Science and Pseudo-Science

Wind Farm Back-of-the-Envelope Economic Analysis

By Larry F. Brown, PhD | Watts Up With That? | July 21, 2019

We visited a wind farm in southern Utah recently. I’ve always been curious about the costs, profitability, and physical size of these things as well as the footprint and environmental impact. I had 3 meetings with the man in charge of maintenance of the wind farm, a landowner who leases land accommodating 4 of the turbines, and a man who works in the industry in Colorado – and did some internet/newspaper research.

The maintenance superintendent told me they have 27 towers, that the installation cost was about $2 million each, and that each turbine is rated at 2.3 megawatts/hr but produces an average of 1.3 megawatts/hr (= 1,300 kW/hr). The blades are 187 ft long so the total height is nearly 400 feet high, and the tower at the base is about 13 ft in diameter encapsulated in huge quantity of concrete. The project pays about $1 million in taxes to the community each year and has a 20-year lease.

A nearly 400-foot-tall propeller-tower is a very imposing structure, especially in close proximity. They are huge. They make a whooshing noise and the turbine itself makes a little noise. The propellers appear to be moving very slowly but the tips of the blades normally travel at 180 to 200 mph. The blades can ice up, which requires deicing (with electricity) and can throw ice a significant distance – hence each tower has a flying ice danger zone clearly labeled with signage.

I pay about $.11/kWh for my electricity here in western Colorado. So, beginning the process of calculating the profitability of these things, each tower @ 1,300 kW/hr could produce an average of $143/hr = which would be $3,400/day = $1,253,000 of electricity/year. Sounds good – so far.

[Note – Germany boasts about their renewable energy effort but Germans pay about $.35/kWh on average – 3.3 times more than we do here in Grand Junction – and their rates can get as high as $.50/kWh.]

The $.11/kWhr I pay includes all the distribution costs, etc. The wind farm is not paid $.11/kWhr for their electricity. According to the ISO Wholesale Power Market Prices, the electric company sells electricity for about $.03/kWhr so instead of grossing $1.253 million, they might gross about $342,000 per year per turbine. Still sounds good – so far.

[The landowner indicated he gets a royalty for each tower that comes to an average of approximately $1,000/tower/month and gets paid separately for the power line easement across his land.]

“BUT WAIT!” (- as they say on late night TV when giving you the hard sell).

All of that income happens only if the machines produce 24/7/365. They don’t. They need to be down for periodic maintenance and for when the wind does not blow the right speed. I don’t know what percent of the time these particular turbines produce electricity, but studies show the wind only blows the right speed (the wind can blow both too soft and too hard) 18 to 19% of the time on average across the country. 18 to 19 % of $342,000/year = $65,000. MMmmm, all of a sudden, the economics don’t look very good. $65,000/year/tower is nowhere near enough to even pay the interest on a 5% loan to construct the $2 million tower.

It gets lots more complicated when you consider that the wind farms are being subsidized by the government with the Production Tax Credit (PTC). A tax credit should not be confused with a tax deduction. A deduction reduces the amount of income you pay taxes on. is paying taxes on. A credit is money back. And the PTC is a “Refundable Tax Credit” which means the company does not just get to pay fewer taxes but actually gets paid by the government even if it does not owe any taxes.

The PTC subsidy has been in effect now for 27 years. Congress has adjusted the PTC many times through the years but today the subsidy is about $.02/kWhr. So, the power company gets money back in the form of a subsidy for roughly 67% of what they produce – i.e., the company gets money back to the tune of $.02/kWhr after it sells the electricity for $.03/kWhr. If the company sells $3 million of electricity they get the $3 million plus a PTC subsidy of $2 million. That is a huge subsidy! In fact, I think it is the biggest subsidy ever given for anything.

T. Boone Pickens and Warren Buffett both have huge investments in these things and both have openly said that wind farms would not be economic without the PTC.

Note: Now, if I were the company and using the above example, I would report a gross income of $5 million. But, as a taxpayer, it’s more honest to say the wind farm has a gross income of $3 million. It would be dishonest to include a subsidy as profit. So, my back of the envelope calculations will go on from here without considering the subsidy as income.

Note: I would be surprised if these wind farms pay any income taxes. Potential taxable income can be written off against the investment for many years – probably the life of the project – without even dipping into the PTC.

Then, I don’t know for sure, but I think the turbine manufacturers also are subsidized by the government.

However, the economics get worse – much worse. The maintenance man said the towers cost about $2 million each – i.e., about $54 million for the 27 towers. Each tower probably does cost $2 million to install, but there are many other development costs associated such as land and right-of-way leases, power line construction, road construction, fencing, runoff control, revegetation, etc. Newspaper articles reported that this particular wind farm cost about $130 million, which is about $4.8 million per turbine. That means the income of $65,000/yr/turbine won’t even come close to paying the interest on a $4.8 million investment.

Note – According to the Wind Technologies Market Report, US wind turbine market prices in 2016 were just under $1,000 per kilowatt, or about $2.3 million for a 2.3-megawatt turbine (about $1,000 / kilowatt). These turbines installed cost about $4.8 million for a 2.3-megawatt turbine ($2,087 / kilowatt). An offshore turbine project recently approved off the coast of Virginia is projected to cost $25 million per megawatt ($25,000 per kilowatt). Wow.

In addition, the turbines are very technologically sophisticated and require constant maintenance. For example, the oils used in the turbines are very temperature sensitive and, when the turbines are not generating power, they must be heated – with electricity. Various articles point out that, although they produce electricity intermittently, they consume it continuously. Whether the wind is blowing in the desired range or not, they need power to keep the generator magnetized, to keep the blade and generator assembly facing the wind, to periodically spin that assembly to unwind the cables in the tower and to balance the pressure on the shaft, to heat the blades in icy conditions, to start the blades turning when the wind is not blowing fast enough to keep them going, to keep the blades pitched to spin at a regular rate, and to run the lights, internal control and communication systems.

One article I read indicated that in a worst case analysis, these large wind turbines might use as much electricity as they produce. I don’t assume the worst case and just lump electrical usage in with the many other maintenance costs.

I assume the maintenance cost for this wind farm (manpower on call 24 hours, office rental, trucks/fuel, electric consumption, security, snow removal, replacement parts, etc.) to be at least $750,000/year. Additional expenses of this particular wind farm (mentioned earlier) are the $1 million paid in taxes to the local government and the $1,000/tower/month) rent to the landowners. Together these 3 expenses add up to $2,074,000/year = about $77,000/turbine/year, so the income goes down from the $65,000 to a negative $12,000/turbine/year. For simplicities sake, let’s just call it $0/turbine/year. Said another way, this project, according to this back-of-the-envelope calculation, makes no money.

Note: I tried two times to get the company to review these calculations. They did not respond.

And, all those materials (and permits and land leases) have a life expectancy of 20 years. What happens after 20 years? There is a wind farm in northern Colorado that is no longer producing, purportedly because the maintenance cost is too high to rehabilitate the turbines. The wind farm sits abandoned. All mining companies are required to bond for reclamation of a site when mining is done. I do not think this is true for wind farms.

Another interesting thing is that the dynamics of the power market are shifting. It used to be that peak power prices occurred during the day. Now they occur at night when solar is not producing. Thus, renewables are now generating when the prices are lowest in the diurnal power price curve.

The bottom line back-of-the-envelope conclusion of this economic evaluation is that these things are not even close to being economic.

And, environmentally, they kill birds and bats – millions of them. I used to wonder how this could be happening. The propellers seem to be turning so slow. But the propeller blades are so long they only appear to be moving slowly. The tips of the blades are actually moving at 180 to 200 mph. No wonder a bird can’t see them coming. And, apparently bats don’t even have to be hit by the blade to die. The way bats are killed is that the passing blade creates a vacuum and the bat’s lungs explode even if he doesn’t come into contact with the blade. And, yes, I know that cars and windows and cats kill birds but cars and windows and cats don’t kill eagles and falcons and other protected birds and endangered species, and cars, windows, and cats don’t kill bats.

And, the stupidest, most injudicious, most reckless thing of all is that the Obama administration granted permits to wind farms to kill birds and bats, including endangered species. All other industries are fined big dollars for killing birds – not wind power. Double Standard? How crazy is this?

Then, the coup d’état – The craziest part of this whole thing is that we must keep 100% of the fossil fuel plants operating to generate electricity during the 80+ % of the time the wind is not blowing at the right speed. Wow. So, what do we save?

We continue to build thousands of these things at a cost to the taxpayer of $ billions/year. Why in the world are we doing this? I’m dumbfounded.

As indicated, each tower in this farm cost about $4.8 million. Assuming a 5% loan, each tower would have to produce $240 thousand per year to break even – i.e., even pay the interest on the loan. And, any normal investment would have to have some percent profit per year. I assume such an enterprise would have to earn at least another 5% per year as profit after taxes and interest to be a decent investment. That would mean that each tower would have to make $480,000 per year. My calculation indicates they don’t make any real money. My calculations might well be wrong. They might even be wrong by a factor of 2. But I doubt very much if my calculations are off by $480,000/turbine/year.

My conclusion: Companies are making money on these things, but the source of the profit is only (or at least mainly) coming from the Production Tax Credit – the subsidy paid by our government with our tax money for these projects. It’s obvious that T. Boone Pickens and Warren Buffett were right. Without the PTC (for the past 27 years) these things would not exist.

To make it worse, laws and regs have mandated electrical companies to produce x % of their electricity from renewable sources by such and such deadline. The renewables can’t make money so the electrical companies raise the overall price of electricity to cover these higher cost renewables. How silly is this? It’s very silly because the technology does not exist to store this electricity. Regardless of what Governor Brown or Governor Polis say or mandate, without storage, renewables will never replace other forms of electrical production.

