This week Christine Metcalfe, 69, a Scottish community councillor, scored a stunning landmark legal victory bringing to a halt the UK government’s unlawful and unpopular wind energy initiative. In effect, all British wind farm development is mothballed until grassroots public consent is granted – if ever.

Below Christine provides her personal insights on this extraordinary long running battle in which Britain and the EU were ruled to have breached citizens’ rights, protected under the UN’s Aarhus Convention.

A personal view on the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee’s draft decision on Complaint Ref. ACCC/C/2012/68

By Christine Metcalfe

Initially, like millions of others, I believed the claims made relating to wind power technology. I wanted to. It seemed to wipe away the perceived problem of climate change by using a free source of energy!

I also cherished the belief that in an open democratic and Europeanised society policies and public participation in decision making were open, rational and defensible. So I have some sympathy with those who have yet to appreciate that both the UK and the EU created immense and powerful mechanisms for counteracting climate change without the open scrutiny, intellectual accountability and checks and balances which lie at the heart of the Aarhus Convention, and which at our peril we take for granted.

So the independent Committee’s Ruling will be extremely valuable in highlighting issues that must be rectified in the public interest. But despite the subject matter it is not just about renewable energy policy or fixes for climate change: its principally about practice, participation and transparency. It shows that it is not merely possible, but imperative that our authorities are held to account not only by experts, but by ordinary citizens at the ‘grass roots’ of society.

The complaint – stemming from local injustices in a far-flung corner of Argyll, but driven by seemingly unassailable EU-wide policies with an ostensible global rationale – has enabled exposure of an increasing disconnect between authorities. They have become politicised and committed to the current orthodoxy, despite increasing scientific and technical evidence to the contrary. It is the very lack of open-ness, scrutiny and accountability that has allowed this to go so far that it is in danger of becoming immutable and those who challenge it branded as heretics rather than democrats.

The informed public must now be more willing and able to deploy the Committee’s Ruling whenever the need arises. This is especially true now that the tentacles of political will are using government organisations to further their aims.

“The rain in Spain …. stays mainly in the plain” sings Eliza Doolittle in the theme song of My Fair Lady. But not just in Spain, also in Australia.

A new study to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters says the massive rainfalls in Australia in 2011 and 2012 caused a global sea level decrease of 7 mm (about 1/3 inch).

Ocean Water Levels

The water level in the world’s oceans had been rising steadily over quite some time. Ever since the last ice age’s great ice masses in the northern hemisphere started to melt in earnest, some 15,000 years ago, all that melt-water flowed into the oceans and resulted in a rapid rise of 100+ m. Beginning some 7,000 years ago, most of the ice had melted and the ocean level rise slowed to a trickle. Over the last 200 years it rose less than 30 cm. Claims of a renewed acceleration of sea level rise have largely been shown to be false.

Apart from lack of (additional) melt water, water was then being retained on the continents in form of lakes, rivers and continental aquifers, as well as in the atmosphere. A new (near) equilibrium had been reached, as evident from the graph following (source: Wikipedia).

 While the postglacial sea level rise not only has significantly slowed compared to the 10,000-year period immediately preceding it, some areas are actually experiencing the opposite, namely a decline of sea levels due to isostatic rebound.

“If all other things remain equal, it’s clear that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will warm the planet,” she told the committee.

This is Professor Judith Curry speaking to a committee in the House of Representatives in the USA.

Curry certainly has the credentials. She is a professor and chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She also runs a side business as a private weather forecaster. But she doesn’t deny the basic principles of climate change.

“If all other things remain equal, it’s clear that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will warm the planet,” she told the committee.

Sorry, Professor Judith, it is not at all clear, not by any means.

If all what other things remain equal?

In the topography of the Earth and Oceans nothing could be more unequal and uneven. And as for the atmosphere it is a constant flux of varying barometric pressures, of clouds and clear skies, of winds, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, of dry savannahs and impenetrable swamps. Nowhere on the earth or in the atmosphere is there anything that is remotely equal. Inequality rules both the day and the night.

2,000+ years old and counting, the giant redwood trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in California are having a great time – they are growing faster than ever before. A new study by UC Berkeley and Humboldt State University researchers finds them in a growth spurt that began about 100 years ago and began to accelerate in recent decades. 

California’s redwood trees are among the oldest living organisms on earth. Some are over 3,000 years old and still going strong. So what’s the cause of their recent growth spurt?

