Video: Matt Ridley: Fossil Fuels are Greening the Planet

In a talk hosted by reasonTV.com, prolific author Matt Ridley talks about how fossil fuels, contra popular wisdom, have been contributing to the greening of the planet.

US President Obama’s Green Energy List of Failures

President Obama’s picking winners and losers have been bleeding US taxpayers. 

Here is a list complied by the conservative Heritage Foundation accounting for (so far) the 34 tax payer funded (crony) green energy companies that have lost money

From the Heritage Foundation

So far, 34 companies that were offered federal support from taxpayers are faltering — either having gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy. This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
17. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
18. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
19. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
20. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
21. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
22. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
23. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
24. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
25. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
26. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
27. GreenVolts ($500,000)
28. Vestas ($50 million)
29. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
30. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
31. Navistar ($39 million)
32. Satcon ($3 million)*
33. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
34. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

The problem begins with the issue of government picking winners and losers in the first place. Venture capitalist firms exist for this very reason, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding if they are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connected to the policymakers themselves or because it sounds nice to “invest” in green energy.

The above list includes some adjustments, pls. go to the Heritage site for the updates

Chart of the Day: Global Warming Stopped 16 Years Ago

From the Daily Mail (hat tip Bob Wenzel)

The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.

The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.

Black Holes Show How Limited Man’s Actions Are

From Yahoo.com

Scientists have witnessed the rare spectacle of a supermassive black hole devouring a star that had ventured too close -- an event that occurs about once in 10,000 years, they reported on Wednesday.

Matter-sucking black holes normally lurk dormant and undetected at the centre of galaxies, but can occasionally be tracked by the scraps left over from their stellar fests.

"Black holes, like sharks, suffer from a popular misconception that they are perpetual killing machines," said researcher Ryan Chornock from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts.

"Actually, they're quiet for most of their lives. Occasionally a star wanders too close, and that's when a feeding frenzy begins."

If a star passes too close, the black hole's gravitational pull can rip it apart before sucking in its gases, which are heated by the friction and start to glow -- giving away the silent killer's hiding place.

A computer simulated photo from Nasa (Yahoo/AFP)

Scientists can only watch in awe.

While it is true that contemporary scientists have been experimenting with man made black hole machine via the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to study several theories which I earlier pointed out, such as the Higgs boson “elementary particles cause matter to have mass”, validity of the Grand Unification Theory (are electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force a single manifestation?), existence of the superstring theory (quantum gravity) and dark matter and dark energy, yet they cannot explain much of why black holes exists, the role it plays, or how a catastrophic disaster (Armageddon) can be avoided.

Yet the solar system where planet earth belongs to faces the same black swan risk from black holes as any planetary or star systems.

As I wrote in 2010 (emphasis original)

Yes, you may forget the farcical anthropogenic climate change, because the forces of nature would be exponentially be way far far far far more powerful and potent than the outcome from any of our collective destructive actions.

Besides, as remarked by the scientists interviewed in the TV documentary program, like any part of nature, our world operates on its own cycle. This means that the “ice age” could be just around the corner in some thousands of years to come, while the sun will expire on its own, by running out of fuel to burn, in about 5 billion years, and that today’s “aging” earth, even without the sun’s demise, will likely meet its end on its own.

And the sad part is that there is nothing mortal man can do to stop it. Every species or anything else that is part of nature will cyclically become extinct.

What’s my point in showing this?

Comedian George Carlin in this video has rightly been saying that too much self importance has been given in what man can do over the environment, such that we make a political spectacle/fuzz out of it.

In reality, humans represent only an iota in the overall spectrum of the universe.

Also our knowledge has been severely constrained to comprehend nature in its entirety, in as much as even understanding human action, the digital age notwithstanding.

In short, parlaying limited and presumptive of knowledge of the environment into public policies are fraught with the risks of unintended consequences. The existence of black holes only underscores this.

Climate Change Alarmist James Lovelock Admits Mistake

One of the intellectual pillars of climate change alarmism admits that his predictions have failed.