The bottom line? A total waste of money – a total boondoggle – profitable to companies only because we, the taxpayer, are subsidizing them – and why are we subsidizing them? – because it’s green and it makes us feel good. And because a few “politicized scientists”, a whole bunch of liberal politicians, and the United Nations espouse that the burning of fossil fuels is causing global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere.

Well, we are indeed adding CO2 to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels but CO2 is an insignificant greenhouse gas. CO2 has increased from 0.028% to 0.041% of the atmosphere (an increase of 0.013% percentage points) in the past 140 years. The theory says man’s 3% contribution to the 0.013% increase is causing global warming. How could only 3% of that minuscule 0.013% (i.e., a component comprising 0.00039% of the atmosphere) cause global warming? It can’t. Even more absurd, we are supposed to believe that taxing and selling carbon credits for that 0.00039% of the atmosphere will curtail the warming, slow the ocean level rise (as Obama promised), and save the planet?

It’s nonsensical. CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a fundamental requirement for life and the added CO2 is actually greening the planet – vegetation worldwide is growing about 20% faster and using less water than it was because CO2 is a fertilizer for plant growth.

I think we should stop building these wind farms — tomorrow.

UPDATE:

Revision to: Wind Farm Back-of-the-Envelope Economic Analysis

July 21, 2019 Posted by aletho | Economics, Environmentalism, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Iran judiciary chief opposes Paris Agreement on climate protection

Press TV – July 13, 2019

Head of Iran’s judiciary has dismissed an international deal signed in 2015 in France to reduce carbon emissions, echoing concerns that the pact, known as the Paris Agreement, would harm Iran’s long-term plans for development of its energy sector.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that Iran is still keen to be part of international efforts to protect the environment although insisting that the Paris Agreement would not add anything new to the country’s own commitments to save the planet.

“Having these (national) documents, we absolutely don’t need pacts like Paris (Agreement),” said Raisi while meeting a group of environmental activists in Tehran.

“Of course we are in need of international cooperation,” he said.

The comments are the first to come from a top Iranian official as the country has yet to ratify the Paris Agreement four years after it joined the initiative.

Reports in the media have suggested that Iran’s Guardian Council, the body supervising the parliament, has refused to endorse an initial bill which would allow the government to commit to the carbon emission targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

The Council is reportedly waiting for more clarification on the issue from Environment Protection Organization of Iran (EPOI). Sources within the parliament have said that the EPOI has failed to submit the required documents for the ratification of the Paris Agreement, including an appendix which details how and to what extent the government should commit to carbon emissions standards.

Expert believe Iran would end up as a loser if it fully implements the Paris Agreement as the pact would prevent the country from tapping into its massive hydrocarbon resources and puts at risk its long-term energy security.

Countries like the United States have already withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, saying it would favor China and India as they have been exempted from certain emission targets under the deal.

July 13, 2019 Posted by aletho | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | Iran | Leave a comment

Sugar is the New Tobacco

By John Gaunt | Sputnik | July 5, 2019

Sugar is the new tobacco and is killing millions of people worldwide.

Cancer Research UK is bang on the money to launch shock tactic posters to tell people that obesity is a major cause of cancer, and overweight people who are saying it is fat shaming need to shut their lardy cake holes.

And I say this as someone who was morbidly obese and on the fast road to an early grave and someone who is still overweight. But I have and am doing something about my situation and actually exercising more than just my jaw.

I heard one fat woman on a national radio show saying, “obesity is nothing like smoking as we can choose to smoke but we have to eat.” She is half right, we do need to eat but we can choose what we put in our mouths surely? There has to be an element of personal responsibility.

I have cut all sugar from my diet and I eat a Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) way and the weight has dropped off me and I have never felt better. In fact, this style of eating combined with gentle walking has also reversed my Type 2 diabetes, cured my gout, lifted my mood and even cured my erectile dysfunction. Now I have got your attention haven’t I lads?

But being serious, this style of eating has completely changed my life and I am now off all meds. And it is not just me, millions of people around the globe are now eating this way and, in a sense, curing themselves.

The results speak for themselves and in my case it led me to set up a website to help other people who, just like me, were essentially sugar addicts waiting to die.

It has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life and it is a disgrace that Low Carb High Fat diets have not been utilised in the treatment of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

I educated myself about nutrition via the internet; and instead of debates on TV about whether sugar taxes are sin taxes or phone ins about whether these posters are an example of fat shaming, what we actually need is for governments to start educating people in nutrition and stop being in the pay of Big Food and big sugar in particular. Governments need to be ‘fat shamed’ more than individual fatties.

But don’t hold your breath because it isn’t just Boris who has made a complete hash of this subject. His rival to be our next PM, Jeremy Hunt, when he was the Health Secretary in 2017 stood on stage at the Tory conference in Manchester and declared that childhood obesity was a “national emergency”. However, the stinking hypocrite had his conference lanyard around his neck which had the conference’s sponsors name on, which was Tate and Lyle! No wonder some journalists and broadcasters get his surname wrong!

This is the heart of the problem, the sugar lobby is too powerful not only here in the UK but around the globe. One of the main contributors to the worldwide diabesity epidemic was the invention of corn syrup in 1957 as a cheaper replacement for cane sugar.

His syrup, which is in all fizzy drinks, is almost pure glucose and is actually sweeter than sugar and it is this that fuelled the soda revolution and the large cups and free refills that helped create not only childhood obesity but the obesity epidemic we are now experiencing. This is now being added to most of the ultra-processed food that is on sale in our supermarkets and when combined with the tsunami of junk food outlets that planners have allowed to open it is no wonder we as an island are almost sinking under our own collective weight. The corn lobby is massively influential and it is said that no US President would ever take them on. Again, I ask, who should be ‘Fat shamed’?

Big Food aided and abetted by ‘corrupt’ or over ‘lobbied’ Western Governments have pushed the myth that sugary drinks, crisps and junk food, eaten as part of a well-balanced diet combined with exercise, are not really a problem.

They have sold the lie that it is all about calories in verses calories out and that exercise is the answer.

But the simple plain facts are, as Professor Tim Noakes says, “You cannot out run a bad diet” In fact, in simple terms, you would have to run 35 miles to lose a pound of body fat and that is undeniable.

This myth or pure propaganda helps support the idea that those people who are obese or Type 2 diabetic are gluttons and have brought these terrible diseases purely upon themselves.

That is why Coca Cola is allowed to sponsor the English Premier League and MacDonald’s sponsor the Olympics and the English football teams.

Do you think they sponsor out of the goodness of their hearts or do they do it to gain market share and get us hooked on their sugary, addictive products?!

They should not be allowed to get away with it any longer. If sugar really is the new tobacco these companies should not be allowed to sponsor sports, just as tobacco was removed from Formula 1 and cricket years ago.

Both sports, which despite the apocalyptic bleating of their fans and governing bodies, did not disappear as a result of this sponsorship being removed.

However, the great irony of course, is that Red Bull and Monster drinks still sponsor the Red Bull racing team and our own world champion Lewis Hamilton.

These drinks are like a sugar ‘poison’ and contain at least 21 teaspoons of sugar in a single can.

The recommended daily intake for an adult is only 7 teaspoons of sugar in a whole day!

Lewis Hamilton should hang his head in shame, does he really need the cash? And Red Bull should be banned from having a Formula one team just as Coke and Macdonald’s should be banned from sponsoring any sport. Gary Lineker is another who seems unable to survive on his £1.7 MILLION pounds off the BBC and is little better than a drugs pusher when he promotes crisps.

These are the organisations and the individuals who should be ‘Fat shamed’ as they are the ‘pushers’ who are really causing the obesity and Type 2 diabetes epidemic that is not only engulfing the UK but the whole globe.

But it also governments who should hang their heads in shame and be fat shamed too.

Why do they allow food manufacturers to put this excessive amount of sugar in their products?

If the Government is telling us, the individual, to cut sugar and recommends no more than 7 teaspoons a day why are Coca Cola and other sugary drinks manufacturers allowed to exceed that in a single can?

Now that we have evidence that excessive sugar is linked not only to Type 2 diabetes but cancers, heart diseases, strokes, high blood pressure and even dementia according to the Alzheimer’s society, why are these products still being manufactured?

Please don’t give me that ‘personal choice BS’ either because for many there is no choice. Sugar is an addictive substance and governments and manufacturers know it is and they want us hooked.

Some scientists even believe that sugar is as addictive as class A drugs like cocaine and even heroin.

A study, published in 2017, in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, stated, “Consuming sugar produces effects similar to that of cocaine, altering mood, possibly through its ability to induce reward and pleasure, leading to the seeking out of sugar.”

Don’t believe me? Well think again, as you head to the biscuit tin at eleven after having a breakfast based on sugary cereals and sugar laden fruit juice.

That is your blood sugar spiking and crashing and you having to feed your “habit”.

As Gary Taubes says in his brilliant book, The Case against Sugar, “Sugar does induce the same responses in the region of the brain known as the “reward centre” as do nicotine, cocaine, heroin, and alcohol addiction.”

The British nutritionist, John Yudkin warned us in the sixties that sugar was killing us and he was ridiculed and ostracized by the medical establishment. He also believed in eating a Low Carbohydrate diet and that sugar was a contributor to obesity, diabetes and heart attacks.

Sugar has no nutritional value at all but according to Gary Taubes, “We now eat in two weeks the amount of sugar our ancestors of 200 years ago ate in a whole year.”

So, when politicians and columnists talk about people needing to move more or kids need to get out more and away from their computers of Play Stations it makes me want to scream. We live in an ocean of sugar.

