While a 97% agreement rate amongst climate change scientists appears to be a very nice figure and reliable enough to base discussion of the future on, it seemed odd to me that 3% of the scientists disagreed. As such in this article I’m going to look at the study that was done which created this figure. I will also look at another study that was done more recently which suggests a far higher figure. Continue reading “Do 97% of climate change scientists believe in climate change?”
The far right is now fear-mongering over extreme climate change, after letting go of climate denialism
Across much of the developed world, far right parties have gradually let go of their stupid climate change denialism and switched smoothly into waving it around as a way to increase peoples fear of immigration.
From Nigel Farage in the UK with a range of parties (so little success he has never managed to get elected to Westminster- though he scared the Conservatives enough to scare them into carrying out his suicidal plans of Brexit, also particularly odd his fear of immigration given his recent ancestry in Europe hence his name) as well as the BNP (who claimed to be the only green party as a result of their focus on immigration (no I dont follow this one either) Germanys Alternative for Germany (they have switched mockery of climate science to warning of harsh climatic conditions in Africa and the Middle east which will lead to a gigantic wave of immigration) Frances National Front (who has switched derisive climate change denial for a pledge to create the worlds “leading ecological civilization”).
This trend is not restricted to Europe but is repeated all over the place (including often in countries that are almost entirely descended from recent immigration in just the last few centuries).
In the UK, while we don’t have one of these far right parties in change Boris Johnson often seems far to comfortable stealing their policies.
Generally concern for the environment is considered a left wing thing, though it isn’t the first time that the far right has tried to appropriate something that is the cause of the left. Now care needs to be taken, as David Cameron is the person who is famous for saying “get rid of all that green crap”.
The changes that have to be made to the global economy will be far reaching. This is something that the extreme right often uses to scare people into voting for them. We need to educate those around us so they are not taken in by the empty words coming from all these parties.
How can California be so stupid?
California is known for its forward thinking views on climate change. They have taken some of the biggest steps towards decarbonising, and being a country that receives a great deal of sun have the potential to make more electricity than they need, completely from green sources.
1.3 million houses already have solar. The California Public Utilities Commission is considering taxing everyone $8 per month per kilowatt of solar installed. Nothing else would change – for people with large arrays, they could have to pay $1000 dollars a year.
This has been a main aim for utilities for years. It is quite understandable. If for 5-10 thousand dollars you can create a solar array on your roof, which means that you become close to self sustaining the utility companies loose their market share. Furthermore, if they are required to pay for exported solar, then that eats into their profits. This of course is despite the fact that this solar exported is clean energy so is good for the planet.
The argument is that this money will go for upkeep of the grid, and that the customers are getting free use of the grid. Now there are several issues with this.
Firstly, this move is likely to push many people with batteries to go further off grid. This will hit utilities hard. Now not only will they not get cheap electricity but they will also not be able to supply night time power. However there is another issue. A connection to the grid once there does not cost a lot to maintain – also, whether exporting 1kw or 10kw the same wires is used. Therefore, the pricing if one was needed should be flat ($8 flat per month seems far more reasonable- $8 per kwh suggests the states are giving utilities the means to squash small energy suppliers.
Are big power companies going to be charged this as well? because if you are going to go to this system they must be. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is 2256megawatt output, if we were to charge the same thing then they would have to pay slightly over $18 million a year. This is something that even on a large nuclear plant would threaten their future finances.
There is still a coal powered station in California, and 41mw of gas powerplant.
Powerplants which are still using fossil fuels should be forced out of business – this foolish move will likely greatly reduce the rollout of solar in the country, which would lead to problems. Indeed, this state is aiming for 100% green electricity by 2045, which means that they need all the solar they can get.
This is a foolish move and is likely to either damage California’s future, or will be reversed in the future. I feel that it is extremely similar allowing petrol stations to charge electric cars for their lost business.
Another thing that should be recognized, is that as the grid improves more and more power will be consumed locally. For most houses with solar panels, any power they export are used by their neighbours. In other words, Solar panel owners, use a few hundred meters of cabling, while the utility companies are sending power over thousands of miles.
Back in August it was revealed that department for business energy and industrial strategy – responsible for climate remit, had taken 619 domestic flights in the previous 2 years
We have an extensive train network. We also have an extensive motorway network. With all the check in and the traveling to and from airports which are usually some distance outside cities, many domestic flights take longer than their train or car equivalent.
More importantly, these other methods have a fraction of the carbon footprint. This was also after signing a net zero emissions target. Importantly, this does not include travel to Northern Ireland as this is more easy to justify.
34 of these flights were by the minister themselves.
This only came to light through a freedom of information request from the shadow minister for green transport.
In the 6 months after the 2050 net zero target was signed into law the department took 395 domestic flights.
These all happened in the run up to us hosting a conference on cutting emissions.
We can only hope that now the COP26 has happened, the government starts to practice what it preaches.
Don’t look up is a Doomsday comet film, but when recognized as an allegory to human races reaction to climate change it should be terrifying(Netflix film)- spoilers
The film tells the story of a great student who discovers a comet heading for earth.
Despite talking to the right people, nothing useful is done. Like the climate change, many people in the film delay any fight about doing something about it.
