"What the Science Says"

For context, in philosophical terms I am (approximately) what is termed a scientific realist, meaning that (a) there are objective truths about the physical world, whether we know them or not - 'Realism' - and (b) science is our best tool for edging towards knowledge in that realm.  I say 'edging' because there's nothing linear, predictable, or even inevitable about how scientific knowledge advances.  Arguably, it sometimes even goes backwards.

There are complexities along the spectrum which we may identify as stretching from maths & formal logic at one end, to "social science" at the other.  Maths and logic advance ratchet-wise: since the late 19th C, what constitutes a proof is not in contention, and new results layer atop old ones in an ever-growing edifice built on firm foundations.  It's fair to say there are some philosophical challenges in figuring out the 'meaning' of some results in formal logic: but results they are.

At the far end of this continuum, use of inverted commas is essential: how much of "social science" really deserves the moniker?  Even linguistics has thus far disappointed, for all the claims that Chomsky's work is a science.  But formal logic sets the standard; physics and chemistry, at least, reckon to be bound by it, and I think we broadly know what we mean by (real) Science.

That said, professional scientists frequently let the side down in a big way, with weaknesses in several dimensions (not necessarily all at once):

• they tend to forget that, Newtonian physics having been well and truly shown to be in error (even though admirably and formidably consistent mathematically), almost any current theory is up for revision.  They sort-of know this, but often don't behave accordingly.
• many, if not most of them are cowards (i.e. 'just human'), and won't go against the prevailing dogma - whatever their own results and reasoning suggest.  The dominant dogma in question might be the current scientific paradigm, or some crazy political diktat, but they ain't gonna be the ones to rock the boat.  This makes their claims to objectivity and purity of method particularly galling.
• many are venal (i.e. 'just human') and money speaks very loudly, in science as elsewhere ...    

We are living in a ba-ad time for science, which betrays all of the above shortcomings aplenty.  Exhibit 'A' is "climate science", and I give you two concurrent headlines from the Graun today: 

Climate scientists hail 2023 as ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuel era 

World will look back at 2023 as year humanity exposed its inability to tackle climate crisis, scientists say

OK, it's possible to force-fit a ropey kind of reconciliation onto these two statements.  Conversely, it's possible to retort they prove that scientists are indeed capable of disagreeing in public.  But what interests me more is how (i) "scientists say" can be enlisted to make any point that suits the writer; and thus (ii) how ridiculous it is for anyone to say that "we should follow the science", as if that would result in an unique course of action.

Personally, I strongly suspect that climate scientists (in inverted commas, if you prefer) are in agonies right now, not daring to admit that when they say "it's almost too late to save the world from ... [fill in favourite apocalyptic prediction here]", their own calculations - right or wrong - tell them it's actually wa-ay too late.  I say this with due respect for their earlier pronouncements - in fact, complete respect because, for the sake of argument, I accept them as valid.  My suspicion is a self-contained observation about those scientists' agonised state of mind, an observation that requires no judgement on, and makes no comment on, the Realist "right-or-wrong" aspect.  And why the agony?  Because they fear that if the world knew they really think the game's up, there wouldn't be quite as much appetite for their next project or policy proposal, be that an altruistic fear or one motivated by self-interest.

Exhibit 'B' is of course the disgraceful way in which many university biology departments are allowing themselves to be strong-armed into pernicious, arrant nonsense about sex and gender.  But that one's for another day.

Notwithstanding the foregoing ... Happy New Year!  The tradition 'NY predictions' compo to follow in a day or two.

ND

Greta T may not "vont to be alone", but ...

Notwithstanding her much trailed return to being an ordinary school student, Greta seems still to pout in public quite a bit.  Must be very tempting, I guess.  She may not vont to be alone.

So what plans do her NGO handlers have for further exploiting her enormously successful global brand?

I'm rather repeating myself here, having written about the shift in climate-change response several times, and can't stress enough how the whole thing has now gone 100% mainstream, as of mid 2019.  The NGOs did their job too well !  As such, they risk being completely swept aside by Big Business / Big Banking, as it swings into full action mode.  Yes, we really get it, we're really doing it - now just piss off!   (We don't take advice from people in sandals.)

They never really knew how business worked, and they don't know how to intervene in a genuinely purposeful business dynamic such as is happening everywhere now, except as spectators and way-behind-the-curve cheerleaders.  They'd be gobsmacked if they saw the detail of what the heavy-duty, truly purposeful reengineering of whole, real, steel-&-concrete sectors of industry actually involves.  (I'm working on a hydrogen project right now - it's mind-boggling in its ambition.)  They have nothing to contribute! 