You think I am being over the top? Well let’s look at the facts. There are 4.5 Million Type 2 diabetics and more than 6 in 10 of us Brits are obese or overweight.

In the USA the figures are that over 120 million people are either Type 2 diabetics or pre-diabetic.

This is genocide.

Governments were too slow to act on tobacco but the sugar scandal will be even bigger because this is product directly aimed at kids.

This is why Governmental intervention is essential and why shock tactics like these posters are necessary but we also need to ‘fat shame’ manufacturers, celebrity sugar pushers and indeed Governments too.

July 9, 2019 Posted by aletho | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | UK | Leave a comment

Climate scientists’ pre-traumatic stress syndrome

By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | July 8, 2019

It’s getting worse.

About 5 years ago, I wrote two blog posts on climate scientists’ pre-traumatic stress syndrome:

Mother Jones has a new article on the same topic It’s the end of the world as they know it: The distinct burden of being a climate scientist. The following scientists were interviewed: Kim Cobb, Priya Shukla, Peter Kalmus, Sarah Myhre, Jacquelyn Gill, Katharine Wilkinson, Eric Holthaus, David Grinspoon, Ken Caldeira.

Lots of ‘trauma,’ read the article to get a flavor. This sentence pretty much sums things up:

“There’s deep grief and anxiety for what’s being lost, followed by rage at continued political inaction, and finally hope that we can indeed solve this challenge. There are definitely tears and trembling voices.”

End of civilization?

The title of the article is: “It’s the end of the world as they know it.” Some selected quotes:

“I’m tired of processing this incredible and immense decline”

” . . . knows of a looming catastrophe but must struggle to function in a world that does not comprehend what is coming and, worse, largely ignores the warnings of those who do.”

“it’s deep grief—having eyes wide open to what is playing out in our world”

“I lose sleep over climate change almost every single night”

“Climate change is its own unique trauma. It has to do with human existence.”

“I have no child and I have one dog, and thank god he’ll be dead in 10 years.”

Soooo . . . have any of these scientists read the IPCC Reports? I’m not seeing this level of ‘alarm’ anywhere in the IPCC Reports? Where the heck does this ‘end of civilization’ stuff come from?

In a tweet about the article, Lucas Bergkamp asked:

“How can these scientists produce any reliable, objective data?”

Gotta wonder. Sarah Myhre states:

“I have anxiety exacerbated by the constant background of doom and gloom of science. It’s not stopping me from doing my work, but it’s an impediment.”

Apart from ‘impediments’, what about flat-out bias in research introduced by this extreme world view?

Hardiness

Not all climate scientists are similarly ‘afflicted.’ My previous blog post included statements from Suki Manabe and Gavin Schmidt, who were not afflicted in this way. The Mother Jones article includes statements from David Grinspoon, Ken Caldeira and Michael Mann, who also do not seem to be so ‘afflicted.’

“Caldeira offers a blunt comparison: “I had a girlfriend once who was a social worker who had to deal with abused children. She had to deal with real shit every day. Climate scientists have it easy.” And Kate Marvel, a climate scientist and science writer, went even further in a tweet in January: “In a world where people have to deal with racism, inequality, and resurgent fascism, the notion that climate science is uniquely depressing is… weird.”

In my earlier blog post, i discussed the concept of psychological hardiness, excerpts provided below:

And also inform yourself about psychological hardiness (something I learned from days at U. Chicago and hanging out with grad students in Salvatore Maddi’s group). Excerpt from Wikipedia:

The coping style most commonly associated with hardiness is that of transformational coping, an optimistic style of coping that transforms stressful events into less stressful ones. At the cognitive level this involves setting the event into a broader perspective in which they do not seem so terrible after all. At the level of action, individuals high in hardiness are believed to react to stressful events by increasing their interaction with them, trying to turn them into an advantage and opportunity for growth, and in the process achieve some greater understanding.

The ‘pre-traumatic stress’ thing clicked a link in my mind to my old U. of Chicago pal Colonel Paul Bartone, a military psychologist and a member of the hardiness group. The following paper seems relevant: A Model for Soldier Psychological Adaptation in Peacekeeping Operations. I think these concepts are relevant for what is going on with Parmesan et al. Seems like skeptics are more hardy?

The psychology of all this is probably pretty interesting, and worthy of more investigation. But Jeff Kiehl is right – whining scientists aren’t going to help either the science or their ’cause.’

Mann seems peculiarly hardy in this sense: “But Mann, who has had to contend with death threats and campaigns to have him fired from Penn State, derives motivation from being in battle.”

Antidotes

This ‘affliction’ of climate scientists seems rather trendy in some sort of ‘woke’ sense. If you do not aspire to such trendiness, what might you do to overcome this affliction?

“Professionally coping with grief is part of the job training for doctors, caregivers, and those working in humanitarian or crisis situations. But for scientists?”

To figure out how these afflicted climate scientists can become more hardy, it is useful to speculate on the reasons for their ‘affliction.’

Ignorance may play an important role. Few of the scientists interviewed are experts on attribution. They seem to blame everything on manmade climate change, and are extrapolating future consequences that are much more dire and with higher confidence than than those from the IPCC. Clearly an issue for Greta, but one would hope that actual climate scientists would dig deeper and be more curious and objective.

JC antidote: Apart from blaming anything negative on manmade climate change, take a step back and assess how the planet and the human race are actually doing. Take a look at humanprogress.org, or follow them on twitter @HumanProgress. Global life expectancy is increasing, global poverty is way down, global agricultural productivity is way up, global child mortality is way down, the planet is greening, etc. Heck, even the corals are doing really well, following the 2016 El Nino.

A lot of this affliction seems to be about ‘ego’:

“I had to face the fact that there was a veritable tidal wave of people who don’t care about climate change and who put personal interest above the body of scientific information that I had contributed to.”

“his anger was driven by the fact that his expertise—his foresight—was not broadly recognized.”

JC antidote: Try reading some literature on history, philosophy and sociology of science – you will become more humble as a scientist and less likely to believe your own hype. Read Richard Feynman. Hang out at Climate Etc. Listen seriously to a serious skeptic.

Having your ego wrapped up in having your research influence policy (frustrated policy advocates), keeping ‘score’ in a personal war against skeptics, seeking fame, generating book sales and lecture fees and political influence, etc. can all come into play in influencing how a scientist reacts to the ‘threats’ of climate change. Scientists might get ‘upset’ if they don’t think they are sufficiently successful at the above. This is something else — not pre-traumatic stress syndrome.

Roger Pielke Jr tweets:

“The whole phenomena of climate scientists identifying evil enemies who have obstructed revolution, transformation, restructuring is not reality-based, but a reflection of power fantasies & a complete lack of understanding of how political and societal change actually happens.”

JC antidote: focus more on being a scientist than being a politician. You might know what you are doing as a scientist. You are very unlikely to be effective as a politician, and your political activism will contribute to the appearance of bias in your scientific research.

July 8, 2019 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Inconvenient Energy Realities

“The shale revolution collapsed the prices of natural gas & coal, the two fuels that produce 70% of U.S. electricity. But electric rates haven’t gone down, rising instead 20% since 2008. Direct and indirect subsidies for solar and wind consumed those savings.”

By Mark P. Mills | E21 | July 1, 2019

The math behind “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking”

A week doesn’t pass without a mayor, governor, policymaker or pundit joining the rush to demand, or predict, an energy future that is entirely based on wind/solar and batteries, freed from the “burden” of the hydrocarbons that have fueled societies for centuries. Regardless of one’s opinion about whether, or why, an energy “transformation” is called for, the physics and economics of energy combined with scale realities make it clear that there is no possibility of anything resembling a radically “new energy economy” in the foreseeable future. Bill Gates has said that when it comes to understanding energy realities “we need to bring math to the problem.”

He’s right. So, in my recent Manhattan Institute report, “The New Energy Economy: An Exercise in Magical Thinking,” I did just that.

Herein, then, is a summary of some of bottom-line realities from the underlying math. (See the full report for explanations, documentation and citations.)

Realities About the Scale of Energy Demand

1. Hydrocarbons supply over 80% of world energy: If all that were in the form of oil, the barrels would line up from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, and that entire line would grow by the height of the Washington Monument every week.

2. The small two percentage-point decline in the hydrocarbon share of world energy use entailed over $2 trillion in cumulative global spending on alternatives over that period; solar and wind today supply less than 2% of the global energy.

3. When the world’s four billion poor people increase energy use to just one-third of Europe’s per capita level, global demand rises by an amount equal to twice America’s total consumption.

4. A 100x growth in the number of electric vehicles to 400 million on the roads by 2040 would displace 5% of global oil demand.

5. Renewable energy would have to expand 90-fold to replace global hydrocarbons in two decades. It took a half-century for global petroleum production to expand “only” 10-fold.

6. Replacing U.S. hydrocarbon-based electric generation over the next 30 years would require a construction program building out the grid at a rate 14-fold greater than any time in history.

7. Eliminating hydrocarbons to make U.S. electricity (impossible soon, infeasible for decades) would leave untouched 70% of U.S. hydrocarbons use—America uses 16% of world energy.

8. Efficiency increases energy demand by making products & services cheaper: since 1990, global energy efficiency improved 33%, the economy grew 80% and global energy use is up 40%.

9. Efficiency increases energy demand: Since 1995, aviation fuel use/passenger-mile is down 70%, air traffic rose more than 10-fold, and global aviation fuel use rose over 50%.

10. Efficiency increases energy demand: since 1995, energy used per byte is down about 10,000-fold, but global data traffic rose about a million-fold; global electricity used for computing soared.