The MSNBC.com reports (my tip of the hat to libertarian colleague Patrick Ella)

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.

Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.

He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “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.”…

Mr. Lovelock acknowledges that his models didn’t work and that environmentalists have been overestimating on their understanding of nature.

More from the same article…

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.

He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future…

His admission…

“We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said.

'I made a mistake'

As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.

Just say what government wants and funding will follow. This epitomizes the politics of climate change.

At least Mr. Lovelock has been forthright enough to face up with reality. Although like doomsday diviner Harold Camping whose controversial forecasts in 2011 failed to materialize, Mr. Lovelock seems locked into a defensive posture to protect his work by pushing his forecasts to the indeterminate future.

Only when the tide goes out, said Warren Buffett, do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

Apparently the anthropomorphic climate change dogma has been swimming naked.

Video: Earth Day Message Through George Carlin

Environmentalists will be celebrating their annual Earth Day festivities tomorrow, April 22nd. And a deluge of mainstream's politically correct and self righteous calls of "saving the planet", implicitly via social controls and the political distribution of resources, will surely hug or dominate the headlines again.

Yet the highly relevant, stirring, classic video from comedian George Carlin should serve as reminder of the folly of self-importance and of the delusions of grandeur from interventions from which the environmental politics of anthropomorphic climate change has been founded upon.

The Politics of Climate Change

Analyst Martin Spring gives a concise but trenchant description or explanation of the politics of climate change.

Writes Mr. Spring (bold emphasis added)

Following the resignation of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Glaever from the American Physical Society because of its insistence that the evidence of human-caused global warming is “incontrovertible,” 16 eminent scientists have published an attack on “the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something be done to stop global warming.”

They say that’s “not true.” Indeed, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers disagree, recognizing that there is much contrary evidence.

Such “heretics” are persecuted, one example being the campaign to fire Dr Chris de Freitas, editor of the journal Climate Change, for daring to publish a peer-reviewed, factually-correct article that recent warming has not been unusual in the context of what happened over the past thousand years.

Many young scientists say they have serious doubts about the global-warming message, but “they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted – or worse.”

The reason such savage efforts are taken to suppress contrary opinion and inconvenient facts is that “alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow.

“Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet.”

The scientists argue that even if one accepts the “inflated climate forecasts,” aggressive policies to control emissions of greenhouse gases are not justified economically.

“A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls.

“This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world. And it is likely that more CO2, and the modest warming that may come with it, will be an overall benefit to the planet.”

The anthropomorphic global warming or climate change dogma has mostly been about the expansion of political power or control over the marketplace (via mass indoctrination and propaganda through government influenced institutions and media outfits), crony capitalism and covert socialism.

Quote of the Day: Climate Debate is all about the Feedbacks

Notice that the skeptics agree with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO₂; they just disagree about the feedbacks. The climate debate is all about the feedbacks; everything else is merely a sideshow. Yet hardly anyone knows that. The government climate scientists and the mainstream media have framed the debate in terms of the direct effect of CO₂ and sideshows such as arctic ice, bad weather, or psychology. They almost never mention the feedbacks. Why is that? Who has the power to make that happen?

That’s from Dr. David M.W. Evans at the Mises Institute.

The reality is that the climate change debate has hardly been about the environment but about the promotion of socialism and or statism.

The environment has only been used as pretext, front, and leverage or as means to advance an end, particularly the attainment of greater political power and control over lives from which the political class and their cronies acquire the mandate (from vulnerable voters manipulated by media) to rob their respective taxpayers.

Climate change politics, specifically the anthropomorphic strain, signifies a popular delusion and a sham that is being exposed for what they truly are.

Global Warming Debate: Sea levels aren't rising dangerously

Popular ‘media’ hysteria on climate change have principally been based from math derived models.

Yet in contravention of the establishment consensus, an expert based on extensive field observation claims that ‘sea levels are not rising dangerously’.

