This year the International Conference On Climate Change will be held in Washington DC on the 11th and 12th of June. The presenters are Major League skeptics. Among the panel participants are Singer, Idso, Monckton, Legates, Soon, Briggs, Michaels, Watts, Carter, Loehle, Ball, etc.. The keynote speakers are Senator Jim Inhofe, Journalist Mark Steyn, Representative Lamar Smith and Princeton Professor William Happer.
S. Fred Singer
Full information, regarding registration, location, program & speakers and hotel reservations can be found by clicking here.
This is a reblog of a posting by Elizabeth Price Foley on Instapundit. Clever roundup of the folly of the Green movement. Be sure to click on the links. They confirm the folly. cbdakota
Warner Baxter is chairman, president and CEO of St. Louis-based Ameren Corp, the largest energy provider in Missouri, serving more than 1.2 million electric and gas customers. He says that” taking one-third of U.S. coal-fired power plants off the grid by 2020 simply isn’t workable”. He laid out the reasons for this belief using a posting on the Wall Street Journal.com titled “The Dirty Secret of Obama’s Carbon Plan”. This posting is behind a paywall, so you may not be able to access it.
Jay Leno says that putting ethanol in gasoline results in fires in older model automobiles. As many of you know, Leno is a collector of classic cars, most of which are old cars. In a posting in Autoweek, March 4,2015 titled “Jay Leno hates ethanol” he says:
“There have been a lot of old-car fires lately. I went through the ’70s, the ’80s and most of the ’90s without ever having read much about car fires. Suddenly, they are happening all over the place. Here’s one reason: The ethanol in modern gasoline—about 10 percent in many states—is so corrosive, it eats through either the fuel-pump diaphragm, old rubber fuel lines or a pot metal part, then leaks out on a hot engine … and ka-bloooooie!!!”
Once in my business career, I was the manager of our methanol-in-gasoline program. The company spent in the high six figures on laboratory work to determine the safety of methanol (not to be confused with ethanol) as a gasoline additive. The program tested fuel lines, gaskets, fuel tanks, etc. Basically everything that this blend would encounter. The concentration of the methanol in the mix was an important factor. The work was completed and we got EPA approval to use. We knew that some of the older vehicles owners might need to be alerted about the properties of the mix. At that time there was no Renewable Fuels Standard so people were not going to be forced to use the blend. Not too long after getting the EPA approval, the company decided to go out of the methanol business. End of story.
Jay has several more complaints about ethanol blended in gasoline at 10%:
“There’s more. I find that gasoline, which used to last about a year and a half or two years, is pretty much done after a month or so these days. If I run a car from the teens or ’20s and fill it up with modern fuel, then it sits for more than two months, I often can’t get it to start. Ethanol will absorb water from ambient air. In a modern vehicle, with a sealed fuel system, ethanol fuel has a harder time picking up water from the air. But in a vintage car, the water content of fuel can rise, causing corrosion and inhibiting combustion.
Leno believes the Renewable Fuel Standard has done more harm than just that of damaging his and other people’s cars. He says:
“Blame the Renewable Fuel Standard. This government-mandated rule requires certain amounts of ethanol and other biofuels be blended with gasoline and diesel fuel. “I just don’t see the need for ethanol. I understand the theory—these giant agri-business companies can process corn, add the resulting blend to gasoline and we’ll be using and importing less gasoline***. But they say this diversion of the corn supply is negatively affecting food prices, and the ethanol-spiked gas we’re forced to buy is really awful.
The big growers of corn have sold us a bill of goods. Some people are making a lot of money because of ethanol. But as they divert production from food to fuel, food prices inevitably will rise. Now, if you don’t mind paying $10 for a tortilla…”
He would like some action here:
“It’s time for us as automobile enthusiasts to dig in our heels and start writing to our congressmen and senators about the Renewable Fuel Standard, or we’ll be forced to use even more ethanol. Most people assume, “Oh, that’ll never happen. They’ll never do that.” Remember prohibition? In 1920, all the saloons were closed. It took until 1933 before legal liquor came back.”
At most marinas, gasoline containing no ethanol is supplied as small craft engines can be destroyed by the ethanol-gasoline mix. So boaters might want to join Leno and the automobile enthusiasts.
Leno has more to say about this issue and you can read it by clicking here on this website:
***Actually I believe he means “importing less crude oil” rather than “gasoline” but it doesn’t alter his point of view. These days we have plenty of domestic crude oil so we don’t really need the ethanol to stretch our gasoline supplies.
Again as I did yesterday, I am reblogging a terrific posting from WattsUpWithThat by Paul Driessen. I have covered these topics on a number of occasions, but Driessen lays out the case about as well as can be done.
