Month: February 2017

Deny-o-sphere about to erupt with news of another “Climate scandal”.
Fortunately, science.

The ever-reliable science denial vector – Daily Mail has come out with another set of accusations about NOAA temperatures.
I guess they didn’t realize that those findings have already been confirmed in a well vetted Journal.

Above, study author Zeke Hausfather.

Scientific American:

Various studies have debunked the idea of a pause, or hiatus, in global warming—the contention that global surface temperatures stopped rising during the first decade of this century. The arguments for and against “the pause” were somewhat muted until June 2015, when scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a paper in Science saying that it had slightly revised the sea surface temperatures it had been citing for the 1900s. The measurement methods, based on sensors in the engine intake ports of ships, had been flawed, NOAA said. The revised methodology also meant that sea surface temperatures during the 2000s had been slightly higher than reported. NOAA adjusted both records, which led to a conclusion that global surface temperatures during the 2000s were indeed higher than they had been in previous decades. No hiatus.

Critics attacked NOAA, claiming it had cooked the books to dismiss claims of a pause. Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas opened a congressional investigation of NOAA scientists, including demands that they turn over their emails, which they have not.

Now independent scientists have weighed in. A study published Wednesday in Science Advances shows that the adjustments NOAA made were justified. A team led by Zeke Hausfather at the University of California at Berkeley and Kevin Cowtan at the University of York analyzed raw data from buoys, satellites and robotic sensors around the world’s oceans. They concluded that the old methods had indeed overestimated sea surface temperatures in the past—but that the newer calculations had underestimated temperatures for the 2000s.

This kerfuffle is part of a larger effort by the now-greatly-empowered fossil fuel industry to crush science in favor of “alternative facts”.   The attack on this specific NOAA temperature data has been going on for a while, and was the topic of my video of last year:

Below, Hausfather has taken apart the newest nonsense. Continue reading “Much Ado about a NOAA Thing”

Above, finally tracked down the clip that’s been rocketing around Twitter for the last few days. Steve Bannon in a talk via Skype to a Conservative group at the Vatican, 2014.
His vision is slightly disturbing.

Excerpts: 

And we’re at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs, but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that’s starting, that will completely eradicate everything that we’ve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.
—

Now that call converges with something we have to face, and it’s a very unpleasant topic, but we are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it.

If you look at what’s happening in ISIS, which is the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant, that is now currently forming the caliphate that is having a military drive on Baghdad, if you look at the sophistication of which they’ve taken the tools of capitalism. If you look at what they’ve done with Twitter and Facebook and modern ways to fundraise, and to use crowdsourcing to fund, besides all the access to weapons, over the last couple days they have had a radical program of taking kids and trying to turn them into bombers. They have driven 50,000 Christians out of a town near the Kurdish border. We have video that we’re putting up later today on Breitbart where they’ve took 50 hostages and thrown them off a cliff in Iraq.

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/828608693512052736

That war is expanding and it’s metastasizing to sub-Saharan Africa. We have Boko Haram and other groups that will eventually partner with ISIS in this global war, and it is, unfortunately, something that we’re going to have to face, and we’re going to have to face very quickly.

So I think the discussion of, should we put a cap on wealth creation and distribution? It’s something that should be at the heart of every Christian that is a capitalist — “What is the purpose of whatever I’m doing with this wealth? What is the purpose of what I’m doing with the ability that God has given us, that divine providence has given us to actually be a creator of jobs and a creator of wealth?”

I think it really behooves all of us to really take a hard look and make sure that we are reinvesting that back into positive things. But also to make sure that we understand that we’re at the very beginning stages of a global conflict, and if we do not bind together as partners with others in other countries that this conflict is only going to metastasize.

They have a Twitter account up today, ISIS does, about turning the United States into a “river of blood” if it comes in and tries to defend the city of Baghdad. And trust me, that is going to come to Europe. That is going to come to Central Europe, it’s going to come to Western Europe, it’s going to come to the United Kingdom. And so I think we are in a crisis of the underpinnings of capitalism, and on top of that we’re now, I believe, at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism.

Haaretz, Jerusalem:

It’s an inconceivably scary thought that the Trump administration is simply winging it, breakneck, disrupting and detonating and taking America apart – and all of it without a plan.
But here’s the even scarier possibility – that there is, in fact, a plan.
A plan which would dramatically concentrate and expand Donald Trump’s power, inflame and mobilize his base, whip up and and leverage racism, Islamophobia and, at a later stage, if needed, anti-Semitism, in order to slough all shortcomings onto scapegoats.

