Climate Media

Climate Progress on a Rant

Posted on by Ron Clutz

There is a torrent of Anti-Trump posts from “Climate Progress”, part of the “Think Progress” set of websites directed by John Podesta and funded by George Soros and Tom Steyer.  The ranting is over the top and could crash the internet before the inauguration.  Maybe that’s the objective.  Look at today’s output of “progressive thinking.”

Climate Progress : Trump is assem­bling the most anti-Iran team
Today: 16:03

@Climate Progress : No Senator Cruz, Jeff Sessions didn’t lead the bankru­pting of the Alabama Klan
Today: 15:56

@Climate Progress : Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson didn’t mention energy, climate, or Exxon in his opening remarks
Today: 15:52

@Climate Progress : Jeff Sessions may soon get to decide whether 63 people live or die
Today: 15:41

@Climate Progress : Six critical questions about conflicts of interest that Donald Trump must answer
Today: 15:37

@Climate Progress : Trump claims he has ‘nothing to do with Russia.’ His son said the opposite.
Today: 15:08

@Climate Progress : 15 things Trump said about Russia that seem even weirder now
Today: 14:51

@Climate Progress : The abortion providers who will see us through a Trump presidency
Today: 14:18

@Google: Trump Nominee Rex Tillerson to Face Questions About Russia, Climate, Rights Wall Street Journal
Today: 13:02

Trump Nominee Rex Tillerson to Face Questions About Russia, Climate , RightsWall Street Journal WASHING­TON—Pre­sident-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tille­rson, went before senators for a confir­mation hearing Wedne­sday, and planned to tell lawmakers that Russia poses a danger and that North Atlantic Treaty Organi­zation …
Today: 14:43

DeSmogBlog: Fake News You Can’t Use, They’ll Abuse, We All Lose. Except Putin. Putin Wins.
Today: 14:19

@Google: What senators should ask Rex Tillerson about climate change Vox
This is a guest post by ClimateD­enierRou­ndup   Vox What senators should ask Rex Tillerson about climate change Vox One of those questions is about climate change, and it’s worth focusing on that subject for a moment, because this is a very strange and uncertain moment in climate politics. Normally a presid­ential candidate would have taken some kind of position on a … Time to Grill Rex Tillerson on Climate Change New York Times Trump Nominee…
Today: 14:18

Climate Progress : Coretta Scott King: Jeff Sessions would ‘irrep­arably damage’ my husband’s work
Today: 01:19

@Climate Progress : Al Franken lays into Trump for attacking Minnes­ota’s Somali-American community
Today: 01:04

@Google: Republ­icans want to fight climate change, but fossil-fuel bullies won’t let them Washi­ngton Post
Forbes Crazy Carbon Crystals Could Combat Climate Change Forbes In other words the solution could be used to grab CO2, which contri­butes to climate change, direct from the atmos­phere and store it tempor­arily into crystals that form as a result. The resear­chers envision using the process as a way to boost the … and more » Washi­ngton Post Republ­icans want to fightclimate change, but fossil-fuel bullies won’t let them Washi­ngton Post Talking to my Senate Repub­lican colle­agues about climate change is like talking to prisoners about escaping. The convers­ations are often private, even furtive. One told me, “Let’s keep talking, but you can’t let my staff know.” The dirty secret is that … and more »
Today: 01:02

@DeSmogBlog: How Jeff Sessions Profited from Introd­ucing a Fracking Exemption for Drinking Water Rules @The Carbon Brief: Double threat to UK’s birds and butter­flies from climate change and land use
With U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) in the midst of Senate confir­mation hearings, watchdog group Food and Water Watch has raised new questions about how Sessio­ns and his family p­rofited from a fracking loophole provision he intro­duced in the Se­nate. In the UK, rising temper­atures are making life increa­singly uncomfo­rtable for species of wildlife better…
The group has unveiled new documentsshowing that Sessions­’ family owned stock in Energen, a Birmin­gham, Alabama-based oil and gas company,… The post Double threat to UK’s birds and butter­flies from climate change and land use appeared first on Carbon Brief .
Today: 00:02

 

Truth in Climate Advertising

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Friends of the Earth have been censured for their erroneous and misleading promotional flyer. The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said Friends of the Earth “agreed not to repeat the claims, or claims that had the same meaning.”