11. Since 1995, total world energy use rose by 50%, an amount equal to adding two entire United States’ worth of demand.

12. For security and reliability, an average of two months of national demand for hydrocarbons are in storage at any time. Today, barely two hours of national electricity demand can be stored in all utility-scale batteries plus all batteries in one million electric cars in America.

13. Batteries produced annually by the Tesla Gigafactory (world’s biggest battery factory) can store three minutes worth of annual U.S. electric demand.

14. To make enough batteries to store two-day’s worth of U.S. electricity demand would require 1,000 years of production by the Gigafactory (world’s biggest battery factory).

15. Every $1 billion in aircraft produced leads to some $5 billion in aviation fuel consumed over two decades to operate them. Global spending on new jets is more than $50 billion a year—and rising.

16. Every $1 billion spent on datacenters leads to $7 billion in electricity consumed over two decades. Global spending on datatcenters is more than $100 billion a year—and rising.

Realities About Energy Economics

17. Over a 30-year period, $1 million worth of utility-scale solar or wind produces 40 million and 55 million kWh respectively: $1 million worth of shale well produces enough natural gas to generate 300 million kWh over 30 years.

18. It costs about the same to build one shale well or two wind turbines: the latter, combined, produces 0.7 barrels of oil (equivalent energy) per hour, the shale rig averages 10 barrels of oil per hour.

19. It costs less than $0.50 to store a barrel of oil, or its equivalent in natural gas, but it costs $200 to store the equivalent energy of a barrel of oil in batteries.

20. Cost models for wind and solar assume, respectively, 41% and 29% capacity factors (i.e., how often they produce electricity). Real-world data reveal as much as 10 percentage points less for both. That translates into $3 million less energy produced than assumed over a 20-year life of a 2-MW $3 million wind turbine.

21. In order to compensate for episodic wind/solar output, U.S. utilities are using oil- and gas-burning reciprocating engines (big cruise-ship-like diesels); three times as many have been added to the grid since 2000 as in the 50 years prior to that.

22. Wind-farm capacity factors have been improving at about 0.7% per year; this small gain comes mainly from reducing the number of turbines per acre leading to 50% increase in average land used to produce a wind-kilowatt-hour.

23. Over 90% of America’s electricity, and 99% of the power used in transportation, comes from sources that can easily supply energy to the economy any time the market demands it.

24. Wind and solar machines produce energy an average of 25%–30% of the time, and only when nature permits. Conventional power plants can operate nearly continuously and are available when needed.

25. The shale revolution collapsed the prices of natural gas & coal, the two fuels that produce 70% of U.S. electricity. But electric rates haven’t gone down, rising instead 20% since 2008. Direct and indirect subsidies for solar and wind consumed those savings.

Energy Physics… Inconvenient Realities

26. Politicians and pundits like to invoke “moonshot” language. But transforming the energy economy is not like putting a few people on the moon a few times. It is like putting all of humanity on the moon—permanently.

27. The common cliché: an energy tech disruption will echo the digital tech disruption. But information-producing machines and energy-producing machines involve profoundly different physics; the cliché is sillier than comparing apples to bowling balls.

28. If solar power scaled like computer-tech, a single postage-stamp-size solar array would power the Empire State Building. That only happens in comic books.

29. If batteries scaled like digital tech, a battery the size of a book, costing three cents, could power a jetliner to Asia. That only happens in comic books.

30. If combustion engines scaled like computers, a car engine would shrink to the size of an ant and produce a thousand-fold more horsepower; actual ant-sized engines produce 100,000 times less power.

31. No digital-like 10x gains exist for solar tech. Physics limit for solar cells (the Shockley-Queisser limit) is a max conversion of about 33% of photons into electrons; commercial cells today are at 26%.

32. No digital-like 10x gains exist for wind tech. Physics limit for wind turbines (the Betz limit) is a max capture of 60% of energy in moving air; commercial turbines achieve 45%.

33. No digital-like 10x gains exist for batteries: maximum theoretical energy in a pound of oil is 1,500% greater than max theoretical energy in the best pound of battery chemicals.

34. About 60 pounds of batteries are needed to store the energy equivalent of one pound of hydrocarbons.

35. At least 100 pounds of materials are mined, moved and processed for every pound of battery fabricated.

36. Storing the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil, which weighs 300 pounds, requires 20,000 pounds of Tesla batteries ($200,000 worth).

37. Carrying the energy equivalent of the aviation fuel used by an aircraft flying to Asia would require $60 million worth of Tesla-type batteries weighing five times more than that aircraft.

38. It takes the energy-equivalent of 100 barrels of oil to fabricate a quantity of batteries that can store the energy equivalent of a single barrel of oil.

39. A battery-centric grid and car world means mining gigatons more of the earth to access lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, rare earths, cobalt, etc.—and using millions of tons of oil and coal both in mining and to fabricate metals and concrete.

40. China dominates global battery production with its grid 70% coal-fueled: EVs using Chinese batteries will create more carbon-dioxide than saved by replacing oil-burning engines.

41. One would no more use helicopters for regular trans-Atlantic travel—doable with elaborately expensive logistics—than employ a nuclear reactor to power a train or photovoltaic systems to power a nation.

Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a McCormick School of Engineering Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University, and author of Work in the Age of Robots, published by Encounter Books.

July 8, 2019 Posted by aletho | Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Hack, Now Ex-Bellingcat, Gets Climategate Timezones Backwards

By Stephen McIntyre | Climate Audit | Jul 4, 2019

~~Bellingcat’s~~ Iggy Ostanin, [update: who Eliot Higgins says is now ex-Bellingcat ] recently claimed to have discovered that the nomenclature of Climategate-1 emails was based on Unix timestamps and that the nomenclature proved that Russians hacked CRU from timezone +05:00. Amidst much uninformed hyperventilating. Ostanin’s assertions were swiftly retweeted by Andy Revkin, Roger Harrabin, Ken Rice and many others. However, his claims are backwards – or perhaps, in true Mannian style, upside down.

The connection of CG email nomenclature to Unix timestamps was observed as early as Dec 7, 2009 (see WUWT commenter crosspatch here)m who similarly noticed discrepancies between nomenclature and email times, but concluded that they showed that hacker used a computer set to Eastern North American time (-05:00 Standard).

I pointed the error out on Twitter with technical analysis. I also linked Ostanin to the original WUWT comment making similar point.

Ostanin responded by claiming that my (correct) replication of CG1 nomenclature was “needlessly complicated” and doubled down with his incorrect assertion that “time seen in hacked email headers is 5 hours behind – to the second – of the time in the decoded email file names”:

Ostanin challenged everyone “to try to see for themselves” – pointing to a internet utility:

After I re-iterated my technical criticism, Iggy stated that he wasn’t “sure if either of [me or Charles Wood] ever came across a Kremlin narrative they didn’t endorse”. Then, in true Mannian (and Eliot Higgins) style, Ostanin blocked me on Twitter.

While it’s a bit absurd to waste time on this trivia, Iggy’s falsehoods remain in circulation. He hasn’t conceded anything. Nor have Revkin, Harrabin, Rice or other re-tweeters conceded that Iggy’s analysis was nonsensical.

In my tweets, I observed that Iggy’s analysis was based on an email sent from GMT timezone and that the 5-hour difference between nomenclature and email time only held for emails from that time zone. What any competent analyst (and we may safely exclude Iggy from that category) would have done is to compare email timestamp to nomenclature across multiple timezones and Daylight/Standard times. I’ve done so in the table below.

Nomenclature for GMT timezone emails in winter are 5 hours ahead, but only 4 hours ahead in summer. This should have caused Iggy to pause. Nomenclature for emails sent from Eastern timezone exactly matched the email time – both in Standard (winter) and Daylight (summer) time. Nomenclature for emails sent from Mountain time (two hours behind Eastern) were – 2 hours in both winter and summer.

Ironically, the very first email in the Climategate dossier was sent from Iggy’s Ekaterinaburg (+05:00). But instead of the nomenclature exactly matching the email time, the nomenclature was 10 hours ahead.

In other words, Ostanin got everything pretty much backwards and upside down. It’s about as bad a bit of analysis as it is possible to imagine. And, instead of simply conceding that he’d made a mistake (which is easy enough to do), Ostanin got belligerent and shut his ears. Unfortunately, Ostanin’s falsehoods are now in circulation and, like Mann’s, will probably fester forever.

July 8, 2019 Posted by aletho | Deception, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Cuomo Announces Sweeping Series of Economic Development Partnerships Between New York and Israel

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Press Release, July 1, 2019

As a Result of Solidarity Trip Last Week,

Partnerships to Focus on UAV/Drones, Transportation, Energy, Cybersecurity, Financial Technology and Health Care Technology and Research

17 Israeli Entities Will Work with Six New York State Agencies and Other Partners to Bolster Innovation and Economic Ties Between the Two States

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a wide ranging series of economic development partnerships between New York State and Israel that are the result of the Governor’s recent trip to Israel. The administration and several major New York health care institutions have signed a series of agreements with Israeli entities in the UAV/drones, transportation, energy, cybersecurity, financial technology and health care industries.

“Our economy is stronger than it’s ever been and our message during this trip was simple: New York is open for business,” Governor Cuomo said. “On our solidarity trip, we focused on key areas that present real opportunities for collaboration with Israeli companies because when Israeli startups choose New York, there is tremendous potential for growth for both economies. I am confident the initiatives announced today will build on the current partnerships that exist between businesses in New York and Israel, and bring our people even closer together.”

“We have worked to ensure New York maintains a strong relationship with Israel, and these latest initiatives will further our shared economic progress,” said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. “The collaboration between our agencies will foster innovative ideas to grow key segments of our economy, ensuring an even brighter future for the people of New York and Israel.”

