Civil Defense Perspectives 33(6): November 2018
The date certain of the climate apocalypse when Manhattan will be underwater, predicted for 40 years, keeps getting pushed back from Al Gore’s early threats, but this just means a “bit more breathing space” for the world to meet its CO2 reduction goals.
It’s a “matter of (half) degrees,” writes Nature on Oct 11. “The latest IPCC assessment on a 1.5 °C increase makes it clear that there is no safe level of global warming.” A 1.5 °C increase could cause the loss of 70%-90% of our coral reefs; with 2 °C, they could disappear almost entirely. “Projections based on current emissions commitments suggest that the world is on track for around 3 °C of warming by the end of the century” (ibid.)
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says CO2 emissions must peak now and fall rapidly to avert catastrophe. Models show that to achieve the goal of a less-than-2.7 °F (1.5 °C) increase, the world must stop all fossil fuel use in 4 years. If all countries met their Paris targets, we’d be 1% of the way there (Bjorn Lomborg, WSJ 10/9/18). The number of countries even aiming to reach their Paris targets is 16/197 (6%) (TWTW 11/3/18, sepp.org).
U.S. National Climate Assessment
Released in time for the 24th COP (Conference of Parties) meeting in Katowice, Poland, the “stunning” 1,700-page Fourth National Climate Assessment predicts catastrophe, including a drastic decline in food productivity over the next few decades, based on no hard evidence. Among the overlooked facts: The fourth largest food producer, in terms of calories, is Brazil, which is located largely in the tropics. The allegedly stable climate of the past 12,000 years included two epochs warmer than today and a disastrous cooling that wiped out civilizations. The Report does not meet the standards of the Information Quality Act.
President Trump said, “I don’t see it.” Press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “We’d like to see something that is more data-driven. It’s based on modeling” (https://tinyurl.com/ybjf6fdz).
Though said to come from the Trump Administration, “it’s a political report…a rehash of frightening climate change claims by Obama administration holdover activist government scientists,” stated Marc Morano (tinyurl.com/yce8kzcd).
Authors come from advocacy groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, funding from George Soros and Tom Steyer, and citations from “gray literature” (tinyurl.com/y9cuzjjm).
The projection of a 10% loss of GDP from the worst climate scenario—twice the percentage lost in the Great Recession—is based on a 15 °F (8.3 °C) warming, twice as high as the worst IPCC projection. It relies on Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP 8.5), a theoretical trajectory of extreme conditions that are unlikely to coincide, including a doubling of the world’s population to 12 billion, a massive increase in world poverty, and a nearly impossible level of coal consumption (Heritage Foundation 11/26/18, https://tinyurl.com/y7r9f4gj).
Magical Thinking
In a recent talk, MIT professor emeritus Richard Lindzen exposed the fundamental flaw in the apocalyptic narrative and proposed remedy (summary in TWTW 10/13/18).
It is assumed that “climate, a complex multifactor system, can be summarized in just one variable, the globally averaged temperature change, and is primarily controlled by the 1-2% perturbation in the energy budget due to a single variable—carbon dioxide—among many variables of comparable importance. This is an extraordinary pair of claims based on reasoning that borders on magical thinking.” Minor changes in clouds, the 11-year sunspot cycle, and the reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field every couple of hundred thousand years or so, are other factors.
Lindzen describes the earth’s climate system as the circulation of two turbulent fluids (atmosphere and oceans) interacting with each other and the land. The fluids are made turbulent by the rotation of the globe and are exposed to uneven heating by the sun. When air-flows interact with the uneven topography of the land, they become distorted. “Topography therefore plays a major role in modifying regional climate. These distorted air-flows even generate fluid waves that can alter climate at distant locations. Computer simulations of the climate generally fail to adequately describe these effects.” To discuss “earth in balance” is thus a foolish simplification.
Lindzen concludes: “There is at least one positive aspect to the present situation. None of the proposed policies will have much impact on greenhouse gases. Thus we will continue to benefit from the one thing that can be clearly attributed to elevated carbon dioxide: namely, its effective role as a plant fertilizer, and reducer of the drought vulnerability of plants. Meanwhile, the IPCC is claiming that we need to prevent another 0.5ºC of warming, although the 1ºC that has occurred so far has been accompanied by the greatest increase in human welfare in history. As we used to say in my childhood home of the Bronx: ‘Go figure.’”
[Complete text: https://tinyurl.com/yas82ve4]
Children’s Crusade
The COP-24 conference featured a widely publicized talk by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden, who called for putting on the “emergency brake” to save the climate. She scolded the attendees for not being “mature enough to tell it like it is.”
“Our generation will never be able to fly (among other things), other than for emergencies. Because the adult generations have used up all our carbon budget” (tinyurl.com/yaesszfg).
Still ongoing, despite attempts by the Dept. of Justice to get it dismissed, is Juliana v. United States, a lawsuit by 21 plaintiffs age 11 to 22. They contend that “federal officials violated their due process rights by allowing the fossil fuel industry to release greenhouse gas emissions, despite knowing for years that such emissions can cause climate change.” They demand a court order requiring the federal government to implement an “enforceable national remedial plan” phasing out carbon emissions in an effort to stabilize the climate and protect the environment (https://tinyurl.com/ycmru9k3).
The Administration has not confronted the scientific fraud, nor has it explained how due-process rights would be a casualty of the agenda behind the international climate alarmism (see p 2).
The real reason for the “no time left” urgency may be that the public is catching on to the games politicians play.