Friends of the Earth spent more than a year trying to defend its claims, which were made in a fundraising leaflet, but has been forced to withdraw them.

The authority found that Friends of the Earth (FoE) failed to substantiate claims that fracking could cause cancer, contaminate water supplies, increase asthma rates and send house prices plummeting.

The group’s capitulation is a victory for a retired vicar and a retired physics teacher who have been working for years to expose what they believe is scaremongering about a safe technique for extracting shale gas. (More about them in the footnote)

Truth in Climate Advertising!  What a Concept!!

Who’s next?  What about Greenpeace:

Greenpeace have been accused of employing deceptive techniques after it was revealed the environmental group had been using images of a storm damaged coral reef in The Philippines as a part of its campaign to have the Great Barrier Reef declared at risk.

On the left is a picture of bright, vibrant and thriving coral, while the image on the right features a pile of damaged, bone-white coral with a warning: ‘Don’t let them turn this, into this.’

Upon completing further research, it was discovered the image of the damaged reef was taken at Apo Island’s marine sanctuary in The Philippines, which was severely damaged by two typhoons in the past four years. From the Daily Mail article
Greenpeace slammed for using photo of storm-ravaged Philippines coral in new ad claiming government is putting Great Barrier Reef under threat.

How about the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):

Shouldn’t they be forced to add this disclaimer:

Summary

climate-alarmists-wheres-the-beef

Friends of the Earth are making up stuff.  Friends of Science give you the Beef:

global-warming-stopped

Footnote

The UK Advertising Standards Authority did not have the brass to do their job protecting the public against deceptions.  It took significant prodding from two determined people: a vicar and a retired school teacher.

They had previously complained to the Charity commission, who found a way to stand down rather than stand up.

The Charity Commission is considering closing a loophole in charity law that allowed a green group to raise money by making allegedly false claims in a political campaign against fracking.

Friends of the Earth, a registered charity, avoided restrictions on political activity by claiming that its antifracking campaign was being carried out by a non-charitable company called Friends of the Earth Limited.

The commission said the use of such similar names could confuse the public and damage public trust in charities.

Mr Wilkinson, who said that he had no connection with the fracking industry and was acting purely to ensure the public received accurate information, welcomed the ASA ruling. “It is outrageous that FoE used false information to raise money,” he said. “We need a frank debate about fracking and its potential impacts but it should be based on facts, not scaremongering.”

The Rev. Michael Roberts tells the full story in his article How Fiendish is Friends of the Earth which includes this amusing rebuttal:

 

 

Climatism and Virtual Virtues

Posted on by Ron Clutz


Following an alert posted by Lubos Motl, I upgraded my windows operating system from #7 to #10, since the grace period is ending August 1. And it went quite smoothly in retrospect, but with much anxiety in the process. It seems that Windows Defender latest version doesn’t play as nice with other anti-malware programs. Also some head-scratching as to the usage of cpu by strangely named programs that may or may not be malware. And there are the inevitable hiccups and tweaks needed to restore operations as before.

It occurred to me in this process that the internet and the associated tools have become for us a kind of utility, like electricity. When we flip the light switch, the room should light up. And when we boot up our home computers, we expect to be on line and wired in. Any upgrade introduces uncertainty into that dependency, and is uncomfortable.

It also reflects on how much we modern urban dwellers exist within a cocoon of man-made structures, both physical and cyberspace. Extrapolating from our daily experience, it is a small step to thinking that the larger environment beyond our cocoons, if not entirely man-made, is at least hugely subject to human influence. And from that premise comes the climatism faith: the belief that mother Nature is being ruined by humans burning fossil fuels, that the planet will burn up, glaciers will melt, cities and islands will submerge, etc. etc. etc.