It'd be like a 1930's refugee, fetched up in America, who'd been writing to her congressman for a couple of years urging him to drop his isolationism and get the USA into the war.  Then along comes 1941-42.  What does Roosevelt or Ford or Bethlehem Steel or Boeing need to hear from her on the subject of how you build tanks and ships and aircraft by the thousand?  

I'm guessing the NGOs (the ones with the really devious world-government plans) were hoping, or planning, that their Big Chance was if business continued to dig in against change, and would need ongoing and detailed cajoling / direction / manipulation / hand-holding / external interventions of all kinds, by self-appointed green missionaries. 

Too bad, Greta - it'll be Goldman Sachs in charge, as ever.

ND

Greta: Now Surplus to Greenie Requirements

The entire Greta childrens-crusade thing is a fascinating story: one day the whole thing will perhaps be truthfully told.  (Or not.  There appears to be some evidence - some would call it conspiracy theory - that she is 100% a carefully-contrived PR exercise, right from her first solo sit-in.  In this account her mother basically handed her over to shadowy "green" forces to do with as they pleased:  there's a word for that ... and a lengthy prison sentence.)

Anyhow, as you know, I reckon "she" contributed just a little to the great Story of 2019, the Year When Zero Carbon Went Mainstream.  It wasn't her doing; nor was it XR's: but they are all definitely part of the overall canvas (along with the panic-stricken Theresa May and whomever it was told her to rush that Net Zero Carbon 2050 Act through, who may yet get a lot of "credit" when the history books are written).

But now?  Greta's contribution to recent climate debate has been characteristically petulant, if not paid as much heed as last year; and it's interesting.

She is now drawing attention to the rather obvious fact that, notwithstanding 2050-style legislation around the whole western world, climate change is not being treated as an *Emergency* (as all those silly motions passed in debating chambers around the world would have it) - and we know this because we've just seen how people respond to a real emergency, Covid-19 being the case in point.  She was hoping that everyone by now would have voted for the complete lockdown and trashing of the world economy - for Climate reasons.   Much stamping of little foot and blinking-back of tears: but there it is.  She's nailed it.  We know it.  And nobody's really listening anymore.

So what is happening?  Back to my "2019" thesis.  The 2050 legislation across the western world is exactly the icing on the cake that confirms to the whole world's industrialists and bankers (and con artists, political parties, kleptocrats, organised criminals etc) what they'd already decided 12 months ago - that this is the only game in town, now given a sturdy touch on the accelerator by all the multi-trillion Keynsian "Green Deal / Covid recovery" schemes now being drawn up.  Helpfully, these include lots of basic infrastructure renewal for "adaptation" / "mitigation" / "resilience" - so even the big, traditional steel-n-concrete boys are invited to the party, much to their amazement & delight.

Coupled with this "mainstream capitalism" development - not quite what many greens had in mind, hahah! - the Left is developing a response of its own, which also isn't exactly what the greens hoped for.  To take the UK left as an example: as noted here before, the Labour Party's apparently rather comprehensive version of the Green New Deal is quite strong on the *Just Transition*, which in classic workerist fashion turns out to mean that (a) everything must be implemented by a unionised workforce, and (b) anyone currently in a dirty job must either be granted a shiny new clean job / apprenticeship / etc, OR left doing that job for as long as it takes to come up with a transition plan.  Lefties in other countries  take similar stances: and hard lefties take a very tough & uncompromising line on priorities.

Green New Deal advocates and the wider Left should factor into their plans the need for a just transition to a post-extractivist society ... This must be an absolute red line, even if it threatens decarbonisation targets [their emphasis]

Like I said, not quite the red-green alliance thing.  Indeed, XR itself is deeply out of favour on the hard left (all those middle-class white XR types being racists, dontchaknow?); and lefties now tend to identify + despise what many a rightist has long railed against - Ecofascism.  Doesn't have the correct marxist interpretation of exploitation, see?

And Greta?  Well, if you believe the conspiracy theory, she is fronting for a cabal of NGOs who plan to use the Climate impetus to institute a World Government thing that - wait for it - will take it upon itself to issue extraction licences on All The World's Natural Resources, for licence / royalty fees that they will (a) lay claim to for their nasty world-government plans; and (b) take a % on, for themselves (of course! - Gulbenkian on a scale hard to imagine; they are nothing if not ambitious). 

They may, of course, get trampled in the rush - because every industrialist, bank, con artist, political party, kleptocrat, organised criminal etc on the planet has similar designs ...

ND

Evans-Pritchard on Oil & Commercial Revolution

AE-P seems to be a bit of a cult fugure for some, and here he is on the propects for "Negative Oil" (meaning negative CO2 emissions) and "negative aluminium" (ditto, mutatis mutandis) - and he doesn't seem to be behind the usual DTel paywall.  What does Negative Oil mean?  It seems that "emblematic" oil compay Occidental intends to "become net carbon negative on all its operations and the oil it sells in order to insulate itself against the enveloping climate backlash".

