Wind-Subsidy Farms Cause Loss to Society - one result of the ill-informed panic about rising CO2 levels in the air.

Source

This is a picture to look at alongside the one in the previous post.  Is this a mum the youngsters want to swear abuse at about her pension? I think she might struggle to make any kind of sense of their banner: 'MUM AND DAD DID YOU KNOW YOUR PENSION IS &%$#+#-UP MY FUTURE?'

Daniel Greenfield (hat-tip Greeniewatch) writes

'8,000 people die in the UK every year due to what is being called "Fuel Poverty". Fuel Poverty is a trendy term for those who can't afford to heat their home because all the solar panels and windmills, the coal bans and the wars on fracking have made it too expensive for people not to freeze to death..

The left, which never misses a chance to blame profiteering for the failure of its policies, is staging "Die-Ins" outside energy companies to protect the real "Die-Ins" that they caused. But the real "Die-Ins" don't involve bored university students lying down on the concrete and posting the results to Tumblr. They end with the generation that saved Europe from Hitler dying in their own homes.'

In Germany, Pierre Gosselin writes 'Energy poverty is defined by the number of households that must pay more than 10% of their net income on energy. All told 6.9 million German households (every 6th household) finds itself in energy poverty, Spiegel writes.  Much of the rapid increase in energy prices is owing to Germany’s growth in expensive wind and solar energy. Ironically, despite more than 20% of Germany’s energy now being supplied by renewables, CO2 emissions have been rising just the same.  Spiegel calls the energy poverty rate “alarming”. However, when it comes to finding the cause for the runaway increase, the German Greens are blaming all the misery on the rising costs of oil and gas, and even hint that just more expensive, unreliable green energy is all that’s needed to get the costs back in line.'

Meanwhile, back in the UK:

Photo: ALAMY

'Onshore wind farms are being paid £30 million a year to sit idle during the windiest weather.

The payments are made because the cables which transmit power from the turbines to the National Grid cannot cope with the amount of electricity they produce during stormy conditions.'

Whether their blades are turning or not, these wind-subsidy farms are devices for transferring money from the bulk of the population to the relatively rich handful of owners and operators.  In exchange, the people get higher electricity bills, defaced landscapes, and lost opportunities in a less economically competent society.

These are not the greatest of the harms caused so far by the pushers of climate alarm, but they are nevertheless appreciable and getting worse by the month.  And the further harm that the pushers, and the children of the climate scare could cause scarcely bears thinking about, but think about it we must.

Children of the Climate Scare Growing Up Badly

See how some of them are begging their parents, with a childish and offensive banner, to help rescue them from bad things:

The Guardian

These young people could have had climate scare talk directed at them in the nursery, at primary and secondary school, from the BBC and The Guardian and The Independent, and when they got to Oxford they met with climate scare evangelist Myles Allen (see his words at their site ).

Meanwhile, throughout their education so far, there has been no global warming of the kind used to launch this particular climate scare.  Remember Wirth’s hot meeting room in 1988?  Hansen’s hot testimony there? Gore’s stepladder?  The flood of books and websites for children and teachers pointing to rising global mean temperature as if that was irrefutable proof of a man-made catastrophe?   

There has been no upward movement of that particular measure for some 17 years (cue the invention of alternatives by the evangelists such as heat disappearing into oceans which had previously only been used by alarmists for hyping sea-level rises rather than for gobbling up infra-red from CO2 and keeping it out of the atmosphere by some magic yet to be elucidated).

What chance had these Children of the Scare? They seem to have little science (check out their 'Team'), and what they do have may have been distorted by the glib assurances and simple-minded notions about the so-called greenhouse effect and the relative importance of CO2 in the climate system pushed by climate campaigners.  In their world, for example, it is obvious, and needs no data, that hurricanes must get more frequent and more fierce. Trenberth after all, contrived a press conference to that effect to take advantage of a lively hurricane season in the USA*. Meanwhile, genuine experts in hurricanes pointed out that no such effect had been found (see Chap. 26 of The Delinquent Teenager for example).  Not so good for headlines, not so good for vivid tales in school books.  I wonder if many Children of the Scare have any notion of such reservations by experts?  Or that they can be found for each and every one of the various planks of the case for alarm?  I suspect not.

 As for urging investments into such as wind-subsidy farms, solar-subsidy farms, and associated manufacturing industries, my previous post illustrates some of the risks involved there.  The long string of green bankruptices in the States and elsewhere would seem to make the pursuit of such investments by pension funds a peculiar, and grossly irresponsible thing to do.