Guest opinion by Paul Driessen
Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), other senators and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) recently sent letters to institutions that employ or support climate change researchers whose work questions claims that Earth and humanity face unprecedented manmade climate change catastrophes.
The letters allege that the targeted researchers may have “conflicts of interest” or may not have fully disclosed corporate funding sources. They say such researchers may have testified before congressional committees, written articles or spoken at conferences, emphasizing the role of natural forces in climate change, or questioning evidence and computer models that emphasize predominantly human causes.
Mr. Grijalva asserts that disclosure of certain information will “establish the impartiality of climate research and policy recommendations” published in the institutions’ names and help Congress make better laws. “Companies with a direct financial interest in climate and air quality standards are funding environmental research that influences state and federal regulations and shapes public understanding of climate science.” These conflicts need to be made clear, because members of Congresscannot perform their duties if research or testimony is “influenced by undisclosed financial relationships,” it says.
The targeted institutions are asked to reveal their policies on financial disclosure; drafts of testimony before Congress or agencies; communications regarding testimony preparation; and sources of “external funding,” including consulting and speaking fees, research grants, honoraria, travel expenses and other monies – for any work that questions the manmade climate cataclysm catechism.
Conflicts of interest can indeed pose problems. However, it is clearly not only fossil fuel companies that have major financial or other interests in climate and air quality standards – nor only manmade climate change skeptics who can have conflicts and personal, financial or institutional interests in these issues.
Renewable energy companies want to perpetuate the mandates, subsidies and climate disruption claims that keep them solvent. Insurance companies want to justify higher rates, to cover costs from allegedly rising seas and more frequent or intense storms. Government agencies seek bigger budgets, more personnel, more power and control, more money for grants to researchers and activist groups that promote their agendas and regulations, and limited oversight, transparency and accountability for their actions. Researchers and organizations funded by these entities naturally want the financing to continue.
You would therefore expect that these members of Congress would send similar letters to researchers and institutions on the other side of this contentious climate controversy. But they did not, even though climate alarmism is embroiled in serious financial, scientific, ethical and conflict of interest disputes.
As Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT atmospheric sciences professor emeritus and one of Grijalva’s targets, has pointed out: “Billions of dollars have been poured into studies supporting climate alarm, and trillions of dollars have been involved in overthrowing the energy economy” – and replacing it with expensive, inefficient, insufficient, job-killing, environmentally harmful wind, solar and biofuel sources.
Their 1090 forms reveal that, during the 2010-2012 period, six environmentalist groups received a whopping $332 million from six federal agencies! That is 270 times what Dr. Willie Soon and Harvard-Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics received from fossil fuel companies in a decade – the funding that supposedly triggered the lawmakers’ letters, mere days after Greenpeace launched its attack on Dr. Soon.
The EPA, Fish & Wildlife Service, NOAA, USAID, Army and State Department transferred this taxpayer money to Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, Nature Conservancy, Natural Resource Defense Council, National Wildlife Fund and Clean Air Council, for research, reports, press releases and other activities that support and promote federal programs and agendas on air quality, climate change, climate impacts on wildlife, and many similar topics related to the Obama war on fossil fuels. The activists also testified before Congress and lobbied intensively behind the scenes on these issues.
Between 2000 and 2013, EPA also paid the American Lung Association well over $20 million, and lavished over $180 million on its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members, to support agency positions. Chesapeake energy gave the Sierra Club $26 million to advance its Beyond Coal campaign. Russia gave generously to anti-fracking, climate change and related “green” efforts.
Government agencies and laboratories, universities and other organizations have received billions of taxpayer dollars, to develop computer models, data and reports confirming alarmist claims. Abundant corporate money has also flowed to researchers who promote climate alarms and keep any doubts to themselves. Hundreds of billions went to renewable energy companies, many of which went bankrupt. Wind and solar companies have been exempted from endangered species laws, to protect them against legal actions for destroying wildlife habitats, birds and bats. Full disclosure? Rarely, if ever.
In gratitude and to keep the money train on track, many of these recipients contribute hefty sums to congressional candidates. During his recent primary and general campaign, for example, Senator Markey received $3.8 million from Harvard and MIT professors, government unions, Tom Steyer and a dozen environmentalist groups (including recipients of some of that $332 million in taxpayer funds), in direct support and via advertisements opposing candidates running against the champion of disclosure.
