Legislate the climate you want! Study: Laws to tackle climate change exceed 1,200 worldwide
OSLO (Reuters) – Nations around the world have adopted more than 1,200 laws to curb climate change, up from about 60 two decades ago, which is a sign of widening efforts to limit rising temperatures, a study showed on Tuesday.
“Most countries have a legal basis on which future action can be built,” Patricia Espinosa, the U.N.’s climate change chief, told a webcast news conference of the findings issued at an international meeting on climate change in Bonn, Germany.
She said the findings were “cause for optimism”, adding that laws were one yardstick for tracking action on global warming alongside others such as investment in renewable energy or backing for a 2015 climate agreement, ratified by 144 nations.
The study, by the London School of Economics (LSE), reviewed laws and executive policies in 164 nations, ranging from national cuts in greenhouse gases to curbs in emissions in sectors such as transport, power generation or industry.
Forty-seven laws had been added since world leaders adopted a Paris Agreement to combat climate change in late 2015, a slowdown from a previous peak of about 100 a year around 2009-13 when many developed nations passed laws.
U.S. President Donald Trump doubts that climate change has a human cause and is considering pulling out of the Paris Agreement but legislation is often complicated to undo.
“If you have that big body of 1,200 laws it is hard to reverse,” Samuel Fankhauser, co-director of the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, told the news conference.
The study said that developing nations were legislating more but there were many gaps. Nations including Comoros, Sudan and Somalia had no climate laws.
“We don’t want weaklings in the chain,” said Martin Chungong, Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He urged all countries to adopt laws that help limit downpours, heatwaves and rising sea levels.
(Reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Ken Ferris)…
A fool’s errand: Al Gore’s $15 trillion carbon tax to ‘re-engineer humanity’ to save us from global warming
by Fred Palmer | May 9, 2017, 5:00 AM
Al Gore wants to reverse modernity and save the world from itself through an elimination of its fossil-fuel-based energy system. During the final week of April, his newly created Energy Transitions Commission released a document setting forth a fool’s-errand pathway to “decarbonize” the world’s energy system.
If this sounds familiar, it is. Gore’s plan features a new, sophisticated, and expensive public-relations campaign, but it’s all based on his views on carbon dioxide first broached in his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, which he reissued in 2000 for his failed presidential campaign. The subsequent efforts made by Gore during the past 25 years have transformed little from their genesis, and he remains as tragically wrong today as he was when he first surfaced as an opponent of everything linked to carbon-dioxide.
But, don’t worry! The all-in estimated cost to re-engineer humanity is only a mere $15 trillion—enough money to give every man, woman, and child in the United States more than $46,000.
Al Gore has been demonizing fossil fuels and attempting to marginalize all those involved in the traditional energy sector since 1988, the year the climate-change movement was rolled out in Washington, D.C., which happened to correspond with a nationwide heatwave and with Yellowstone in flames. Ever since, Gore’s pathway to political power and personal riches has been a successful one, to be sure, but his multi-trillion-dollar effort today is his most sophisticated effort to date. Unfortunately for him, it will also fail, because what he’s selling in his “new” proposal is bad for the people being asked to embrace it.…
Are Microbiologists Climate-Denying Science Haters? – AGW world’s #1 Threat? ‘Not a single person raised hand’
By Alex Berezow
Recently, I gave a seminar on “fake news” to professors and grad students at a large public university. Early in my talk, I polled the audience: “How many of you believe climate change is the world’s #1 threat?”
Silence. Not a single person raised his or her hand.
Was I speaking in front of a group of science deniers? The College Republicans? Some fringe libertarian club? No, it was a room full of microbiologists.
How could so many incredibly intelligent people overwhelmingly reject what THE SCIENCE says about climate change? Well, they don’t. They just don’t see it as big of a threat to the world as other things. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of them felt that antibiotic resistance and pandemic disease were the biggest global threats. One person thought geopolitical instability was the biggest concern.
I told them that I believed poverty was the world’s biggest threat. The reason is poverty is the underlying condition that causes so much misery in the world. Consider that 1.3 billion people don’t have electricity. And then consider how the lack of that basic necessity — what the rest of us take completely for granted — hinders their ability to develop economically and to succeed, let alone to have access to adequate healthcare. If we fix poverty, we could stop easily preventable health problems, such as infectious disease and malnutrition.
Was I booed out of the room? No, the audience understood why I believed what I did. But woe unto you who try to have a similar conversation with climate warriors.
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Can Smart People Disagree About the Threat of Climate Change?
What so many in the media (and apparently the climate science community) fail to understand is that people have different values and priorities. Foreign policy analysts are terrified of North Korea. Economists fear Brexit and a Eurozone collapse. Geologists, especially those in the Pacific Northwest, fear a huge earthquake. Experts across the spectrum perceive threats differently, usually magnifying those with which they are most familiar.
That means smart people can accept a common core of facts (such as the reality of anthropogenic global warming) without agreeing on a policy response.
