Study reveals 90% of global atolls are stable or growing
In this newsletter:
1) The Pacific islands which are growing, despite sea level rise
Stuff Science, 2 December 2020
2) Reminder: Study reveals 90% of global atolls are stable or growing
GWPF & WIREs Climate Change, 19 October 2018
3) No evidence for dramatic loss of Great Barrier Reef coral
Science under Attack, 30 November 2020
6) Geoff Hill: The new Dust Bowl that even the BBC blames on green climate policies
The conservative Woman, 27 November 2020
Stuff Science, 2 December 2020
2) Reminder: Study reveals 90% of global atolls are stable or growing
GWPF & WIREs Climate Change, 19 October 2018
3) No evidence for dramatic loss of Great Barrier Reef coral
Science under Attack, 30 November 2020
4) Refutation of Michael Mann’s latest statistical shenanigans
GWPF, 27 November 2020
GWPF, 27 November 2020
5) Climate change claim on thin ice
GWPF Observatory, 19 November 2020
GWPF Observatory, 19 November 2020
6) Geoff Hill: The new Dust Bowl that even the BBC blames on green climate policies
The conservative Woman, 27 November 2020
7) Peter Foster: Sustainable Newspeak by 2050
Law & Liberty, 30 November 2020
Law & Liberty, 30 November 2020
8) And finally: China can literally pull the plug on US high tech manufacturing and defense applications
Pini Althaus, Real Clear Energy, 1 December 2020
Pini Althaus, Real Clear Energy, 1 December 2020
Full details:
1) The Pacific islands which are growing, despite sea level rise
Stuff Science, 2 December 2020
A sprawling chain of volcanic islands and atolls in the central Pacific Ocean has grown in size over the past 70 years, despite sea level rises, a new study shows.
A recent picture of part of the island in the study, with the outline of the land in 1943 in red. Photo US Department of Agriculture
It confirms that atolls are built from sediment off modern coral reefs – and the health of the reefs is vital to keep the process going.
New Zealand and Canadian researchers studied an island on Ailinglaplap Atoll in the Marshall Islands using aerial photographs, satellite imagery and radiocarbon dating of sediment deposits.
Sediment build-up appeared to have caused the merging of what had been two separate islands, and a spit at the western end of the island was continuing to extend, adding to the land area above sea level, the study found.
Radiocarbon dating was used to calculate the ages of coral fragments, shells and microscopic marine organisms at the island’s western end. The sediment deposits were from more recent material, generally after 1950.
Atolls are rings of coral, with islands on top of the coral and a lagoon inside the ring.
University of Auckland senior lecturer Dr Murray Ford, a coastal geomorphologist who worked on the study, said the research showed that the atolls essentially depended on the health of the coral reef they were built on.
“It’s all about the reef health, being able to produce sand and gravel to help make these islands and maintain them,” he said.
Threats to the health of coral reefs included ocean acidification, reef bleaching and pollution. There was a risk the engine room of island growth could be turned off, which would eventually have an effect on the island.
The study confirmed the modern reef was the source of material that built up the island. Previously it was considered possible that older material being recycled around was causing changes to atolls, Ford said.
“The big picture with this is the modern day coral reef can build an island even though the sea level is rising,” he said.
“The nice thing about these islands is everything that builds the island comes from the reef.”
Full story
2) Reminder: Study reveals 90% of global atolls are stable or growing
GWPF & WIREs Climate Change, 19 October 2018
For the last 20 years climate scientists and campaigners have warned that atolls and low-lying islands are facing an imminent threat to their existence due to climate change and sea level rise which could soon cause the complete disappearance of entire islands. A new paper that reviews Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls including 709 islands reveals that no atoll lost land area and that 88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted.
Stuff Science, 2 December 2020
A sprawling chain of volcanic islands and atolls in the central Pacific Ocean has grown in size over the past 70 years, despite sea level rises, a new study shows.
A recent picture of part of the island in the study, with the outline of the land in 1943 in red. Photo US Department of Agriculture
It confirms that atolls are built from sediment off modern coral reefs – and the health of the reefs is vital to keep the process going.
New Zealand and Canadian researchers studied an island on Ailinglaplap Atoll in the Marshall Islands using aerial photographs, satellite imagery and radiocarbon dating of sediment deposits.
Sediment build-up appeared to have caused the merging of what had been two separate islands, and a spit at the western end of the island was continuing to extend, adding to the land area above sea level, the study found.
Radiocarbon dating was used to calculate the ages of coral fragments, shells and microscopic marine organisms at the island’s western end. The sediment deposits were from more recent material, generally after 1950.
Atolls are rings of coral, with islands on top of the coral and a lagoon inside the ring.
University of Auckland senior lecturer Dr Murray Ford, a coastal geomorphologist who worked on the study, said the research showed that the atolls essentially depended on the health of the coral reef they were built on.
“It’s all about the reef health, being able to produce sand and gravel to help make these islands and maintain them,” he said.
Threats to the health of coral reefs included ocean acidification, reef bleaching and pollution. There was a risk the engine room of island growth could be turned off, which would eventually have an effect on the island.
The study confirmed the modern reef was the source of material that built up the island. Previously it was considered possible that older material being recycled around was causing changes to atolls, Ford said.
“The big picture with this is the modern day coral reef can build an island even though the sea level is rising,” he said.
“The nice thing about these islands is everything that builds the island comes from the reef.”