Coral Reefs
Many factors threaten the health of coastal coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef near Australia. As summarized by Craig Idso, these include: (1) rising nutrient levels caused by runoff from agricultural activity on land, (2) outbreaks of the coral-devouring crown-of-thorns starfish, (3) the barbed hooks and scything nets used in fishing, (4) tourists and the developers who build resorts and marinas for them, (5) increased sediment levels, (6) the nets of prawn trawlers stirring up the growing load of sediments, (7) the 6-10 tons of “bycatch” for each ton of prawns netted that are caught and die, which dramatically changes the composition of reef life, (8) sea life depleted to the point of exhaustion by over-fishing, (9) huge catamarans and dive boats that take thousands of visitors to the Barrier Reef each day and dump their sewage in the sea on the way home, (10) the live reef-fish trade, (11) fishermen using dynamite and cyanide, (12) coral diseases, and (13) pollution (https://tinyurl.com/y9oyh86x).
The GBR was obviously not killed by prolonged periods of temperatures about 1.2°C warmer than in the early 1990s, approximately 5,350 years ago. In fact, some researchers conclude that “the observed decline in coral growth in recent decades may simply be a return to more “normal” conditions (ibid.).
COP-24: All about Control
The main goal of the COP-24 is to “finalize the rule book” for the Paris Agreement—hundreds of pages of contradictory provisions (https://tinyurl.com/ybg8tasr).
It’s about the money: “Hundreds of billions of dollars are almost on the table. The developing countries, which are the vast majority of UN members, think they have been promised at least $100 billion a year from the developed countries (especially the US), beginning in 2020,” writes David Wojick (ibid.).
The real agenda is revealed in the Glossary. Not one word on the list of the 32 most important technical terms for the Katowice conference addresses climate or climate change. “Climate” is just a code word. The primary focus is the design of the New World Order (NWO): how the world will be changed and who is going to pay for it—and who is going to be in charge.
The big-ticket item is “loss and damage.” The tentative figure put out by the UN is $400 billion a year, but it could easily get much bigger. “There is a lot of bad weather in the world,” Wojick writes, and climate change “now appears to include all bad weather.” One of the sneakier wealth transfer terms is “technology transfer.” Widely used in the U.S. to mean the licensing of new technologies, at Katowice the term seems to mean unlicensing, i.e. the waiver of intellectual property rights (https://tinyurl.com/ybustp7v).
The UN goal is the destruction of capitalism and national sovereignty—and individual rights.
Consensus Dead?
Four nations—the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Kuwait—refused to “welcome” the UN climate report released in October that said CO2 emissions would need to decline 45% by 2030 to avoid warming greater than 1.5 °C.
A CFACT billboard near the entrance to COP-24 congratulated Poland on 100 years of independence and encouraged it to exit the Paris accord. Poland gets 80% of its energy from its ample supply of coal. Without it, it would have to depend on Russian natural gas. The EU is pressuring Poland to give up its coal power. But there is a saying in Eastern Europe: “Unless you were occupied by the Russians, you don’t know anything” (https://tinyurl.com/y7xoq9gf).
The Cost of “Free” Sunlight and Breezes
$1,096/MWh: That’s the projected cost of electricity in California from 100% wind and solar with battery storage. That is 22 times the $48/MWh cost of onshore wind without the batteries, in which case power must be imported when wind and solar fail (TWTW 11/24/18, https://tinyurl.com/y7ff5nck).
·Load shedding: When solar or wind are at their maximum, facilities must be disconnected or the excess power exported to keep the network frequency stable. In 2017, half of Germany’s wind-based power was exported. Neighboring countries may not want this unexpected power, and German customers have to pay them to take it (https://tinyurl.com/y7uwldxq).
Curtailment costs: System management costs in Germany rose sharply in a nonlinear fashion from 2014-2017, largely because of paying “renewables” to stop generating. The price of “controlling chaos” is “staggering,” and there is a “risk that bringing the energy transition forward will become an ever more costly exercise” (https://tinyurl.com/yaoft9gq).
Force feeding: Rooftop solar systems work at a slightly higher voltage than the local network so they can feed power back into the grid. Research by the Queensland, Australia, network Energex showed that 76% of the transformers were set too high, feeding too high a voltage into households, which can burn out appliances. Solar inverters shut off at 253 volts, so much of the energy is wasted (Reality News 11/15/18).
Short life expectancy: Instead of the touted longevity of 25 years, the output of wind turbines starts to drop significantly at 8, and most are ready for retirement by age 10-15. Some 12,000 are rotting in the California desert (tinyurl.com/ya2k6w2p). Some blades and bearings have to be replaced after only 2 years in the desert or offshore (https://tinyurl.com/yd3bztst).
Sea Level Rise
The most frightening prediction of climate catastrophe is loss of coastal cities due to a sea-level rise of 10 ft or more. A special report by Judith Curry (https://tinyurl.com/ycvs3dt7)comes to the following conclusions:
Historical rate: Mean global sea level has risen at a slow creep for more than 150 years; since 1900, global mean sea level has risen about 7-8 inches. There is no consistent or compelling evidence that recent rates of sea level rise (3 mm/year since 1993) are abnormal in the context of the historical records back to the 19th century that are available across Europe.
Cause: There is no convincing evidence of a human fingerprint associated with human-caused global warming. The mass loss from Greenland since 1995 appears to be smaller than in the 1930s, with both periods associated with the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
Prediction: If RCP 8.5 is rejected as an extremely unlikely or impossible scenario, then the appropriate range of sea level rise scenarios to consider for 2100 is 0.2–1.6 m. The justification for values exceeding 2 feet is increasingly weak.