Tree Food

Apart from a beneficial climate, trees grow when they have an adequate supply of three vital nutrients: (i) water, (ii) soil minerals and – you may be surprised to learn – (iii) carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Without plenty of each of these any tree will wilt or die.

With sufficient supplies of the first two key ingredients, depending on its location on earth, any kind of tree will grow at a rate determined by its ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and convert the sun’s radiation via the photosynthesis process to wood. The higher the level of CO2 in the air, the faster it will grow.

Carbon Dioxide

The dependence of tree growth on CO2 is well known to commercial enterprises growing tree saplings for reforestation in old mine shafts and similar facilities. The operators typically boost the CO2-level in the air from the current 400 ppm (parts per million) to 1,000 ppm and above. That’s still only half the CO2 concentration commonly found in submarines.

There is plenty of scientific evidence that such an increase in atmospheric CO2 increases the rate of growth of tree saplings; P. Driessen recently called it the “gas of life.” Why should it be any different for old-growth California redwoods?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) never followed the scientific method. They inferred the hypothesis that an increase in atmospheric CO2 due to human activities would inevitably cause a rise in global temperature. They set out to prove this when they should have tried to disprove it in what Popper calls “falsification.” Over at least the last 15 years global temperature has leveled and declined while CO2 levels continue to increase. What is actually happening is in contradiction to their hypothesis and essentially impossible according to the conclusion in their 2007 Report.

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica).

Despite this on 16 Aug Reuters news agency reported:

“Drafts seen by Reuters of the study by the U.N. panel of experts, due to be published next month, say it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities – chiefly the burning of fossil fuels – are the main cause of warming since the 1950s.”

They’re talking about a change in the next Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or Assessment Report 5. (AR5). It is significant because it is an increase from the 2007 Fourth Report (FAR) when they were >90 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} certain.

If accurate, this claim is made in the face of evidence that their hypothesis is wrong. Perhaps it is explained by the recent comment by a leading member of the IPCC. He effectively said, failed proof of the hypothesis doesn’t matter because,

“Proof is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages. It’s not for science.”

A new process, called “Electrochemically Mediated Seawater Desalination” has recently been described. The inventors claim that it could potentially lead to large-scale 99{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} desalination of seawater at low cost. Some people have dubbed the invention the “water chip.”

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is listed as a “partner” on the company’s website. Fig. The prototype plastic “water chip” contains a micro-channel that branches in two, and utilizes a process known as electrochemically mediated seawater desalination. Image source: Okeanos Technologies.

Laboratory vs. Nature

What may work well with trace quantities of high-purity materials in the laboratory does not necessarily work in the real environment. Most water, especially ocean water contains a multitude of constituents, from dissolved (mostly inorganic) salts to a large variety of organic compounds. Even quite pristine freshwater, like that of the Laurentian upper Great Lakes develops visible foams of natural compounds around its perimeter upon wave action due to the presence of natural surfactants.

Ocean water is full of such natural surfactants and a host of other “chemicals.” Therefore, any desalination process has to deal not only with the salt content but also with the other natural constituents of ocean water. That is why a simple, large scale desalination method has been a long sought after quest.

My analysis of the radiation question is that there is an extremely preposterous contradiction in the Trenberth model (1998), sometimes called the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget (see below).  The IPCC uses this model. It’s explained in the FAQ section of the IPCC 4th AR, but I haven’t seen it in the main section.  I miss a lot in that endless garbage.  

I show the numbers on this web page:  http://nov79.com/gbwm/grn.html

The Trenberth model includes both the invisible (non net) radiation and net radiation, as assumed to be true of black box situations.  The ridiculousness of it is that the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (SBC) requires so much radiation that it left very little energy for conduction.  Radiation from the earth’s surface at the claimed average temperature of 15°C must be 390 W/m², according to the SBC.  This left only 24 W/m² for conduction from the earth’s surface.  The ratio is 6{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} as much conduction as radiation.  Industrial or domestic cooling fans would never be used if they only provided 6{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} improvement over radiation.  I would expect such a ratio with white hot metals, not 15°C. The SBC leaves no other choice for numbers, when modeling as in the Trenberth energy budget.  They had little choice but to show 324 W/m² of invisible radiation from atmosphere to surface, because it had to be less than 350 W/m² going from surface to atmosphere, but not much less, because it takes away from the amount which can be attributed to conduction. So they left their analysis with a ridiculous amount of conduction and never resolved the contradiction with obvious logic.