Full story
2) Reminder: Study reveals 90% of global atolls are stable or growing
GWPF & WIREs Climate Change, 19 October 2018
For the last 20 years climate scientists and campaigners have warned that atolls and low-lying islands are facing an imminent threat to their existence due to climate change and sea level rise which could soon cause the complete disappearance of entire islands. A new paper that reviews Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls including 709 islands reveals that no atoll lost land area and that 88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted.
Abstract:
Over the past decades, atoll islands exhibited no widespread sign of physical destabilization in the face of sea-level rise. A reanalysis of available data, which cover 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls including 709 islands, reveals that no atoll lost land area and that 88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted. Atoll islands affected by rapid sea-level rise did not show a distinct behavior compared to islands on other atolls. Island behavior correlated with island size, and no island smaller than 10 ha decreased in size. This threshold could be used to define the minimum island size required for human occupancy and to assess atoll countries and territories’ vulnerability to climate change. Beyond emphasizing the major role of climate drivers in causing substantial changes in the configuration of islands, this reanalysis of available data indicates that these drivers explain subregional variations in atoll behavior and within-atoll variations in island and shoreline (lagoon vs. ocean) behavior, following atoll-specific patterns. Increasing human disturbances, especially land reclamation and human structure construction, operated on atoll-to-shoreline spatial scales, explaining marked within-atoll variations in island and shoreline behavior. Collectively, these findings highlight the heterogeneity of atoll situations. Further research needs include addressing geographical gaps (Indian Ocean, Caribbean, north-western Pacific atolls), using standardized protocols to allow comparative analyses of island and shoreline behavior across ocean regions, investigating the role of ecological drivers, and promoting interdisciplinary approaches. Such efforts would assist in anticipating potential future changes in the contributions and interactions of key drivers.
Full story
3) No evidence for dramatic loss of Great Barrier Reef coral
Science under Attack, 30 November 2020
"We were expecting to see widespread mortality, and we just didn't see it … which is a really amazing thing."
A 2020 study of the Great Barrier Reef that set alarm bells ringing in the mainstream media is based on faulty evidence, according to Australian scientist and leading coral reef authority, Professor Peter Ridd. The study claims that between 1995 and 2017 the reef lost half its corals, especially small baby colonies, because of global warming – but Ridd says the claims are false.
The breathtakingly beautiful Great Barrier Reef, labeled by CNN as one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is the planet’s largest living structure. Visible from outer space and 2,300 km (1,400 miles) long, the reef hugs the northeastern coast of Australia. A healthy portion of the reef is shown in the image below.
CREDIT: DAVID CHILD, EVENING STANDARD.
But corals are susceptible to overheating and undergo bleaching when the water gets too hot, losing their vibrant colors. During the prolonged El Niño of 2016-17, higher temperatures caused mass bleaching that damaged portions of the northern and central regions of the Great Barrier Reef. Ridd’s fellow reef scientists contended at the time that as much as 30% to 95% of the reef’s corals died. However, Ridd disagreed, estimating that only 8% of the Great Barrier Reef suffered; much of the southern end of the reef wasn’t affected at all.
Likewise, Ridd finds no evidence for the 50% loss of corals since 1995 claimed in the recent study. He says the most reliable data on coral extent comes from AIMS (the Australian Institute of Marine Science), who have been measuring over 100 reefs every year since 1986. As the following figure illustrates, AIMS data shows that coral cover fluctuates dramatically with time but there is approximately the same amount of Great Barrier Reef coral today as in 1995. Adds Ridd:
"There was a huge reduction in coral cover in 2011 which was caused by two major cyclones that halved coral cover. Cyclones have always been the major cause of temporary coral loss on the Reef."
Full story
3) No evidence for dramatic loss of Great Barrier Reef coral
Science under Attack, 30 November 2020
"We were expecting to see widespread mortality, and we just didn't see it … which is a really amazing thing."
A 2020 study of the Great Barrier Reef that set alarm bells ringing in the mainstream media is based on faulty evidence, according to Australian scientist and leading coral reef authority, Professor Peter Ridd. The study claims that between 1995 and 2017 the reef lost half its corals, especially small baby colonies, because of global warming – but Ridd says the claims are false.
The breathtakingly beautiful Great Barrier Reef, labeled by CNN as one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is the planet’s largest living structure. Visible from outer space and 2,300 km (1,400 miles) long, the reef hugs the northeastern coast of Australia. A healthy portion of the reef is shown in the image below.
CREDIT: DAVID CHILD, EVENING STANDARD.
But corals are susceptible to overheating and undergo bleaching when the water gets too hot, losing their vibrant colors. During the prolonged El Niño of 2016-17, higher temperatures caused mass bleaching that damaged portions of the northern and central regions of the Great Barrier Reef. Ridd’s fellow reef scientists contended at the time that as much as 30% to 95% of the reef’s corals died. However, Ridd disagreed, estimating that only 8% of the Great Barrier Reef suffered; much of the southern end of the reef wasn’t affected at all.
Likewise, Ridd finds no evidence for the 50% loss of corals since 1995 claimed in the recent study. He says the most reliable data on coral extent comes from AIMS (the Australian Institute of Marine Science), who have been measuring over 100 reefs every year since 1986. As the following figure illustrates, AIMS data shows that coral cover fluctuates dramatically with time but there is approximately the same amount of Great Barrier Reef coral today as in 1995. Adds Ridd:
"There was a huge reduction in coral cover in 2011 which was caused by two major cyclones that halved coral cover. Cyclones have always been the major cause of temporary coral loss on the Reef."
