All Solar, Et Al, In 12 Years?

[Randolph Kinney]

Hopefully they will be able to function in the dysfunctional world that Randy sees! Sorry you schools aren't functioning properly. I've never experienced that problem although I do know it exists in some districts. But parental involvement cures all ills in education. At least that's been my experience.

Single parent households don't have time to be involved in their children's education.

Educators teach global warming, not morals or what happens to children from single parent households.

 

[Pittsburgh Pete]

Bon Voyage Randy!!!!

Please allay my fears and tell me that you don't have children? There are enough challenges for folks today without dwelling in your parents' fears.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

IPCC Lead Author: 25 Years Of Failed Global Warming Policies Have Made Us Poorer

Environmental economist Richard Tol wants the world to deal with global warming, but his data shows the past 25 years of climate policies in rich countries have done nothing to fundamentally tackle the issue.

If anything, Tol argues, current and past climate policies have only served to make most people a little poorer while benefiting those in politically favored industries or with connections to powerful politicians.

“Twenty-five years of climate policy has made most of us a little poorer,” Tol told an audience gathered at the libertarian Cato Institute Friday, adding that such policies also made “some of us a little richer” — referring to those getting green energy subsidies and government grants.

In Tol’s view, climate policies have been more about “rewarding allies with rents and subsidies rather than emissions reduction.”

Tol, no skeptic of man-made global warming, argued current policies to cut emissions have done nothing to change the trend in carbon dioxide emissions reductions over the past 25 years. Basically, U.S. and European climate regulations have not caused emissions to be reduced any faster.

“CO2 intensity in the economy has come down,” Tol said, “but you can’t really see a trend break in 1990. It just seems that the last 20 years were a continuation of the trends of the 20 years before.”

“And this is true for the United states, where there has been some climate policy, but it’s also true for some of the countries — Germany, Japan, United Kingdom — who have consistently claimed to be in climate policy and claim to have done a whole lot to reduce their emissions,” Tol said. “It’s just not visible in the data.”

Tol is probably the world’s leading environmental economist and a lead author of a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group, but that hasn’t stopped him from being criticized for his unorthodox opinions.

Tol lashed out against the IPCC last year for exaggerating claims about global warming, by comparing it to an “apocalypse.” The economist also authored articles debunking the “97 percent” consensus claim often touted by environmentalists and politicians.

On the other hand, Tol is no skeptic of man-made global warming. He favors taxing carbon dioxide emissions, but has admitted that global warming could initially result in economic benefits from enhanced plant growth, lower heating costs and fewer deaths from the cold.

Will China Ruin A UN Treaty?

The United Nations is set to meet in Paris this month to hash out a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, but Tol noted there were huge problems with trying to put a global climate agreement together.

One main problem: China.

China has promised to crack down on carbon dioxide emissions, pledging to peak emissions by 2030. The country could impose a cap-and-trade system to clamp down on emissions.

China would first have to figure out how much CO2 it emits. Tol noted that official and provincial estimates disagree with one another on emissions levels. The lack of clear, accurate measurements poses major problems for a potential cap-and-trade system.

“If you don’t know how much you’re emitting, how are you going to tax something?” Tol said.

Tol did, however, acknowledge the current strategy to get a global climate treaty is a marked departure from past efforts. Traditionally, each country proposes its own goals, then presents them to the United Nations for approval. Thus, goals are “not imposed by the United Nations,” Tol said.

“There is nothing to negotiate over in Paris,” Tol said.

In terms of emissions, the cards are already dealt, but in terms of funding, there’s still a lot to haggle over. Poor countries are banding together to get rich countries to hand over more money to fund their development.

Tol is still skeptical that anything substantive will come out of the Paris talks, thus continuing decades of failed international efforts. Tol estimated the world spends $100 million a year sending people to U.N. climate talks.

“As a taxpayer I think you should be dismayed,” Tol said.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/03/i...-global-warming-policies-have-made-us-poorer/

Yet again, another global warming boondoggle. Global warming is nothing more than a political gambit to reward cronies.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Poll: Most Americans Accept Global Warming Is Happening but Many Aren’t Too Worried About It

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are hot but not too bothered by global warming.

Most Americans know the climate is changing, but they say they are just not that worried about it, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. And that is keeping the American public from demanding and getting the changes that are necessary to prevent global warming from reaching a crisis, according to climate and social scientists.

As top-level international negotiations to try to limit greenhouse gas emissions start later this month in Paris, the AP-NORC poll taken in mid-October shows about two out of three Americans accept global warming and the vast majority of those say human activities are at least part of the cause.