Before getting stuck into this very interesting subject, we do need to enter several caveats.

• the very fact it's not behind a paywall means that it's being sponsored - presumably by Oxy
• the definitions of "negative oil" that we encounter as we go along are pretty weasely - at one point it's as unimpressive as "you can have net negative reservoirs", which has been true for a very long time - in certain very specific and non-typical circumstances
• the "negative aluminium" stuff comes from "Russian owned EN+" (Deripaska), fronted on this occasion as on many others by "Lord" Greg Barker, a notorious BS merchant 

Putting that important dollop of skepticism to one side, there are a couple of significant takeaways.  The first is the very real prospect of investors turning sour on "traditional" hydrocarbon companies, the brighter ones among which are rushing towards both the buckets of greenwash and, with the longer-term picture in mind, the strategic corporate restructuring advisers (statement of personal interest here, *ahem*).  The prospects of (a) some seriously stranded assets and consequent balance-sheet impairments; and (b) increasing cost of capital, are very serious indeed for these most capital-intensive of businesses.  Public opinion is fickle, and clamour for divestment can really rattle institutions.  When it becomes a run on the bank, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy, as a lot of green activists are fervently hoping and striving for.

On the other hand.  The actual demand for oil & coal (as opposed to demand for oil shares and coal shares) isn't going to fall precipitously: it can't, while China still breathes**.  It's all a bit reminiscent of the tobacco industry a decade or so ago.

What can easily happen, though, is that even with stable-ish demand, the cost of capital rises (due to unpopularity with investors).  We're talking about western companies here, of course - there are loads of NOCs who don't care, and may be looking forward to stepping into the breach, picking up distressed assets and market share.  But they ain't necessarily very good at production technology (or indeed finance), even if they plan to hire a bunch of mercenary engineers to help them along.  (And there may not be so many of those; because the big players retreating from oil are piling into other energy tech, and will have jobs for many engineers - even if not always the same ones.)

So, while there'll be no shortage of oil, on both counts (cost of capital and engineering efficiency) production costs are going to rise. 

One question, then, is: does this wash through into the price of oil?  It's an important fact that in the short and medium term, production cost has bugger all to do with price except at the very sensitive margins.  (Plenty of people will tell you there is $2 oil available in large amounts in Iraq; but ...) 

Another question is: WTF happens to the pension funds of the western world while the IOCs are busily and expensively redefining themselves?

And I'm sure there are more such fundamental issues to ponder, when we're at such a remarkable turning-point.  Have at it in the comments, C@W-ers. 


ND
________
** not intended as a pun or off-colour comment: but there is a point there

Light Relief - While We're Waiting

Here's an hilarious vanity project to make you chuckle on a dank December election day:  Saudi Aramco valued at $2 trillion!

Yeah, right.  The 2019 flotation flopperoo was one of the biggest damp squibs in corporate history.  But MbS needed his face saving; so every sheikh and stooge across the ME has been required to buy a couple of shares at crazy prices on the Riyadh exchange.  And $2tn it is!

2019 - what a year to choose to float a hydrocarbon producer.  When the entire world decided "de-carb" is a Thing, and that joining the 'Adaptation' gravy train is the only game in town.

2019!

ND

Climate Change Gone 100% Capitalist Mainstream

Several weeks ago I wrote: 

I suspect the whole [green panic] thing has over-reached itself, overshot. It seems to me it's now in the sphere of people looking round for the sensible solutions - the whole world of Adaptation being top of the list. A lot of greenies really hate this, because it suggests nothing can be done to stop It; so nothing needs to be done to stop It - just build higher sea walls, use more sunblock, and invest in better water industry infrastructure. But anti-growth? - nah, mate. Growth is where the money comes from, innit?

Well now, see this: the Global Commission on Adaptation. 

Whatever one's views on this bunch of global-establishment troughers and NGO-wallahs, there's no getting away from it - this is Mainstream with a capital 'M'.  And their mission is Adaptation - not net-zero carbon by tomorrow afternoon.  Tough tittie, Swampy.  Mind out of the way, Greta.  We ain't gonna be living in caves.

(Of course, they're all out to steal our pension funds.  But - who isn't?)

ND

Climate Crisis: What Crisis?

While we wait for the Supreme Court to have its day in the sun, there's another big issue to air: the soi-disant Climate Crisis, which is supposed to trump all others.  How's that going?  I have a trivial observation to offer, and a rather more interesting conjecture to try on you.