Continue reading “Don’t look up is a Doomsday comet film, but when recognized as an allegory to human races reaction to climate change it should be terrifying(Netflix film)- spoilers”Do not be mislead, an electric car always has lower emissions than an equivalent combustion engine car
There is a constant argument made by those who like the combustion engine car. They want to add up all the emissions that are released creating the electricity and therefore suggest that the electric car is worse.
This argument quickly runs into problems: an electric car is so much more efficient that it is irrelavent.
Continue reading “Do not be mislead, an electric car always has lower emissions than an equivalent combustion engine car”Indonesias leading University has proposed classifying Palm oil as a forest crop – This is insane, read on to find more – urgent condemnation needed
This proposal would mean that Indonesia could cut down all its rainforest and replace them with Palm Oil, and would have engaged in zero deforestation.
This has to be condemned globally, There are myriad problems with this. The destruction of the rainforest would release billions of tonnes of carbon into the air. Palm oil, will be incapable of reabsorbing all this carbon. Furthermore, palm oil plantations support just a handful of species of wildlife, so this would mean the end of the orangutan Sumatran elephant, tiger leopard and rhino.
Thankfully, there are many voices within Indonesia which are already condemning this move.
At the moment, this idea is the thought of various extreme academics (and much of the government). If it were to find acceptance, we could see the wholesale destruction of the forests of Indonesia, an area of deforestation that would have a huge effect on the worlds attempts to mitigate global warming. Arguments that palm oil trees absorb carbon as well, are absurd, as they absorb a tiny proportion of the carbon that would be emitted.
Hopefully, this will remain a crackpot academic idea, and a governmental daydream and never be put into place. We must be vigilant that it isnt.
Google has more problems – Ads that look like search results are increasingly being used by fossil fuel firms
Last month, I wrote about how google was failing to deal with climate change deniers, now there is a similar related problem.
Google allows advertisers to pay to have their advert appear as though it is a search result. One in 5 ads served on 78 climate related terms were placed their by fossil fuel companies.
The study looked at 1600 articles and found that 20% of the adverts were placed by fossil fuel companies.
A survey back in 2020 found that more than half of those using this service could not tell the difference between the search results and these ‘disguised’ adverts.
Exxonmobil, shell, aramco, Mckinsey, and goldman sachs were among the top users along with a handful of other fossil fuel providers and their financiers.
This is highly concerning. Having been forced to abandon their ridiculous claim that global warming was not happening, they are now trying to influence the discussion of decarbonisation in their favour. Far and away the most regular seen ad was Shells which were seen 156 times, and appeared on 86% of the searches for “net zero” They also kept highlighting their promise to be net zero by 2050 and to align itself with the 1.5 degrees C target (something that virtually all scientists agree are incompatible – you cannot aim for 2050 net zero and 1.5 as waiting till 1050 guarentees we blow straight past the 1.5.
Furthermore, Shells only way to reach net zero appears to be through offsets. They intend to continue to extract coal oil and gas until the end of the century.
How can we reach a concensus about where we are trying to go in fighting climate change if so many people are being fed lies.
I believe that it is time to take google at its word. If they wont stop listing these sorts of lies, then they must be treated with the same contempt as the fossil fuel companies. Further more googles future must be the same – change or go extinct. The current problem is that google is such a dominant player in search and advertising, at the moment it is hard to avoid them.
Now, I should add that I did a quick search, and was not possible to duplicate these results. Further more, i got the same results in incognito. I am unsure if google has tweaked its algorithm since yesterday, but this is part of the problem. Given that a small tweak can transform the results, it is hard to get a proper window into googles behaviour.
We need more openness from google. They are making great strides towards taking their business to carbon zero. However, if they continue to influence the rest of the world to not do so, I believe that a significant amount of the blame is retained. Do they want to be seen as a green advocate? or as a climate change denier. It is not possible to sit on the fence, climate change denial needs to be demoted in their search terms.
Worldwide fossil fuel subsidies last year were $5.9 trillion!
Perhaps a more alarming way of looking at this, worldwide fossil fuel subsidies last year were $11 million a minute.
Just think what that amount of money could do for mitigating climate change and reversing the damage on the natural world.
Continue reading “Worldwide fossil fuel subsidies last year were $5.9 trillion!”Google profited from climate change deniers despite promising not to
” DO NO HARM” is googles motto, yet they are failing. It is quite true that google cannot police the whole internet. It is also true, that we should not expect it to. However, we can expect it to not advertise or direct traffic to mistruths.
Yet, they have been placing ads next to content promoting climate change denial.
There are 10 fringe publishers who’s content is included in 69% of false posts on the climate – this number is small enough that google should be able to deal with it. It is estimated that google made $5.3 million in just 6 months from google ad revenue (according to the CCDH).
Climate change denial seeks to push off the time when we will have to make the hard changes, yet this makes the ecological disaster we are trying to avoid all the more likely.
In 2019 more than 11,000 scientists from more than 150 countries declared a climate emergency. The problem is that this was followed by the whole world closing down because of COVID. It seems that google has been helping spread misinformation.
When this challenge was put to google, it basically pointed at its policy and then stopped serving adds on the page in question. This is not good enough. Google can well afford a handful of people searching the web for content of this sort, and making sure that they do not profit from it. It is likely that there will always be people who refuse to believe the planet is warming (there are still so called “flat earth” societies around the world)
