They forget that this stuff is on video.
I knew this would come in handy. “Big Joe” Bastardi in his regularly weekly video making climate pronouncements back in 2011.
Big Joe was a hero to climate deniers back in the day. I guess he still is for the dead enders.
Here’s the cover of his book.
So, how did Big Joe do in his 20ll predictions?
Continue reading “Climate Denier’s 2011 Predictions: How Did He Do?”Paul Braterman in The Conversation:
Every so often you come across a piece of writing so extraordinary that you cannot help but share it. One such piece is a sermon on global warming by American pastor John MacArthur. Full of beautifully constructed rhetorical flourishes, it is forcefully delivered by an experienced and impassioned preacher to a large and appreciative audience.
For me, as a man of science, it is the most complete compilation of unsound arguments, factual errors and misleading analogies as I have seen in discussions of this subject. But it’s important because climate change is a big election issuethis November in the US, where there is a growing movement of evangelical Christians who deny its existence, while Joe Biden promises a “clean air revolution”.
The minister of the COVID-denying, law-defying Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California – which has encouraged worshippers to congregate as normal despite state COVID-19 restrictions – MacArthur is an impressive figure whose Study Bible has sold almost 2 million copies.
He regards the infallibility of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, as essential to his faith, and his sermon about global warming can only be understood in that context. MacArthur’s rejection of the science is shared by other major US ministries and organisations such as Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International and the Discovery Institute.
In this sermon, MacArthur paraphrases “a scientist at Cal Tech” (except not a scientist at all, but the novelist Michael Crichton, best known for Jurassic Park), as saying in a lecture:
Consensus science is the first refuge of scoundrels … invoked only in situations where there is a political, social, financial agenda but no scientific support.
The reverend has the most serious reasons possible for rejecting the scientific consensus concerning the age of the Earth, the origins of humankind, the history and prehistory of the ancient near East and the peopling of continents: it is totally incompatible with the Genesis account of creation, Adam and Eve, the flood and the dispersion of peoples from the Tower of Babel.
As for global warming itself, the reverend channels standard climate change denial, but all his arguments are unsound and have been convincingly refuted to the satisfaction of an overwhelming consensus of climate scientists (see in-depth discussion at Skeptical Science). He understates the amount of global warming, incorrectly describes the full record as dating back only 30 years, and cites the Little Ice Age as evidence that the changes currently taking place are natural. There’s more:
Continue reading ““A Disposable Planet”. The Church of Climate Denial”Here’s the key, friends, this is the real deal. Legitimate science recognises a close correlation between sunspots and climate change … The sun is the source of temperature changes because of its infrared variations. … There is absolutely no evidence that CO₂ contributes to warming. On the contrary the opposite is true. Warming produces CO₂ … It’s the other way round.
Continue reading “Biden Bump: Renewables Riding Optimism for Biden Win”Alternative-energy investments are leaving their traditional peers in the dust.
The First Trust Nasdaq Clean Edge Green Energy Index Fund is trading at a record high. The iShares Global Clean Energy GCEI 2.70% Exchange-Traded Fund has surged to its highest level since 2010, and the Invesco Solar ETF TAN -4.24% is at its highest point since 2011.
All three funds, which languished for years before taking off in 2020, have surged more than 80% this year, partly because investors are betting they stand to benefit from presidential candidate Joe Biden’s green-energy proposals.
Mr. Biden has outlined a $2 trillion plan to fight climate change and has pledged to put the U.S. on a path to a 100% clean-energy economy by 2050. The funds’ gains have accelerated in recent weeks as the former vice president’s standing in the polls has improved.
Traditional energy companies, meanwhile, continue to struggle with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, which has sapped demand for fossil fuels. The S&P 500’s energy sector is down 49% this year, by far the worst performer of the index’s 11 groups.
Great to see this.
North Carolina State University – Health and Safety Aspects of Solar Photovoltaics:
Concerns about the volume, disposal, toxicity, and recycling of PV panels are addressed in this subsection. To put the volume of PV waste into perspective, consider that by 2050, when PV systems installed in 2020 will reach the end of their lives, it is estimated that the global annual PV panel waste tonnage will be 10% of the 2014 global e-waste tonnage.
In the U.S., end-of-life disposal of solar products is governed by the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA),as wellasstate policies in some situations.RCRA separates waste into hazardous (not accepted at ordinary landfill) and solid waste (generally accepted at ordinary landfill) based on a series of rules. According to RCRA, the way to determine if a PV panel is classified as hazardous waste is the Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test. This EPA test is designed to simulate landfill disposal and determine the risk of hazardous substances leaching out of the landfill.
Multiple sources report that most modern PV panels (both crystalline silicon and cadmium telluride) pass the TCLP test.
Continue reading “Recycling Solar Panels a Reality”The global surge in solar power is helping quickly lower the cost of solar panels and shrink energy’s carbon footprint, with around 70,000 solar panels being installed every hour by 2018, and an estimated 1.47 million solar panels in place by that year in the U.S. alone. But it also means that we’ll face an enormous pile of e-waste when those panels eventually wear out.
By the early 2030s, as one large wave of solar panels is reaching the end of life, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that there could be as much as 8 million metric tons of total solar panel waste. By 2050, that could jump to as much as 78 million metric tons of cumulative waste. “We’re looking at an emerging waste stream which has the potential to go to pretty large volumes over the next decade,” says Andreas Wade, who leads global sustainability for First Solar, a solar panel manufacturer that is taking on the problem with a circular approach.
At a recycling plant in Ohio, next to the company’s manufacturing facility, First Solar uses custom technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering 90% of the materials inside. It runs similar recycling systems in Germany and Malaysia. Right now, the holistic lifecycle approach isn’t common among other solar producers. But Wade says that now is the time to think about the problem. “Our aim for solar is to help our customers decouple their economic growth from negative environmental impacts,” he says. “So it is kind of a mandatory point for us to address the renewable-energy-circular-economy nexus today and not 20 years from now.”
On Friday, a group of firefighters were battling back flames in Ipueiras, Brazil, when a large animal popped out of the grass.
The anteater, a southern tamandua, tried to rush away from the smoldering bushes, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Soon, the anteater was surrounded by flames and the firefighters knew they needed to act fast to help the animal.
The firefighters started to follow the anteater when he suddenly stopped and stood up on his hind legs.
He spread his arms wide as if to surrender — a position sometimes referred to as the “anteater’s hug.”
“He was scared and I think he felt threatened because he stopped, stood up and made a movement as if to make himself bigger so that we were afraid of him,” Lieutenant Dutra, a member of the Ceará Military Fire Department, told The Dodo.
Anteaters have strong arms and claws, which they use to tear apart termite nests and defend themselves against predators. While they have poor vision and hearing, when an anteater feels threatened, he can be dangerous.
The firefighters, who are trained in animal rescue and removal, knew it was worth the risk to bring the anteater to safety.
Habitat loss, the illegal pet trade, and the intentional burning of sugarcane fields and forest by farmers threaten anteaters and other wildlife in Central and South America. Luckily, the firefighters were able to capture the anteater and release him into a nearby area unharmed.
“We left him in a location … similar to where we found him, so that he will have water and food available,” Dutra said.
Thanks to the crew, the anteater has another chance to live out his years safely in the wild.
Below, if you don’t know the story about What Exxon Knew – you need to watch the video below…
Continue reading “New Campaign Ads Feature “What Big Oil Knew””