As to the ethics of climate disaster researchers, and the credibility of their models, data and reports, ClimateGate emails reveal that researchers used various “tricks” to mix datasets and “hide the decline” in average global temperatures since 1998; colluded to keep skeptical scientific papers out of peer-reviewed journals; deleted potentially damaging or incriminating emails; and engaged in other practices designed to advance manmade climate change alarms. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change based many of its most notorious disappearing ice cap, glacier and rainforest claims on student papers, magazine articles, emails and other materials that received no peer review. The IPCC routinely tells its scientists to revise their original studies to reflect Summaries for Policymakers written by politicians and bureaucrats.
Yet, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy relies almost entirely on this junk science to justify her agency’s policies – and repeats EPA models and hype on extreme weather, refusing to acknowledge that not one Category 3-5 hurricane has made U.S. landfall for a record 9.3 years. Her former EPA air quality and climate czar John Beale is in prison for fraud, and the agency has conducted numerous illegal air pollution experiments on adults and even children – and then ignored their results in promulgating regulations.
Long-time IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has resigned in disgrace, after saying manmade climate change is “my religion, my dharma” (principle of the cosmic order), rather than a matter for honest, quality science and open, robust debate. The scandals go on and on: see here, here,here, here and here.
It’s no wonder support for job and economy-killing carbon taxes and regulations is at rock bottom. And not one bit surprising that alarmists refuse to debate realist scientists: the “skeptics” would eviscerate their computer models, ridiculous climate disaster claims, and “adjusted” or fabricated evidence.
Instead, alarmists defame scientists who question their mantra of “dangerous manmade climate change.” The Markey and Grijalva letters “convey an unstated but perfectly clear threat: Research disputing alarm over the climate should cease, lest universities that employ such individuals incur massive inconvenience and expense – and scientists holding such views should not offer testimony to Congress,” Professor Lindzen writes. They are “a warning to any other researcher who may dare question in the slightest their fervently held orthodoxy of anthropogenic global warming,” says Dr. Soon. Be silent, or perish.
Now the White House is going after Members of Congress! Its new Climate-Change-Deniers website wants citizens to contact and harass senators and congressmen who dare to question its climate diktats.
Somehow, though, Markey, Grijalva, et al. have not evinced any interest in investigating any of this. The tactics are as despicable and destructive as the junk science and anti-energy policies of climate alarmism. It is time to reform the IPCC and EPA, and curtail this climate crisis insanity.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
Watch EPA secretary demonstrate that she is in over her head.
First the Keystone XL pipeline (KXL) was not authorized by President Obama because he and the Governor of Nebraska were worried about pipeline failure. I wonder if they considered how many pipelines are in operation today and how few problems they have caused. Over 2.4 millions of miles of underground pipelines in the U.S. carry natural gas and liquid petroleum. The majority of those miles are carrying natural gas; however, over 180,000 miles of pipeline move liquid petroleum. Below are two maps showing the major routes of these pipelines:
All engineers and scientist should be skeptics. Most engineers are because if they build a bridge or an automobile, or what ever, it better work right away. Some scientists are making a lot of predictions about events to come 25, 50 or 100 years into the future. Well that’s their privilege, but it probably would be well to take a skeptical view on any prediction years into the future.
The Pacific Research Institute has produced several videos that are meant to challenge “appeals to authority’ like all scientist believe in …….
Ehrlich’s solutions were for the government to take charge. Impose taxes, new regulations etc. Doesn’t that seem very much like what is now underway to “stop catastrophic global warming” some day out in the distant future. Remember that name, Paul Ehrlich. He wrote another book which was just as wrong as the “Population Bomb”. By the way, this other book was co-authored by John Holdren. Holdren, in case you don’t remember, is President Obama’s Science Czar. Aren’t we lucky.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a new set of proposed regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing U. S. power plants. The premise for this EPA action is that unless CO2 emissions are reduce global temperatures would rise by the end of this century to levels that would cause catastrophic climate change damage. But the basis for such action is not science but rather politics. In our previous posting, it was shown that climate models that predict global temperature are not skilled and have not predicted actual measured global temperatures. Using these models to base legislation is playing Russian Roulette with the US economy.
Knappenberger and Michaels (K&M) posted on 12 June in WUWT “EPA leaves out the most vital number in their fact sheet”. They show that this initiative will not have any measureable effect on global temperatures. K&M summarize the “regulation”:
“The EPA’s regulations seek to limit carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production in the year 2030 to a level 30 percent below what they were in 2005. It is worth noting that power plant CO2 emissions already dropped by about 15% from 2005 to2012, largely, because of market forces which favor less-CO2-emitting natural gas over coal as the fuel of choice for producing electricity.”