It can be seen that the coral cover averages only about 20% in the years since 1986, when AIMS measurements began. But a 2019 research paper reported that the first reef expedition back in 1928-29 discovered very similar coverage: on a reef island known as Low Isles, the coral cover ranged from 8% to 42% in different parts of the island. So essentially no coral has disappeared over a period of 90 years that encompasses both warming and cooling periods.
The paper’s authors did find that the coral colonies on Low Isles were 30% smaller in 2019 than in 1928-29, and that coral “richness” had declined. Apart from its faulty conclusion about coral loss, the 2020 study also found smaller colony sizes throughout the reef, even though the relative abundance of large colonies was unchanged.
Nevertheless, the most recent AIMS report records small gains in the cover of hard corals in the central and southern Great Barrier Reef, following another mass bleaching event in late 2019. Hard corals are the primary reef-building corals; soft corals don’t form reefs.
Even more encouraging news for coral reef health comes from a just-reported survey of coral reefs on the opposite side of the country – the Rowley Shoals, a chain of three coral atolls 300 km (190 miles) off the coast of northwest Western Australia. Following an extensive marine heat wave in December 2019, an April 2020 survey found that up to 60% of the Rowley Shoals corals had become a pallid white (left image below). Yet a follow-up survey just six months later revealed that much of the bleached coral had already recovered (right image) and that perhaps only 10% of the reef had been killed.
Tom Holmes, the marine monitoring coordinator at Western Australia’s DBCA (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions), said "We were expecting to see widespread mortality, and we just didn't see it … which is a really amazing thing." Holmes explained that, while high ocean temperatures cause coral to bleach, what is less well known is that bleached corals don’t die immediately. Bleaching is initially just a sign of stress, but if the stress continues for a long time, it does lead to mortality.
However, Holmes – ever the cautious scientist – feels the reef may have been lucky and dodged a bullet this time. That’s because the marine heat wave that caused the bleaching was short-lived, dissipating at the end of the Australian summer a few months ago and giving the corals a chance to recover.
The resilience of the Rowley Shoals is no surprise to Ridd. Despite having been fired from his position at James Cook University in northern Queensland for his politically incorrect views on the Great Barrier Reef and climate change, Ridd continues to push the case for more accurate measurements and better quality assurance in coral reef science.
The paper’s authors did find that the coral colonies on Low Isles were 30% smaller in 2019 than in 1928-29, and that coral “richness” had declined. Apart from its faulty conclusion about coral loss, the 2020 study also found smaller colony sizes throughout the reef, even though the relative abundance of large colonies was unchanged.
Nevertheless, the most recent AIMS report records small gains in the cover of hard corals in the central and southern Great Barrier Reef, following another mass bleaching event in late 2019. Hard corals are the primary reef-building corals; soft corals don’t form reefs.
Even more encouraging news for coral reef health comes from a just-reported survey of coral reefs on the opposite side of the country – the Rowley Shoals, a chain of three coral atolls 300 km (190 miles) off the coast of northwest Western Australia. Following an extensive marine heat wave in December 2019, an April 2020 survey found that up to 60% of the Rowley Shoals corals had become a pallid white (left image below). Yet a follow-up survey just six months later revealed that much of the bleached coral had already recovered (right image) and that perhaps only 10% of the reef had been killed.
Tom Holmes, the marine monitoring coordinator at Western Australia’s DBCA (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions), said "We were expecting to see widespread mortality, and we just didn't see it … which is a really amazing thing." Holmes explained that, while high ocean temperatures cause coral to bleach, what is less well known is that bleached corals don’t die immediately. Bleaching is initially just a sign of stress, but if the stress continues for a long time, it does lead to mortality.
However, Holmes – ever the cautious scientist – feels the reef may have been lucky and dodged a bullet this time. That’s because the marine heat wave that caused the bleaching was short-lived, dissipating at the end of the Australian summer a few months ago and giving the corals a chance to recover.
The resilience of the Rowley Shoals is no surprise to Ridd. Despite having been fired from his position at James Cook University in northern Queensland for his politically incorrect views on the Great Barrier Reef and climate change, Ridd continues to push the case for more accurate measurements and better quality assurance in coral reef science.
4) Refutation of Michael Mann’s latest statistical shenanigans
GWPF, 27 November 2020
An opinion article published yesterday in Frontiers in Earth Science rebuts a recent paper by Michael E. Mann et al. who deny the existence of long known drivers of natural climate variability like the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO).
Applying habitual methodological shenanigans, they claim that the PDO is not distinguishable from noise and that the AMO is due to anthropogenic aerosol emissions rather than any intrinsic climate oscillation.
In her critique, Professor Müller-Plath not only highlights the methodological flaws in the Mann et al. paper but also shows that their aerosol hypothesis has long been rejected in the scientific literature, research papers Mann et al. simply ignore.
Internal Multidecadal and Interdecadal Climate Oscillations: Absence of Evidence Is No Evidence of Absence
The present paper contributes a critical commentary on the recent finding by Mann, M. E., Steinman, B. A. and Miller, S. K (2020). Absence of internal multidecadal and interdecadal oscillations in climate model simulations. Nat. Commun. 11, 1–9.
