The IPCC worries are driven by climate models but John McLean has found serious errors in their central (hadCRUT4) database, the correction of which the UK Met Office says will have a trivial effect. However, as Rafe Champion says, "this begs the question of why a PhD student working from home can find mistakes that the £226 million institute with 2100 employees could not”. Small changes are magnified in climate models and, citing James Delingpole, McLean says, “If the warming since 1950 was really 0.4C rather than about 0.7C, then even if it was all man-made would it really be worth the money that's being spent on climate?”
Others, including some warmista scientists, have criticised the latest IPCC report for extreme bias against nuclear power.
Donald Trump refuted Politically Correct climate alarmist tropes (hurricanes increasing, Greenland ice mass declining and self-interested scientists support the IPCC etc), from a 60 Minutes reporter. Here is a point-by-point rebuttal from Marc Morano. For his part, Al Gore was perhaps over-candid in saying, “The language that the IPCC used in presenting it was torqued up a little bit, appropriately – how [else] do they get the attention of policy-makers around the world?”
Naturally, in light of the new IPCC report, the mendicant least developed countries expressed, “grave concern at the increasingly severe climate impacts already experienced” and that this can only be rectified by “predictable, accessible, adequate and sustained financial, capacity building and technological support from developed countries and international partners.” A Chinese attempt to get some of the free money under the Paris Agreement was thwarted by the US. But, in a shocking waste of global resources, some $1 billion was actually approved for other finance proposals.
Professor Richard Lindzen, one of the world’s most respected atmospheric physicist, said the IPCC report had reduced the alleged tipping point from 2C to 1.5C because there had been no significant warming for 20 years. ‘Warming of any significance ceased about 20 years ago, and 2C warming was looking increasingly unlikely.’ Professor Lindzen also said that there was no threat to the Great Barrier Reef and, referring to Australian antipathy to coal, added, ‘I can’t imagine what suicidal instincts reside in Australia’s political class.’
The Australian government has however rejected the IPCC message of a coal-free system by 2050, though predictably, Greenpeace has urged people to vote against the government to reverse this.
Economist Joseph Stiglitz is coming to Australia to collect the human rights activist “Sydney Peace Prize”. He warned the nation that climate change was not a liberal conspiracy and that a carbon tax is necessary. Whatever!
Australian company directors have no expertise on climate matters but virtue signal by proclaiming this the greatest issue. Only 7 per cent of regular people agree.
Norman Rogers' highly readable “Dumb Energy: A Critique of Wind and Solar energy” shows that the cost of wind/solar is 7 US cents per kWh but needs backup of a gas plant. Even with saving 2 US cents per kwh in gas usage, this brings a net cost of 5 US cents per kwh, which is the equivalent of a carbon tax of $US140 per tonne. Australia’s gas, due to government policies, is dearer but this still results in a net tax effect.
The Australian electricity policy has provided a wonderful windfall for generation businesses (at the expense of their customers). The CLP-owned energyAustralia saw an increase in profits of 200 per cent as a result of renewable energy-induced price increases but the Australian CEO claimed, “we’re not bandits”. The chairman of the Coalition’s backbench energy committee, the outspoken conservative Craig Kelly, says as a first step the government needs to axe current subsidies to households and businesses for solar panels.
Having previously pledged to leave the Paris Agreement, Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro says he will stay in but dilute Brazil's application of climate inspired regulatory policies and allow fracking. These measures, according to green activist group, 350 Org, “would be deeply unpopular and dangerous”!
In the UK, 36 per cent of people think climate change is mainly human induced and 25 per cent are very or extremely worried about it. The BBC is a shameless propagandist for the cause and the regulator, OFCOM, is to investigate whether the institution is being impartial. Meanwhile, a new group Extinction Rebellion, whose members include former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is commencing a civil disobedience campaign in which 500 have pledged to get themselves arrested.
In Canada, an intensifying debate on carbon tax is taking place. On Oct. 23, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government will impose a carbon tax on all Canadians, but will provide rebates. Starting in April 2019 “carbon pollution” will initially cost C$20 ($15.27) a tonne, rising by C$10 a year until it reaches C$50 in 2022. The Conservatives will scrap the tax if elected in October 2019. Ontario Premier Doug Ford says it will take Ottawa to court over the plan.