He needs a war.

Continue reading “President Bannon: “..the Beginning of a Brutal and Bloody Conflict..””

Associated Press:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The plunging cost of solar power is leading U.S. electric companies to capture more of the sun just when President Donald Trump is moving to boost coal and other fossil fuels.

Solar power represents just about 1 percent of the electricity U.S. utilities generate today, but that could grow substantially as major electric utilities move into smaller-scale solar farming, a niche developed by local cooperatives and non-profits.

It’s both an opportunity and a defensive maneuver: Sunshine-capturing technology has become so cheap, so quickly, that utilities are moving to preserve their core business against competition from household solar panels.

“Solar growth is so extensive and has so much momentum behind it that we’re at the point where you can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” said Jeffrey R.S. Brownson, a Pennsylvania State University professor who studies solar adoption. “You either learn how to work with this new medium, solar energy, or you’re going to face increasing conflicts.”

The transition away from coal-burning power plants now seems unstoppable, even if Trump scraps rules requiring utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The average lifetime cost for utility-scale wind and solar generation in the U.S. is now cheaper than coal or nuclear and comparable to natural gas, according to financial advisory firm Lazard, which compared the fuel costs without their federal tax subsidies.

Wind and solar were expected to account for about two-thirds of the new electricity generation capacity added to the nation’s power grid in 2016, outpacing fossil fuel expansion for a third straight year, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

And even though big investor-owned utilities operate as legal monopolies in many states, the bill-lowering appeal of rooftop solar for many homeowners could eventually threaten their ability to finance and manage the power grids.

These trends help explain why utilities are increasingly adopting a model called “community solar,” or “shared solar,” which involves customers agreeing to buy or lease solar panels on large arrays built for the utility, or to buy the power they produce. That electricity is then credited off utility bills under contracts that can lock in power prices for 10 years or more.

Utility-run shared solar also can address competition from independent solar companies that install and operate rooftop solar panels, harvesting and providing the energy at a fixed cost to the individual consumer or some other buyer.

These projects also could appeal to the roughly half of American households that can’t install solar panels because they don’t own their homes, lack the good credit needed to finance an installation, or lack sufficient roof space where the sun shines consistently, the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory reported.

 

Guardian:

Falling costs of electric vehicles and solar panels could halt worldwide growth in demand for oil and coal by 2020, a new report has suggested.

A scenario that takes into account the latest cost reduction projections for the green technologies, and countries’ pledges to cut emissions, finds that solar power and electric vehicles are “gamechangers” that could leave fossil fuels stranded.

Polluting fuels could lose 10% of market share to solar power and clean cars within a decade, the report by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative found.

A 10% loss of market share was enough to cause the collapse of the coal mining industry in the US, while Europe’s five major utilities lost €100bn (£85bn) between 2008 and 2013 because they did not prepare for an 8% increase in renewables, the report said.

Big energy companies are seriously underestimating the low-carbon transition by sticking to their “business as usual” scenarios which expect continued growth of fossil fuels, and could see their assets “stranded”, the study claims.

Emerging technology, such as printable solar photovoltaics which generate electricity, could bring down costs and boost take-up even more than currently predicted.

Luke Sussams, a senior researcher at Carbon Tracker, said: “Electric vehicles and solar power are gamechangers that the fossil fuel industry consistently underestimates.

“Further innovation could make our scenarios look conservative in five years’ time, in which case the demand misread by companies will have been amplified even more.”

James Leaton, head of research at Carbon Tracker, added: “There are a number of low-carbon technologies about to achieve critical mass decades before some companies expect.”

Continue reading “Could EVs and Solar Blindside Big Oil?”

Seriously. Puppies.

UPDATE: Tampa Bay Times:

TAMPA — In May of last year, the Tampa Bay Times asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide the three most recent inspections of 15 puppy breeders who supply Tampa-area stores.

It took nine months, but the reply arrived last week: 54 pages of total blackout.

Every word of every inspection — from the date to the violations — were redacted from the documents provided. Providing “personnel and medical files,” the agency said, would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

These records used to be available on the USDA website for anyone to search and find. But in the first month after President Donald Trump took office, the information was scrubbed entirely from the website.