Climate oscillations are recurring large-scale fluctuations in the surface temperatures of the oceans in connection with the atmosphere. This commentary focuses on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO, interdecadal timescale) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO, multidecadal timescale), which have been regarded as intrinsic climate drivers on the adjacent continents in numerous studies based on observations and paleoclimate reconstructions (Henley, 2017; O’Reilly et al., 2017). In a recent paper, Michael E. Mann and colleagues (Mann et al., 2020, hereafter M20) fail to find a PDO signal in global measured and modeled temperatures that is statistically different from noise. They further propose that the significant AMO-like signal is mainly due to anthropogenic aerosols in the 20th century, and to statistical artifacts before. Therefore they doubt the intrinsic nature of the two oscillations. The present paper shows that M20’s results are largely artifacts themselves with issues ranging from using inadequate data and referencing improper literature on anthropogenic aerosols with regards to the AMO to inappropriately interpreting the results with regards to the PDO.
After briefly sketching the rationale and method of M20, I will elaborate on these three points.
M20 (p. 3) argue that any truly oscillatory AMO or PDO signals should generate a spatially coherent and large-scale variability pattern in the climate system with a narrowband signature in the frequency domain. They search for such signals in global (observed and modeled) temperature grids of different time lengths with the multi-taper method of singular value decomposition (MTM-SVD), which was developed and widely applied by Mann and Park (Mann and Park, 1994; Mann et al., 1995; Mann and Park, 1999). Significance tests of the test statistic LFV (local fractional variance) are carried out with Monte Carlo simulations generated according to the null hypothesis of colored (red) noise. The method can generally be applied to reconstruct the time course and the spatial pattern of any potential oscillatory climate signal.
Full paper
GWPF, 27 November 2020
An opinion article published yesterday in Frontiers in Earth Science rebuts a recent paper by Michael E. Mann et al. who deny the existence of long known drivers of natural climate variability like the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO).
Applying habitual methodological shenanigans, they claim that the PDO is not distinguishable from noise and that the AMO is due to anthropogenic aerosol emissions rather than any intrinsic climate oscillation.
In her critique, Professor Müller-Plath not only highlights the methodological flaws in the Mann et al. paper but also shows that their aerosol hypothesis has long been rejected in the scientific literature, research papers Mann et al. simply ignore.
Internal Multidecadal and Interdecadal Climate Oscillations: Absence of Evidence Is No Evidence of Absence
The present paper contributes a critical commentary on the recent finding by Mann, M. E., Steinman, B. A. and Miller, S. K (2020). Absence of internal multidecadal and interdecadal oscillations in climate model simulations. Nat. Commun. 11, 1–9.
Climate oscillations are recurring large-scale fluctuations in the surface temperatures of the oceans in connection with the atmosphere. This commentary focuses on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO, interdecadal timescale) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO, multidecadal timescale), which have been regarded as intrinsic climate drivers on the adjacent continents in numerous studies based on observations and paleoclimate reconstructions (Henley, 2017; O’Reilly et al., 2017). In a recent paper, Michael E. Mann and colleagues (Mann et al., 2020, hereafter M20) fail to find a PDO signal in global measured and modeled temperatures that is statistically different from noise. They further propose that the significant AMO-like signal is mainly due to anthropogenic aerosols in the 20th century, and to statistical artifacts before. Therefore they doubt the intrinsic nature of the two oscillations. The present paper shows that M20’s results are largely artifacts themselves with issues ranging from using inadequate data and referencing improper literature on anthropogenic aerosols with regards to the AMO to inappropriately interpreting the results with regards to the PDO.
After briefly sketching the rationale and method of M20, I will elaborate on these three points.
M20 (p. 3) argue that any truly oscillatory AMO or PDO signals should generate a spatially coherent and large-scale variability pattern in the climate system with a narrowband signature in the frequency domain. They search for such signals in global (observed and modeled) temperature grids of different time lengths with the multi-taper method of singular value decomposition (MTM-SVD), which was developed and widely applied by Mann and Park (Mann and Park, 1994; Mann et al., 1995; Mann and Park, 1999). Significance tests of the test statistic LFV (local fractional variance) are carried out with Monte Carlo simulations generated according to the null hypothesis of colored (red) noise. The method can generally be applied to reconstruct the time course and the spatial pattern of any potential oscillatory climate signal.
Full paper
5) Climate change claim on thin ice
GWPF Observatory, 19 November 2020
Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF science editor
Another example of climate journalists and researchers not looking carefully at the data they are reporting.
GWPF Observatory, 19 November 2020
Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF science editor
Another example of climate journalists and researchers not looking carefully at the data they are reporting.
It is on the face of it it is an interesting and significant story showing the tragic effects on humans as a result of a warming world.
More people are falling into the water and drowning due to walking on unstable ice or having their snowmobiles and other vehicles break the ice at times of the year when it had previously been stable. It seems, as the headlines proclaim, that warmer winters are linked to increased deaths according to a study just published in Plos One. It is reported that deaths from drowning were five times higher when warmer weather made the ice thinner and weaker.
My first thought was to wonder if those experienced in ice travel would judge safe conditions by the calendar using what the state of the ice would be on average at a certain time of the year rather that looking at the actual ice conditions. It made me want to look at the actual data in the research paper.It comes from Canadian researchers who looked at data on 4,000 drowning events in 10 countries. “We can confidently say that there is quite a strong correlation between warmer winter air temperatures and more winter drownings,” Sapna Sharma from Your University in Toronto told the BBC.It seems a simple story until one looks at the data which, as I suspected, paints a different picture than the headlines.
Look at their Figure 2 which shows deaths (per million people) plotted against December-March air temperature. An initial concern would be taking the average temperature over 4 months – this will include some variation in air temperature before and after the coldest temperatures of the year. But never mind, it is not the main concern there is with the data.