For centuries those who farm or otherwise make a living from the land or ocean have accepted and adapted to the uncertainties of weather and variable harvests. They are among the most skeptical concerning man-made climate change.

But the majority of university educated urban dwellers are converts to climatism, and participate more or less in a range of Virtual Virtues; i.e. Supporting abstract causes to protect Nature from humans. Some examples:
Save the Arctic: Support Greenpeace.:
Stop Rising CO2: Support 350.org.
Save Animals from extinction: Support WWF.
Etc.

These and other variations of “fighting Climate Change” give the illusion of “making a difference”, and thus feeling good about doing good. It is truly not about Science any more, it is about being Virtually Virtuous.

Footnote: In his lifetime, Marshall McLuhan foresaw the rise of the Global Village along with the return of tribalism, pre-conditions for the present obsession with climatism. Quotations:

“All media are extensions of some human faculty-psychic or physical.”

“The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.”

“The world is now like a continually sounding tribal drum, where everybody gets the message…. all the time.”

“Our technology forces us to live mythically.”

“Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery.  The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.”

“The more you create village conditions, the more discontinuity and division and diversity. The global village absolutely insures maximal disagreement on all points. It never occurred to me that uniformity and tranquility were the properties of the global village. It has more spite and envy. The spaces and times are pulled out from between people. A world in which people encounter each other in depth all the time. The tribal-global village is far more divisive — full of fighting — than any nationalism ever was. Village is fission, not fusion, in depth all the time.” (McLuhan “The Hot and Cool Interview” 57–58)

That full interview is the best summary of McLuhan’s views and is here.

Climate Lemmings (h/t Beth)

 

Climate Crisis Inc. Update

Posted on by Ron Clutz

 

cov_en_1Five years ago Jo Nova provided a graphic displaying the workings of the Climate Scare Machine.  The figures are out-dated and this post is to update the growth of the Climate Crisis Industry and its outlook.

From Jo Nova (here) in 2010 dollars:
Climate Change Scare Machine Cycle: see how your tax dollars are converted into alarming messages

The money, power, and influence is vastly larger on the side that benefits from the alarm
On the skeptical side, Exxon chipped in all of $23 million over ten years, but it’s chump-change. The fossil fuel industry doesn’t like carbon legislation, but it’s not life or death, unlike the situation for wind and solar, which would be virtually wiped out without the subsidies provided by the scare.

The US government has poured in $79 billion and then some. But the pro-scare funding is pervasive: for example — the Australian government spent $14 million on a single Ad campaign, and another $90 million every year on a Department of Climate Change. The UK government paid for lobbyists to lobby it, and the BBC “partners” with the lobby groups. The EU doesn’t just subsidize renewables, it also pays them to push for more subsidies. Even the dastardly Exxon paid more than 20 times as much for a single renewables research project than it did to skeptics.

Last year in carbon markets $142 billion dollars turned over, and $243 billion was invested in renewables. If the carbon market idea went global it was projected to reach $2 trillion a year. Every banker and his dog has a bone in this game. Why wouldn’t they?

Industry 2015 Update from Climate Change Business Journal

(reported in Insurance Journal here).

Interest in climate change is becoming an increasingly powerful economic driver, so much so that some see it as an industry in itself whose growth is driven in large part by policymaking.

The $1.5 trillion global “climate change industry” grew at between 17 and 24 percent annually from 2005-2008, slowing to between 4 and 6 percent following the recession with the exception of 2011’s inexplicable 15 percent growth, according to Climate Change Business Journal.

The San Diego, Calif.-based publication includes within that industry nine segments and 38 sub-segments. This encompasses sectors like renewables, green building and hybrid vehicles.

That also includes the climate change consulting market, which a recent report by the journal estimates at $1.9 billion worldwide and $890 million in the U.S.

