These items caught my eye – 9 June 2014

1: Energy efficiency is not the same as energy saving; 2: Giant Of Geology/Glaciology Christian Schlüchter Refutes CO2; 3: World Council for Nature — 1,600 Miscarriages at Fur Farm next to Wind Turbines; 4: Wildfires Were Much Worse In Past; 5: Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation & Arctic Temperatures; 6: Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – May 2014 map and USGS video footage; 7: Hollywood’s Hydrocarbon Hypocrisy; 8: Screw the Poor, Our Eyes are Fixed on Tomorrow; 9: AP Reports Another Data-Free South Florida Rising Sea Fable; 10: Old-hand Alcamo picked to rescue “tinkerbell” Figueres?; Please remember to read the comments, as the information (and the links) contained in them often put the main article into context..
_____________________________________________

Energy efficiency is not the same as energy saving

When I was around 20 years old I was, like many young man, interested in cars and dreaming of owning one. At that time I drove the family car: a humble Austin Mini Metro. As someone who was conscientious about the impact on our environment I found myself looking at the fuel consumption of cars to see which one was the most fuel economic.

From memory: I found that our Mini Metro had the lowest fuel consumption (4.6-4.8 liter/100 km) of them all, then came the medium cars with 5-6 liter/100 km, then the bigger ones with 7-8-9 liter/100 km. At the tail the older cars with 10 or more liter/100 km. I remember that most older cars of that time had 13 or more liter/100 km.

Forward thirty years, out of curiosity I looked into it again and came to the conclusion that not much changed during that time. The only thing that really changed is that the clunkers at the tail end weren’t there anymore. But generally the modern cars had about the same fuel consumption as the cars in the beginning of the 1980s. Even the fuel consumption of the engine of a Toyota Prius of today (when driven solely on fuel) was in the same range as the fuel consumption of that of the Mini Metro in the 1980s… – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

Giant Of Geology/Glaciology Christian Schlüchter Refutes CO2

This post is about an interview by the online Swiss Der Bund here with Swiss geology giant Christian Schlüchter titled: “Our society is fundamentally dishonest“. In it he criticizes climate science for its extreme tunnel vision and political contamination.

Geologist Sebastain Lüning sent me an e-mail where he writes: “This is probably the best interview from a geologist on climate change that I have read for a long while. My highest respect for Prof. Schlüchter.” Fritz Vahrenholt calls it “impressive”.

His discovery of 4000-year old chunks of wood at the edge of glaciers in Switzerland in the 1990s unintentionally thrust the distinguished geologist into the lion’s den of climate science. Today the retired professor and author of more than 250 papers speaks up in an interview. – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

World Council for Nature — 1,600 Miscarriages at Fur Farm next to Wind Turbines

Denmark: 1,600 animals were born prematurely at a mink farm this month. Many had deformities, and most were dead on arrival. The lack of eyeballs was the most common malformation. Veterinarians ruled out food and viruses as possible causes. The only thing different at the farm since last year has been the installation of four large wind turbines only 328 meters away.

The wind farm consists of four 3 MW turbines, VESTAS model V112, reaching out to 140 meters in height at the tip of the blades. When they became operative last fall, a first mishap was reported by the mink farmer, who was heard about it at a parliamentary committee on wind farms in January this year (1). The World Council for Nature (WCFN) reported the incident earlier: “In Denmark, which is the EU’s leader in mink farming, millions of Danish kroners were lost in damaged pelts when wind turbines started to operate near a mink farm. The animals became aggressive, attacking one another, and resulting in many deaths” (2).

Both incidents are alarming, as they constitute definite proof that wind turbines are harmful to the health of animals living in their vicinity. And they are not the only ones. In the letter mentioned above, WCFN quoted more of them, all leading to the conclusion that low frequency vibrations emitted by wind turbines can cause serious ill-effects on health, including altered behaviour, deformities, miscarriages and premature births (2). – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

Wildfires Were Much Worse In Past

There was a bit of interesting testimony last week at the Senate Sub-Committee on Green Jobs and the New Economy. Professor David South, one of the top US experts on forestry, trashes claims that AGW is making wildfires worse.

Testimony of David B. South
Retired Emeritus Professor, Auburn University
Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy
3 June 2014

Human Activity, more so than Climate Change, Affects the Number and Size of Wildfires

I am David B. South, Emeritus Professor of Forestry, Auburn University. In 1999 I was awarded the Society of American Foresters’ Barrington Moore Award for research in the area of biological science and the following year I was selected as Auburn University’s “Distinguished Graduate Lecturer.” In 1993 I received a Fulbright award to conduct tree seedling research at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and in 2002 I was a Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. My international travels have allowed me the opportunity to plant trees on six continents. – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation & Arctic Temperatures

Further to yesterday’s post on the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, it is worth looking at how closely temperature cycles in Arctic regions follow the AMO.