The easy bit first:  it's pretty obvious that despite L'il Greta's best efforts (she's 16, incidentally, not eight) very few politicians on the planet prioritise the Climate at #1.  In Europe?  Nope, that'd be Brexit and a host of other stuff as the Drunckerd gives way to the German woman.  The USA?  Election - for many months to come.  Middle East?  Duh ...   And so it goes on. 

My conjecture is this.  Actually, 2019 has indeed been something of a turning-point.  Credit may be partly due to Greta and Extinction Rebellion et al (it sort of feels a bit that way in the UK, anyhow); but even more so due to some mega actual climate events this year**, I'd say a very high proportion of people are now pretty much on board with the idea that, yep, Climate Change / Global Warming is real, tangible-ish, and moderately likely to get more extreme in the coming years.  More completely on board than they were last year, for example.  Everyone had heard the word several years back: but now it's like, well, yeah, of course.  

Some greenies no doubt think that's marvellous, and now they can swing into action with their loony anti-industrial, anti-growth, anti-civilisation plans.  McDonnell of course thinks it's his cue, his smokescreen to reationalise everything under a new red-green regime of labourist micro-dirigisme.

But I suspect the whole thing has over-reached itself, overshot.  It seems to me it's now in the sphere of people looking round for the sensible solutions - the whole world of Adaptation being top of the list.  A lot of greenies really hate this, because it suggests nothing can be done to stop It; so nothing needs to be done to stop It - just build higher sea walls, use more sunblock, and invest in better water industry infrastructure.  But anti-growth?  - nah, mate.  Growth is where the money comes from, innit?

And, whisper it softly, I'd say the time will be coming soon where geo-engineering solutions will start to be discussed seriously.  They'll really really hate that.

Anyone get the same feeling about all this?

ND

_______________________________________
** I realise many people would ascribe this also to the relentless proselytising by the BBC etc: and I don't disagree - it's just that they've been doing that for years, and 2019 seems to be their 'breakthrough' year

UPDATE:  well here's a headline apparently undermining my thesis.  On closer inspection, though, it's a lobbying confection, and in that context (loaded questions etc) even contains the seeds of its own contradiction, at least as far as the UK is concerned. Let's see what nonsense unfolds on Friday

Zero-Carbon: May Screws Up her 'Legacy'

[Foreword - to those C@W readers who have apoplexy at the suggestion CO2 emissions contribute to climate change: the rights and wrongs of that issue have no bearing on what follows.]

The story so far:  a latter-day Childrens Crusade fronted by a cynically manipulated little Swedish girl, coupled with large-scale childish behaviour on the streets of London from grown adults who ought to know better, has made some raucous political music with demands for completely infeasible actions against UK CO2 emissions - specifically, zero CO2 by 2025.  Among several organisations to seize this opportunity, the Commitee on Climate Change (headed by the conflicted and disreputable "Lord Deben") rushed out its proposal for 'Net Zero Carbon by 2050'. 

These recommendations, properly viewed (i.e. politically viewed) were an absolute Godsend for the beleagured Tory government.

1. Deben immediately defused the 2025 nonsense.  He is the man fronting an enormous report that had loads of pretty respectable input++ from business, industry, real scientists etc; and they all agree 2050 itself is quite stretch.  Deben was actually asked about 2025 on the telly, and he was contemptuously dismissive.  
2. Consistent with 1 above, net-zero-2050 is notably more demanding (in the form the CCC wrote it) than any other nation has committed thus far.  Plenty of rich political capital can be coined from this.
3. Nonetheless, 2050 is, well, rather a long way into the future ... a pretty decent entry into the Can-Kicking Championships
4. Although the Labour Party greatly hoped to be steering the limelight towards itself, the best it could do in response was to replace "by 2050" with "before 2050".  (This is because some of them are seriously bidding for Actual Power, and fondly expect to be the ones to implement it.  And they, too, reckon 2050 is a stretch.)   

All in all, a gift for the distraction-seeking and legacy-craving Theresa May.  Quietly neutralise the jolly annoying Extinction Rebellion, as desired by ordinary people everywhere; and impress the young people by Doing Something Amazing for the planet.

There would have been so many ways to big this up and wow da yoof.  Top of the list would have been to say that the Deben proposals were not ambitious enough, and she was going to do something even more impressive: it wouldn't have been hard to come up with something.  (For 2050, you can say whatever you fancy - everyone else does.)  Nobody's going to vote against it in Parliament, are they?

But no.

Rather grumpily and with stupid caveats** that can be, and immediately are, used to damn her, she says "oh well, alright then".  Why insert a 5-year review?  Parliament can always review and change any legislation it fancies.  And anyway, 5-years-hence is Not Her Problem!  Why allow the buying of carbon credits to count towards the total?  This is so easily portrayed as a nasty little weasel (which indeed it is - international carbon credits are as bent as a nine-bob note); and again, 2050 is a long, long way off!  Details not required!