These announcements build on the agreement signed last week between Empire State Development and the Israel Innovation Authority for a $2 million partnership that will further strengthen economic development ties between New York and Israel. The agreement includes cooperation on the co-development and commercialization of innovative solutions in the fields of cybersecurity, supply chain, smart cities, energy, unmanned aerial vehicles, life sciences and other areas. As part of the agreement, New York and Israel will establish a Smart Cities Innovation Partnership, a new initiative that will share innovative technologies, research, talent and business resources between cities in New York and Israel. The Governor also announced that New York’s Hot Spot and Incubator programs will now implement a new focus on Israeli companies who want to invest in the Empire State.

Among the many strides and agreements made during this week’s trip, the Governor is announcing several collaborations for economic development in the following sectors:

Three Israeli Companies Locating at Unmanned Aircraft Center of Excellence in the Mohawk Valley

New York-Israel Partnership to create UAS Center of Excellence: Empire State Development will provide a $250,000 planning grant to establish a new Unmanned Aerial Systems Research and Testing Center of Excellence in New York State. It will be led by the NUAIR Alliance, an organizational partner of CenterState CEO. The organizations are strategically aligned in their efforts to build public and private partnerships to advance leading edge UAS and UAS traffic management technologies, and create a hub for the industry that will attract investments and business development. New York and Israeli companies will use the new Center of Excellence to focus on advancing technologies, which will bring Israeli technology and R&D to the New York drone market and open Israeli’s markets to New York State UAS companies. Three Israeli tenant companies – Vorpal, Flytrex and CivDrone – have already committed to working with NUAIR and utilizing this new Center of Excellence. This week, the parachute system equipped on Flytrex’s package delivery drones was validated as compliant with industry standards for parachutes, after testing completed by NUAIR at the New York UAS Test Site at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, New York.

UAS Company Civdrone to Host Demonstration Day as Part of Further New York State Expansion: Civdrone’s success in the GENIUS NY program has stimulated investment interest that will allow the company to expand even further in New York State than previously planned. Civdrone CEO Tom Yeshurun will tour the state to select an appropriate construction site to stage a demonstration day for contractors and civil engineering firms, as one of the most important applications envisioned for the Civdrone UAS product is to assist in coordinating physical construction with its blueprint design. The Demonstration Day will take place in mid-August. Civdrone develops fast, reliable and autonomous marking solutions on enterprise drones for the construction industry. Digitalizing and automating land surveying services increases productivity and shortens construction time while lowering costs.

Cornell Tech to Lead Effort to Modernize MTA Technology

Future of Mobility Conference with Cornell Tech and the MTA: Cornell Tech, a joint academic venture between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the MTA will bring national and international thought leaders from academia, business, government and technology to explore solutions to the most vexing challenges facing transportation in New York City. By advancing the spirit of collegiality and cooperation generated over just a few hours in Israel to two full days of discussion about new technologies and methods for modernizing the MTA’s century-old infrastructure, the conference will move the transit innovation discussion to the next level. Globalizing the conversation on topics both cutting edge and conventional will allow the MTA to expand its network of partnerships and deliver a better service to New Yorkers.

Five Israeli Energy Companies Entering New York State

The new relationships outlined below support New York’s state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the most aggressive climate program in the nation, which is driving the state to a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.

New York-Israel $2.5 Million Energy Innovation Challenge: The New York Power Authority is partnering with the Israel Smart Energy Association to launch a $2.5 million competition among innovative Israeli firms with expertise in energy efficiency and clean energy generation to support next-generation electric vehicle technologies, electric grid reliability, energy storage and demand flexibility technologies. The challenge will allow NYPA and ISEA to identify several innovative companies and give winners the opportunity to work with large utilities to help create significant advances in grid reliability, storage, sustainability and affordability, all of which benefit ratepayers, utilities and the environment.

Israel-Based Zero Energy Solutions, a Clean Energy Company, Will Open an Office in New York State: Israeli clean energy company Zero Energy Solutions will open an office in New York State with the support of a $400,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Last year, NYSERDA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Israel Innovation Authority to help identify Israeli energy companies that could help New York meet its energy and climate goals. Zero Energy Solutions creates automation technologies that enable commercial buildings to reduce energy use by an estimated minimum of 25 percent, thereby reducing energy costs.

NYPA Partners with Israeli Cyber Security and Grid Management Companies to Test and Demonstrate their Innovative Solutions in New York: NYPA will partner with Israeli firms CY-OT and SIGASEC Ltd as cybersecurity is a major issue for utilities throughout the world. Agreements in this area help position New York as a leader in this critical area. NYPA also will partner with Israeli grid sensor firms EGM and Vocal Zoom. Grid sensors systems enable utilities such as NYPA to take full advantage of emerging digital technologies.

NYPA Partners with the Israeli Electric Corporation: Mostly state owned, and the largest supplier of electricity in Israel, the Israel Electric Corporation will partner with NYPA, the largest state-owned public utility in the U.S., to conduct joint research in the areas of physical and cyber security, as well as in other areas of common interest, such as grid modernization, energy storage and electric vehicles. This joint research effort positions New York State as a leader in the essential areas cutting-edge energy innovation and cybersecurity.

Partnerships with Leading Israeli Life Sciences Innovators

New York Genome Center Partnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to fight ALS: The New York Genome Center and Technion will collaborate to complete the genetic mapping of all 600 ALS patients in Israel, including both Arabs and Jews, the first time such multi-ethnic mapping of Israeli ALS patients will occur. The resulting data will be compared to over 3,000 ALS genome sequences in the NYGC’s global ALS Consortium. Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, Nobel Laureate 2004, advisors to the Israel ALS Association, have worked with Dr. Hemali Phatnani, Director of the NYGC Center for Genomics of Neurodegenerative Disease and Dr. Tom Maniatis, NYGC’s Scientific Director and CEO, to establish this new research collaboration. This collaboration joins an Israel-wide program of IsrALS aimed at enrolling all of Israel’s ALS patients in the NYGC’s ALS Consortium.

Roswell Park Partnership with Maccabi Healthcare and the University of Haifa: Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center will be entering into two MOUs: one partnering with Maccabi Healthcare Services and the other with University of Haifa. Both MOUs will center around developing new approaches to better treat, detect and prevent cancer.

Northwell Health Hosting Israeli Health Companies: One of New York’s largest private employers and largest health systems, Northwell Health is renewing its MOU with the Israel Innovation Authority and will be hosting Israeli digital health companies in New York in September. The companies will work with Northwell on a series of innovations, including wearable sensors and other health assessment and tracking devices, as well as pharmaceutical therapeutics and clinical trials.

Partnership with Ben-Gurion University in Israel to Promote Growth in Cyber Security Industry

SUNY Expands New York-Israeli Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Partnership: The of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at SUNY Albany is the first standalone college dedicated to the topics of emergency preparedness, homeland security and cybersecurity. The college will be partnering with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel to promote international dialogue and growth in cyber security research, education and industry. The institutions will join together for a two-week exchange summit on cyber security, research and industry, as well as explore a dual degree program.

Israeli Securities Agree to Collaborate on Financial Innovating

Agreement between New York and Israeli on Financial Technology (FinTech) Cooperation: The New York State Department of Financial Services and Israel’s financial regulators, the Capital Markets Insurance and Savings Authority, the Israel Securities Authority, and the Bank of Israel, have signed an MOU to make it easier for FinTech innovators from each market to enter the other, promoting New York and Israel as innovation hubs for financial services technology. Israel has over 750 FinTech companies fueled in part by a deep talent pool of cyber experts produced through military training. Through this MOU New York and Israel will: refer FinTech innovators to each other, which can improve speed to market; exchange information about regulatory and policy issues; ensure that innovators in each other’s jurisdiction receive equivalent levels of support; share expertise, and coordinate training sessions.

Empire State Development President, CEO and Commissioner Howard Zemsky said, “New York’s robust economic development partnerships with Israel will be further strengthened today through initiatives as diverse as drone technology and cancer treatment, and build on our mutual strengths to advance the state’s innovation economy.”

DFS Superintendent Linda A. Lacewell said, “The New York State Department of Financial Services is pleased to partner with our Israeli friends and regulatory counterparts through this agreement and to work together to ensure that unnecessary barriers to FinTech development are removed and necessary consumer protections are in place to support current and future innovation. The well-established relationship between New York and Israel will be amplified and expanded through this agreement, which will ease the ability of entrepreneurs and innovators to work in both countries.”

Alicia Barton, President and CEO, NYSERDA, said, “Governor Cuomo’s nation-leading investments in emerging clean technologies is enabling innovative, forward-thinking companies such as Zero Energy Solutions to expand their operations and bring their products into the New York marketplace. Helping clean energy companies scale-up is vital to growing our green economy and combatting climate change, which is not only a New York priority, but a global issue, and we are proud to partner with Israel on this effort.”

Gil C. Quinones, NYPA president and CEO said, “Under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, the Power Authority’s partnerships with Israeli firms in the energy industry have been invaluable during NYPA’s digital transformation and we expect that these new agreements will yield far-reaching benefits as well. These new New York-Israel partnerships are a natural extension of our previous collaborations and will allow New York and Israel—two of the world’s leading technology hubs—to generate greater innovation and yield considerable lasting benefits for both parties and for utilities around the world. These innovations will help us both deliver against our bold goals for a resilient, safe, renewable and affordable energy system that enables us to address the challenges of climate change today.”

Ron Brachman, Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, said, “We are very excited to take part in this initiative to explore new ways to harness emerging technology to tackle the biggest challenges facing New York State, the State of Israel, and the world today. Thanks to the leadership and vision of Governor Cuomo, this innovative collaboration builds on the terrific partnership between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.”