The authors of the report consider that Fig 2 shows that drowning deaths “increased exponentially” in regions with warmer winters when air temperatures exceeded 0°C. This is in my view is not a robust conclusion.Clearly Estonia and Latvia are outliers: they have a far lower population that other countries in the data, yet have as much an ice culture as the others. Because of this I suspect that the data is in part a result of cultural and administrative factors in those countries.
The variance of Latvia’s data is huge, and Estonia’s data is sparse and is also widespread. Remove these two countries from the graph and the increasing exponentially effect disappears, as does the fundamental conclusion of this study.In conclusion, this report has some interesting things to say about Latvia and Estonia but nothing to say about a worldwide effect on whether winter ice deaths are increasing as the world warms. It’s another example of specialist reporters of climate change only reading top lines, and not looking at the data of the stories they are reporting.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.com
More people are falling into the water and drowning due to walking on unstable ice or having their snowmobiles and other vehicles break the ice at times of the year when it had previously been stable. It seems, as the headlines proclaim, that warmer winters are linked to increased deaths according to a study just published in Plos One. It is reported that deaths from drowning were five times higher when warmer weather made the ice thinner and weaker.
My first thought was to wonder if those experienced in ice travel would judge safe conditions by the calendar using what the state of the ice would be on average at a certain time of the year rather that looking at the actual ice conditions. It made me want to look at the actual data in the research paper.It comes from Canadian researchers who looked at data on 4,000 drowning events in 10 countries. “We can confidently say that there is quite a strong correlation between warmer winter air temperatures and more winter drownings,” Sapna Sharma from Your University in Toronto told the BBC.It seems a simple story until one looks at the data which, as I suspected, paints a different picture than the headlines.
Look at their Figure 2 which shows deaths (per million people) plotted against December-March air temperature. An initial concern would be taking the average temperature over 4 months – this will include some variation in air temperature before and after the coldest temperatures of the year. But never mind, it is not the main concern there is with the data.
The authors of the report consider that Fig 2 shows that drowning deaths “increased exponentially” in regions with warmer winters when air temperatures exceeded 0°C. This is in my view is not a robust conclusion.Clearly Estonia and Latvia are outliers: they have a far lower population that other countries in the data, yet have as much an ice culture as the others. Because of this I suspect that the data is in part a result of cultural and administrative factors in those countries.
The variance of Latvia’s data is huge, and Estonia’s data is sparse and is also widespread. Remove these two countries from the graph and the increasing exponentially effect disappears, as does the fundamental conclusion of this study.In conclusion, this report has some interesting things to say about Latvia and Estonia but nothing to say about a worldwide effect on whether winter ice deaths are increasing as the world warms. It’s another example of specialist reporters of climate change only reading top lines, and not looking at the data of the stories they are reporting.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.com
6) Geoff Hill: The new Dust Bowl that even the BBC blames on green climate policies
The conservative Woman, 27 November 2020
IN HIS novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote about the US Dust Bowl of the 1930s and how families were driven off the land. It scored him a Pulitzer and was cited by the Nobel committee in awarding him the 1962 prize for literature.
The conservative Woman, 27 November 2020
IN HIS novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote about the US Dust Bowl of the 1930s and how families were driven off the land. It scored him a Pulitzer and was cited by the Nobel committee in awarding him the 1962 prize for literature.
In the wake of the Great Depression, the Midwestern United States suffered the hottest and driest weather on record and crops failed. Cattle had been allowed to graze freely across the plains, even in the dry months, eating what little cover there was, leaving the soil exposed.
As a result, across an area of 50million acres, wind blew the topsoil into intense dust storms sometimes called ‘haboobs’.
The haboobsare returning. Last month NASA filmed one from space: a moving mountain of sand 200 miles wide and swirling up to a mile high. It covered roads and buildings, silted dams and damaged crops.
According to the BBC Radio 4 programme, Inside Science, the cause is man-made.
‘The irony is that, in much of the Mid-West, expansion of maize production has been encouraged by bio-fuel incentives, intended to offset global warming,’ presenter Roland Pease told listeners. ‘And as other researchers have noted, this has meant grasslands with year-round cover have been ploughed up to make way for seasonal crops: echoes of what happened when tractors first arrived on the Great Plains.’
As in the 1930s, the affected area covers North and South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, western Minnesota and part of Colorado.
At the University of Utah, Andy Lambert wrote a thesis on atmospheric dust. He says the level at which large particles in the atmosphere become a risk is set by the US Environmental Agency and has rarely been exceeded in the past. ‘Now they are being exceeded once or twice every few years across many of the Great Plains states,’ he said.
In another paper, Lambert said the expansion of crops in arid areas lay at the heart of the problem. Winds lifting the sand also strip away the nutrients for vegetation growth that help to stabilise the soils. ‘This is the same thing we saw in the 1930s.’
In 1933, Congressman Edward Taylor introduced the Bill that still bears his name, licensing the use of pastures and, in marginal areas, limiting cattle to feed lots.
Eventually the dust settled, the grass came back, nature was allowed to restore a balance that had worked for millennia and haboobs became a thing of history. But the rush for biofuels in an effort to combat climate change has once again ripped away the protective layer.
NASA has also logged an increase in sandstorms across Africa. On a continent where an estimated 600million people lack electricity, firewood is used for cooking and to heat homes and the loss of trees has seen a rapid spread of desert. Along the edge of the Sahara, winds of up to 60mph move the dunes in such volume that they strip paint from cars and buildings. Forbes magazine warned that sand from the Sahara was moving fast and high enough to reach the US.