“For some reason, they left off their Fact Sheet how much climate change would be averted by the plan. Seems like a strange omission since, after all, without the threat of climate change, there would be no one thinking about the forced abridgement of our primary source of power production in the first place, and the Administration’s new emissions restriction scheme wouldn’t even be a gleam in this or any other president’s eye.”
“But no worries. What the EPA left out, we’ll fill in.
“Using a simple, publically-available, climate model emulator called MAGICC that was in part developed through support of the EPA, we ran the numbers as to how much future temperature rise would be averted by a complete adoption and adherence to the EPA’s new carbon dioxide restrictions*.”
The answer? Less than two one-hundredths of a degree Celsius by the year 2100. 0.018°C to be exact.
Well how did they come up with that number?
They used the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC)— to examine the climate impact of proposed regulations.They used the three IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). RCP4.5=low-end emissions, RCP6.0=middle of the road and RCP8.5=high emissions.
They estimated the US power plant CO2 emissions.
Figure 1. Carbon dioxide emissions pathways defined in, or derived from, the original set of Representative Concentration pathways (RCPs), for the global total carbon dioxide emissions as well as for the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to U.S. electricity production.
“We then used MAGICC to calculate the rise in global temperature projected to occur between now and the year 2100 when with the original RCPs as well as with the RCPs modified to reflect the EPA proposed regulations (we used the MAGICC default value for the earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity (3.0°C)).”
Figure 2. Global average surface temperature anomalies, 2000-2100, as projected by MAGICC run with the original RCPs as well as with the set of RCPs modified to reflect the EPA 30% emissions reductions from U.S power plants.
Because the difference between lines is so small, the authors added two tables for the data illustrated in figure 2.
Yes, this posting says that the computer models are not suitable to make policy decisions and yet the K & M posting is predicated on a computer model. Two things here. First, in the course of making this new policy the EPA climate model must have been run by the EPA. They did not list a drop in global temperatures so they know it is devastating. Second, the EPA is not likely to claim the K & M work is invalid because EPA must use this model in their other pronouncements about climate .
Climate models have not demonstrated skill at making climate predictions. Yet, the proponents of man-made global warming cite the model outputs when telling us what the global temperature will be in 2100!!!!
From the Patriot Post, Joe Bastardi’s July 16 2013 posting “Evidence That Demands a Verdict:
Assumed validity of climate models
‘This is almost laughable. Anyone who works in the field every day – as we do in the private sector – knows how bad models can be.”
“But the point is that the models are a mathematical representation of a chaotic field and I can not even fathom that this could be one of their reasons. It shows the ignorance as to the nature of the climate. It also shows the willingness of those that truly don’t understand weather and climate to place trust in a model. It’s flabbergasting.
One picture destroys the whole premise. Dr. John Christy, who testified before congress on this matter, has put this graph together:”
The chart shows how far off the climate models are from the actual global temperature measurements (Real World).
“The following graph from Dr. Roy Spencer is even more dramatic. While Dr. Christy shows the average, Dr. Spencer shows how the individual predictions of 19 US models are all well above actual observations. And the EPA is trying to base policy on this?”
This shotgun approach (19 models) points out that the alarmists modelers don’t have a clue. In MHO, if the climate model program was worth anything, you would only need one.
“Why anyone would think they could justify EPA’s regulatory plans or suggest a carbon tax as an alternative given the facts presented above is beyond me.
The facts clearly reveal that the EPA and the president do not have a leg to stand on as their policies assault the very energy lifeline of our economy at this critical time in our nation’s history. The EPA’s decisions are based on erroneous ideas.”
The politicians that want to manage our use of fossil fuels are ignoring the facts. Why wont they look at actual data instead of relying on models that have no skill? Politics, of course, but what are the underlying motives?
The next posting will discuss the cost/benefit for the Obama plan to put coal out of business.
The President in his weekly address did it again. He said things that are demonstrably untrue and in other cases terribly misleading. This comes after the debacle resulting from his lying when he made assurances about keeping your medical policy under Obamacare, period!!!! Why is he doing it again? Because he knows, with the compliance of the Main Stream Media (MSM), he can mislead the low information voters. And he is happy to be doing that. See the video of the address by clicking here.
He takes credit for the increase in oil production in the US. He has had nothing to do with it. And he knows that. The oil boom comes from private landowners operating on non-federal land.(See chart below.) He cannot prevent exploitation of those reserves.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration based on DrillingInfo and LCI Energy Insight
Soon, Briggs, Michaels, Watts, Carter, Loehle, Ball, etc.. The keynote speakers are Senator Jim Inhofe, Journalist Mark Steyn, Representative Lamar Smith and Princeton Professor William Happer.
Climate Change Sanity 