Notley challenged to stop slagging Alberta's air quality

Friends of Science:

Friends of Science Society is challenging Alberta’s Premier Rachel Notley to clear the air before the Paris COP-21 climate change conference, regarding statements she made about Alberta’s air quality and environmental track record. ...

... According to the World Health Organization, Canada has the third best air quality in the world ... with both Calgary and Edmonton ranked in the top ten best air quality cities in Canada ...

... Premier Notley spoke to the Alberta Chambers of Commerce on Sept. 22, 2015, claiming that Alberta’s air quality was poor and ... Friends of Science reject this statement pointing out the hypocrisy of bowing to the pressure UN Climate Change policy advocates ...

And what's the Paris meeting all about? Michelle Stirling knows:

Albertans dying by the hundred from coal-fired power plant emissions!

So say a couple of scare-mongering Alberta doctors:

... two different modelling techniques (one from the Canadian Medical Association, and one from Environment Canada) showed dramatic health effects: 4,800 asthma days (missed work or school due to asthma), 700 hospital visits, 80 admissions, and approximately 100 deaths annually associated with coal-fired power emissions.

Not so fast, says Michelle Sterling (see also the Calgary Herald comment thread).  One of many flaws and oversights in papers cited by the doctors immediately casts serious doubt on their argument:

... [There was no mention of] the greatest factor in air quality in Alberta.  Wildfires. In 2011, wildfires dumped 1.9 million tonnes of toxic and carcinogenic human health problems on Albertans; coal-fired plants emitted just 1,800 tonnes of PM 2.5 (particulate matter) while powering warm homes and health solutions in clinics and hospitals across the province.

...  [it is] implausible that Pembina’s math would end up attributing half the deaths of Albertans to fine particulate matter – or coal-fired power.

There's much more in Michelle's debating points, but that is a biggie.

Windfarm victims speaking out

Watch this trailer for a one hour documentary, An Ill Wind, in which people living near wind turbines are interviewed by Dr. Nina Pierpoint:

...we didn't know the full effects,
...it's been sheer hell,
...cattle bleeding out of their noses,
...stray voltage,
...an empire of lies,
...gold rush mentality,
...people are afraid to speak up,
...Obama's Chief Economic Advisor is the principal of First Wind; before that, he was president of Harvard University, until he was fired,
...there is definitively this element of the con artist, the snake oil salesman, the evangelist; the con is alive and with us.

And then there's the the huge added cost to consumers, the unreliable and inefficient energy production, the visual pollution on landscapes and the killing of birds by the millions.  All thanks to "climate change" fanaticism and its accompanying "green energy" fetishism.

[Via FOS]

Canada praises Australia for ditching its carbon tax

Statement by Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's Introduction of Legislation to Repeal the Carbon Tax

Ottawa, November 12 2013 — Today, Paul Calandra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, issued the following statement on behalf of the Government of Canada on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s introduction of legislation to repeal the carbon tax: “Canada applauds the decision by Prime Minister Abbott to introduce legislation to repeal Australia’s carbon tax. The Australian Prime Minister’s decision will be noticed around the world and sends an important message. 

“Our government knows that carbon taxes raise the price of everything, including gas, groceries, and electricity. Prime Minister Abbott has said that, in Australia, the repeal of the carbon tax will reduce the average household’s cost of living by (in Australian dollars) $550 a year, take $200 off household power bills and $70 off gas bills.
“Our government has reduced greenhouse gas emissions while protecting and creating Canadians jobs – greenhouse gas emissions are down since 2006, and we’ve created 1 million net new jobs since the recession – and we have done this without penalising Canadian families with a carbon tax.”

The Guardian and its readers, however, were appalled:)

... Canada has dropped any remaining pretences of supporting global action on climate change by urging other countries to follow Australia's example in gutting its climate plan.
... Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population, but Canada, under the Harper government, is close behind at 16.2 tonnes .

Well, at least it's a small signal that things may be shifting in the right direction.  But the Harper government has also signalled that it will mirror whatever action the Americans take on the climate front.  And the Obama "Climate Action Plan" appears to include every crazy CAGW alarmist premise and myth out there.  It sure doesn't include any contingencies for the what to do about global cooling.

[Via]

Influential Canadian climate model one of the most extreme

Study: The Canadian Climate Model 's Epic Failure

The Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis located at the University of Victoria in British Columbia submitted five runs of its climate model CanESM2 for use in the fifth assessment report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate model produces one of the most extreme warming projections of all the 30 models evaluated by the IPCC. (See Note 1.) The model badly fails to match the surface and atmosphere temperature observations, both globally, regionally, as presented in six graphs.