Dr. Tom Maniatis, NYGC’s Scientific Director and CEO said, “This collaboration aims to advance the understanding of the genetic basis of ALS, and ultimately to lead to the development of new treatments. As we move forward, we hope to raise awareness of ALS and attract additional philanthropic resources to fund this important research.”

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said, “This is a unique project. Mapping every ALS patient in Israel will provide invaluable data to better understand the causes of this devastating disease. Israel will be the only country in the world where every single ALS patient will be studied. So far 81 patients were mapped and we do hope to attract additional philanthropic resources to complete this ambitious project. We are grateful to Governor Cuomo who initiated the Technion-NYGC collaboration that has led to this important project.”

Iftach Cohen, CEO, Zero Energy Solutions said, “We are very excited that the NYSERDA award is enabling us to open our North American office in New York City. We look forwarding to introducing our first learning Climate Intelligence platform, a smart plug and play energy optimization solution for commercial real estate properties, to the U.S. market. Our innovative technology will support New York State’s recently passed landmark climate legislation and help the state achieve it energy goals.”

Supervisor of Banks, Hedva Ber, said, “Promoting technological advancement and innovation in our banking system is one of the strategic goals of the Bank of Israel. I thank my colleagues and the partners from New York for this cooperation, which will support our ability to be in the frontier of technology while making sure risks of all types are managed according to best international practices.”

Head of Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Authority, Moshe Bareket, said, “As in-charge regulator of non-bank FinTech operations in Israel, the Capital Market Insurance and Savings Authority is welcoming cooperation and joint work with other global and local regulators. I am sure that we will have fruitful and constructive exchanges on FinTech with our New York colleagues which will be mutually beneficial.”

Chairwoman of Israel Security Authority, Anat Guetta, said, “We understand that FinTech technologies can promote investor welfare, and to do so we need to identify and analyze what would be the potential value for the investors. The financial and the technological worlds operate almost without borders. Global integration is an important element of supervision and this agreement, together with other global activities of the ISA, is an important part of this integration.”

Major General (Res.) Yiftach Ron-Tal, Israeli Electric Corporation Chairman of the Board of Directors said, “I am extremely honored and proud to execute this MOU between IEC and NYPA. IEC, Israel’s largest critical infrastructure corporation, has developed top notch knowhow and processes as well as vast physical and cyber security experience, due to exposure to vast number of attacks from all over the world. I am sure this MOU will significantly contribute to the cooperation and partnership between IEC and NYPA, will improve our defense capabilities and will provide the basis to achieve progress in areas that are of vital interest to the two companies, and to the state of Israel and the United States.”

Elad Shaviv, CEO of the Israeli Smart Energy Association said, “We are excited to cooperate with NYPA to support the transformation of the energy sector. The New York-Israel Innovation Challenge, brings enormous benefit in bridging the challenging gap between innovative solutions and commercial usage, and will benefit both New York and Israel in building a healthier and safer environment while creating jobs and sector leadership.”

Amir Cohen, CEO of EGM said, “NYPA and EGM are collaborating on a demonstration project to smartly and efficiently monitor NYPA overhead transmission line systems based on smart sensors, optimized big data based forecasting and analytics technology developed by EGM. EGM’s analytics system processes the collected big-data and delivers real-time, meaningful useful information to inform the grid’s operation, maintenance and management. The NYPA-EGM project aims to modernize the grid by increasing grid resiliency capabilities, maximizing asset utilization, and improving security systems both for the grid and customers.”

Tal Bakish, CEO of VocalZoom said, “The Industrial IoT is only as good as the sensors that monitor machines. Unfortunately, most IIoT sensors are built on technology that makes predictive maintenance solutions expensive and unreliable for a number of important use cases. This project will field test new VocalZoom sensors with the goal of making power transformer monitoring more accurate and efficient. By improving NYPA’s monitoring capabilities, the project supports Governor Cuomo’s strategy to build a more resilient energy system.”

CEO and founder of Cybergym is Ofir Hason said, “CyberGym is honored to partner with NYPA, a key player in NY energy market. The mutual cooperation will assist CyberGym in expanding its foothold in NY, while significantly improving the cyber security level of the local power companies. We believe that the recently signed MoU will result a long term work plan and a more secured life, without investing in additional security products.”

Candace S. Johnson, PhD, President and CEO, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, said, “I’d like to thank Governor Cuomo for inviting Roswell Park to participate in trips like this. Each time we’ve walked away with relationships and partnerships patients across the world benefit from. In Maccabi Healthcare Services and Haifa University’s Tauber Center, we found teams that are just as passionate as we are about strategically applying our expertise and resources to make a difference for cancer patients and drive the science that will help us to not only control but prevent cancer.”

Michael Dowling, President and CEO of Northwell Health said, “For the past two years, Northwell Health has been collaborating with the Israel Innovation Authority on the development, validation and implementation of medical innovations that advance patient care. We look forward to furthering our collaboration with numerous Israeli start-up companies that are pursuing unique digital health solutions that promise to improve quality and better serve our patients. We thank the Governor for recognizing the possibilities that exist in health care and numerous other industries with these innovative Israeli companies.”

Ben Gurion University’s VP for Global Engagement Prof. Limor Aharonson-Daniel said, “We look forward to the expansion of the Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Partnership with SUNY Albany. BGU greatly appreciates and values the support of Governor Cuomo who conceived the CEHC in Albany in 2015, approved the connection with the BGU PREPARED Center for Emergency Response Research in 2017, and is now seeking to further expand the partnership.”

Robert P. Griffin, Founding Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at UAlbany, said, “The Governor’s vision of a SUNY college dedicated to training those who will keep our families and communities safe knows no boundaries. The opportunity to share, work and learn with our friends and colleagues in Israel and at Ben Gurion University reflects UAlbany’s values and strategic mission in New York and around the world. I remain honored to be part of this vision, mission, and partnership.”

July 2, 2019 Posted by aletho | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | Israel, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Himalayan Glaciers–The Story The BBC Refuse To Tell You

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | June 30, 2019

Images from Cold War spy satellites have revealed the dramatic extent of ice loss in the Himalayan glaciers.

Scientists compared photographs taken by a US reconnaissance programme with recent spacecraft observations and found that melting in the region has doubled over the last 40 years.

The study shows that since 2000, glaciers heights have been shrinking by an average of 0.5m per year.

The researchers say that climate change is the main cause.

“From this study, we really see the clearest picture yet of how Himalayan glaciers have changed,” Joshua Maurer, from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, told BBC News.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48696023

As usual the BBC fail to explain the wider picture.

Glaciers worldwide have been retreating since the mid 19thC, which marked the ending of the Little Ice Age. The Himalayas are no exception.

This is what the first IPCC Report had to say in 1990:

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar1/wg1/

Note the comment about the period 1920 to 1960.

They add this chart:

And comment:

And:

In other words, glacier melt may in large part be due to natural phenomenon, rather than man-made.

The rate of recession since the 19thC has not always been constant, as the IPCC noted:

Wood (1988) found that from 1960 to 1980 the number of retreating glaciers decreased. This may be related to the relatively cool period in the Northern Hemisphere over much of this time (Figure 7 10)

In other words, the fact that the rate of retreat seems to have speeded up in the Himalayas in recent years is of little significance, at least for such a short period of time.

Moreover recent studies have found that many glaciers in the Himalayas have actually started growing again in recent years:

Contrary to the UN’s report that the Himalayan glaciers would melt within a quarter of a century, a new study by researchers at the Universities of California and Potsdam has found out that the Himalayan glaciers are advancing rather than retreating.

Researchers studied 286 glaciers in six areas between the Hindu Kush on the Afghan-Pakistan border till Bhutan.

The report published in the journal Nature Geoscience found that the key factor affecting the advance or retreat of the Himalayan glaciers is the amount of debris— rocks and mud— strewn on their surface and not the general nature of climate change.

The report states that glaciers surrounded by high mountains and covered with more than two centimetres of debris are protected from melting.

Debris-covered glaciers are common in the rugged central Himalayas, but they are almost absent in subdued landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau, where retreat rates are higher.

In contrast, more than 50 percent of observed glaciers in the Karakoram range spanning the borders between Pakistan, India and China region in the north-western Himalayas are advancing or stable, states the report.

“Our study shows that there is no uniform response of Himalayan glaciers to climate change and highlights the importance of debris cover for understanding glacier retreat, an effect that has so far been neglected in predictions of future water availability or global sea level,” the authors wrote in the journal.

Contrary to popular belief, researchers have also discovered that half of the ice flows in the Himalayas are actually growing rather than shrinking.

The discovery adds a new twist to the row over whether global warming is causing the world’s highest mountain range to lose its ice cover.

The new study has found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range in the north-western Himalayas are in fact advancing and that global warming is not the deciding factor in whether a glacier survives or melts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110207213137/http://www.bhutanobserver.bt/himalayan-glaciers-not-retreating-says-new-report/

The real picture is much more complex than the BBC misleadingly portray.

June 30, 2019 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | UK | Leave a comment

Contrary to Global Warming Predictions, Great Lakes Water Levels Now at Record Highs

By Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. | June 27, 2019

It is a truism that any observed change in nature will be blamed by some experts on global warming (aka “climate change”, “climate crisis”, “climate emergency”).

When the Great Lakes water levels were unusually low from approximately 2000 through 2012 or so, this was pointed to as evidence that global warming was causing the Great Lakes to dry up.

Take for example this 2012 article from National Geographic, which was accompanied by this startling photo:

The accompanying text called this the “lake bottom”, as if Lake Michigan (which averages 279 feet deep) had somehow dried up.

Then in a matter of two years, low lake levels were replaced with high lake levels. The cause (analysis here) was a combination of unusually high precipitation (contrary to global warming theory) and an unusually cold winter that caused the lakes to mostly freeze over, reducing evaporation.

