Daily Archives: April 4, 2011

Yowsers! Remember the fuss greenies made when we estimated a $150 billion/year price tag?

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

They said we were way overestimating costs with our Kyoto Count-up
Guess not, huh?

Low-Carbon World Needs $500 Billion a Year to Slow Warming, WEF Says
By Christopher Martin

Preventing the worst effects of global warming without harming economic growth requires doubling annual investments in renewable and low-carbon energy to $500 billion a year by 2020, according to the World Economic Forum.

Government policies must expand development of clean energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines to limit a global temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, a goal that environmental groups and scientists say is needed to halt the adverse impact of a warming planet.

Clean energy investment last year surged 30 percent to a record $243 billion, the WEF said today in a report based on data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That’s less than half of what is needed to prevent catastrophic warming that would melt polar ice caps and raise sea levels, it said.

“In this era of fiscal austerity, policy makers need to ensure that the supports they put in place drive sustained long- term growth,” co-authors Anuradha Gurung and Max von Bismarck said in the report. (Bloomberg)

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Posted in Activists, Climate change, Crazy carbon schemes, Enviros, Regulation, Rubber room

Video: Senator Inhofe says overwhelming bipartisan majority to stop EPA

Posted on April 4, 2011 | 2 Comments

Inhofe claims ‘bipartisan majority’ to oppose EPA’s backdoor cap-and-trade

By: Mark Tapscott 04/02/11 10:46 AM

Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Repubican who is the ranking minority member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has released a video report in which he claims “bipartisan support” for his bill to stop EPA from implementing via regulation the cap-and-trade program Congress refused to adopt.

“We have an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the United States Senate opposed to the Obama-EPA cap-and-trade agenda…

“What we now know is that several Senate Democrats are faced with a tough choice: either support President Obama’s cap-and-trade agenda to make gasoline and electricity more expensive, or stand with consumers, small businesses, farmer, and ranchers who are demanding affordable energy.”

Inhofe has much more to say on this issue in the video, which you can watch here: (Washington Examiner)

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Posted in Cap and tax, EPA

Paul Driessen with a timely reminder on the value of abundant, reliable, affordable energy

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Power for the People
Paul Driessen

In a scene reminiscent of Colonial Williamsburg, for 16 years Thabo Molubi and his partner had made furniture in South Africa’s outback, known locally as the “veld,” using nothing but hand and foot power. When an electrical line finally reached the area, they installed lights, power saws and drills. Their productivity increased fourfold, and they hired local workers to make, sell and ship far more tables and chairs of much higher quality, thereby also commanding higher prices.

Living standards soared, and local families were able to buy and enjoy lights, refrigerators, televisions, computers and other technologies that Americans and Europeans often take for granted. They could even charge their cell phones at home! The area was propelled into the modern era, entrepreneurial spirits were unleashed, new businesses opened, and hundreds of newly employed workers joined the global economy.

People benefited even on the very edge of the newly electrified area. Bheki Vilakazi opened a small shop where people could charge their cell phones before heading into the veld, where instant communication can mean life or death in the event of an accident, automobile breakdown or encounter with wild animals.

Thousands of other African communities want the same opportunities. But for now they must continue to live without electricity, or have it only sporadically and unpredictably a few hours each week. Over 700 million Africans – and some two billion people worldwide – still lack regular, reliable electricity and must rely on toxic wood and dung fires for most or all of their heating and cooking needs. (Townhall)

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Posted in Energy, Enviros

Peak everything? They must be kidding.

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

This must play well in the Leftist fantasy world because NYT thought it worth echoing. I’m never quite sure whether to be amused or irritated by peakers and usually end up putting them in the same pitied class as chemtrailers and the black helicopter crowd.

ANALYSIS-”Peak Everything” may mute Fukushima backlash

By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

LONDON/OSLO, April 3 – Political support may be holding for nuclear power and offshore oil, despite the Fukushima and Macondo disasters, as decision-makers confront climate change and dwindling domestic energy reserves.

A theory of “Peak Everything” suggests we are running short of vital assets such as clean water, carbon-free air, some minerals, fish stocks or the cheap fossil fuels which have powered the world economy and helped curb the price of food. (Reuters)

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Posted in Rubber room

Energy restrictions, scare mongering and a reality check

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

The Budget’s green dreams will leave us powerless

The Government’s obsession with its babyish green dreamworld will force the closure of power stations, increase our electricity bills and damage vital industries, warns Christopher Booker

Nuclear scaremongers inflate risks
David Aaronovitch

WE’LL call him the Unnamed Farmer: last week he became the first person to die as a result of damage to the nuclear plant at Fukushima.

The 64-year-old from Sukagama, 65km from the reactor, hanged himself because his crops could no longer be sold. (The Australian)

Lawrence Solomon: Dams are worse

Even the Chernobyl disaster may have killed just 15 people in the general population.

A forgotten 1975 Chinese disaster killed 230,000 people

Japan’s ongoing disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, now in its agonizing third week, has led many to conclude that nuclear is the most dangerous way to generate electricity. Not so. Nuclear is not the most dangerous, not by a long shot. That distinction unambiguously belongs to large hydroelectric dams.

