?

“Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies: The German experience(Abstract)
The allure of an environmentally benign, abundant, and cost-effective energy source has led an increasing number of industrialized countries to back public financing of renewable energies. Germany’s experience with renewable energy promotion is often cited as a model to be replicated elsewhere, being based on a combination of far-reaching energy and environmental laws that stretch back nearly two decades. This paper critically reviews the current centerpiece of this effort, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), focusing on its costs and the associated implications for job creation and climate protection. We argue that German renewable energy policy, and in particular the adopted feed-in tariff scheme, has failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies into the country’s energy portfolio. To the contrary, the government’s support mechanisms have in many respects subverted these incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little long-term promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security. In the case of photovoltaics, Germany’s subsidization regime has reached a level that by far exceeds average wages, with per-worker subsidies as high as 175,000 € (US $ 240,000)

The Institute for Energy Research summarizes the German think tank’s key findings;

* Financial aid to Germany’s solar industry has now reached a level that far exceeds average wages, with per worker subsidies as high as $240,000 US.
* In 2008, the price mark-up attributable to the government’s support for “green” electricity was about 2.2 cents US per kWh. For perspective, a 2.2 cent per kWh increase here in the US would amount to an average 19.4% increase in consumer’s electricity bills.
* Government support for solar energy between 2000 and 2010 is estimated to have a total net cost of $73.2 billion US, and $28.1 billion US for wind. A similar expenditure in the US would amount to about half a trillion dollars US.
* Green jobs created by government actions disappear as soon as government support is terminated, a lesson the German government and the green companies it supports are beginning to learn.
* Government aid for wind power is now three times the cost of conventional electricity.

In fact, if you run a search on Google News for “Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung”, you’ll find only German language hits. Read the findings for yourself (pdf), then send it to your MLA’s and members of parliament.
via Chris Horner.

“Check your calendar”

Climate Cult 77 Comments

Never miss an opportunity to create a crisis;

[…]once you realize that swine flu isn’t some sort of alien from outer space as we’ve been led to believe, but rather “the same subtype as seasonal A/H1N1 that has been circulating since 1977,” as the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) observes. It’s “something our immune systems have seen before,” echoes Peter Palese of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
The older you are, the more you’ve been exposed and the higher your immunity level–hence the need to give two swine flu vaccinations to those under age 10.
Nevertheless, because WHO dubbed this a “pandemic,” vaccination plans, emergency response measures and frightening predictions have been based on comparisons with true pandemics that by definition were especially severe. That includes the August report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology with its “plausible scenario” of “30,000 – 90,000 deaths” peaking in “mid-October.”

Via
Update – one of our resident doctors weighs in.

The Sound Of Settled Science

Climate Cult 24 Comments

1. You speculate there “some trees” are temperature proxies, but “other trees aren’t. (So far, you’re actually ok.)
2. Then, instead of trying to do a real calibration study to discover what sorts of trees are temperature proxies and which aren’t, you just take a bunch of cores and find which correlate “best” with the recent temperature record. You throw away all the rest of the cores as “not temperature proxies”.

Continue reading Method of creating hockey stick reconstructions out of nothing….

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 54 Comments

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our continuing series [ 1, 2, 3 ] on ancient pipe organs with modern cameras focusing inside the works, here is our old friend John Scott Whiteley performing Johann Sebastian Bach‘s Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’ ¤, BWV 664 (5:30), from Bach’s “Leipzig” Chorale Preludes, on the Arp Schnitger organ of St. Pancratius Church in Neunfelde, which was built in 1688 and was Arp’s largest two-manual instrument.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

“The Taliban are indeed our enemy–but, what, me worry?”

Insufferable Twits 14 Comments

Quite a few people are now saying that al Qaeda are the real AfPak threat, and the Taliban are just nasties with a local focus (see below). Those people should read this, by a NY Times reporter held captive for seven months. And that “local threat” includes nuclear-armed Pakistan (again, see below). What, me worry?

…
Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.
Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers [more here and here], I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world…

Much more…

Canada: We Don’t Stand on Guard for Thee

Uncategorized 55 Comments

“On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 – 46 BC)

Canada is an unmitigated embarrassment; a spoiled little prom queen preening and posturing about her greatness … or worse yet, an uppity little hobbit taking pride in being better than the neighbour, when in reality there are some things Canadian that should be a source of national embarrassment.
I speak of course, about Canada’s national effort in things military. I don’t speak of course, about the men and women in uniform who are as courageous as any who have ever worn the maple leaf and who are as capable as any of their peers the world over.
… keep reading.

Update: Further reading on GDP and military economics, and historical perspective @ Unambiguously Ambidextrous.

The Smartest Guys In The Whole Wide World

Baiting The Left 32 Comments

Bad news for Michael Ignatieff;

Harvard University’s failed bet that interest rates would rise cost the world’s richest school at least $500 million in payments to escape derivatives that backfired.
[…]
The annual report provides new details on Harvard’s derivative-related losses. Many were entered into in 2004, said Harvard spokeswoman Christine Heenan. Lawrence Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, was the university’s president at the time. White House spokesman Matthew Vogel declined to comment.

Much more of this, and he’ll have no job to go back to.
KevinB, in the comments ;

What’s missing here is the truly ironic point. Through the 90’s, Harvard’s endowment was managed by Jack Meyer, who had spectacular success. Harvard’s endowment in 1990 was $4.4 billion; by 2000, it was over $22 billion. Meyer was paid on the usual “2 and 20” hedge fund basis – 2% of assets under management, and 20% of any gain over an agreed upon benchmark (usually the performance of the S&P500, although I don’t know what it was in Harvard’s case). Regardless of the benchmark, Meyer made huge amounts of money, with annual paychecks in the tens of millions.
Naturally, this annoyed all the learned professors no end, so they voted to cap Meyer’s earnings. Meyer advised them to fornicate amongst themselves, and quit to start his own hedge fund, along with four other Harvard investment managers. Since then, Harvard has posted flat or falling performance on its portfolio.
So, while greed is usually blamed for financial mistakes, in this case, it was envy, pure and simple. I wonder if Harvard is going to progress through all the seven deadly sins? What would be next? Sloth? Gluttony? My money’s on “pride”.

California: Not Broke Enough!

Great Moments In Socialism 25 Comments

Go east, young man, to where the deer and the big screens still play…

Peterson Publishing’s Guns ‘N Ammo Magazine head office has finally admitted they can’t take it anymore and moved from their LA Wilshire Blvd. address to Peoria Illinois. I can’t imagine why they went to Illinois when Arizona is only a couple hours drive from LA, but nevertheless, they’ve pushed off from the People’s Republik of Kalifornistan. Just like everybody else with a lick of sense.

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