Analogies are a valuable teaching device converting everything from ideas to objects into supposedly more recognizable forms. They includes biblical parables, Aesop’s Fables, hardware models, toys, computer models and even mathematical formulae. However, something is always lost in translation. How many school science projects fail to miniaturize the flow characteristics of ice?

The greenhouse/atmosphere analogy is much more problematic because most parts don’t work in the same way. Its value was political because people associate a greenhouse, or hothouse, with increased heat. But that’s appropriate because the hypothesis and attempts at proof that human CO2 was causing warming are political.

Another deceptive value is that few know how a greenhouse works and even fewer the atmosphere. Indeed, nobody knows how the atmosphere works. If they did, weather and climate forecasts would work.

The basic idea of a greenhouse is that sunlight or shortwave (SW) energy passes through the glass and heats surfaces. The surfaces radiate that heat as longwave (LW) energy or sensible heat (heat you can feel). LW cannot pass through the glass, so is trapped and raises the temperature in the greenhouse; the glass acts like a one-way valve. A greenhouse is a closed system because the heat cannot escape unless artificially changed by opening vents or blocking sunlight. The glass supposedly represents the entire atmosphere. It also blocks 100 percent of the ultraviolet (UV) portion of the sunlight.

The atmosphere is an open system, with heat energy always escaping to space. Unlike the glass it absorbs 95{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the UV in the creation of ozone. This sounds insignificant, but one scientist argues variation in the 5 percent is the cause of warming.

CFCs are already known to deplete ozone, but in-depth statistical analysis now shows that CFCs are also the key driver in global climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

In the greenhouse and in the atmosphere energy is partly transferred from the heated surfaces through collision between air molecules (conduction). However, in the atmosphere a large portion of that heat is transported vertically by rising air currents (convection), and also horizontally by advection or commonly wind. There are no winds in a greenhouse.

A major part of the energy striking the Earth’s surface causes evaporation. It increases water molecule speed so they escape the surface changing from liquid (water) to gas (water vapor). Heat is not lost (latent) but transported with the air and released when condensation occurs. This released heat warms the atmosphere, explaining why temperatures rise when it rains. This does not occur in a greenhouse.

The greenhouse glass blocks all LW and supposedly represents three atmospheric gases, water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane, known as greenhouse gases (GHG). They do not block all sensible heat and only temporarily delay escape to space. There are no analogous greenhouse components for the other gases or atmospheric factors. For example, dust particles significantly reduce SW and LW in the atmosphere.

GHGs don’t raise temperature like glass in a greenhouse. They modify atmospheric temperatures by reducing highs and increasing lows. In all weather and climate considerations water modifies temperature. Desert day – night temperature range is the highest anywhere due to lack of water vapour; not CO2. Commercial greenhouse operators raise CO2 levels to 1200 ppm, three times atmospheric levels. It doesn’t raise the temperature, but increases crop yields four times.

Heat reduction in a greenhouse requires a physical change with a vent to let LW escape or a screen to block SW entering. Clouds are nature’s screen. However, they can block SW and LW, such that we have little idea how clouds work to modify temperatures. As the National Science Foundation says, clouds are the wild card of climate change. In the 2001 IPCC Report it says,

“In response to any climate perturbation the response of cloudiness thereby introduces feedbacks whose sign and amplitude are largely unknown.”

It is like putting shades in a greenhouse and not knowing what they are going to do. So we have a model of the atmosphere that doesn’t know how clouds work but is the sole basis for climate predictions of global warming.

The Earth’s atmosphere is not like a greenhouse. It is a completely inappropriate analogy sadly equalled only by the false claim that climate models are an analogy of global climate.

– See more at: http://drtimball.com

 

Dr. Gary Novak and Dr. Pierre Latour present opposing views on fusion energy and supposed errors and misunderstandings in the physics. Herein we provide readers with the email exchange for edification and further open discussion.

Dr. Novak’s opening remarks:

Physicists totally expected to succeed with a nuclear fusion project using lasers, but the results did not produce a significant amount of energy, and the project is being cut back due to failure, as indicated in this National Geographic article: ‘Fusion Energy Quest Faces Boundaries of Budget‘ (Science, July 26, 2013).

As the article indicates, physicists based their energy assumptions on Einstein’s equation, E=mc². A scientific origin for the equation does not exist. It came off the top of Einstein’s head. Einstein paralleled the equation for kinetic energy, KE=½mv². I show simple and unquestionable mathematical proof that the equation for kinetic energy is in error. Velocity should not be squared. Real kinetic energy is simply momentum, mv. Momentum transforms into other forms of energy with conservation, while ½mv² does not. Shown here: http://nov79.com/en/ener.html

In other words, Einstein paralleled an erroneous equation. To parallel the correct equation, he should have said, E=mc. There is a huge difference in the end result when the velocity of light is squared compared to non-squared.What this means is physicists expect a lot more energy from fusion (or disintegration of matter) than is really possible. Why didn’t this false expectation show up with nuclear fission reactions?