Now, as of this month (June, 2019), ALL of the Great Lakes have reached record high levels.

Time To Change The Story

So, how shall global warming alarmists explain this observational defiance of their predictions?

Simple! They just invoke “climate weirding”, and claim that the climate emergency has caused water levels to become more erratic, to see-saw, to become more variable!

The trouble is that there is that there is no good evidence in the last 100 years that this is happening. This plot of the four major lake systems (Huron and Michigan are at the same level, connected at the Straits of Mackinac) shows no increased variability since levels have been accurately monitored (data from NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory):

This is just one more example of how unscientific many global warming claims have become. Both weather and climate are nonlinear dynamical systems, capable of producing changes without any ‘forcing’ from increasing CO2 or the Sun. Change is normal.

What is abnormal is blaming every change in nature we don’t like on human activities. That’s what happened in medieval times, when witches were blamed for storms, droughts, etc.

One would hope we progressed beyond that mentality.

June 28, 2019 Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science | National Geographic | Leave a comment

Scientists map huge undersea fresh-water aquifer off US Northeast

Scientists have mapped a huge aquifer off the US Northeast (hatched area). Solid yellow or white lines with triangles show ship tracks. Dotted white line near shore shows edge of the glacial ice sheet that melted about 15,000 years ago. Further out, dark blue, the continental shelf drops off into the Atlantic abyss. Credit: Gustafson et al., Scientific Reports, 2019

Columbia University | Phys.org | June 21, 2019

In a new survey of the sub-seafloor off the U.S. Northeast coast, scientists have made a surprising discovery: a gigantic aquifer of relatively fresh water trapped in porous sediments lying below the salty ocean. It appears to be the largest such formation yet found in the world. The aquifer stretches from the shore at least from Massachusetts to New Jersey, extending more or less continuously out about 50 miles to the edge of the continental shelf. If found on the surface, it would create a lake covering some 15,000 square miles. The study suggests that such aquifers probably lie off many other coasts worldwide, and could provide desperately needed water for arid areas that are now in danger of running out.

The researchers employed innovative measurements of electromagnetic waves to map the water, which remained invisible to other technologies. “We knew there was fresh water down there in isolated places, but we did not know the extent or geometry,” said lead author Chloe Gustafson, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “It could turn out to be an important resource in other parts of the world.” The study appears this week in the journal Scientific Reports.

The first hints of the aquifer came in the 1970s, when companies drilled off the coastline for oil, but sometimes instead hit fresh water. Drill holes are just pinpricks in the seafloor, and scientists debated whether the water deposits were just isolated pockets or something bigger. Starting about 20 years ago, study coauthor Kerry Key, now a Lamont-Doherty geophysicist, helped oil companies develop techniques to use electromagnetic imaging of the sub-seafloor to look for oil. More recently, Key decided to see if some form of the technology could also be used also to find fresh-water deposits. In 2015, he and Rob L. Evans of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spent 10 days on the Lamont-Doherty research vessel Marcus G. Langseth making measurements off southern New Jersey and the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, where scattered drill holes had hit fresh-water-rich sediments.

They dropped receivers to the seafloor to measure electromagnetic fields below, and the degree to which natural disruptions such as solar winds and lightning strikes resonated through them. An apparatus towed behind the ship also emitted artificial electromagnetic pulses and recorded the same type of reactions from the subseafloor. Both methods work in a simple way: salt water is a better conductor of electromagnetic waves than fresh water, so the freshwater stood out as a band of low conductance. Analyses indicated that the deposits are not scattered; they are more or less continuous, starting at the shoreline and extending far out within the shallow continental shelf—in some cases, as far as 75 miles. For the most part, they begin at around 600 feet below the ocean floor, and bottom out at about 1,200 feet.

An electromagnetic receiver used in the study being deployed off the research vessel Marcus Langseth. Credit: Kerry Key

The consistency of the data from both study areas allowed to the researchers to infer with a high degree of confidence that fresh water sediments continuously span not just New Jersey and much of Massachusetts, but the intervening coasts of Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York. They estimate that the region holds at least 670 cubic miles of fresh water. If future research shows the aquifer extends further north and south, it would rival the great Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies vital groundwater to eight Great Plains states, from South Dakota to Texas.

The water probably got under the seabed in one of two different ways, say the researchers. Some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, toward the end of the last glacial age, much of the world’s water was locked up in mile-deep ice; in North America, it extended through what is now northern New Jersey, Long Island and the New England coast. Sea levels were much lower, exposing much of what is now the underwater U.S. continental shelf. When the ice melted, sediments formed huge river deltas on top of the shelf, and fresh water got trapped there in scattered pockets. Later, sea levels rose. Up to now, the trapping of such “fossil” water has been the common explanation for any fresh water found under the ocean.

But the researchers say the new findings indicate that the aquifer is also being fed by modern subterranean runoff from the land. As water from rainfall and water bodies percolates through onshore sediments, it is likely pumped seaward by the rising and falling pressure of tides, said Key. He likened this to a person pressing up and down on a sponge to suck in water from the sponge’s sides. Also, the aquifer is generally freshest near the shore, and saltier the farther out you go, suggesting that it mixes gradually with ocean water over time. Terrestrial fresh water usually contains less than 1 part per thousand salt, and this is about the value found undersea near land. By the time the aquifer reaches its outer edges, it rises to 15 parts per thousand. (Typical seawater is 35 parts per thousand.)

If water from the outer parts of the aquifer were to be withdrawn, it would have to be desalinated for most uses, but the cost would be much less than processing seawater, said Key. “We probably don’t need to do that in this region, but if we can show there are large aquifers in other regions, that might potentially represent a resource” in places like southern California, Australia, the Mideast or Saharan Africa, he said. His group hopes to expand its surveys.

June 23, 2019 Posted by aletho | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

A National Narrative for Media on Climate Change

By Kip Hansen | Watts Up With That? | June 22, 2019

Those of you who closely watch the media — newspapers, broadcast & streaming news, national magazines, national public radio — may have noticed that all the news about climate change is beginning to sound the same — regardless of outlet (there are a few sensible exceptions). This is no accident. In fact, it is an organized movement among American journalists.

I have written here before about the Editorial Narratives at the New York Times. Here’s the working definition I proposed for Editorial Narrative:

“Editorial Narrative: A mandated set of guidelines for the overriding storyline for any news item concerning a specified topic, including required statements, conclusions and intentional slanting towards a particular preferred viewpoint. A statement from the Editors of “How this topic is to be presented.”

In that essay, I quoted Michael Cieply when, in November 2016, he told the world about the NY Times’ Editorial Narratives:

“It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper’s movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse [of that at the LA Times]. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called “the narrative.” We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line.

Reality usually had a way of intervening. But I knew one senior reporter who would play solitaire on his computer in the mornings, waiting for his editors to come through with marching orders. Once, in the Los Angeles bureau, I listened to a visiting National staff reporter tell a contact, more or less: “My editor needs someone to say such-and-such, could you say that?”

The bigger shock came on being told, at least twice, by Times editors who were describing the paper’s daily Page One meeting: “We set the agenda for the country in that room.”

I don’t know how many readers took this bit of news seriously or how many readers realized the implications of the exposé. Personally, I was not surprised, as I had long suspected it. But the implications of this are quite disturbing. It means, in layman’s terms, that the news that you read has been pre-determined by the Editors and has little to do with actual events (real news) that happen in the real world. Those of you who have recently read Orwell’s 1984 will recognize some of the features of the Ministry of Truth (writ small at the NY Times’ “Page One meeting”). At the NY Times, the profession of journalism has been turned to the task of pushing the narratives of editors down the throats of the people. Newspeak is rampant.

While I found Cieply’s revelations unsettling, I find the following story truly frightening in its ability to threaten the very underpinnings of democracy.

The story starts earlier in the year with a conference planned and held at the behest of Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation (“along with partners such as The Guardian”). You can watch the conference online (YouTube). The outcome of that conference is a growing cabal of journalists and their editors: (in their own words):

“How does the media cover—or not cover—the biggest story of our time? Last fall, UN climate scientists announced that the world has 12 years to transform energy, agriculture, and other key industries if civilization is to avoid a catastrophe. We believe the news business must also transform.”

“The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation assembled some of the world’s top journalists, scientists, and climate experts to devise a new playbook for journalism that’s compatible with the 1.5-degree future that scientists say must be achieved. We also held a town hall meeting on the coverage of climate change and the launch of an unprecedented, coordinated effort to change the media conversation.”

source: https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/climate-crisis-media.php/

Journalists around the world are being contacted by email by CJR with a message that includes this appeal:

“Our ask of you is simple: commit to a week of focused climate coverage this September. We are organizing news outlets across the US and abroad—online and print, TV and audio, large and small—to run seven days of climate stories from September 16 through the climate summit UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hosts in New York September 23. The stories you run are up to you, though we can offer ideas and background information and connect outlets looking for content with content providers looking for outlets.

We’d be happy to schedule a phone call to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope

What is their playbook? What’s the narrative they expect journalists to stick to?

It starts with this: “Transforming the media’s coverage of the climate crisis” and morphs into a “FAQ” titled “The media are complacent while the world burns” with these ideas and suggestions like these:

1. Climate is a crisis.

2. The Green New Deal is “a plan to mobilize the United States to stave off climate disaster and, in the process, create millions of green jobs.” and the GND has massive public support. [ NB: see Postscript at the end of this column. ]

3. Climate is the “biggest story of our time”.

4. Journalists should push the “… warning that humanity has a mere 12 years to radically slash greenhouse-gas emissions or face a calamitous future in which hundreds of millions of people worldwide would go hungry or homeless or worse.” and that “our civilization today faces the prospect of extinction”.