... The results from the Canadian climate model were used in a U.S. Global Change Research Program report provided to the US Environmental Protection Agency to justify regulating CO2. The authors of that report were told that the Canadian climate model produces only anti-information. They confirmed this fact, but published their report unchanged. The Canadian government has indicated it will follow the lead of the U.S.A. in regulating CO2 emissions.

... Climate alarmism based on climate models that don't work has so far cost the world $1.6 trillion in a misguided and ineffective effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These efforts have caused electricity prices to increase dramatically in Europe causing fuel poverty and putting poor people at risk.

Note that the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis in Victoria is a division of Environment Canada's Climate Research Branch, formerly run by CAGW alarmist Andrew Weaver (now BC Green Party MLA).  So that's where the feds have been getting the "science" on which to base their "climate change" policy.

Pembina Institute's flawed report on health and climate change

"Statistical misrepresentations, faulty global warming claims and conflicts of interest in the "Costly Diagnosis" report by Pembina Institute should invalidate its call for an early shut-down of Alberta coal plants say Friends of Science."

Wind power, a near total bust

Not only is it proving to be an environmental blight and fundamentally uneconomic ...



... but new research shows that wind farms may be causing significant direct atmospheric warming:

Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany analysed the satellite data of areas around large wind farms in Texas, where four of the world's largest farms are located, over the period 2003 to 2011.

... The results, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed a warming trend of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade in areas over the farms, compared with nearby regions without the farms.

This could be a big factor in finally getting AGW fanatics and other environmental freaks to abandon wind power.

In environmentalists' favourite jargon, wind power is, on every level, unsustainable!

Climate-Alarmist-in-Chief pushes bogus 'consensus'

Barack Obama's tweets often promote climate alarmist themes, for example encouraging his groupies to "call out deniers".  In this tweet Obama pushed the bogus notion of scientific 'consensus':

Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. Read more: http://OFA.BO/gJsdFp 

The linked web-page references the "Cook" paper on scientific consensus.  However, a closer inspection of that study reveals that Only 65 Scientists of 12,000 Make up Alleged 97%:

“The Cook et al paper is very misleading as described in major media. The breakdown of the survey results are not described up front,” says Ken Gregory, Director of Friends of Science. “The Cook study claims that any paper that mentions CO2 as a possible cause of some warming is part of a ‘consensus’. That is simply not true. Further, this survey does not assess ‘danger’.” 

The Cook et al study data base has seven categories of rated abstracts.
1. 65     explicit endorse, [greater than]50% warming caused by man
2. 934 explicit endorse
3. 2933 implicit endorse
4. 8261 no position
5. 53     implicit reject
6. 15     explicit reject
7. 10     explicit reject, [less than]50% caused by man

Papers in the third category which Cook alleges, “implicit endorse,” in reality make no comment on whether humans have caused warming. This category includes papers about mitigation policies.

Including category 2 the so-called "consensus" rises to a whopping 8%.

Conclusions:

(1) there is miniscule support for notion of dangerous man-made global warming
(2) there is no consensus supporting man-made global warming
(3) Obama is a warm-monger
(4) warm-mongers are liars
(5) Twitter is an effective propaganda tool.

EU opposing Keystone XL to push its carbon markets

Keystone XL Opposition not based on Reason or Climate Change but on EU Carbon Markets:

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard of Denmark says President Obama should veto Keystone XL to make good on his global warming rhetoric or institute a carbon tax. There is neither reason nor science to back up Hedegaard’s claims say Friends of Science.

... “People should be following the money in the argument against Keystone XL,” says Len Maier. “Large mission based investment firms have dumped trillions into carbon trades or green energy start-ups. They will lose their shirts if the climate scare and carbon trade markets dry up.”

Corruption in "clean" energy:

Maier points out that the EU carbon market was just barely resuscitated last month. In Italy the Mafia have been making hay in clean energy. According to an April 4 ABC News article, the police confiscated $1.7 billion in clean energy assets of the “Lord of the Wind” - Vito Nicastri - including 43 wind and solar energy companies, 98 properties and 66 bank accounts.

Crony environmentalism by fraudulent collusion

EPA, Greens play a hazy “sue and settle” game

“Sue and Settle “ practices, sometimes referred to as “friendly lawsuits”, are cozy deals through which far-left radical environmental groups file lawsuits against federal agencies wherein court-ordered “consent decrees” are issued based upon a prearranged settlement agreement they collaboratively craft together in advance behind closed doors. Then, rather than allowing the entire process to play out, the agency being sued settles the lawsuit by agreeing to move forward with the requested action they and the litigants both want….