On its website, NASA blames the problem on ‘cutting of trees and overgrazing’, adding that ‘without vegetation to anchor the soil in place, wind erosion scours away the topsoil’.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), up to half a billion acres in Africa could be earmarked for projects similar to those in the United States. The African savanna, like the prairies, sustains a complex ecosystem that if disturbed could lead to similar problems. Large areas of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania have never been farmed intensively, with locals grazing cattle and growing market crops on a scale compatible with the land.
At the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, director Benny Peiser said he was ‘pleasantly surprised at the accuracy and balance’ of the BBC report.
‘The BBC almost habitually exaggerate the influence of climate change in their coverage,’ he said. ‘For once they looked at the main cause behind an event.’
The GWPF has called for a commission of inquiry into the biofuel industry, which is largely unregulated.
‘The threat of a new dust bowl is the direct yet unintended consequence of ill-conceived climate policies,’ Dr Peiser said. ‘And while biofuel may attract investment from companies trying to go green, we must learn from history or the road to hell will be paved with good, green intentions.’
As a result, across an area of 50million acres, wind blew the topsoil into intense dust storms sometimes called ‘haboobs’.
The haboobsare returning. Last month NASA filmed one from space: a moving mountain of sand 200 miles wide and swirling up to a mile high. It covered roads and buildings, silted dams and damaged crops.
According to the BBC Radio 4 programme, Inside Science, the cause is man-made.
‘The irony is that, in much of the Mid-West, expansion of maize production has been encouraged by bio-fuel incentives, intended to offset global warming,’ presenter Roland Pease told listeners. ‘And as other researchers have noted, this has meant grasslands with year-round cover have been ploughed up to make way for seasonal crops: echoes of what happened when tractors first arrived on the Great Plains.’
As in the 1930s, the affected area covers North and South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, western Minnesota and part of Colorado.
At the University of Utah, Andy Lambert wrote a thesis on atmospheric dust. He says the level at which large particles in the atmosphere become a risk is set by the US Environmental Agency and has rarely been exceeded in the past. ‘Now they are being exceeded once or twice every few years across many of the Great Plains states,’ he said.
In another paper, Lambert said the expansion of crops in arid areas lay at the heart of the problem. Winds lifting the sand also strip away the nutrients for vegetation growth that help to stabilise the soils. ‘This is the same thing we saw in the 1930s.’
In 1933, Congressman Edward Taylor introduced the Bill that still bears his name, licensing the use of pastures and, in marginal areas, limiting cattle to feed lots.
Eventually the dust settled, the grass came back, nature was allowed to restore a balance that had worked for millennia and haboobs became a thing of history. But the rush for biofuels in an effort to combat climate change has once again ripped away the protective layer.
NASA has also logged an increase in sandstorms across Africa. On a continent where an estimated 600million people lack electricity, firewood is used for cooking and to heat homes and the loss of trees has seen a rapid spread of desert. Along the edge of the Sahara, winds of up to 60mph move the dunes in such volume that they strip paint from cars and buildings. Forbes magazine warned that sand from the Sahara was moving fast and high enough to reach the US.
On its website, NASA blames the problem on ‘cutting of trees and overgrazing’, adding that ‘without vegetation to anchor the soil in place, wind erosion scours away the topsoil’.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), up to half a billion acres in Africa could be earmarked for projects similar to those in the United States. The African savanna, like the prairies, sustains a complex ecosystem that if disturbed could lead to similar problems. Large areas of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania have never been farmed intensively, with locals grazing cattle and growing market crops on a scale compatible with the land.
At the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, director Benny Peiser said he was ‘pleasantly surprised at the accuracy and balance’ of the BBC report.
‘The BBC almost habitually exaggerate the influence of climate change in their coverage,’ he said. ‘For once they looked at the main cause behind an event.’
The GWPF has called for a commission of inquiry into the biofuel industry, which is largely unregulated.
‘The threat of a new dust bowl is the direct yet unintended consequence of ill-conceived climate policies,’ Dr Peiser said. ‘And while biofuel may attract investment from companies trying to go green, we must learn from history or the road to hell will be paved with good, green intentions.’
7) Peter Foster: Sustainable Newspeak by 2050
Law & Liberty, 30 November 2020
There are no dictionaries of sustainability’s Newspeak. Its mavens rely less on new words than on perverting or reversing the meaning of old ones.
Law & Liberty, 30 November 2020
There are no dictionaries of sustainability’s Newspeak. Its mavens rely less on new words than on perverting or reversing the meaning of old ones.
George Orwell pointed out that one of the first casualties of socialism is language. The damage is not collateral, it is deliberate—designed to numb minds and render critical thought difficult or impossible. The instrument of this dumbing down in Nineteen Eighty-Four was Newspeak, the official language of the English Socialist Party (Ingsoc). Newspeak was a sort of Totalitarian Esperanto that sought gradually to diminish the range of what was thinkable by eliminating, contracting, and manufacturing words. New words had a “political implication” and “were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them.” The meaning of words was often reversed, as was most starkly emphasized in the key slogans of Ingsoc:
* WAR IS PEACE
* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Nineteen Eighty-Four was written in 1949. Its nightmarish fictional world is now 36 years in the past, so one might reasonably conclude that Orwell was far too pessimistic, but his great book was less a prediction than a warning, and above all an analysis of the totalitarian mentality. Meanwhile, there is another significant date in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The book’s Appendix on the principles of Newspeak stressed that the corruption of language was a multi-generational project whose fruition would not come until well into the present century. Ingsoc’s objective was to render independent thought impossible by “about 2050.”