If this all sounds like a Climate Pragmatists Worst Nightmare, then you are starting to understand correctly. The CJR/Nation/Guardian cabal is working on a “handbook” to help news organizations “get the story right”. In other words, they are writing the Climate Journalism Narrative – a point for point list of what every climate story should say and how it should say it (and, remember folks, ”every story is a climate story”). They call on journalists to “Learn the science” suggesting that instead of actually reading anything containing the science of the climate, such as the real science sections of the IPCC AR5 report, they recommend that journalists read “Four recent books—McKibben’s Falter, Naomi Klein’s On Fire, David Wallace-Wells’s The Uninhabitable Earth, and Jeff Goodell’s The Water Will Come—are good places to start.” — all of which are extreme climate alarmist propaganda.

Covering Climate Now movement is organizing:

“A focused week of coverage

We’ll work to organize as much of the news media as possible—large and small, national and local—to commit to one week of focused coverage of climate change this September. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, is convening a summit in New York on September 23, where nations are urged to show how they will limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We propose a week of concentrated climate coverage in the lead-up to the UN summit, beginning September 16.” [source]

Don’t be fooled, they are not planning any real journalistic attempts to explain the complexity of the wicked problem called Earth’s Climate and the current controversies surrounding the issues involved. They are planning an intensive propaganda campaign across as many media outlets as they can convince (or shame) into signing on to participate.

I have laid out my position on the Climate Question here at WUWT ( here and here ). I encourage climate realists, especially those with a broader reach into mainstream media, to begin now to plan for their own counter-campaign to help neutralize the propaganda blitz envisioned by CJR/The Nation/The Guardian cabal for September 2019. We too are journalists, even if in just a small way. I for one will be following the Covering Climate Now propaganda campaign and will update the readership here with details from their promised propaganda ”handbook”.

The science is very plain on such issues as US wildfires, hurricanes (US and worldwide), US flooding, so-called heat waves and weather extremes. Opinion columns and essays in national newspapers and magazines (both print and online) and video commentary for broadcast and streamed news stations, laying out the simple truth, with graphs, numbers, and images, can and will help cut the ground from under the alarmist propaganda effort.

If we, the readers and contributors here, don’t make the effort to counteract this planned act of ideological sabotage of the American mind, who will?

# # # # #

POSTSCRIPT: One of the propaganda points that will be pushed by the Climate Journalists Cabal is: “Not only do most Americans care about climate change, but an overwhelming majority support a Green New Deal—81 percent of registered voters said so as of last December, according to Yale climate pollsters. Trump and Fox don’t like the Green New Deal? Fine. But journalists should report that the rest of America does.”

This is an example of how warped the journalism being promoted by the Covering Climate Now group is. It is true that a poll by “Yale climate pollsters” (in reality the activist department Yale Program on Climate Change Communication) found, in December 2018: “The survey results show overwhelming support for the Green New Deal, with 81% of registered voters saying they either “strongly support” (40%) or “somewhat support” (41%) this plan.” There’s the 81%.

What a great quotable quote!

The reality is a bit different. The pollsters asked this question:

“Some members of Congress are proposing a “Green New Deal” for the U.S. They say that a Green New Deal will produce jobs and strengthen America’s economy by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. The Deal would generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from clean, renewable sources within the next 10 years; upgrade the nation’s energy grid, buildings, and transportation infrastructure; increase energy efficiency; invest in green technology research and development; and provide training for jobs in the new green economy. How much do you support or oppose this idea?”

And got this result:

Now that looks pretty definitive, doesn’t it? But here’s the real deal…. the poll is taken in the first weeks of December 2018. The Green New Deal (in its current form) was announced the week following the November 2018 mid-term elections. So, less than 3 weeks after it is announced, put up on the web, taken down again, put up again (you remember the story), the climate advocacy group at Yale does a poll, preceded by a glowing recommendation of the GND, and then asks “How much to you support or oppose this idea?”

So, our Climate Journalist Cabal is not misrepresenting the poll… they are just misrepresenting the whole concept of public support for the GND.

The same poll also asked:

“How much, if anything, have you heard about a policy being proposed by some members of Congress called the Green New Deal?”

The resounding answer?

“Nothing at all”

The same poll, the same cohort (same people polled), a greater percentage than those purportedly “supporting” it had heard “nothing at all” about the GND.

For those that interpret polls, this means, bluntly, that the “supporters” were responding solely to the pollsters “introduction” about the GND — they really didn’t know anything at all about it.

What does the public really think about the seriousness of climate issues? The Pew poll of January 2019:

The Climate Journalist Cabal has already stated that it plans to use this near-total misrepresentation as part of its propaganda campaign. What they will do with other topics is not hard to imagine.

June 22, 2019 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | New York Times | Leave a comment

Extreme Politics: The Roger Pielke Jr. Story

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | June 10, 2019

Last week, an article by economist Ross McKitrick appeared in Canada’s National Post. Titled This scientist proved climate change isn’t causing extreme weather – so politicians attacked, it tells the story of Roger Pielke Jr., a professor in Boulder, Colorado who has been mercilessly persecuted for the unpardonable sin of telling the truth.

With Canada’s Prime Minister childishly insisting a national carbon tax will prevent wildfires, floods, and tornadoes, McKitrick sets us straight:

Globally there’s no clear evidence of trends and patterns in extreme events such as droughts, hurricanes and floods. Some regions experience more, some less…There’s no trend in U.S. hurricane landfall frequency or intensity. If anything, the past 50 years has been relatively quiet…Since 1965, more parts of the U.S. have seen a decrease in flooding than have seen an increase…There’s no trend in U.S. tornado damage (in fact, 2012 to 2017 was below average)…Cold snaps in the U.S. are down but, unexpectedly, so are heatwaves.

The bottom line is there’s no solid connection between climate change and the major indicators of extreme weather… [bold added]

Pielke once specialized in natural disasters and the damage they inflict. In 2006, Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, appeared. It incorrectly claimed global warming was responsible for Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated New Orleans. This became the party line amongst US Democrats.

Having since switched his research focus to other matters, Pielke spoke publicly last year about being relentlessly smeared and slimed by ridiculously senior Democrats despite the fact that he himself has never once voted Republican.

A case in point is John Podesta. This man was President Bill Clinton’s last chief of staff. He was an advisor to President Barack Obama. More recently, he served as Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign manager. Podesta’s other project is the Center for American Progress (CAP), described as “the Democrat’s favorite think tank.”

Podesta is as partisan as they come, and CAP is a Democratic Party political machine. In Pielke’s words, between 2007 and 2015, “CAP wrote more than 161 articles critical of me, many spreading false and incorrect representations of my views. They averaged an article a week in 2008 and 2009.”

Overall, seven different CAP writers chose to ignore Pielke’s airtight scholarship. He needed to be muzzled for political reasons – for “questioning the link between climate change and extreme weather” and for allegedly providing “cover for climate deniers.”

In an internal 2014 e-mail (made public by WikiLeaks in 2016), CAP employee Judd Legum boasts that his part of that organization got Pielke fired as a contributor to FiveThirtyEight.com, a website affiliated with ABC News.

Pielke’s first and only article there was titled Disasters Cost More Than Ever – But Not Because of Climate Change. Studded with numerous links to source material, it points out that even the UN’s highly politicized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admits there’s scant evidence of a spike in the frequency or intensity of floods, droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes.

In other words, there’s nothing remotely radical or non-mainstream about Pielke’s position. But the blowback orchestrated by CAP and others was so vociferous, he was never published at FiveThirtyEight.com again. In this interview Pielke says he suggested leaving three months later, after the website had demonstrated “some reluctance in continuing to publish my work.”

Slide #38 in the presentation Pielke gave last year includes a third party advertisement that characterizes his departure as a “Victory for climate truth!” Rather than being an honest scholar, you see, he’s actually a “climate confusionist” who deserves to be destroyed.

Today, someone searching on Pielke’s name at FireThirtyEight.com is presented with a very short list. It includes an editorial by its founder and editor-in-chief about Pielke’s article. It also includes a response to Pielke’s article by Kerry Emanuel. But there’s no actual link to Pielke’s calm, sane piece itself.

Having kowtowed to bullies, FireThirtyEight.com now sticks to conventional fare – articles that discuss “climate change denialists” and “climate change deniers.”

The simple truth is so threatening to certain political operatives that Pielke’s persecution didn’t end there. In 2015, he was falsely accused of secretly taking money from an oil company and investigated by Congress. In that context, the president of the university that employs him was advised in writing that Obama’s White House science advisor believed Pielke to be guilty of “serious misstatements.”

Also in 2015, Paige St. John, a Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist, discovered that mentioning Pielke in an article was sufficient to ignite a campaign against her. Slide #22 contains a comment St. John sent to Pielke by e-mail:

You should come with a warning label: Quoting Roger Pielke will bring a hail storm down on your work from the London Guardian, Mother Jones and Media Matters.

Let that sink in. No one is off limits. Even journalists at the top of the heap are targeted and bullied. The climate mafia exists. Its enforcers are real. Their mantra is: thou shalt not set a toe out of line.

As Ross McKitrick ended his National Post article last week, so shall I: “Something has gotten scary and extreme, but it isn’t the weather.”

June 10, 2019 Posted by aletho | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | Canada | Leave a comment

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Secret document reveals plans for civil war in Lebanon, Israeli false flags, and invasion

By Randi Nord | Geopolitics Alert | April 5, 2019

Beirut – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion.

Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed, initially reported the document on Lebanese TV and a video on its website. Geopolitics Alert translated the report for this article. … continue

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An electromagnetic receiver used in the study being deployed off the research vessel Marcus Langseth. Credit: Kerry Key

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