Christopher Booker: Met Office gives us the warmist weather

3 January, 2010 by

Alarmism

Christopher Booker lifts the lid on the alarmism at the UK Met Office:

The reason the Met Office so persistently gets its seasonal forecasts wrong is that it has been hi-jacked from the role for which we pay it nearly £200 million a year, to become one of the world’s major propaganda engines for the belief in man-made global warming. Over the past three years, it has become a laughing stock for forecasts which are invariably wrong in the same direction.

The year 2007, it predicted, would be “the warmest ever” – just before global tempratures plunged by more than the entire net warming of the 20th century, Three years running it predicted warmer than average winters – as large parts of the northern hemisphere endured record cold and snowfalls. Last year’s “barbecue summer” was the third time running that predictions of a summer drier and warmer than average prefaced weeks of rain and cold. Last week the Met Office was again predicting that 2010 will be the “warmest year” on record, while Europe and the US look to be facing further weeks of intense cold.

What is not generally realised is that the UK Met Office has been, since 1990, at the very centre of the campaign to convince the world that it faces catastrophe through global warming. (Its website now proclaims it to be “the Met Office for Weather and Climate Change”.) Its then-director, Dr John Houghton, was the single most influential figure in setting up the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the chief driver of climate alarmism. Its Hadley Centre for Climate Change, along with the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU), was put in charge of the most prestigious of the four official global temperature records. In line with IPCC theory, its computers were programmed to predict that, as CO2 levels rose, temperatures would inevitably follow. From 1990 to 2007, the Department of the Environment gave the Met Office no less than £146 million for its “climate predictions programme”.

Read it here.

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Idiotic Comment of the Day: Clover Moore

1 January, 2010 by

If in doubt, say nowt

Sydney’s batty “Lord” mayor spoils the New Year celebrations by hijacking them to preach about climate change. It’s just so last year:

“I think it’s an incredibly important message. As I said last night, Aboriginal people believe that each year you awaken the spirit of the land, the sea, the sky and the people,” Ms Moore told reporters.

“I believe that at this time there is no more important message because we are facing catastrophic climate change and we indeed need to awaken our spirit to take action to address global warming.”

The celebrations were carbon neutral, Ms Moore said. (source)

Big freaking deal. Thanks for ruining people’s enjoyment of the New Year. Now go away.

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Quote of the Day: Catherine Deveny

1 January, 2010 by

Over the edge

Quite disturbing:

Like all people apart from politicians my hopes for 2010 are world peace and freedom from hunger, poverty, discrimination and oppression. Oh and the reintroduction of stoning for Channel Nine executives, religious fundamentalists, people who ask you to bring your own meat to their barbeques, parents with ‘gifted children’ and ‘climate change skeptics’.

(Climate Change Skeptics (also known as morons) are people who don’t believe in science purely because they a) can’t bear to admit they couldn’t see it coming or may have contributed to it b) don’t care because they assume by the time the real catastrophe happens they’ll be old, dead or rich enough to buy their way out and or c) refuse to accept the evidence because if they do they will have to admit that it God doesn’t exist. Because if God existed wouldn’t we be special enough for him to spare us?)

We’re really through the looking glass now. And the good old ABC gleefully publishes this kind of stuff.

Read the rest here – it’s even more bizarre.

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ETS: Electricity prices to double within two years

1 January, 2010 by

Minchin: stunned

… and treble by 2024. All thanks to the ETS. Fortunate, then, that it will never make it into law:

New modelling by the Government’s energy market operator reveals the wholesale price of electricity will rise from $30 per megawatt hour in 2010 to about $100 by 2024.

In a national transmission report released before Christmas, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) predicts the price will double to $60 per megawatt hour by 2012.

The wholesale price makes up less than half of the final bill that reaches each customer, who also pays distribution costs.

The AEMO modelling is based on Treasury’s carbon price estimates under the proposed emissions trading scheme, which from next year will force big polluters to pay for their emissions. [Er, well it would if it was actually law yet – Ed]

Opposition energy spokesman Nick Minchin yesterday accused the Rudd Government of trying to hide the real costs of tackling climate change.