As every wise parent knows, when the kids have been kicking up for Disney and you've decided to take them, you don't say:  oh alright, bloody Disney it is, but you're not going on Space Mountain, there will be no ice cream, and at half-term I'm going to ask your teachers if you've been working hard, 'cos if you haven't I'm cancelling the tickets. 

Oh dear.  She ain't gonna enjoy her retirement.

ND

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++ We can discuss this another time
** This is said to be Hammond's doing - like so much of what has been baleful over the last three years.  His long-faced 'trillion pounds' objection is just rubbish.  Presumably, like an extensive line of men before him - Osborne, Hollande, Selmayr, Robbins ... the list goes on - he sat her down and told her sternly what she had to do.      

Greenies of the world unite!

It is so hard to care at all about the climate change protests and the well meaning Tarquins/Greta's behind them.


Dancing around on Yoga mats is one thing, but today has also see John McDonnell decide to helpfully incite the anti-capitalist movement too. We can look forward to him as Chancellor ordering our highest tax-paying companies to be 'occupied' and 'hounded.' A real through the looking glass moment.


Equally, I find the usual Press denunciations of the Greenies to be as feeble, or even worse than the strange claims they make.


"You came by plane, hypocrite!"
or
"Your from a wealthy background so you can afford morals"


These ad hominem attacks just add more heat, so to speak to the situation. They prove nothing other that the accuser has no real counter arguments.


What is better is to consider what the Greenies say, for example, a better argument is to tell them what really matters is China which is hugely increasing its emissions. To which the answer comes back 'well we sent them all our factories, so that is our fault too.'


Well, for me, here is the crown of thorns. Of course the West did not 'send' their manufacturing to the East. No, the East merrily came and grabbed it. They were able to do so, because labour was much cheaper and there were fewer regulations for companies to abide by - so their costs were 10x less originally than the West which had invented the Industrial revolution. Moreover, from an energy perspective, the East could happily burn all the coal and oil it liked. They don't care about using highly polluting fuel oil  in powerstations for example and Russia was happy to export - and still is to this day. So as well low regs, cheap labour they also have cheap energy costs.


With this, the economies of the East rapidly industrialised and started taking Western market share, whilst still growing the overall market. So, morally, the West did not export anything. The West in some ways is a victim of the growth of China - our sclerotic economies are signs of this.


It also means that as much as we hate the talking shops of Paris etc, really the only way to fight climate change is globally and internationally - but the focus needs to be on recalcitrant nations who refuse to play by the new rules required, whereas the Greenies as ever are focused on the evil's of Western Empire and Capitalism. Which is a shame, as in the long-term there is no mileage in this and if their worst fears come true they will have spent their energies in exactly the wrong place!

"We're All Doomed" - A Man Who Speaks Plainly

Here's a man who knows what he thinks and isn't afraid to speak plainly: 

We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”

Doomed, I tell ye

We really do need people like this, willing to follow through the logic of their own arguments.  Far too many of the Climate Change establishment go into great and detailed spiels about how we are at the 11th hour and 59th minute and we must throw all the gears into reverse immediately ... and then (when they notice nobody throws any gears into reverse, particularly not in China or India) just whimper a bit and say,  - well OK, actually we've got, errrr, 20 years to get serious, and maybe it'll be OK if we just, errrr, spend a lot of money on my pet projects ... 

And if you suggest their own logic indicates the money might better be spent on adaptive measures - o-oh no, that's to accept defeat, we mustn't do that.

I prefer Private Frazer's approach.

ND

The Heat is Affecting Their Brains

It's been a few days of revealing argumentation on the green-left, with a new sighting of impossibilist nonsense and a couple of much more interesting, nay, even profound observations from the same befuddled quarter.

First, the nutters: it's the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. They've decided that use of natural gas must be phased out by 2035.

there is “categorically no role” for new gas production ... "Considering both carbon dioxide and methane emissions, an urgent programme to phase out existing natural gas and other fossil fuel use across the EU is an imperative of any scientifically informed and equity-based policies designed to deliver on the Paris agreement” 

They note with horror that:

Far from phasing out natural gas ventures, the EU appears to be accelerating them in a new “projects of common interest” list for gas infrastructure. After 77 gas projects were approved in the last PCI round, the latest slate could potentially approve more than 100 gas ventures for public funding and fast-tracked planning approval, according to analysis by Friends of the Earth Europe ... Antoine Simon, an FoEE spokesman said: “It is intolerable to see the European commission and its members giving support to an increasing number of gas projects that will lock us in to decades of fossil fuel addiction"

Intolerable, eh?  Well sorry, Antoine, but the rest of us want to stay warm in winter etc etc, so you are banging your head against a well-constructed brick wall there.  If there's a real point, it is that methane leakage should be actively minimised - obviously (because it's a waste of energy!) - and it is certainly true that the gas networks particularly of eastern Europe and Russia (not to mention some states of the USA) still leave a huge amount to be desired in that regard.  Incidentally, you can get EU and World Bank money for sorting this out, it's a well-known issue.  So let's crack on.