... taxpayers, including those impacted regulatory victims, are put on the hook for legal fees of both colluding parties. According to a 2011 GAO report, this amounted to millions of dollars awarded to environmental organizations for EPA litigations between 1995 and 2010. Three “Big Green” groups received 41% of this payback: Earthjustice, $4,655,425 (30%); the Sierra Club, $966,687; and the Natural Resources Defense Council, $252,004. Most of this was paid to environmental attorneys in connection to lawsuits filed under the Clean Air Act, followed next by the Clean Water Act.

In addition, the Department of Justice forked over at least $43 million of our money defending EPA in court between 1998 and 2010. This didn’t include money spent by EPA for their legal costs in connection with those rip-offs, since EPA doesn’t keep track of their attorney’s time on a case-by-case basis. ...

This is crony environmentalism involving fraudulent collusion.  Perps on both sides of these transactions should be prosecuted and jailed.

[Via]

The "Secret Santa" blows the whistle on the IPCC

Donna Laframboise:

A week before Christmas, three data sticks containing 661 files and amounting to nearly one gigabyte of material came into my possession. They were created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Friends of Science: "... Whistleblower Files End Climate Change Catastrophe Cult"

... (IPCC) internal files ... reveal more attempts by agenda-driven activists to skew the science on climate change. In 2012 the UK met weather office revealed no global warming for at least 16 years while IPCC admits global warming predictions were way off and there is no trend in extreme weather.

... “In October 13, 2012 the Daily Mail reported that the UK Met Hadley weather office revealed there had not been any global warming for 16 years despite a substantial rise in carbon dioxide (CO2).”

... two weeks later on December 13, 2012 Alec Rawls leaked 14 draft chapters of the upcoming IPCC report on-line....confirmed the catastrophic warming scenarios of the previous IPCC climate models were way off, far too high, by several factors. ... Further, the IPCC itself stated that there was no trend toward more extreme weather, confirming the Oct. 31, 2012 Wall Street Journal statement by Roger Pielke Jr.

... “And finally, the IPCC admitted and then evaded recognition that the sun is a major factor in climate change,”

... “A trillion dollars has been wasted on carbon reduction schemes in the past decade,” ...  “Generations of children have been terrified and taught absurd anti-scientific group-think, economies have been bankrupted in the ‘rush to low-carbon renewables’ – such as Ontario, the UK, Spain, California – falsely believing people can ‘save the planet’ by reducing carbon dioxide.

Common misconceptions about global warming

Friends of Science highlights Myths vs Facts about climate change.  The top ten are:

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
MYTH 2:  The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus causing most of the earth's warming of the last 100 years.
MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
MYTH 6:  The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
MYTH 7:  CO2 is a pollutant.
MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.
MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.
MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

The FOS web-page also links to an academic paper by Prof C. R. De Freitas (Univ. of Auckland, NZ) where these fallacies/myths and more are discussed in detail.

Environment Minister Peter Kent and his bureaucrats should read it to bone up for the Doha Climate Conference later this month.

[Via]

The appalling arrogance of climate alarmists

From Václav Klaus' speech at the International Seminar on Planetary Emergencies, organized by the World Federation of Scientists in Erice, Sicily on 20 August 2012:

The real problem is not climate or global warming, but the Global Warming Doctrine and its consequences.

This doctrine, as a set of beliefs, is an ideology, if not a religion.[2] It lives independently on the science of climatology. Its disputes are not about temperature, but are part of the “conflict of ideologies”. Temperature is used and misused in these disputes. The politicians, the media and the public – misled by the very aggressive propaganda produced by the adherents of the global warming doctrine  – do not see this.

... As someone who personally experienced central planning and attempts to organize the whole of society from one place, I feel obliged to warn against the arguments and ambitions of the believers in the global warming doctrine. Their arguments and ambitions are very similar to those we used to live with decades ago under Communism. The arrogance with which the global-warming alarmists and their fellow-travellers in politics and the media present their views is appalling. They want to suppress the market, they want to control the whole of society ...

[Via FOS and]

A recent example of appalling arrogance (and sloppy dishonesty): California Governor Jerry Brown's "denier" web page.

CO2 (and carbon taxes) in perspective

British Columbia's Climate Action Plan perpetrated by Gordon Campbell in co-operation with Arnold Schwartzenager and others a few years back is still running full-speed-ahead.  It's full of junk science and climate alarmism.