“I think Australians will be stunned to learn that their power bills could more than triple as a result of Mr Rudd’s climate change policies,” Senator Minchin said.

Read it here.

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Tom Switzer: Don't expect too much down Mexico way

1 January, 2010 by

"Climate agreement? We don't need no stinking climate agreement!"

Always right on the money, Tom Switzer says that the chances of any agreement on climate in Mexico are microscopic:

All the evidence indicates that President Barack Obama won’t be able to lead the world to a post-Kyoto deal. This is because the politics of the environment have shifted dramatically in recent months. There are many reasons for the changing climate in Washington. Here are four of them:

First, both Congress and the White House remain pre-occupied with other policy priorities from overhauling the healthcare and immigration systems and increasing 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to implementing new Wall Street regulations and tackling double-digit unemployment and skyrocketing debt and deficit.

Second, polls and surveys Pew, Gallup, Zogby, Rasmussen show Americans are quickly losing faith in the science of man-made climate change. A Harris Poll found that those who believe that carbon dioxide leads to global warming have dropped from 71 per cent two years ago to only 51 per cent today. And this poll was conducted before Climategate erupted.

…

Third, world leaders are recognising that reaching a global consensus on climate change is even more difficult than reaching a global consensus on multilateral trade. China and India insist they won’t be part of what they see as an economic suicide pact. In Canada, a Kyoto signatory that has increased its emissions much faster than the US, the ETS bill is stalled in legislative limbo. In Australia, the conservative opposition parties just defeated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

…

Fourth, this year is an American election year. A huge new energy tax that threatens to cut wages and jobs unnerves politicians facing a mid-term vote. And not just Senate Republicans either. “Blue Dog” Democrats from the South as well as “Brown Dog” Democrats from the Midwest and Great Plains, whose states are dependent on coal and manufacturing, are uneasy about the administration’s energy policies.

Read it here.

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Rudd's New Year delusion on climate

1 January, 2010 by

More spin than a launderette

Spinning is what Labor does best, and Kevin Rudd is a master of the art. Copenhagen was a disaster – only rescued from achieving absolutely nothing by the presence of the Obamessiah himself, who cobbled together a flimsy, eleventh-hour non-agreement in order to have something to announce to the waiting media. But not according to our Kevin, speaking in a typically patronising New Year address, who actually divined some kind of outcome:

We saw more than 90 per cent of world leaders supporting the Copenhagen Accord on climate change.

It was by no means a perfect agreement, as Australia wanted much more, but it was an agreement nonetheless, where the alternative was complete collapse and total inaction.

Globally, we’ve agreed for the first time that temperature increases must be kept within two degrees Celsius [Just like that – world leaders agree, and the earth’s climate meekly follows – Ed] and that rich and poor countries alike will bring down their carbon emissions to limit increases in global temperatures.

As one of the hottest and driest continents, Australia is experiencing the impact of climate change first, and hardest [No it isn’t. See here – Ed]. We therefore have a deep national interest in global and national action on climate change.

If we do not act at home and abroad, we betray both our children’s future [“and our grandchildren’s future” – Ed], and their ability to enjoy our natural wonders, including the Barrier Reef.

Pious nonsense.

Read it here.

Read it here.

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Abbott: ETS is a "slush fund"

31 December, 2009 by

Slush fund

Tony Abbott has picked up the point made here yesterday, that the ETS will simply redistribute wealth with no benefit to the climate:

Speaking after the Government said Treasury modelling showed low-income households would get an average of $610 in cash compensation but would only experience price rises of $420, Mr Abbott questioned the purpose of the scheme.

”When the Government starts talking about 120 per cent compensation for some people, it gives rise to the understandable suspicion that the ETS is not about the environment, it’s really about a political slush fund.”

Mr Abbott called on the Government to release the modelling behind its claims. A Government spokesman said the analysis was based on October 2008 Treasury modelling and updated to reflect the lower carbon price forecast in November’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

While it released some detail on the impact on low-income households, the Government has held back on similar information for wealthier households.

Not in the least bit surprised. Taxing the rich is traditional Labor policy.