However, fewer than one in four Americans are extremely or very worried about it, according the poll of 1,058 people. About one out of three Americans are moderately worried and the highest percentage of those polled – 38 percent – were not too worried or not at all worried.

The big deal is that climate has not been a voting issue of the American population,” said Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland. “If the American population were left to lead on the issue of climate, it’s just not going to happen.”

Scientists, however, aren’t communicating their worries well, figuring that issuing more reports and data will convince people, said climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe of Texas Tech, who reaches out to the evangelical Christian community. Success lies in finding common ground in humanity, she said.

“More facts are not going to fix the problem,” Hayhoe told a meeting of top climate scientists last week in Washington. “Nearly every human on the planet has the values they need to care about climate change. We just need to connect the dots.”

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...appening-but-many-arent-too-worried-about-it/

Climate Scientists are not very convincing with their portrayal of global warming. Anytime the database has to be fudged so that the computer model now agrees with the past data gives the impression that these people are not playing an honest game of cards. That, and the past monies spent has yielded nothing in the way of progress pointing to any reduction or abating CO2 levels that are increasing without letup.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

‘Tis the season for all that global warming folly

With the UN climate summit in Paris due to start later this month, the global warming silly season is well under way.

This week France’s popular weatherman Philippe Verdier was sacked by a French TV station for writing a book that challenges some scientists for inflating the effects of global warming. The UN gabfest, or COP21, is aimed at securing agreement from countries with vastly different levels of development, from the prosperous West to fast-growing economies in China and India, to less developed in Africa, to restrict global temperature rises to 2C. It’s a big ask, which may explain why the madness started even before Verdier was sacked by France 2.

Addressing a September conference in London on climate change and international law, Philippe Sands QC called for a ruling from the International Court of Justice to “scotch” claims by “scientifically qualified, knowledgeable and influential individuals” who challenge the “consensus” on man-made global warming. Are we re-entering the Middle Ages where you were treated as a traitor if you mentioned that the king might be dying — even if he was?

More recently, the future king of England, Prince Charles, repeated his favourite claim that the Paris conference was our “last chance” to draw up a “Magna Carta for the Earth”. Charles is no King John. But, equally, Charles seems to have scant understanding of the real Magna Carta, a document that aimed to curb the powers of the king. Charles and his global warming enthusiasts now want a treaty that will deny countries such as China and India the ability to do what rich nations have done — use readily accessible and cheap carbon energy to build prosperous economies.

Here in Australia, just as the Prime Minister turned 61, 61 so-called “eminent” people signed an open letter calling on Malcolm Turnbull to put a moratorium on coalmining and new mines. That went nowhere. It was easily demolished when Turnbull said shutting down our coal industry would make zero difference to global emissions.

And if every silly season has a Santa, Shorten is surely it. More and more, the Opposition Leader resembles a second-rate actor who has assiduously studied a set of lines but hasn’t managed to inject any conviction into the role. This week Shorten has been on “a fact-finding mission” to the Pacific Islands. Translation: the Opposition Leader thinks he can use global warming to dent Turnbull’s popularity.

Shorten’s core problem begins with his role in past policy. Shorten rode the Kevin ’07 wave into office when Labor’s position was that global warming was the great moral challenge of our time and required an emissions trading system. As a senior minister, he then backed Rudd’s change of heart to dump the ETS. Shorten was a critical backer of Julia Gillard, when Labor’s new position was “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead”. He was there too when Labor signed a deal with the Greens to legislate a carbon tax.

Shorten has a long and unfortunate history of reactionary-style politics. As a union leader, he injected passion into his position. In politics, he simply looks like a desperate political leader trying to attract the increasing number of centrist voters who are looking favourably at Turnbull and the Coalition. Last week, there were racy lines Labor would devote more funding to encourage girls to learn coding, as he tried to beat off Turnbull’s talk of innovation as a driver of growth. The education system has failed us, Shorten said. Ominous words, except it only serves as a reminder that while the country has doubled spending on education over the past decade to $40 billion, outcomes on basic measures of literacy and numeracy have gone backwards according to the most recent international scorecards of educational achievements. Shorten’s shadow boxing was evident as soon as Turnbull became PM. Labor’s attacks on Turnbull’s wealth served only to remind voters we have a PM who was highly successful before he entered politics and understands business. It makes a refreshing change from the career politicians who have never worked in the real world.

Last week Shorten proposed giving the vote to 16  and 17-year-olds. That went nowhere except into the cynical box, given Shorten thinks his best chance at winning an election comes by winning over teenagers under 18. If you can’t attract enough adult votes, well, to put it politely, you’re stuffed.