First, the AMO cycle itself.

– Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

Tracking polar bears in the Beaufort Sea – May 2014 map and USGS video footage

Here is the May 2014 follow-up to my post on the July 2013 track map for female polar bears being followed by satellite in the Beaufort Sea by the US Geological Survey (USGS) – “Ten out of ten polar bears being tracked this summer in the Beaufort Sea are on the ice.”

See that post for methods and other background on this topic, and some track maps from 2012 (also available at the USGS website here).

The USGS track map May 2014 is copied below (Fig. 1).

Compare this to April’s map (Fig. 2) – the 24 bears from April are down to 20 and the bears are spreading out a bit from the area on the central Alaskan coast where they were originally tagged. Fifteen of these bears have satellite collar transmitters [and therefore are females] and 5 of these bears have glue-on satellite transmitters [either males or subadult animals]. – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

Hollywood’s Hydrocarbon Hypocrisy

Several Hollywood elites were recently caught red-handed on videotape, agreeing to take money from a Middle Eastern oil sheikh for another anti-fracking movie. Their actions were shameful, but they felt no shame – only anger at the folks who caught them in the act. Indeed, the ironies are matched only by their hypocrisy and disdainful disregard for the consequences of their anti-fracking fervor.

The video records a conversation involving a producer, two actors – and someone they thought represented an oil oligarch. The Hollywood glitterati made it clear that they were willing to take Middle East oil cash for a film intended to help block drilling, hydraulic fracturing, energy production, job creation, revenue generation and our nation’s economic rejuvenation.

The three are known for their environmental fervor – and their apparent belief that it’s okay to drill for oil in Arab countries, but against all reason to drill in the United States. It’s also okay for them to enjoy lavish lifestyles, as long as California imports its oil and electricity, to avoid drilling in the Golden State. – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

Screw the Poor, Our Eyes are Fixed on Tomorrow

Condemning people to grinding poverty is evil.

Anthony Kelly departed this world last Tuesday. Three days later, a short report he wrote for the Global Warming Policy Foundation was published. Titled Climate Change Policy and the Poor, it raises questions relevant to us all.

What issues are we spending huge amounts of money on? What other problems are losing the battle for our attention? As Kelly points out:

with global warming we are discussing the possibility that there will be a problem in the future… [italics in the original]

Despite the hypothetical nature of this concern, in Britain and elsewhere weighty laws have been passed, expensive regulations have been enacted, and enormous amounts of money are being spent. On a speculative problem that may – or may not – become serious decades hence. – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

AP Reports Another Data-Free South Florida Rising Sea Fable

SHOW ME THE DATA!!!

Have you noticed that whenever the mainstream media reports stories about rising sea levels in South Florida that one crucial item is always missing? Hard data. All the stories tell us how much the sea will rise in the future but pointedly ignore how much the sea level has risen in the past. Why? Could it be because there is absolutely NO DATA that indicates any sea level rise to be alarmed about? Despite this lack of data, all these stories assure us that somehow the sea level will rise to such an extent that most of eastern Palm Beach County will be underwater by the middle of this century. The latest such fable was conjured up by Michael J. Mishak of the Associated Press. So, boys and girls, check out his story and if you can guess what’s missing, you win a kewpie doll:

There are few places in the nation more vulnerable to rising sea levels than low-lying South Florida, a tourist and retirement mecca built on drained swampland.

So the sea levels are rising? SHOW ME THE DATA!!! – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________

Old-hand Alcamo picked to rescue “tinkerbell” Figueres?

As readers of this blog are probably aware, I do not have much respect or admiration for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and its ever-growing maze of offspring – which includes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which feeds its so-called “science” to Christiana Figueres’ current bailiwick, the “send us your billions and we’ll give it to those we favour” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Despite the best of machinations on the part of various and sundry honchos from the IPCC – including Working Group (WG) I’s smooth-talking, but hypocritical, Co-Chair, Thomas Stocker – even the UN’s very own survey is maintaining a consistent but almost lowest of the low priority for “action on climate change”.

Notwithstanding her own perceptions and many word-salads to the contrary, Figueres has not exactly set the world on fire with countries tripping over each other to toss resources at the multitude of UN “mechanisms”. For the uninitiated, “mechanisms” is UN-speak for their various and sundry send-us-your-money-and-we’ll-spend-it schemes and dreams.

I have no idea how (or by whom) it was determined that Figueres might be in need of a little help from her friends. Nonetheless I happened to stumble across an announcement today: – Click here to read the full article
_____________________________________________