Intriguingly, that is the same year that the world allegedly has to become “carbon neutral,” or “Net Zero,” to avoid climate Armaggedon.
Weasel Words
Twenty Fifty has become a key date for the UN’s “Global Governance” agenda, which seeks nothing less than to oversee and regulate every aspect of life on the basis of a suite of alarmist projections. The main existential threat is claimed to be catastrophic man-made climate change. “Climate governance” has thus emerged as the “fourth pillar,” of the UN’s mandate, joining Peace & Security, Development, and Human Rights.
So far—as with the other three pillars—the UN’s climate efforts have been spectacularly unsuccessful. It has held 25 enormous “Conferences of the Parties,” or COPs, which have promoted a morass of uncoordinated national policies that have had zero impact on the climate.
COP 21 in Paris in 2015, for instance, was meant to hatch a successor to the failed Kyoto Agreement. But all it produced was a raft of hypocritical, voluntary, fingers-crossed “Nationally Determined Contributions.” The failure of Paris, and of temperatures to rise in line with flawed models, led to a doubling down of “ambitions.” One new commitment that seeped out of Paris was for the countries of the world to hold temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above levels before the Industrial Revolution (The Original Climate Sin). Staying below that level, UN policy wonks rapidly calculated, would require the world to become carbon neutral, or Net-Zero, by 2050.
In a video lecture to Chinese students earlier this year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres claimed that there was “No excuse” not to meet the Net-Zero emission target by 2050. “The time for small steps has passed,” he said. “What is needed now is transformational change.” For “transformational” read “revolutionary;” change that would involve the destruction of Western industrial society and freedom.
In fact, there is no climate “crisis” or “emergency.” However, as Orwell noted, the language of fear and panic is one of the main instruments of political control.
Today, just as in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the classical liberal concepts of liberty and equality(of opportunity) are under relentless attack, as are the values of reason and objectivity. Liberty and equality were classified in Newspeak as “Crimethink.” Objectivity and rationalism were “Oldthink.” A doomed Newspeak lexicographer named Syme tells the book’s equally doomed hero, Winston Smith, that even the party slogans will eventually become incomprehensible: “How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished?”
Orwell was hardly the first observer to point to the political dangers of linguistic manipulation, which go back to discussions of sophistry in Plato. The great economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek pointed in particular to the left’s use of “social.” He dubbed it a “weasel word” that not merely sucked meaning from words to which it was attached but often reversed meaning. Thus, by classical liberal standards, social democracy is undemocratic, social justice is unjust, and a social market economy is anti-market. We have a prime current example in the phrase “social license to operate,” which in fact means a potential veto on corporate activities by radical environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), the stormtroopers of the Global Governance agenda. Private corporations were once socialism’s enemies; now they have been co-opted as its partners, agents of “Global Salvationism.” Nobel economist Milton Freidman pointed to the subversive, open-ended nature of “Corporate Social Responsibility,” where “responsibility” represents another weasel word. CSR’s purpose is to force corporate executives to abandon their responsibility to their shareholders in favour of an endless list of “stakeholder” demands.
Like the word “social,” “sustainable” tends to vitiate or reverse the meaning of words to which it is attached. Thus “sustainable” development is development retarded by top-down control.
Friedman has been regularly and ritually subjected to the Two Minutes Hate ever since. The most recent example was a collection of overwhelmingly condemnatory essays in the New York Times to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Friedman’s essay on CSR. Typically, it grossly misrepresented Friedman and wrote off his alleged bottom line as “Greed is Good.”
The shackles of CSR have now been tightened by the concept of ESG (Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance). ESG is, like the neologisms of Newspeak, “intended to impose a desirable mental attitude” on executives, who often seem intellectually and morally defenceless in the face of NGO campaigns of lies and intimidation. Business schools certainly don’t appear to equip them to counter such assaults.
Full essay
* WAR IS PEACE
* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Nineteen Eighty-Four was written in 1949. Its nightmarish fictional world is now 36 years in the past, so one might reasonably conclude that Orwell was far too pessimistic, but his great book was less a prediction than a warning, and above all an analysis of the totalitarian mentality. Meanwhile, there is another significant date in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The book’s Appendix on the principles of Newspeak stressed that the corruption of language was a multi-generational project whose fruition would not come until well into the present century. Ingsoc’s objective was to render independent thought impossible by “about 2050.”
Intriguingly, that is the same year that the world allegedly has to become “carbon neutral,” or “Net Zero,” to avoid climate Armaggedon.
Weasel Words
Twenty Fifty has become a key date for the UN’s “Global Governance” agenda, which seeks nothing less than to oversee and regulate every aspect of life on the basis of a suite of alarmist projections. The main existential threat is claimed to be catastrophic man-made climate change. “Climate governance” has thus emerged as the “fourth pillar,” of the UN’s mandate, joining Peace & Security, Development, and Human Rights.
So far—as with the other three pillars—the UN’s climate efforts have been spectacularly unsuccessful. It has held 25 enormous “Conferences of the Parties,” or COPs, which have promoted a morass of uncoordinated national policies that have had zero impact on the climate.
COP 21 in Paris in 2015, for instance, was meant to hatch a successor to the failed Kyoto Agreement. But all it produced was a raft of hypocritical, voluntary, fingers-crossed “Nationally Determined Contributions.” The failure of Paris, and of temperatures to rise in line with flawed models, led to a doubling down of “ambitions.” One new commitment that seeped out of Paris was for the countries of the world to hold temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above levels before the Industrial Revolution (The Original Climate Sin). Staying below that level, UN policy wonks rapidly calculated, would require the world to become carbon neutral, or Net-Zero, by 2050.