Included in this sub-segment, which the report shows is one of the fastest growing areas of the climate change industry, are environmental consultants and engineers, risk managers, assurance, as well as legal and other professional services.

Figures for the climate change consulting market are expected to more than double in the next five years, and the report’s authors believe the climate change industry as a whole will have an even steeper and faster growth trajectory than the environmental consulting industry – an industry that in 1976 had billings of $600 million and today generates $27 billion.

Paul Driessen puts the numbers in context (here).

The answer is simple. The annual revenue of the Climate Crisis & Renewable Energy Industry has become a $1.5-trillion-a-year business! That’s equal to the annual economic activity generated by the entire US nonprofit sector, or all savings over the past ten years from consumers switching to generic drugs. By comparison, revenue for the much-vilified Koch Industries are about $115 billion, for ExxonMobil around $365 billion.

According to a 200-page analysis by the Climate Change Business Journal, this Climate Industrial Complex can be divided into nine segments:

  • low carbon and renewable power;
  • carbon capture and storage;
  • energy storage, such as batteries;
  • energy efficiency;
  • green buildings;
  • transportation;
  • carbon trading;
  • climate change adaptation; and
  • consulting and research.

Consulting alone is a $27-billion-per-year industry that handles “reputation management” for companies and tries to link weather events, food shortages and other problems to climate change. Research includes engineering R&D and climate studies.

In other words, the current amount of annual spending is $1.5-trillion in the two boxes of Jo Nova’s diagram: Industrials and Financial Houses.  There’s additional money sloshing around in other boxes of the scare machine.

The $1.5-trillion price tag appears to exclude most of the Big Green environmentalism industry, a $13.4-billion-per-year business in the USA alone. The MacArthur Foundation just gave another $50 million to global warming alarmist groups. Ex-NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chesapeake Energy gave the Sierra Club $105 million to wage war on coal (shortly before the Club began waging war on natural gas and Chesapeake Energy, in what some see as poetic justice). Warren Buffett, numerous “progressive” foundations, Vladimir Putin cronies and countless companies also give endless millions to Big Green.

Our hard-earned tax dollars are likewise only partially included in the CCBJ tally. As professor, author and columnist Larry Bell notes in his new book, Scared Witless: Prophets and profits of climate doom, the U.S. government spent over $185 billion between 2003 and 2010 on climate change items – and this wild spending spree has gotten even worse in the ensuing Obama years. We are paying for questionable to fraudulent global warming studies, climate-related technology research, loans and tax breaks for Solyndra and other companies that go bankrupt, and “climate adaptation” foreign aid to poor countries.

Also not included: the salaries and pensions of thousands of EPA, NOAA, Interior, Energy and other federal bureaucrats who devote endless hours to devising and imposing regulations for Clean Power Plans, drilling and mining bans, renewable energy installations, and countless Climate Crisis, Inc. handouts. A significant part of the $1.9 trillion per year that American businesses and families pay to comply with mountains of federal regulations is also based on climate chaos claims.

Add in the state and local equivalents of these federal programs, bureaucrats, regulations and restrictions, and we’re talking serious money. There are also consumer costs, including the far higher electricity prices families and businesses must pay, especially in states that want to prove their climate credentials.

Summary

Looking into the future, IEA expects additional spending just in the energy sector to meet climate change targets on the order of $35-trillion over the period 2015 to 2030.  All this remarkable growth comes in a market for non-solutions to the non-problem of global warming.  (Note to Lewandowsky:  It is not a conspiracy, it’s a monopoly.)

There also may be a limit to how much can be extracted.

Climate cashCow

Footnotes:

  1.  The Climate Change Business Journal produced the report of 2015 industry revenues and sectors, referenced by the Insurance Journal article.  More recent reports likely show much higher revenues, but I am unwilling to buy a report from CCBJ.