* That was 2004.  It seems he is still getting up to such tricks ten years later:  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/19/comment-on-kevin-trenberths-interview-on-february-17-2014-an-example-of-misrepresenting-climate-science/

Note added 06 April 2014.  The launch event for this nasty escapade is described here: http://st-hughsmcr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/launch-event-of-push-your-parents.html?showComment=1393543747300

What Happens When Irresponsible Scientists Scare Innumerate Policy Makers into Panic Actions

Germany’s much ballyhooed Energiewende (transition to renewable energy) was supposed to show the whole world how switching over to green energy sources could reduce CO2 emissions, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, provide cheap electricity to citizens, and heroically rescue the planet.

Ten years later, the very opposite has happened: Germany’s CO2 emissions have been increasing, electricity prices have skyrocketed, the green jobs bubble has popped, and tens of thousands of jobs have disappeared. Worse: tens of billions are being redistributed from the poor to the rich. 

P. Gosselin , at No Tricks Zone

Follow the link for more details of the German experience, and of how the Australian government is taking note of it.  I want to finish my post here though by making some more general points.

Teachers and students of the various climate scares of recent decades should note that lesson from Germany when people say 'Why, even if we are wrong about climate catastrophe being driven by our CO2, we are going to do good things in response to our fears.'

The basic answer to such sophistry  is 'Oh no, you are not. You have already caused a great deal of avoidable misery and starvation by increasing basic food prices thanks to diverting farmland to produce bio-fuels.  You have threatened the economic development of both rich and poor countries by seeking to ban coal-fired power stations.  You have despoiled beautiful countryside with your solar panels and windfarms, and each has harmed wildlife, increased energy costs, and polluted the environment during manufacturing. You have scared children, and other vulnerable groups, with your talk of doom and disaster.  You have dismissed and downgraded the wonderful achievements of industry, and have provided in your carbon-schemes new financial opportunities for those who seek profit without contributing anything useful to society.  You have empowered bureaucracies such as the EPA in the States and the EU Commission in Europe to pursue eco-regulations at the expense of humanity.  The damage caused by the recent floods in southern England being but a recent instance of the harm that can be caused when the supposed protection of the environment takes precedence over human welfare and opportunities for development.'  

Paying for the Davids tackling the Goliaths of CAGW

My previous post noted that sums in excess of $22 billion a year are being spent on climate matters by federal agencies and sub-agencies in the United States, and every single one liable to have a vested interest in continued widespread alarm, at the very least within politics and mass media circles.  Monster agencies.  Goliaths in the game.  But, as the legend goes, a Goliath can be brought down by a boy with a well-aimed catapult.  Some do not even need to be brought down, merely calmed down.  Outside of government, if not outside of government funding, can be found wealthy corporations such as the WWF with a clear financial interest in stirring up fear to maintain their high profile and encourage donations, or the British Broadcasting Corporation which has chosen to promote climate alarm and hinder criticism of it.  These too are Goliaths.

The Davids of resistance to these Goliaths can be found on the blogosphere, and many, possibly, all are operating on budgets in the range between zero through shoestring to relatively modest. What would happen if those of us who admire their work were to make a bigger effort to make regular payments for it?  £5 a month  subscription from a thousand people would surely make quite a difference to many a solitary blogger with a great deal to contribute but also with a need to take care of themselves and their families.   It would also help to encourage larger organisations by providing tangible evidence of support.

So, readers of this blog, what can you afford to spend, month after month in a reliable fashion, for what you admire and think important in the climate saga?  Not all of us have the time, nor feel we have the talent, to write, to analyse, and to study the science or the policies involved in climate alarmism, but we can surely name many people who can to good effect.  Maybe we can chip in from time to time with comments and the odd donation, but maybe we could also tax ourselves to make regular payments?  I’ve worked out a percentage of my quite modest retirement income to spend, and will be looking into the setting up of standing orders to get this established as a routine, regular event.  I hope tens of thousands of others will do the same.  See the links on the rhs of this page for possible beneficiaries. Beneficiaries in the sense that writers of books are beneficiaries of those who buy them, and journalists are beneficiaries of those who buy their newspapers.

Jo Nova, in a comment  in response to Bob Tisdale’s recent announcement of his temporary retirement from full-time blogging because of a shortage of money, has suggested a more organised approach which looks very promising if suitable expertise and administrators can be found.  Her idea is to set up a fund to which people could make tax-deductible contributions, and which would support independent researchers: 

‘Bob, no, you know, I’m not satisfied with this. Not at all! How much would it take to keep you going? If we got 10,000 people to donate $10 a year, would that be enough? What if we made it $1 a month?($120k pa) 

There must be a better way to do this, and we grown-ups need to get serious. It’s crazy that we rely on government-sausage-machine-science, and dutifully pay our taxes of thousands every year but we can’t independently create say 20 full time jobs for people checking and critiquing the government output.