In a video lecture to Chinese students earlier this year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres claimed that there was “No excuse” not to meet the Net-Zero emission target by 2050. “The time for small steps has passed,” he said. “What is needed now is transformational change.” For “transformational” read “revolutionary;” change that would involve the destruction of Western industrial society and freedom.
In fact, there is no climate “crisis” or “emergency.” However, as Orwell noted, the language of fear and panic is one of the main instruments of political control.
Today, just as in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the classical liberal concepts of liberty and equality(of opportunity) are under relentless attack, as are the values of reason and objectivity. Liberty and equality were classified in Newspeak as “Crimethink.” Objectivity and rationalism were “Oldthink.” A doomed Newspeak lexicographer named Syme tells the book’s equally doomed hero, Winston Smith, that even the party slogans will eventually become incomprehensible: “How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished?”
Orwell was hardly the first observer to point to the political dangers of linguistic manipulation, which go back to discussions of sophistry in Plato. The great economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek pointed in particular to the left’s use of “social.” He dubbed it a “weasel word” that not merely sucked meaning from words to which it was attached but often reversed meaning. Thus, by classical liberal standards, social democracy is undemocratic, social justice is unjust, and a social market economy is anti-market. We have a prime current example in the phrase “social license to operate,” which in fact means a potential veto on corporate activities by radical environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), the stormtroopers of the Global Governance agenda. Private corporations were once socialism’s enemies; now they have been co-opted as its partners, agents of “Global Salvationism.” Nobel economist Milton Freidman pointed to the subversive, open-ended nature of “Corporate Social Responsibility,” where “responsibility” represents another weasel word. CSR’s purpose is to force corporate executives to abandon their responsibility to their shareholders in favour of an endless list of “stakeholder” demands.
Like the word “social,” “sustainable” tends to vitiate or reverse the meaning of words to which it is attached. Thus “sustainable” development is development retarded by top-down control.
Friedman has been regularly and ritually subjected to the Two Minutes Hate ever since. The most recent example was a collection of overwhelmingly condemnatory essays in the New York Times to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Friedman’s essay on CSR. Typically, it grossly misrepresented Friedman and wrote off his alleged bottom line as “Greed is Good.”
The shackles of CSR have now been tightened by the concept of ESG (Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance). ESG is, like the neologisms of Newspeak, “intended to impose a desirable mental attitude” on executives, who often seem intellectually and morally defenceless in the face of NGO campaigns of lies and intimidation. Business schools certainly don’t appear to equip them to counter such assaults.
Full essay
8) And finally: China can literally pull the plug on US high tech manufacturing and defense applications
Pini Althaus, Real Clear Energy, 1 December 2020
A Bipartisan, public/private collaboration is required to mitigate this risk
Even in our hyper-partisan political times, here’s one thing we should all agree on: We shouldn't have to rely on any other country, and certainly not the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), for our critical defense applications, electric vehicles, and consumer technology such as medical technology, clean energy applications and the 5G network. Yet nearly every high-tech device not made in China that we proudly label “Made in the USA” – from fighter jets to cell phones to wind turbines – deserves another more dubious moniker, “Made with components imported from China.”
The U.S., the EU, Japan, Korea and all other countries where manufacturing is the backbone of their economies, are more dependent than ever on China for the importation of so-called rare earth elements; the technological building blocks needed to power electric vehicles, move us more towards a greener economy, activate touchscreens, and guide missiles. Meanwhile, China has repeatedly threatened to stop exporting those minerals. It should be noted that this is absolutely not about the “Trade War” or which political party or president is in power. This is about the “Made in China in 2025” and other initiative, as the CCP clearly intends to further solidify its position as the “superpower” of global manufacturing – an initiative that transcends any U.S. administration and its trade policies, thereby maintaining absolute control of the critical minerals supply chain as part of that mandate.
In 2010 when China entirely cut Japan off from rare earth exports as part of a dispute in the South China Sea, the US and Japan took its case to the World Trade Organization, and China was forced to resume exports to Japan. This time it is different. Because China now needs more rare earths than it can produce, withholding exports for internal use will not be regarded by the WTO as a breach of international trade laws. And in fact, China is now a net importer of rare earth materials from countries like Myanmar and are also seeking to invest in rare earth projects in Africa and other parts of the globe.
We must break free of our dependence on China as soon as possible. Doing so is going to take a broad bipartisan effort, and partnership between government and industry. It will also take collaboration between the US and other countries like Australia, Canada and India, where rare earth projects and processing capabilities are being developed.
The need is urgent. Critical minerals are the backbone of any economy reliant on manufacturing. Billions of dollars’ worth of rare earths translates into trillions of dollars of finished goods and hundreds of thousands of jobs. China has understood this for a long time, and as a result has solidified their stranglehold of the critical minerals supply chain.
There are several rare earth deposits located within U.S. borders, such as USA Rare Earth’s Round Top Project in Hudspeth County, Texas, that are brimming with these raw materials, in addition to the pilot plant being commissioned at our processing facility in Colorado. We have also acquired the NdFeB magnet plant formerly owned and operated by Hitachi in North Carolina. This is all essential to a domestic supply chain. However, no one project and no one company is going to end this dependance on China. Collaboration is required between the rare earth mining and processing companies themselves, as the demand for these materials will far outweigh what any one project will be able to provide. But, to succeed it is important that we approach this with a united front, with Government supporting the private sector which is investing in the critical minerals sector.
Full story
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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