Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[larry Strong]

Here are some passages from "Der Spiegel".

The government predicts that the renewable energy surcharge added to every consumer’s electricity bill will increase from 5.3 cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour — a 20-percent price hike. German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe.

But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany.

Even well-informed citizens can no longer keep track of all the additional costs being imposed on them. According to government sources, the surcharge to finance the power grids will increase by 0.2 to 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour next year.

On top of that, consumers pay a host of taxes, surcharges and fees that would make any consumer’s head spin. Former Environment Minister Jürgen Tritten of the Green Party once claimed that switching Germany to renewable energy wasn’t going to cost citizens more than one scoop of ice cream. Today his successor Altmaier admits consumers are paying enough to “eat everything on the ice cream menu.”

Perhaps the most shocking part of the story is that Germans are being forced to pay $26 billion in subsidies to get less than $4 billion of green energy.

For society as a whole, the costs have reached levels comparable only to the euro-zone bailouts. This year, German consumers will be forced to pay €20 billion ($26 billion) for electricity from solar, wind and biogas plants — electricity with a market price of just over €3 billion. Even the figure of €20 billion is disputable if you include all the unintended costs and collateral damage associated with the project.

I'll burn dinosaurs till the cows come home, before I shell out money for that carp......


More at the link


http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html



Larry

 

[a_majoor]

Things are much easier to do when things are warmer, and plants grow much better as well. When you factor that sort of information into your thinking, the story gets changed considerably:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/an-unbiased-economic-scorecard-shows.html

An unbiased economic scorecard shows that global warming provides a net 1.3% GDP gain so far

How Much have Global Problems Cost the World? A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050 was editted by Bjørn Lomborg with many contributors They use an unbiased or at least a consistent methodology to assess the impact of global problems from 1900 to today and project forward to 2050.

There are often blanket claims that the world is facing more problems than ever but there is a lack of empirical data to show where things have deteriorated or in fact improved. In this book, some of the world's leading economists discuss ten problems that have blighted human development, ranging from malnutrition, education, and climate change, to trade barriers and armed conflicts. Costs of the problems are quantified in percent of GDP, giving readers a unique opportunity to understand the development of each problem over the past century and the likely development into the middle of this century, and to compare the size of the challenges. For example: how bad was air pollution in 1900? How has it deteriorated and what about the future? Did climate change cost more than malnutrition in 2010? This pioneering initiative to provide answers to many of these questions will undoubtedly spark debate amongst a wide readership.

* Unique, quantitative assessment and comparison of ten of the biggest challenges to human development, ranging from 1900 through to 2050
* Written by a selection of the world's top economists, brought together in one book by Bjørn Lomborg
* Challenges readers and invites debate, asking the fundamental question about humanity's scorecard: 'Are things getting better or worse?'

How much have world problems cost is a product of the Copenhagen consensus.

All ten global problem assessment reports are at the Copenhagen consensus.

Of course the authors still follow the AGW trope, but similar inferences can be made using proxies like population growth rates when you compare the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, where there is absolutely no possibility of human impact on climate.

 

[Haletown]

Here are some passages from "Der Spiegel".

Perhaps the most shocking part of the story is that Germans are being forced to pay $26 billion in subsidies to get less than $4 billion of green energy.


I'll burn dinosaurs till the cows come home, before I shell out money for that carp......


More at the link


http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html



Larry

The most charitable description for solar generated electricity is Intermittent Power. 

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

(Can a mod turn my ability to edit posts back on.)

Germany managed to get 34 percent of its electricity from wind and solar over a 24-hour period .

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-wind-solar-push-power-prices-way-down-on-sunday/150/537/73470/

So for one-day, it worked like all the scammers claim it does all the time.  :

[Of note, I refuse to call them environmentalists because I don't believe that's what they are.] 

Did you see what happened in the UK last year when they had the deep freeze and all their solar and wind totally failed over a period of about 2-weeks?

You can't make a coherent argument by cherry picking such minute glimpses of time as to make your sample set irrelevant.


M.

P.S.  I find it interesting that you never reply to anyone about the opportunity costs of the 'Climate Change Programs'.  Why is that?  Can you please elaborate on your views of what you think should occur given relatively fixed budgets?  As an example do you believe that credits to China (and the resulting offshoring of all our industry) is a good environmental investment as opposed to preserving virgin rainforest, wet lands and targeting airborne particulates and water pollution?  All we ever read from you is the regurgitation of the Alarmists Press Releases, never with any context or critical assessment in your preambles.  Thanks in advance for that elaboration and clarification.

 

[George Wallace]

Interesting.  The German experience with windmills, which have popped up all over Germany in the last ten years, is perhaps an example to examine more closely.