Yes, I’m as bonkers as you and none of us want to ask for money, but in the end we don’t survive on thanks and praise alone. It’s time to be smart. Science needs truly independent researchers. And those truly independent researchers deserve remuneration that means they can send their kids to decent schools, afford health care, fix the bathroom, and go on the odd holiday. At the moment, they’re self-funding — they raise the money through other work and shares

If anyone out there knows how to set up tax deductible non-profits (or understands the feasibility of it – is it worth doing?) you could make a big difference by pointing out where we ought to be aiming, and the short-cuts to get there… the independent real science sector would so appreciate legal and accounting advice.

Greenpeace and WWF can do it. Why are we willing to accept that sceptical scientists can’t?’

I hope something comes of that as well.  Jo Nova can be reached via her own blog:  http://joannenova.com.au/

Big Climate USA: a voracious monster scaring the children, and threatening the land and its people

 Monsters used to be part of mythology, but we can see them reappearing in modern forms to frighten children into conforming with the views and the demands of climate campaigners.  Where do they come from?  Who is paying for them?  Some answers for the States at least have surfaced recently.

A letter from the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives was sent in October 2013 to the director of the Office of Management and Budget to get an update ‘regarding climate change activities being carried out across the federal government’.  They appended a chart from 2011 listing ‘over 40 federal agencies and sub-agencies’ and asked if it was still accurate.  I daresay it may need enlarging now, but in the meantime here it is, a partial anatomy of a federal monster which is now gobbling up cash at the rate of at least $22 billion dollars per year:

The threat of man-made global warming is obviously quite expensive to study and promote, and it must seem even more so as record cold temperatures spread across the USA.  Record cold temperatures which of course were never part of the settled science of global warming, except of course in retrospect.

Modern Press Release

The latest wheeze of those promoting this scare in the States is to blame the cold spell on global warming via its presumed effect on a new piece of jargon for the general public, the polar vortex.  This is another sorry example of shoot-from-the-hip junk science designed to promote headlines and save face in the mass media.  It has already been discredited.  Like so many other examples of this in recent years, the speed of rebuttal is remarkable.  More and more informed people, I surmise, have lost patience with the charlatans who presume to speak in the name of Science when in fact they are merely crafters of press releases to suit the political needs of the moment.
See http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/record-cold-due-to-global-warming.html for a compilation of some relevant papers and articles on this particular piece of PR.
[P.S. Climate Depot has also assembled a  list of materials on the polar vortex spin]
[P.P.S Paul Homewood present more analysis in support of his concluding sentence 'More junk science from John Holdren. ']

But back to our monster.  Peter Wilson, writing in the American Thinker, published the above chart this month, and provides many interesting comments that are very relevant to the child-scaring propensities of the monster it reveals.  Namely the so-called educational initiatives (I have added the bolding):

 “A recent Wall Street Journal article expressed concern about low math and science standards in the Common Core curriculum, despite President Obama's frequent speechifying about the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.

There are many possible explanations for this sorry state of affairs, but one factor that doesn't add anything positive is the politicization of education, a culmination of fifty years of a "long march through the institutions" by leftists. Humanities and social sciences have been most corrupted, but STEM disciplines are being assaulted by a new agenda promoting "climate education" or "climate literacy."

A report titled "Climate Literacy," signed by President Obama's science czar John Holdren, declares that "Climate Science Literacy is part of Science [STEM] Literacy." The usual arguments are presented: 1) recent global warming "represents an extraordinary rapid rate of change compared to changes in the previous 10,000 years." 2) Rising temperatures will lead to "rising global sea level and increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves, droughts, and floods." 3) "human activities are now the primary cause of most of the ongoing increase in Earth's globally averaged surface temperature."

Many climate scientists disagree with these three propositions; at very least, they are partisan viewpoints with political implications that have no place in public education.

This campaign is being advanced by local, state and federal governments, by universities and various non-profits, and is aimed at K-16 -- kindergarten through college.”

An Inflatable Monster

This is an image of an inflatable monster.  

You can inflate a lot of monsters with $22 billion a year. Here's one at NOAA for example.

An informed public will see them for what they are, and more and more are joining in the sport of pricking them.  

Every one they burst, is one less to scare the kids with.  

Go Citizens, Go!

Note added 31 January 2014.  Mark Morano has compiled some links to informative materials on 'Big Climate': http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/01/30/prof-roger-pielke-jr-rips-big-climate-for-having-similarities-with-big-tobacco-big-nfl-pielke-jr-specifically-linked-un-i/

Note added 07 February 2014.  WUWT has an amusing clip on the deviousness behind one of the charts used by Holdren in the above propaganda broadcast: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/07/friday-funny-two-guys-with-a-ruler-blow-up-the-white-house-global-warming-video-claims/