Because much more enlightening is this scathing and long-overdue critique from the green-left itself - one Jonathan Franzen, who appears to have retained some brain cells.

The left, having excoriated the right for its intellectual dishonesty and turned climate denialism into a political rallying cry, was now in an impossible position. It had to keep insisting on the truth of climate science while persisting in the fiction that collective world action could stave off the worst of it: that universal acceptance of the facts, which really might have changed everything in 1995, could still change everything ... Denying the dark reality, pretending that the Paris accord could avert catastrophe, was understandable as a tactic to keep people motivated to reduce emissions; to keep hope alive. As a strategy, though, it did more harm than good. It ceded the ethical high ground, insulted the intelligence of unpersuaded voters (“Really? We still have 10 years?”), and precluded frank discussion of how the global community should prepare for drastic changes

Yes, some of them are slowly waking up to the consequences of refusing to discuss the necessary measures for adaptation to climate change (including, IMHO, geo-egineering) in favour atavistic anti-industrialism.  This latter stance has done them no good because, of course (a) in the industrialised world we have grown quite fond of electricity & want to remain warm in winter etc etc; and (b) the rest of the world wants to join us as fast as it can.  There's another piece on the unpicking of their lunacy here, embedded in some of the more traditional waffle if you can bear to wade through it. 

Adaptation was long a dirty word at climate change conferences. Civil society groups feared that espousing, and devoting money to, the means of staving off the worst effects of warming – walls against sea level rises, dykes and floating houses, changes to agriculture to grow heat-adapted crops – would distract attention from the urgent business of reducing emissions

Let's see what COP23 brings.  There's scope for plenty more nonsense yet.

ND

Logical failures when discussing the weather

Watching the terrible Hurricane season in the Caribbean has not been a lot of fun. Lovely island cities and cultures face ruin and the support is both hard to send and it needs to be plentiful. I wrote a piece last week showing how heartless some are and I read this week too that apparently these countries are too rich for aid.


What exactly is the logic in that?


I earn money and become rich, I buy a house, I invest all my money in it, the house is destroyed and I have no insurance. My money was the house, ergo I am no longer rich.


The logic of saying you are too rich to help clearly can't apply when a country is destroyed. Has no one recalled the Marshall Plan or the Berlin airlift? Bureaucracies are stupid, another reason to have less involvement with grandiose international institutions.


Then, following on from yesterday's post, I have spoken to quite a few people keen to opine that the Hurricane season this year is worse due to climate change. That as maybe, however their evidence is that this is a once-in-a-hundred-year event. Which, by definition means that it happened around a hundred years ago, before climate change. Where is the logic in their arguments? It would only make sense if this was the worst weather event ever or if it was now more frequent that in the past - that would be logic (and, neither of those statements it true as yet).


Who else has good current examples?

Paris Climate 'Agreement' - Really Funny

Our longtime commenter Timbo614 chided me over not posting a new 'falling oil-price' piece, it having fallen clean through 40.  And indeed I must - but just now there is something really entertaining to be shared.

Yes friends, the Paris Climate summit came to the predictable conclusion on Sunday, with much triumphant tub-thumping from the podium and much heartfelt weeping from the floor (at least I think it was a pool of tears on the floor).  Immediate green reactions were close to ecstatic - you see, we knew we could do it ... and now, three days on, they've noticed that *ahem* the Paris Agreement contains two-tenths of bugger-all.

As I trawled page after online page of wailing and gnashing of teeth ... well, you'd need a heart of stone etc etc.  But fellahs, it was always going to be an empty Agreement!  If it wasn't empty, it wouldn't have been agreed.  As predicted, George Osborne won't need to trouble himself with any commitments we can't comfortably achieve.  Or indeed any at all, it seems.

Anyhow, as part of the usual service to readers I have read the turgid Paris Agreement from end to end, and thought you might like to share these gems:

Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity

(What about transgender, eh ?  Presumably the African delegations had a red line on that one.) 

Parties acknowledge that adaptation action should follow a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and fully transparent approach, taking into consideration vulnerable groups, communities and ecosystems, and should be based on and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate, traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems, with a view to integrating adaptation into relevant socioeconomic and environmental policies and actions, where appropriate

I really like the sound of "best available science and traditional knowledge ..."   Including Aristotelian physics, perhaps, and a bit of voodoo?  Well why not indeed?  As appropriate!

