Red Ed’s Climate Change Law

Interesting bit of political history. Apparently hardly any MP had any idea of the costs or practicality of achieving their ludicrous climate targets. The only way the energy companies will be able to cope with capped pricing by a new labour administration is by reducing investment. Vote labour and kiss goodbye to pensions invested in energy companies along with security of supply. If you have never lived through blackouts like those of us of a certain age then you may find this notion fanciful but it’s not much fun in practice. Just hope your business, school or hospital has back up power generation available.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t A C Osborn

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3059932/The-pottiest-costliest-mistake-times-Forget-tax-spend-plans-Red-Ed-s-climate-change-law-Brown-years-cost-50-000-home-says-CHRISTOPHER-BOOKER.html

Booker reminds us of the big, fat elephant in the room, which everybody except for UKIP are trying to tip toe around.

One astonishing fact not getting a mention in this bizarrely unreal election campaign is that Ed Miliband can already claim to have been by far the most expensive politician in Britain’s history.

This is because it was he more than anyone else who in 2008 was responsible for pushing through the final version of the Climate Change Act — on official figures easily the most costly law passed by Parliament.

Thanks entirely to a last-minute amendment by Miliband, this Act commits us within 35 years to cutting Britain’s emissions of carbon dioxide, or CO2, by a staggering 80 per cent — to a level so low it hadn’t been seen since the early 19th century.

Even on figures sneaked out…

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UK Election: Brit’s Insane Wind Power Policy the “Elephant in the Room”

No sign of an intelligent discussion on the true cost of subsidies in the election campaign, and Scotland’s insane march towards decarbonisation.

STOP THESE THINGS

Don’t mind me, I’m just here to wallow in the endless subsidy trough, crush the poor, and to destroy what’s left of Britain’s economic future.

****

Britain’s insane wind power policy is, like elsewhere, the invisible policy-pachyderm.

No-one with skin in the political game dares to speak about its true costs, its full impacts on power punters, or on how it threatens the very ability of a grid designed for on-demand generation sources to function, with the addition of an utterly unreliable; and, therefore, utterly pointless power source.

STT has been watching Britain’s wind power fiasco unfold for some time now, and here’s just a few examples:

James Delingpole: UK’s Wind Power Debacle Reaches “High Farce”

Wind Power Goes AWOL Right When Freezing Brits Need It Most

UK’s Out of Control Wind Power Debacle Sets Brits up for Winters of Discontent

Brits Belted by Insanely Expensive and Utterly Unreliable…

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The Paris Paradigm: The What is your ‘Skeptic Score’?

Looks like I am a skeptic’s skeptic…

Watts Up With That?

This essay covers the seven beliefs that are necessary for a Paris Protocol to make sense. The reader is invited to rate the probability of each belief being true. Using their probabilities the reader can then calculate their “Skeptic Score”. 

The KyotoCopenhagen Paris Paradigm

The Seven Beliefs Required for Acceptance of the Paris Protocol

Guest essay by David Swinehart

In 1997 a large number of countries meeting in Kyoto, Japan reached an agreement to reduce “greenhouse” gas emissions. The United States signed this agreement along with Australia, Canada, Japan and all of the European Union countries. The after mentioned countries ratified the treaty amongst others. The United States Senate, however, never ratified the treaty, and Canada has since withdrawn. With the treaty set to expire at the end of 2012, an attempt was made to negotiate a replacement in Copenhagen in 2009, but the parties failed to reach a…

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Open Letter to U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, James Inhofe and Marco Rubio

Excellent post by Bob Tisdale that covers the key questions that need answering in the funding of climate research. One point that no sane person could argue with:

If we are going to be able to adapt to climate change, regardless of whether it is manmade or natural, the climate science community needs a much better grasp of how climate on Earth actually works, not how it works in models.

No private corporation would survive based on the abysmal return on investment offered by the current climate models. Worse, governments everywhere are squandering resources that would be better spent on adapting in practical ways to the climate change that we can see all around us today.

Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Bob Tisdale

Date: April 14, 2015

Subject: Questions about Climate Model-Based Science

From: Bob Tisdale – Independent Climate Researcher

To: The Honorable Ted Cruz, James Inhofe and Marco Rubio

Dear Senators Cruz, Inhofe and Rubio:

I am writing you as chairs of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and of the Committee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. I am an independent researcher who studies global warming and climate change, and I am probably best known for my articles at the science weblog WattsUpWithThat, where I would be considered an investigative reporter.

I have a few very basic questions for you about climate model-based science. They are:

• Why are taxpayers funding climate model-based research when those models are not simulating Earth’s climate?
• Why are taxpayers funding climate model-based research when each new generation of climate models…

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Converts to scepticism / agnosticism

Interesting collection of “converts” bookmarked now for future reference. Subtitle could be “you are not alone”!

The IPCC Report

“…they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

Some time ago I mentioned that two prominent climate sceptics, Anthony Watts and Patrick Moore, were originally active believers in the climate change cause and subsequently changed their minds and became sceptical. It turns out that quite a few prominent climate sceptics have followed this course.

This is interesting, because some of the academic literature says that peoples’ climate scepticism is related to their ‘worldview’ or the opinions of their cultural group. Intriguingly, when this concept originated in the work of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky in the early 1980s, it was used rather the other way round – to provide an explanation of the surge in interest in environmentalism, a point which is now generally overlooked.

Now, it’s probably true that views on other issues and group allegiance may influence views on climate…

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The Skeptic’s Case

Another good summary by David Evans of the skeptics case covering the divergence of model predictions from reality.

We check the main predictions of the climate models against the best and latest data. Fortunately the climate models got all their major predictions wrong. Why? Every serious skeptical scientist has been consistently saying essentially the same thing for over 20 years, yet most people have never heard the message. Here it is, put simply enough for any lay reader willing to pay attention.

http://mises.org/library/skeptics-case

How to convince a climate skeptic he’s wrong

An excellent summary of the key points underpinning the skeptical viewpoint.

Watts Up With That?

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

“What Evidence,” asks Ronald Bailey’s headline (www.reason.com, April 3, 2015), “Would Convince You That Man-Made Climate Change Is Real?”

The answer: a rational, scientific case rooted in established theory and data would convince me that manmade climate change is a problem. That it is real is not in doubt, for every creature that breathes out emits CO2 and thus affects the climate.

The true scientific question, then, is not the fatuous question whether “Man-Made Climate Change Is Real” but how much global warming our sins of emission may cause, and whether that warming might be more a bad thing than a good thing.

However, Mr Bailey advances no rational case. What, then, are the elements of a rational, scientific case that our influence on the climate will prove dangerous unless the West completes its current self-shutdown?

Here…

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Climate Scientist Gavin Schmidt runs in fear from a debate

h/t to 1000frolly

The unedifying sight of a climate alarmist running scared. And the man he won’t debate with – a flaky charlatan, a denier? No Dr Roy Spencer was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. So perhaps easy to see why Gavin Schmidt was so scared. When I was undertaking geophysics research 30 years ago the opportunity to debate ideas was always welcomed with open arms. Clearly things have changed dramatically for the worse.

Find out more about Dr Roy Spencer