Read it here.

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Brazil legislates nearly 40% CO2 cuts by 2020

30 December, 2009 by

Let's see you cut those emissions by 40%

Oops! Somebody forgot to tell the Brazilian delegation that the Copenhagen Accord isn’t binding! Just as the world is moving away from carbon taxes and cap ‘n’ trade, the nutty Brazilians have followed through with their half-baked promises and actually enacted carbon cutting legislation that will kill their economy stone dead, and send even more of their desperately poor population into even deeper poverty. Anyway, when you read the fine print, it’s all hot air and exclusions:

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has signed a law requiring that Brazil cut greenhouse gas emissions by 39 per cent by 2020, meeting a commitment made at the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Brazil announced at the summit a “voluntary commitment” to reduce CO2 emissions by between 36.1 and 38.9 per cent in the next 10 years.

The new law, however, is subject to several decrees setting out responsibilities and regulations for the farming, industrial, energy and environmental sectors.

Lula is expected to sign the decrees in January after consulting scientists and other experts, officials said.

Despite its ambitious targets, Greenpeace’s top representative in Brazil, Sergio Leitao, called it merely a list of good intentions and accused Lula of using double standards in environmental issues.

“Brazil usually makes good speeches on the international stage, as in Copenhagen, but in practice it doesn’t keep its word,” he told reporters. (source)

Those crazy Brazilians…

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France's carbon tax ruled illegal

30 December, 2009 by

Oh putain!

Nothing seems to be going right for the carbon taxers and cap-n-traders. Firstly, Australia dumps the ETS, then US democrats threaten to block the legislation in the Senate unless it is seriously watered down, and now the French courts have ruled their flagship carbon tax illegal:

FRANCE’S new carbon emission tax, due to have gone into effect on Friday, has been ruled illegal by the country’s constitutional court on the grounds it exempted too many polluters.

The Conseil Constitutionnel struck down the tax as the exemptions “create a breach of the principle of (tax) equality.”

It estimated that 93 per cent of industrial emissions outside of fuel use, including the emissions of more than 1000 of the country’s most polluting industrial sites, would be exempt from the tax of 17 euros ($A27.29) per tonne of emitted carbon dioxide.

The ruling is a severe blow for President Nicolas Sarkozy as the measure was one of his flagship initiatives to cut emissions of greenhouse gasses that fuel climate change.

It also leaves the government scrambling to plug a hole of 4.1 billion euros ($A6.58 billion) in the 2010 budget. (source)

As they would say in Paris, merde alors!

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Fantasy: ETS will make people better off!

30 December, 2009 by

Shifting it around for no reason

Yes, that’s the line being spun by Peter Garrett, who claims that despite the ETS increasing living costs for everyone, nearly 3 million households will be better off thanks to the government’s compensation plan:

Mr Garrett [Garrett? On climate? Where’s Penny? – Ed] said the scheme would raise the average cost of living for low-income households by $420 a year, while their compensation would add up to $610.

In addition to the average $190 gains for low-income households, 97 per cent of middle-income households would receive at least some form of direct cash assistance and half of them would be fully compensated.

“The opposition have spread misinformation around about the Rudd government’s efforts to tackle climate change, but the fact is lower and middle-income households will be compensated by the government for the expected price rises under the scheme,” Mr Garrett said.

The government has been forced on the defensive by the Opposition Leader’s assault on the ETS. As Mr Abbott said on a Sydney radio station just before Christmas: “There is a real people power revolt against this big new tax and it is being led, in many cases, not by traditional Liberals but by traditional Labor voters — blue-collar workers in industries like coal mining who know their jobs will be much less safe if Mr Rudd has his way and brings this in.” (source)

But even the Sydney Morning Herald can see through it:

According to the Government’s figures, however, about half of all middle-income households will be financially worse off under the scheme, even with the compensation package in place. (source)

All this scheme does is move money around for no purpose, with most Australians still worse off – let’s not forget, the ETS will do nothing whatsoever for the climate, whether locally or globally. So basically, this is a transfer of wealth from rich to poor with no discernible benefit for the climate, in other words: socialism by the back door.

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