ND

Paris Climate Talks Loom: What Will We Get?

COP21 is not a new accounting standard (!) - it is the latest round in the protracted series of climate-change boondoggles, this year to be held in Paris.  It may all be a bit subdued this time around, of course: but M.Hollande is really very keen for it to be a success - well who can forget the demented circus performances of, e.g. John Prescott at Copenhagen in 2009 (COP15), amongst other COP debacles over the years.

Hollande has been working like crazy to get a Proper Result, ideally "legally biding" but at any rate something a bit better than Just Plain Embarrassing.  It is fair to say that before the latest terrorism outbreak he was thinking about little else.  In the way of these things, he's been trying to square it all away in advance.  His diplomats are rushing about everywhere on this mission: in fact *ahem* I happened to be sat next to one on the flight back from Africa this summer, who had no idea who I was and from whom I gathered that because the Chinese and others are really not at all interested in "legally binding", the best Hollande will get is something incredibly thin.  But maybe better than No Agreed Communique At All, his greatest nightmare.

We have had a bunch of FCO types beavering away on all this, too:

201 FCO staff work across climate-themed initiatives, with 79 counting this as their full-time role

Why? I hear you ask.  Why indeed, but apparently a large number of them are for the axe - after Paris - as part of Osborne's draconian policy-change away from all the green crap.

The question is: what has the UK delegation been mandated to agree? I suspect they don't need to say very much because anything coal-powered China and India are willing to sign up for, I'm guessing we won't find too onerous.  Of course, the worry would be that Europe is up for some self-harming 'leadership' role in all this, spewing money in the direction of developing countries for 'renewables' (you know, like 5 litre V8 Range Rovers for the president and a slush fund for his extended family) and accepting another round of infeasible 'targets'.  Except that I think not:  Germany seems to have had enough, with Merkel having pulled the amazing '2100' can-kicking stunt back in the summer.

As well as his recent round of policy changes - pulling the plug on the CCS nonsense being the latest - Osborne has given us another big clue in the Tory Manifesto, which said, inter alia:

We will not support additional distorting and expensive power sector targets

I reckon those are carefully chosen words, and that we may infer GB won't be signing up for anything that can't comfortably be delivered.  The days when Tony Blair let us in for a renewables target for energy believing it to be for electricity, are hopefully long gone.  Renewables targets per se are truly fatuous, even for someone who wants to see CO2 emissions reduced: the great Professor David Mackay, formerly DECC's scientific adviser has recently spilled the beans on the outright countr-productive nature of this, and the government now understands the logic of the situation.

Still, Osborne's policy-making has disappointed us all royally on occasion, so we shall have to wait and see.  The rhetoric is ramping up on all sides (artists for COP21, children for COP21 ...).  Will my optimism be rewarded in time for Christmas ..?

ND

A Must-Read Essay on Climate Modelling

Recently we chewed the fat over econometrics and the dumb modelling that goes with it, eliciting one of my all-time favourite comments from long-time C@W reader Sebastian Weetabix:

There is nothing like a collision with reality to destroy a lovely theory.  There is something beautiful about a gang of facts murdering a thesis in a dark alley.

"Globull warming comes to mind", he went on. "Peak oil and the rent seeking green c***s are all of a piece."

It's mainly crass economic models I suffer from in my line of work, but there is indeed another rich seam of stupidity to be found in climate modelling.  And here, courtesy of the frequently excellent Watts Up, is a superb essay on the flaws inherent in much of what we are assailed with on the weather front.  An extract to encourage you to read further: 

... a direct piece of engineering wisdom: If a system is not dominated by a few major feedback factors, it ain’t stable. And if it has a regions of stability [sic] then perturbing it outside those regions will result in gross instability, and the system will be short lived. Climate has been in real terms amazingly stable. For millions of years. It has maintained an average of about 282 degrees absolute +- about 5 degrees since forever. 

So called ‘Climate science’ relies on net positive feedback to create alarmist views – and that positive feedback is nothing to do with CO2 allegedly: on the contrary it is a temperature change amplifier pure and simple. If such a feedback existed, any driver of temperature, from a minor change in the suns output, to a volcanic eruption must inevitably trigger massive temperature changes. But it simply never has. Or we wouldn’t be here to spout such nonsense.

What excellent stuff!

ND

Three Causes for (Modest) Optimism

There's enough in the news to make for grinding of the teeth (not to mention things that give rise to CU's regular threats to emigrate) that I am inclined to register a little cluster of recent items which redress the balance a bit.