The most catastrophic dam failure in history occurred in China in 1975, with the near-simultaneous failures of the Banqiao and Shimantan dams. The “August 1975 disaster,” as the Chinese call the horrors associated with the dams’ collapse, drowned 26,000 people, according to the Chinese government. Another 200,000 lives were lost in its aftermath. Records from the days following the dams’ collapse describe the chaos: (Financial Post)

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Posted in Energy, Green scams, Nuclear

It’s OK… if it’s cheap enough

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

When I lived in South Australia I used dual fuel vehicles, mostly because natural gas was piped from the fields to Adelaide, there was a good distribution network and the gas was not taxed, making it much cheaper than gasoline. Since it was less than half the price by volume of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) compared to gasoline and you got 75-80% of the mileage it was easy to recover the cost of conversion and you could always flick the switch to run on gasoline on-the-fly if you needed more grunt (cruise on gas, pass, tow or climb on gasoline). Only real downside was the gas cylinder occupied some of the luggage space, which was inconvenient with three young children. I’d say with fracking boosting supplies, as long as you’re getting it for say a buck or even a buck-fifty a gallon LPG/LNG is a good fuel for light vehicles although it does not hold a candle to diesel if you have loads to haul.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Fracking

Explaining the timing of CSIRO’s propaganda release today

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Governments face climate test of resolve at Bangkok talks

By David Fogarty and Alister Doyle

Governments face a test of their pledges to fight climate change next week when almost 200 nations meet in Bangkok to try to build on a modest deal reached last year that includes a new green fund and rising aid. (Reuters)

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Posted in Activists, Climate change, IPCC, Propaganda

Extra! Extra! Download your free propaganda here!

Posted on April 4, 2011 | 1 Comment

The Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) used to be a valuable research group working to benefit Australia and the world. How mortifying to see it collapse to a den of pantywaists hand-wringing over an undetectable change in a pointless statistical construct of no physical consequence. See here why a difference of a few hundredths of a degree year on year means nothing to life on Earth.

New CSIRO book to promote action on climate change

Gillian McGee

THE CSIRO will today launch a book highlighting the key economic, environmental and social concerns of climate change in Australia.

The publication, Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia, will also provided up-to-date information on international climate change science and potential responses.

CSIRO Chief Executive Megan Clark will launch the book at the Greenhouse 2011 climate change conference in Cairns.

She said the book draws on the latest literature from thousands of researchers in Australia and internationally.

“It seeks to provide a bridge from the peer-reviewed scientific literature to a broader audience of society, while providing the depth of science that this complex issue demands and deserves,” Dr Clark said.

The manuscript will contain scientific insights including evidence that human activities are contributing to the earth’s changing climate and data which shows energy saving technologies will help lower national carbon emissions.

The book also gives evidence which suggests that action on greenhouse gases within the next 10 years will reduce the severity of climate change.

Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia can be downloaded for free at www.csiro.au/Climate-Change-Book. (Herald Sun)

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Posted in Climate change, Propaganda

Let me have my way or history won’t love you, nyah!

Posted on April 4, 2011 | 1 Comment

This may well be one of the dumbest pieces seen recently:

EPA chief: History will judge Congress harshly if climate rules are axed

By Ben Geman - 04/02/11 01:26 PM ET

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said history will not be kind to Congress if lawmakers kill climate change rules, because they would be overruling scientists in the process.

The House and Senate will vote as soon as next week on GOP-led bills that strip EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries and other sources.

“The biggest criticism that I’ve leveled – and I’ve done it in my hearing testimony – is that what the current efforts do is overrule scientists on a scientific finding. Congress is essentially passing a law that says, ‘We, a bunch of lawmakers, have decided what the science is on this issue,’” Jackson said in a Time magazine interview published Friday.

“And that to me is what this Congress could be remembered for, more than anything else. History will forget a lot of the day-to-day, inside the beltway discussions about riders and budget and trying to get rid of or de-fund the EPA, but I don’t think that history will forget the first time that politicians made a law to overrule scientists,” Jackson added.

The bills to block EPA rules would repeal the agency’s “endangerment finding” in 2009 that greenhouses gases threaten human health and welfare. (E2 Wire)

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Posted in Cap and tax, EPA

Doug Hoffman writes on the greenies’ most lethal weapon

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Precautionary Principle Power Grab
Submitted by Doug L. Hoffman on Thu, 03/31/2011 – 09:50

Precaution is now an established tenet of environmental governance, law, and public policy at the international, national and local levels. When it comes to pollution, toxic chemicals, genetically modified organisms, endangered species and climate change, the so called precautionary principle has become the guiding doctrine for timorous souls everywhere. But more than that, it is a codification of the idea that before anything new is allowed, it must be proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to cause no harm to anything in anyway, under any conditions, anywhere—period. It is “look before you leap” on steroids and a major legal weapon used by environmentalists and neo-Luddites everywhere to hamstring human progress. Raising angst to an art form, progress hating activists have managed to block needed energy and industrial expansion at a critical time in humanity’s development.

The “precautionary principle” or “precautionary approach” is a response to uncertainty in the face of risks to health or the environment. According to the Precautionary Principle Project, a partnership between four international NGOs, “it involves acting to avoid serious or irreversible potential harm, despite lack of scientific certainty as to the likelihood, magnitude, or causation of that harm.” Meaning, without overwhelming scientific proof that what you are doing will not cause any harm, it is not permitted. This is an implicit reversal of the burden of proof. (The Resilient Earth)

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Posted in Activists, Enviros, Green scams, Misanthropy, Regulation