Just a point of interest on that subject.  In September, near Lahr in the Schwarzwald, there was a fire in one of the windmills.  The cause is under investigation.  I am curious as to the outcome of the investigation and will try to track it.  Is there a further potential of fire hazards from them or not?  We shall see.

 

[Kirkhill]

The consequences of windpower in the UK.

Subsidies to build the windmills to save CO2 generations

Subsidies to build backup power plants for the windmills.

This includes multiple diesel generators in multiple mini-parks all over the countryside.

Fuel costs higher
Noise levels higher
Heat losses higher
CO2 generation higher

Just build a Frackin' natural gas power plant and be done with it. 

Fuel cheap
Noise levels gone
Heat contained and distributed to the local community as steam and hot water
CO2 generation centralized and controllable.

Or better yet - build cofired power-plant incinerators to burn a mix of natural gas, coal and waste.  And then control the emissions.


Edited to add link:  Christopher Booker - Telegraph

 

[Haletown]

OK Kirkhill, just stop with the common sense and practical ideas.  Enough is enough. 

It is hard these days, what with the total failure of our climate models and the cooling atmosphere to keep the hysteria and fear mongering going.  Thank goodness we still have the CBC and the Toronto Star in the bag to spread the word,  but people like you make it much more difficult to keep our scheme going and allow us to fleece the greenie rubes who have bought into our scam. 

Shame on you.

Keep that up and you will be taken off Dr. Fruit Fly's Christmas card list and Lizzie May will not keep you in her thoughts when she prays to Gaia.

/sarc off

(redundant, but just in case)

 

[a_majoor]

And just to make sure everyone keeps things in perspective:

Cost KWh for wind:                                      $.135
Cost KWh for conventional :                        $.08
Sale price KWh for "dumped" renewable:      $.04 (paid by US utilities for excess renewable energy if there is an oversupply and the grid needs to be stablized).

This does not take into consideration the opportunity cost of spilling water or venting steam from hydro or thermal plants IOT keep the grid balanced if the wind suddenly picks up, nor do these figures account for gas turbine generators running 24/7 on "hot idle" in case the wind suddenly drops.

Cost to the Ontario taxpayer? @ $4 billion/year.

That could pay for a lot of health care, education, public saftey or roads, or a pretty steep tax cut.

 

[Haletown]

And so it begins . . .

http://www.thegwpf.org/delight-uk-wind-farms-torn/

Sanity starts to slowly impose its will. As the economic reality of green energy emerges from the the giant propaganda smoke screen laid down by the international environmental industry the only difficulty will be to get the scammers to pay for decommissioning the sites.

 

[Haletown]

Ohhhhhh. .  This one is going to leave a mark.

A $3.5 Trillion benefit of increased CO2!  Think of all the starving children who can now be fed.

Don't tell Al Gore or David Suzuki.  Might be way to much for their cognitive dissonance.



http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/10/the-social-benefit-of-carbon-3-5-trillion-in-agricultural-productivity/

 

[Haletown]

Prime Minister Abbott performs his volunteer job on weekends, gets blamed for global warming fantasy.

www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/bushfires/tony-abbott-puts-himself-in-line-of-fire/story-fngw0i02-1226743492769

Can't see PM Harper doing this, but I bet his wife could handle the job.

 

[a_majoor]

Everyone run away! Climate change has led to........

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/26/atlantic-hurricane-season-quietest-in-45-years/

Atlantic Hurricane Season Quietest in 45 Years
Posted on October 26, 2013
by justthefactswuwt

From the Insurance Journal:

“The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season looks set to go down as a big washout, marking the first time in 45 years that the strongest storm to form was just a minor Category 1 hurricane.

There could still be a late surprise in the June 1-Nov. 30 season, since the cyclone that mushroomed into Superstorm Sandy was just revving up at this time last year.

But so far, at least, it has been one of the weakest seasons since modern record-keeping began about half a century ago, U.S. weather experts say. Apart from Tropical Storm Andrea, which soaked Florida after moving ashore in the Panhandle in June, none of this year’s cyclones has made a U.S. landfall.”

“It has been “a very strange sort of year” in the unpredictable world of cyclones, said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at Weather Underground. “We’ve been in this multi-decadal pattern of activity but it just didn’t happen this year,” Masters said, referring to the prolonged period of increased hurricane activity that began in 1995.”

“There were two short-lived Category 1 hurricanes this year, making it the first Atlantic season since 1968 when no storm made it beyond the first level of intensity, according to the National Hurricane Center.