In praise of Bill C-38

From Environmentalism is Fascism comes an article entitled In Praise of the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act (Bill C-38).

It's an excellent piece that not only praises Bill C-38 but also details the who's who behind its opposition, including:

The Black Out Speak Out (BOSO [pronounced 'Bozo']) Coalition
Canada’s Environmentalist Vanguard
Canada’s Green Academic Establishment
Clash of the Titans ("..an epic clash between two titanic constituencies")

[via FOS]

Climate facts

Do you discuss "climate change" with friends, relatives, acquaintances and warmists?  Here are some useful facts to help with their education: "Friends of Science – Talking Points"

BC Senator Greene-Raine opposes carbon-offsets tax credits

In a speech before the Senate on March 13th, BC Senator Nancy Greene-Raine opposed an amendment to the Income Tax Act which "would give tax credits to Canadians who invest in so-called carbon offsets" concluding:

In summary, I believe that the real focus of Canada's climate policy, the no-regrets approach that yields benefits no matter what causes climate change, must be to help vulnerable people and communities prepare for and adapt to inevitable climate change. We should also continue to support scientific research in the field so that some day we may be able to forecast climate to help us get ready for whatever nature throws at us next.

Bravo, Nancy!

Update: The amending bill in question is Bill S-205 sponsored by climate hysteric Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell (see also).

[via]

FakeGate

Catching up on more climate hanky-panky (cribbed directly from FOS email):

FakeGate (James Delingpole's designation)

The possibly criminal misdeeds of Dr Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute and Chairman of the AGU’s Task Force on Scientific Ethics (sic!), in trying to undermine the reputation of the Heartland Institute, have been all over the blogosphere. Ken Gregory has summarised events on the Friends of Science website ... I am not going to add to that. If you are not up to date on the ethics boss having had his hand in the cookie jar (his arm, some say), you should consult the background at WUWT , or the dedicated site <http://fakegate.org/>.

Previous Heartland correspondence with Gleick is here.

Gleick’s revealing 2007 testimony for the US Senate is here.

DeSmogBlog, the HuffPost and ThinkProgress assisted in distributing the unchecked allegations and forged document.

An interesting record of the manipulations by DeSmogBlog propagandists is here.

Germany's green energy horror story

Lessons for Ontario and other "renewables" promoters - "Germany’s Green Energy Supply Transformation Has Already Failed!":

... the former Socialist-Green coalition government ...enacted the so-called Renewable Energy Feed-In Act in 2000 ... [which] requires electric utilities to buy all renewable energies, such as solar and wind power, from all producers at fixed, exorbitant rates  ...  for a period of 20 years. [Sounds familiar]. ... [T]housands of homeowners, businesses, and investors have installed thousands of megawatts of solar and wind power.

...The problem is that these energy sources are weather-dependent and thus their sporadic supply is starting to wreak havoc on Germany’s power grid and is even now threatening to destabilize power grids all across Europe. The other problem: the power grid needed to distribute the decentrally produced green power is simply not there yet. They forgot to build it! ...

... in a fit of panic and hysteria, the German government shut down 8 of its older 18  nuclear reactors in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, ... Germany had been a net power exporter; today it is a net power importer ...

... how could such absurd decisions have been made to begin with? Were there no experts involved in the planning of the new power generation infrastructure? ... Power executives are viewed as evil, dirty and greedy polluters, and thus were never really consulted. ...   the decision to shut down the German nuclear power plants and to massively support renewables was done unilaterally by the government...

... Offshore wind parks, but no transmission lines to industrial regions!

... Activists groups blocking grid expansion

... In a death spiral…”will fail spectacularly”

Dalton McGuinty, are you paying attention?

[via FOS]

Next ice age deferred by human CO2 emissions

Finally, people are starting to seriously consider the upside of AGW:

In the journal Nature Geoscience, they write that the next Ice Age would begin within 1,500 years - but emissions have been so high that it will not.

... The broad conclusions of the team were endorsed by Lawrence Mysak, emeritus professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who has also investigated the transitions between Ice Ages and warm interglacials.

... UK lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation [states]: "We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are erroneously advocating."

Assuming that CO2 has as great an effect on climate as AGW hysterics claim then it's a no-brainer - we should be doing nothing to curb emissions.  In fact we should be promoting emissions.

Our governments must get off the insane, economy destroying AGW bandwagon and reverse all "climate change" policies and programs.  It's in Canada's long term interests to grow economically and to avoid being obliterated by another ice age!

More here and here.

[Via]