With the COP21 summit fast approaching, Shorten is now desperate to make climate change a positive for Labor. But, once again, his problem is one of believability. No one can question that Turnbull genuinely believes in the human drivers of global warming. It drives his critics mad and weakens the knees of his admirers.

Shorten’s history, on the other hand, is replete with stark episodes of him making statements thrust into his hands by spin doctors and pollsters. There’s no detail on the Opposition Leader’s uncosted “aspirational” 50 per cent renewable energy target. Nor has Shorten told us what Labor’s emissions target would be if he were the PM heading to Paris. A four-day visit to our Pacific neighbours does nothing to build Shorten and Labor’s credentials.

The hyperbole around global warming, Magna Cartas, last chances and moratoriums on coal will only ratchet up over the next few weeks. But the hyperbole won’t alter Turnbull’s commitment to take the Abbott government’s policy of a 26 to 28 per cent emissions reduction target on 2005 levels by 2030 to Paris.

None of it will alter the fact, while China and India will happily extract money from the West’s promised $US100bn Green Climate Fund, they won’t agree to a deal that curbs their emissions, and therefore their economic growth. China is building a new coal plant every seven to 10 days and has plans to boost its coal power by 50 per cent by 2040; India is intent on doubling its coal production by 2020.

In other words, none of the hype will deliver a meaningful treaty at the Paris gabfest that is legally binding, enforceable and verifiable. Unless you believe in Santa.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...al-warming-folly/story-e6frg7bo-1227593693105

The Aussies don't believe the claptrap solutions will work.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

China Burns Much More Coal Than Reported, Complicating Climate Talks

BEIJING — China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases from coal, has been burning up to 17 percent more coal a year than the government previously disclosed, according to newly released data. The finding could complicate the already difficult efforts to limit global warming.

Even for a country of China’s size, the scale of the correction is immense. The sharp upward revision in official figures means that China has released much more carbon dioxide — almost a billion more tons a year according to initial calculations — than previously estimated.

The increase alone is greater than the whole German economy emits annually from fossil fuels.

Officials from around the world will have to come to grips with the new figures when they gather in Paris this month to negotiate an international framework for curtailing greenhouse-gas pollution. The data also pose a challenge for scientists who are trying to reduce China’s smog, which often bathes whole regions in acrid, unhealthy haze.

The new data, which appeared recently in an energy statistics yearbook published without fanfare by China’s statistical agency, show that coal consumption has been underestimated since 2000, and particularly in recent years. The revisions were based on a census of the economy in 2013 that exposed gaps in data collection, especially from small companies and factories.

Illustrating the scale of the revision, the new figures add about 600 million tons to China’s coal consumption in 2012 — an amount equivalent to more than 70 percent of the total coal used annually by the United States.

Jan Ivar Korsbakken, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, said that based on his preliminary analysis, the new data implied that China had released about 900 million metric tons more carbon dioxide from 2011 to 2013.

China burned or otherwise consumed 4.2 billion metric tons in 2013, according to the new data, and its emissions now far exceed those of any other country, including the United States, the second-largest emitter.

So if China’s emissions have been much greater than believed, researchers will want to understand where the extra carbon dioxide output ended up — for example, how it might have been absorbed in natural “sinks” like forests or oceans, said Josep G. Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project, which studies the sources and flows of greenhouse-gas pollution.

“If the emissions are partially wrong,” Mr. Canadell said, “we’ll be wrong in attributing carbon sources and sinks.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/w..._th_20151104&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=50329110

China is the world's largest emitter of CO2 and much bigger than any Climate Scientist thought. Since CO2 levels are measured directly from the atmosphere, that does not change anything. However, it matters only because of the estimation of how much CO2 in the atmosphere came from man. If the CO2 came from natural sources, that's okay. Global warming would be caused naturally and nothing could be done about it.

The big problem that this new information creates is two fold: Unless China substantially reduces its CO2 emissions, it won't matter how much all other countries reduce theirs. The second is that all the previous attribution of man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 is wrong. Since the "science" of global warming is based upon total CO2 levels in the atmosphere, it only matters to the degree that man can control CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

To quote Bill Gates concerning solutions by government: "If you’re not bringing math skills to the problem,” he said with a sort of amused asperity, “then representative democracy is a problem."

 

[Meandering]

Add comprehension to the math skills.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Just searching around, the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 400 ppm. It has been estimated that human CO2 emissions constitute 3.75% of that total or 15 ppm CO2 by man.

It appears to me that graphing total CO2 over time against global average temperature or even temperature change has no correlation and for sure what man has contributed to the total.

Why is there no correlation to the temperature change with atmospheric concentration of total CO2? Basic math skills, what's up with that?

 

[Meandering]

Hey!

Looks like that's where the subprime underwriters got jobs!

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