How The “Hottest” Temperature Game Is Played To Offset Prediction Failures

Global temperature is not doing what the “official” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted. Proponents of the claim humans are the cause of warming and the cooperative media react by trying to deflect, divert and perpetuate fear. They exploit people’s lack of knowledge and understanding. A January 2013 ABC News headline said, “2012 Was 9th Warmest Year on Record, Says NASA” is a classic example of how the public are deliberately misled. It is deliberate because it distorts, is out of context, and exploits manipulation of statistics or as Disraeli summarized, “Lies, damn lies and statistics.”

The deception begins with the headline but is expanded in the article. The challenge is to know what is actually being said. Initially, you need a translator, but can develop sufficient propaganda detectors once the methods are identified. There are guidelines that work in most circumstances:

Don’t believe anything you read; Question everything; Be especially suspicious of numbers; Know the source and political bias; If you’re affected by the story get at least three other sources; Remember all government information and data is biased; Be especially wary of stories that cite authorities.

“The new oligarchy must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists until in the end the politicians become merely the scientists’ puppets.”

– C. S. Lewis, “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State” (1958)

Legendary scholar, writer and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) more than a half century ago, warned about how science (a good thing) could be systematically perverted to attack religion, deconstruct law and destroy human freedom (a bad thing). In this essential documentary, “The Magician’s Twin: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism,” noted scholars analyze Lewis’ prophetic warnings about the political corruption of science (scientism) or the efforts to use the scientific method to explain, control, enslave every part of human life and how Lewis’ predictions are essential for us today.

Historically, the first half of the 20th century was defined by almost incessant wars and the rise of fascist dictators who in less than 50 years caused more genocide than the history of mankind up to 1900. Nevertheless, we were warned by three prophetic writers about the evil side of unbridled scientific and utopian technological progress: 1) G.K. Chesterton, “Eugenics and other evils”; 2) George Orwell, “1984″; and 3) C.S. Lewis’ “Abolition of Man.” C.S. Lewis possessed a passionate interest in the emergent power of scientism – the fascist technique of perverting the methods of science to define, manipulate and dominate every aspect of human existence.

Lewis wasn’t anti-science in the least. He never denied science; he actually studied it on a serious level and thus believed that science was a perfectly authentic discipline of knowledge. However, Lewis strongly disagreed with the politicization of science (ideology) and then using the false idol of scientism as a cudgel to smash religion, Christianity, capitalism, intelligent design and any philosophical worldview whose aims differed from true “science.” Echoing Darwin’s evolution atheism, this materialistic worldview demanded that all scientific knowledge be reduced to materialistic, blind, undirected causes.

Wikipedia shows that the curious term used by Mike Hulme, who argues Global Warming can only be met by something called “post-normal” science has a history of use in the environmental movement since the late 1980s and early 90s. I have interspersed the Wikipedia entry describing the term with my own commentary.

So-called “renewable energy” is not clean, renewable, reliable, affordable or sustainable.

“Renewable energy” is a sexy term used to drive public policies and spending. Misguided governments and like-minded Greens have said repeatedly that they are waging a “war on coal,” intend to bankrupt coal-based power plants, and delay or block oil, natural gas and nuclear projects – while fast-tracking and subsidizing ethanol, wind and solar programs. These are the so-called “clean” energy choices but are no such thing.

Nonetheless, many are swayed by the hype. They insist compelling and subsidizing increased renewable energy use, while undermining and even outlawing conventional energy, is the way to economic growth and energy independence. But critics argue this is a reckless scheme that could easily cause the collapse of our energy grid, job creation, economy and living standards, just as it is already doing in Europe.

Too often the term “renewable” confers an almost Holy Grail status that ensures widespread political, media, public and corporate support (for a lot of wrong reasons). That lofty status, however, ignores two fundamental facts:

1) Wind, solar and biofuel energy are not renewable, eco-friendly, reliable, affordable or sustainable.

2) Renewable energy schemes can no longer be justified by claims that we are rapidly running out of ‘fossil fuels’ or causing dangerous man-made global warming. Oil sands and hydraulic fracturing have obliterated the depletion myth, while climate change fears are belied by a 16-year hiatus from planetary warming, historic lows in hurricane and tornado activity, and the abject failure of CO2-focused climate computer models.