Yet instead of being a place to debate a policy response for complex science issues, the media have chosen to be an extension of the militant Twitterverse. Even if you are just discussing courses of …
King Coal: ‘It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker’
About the author
Inconvenient energy fact: It takes 79 solar workers to produce same amount of electric power as one coal worker
In an April 25 New York Times article (“Today’s Energy Jobs Are in Solar, Not Coal“) reporter Nadja Popovich wrote that “Last year, the solar industry employed many more Americans [373,807] than coal [160,119], while wind power topped 100,000 jobs.” Those energy employment figures are based on a Department of Energy report (“U.S. Energy and Employment Report“) released earlier this year that provides the most complete analysis available of employment in the energy economy.
But simply reporting rather enthusiastically (see the NYT headline again) that the solar industry employs lots of Americans, more than twice as many as the number of coal miners and utility workers at electric power plants using coal, is only telling a small part of the story. Here are some important energy facts that help provide a more complete picture about how much energy is being produced in different sectors, how many workers it takes to produce a given amount of electric power, and which sectors receive the most generous taxpayer handouts.
To start, despite a huge workforce of almost 400,000 solar workers (about 20 percent of electric power payrolls in 2016), that sector produced an insignificant share, less than 1 percent, of the electric power generated in the United States last year (EIA data here). And that’s a lot of solar workers: about the same as the combined number of employees working at Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company and Procter & Gamble.
In contrast, it took about the same number of natural gas workers (398,235) last year to produce more than one-third of U.S. electric power, or 37 times more electricity than solar’s minuscule share of 0.90 percent. And with only 160,000 coal workers (less than half the number of workers in either solar or gas),
NEW STUDY CONFIRMS: THE WARMING ‘PAUSE’ IS REAL AND REVEALING
A new paper has been published in the Analysis section of Nature called Reconciling controversies about the ‘global warming hiatus.’ It confirms that the ‘hiatus’ or ‘pause’ is real. It is also rather revealing.
It attempts to explain the ‘Pause’ by looking into what is known about climate variability. They say that four years after the release of the IPCC AR5 report, which contained much about the ‘hiatus’ it is time to see what can be learned.
One could be a little sarcastic in saying why would Nature devote seven of its desirable pages to an event that some vehemently say never existed and maintain its existence has been disproved long ago. Now, however, as the El Nino spike of the past few years levels off, analysing the ‘pause’ seems to be coming back into fashion.
The authors of this recent paper delicately tread a line between the two opposing camps saying, on the one hand, that both sides have a point and their particular methods of analysis are understandable. But on the other hand they make it clear that there is a real event that needs studying.
As someone who has paid close attention to the ‘pause’ for almost a decade I am perhaps more attentive than most when it comes to a retelling of the history of the idea and the observations.
The authors say the pause started with claims from outside the scientific community. Well, yes and no. It was tentatively suggested in 2006 and 2007 by climate sceptics many of whom were experienced scientists and quite capable of reading a graph and calculating statistics. A decade after it was raised, every time the ‘pause’ is debated it is a tribute to those who first noticed it and faced harsh criticism. It was the sceptics who noticed the ‘pause,’ and in doing so made a valuable contribution to science. For years it was only analysed and discussed on the blogosphere before journals took notice.
There is nothing new in their recent paper or that hasn’t been discussed by the GWPF. Perhaps that will give pause for thought for some who see battle lines drawn between pause supporters (sceptics) and pause busters (scientists).
What the authors miss, with their three definitions of the pause, is a simple fact we have often pointed out. Look at HadCRUT4 from …
MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen: Believing CO2 controls the climate ‘is pretty close to believing in magic’
Richard Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MIT atmospheric science professor Richard Lindzen suggests that many claims regarding climate change are exaggerated and unnecessarily alarmist.
Introduction:
For over 30 years, I have been giving talks on the science of climate change. When, however, I speak to a non-expert audience, and attempt to explain such matters as climate sensitivity, the relation of global mean temperature anomaly to extreme weather, that warming has decreased profoundly for the past 18 years, etc., it is obvious that the audience’s eyes are glazing over. Although I have presented evidence as to why the issue is not a catastrophe and may likely be beneficial, the response is puzzlement. I am typically asked how this is possible. After all, 97% of scientists agree, several of the hottest years on record have occurred during the past 18 years, all sorts of extremes have become more common, polar bears are disappearing, as is arctic ice, etc. In brief, there is overwhelming evidence of warming, etc. I tended to be surprised that anyone could get away with such sophistry or even downright dishonesty, but it is, unfortunately, the case that this was not evident to many of my listeners. I will try in this brief article to explain why such claims are, in fact, evidence of the dishonesty of the alarmist position.