Why does that matter to Floridians? Because state lawmakers are now considering legislation that would null any local ordinance that prohibits the sale of dogs from a USDA-licensed breeder.

Rep. Halsey Beshears, R-Monticello, on Tuesday morning filed the amendment, which was tacked on to a 125-page bill offered by state agriculture secretary Adam Putnam. The amendment could be voted on as early as Wednesday.

Hillsborough County is one of those localities that bans the sale of dogs, though existing stores were allowed to continue operating. The goal of the ordinance, approved last year, was to block the pipeline of puppy mill dogs into Hillsborough. But as the Times learned last year, USDA-licensed breeder does not mean the facility is not a puppy mill nor does it mean it has a flawless track record.

A Tampa store, All About Puppies, received dogs from several large-scale out-of-state dog breeders with multiple USDA violations discovered at inspection.

One of those suppliers, Puppies Extraordinaire, a Kansas breeder that maintains about 1,000 dogs on site, was cited in 2015 and 2016 for keeping dogs in buildings and enclosures that were not up to code and could potentially cause injury.

At another Kansas breeder, Twin Oaks Kennel, inspectors in 2014 found staffers treating dogs with expired oxytocin. Whispering Oaks Kennel, also in Kansas, had a Shih Tzu in 2014 with an untreated eye infection swollen and crusted from a “slightly intruding point coming out of the pupil.” There, dogs were drinking water that was green out of containers with “green slime.”

All of that information is based on USDA inspections that were previously available to the public. Under the Trump administration, they are not. And if the Legislature decides to block local puppy mill ordinances, then dog buyers in those localities won’t be able to see the condition of the places that bred those pups.

Washington Post:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday abruptly removed inspection reports and other information from its website about the treatment of animals at thousands of research laboratories, zoos, dog breeding operations and other facilities.

In a statement, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service cited court rulings and privacy laws for the decision, which it said was the result of a “comprehensive review” that took place over the past year. It said the removed documents, which also included records of enforcement actions against violators of the Animal Welfare Act and the Horse Protection Act, would now be accessible only via Freedom of Information Act Requests. Those can take years to be approved.

“We remain equally committed to being transparent and responsive to our stakeholders’ informational needs, and maintaining the privacy rights of individuals with whom we come in contact,” the statement said.

This, of course, will make it harder to bust puppy mills.

Continue reading “Why do Climate Deniers Hate Puppies?”

Part one here.

The issue: White House releases a (normally perfunctory, if solemn) ceremonial statement of recognition for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Trump White House conspicuously omits, in fact, as new report suggests, deliberately cut out – reference to Jewish people who were primary targets of the Nazi machine.

Neo Nazis around the world instantly recognize the dog whistle shout-out.

Why do I post about this on a climate blog? 
Because I’ve been pointing out the uncomfortable crossover between Neo-Nazis, racists, and climate denial, since I first launched the video series in 2009.
Inextricably linked, as the ABC News video above shows, for quite some time. Continue reading “Alternative Fact: The Holocaust was a Chinese Plot. Part 2”

Had he lived, my Father would be 101 today.

He was chair of the local Republican Party in the Eisenhower era, when “Goldwater Republican” was not a dirty joke. I’m sure he’d not be allowed to speak to a GOP group today, nor would he be interested.

Lord Love a Duck Curve. Not.

Tillerson and Putin may not be able to move fast enough to catch up with Renewable Technology.

Treehugger:

One of the problems that comes from reliance on solar power is the “duck curve” where the solar panels produce more power than is needed during the day, and standby power is needed in the evening when demand is high and the sun goes down. The common solution has been to turn on natural gas “peaker” plants to produce power when the needed in those few hours. But in Southern California, a big natural gas leak turned into what Melissa called an epic ecological disaster, sending utilities searching for an alternative to gas.

© If it looks like a duck … (Photo: California ISO)

One of those alternatives that people dreamed about just a few years ago was giant batteries, and Elon Musk promised that he would make them in his new Nevada factory. What is really astonishing is that in just three months, Tesla has delivered a giant battery farm with 396 stacks of batteries that can provide enough electricity to power 15,000 houses for four hours, about how long it takes to shave the peaks, to kill the duck.

Even the experts are shocked at the speed this is happening at: According to the New York Times, Continue reading “Know this, Tillerson. Big News on Batteries, EV.”