(1) The tenor of the latest IPCC report: as several commentators have noted, adaptation to climate change has started to feature as a mainstream topic instead of being viewed as tantamount to abject surrender of the greenie-lefty desideratum of abatement-only policies by diktat, in not-so-subtle pursuit of their goal of World Government.  Adaptation is the correct direction of travel, and it is to be hoped that after another 5 years of slow progress, public policy will be substantially redirected to this potentially quite urgent end.  The only vague excuse for windfarms has been as a programme of Keynsian public works, and intelligent flood defences etc are infinitely better on that score - saints preserve us, they could even show a genuine return on investment !

(2) The interview with Caroline Lucas in the Grauniad 

For Lucas, the big problem with fracking has nothing to do with the risk that it will cause earthquakes, contaminate the water table or pollute the soil. In fact, she thinks it possible that stringent regulations could minimise those risks. "It's not that fracking itself is necessarily worse than ordinary gas extraction ... Lucas accepts that we do need gas ...

These words (my emphasis) are a cut-out-and-keep collectors item.

(3) The re-opening of the Dawlish stretch of railway.   When it was first washed away, everyone shook their heads sadly and proclaimed it would take 6 months and more to fix.  And who could disagree, given the shocking length of time that British civil engineering projects generally take ?  Makes the blood boil: FFS, World War 2 only took 6 years!  Anyhow, for once the finger was pulled out and the job was done in good time.  The same attitude needs adopting rather more widely: hey, maybe even for implementation of, errr, adaptation policies ...

So - credit where it's due, and a modest round of applause to these three disparate entities for their belated but worthwhile conversions to the ways of righteousness.  There is more rejoicing in Heaven, etc etc: and no-one is beyond salvation !

ND

Ed Davey: How taxes prevent climate change

Surbiton

The energy minister, Ed Davey, today explained to the chamber the dangers facing the nation from climate change. He told the assembled council members..

"We have seen floods and extreme winds with fierce seas and trees uprooted. the climate is changing. temperatures are falling. Daily sunshine is at a low."

 He went on to say he had received a raven from the continental United States.

" Ice has formed across half of that faraway land. Ships are stranded in the ice sea. Rivers have frozen. We can not ignore what is before our eyes .. a winter is coming. The Long Night will last a generation. Thousands will  starve as the crops and fields are buried under dozens of feet of snow.
I don't want to sound alarmist but .. In the darkness and cold of the Long Night, Kings will freeze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts; and women will smother their babies rather than see them starve, and weep, and feel the tears freeze on their cheeks..."

The shocked council had questions. Hand of the Prime Minister, Nick Clegg asked if all was already lost. Lord Davey of House Limp  replied much time had been wasted with petty squabbles at the seat of power in the south. But that the real battle was to be found in the north. he proposed a new Super-eco-green tax of 'the old gods of the forest', to be levied on every merchant and money-lender. Every Kingdom. Every trader. Every port. Every castle. Every market and every tavern. A 75% levy!

"We must build The Wall. A colossal fortification built  in the north. A wall of ice centered on Castle Black." when asked how much such a thing would cost he said " It would cost £600 billion. A small price to pay for your lives? " Who would man this outpost? "It would be manned by an elite guard of ecology students, University of East Anglia computer programmers and Greenpeace protesters under the patronage of lady Caroline Lucas of House Green."

.

 

Nottingham 2015

The council discussed at length and offered to add £8bn to the peasants energy bills and also to add to the Night Watch with some people from Benefits Street.

"It is not enough!" shouted Lord Wet

 " The White Walkers sleep beneath the ice for thousands of years. And when they wake up..."
 And as he stormed from the throne room..
 "In that darkness the White Walkers will come.. They will sweep through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders big as hounds..."

Colchester 2016

You have been warned.

Climate crisis: the weather will change!

It's amazing, today the new Climate change study will come out and announce, that in future in the UK the weather will be changeable.

Now, having lived in this country a few years I can definitely attest to the concept that we have seasons which only last a few months or even weeks each and the weather is indeed changeable, often by over 40C in the course of a year.

So the new measurements saying that we can expect 1.8% warmer climate and a similar decline due to the slowing of the Gulf Stream suggests some increased variability. How this is meant to shock everyone into action I don't know. Also seeing as we have variable weather in any case this strikes me as a tautological argument, if it gets hot it will be cliamte change, if it cools down, if anything basically.

How this squares with trashing our whole electricity system and going for wind-buffoonery I don't know. What I can see is that even if you accept the climate scientists claims about the future and accept the inherent unpredictability of their models, there is not much for the UK to worry about in the round. perhaps the greatest threat would be immigration but we have managed to inflict that challenge on ourselves in any event.