From the Spectator.co.uk,

This week's Spectator cover star Nils-Axel Mörner brings some good news to a world otherwise mired in misery: sea levels are not rising dangerously – and haven't been for at least 300 years. To many readers this may come as a surprise. After all, are not rising sea levels – caused, we are given to understand, by melting glaciers and shrinking polar ice – one of the main planks of the IPCC's argument that we need to act now to 'combat climate change'?

But where the IPCC's sea level figures are based on computer 'projections', questionable measurements and arbitrary adjustments, Mörner's are based on extensive field observations. His most recent trip to Goa in India last month – just like his previous expeditions to Bangladesh and the Maldives – has only served to confirm his long-held view that reports of the world's imminent inundation have been greatly exaggerated for ends that have more to do with political activism than science.

Mörner's views have not endeared him to environmental campaigners or the IPCC establishment. A few years ago, when I mentioned his name in a public debate with George Monbiot, I vividly remember an audible hissing from sections of the audience as if I'd invoked the equivalent of Lord Voldemort.

The problem for Mörner's detractors is that, eccentric and outspoken Swedish count though he no doubt is, he also happens to be the world's pre-eminent expert on sea levels. Besides being responsible for dozens of peer-reviewed papers on the subject, he was also chairman of INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution. This means that his findings can not easily be dismissed as those of a raving 'climate change denier'.’

I’d be very cautious about heeding populist or the mainstream’s claims when much of them seem to be communism/socialism garbed in environmental mores.

People Adapt To Climates, Intervention Not Required

That’s the message of Matt Ridley and Indur Goklany, as they write against relying on climate models to argue for political interventionism. (bold emphasis mine)

Was this because we controlled the weather? No. It was because we adapted to it. So even if extreme downpours do increase, death rates as a result of them will continue to decline so long as we continue to get more people access to roads, telephones, houses and information. It’s like malaria: it retreated rapidly in the twentieth century despite rising temperatures, and it will retreat rapidly in the twenty-first century despite rising temperatures.

As the above figure shows, globally the average annual death toll from all extreme weather events is about 35,000. Compare this to the hundreds of thousands of excess winter deaths that occur annually. Perhaps we should try to control winter before we tackle climate change! Oddly enough, while we may not be able to control the weather, in the U.S., millions have done the next best thing—they have migrated from colder northeastern climes to the warmer southwestern states. This, according to a paper in MIT Press’s Review of Economics and Statistics by econometricians Deschênes and Moretti, is responsible for 8%–15% of the total gains in life expectancy in the U.S. population from 1970 to 2000.

Read more of their splendid article here

The Imploding 'Man Made' Global Warming Bubble In The US

In the US, the global warming paranoia or bubble seems to be imploding. And like any social fads, bubbles eventually unravel and fade.

This from Gallup,


``The last two years have marked a general reversal in the trend of Americans' attitudes about global warming. Most Gallup measures up to 2008 had shown increasing concern over global warming on the part of the average American, in line with what one might have expected given the high level of publicity on the topic. Former Vice President Al Gore had been particularly prominent in this regard, with the publication of his bestselling book, "An Inconvenient Truth," an Academy Award-winning documentary movie focusing on his global warming awareness campaign, and Gore's receipt of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

``But the public opinion tide turned in 2009, when several Gallup measures showed a slight retreat in public concern about global warming. This year, the downturn is even more pronounced."

The accompanying charts...

shows how American sentiment towards global warming appear as...

collapsing!!!

For us, climate change is a real phenomenon. It's plainly the work of mother nature than from the activities of people, the latter of which constitutes only a fraction of influence on nature.

Common sense tells us that if we can't predict earthquakes what more for us to presume the accuracy of gloom and doom predictions or the alleged adverse consequences from "carbon emissions", years ahead.

People's belief in the gospel of model derived scientific analysis had been unwarranted; if quant models failed to predict the latest financial catastrophe, and was believed to have exacerbated the crisis, how much more should we come to believe that people's presumed actions (based on models) are far potent than the influences of mother nature?

Obviously, anything unsustainable won't last.

And with climategate or the revelation where mainstream scientists had been unmasked or exposed to have 'manipulated, suppressed and or distorted' data just to be able come up with conclusion that weather changes was due to anthropogenic reasons, the mainstream scientific model has been under siege.