2.  A recent example of the dash for climate cash is the rise of Climate Medicine.

 

Climategate Redux?

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) sent a letter on June 28, 2016 urging the US congress to act on climate change:

There is strong evidence that ongoing climate change is having broad negative impacts on society, including the global economy, natural resources, and human health. For the United States, climate change impacts include greater threats of extreme weather events, sea level rise, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, heat waves, wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems. The severity of climate change impacts is increasing and is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades.

Those of us with short memories need to be reminded that the Climategate emails were triggered by an appeal to congress in 2009 by the AAAS. Dr. Arnd Bernaerts provides the background and the historical context.

On October 21, 2009 the AAAS letter included this:

Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment. For the United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades.
Full text provided by Dr. Bernaerts here, along with his response.

The Climategate Emails

2011 Report here
More than 5,000 documents have been leaked online purporting to be the correspondence of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia who were previously accused of ‘massaging’ evidence of man-made climate change.

Following on from the original ‘climategate’ emails of 2009, the new package appears to show systematic suppression of evidence, and even publication of reports that scientists knew to to be based on flawed approaches. 

The leaker of the emails “FOIA” said this in a comment at the time, Nov. 17, 2009:
We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.
We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.
Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.

Dr. Bernaerts comments on the current situation:

I had hoped that the “endorsement” by “FOIA said” would give a helpful impulse to my complaint about a science which is not able to define what they are talking about, namely CLIMATE. Those not happy with the AGW discussion should have pressured WMO, IPCC and consorts to demonstrate that they are capable to do what every academic is trained to do, to provide reasonable and workable definitions. Unfortunately that did not materialize. The definition matter remains neglected by AGW supporters and sceptics alike. A great pity. A further conference paper from January 2010, available at: http://www.whatisclimate.com/ explains this in more detail.

What has changed in the world of AAAS and in the field of supporting and opposing views: Much too little. A pity that we cannot ask FOIA what would be his view today.

The Climate Lemmings
h/t Beth

 

Daily Doom and Gloom

Posted on by Ron Clutz

joe-btfsplk

Today doom-saying dominates. Remember when Science Fiction combined possibility and danger, with more on the upside? Contemporary pessimism about the future is part of a larger and deeper malaise in societies, and one that differs across the globe. It’s the West (US and Europe) driven by Fear, while in the East Hope is more abundant, and the Middle East is acting out its sense of historical humiliation.

From Geopolitical analyst Dominique Moïsi:

Moïsi contends that both the United States and Europe have been dominated by fears of the “other” and of their loss of a national identity and purpose. Instead of being united by their fears, the twin pillars of the West are more often divided by them—or, rather, by bitter debates over how best to confront or transcend them. For Muslims and Arabs, the combination of historical grievances, exclusion from the economic boon of globalization, and civil and religious conflicts extending from their homelands to the Muslim diaspora have created a culture of humiliation that is quickly devolving into a culture of hatred. Meanwhile, Asia has been able to concentrate on building a better future and seizing the economic initiative from the American-dominated West and so creating a new culture of hope.

The European culture of fear is dominated by the interrogation “Who are we?” Unlike Europeans, Americans are not preoccupied by the ghost of their past. America has always seen itself as a future, a project more than a history. Three key questions contribute to the current American identity crisis. Have we lost our soul – that is, our ethical superiority? Have we lost our purpose – that is, our sense of a unique national mission? Finally, have we lost our place in the world – that is, are we in decline? In other words, if Europeans are asking, “Who are we?” Americans are wondering, “What have we done to ourselves?”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2575587-the-geopolitics-of-emotion

An extended review of Moïsi’s book is here.  Interview with Moïsi here.

 

ignorance

The purveyors of climate doom are part of a larger culture in the West, and their prophecies fall on people already primed to believe the worst.  Their only power comes from the weakness of listening and failing to add lots of salt to the pronouncements.

Just say No!

And remember this:

If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son.
Rudyard Kipling

 

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