Monthly Archives: April 2012

Lies damned lies and Green miles per gallon figures.

Well you want to buy a new family car but you also want to be Green. Should you purchase the 5 seater Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4 with its ultra-economical 70.6mpg or what you really need the mini MPV people carrier from Renault the 7 seater Grand Scenic 1.6 but it only does 64.2 mpg that’s 10% less Green. “Oh what shall we do George? We will just have to leave granny and tiny Tim at home and spend the extra €6,000 we were putting aside for Tim’s leg operation and buy the ever so Green Peugeot Hybrid.”

A common scene played out in many a  sitting room across Ireland! But wait, could this be true we have been misled by the Greens and in fact the Renault is actually more economical than the Peugeot Hybrid? Yes we are back to the Greens tried and trusted friend – the simulation/computer model. When you take these two cars off the rolling road driven by a computer simulation of a driver and actually give the cars to real people and drive on real roads we find the Renault does 3.6mpg more than the hybrid. These new figures are produced by Sensors Inc. “an American vehicle emissions specialist”. The US has now moved over to this empirical method of calculating MPG from the system still used in Europe. Why does the EU cling to an outdated system which favours Green vehicles over their (apparently) less environmentally friendly cousins? Like so many statistics used by the Green economy they do not stand up too well to scrutiny.

“Oh joy of joys tiny Tim shall walk again and granny can after all come along with the rest of the family to the zoo.”

Source – Sunday Times ‘ingear’ “Drop It! Why the Official MPG test has to go” 29.04.12

Advertisement

The False Prophet is at it again.

Paul Ehrlich is at it again. In the 1960s he prophesied a new ice age, famines of biblical proportions and that by 1984 “the United States will quite literally be dying of thirst”. Now he wants the world to reduce its population voluntarily from 7 billion to 1.5 billion souls. Why? Because  otherwise we will face ‘catastrophic or slow motion [disasters]’ Me thinks the self appointed ‘population expert’cries wolf.

The world produces enough food to feed 12 billion. Half of that either rots before it reaches the dinner table or is thrown away which is to all our shame. No one should go to bed hungry – but 1.5 billion of us do. Let’s divert some of the billions wasted on global warming research (see earlier posts) to find better methods of food distribution and storage. Now that is something I wouldn’t mind spending taxes on.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/26/world-population-resources-paul-ehrlich


The Appliance of Science – by Russell Brand

The appliance of science – Select Committee “I think we are running out of time” Russell Brand “Time is infinite” Nice one Russell

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17828670


Grain experiment shows higher temperatures increase yield.

I love it when someone actually does an experiment, instead of using some subjective computer model.

Chinese scientists has increased crop yields by between 3 and 6% by increasing the temperature at which they grow grain.

Today’s Science results:

Scientific Method 1 – Computer Models 0

Let’s hear it for the Scientific Method.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2012/04/20/for-wheat-and-rice-co2-is-nice/


James Lovelock was wrong!

James Lovelock, one of the world’s leading exponents of the theory of manmade Climate Change, has admitted in a telephone interview  with Ian Johnston of msnbc.com that he got it wrong. As recently as 2006 Lovelock wrote “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”

All credit to him that he has come out and is attempting to put the record straight. Let’s hope that this admission brings a little sanity back to the debate. Can we now please have some reasoned discussion on the subject and abandon the mantra of “The Science Is Settled.” Clearly it is not.


$30 Billion spent – for what?

“Despite government spending over $30 billion on climate research, there is still no empirical evidence to show that carbon dioxide has any effect on global climate Curiously, the IPCC has been unable to provide such evidence.” Senator Bert Brown – Alberta Canada

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/Sen/Chamber/411/Debates/068db_2012-04-04-e.htm


Can you believe this? Yes this is Forbes!!!

“We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies.  Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay.  Let’s let their houses burn. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands.  Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices.” Steve Zwick

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevezwick/2012/04/19/a-tennessee-firemans-solution-to-climate-change/

Is it just me or does this sound like some school yard bully – ‘we know where you live – we’re going to get you’. And Forbes actually print this. Surely what we are looking for in the Global Warming debate is reasoned argument not infantile hectoring.


IPCC Models predict the exact opposite of what actually happens. No surprise there then.

“the IPCC argues that feedbacks from increased water evaporation will lead to enhanced warming. This is not observed in those regions most effected by water vapour. In fact the opposite seems to be the case implying negative feedback.” http://clivebest.com/blog/

Clive Best – Physicist http://clivebest.com/blog/?page_id=2

 


More Voodoo Science Dr. Pachauri?

Data examining six regions in the Karakoram mountains in the western Himalayas, which contains 7,700 square miles (nearly 20,000 square kilometers) of glaciers, revealed more than half of them are either stable or have been advancing in recent years.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/17/world/asia/glacier-himalayas-gain-mass/index.html?iref=allsearch

Also see

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317160/Science-writer-Fred-Pearce-calls-head-Patchy-UNs-climate-change-boss.html


An increase in CO2 warms the Earth or a warmer Earth releases CO2? You choose.

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.

SOURCE