In other words, the craze for “renewables” may be shown to be driven by religious zeal, not science or economics.

A major reason the science isn’t settled is because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) never practiced science. They didn’t even look at climate change, only the possible human causes of climate change. Now they are victims of what T. H. Huxley identified over 100 years ago, The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. Most often the “ugly fact” is that the predictions derived from the hypothesis are wrong.

What do people do? Tolstoi, again over 100 years ago, identified one reaction:

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

But this doesn’t explain what actions such people should or might take. Often it is a human weakness reaction explained by Upton Sinclair’s observation that, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” It may also fit Greek philosopher Epictetus’ view that It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

Science has specific rules. It requires you determine the error in the work and either make adjustments or accept the null hypothesis. This does not mean you are wrong, it just means that the opposite to what you hypothesized is occurring.

Man-made global warming “skeptics” Dr. Roy Spencer and Anthony Watts (he of the science blog, WUWT) are both very much on the defensive this week. Each has been exposed as zealous defenders of flat earth physics (literally!).

“Flat earther” is a term of ridicule often used against backwards thinkers. But in this case Spencer and Watts, prominent spokesmen for the skeptic cause, are persisting in regarding earth as flat. They do so in the forlorn hope no one will notice it is the botch of modeling earth as flat that makes the equations for the discredited greenhouse gas effect “work.” Both men are being called out for their anti-intellectualism by Principia Scientific International’s Joe Postma in his The Fraud of the AGHE Part 14: Controlled Opposition.

Postma, a successful astrophysicist by profession, again shows that you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that the greenhouse gas effect (GHE), the cornerstone of climate alarmism is bogus.

Mainstream science had long known the GHE was junk. Who says so? None other than the renowned American Meteorological Society. [1] The AMS stated that the idea that CO2 could alter the climate “was never widely accepted and was abandoned when it was found that all the long-wave radiation absorbed by CO2 is absorbed by water vapor.”

The Great Switcharoo came about when governments chose to encourage science ruled by opinion rather than fact. Thanks to no documented game changing discoveries, no great scientific breakthroughs no Nobel science prizes, post-normalism permitted us to disregard the unequivocal empirical fact that carbon dioxide is shown only to operate as a cooling gas. 

Apollo 7 astronaut, Walter Cunningham mounts a scathing attack on junk climate science dismissing it as politicized alarmism unsupported by facts. In an interview with Larry Bell (Forbes; August 6, 2013), Cunningham says man-made global warming fears have been built on “phony conclusions.”

Pulling no punches Cunningham, referring to the open letter sent last year to NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden Jr., signed by dozens of former NASA staff and retired astronauts, called NASA’s former chief climatologist, James Hansen, “an embarrassment and disgrace to the agency.“

Since 1988 and up to his retirement earlier this year, Hansen was the figure in promoting the ‘greenhouse gas’ hypothesis as ‘scientific fact and formulated the botched equation to ‘prove’ it added an essential 33 degrees of ‘missing heat’ to earth’s climate. The claim has since been refuted by independent scientists at Principia Scientific International (PSI).

Cunningham goes on to assert:

NASA should be at the forefront in the collection of scientific evidence and debunking the current hysteria over human-caused [anthropogenic] global warming [AGW]. Unfortunately, it is becoming just another agency caught up in the politics of global warming, or worse, politicized science. Advocacy and support for the White House agenda is replacing objective evaluation of data, while scientific data is being ignored in favor of emotions and politics.

The conflict over AGW has deteriorated into a religious war; a war between true believers in a human-caused global warming problem and nonbelievers; between those who accept AGW on faith, and those who consider themselves more sensible and better informed. “True believers” are beyond being interested in evidence; it is impossible to reason a person out of positions they have not been reasoned into.

Much of this may be due to today’s lowered educational standards in scientific literacy, skepticism and critical thinking. Many people today are unable to distinguish between science and non-science, leaving them vulnerable to the emotional appeal of human caused global warming. Unfortunately, most students today are fed a lot more hype about self-esteem and global warming than real information about history and science. Let’s finally recognize that “self-esteem” is no substitute for common sense, and “indoctrination” is no substitute for education.

With the right leadership, with the right science, and with the right commitment to excellence and integrity, we will go much farther. And, it’s high time to do so.

Read Larry Bell’s full interview with Walter Cunningham here.