It has also been a year marked by the fewest number of hurricanes since 1982 and the first since 1994 without the formation of a major hurricane.

In terms of so-called “Accumulated Cyclone Energy” (ACE), a common measure of the total destructive power of a season’s storms, 2013 ranks among the 10 weakest since the dawn of the satellite era in the mid-1960s, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. “The ACE so far in 2013 is 33 percent of normal,” he said.”

“Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University climatologist, readily admits that the forecasts are based on statistical models that will “occasionally fail,” since the atmosphere is chaotic and subject to fluctuations that cannot be predicted more than a week or two in advance.”

Read More

Many graphs and historic records on link as well

 

[Kilo_302]

Interesting, but not surprising.

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/science-says-revolt

In a 2012 essay that appeared in the influential scientific journal Nature Climate Change, Anderson and Bows laid down something of a gauntlet, accusing many of their fellow scientists of failing to come clean about the kind of changes that climate change demands of humanity. On this it is worth quoting the pair at length:

. . . in developing emission scenarios scientists repeatedly and severely underplay the implications of their analyses. When it comes to avoiding a 2°C rise, “impossible” is translated into “difficult but doable”, whereas “urgent and radical” emerge as “challenging” – all to appease the god of economics (or, more precisely, finance). For example, to avoid exceeding the maximum rate of emission reduction dictated by economists, “impossibly” early peaks in emissions are assumed, together with naive notions about “big” engineering and the deployment rates of low-carbon infrastructure. More disturbingly, as emissions budgets dwindle, so geoengineering is increasingly proposed to ensure that the diktat of economists remains unquestioned.

In other words, in order to appear reasonable within neoliberal economic circles, scientists have been dramatically soft-peddling the implications of their research.

And another article that discusses the link between capitalism and climate change:

http://monthlyreview.org/2013/02/01/james-hansen-and-the-climate-change-exit-strategy

 

[a_majoor]

In other words, in order to appear reasonable within neoliberal economic circles, scientists have been dramatically soft-peddling the implications of their research

So the "implications" of their research is imminent wide ranging global disaster, while actual observations demonstrate hurricanes etc. are decreasing in numbers and intensity, and when the world was actually about 20 warmer than today (the Medieval Warm Period), people were happily farming in Greenland rather than roaming a road warrior-esque desert.

No wonder they need to "soft peddle" their work, since it is so dramatically at odds with reality.......

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Interesting, but not surprising.

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/science-says-revolt



And another article that discusses the link between capitalism and climate change:

http://monthlyreview.org/2013/02/01/james-hansen-and-the-climate-change-exit-strategy

Kilo,

Have you ever read any of the counter-analysis of James Hansen's presentations?

If not, I would recommend it.

I know there tends to be an inherent bias that 'Capitalism & Industrialization are bad" and ergo anyone who says that must be good....but sadly there are guys out there with their own agenda, looking far more at what's good for them as opposed to what's good for the planet.  I would argue that if you look at Gore, Suzuki, Pauchuri, Mann and Hansen, you'll find a bunch of very flawed individuals who say one thing in public then live completely differently in private.

Bottom Line is you're an adult...you can choose to read the counter-analyses or not.  Totally in your court.

Good luck on your search for the truth as regardless of differences of opinion, I think that's what all of us are genuinely looking for.


Cheers, Matthew. 

 

[Haletown]

Computer models say the Earth's atmosphere is warming at a very high rate.

Actual temperature data says it is not happening.

Believe the models or the data, your choice.

 

[George Wallace]

Computer models say the Earth's atmosphere is warming at a very high rate.

Actual temperature data says it is not happening.

Believe the models or the data, your choice.

I have several crap computers.  I prefer to believe the thermometer.

 

[Kilo_302]

As for that much vaunted "pause."

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/09/global-warming-pause-ipcc

 

[George Wallace]

As for that much vaunted "pause."

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/09/global-warming-pause-ipcc

"I think the deniers deserve most of the blame. They're still trying to confuse people," says Susan Joy Hassol, who directs Climate Communication, a nonprofit science and outreach group. "And I think the media's to blame too, because they've allowed themselves to be distracted and misled. But the scientists have to take some responsibility when they write or say things that can be misunderstood, because it's part of their job to communicate what they know in a way that the public can understand."

So now it is our fault that there is a pause in Global Warming.  :
:facepalm:
Perhaps if more people denied it, we could reverse it. 

 

[cavalryman]

Seems like the science around CO2 emissions is far from settled.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6157/403.3.full?sid=29d7a318-66a5-4747-905b-707e901704d4

and

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v400/n6741/abs/400248a0.html

Just two examples of scientific studies published by scientific magazines.