The 97% meme:
This claim is actually a come-down from the 1988 claim on the cover of Newsweek that all scientists agree. In either case, the claim is meant to satisfy the non-expert that he or she has no need to understand the science. Mere agreement with the 97% will indicate that one is a supporter of science and superior to anyone denying disaster. This actually satisfies a psychological need for many people. The claim is made by a number of individuals and there are a number of ways in which the claim is presented. A thorough debunking has been given in the Wall Street Journal by Bast and Spencer. One of the dodges is to poll scientists as to whether they agree that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased, that the Earth has been warming (albeit only a little) and that man has played some part. This is, indeed, something almost all of us can agree on, but which has no …
Analysis: It’s not just droughts, but nearly all extreme weather is declining or at or near record lows
Climate Depot Special Report
The federal government has just released yet another key piece of scientific data that counters the man-made global warming narrative. The federal U.S. Drought Monitor report shows that droughts in the U.S. are at record lows in 2017. See: Feds: U.S. drought reaches record low in 2017 as rain reigns – Sees lowest levels of drought ever monitored
“Drought in the U.S. fell to a record low this week, with just 6.1% of the lower 48 states currently experiencing such dry conditions, federal officials announced Thursday. That’s the lowest percentage in the 17-year history of the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report,” USA Today reported on April 27. (Ironically, climate activists had declared California to be in a permanent drought: Flashback 2016: Warmist wrong claim: ‘Thanks El Niño, But California’s Drought Is Probably Forever’)
Former Vice President Al Gore has made extreme weather warnings a staple of his climate change activist. See: Al Gore on the Weather: ‘Every night on the news now, practically, is like a nature hike through the book of Revelations’
Below is a complete rundown of the very latest on extreme weather conditions: Update data from the 2016 Climate Depot report: Skeptics Deliver Consensus Busting ‘State of the Climate Report’ to UN Summit
…Extreme Weather: Scientist to Congress in 2017: ‘No evidence’ that hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes are increasing – Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. of University of Colorado
Hurricanes: 1) Inconvenient NOAA report: ‘It is premature to conclude (AGW has) already had a detectable impact on’ hurricanes & 2) NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major (Cat 3+) Hurricane Strike & 3) 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers reveal the lack of connection between hurricanes & ‘global warming’
Floods: ‘Floods are not increasing’: Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. slams ‘global warming’ link to floods & extreme weather – How does media ‘get away with this?’ – Pielke Jr. on how extreme weather is NOT getting worse: ‘Flood
Flashback 2016: Warmist wrong claim: ‘Thanks El Niño, But California’s Drought Is Probably Forever’
AUTHOR: NICK STOCKTON.NICK STOCKTON
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.13.16.
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 8:00 AM.
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Oh No! Global warming will cause increase in exercise — But exercise increases global warming!
Flashback 2007: Exercise Causes Global Warming – Walking to the Shops ‘Damages Planet More Than Going By Car’
By Noel Sheppard | August 8, 2007 – Newsbusters
As reported by the Times Online Saturday in a piece hysterically titled “Walking to the Shops ‘Damages Planet More Than Going By Car'” (grateful h/ts to all NBers and readers who forwarded this article for consideration, emphasis added throughout):
Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.
Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.
Absolutely amazing. But there was more:
The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.
“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”
Now, just imagine where this insanity could go:
- Gymnasiums and athletic clubs closed to slow global warming
- Jogging made illegal to slow global warming
- Golf banned to slow global warming
- All organized sporting events including amateur, collegiate and professional banned to slow global warming.
Is it becoming obvious the amount of control environmentalists seek over personal behavior all in the name of global warming?…
Live Poor & ‘Green!’: World’s ‘Greenest’ People Live In Ridiculously Poor Authoritarian Regimes
By ANDREW FOLLETT – Daily Caller
A new report ranking countries with “the most environmentally friendly people” shows the greenest nations are also some of the poorest in the world.
A MoneySuperMarket report listed Mozambique, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe as having “the most environmentally friendly people in the world,” while ranking Americans as being some of the least eco-friendly people on the planet. That may not be a bad thing, though, given the greenest countries also tend to be poor and run by authoritarian regimes.
“At the top of the list, people from Mozambique have the least impact of anyone anywhere – using almost 100 per cent green energy, producing almost no carbon dioxide and creating almost no waste,” MoneySuperMarket said in a statement. “Their only disadvantage is that they don’t treat any of their wastewater, so anything that gets poured away stays as it is.”
The average person living in Mozambique earned $511.47 a year in 2015, which was 4 percent of the global average. Mozambique is ruled by an authoritarian-leaning “hybrid regime,” according to the Economist’s Democracy Index.
Likewise, the Economist lists Ethiopia’s government as an authoritarian regime, and Zambia is listed as having a “hybrid regime.” Ethiopia’s average resident earned $1,529.89 a year in 2015, and the average Zambian earned only $3,602.33. In contrast, the average American earned nearly $52,000 a year.
(Graphic: Courtesy of MoneySuperMarket)
In fact, there is not a single “full democracy” listed in the top 10 of MoneySuperMarket’s report. Three countries are listed as “flawed democracies,” four as “hybrid regimes” and three as authoritarian states.
The average person living in on of those 10 countries had an annual income of $3,640.83 in the year 2015 – nearly five times below the global average annual income of $17,760 in that year.
(Graphic: Courtesy of MoneySuperMarket)
The 10 least green countries listed in MoneySuperMarket’s report were far richer and more democratic than the greenest countries. Four of the 10 countries had “full democracy,” five were listed as “flawed democracies” and only China was listed as authoritarian.…