Gallup adds, ``Some of the shifts in Americans' views may reflect real-world events, including the publicity surrounding allegations of scientific fraud relating to global warming evidence, and -- perhaps in some parts of the country -- a reflection of the record-breaking snow and cold temperatures of this past winter. Additionally, evidence from last year showed that the issue of global warming was becoming heavily partisan in nature, and it may be that the continuing doubts about global warming put forth by conservatives and others are having an effect."

So partisan politics and empirical evidences have been mainly responsible for this change in sentiment.

Of course what's not been said is that partisan politics is the attempt to pin the blame on people actions for changes in weather so as to justify measures to control or regulate people's behavior (euphemistically called socialism).

In the Philippines, media remains reticent about the global warming bubble. That's because it seems fun to live in a fantasyworld in the belief that a political superman would come and save the day from the villains (markets) or mother nature.

Climate Change: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Generation

Sir Ernest John Pickstone Benn once said, ``Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."

Since the environmental science issue of climate change or man made "anthropogenic" global warming has been transposed into political policies, like any politicized issues-deception and skulduggery have been used to promote vested interests.

Christopher Booker at the Telegraph presents a neat summary of how politics has transformed the global warming episode as the "greatest scientific scandal of our generation" to quote Professor Mark Perry.

(bold highlight mine, sub titles in blue font mine)

``There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre's blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt's blog Watts Up With That ), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws."

1. Data Suppression

``They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.

``This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones's refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got "lost". Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

``But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide?"

2. Data Manipulation

``The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

``In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.

``What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results."

3. Censorship

``The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports."

Read the rest of the article here.

The diagram below, from Professor Richard Lindzen shows how science have been parlayed into politics...

Read the Professor Lindzen's Global Warming power point presentation here (Hat Tip Stephan Kinsella/Mises Blog)

Dr. Tim Ball On Climategate

In Exposing The Fraud Behind Man Made Global Warming? [Climategate], we showed how hackers managed to infiltrate into the computers files of climatologist researchers and expose the alleged manipulation of data to present proof of that global warming is man made.

The corberttreports interviews retired climatologist Dr. Tim Ball on this expose. According to Dr. Ball "the manipulation of records on this level... you have to think it has to be criminal somewhere."



University of Michigan's Professor Mark Perry (source of video) offers additional links on this

CLIMATE BOMBSHELL: Hacker leaks thousands of emails showing conspiracy to "hide" the real data on manmade climate change

The Death Blow to Climate Science

And of course, Wikipedia already has a webpage: Climatic Research Unit e-mail Hacking Incident

Exposing The Fraud Behind Man Made Global Warming?

Computer hackers confer some benefit to the society after all.

Some recently hacked into the computers of climate research scientists and surreptitiously obtained a wealth of information: scientific evidences in support of anthropogenic (man caused) global warming were allegedly manufactured, if not tweaked to produce man made global warming!

This from the New York Times, ``Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.[bold emphasis added]

``The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years."

According to Telegraph's James Delingpole, (blue bold highlights mine, black bold original)

``When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

Mr. Delingpole's points to several issues...[bold highlights original]

``But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

You can read the rest of the article here.

Bishop Hill has a collection of sensitive communications here.

This just goes to show how closet communists or socialists have been using the environment as cover or as camouflaged platform to advance their political agenda. It isn't the environment that truly matters but absolute societal (the political economy) control by would be dictators or tyrants. They'd like to bring us back to the hunter gatherer age!

To quote Professor George Reisman, ``the intellectuals have chosen to foist the doctrine of environmentalism on the world, as a last-ditch effort to destroy capitalism and save socialism."

It's a conspiracy, if not a bubble, that appears to be falling apart.

Debating Climate Change Over Bed Time Stories

Here is the Thesis (Government advert implying deaths of family pets received many complaints from viewers-Protector1973)


Here is the Anti-Thesis (revised version Maggie's Farm)



Hat Tip: Russ Roberts Cafe Hayek