GWPF | 5 Feb 2016
UN Climate Deal Could Make 5 Million More Africans Homeless To Fight Global Warming
Ever wonder about the neutrality (or lack thereof) of scientists investigating the subject of global warming? Does it seem that far too many of them eagerly sound alarm bells when it comes to documenting and communicating the potential consequences of human-induced climate change to the public? Well, that little voice inside your head telling you something is awry appears to be vindicated based on new research published in the journal Public Understanding of Science. — Craig D Idso, Cato at Liberty, 4 February 2016
A representative survey of 123 German climate scientists (42%) finds that although most climate scientists think that uncertainties about climate change should be made clearer in public they do not actively communicate this to journalists. Moreover, the climate scientists fear that their results could be misinterpreted in public or exploited by interest groups. Asking scientists about their readiness to publish one of two versions of a fictitious research finding shows that their concerns weigh heavier when a result implies that climate change will proceed slowly than when it implies that climate change will proceed fast. –S. Post, S. 2016. Communicating science in public controversies: Strategic considerations of the German climate scientists. Public Understanding of Science 25: 61-70.
1) Why Many Climate Scientists Fear & Hide The Truth
Cato at Liberty, 4 February 2016
2) UN Climate Deal Could Make 5 Million More Africans Homeless To Fight Global Warming
Daily Caller News Foundation, 4 February 2016
3) Texas Isn’t Scared of $30 Oil
Bloomberg, 3 February 2016
4) Renewable-Energy Investors Pull Back From Europe
The Wall Street Journal, 4 February 2016
The United Nations global warming deal could make another five million people homeless in the world’s poorest countries, for the express purpose of setting forest land aside to slow global warming through conservation. Millions who live in and depend on forests for their livelihoods could be evicted from their wooded homes, according to new study which will be released later this month. The intended goal of this mass displacement is to set aside local forest land to fight global warming. –Andrew Follett, Daily Caller News Foundation, 4 February 2016
Texas has a message for $30 crude doomsayers: Bring it on. A handful of shale patches in the state, which would be the world’s sixth-largest oil producer if it were a country, are profitable with crude below $30 a barrel, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence. “It may be harder to kill many U.S. E&Ps than analysts originally thought,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst William Foiles said in the report. –Dan Murtaugh, Bloomberg, 3 February 2016
Europe is tired of paying for renewable energy. In the past few years, Spain, the U.K., Italy and others have cut incentives for renewable-energy projects, citing desires to reduce government spending and electricity rates during a period of economic turmoil. And in turn, the number of new projects getting approval has fallen as investors turn away from an industry that offered the assurance of steady, government-backed profits. –Justin Scheck, The Wall Street Journal, 4 February 2016
1) Why Many Climate Scientists Fear & Hide The Truth
Cato at Liberty, 4 February 2016
Craig D Idso
Ever wonder about the neutrality (or lack thereof) of scientists investigating the subject of global warming? Does it seem that far too many of them eagerly sound alarm bells when it comes to documenting and communicating the potential consequences of human-induced climate change to the public?
Well, that little voice inside your head telling you something is awry appears to be vindicated based on new research published in the journal Public Understanding of Science. In an article that is both enlightening and damning at the same time, Senja Post (2016) set out to investigate the “ideals and practices” of German scientists in communicating climate change research findings to the public.
Post accomplished her objective by conducting and analyzing a representative survey of German scientists holding the academic rank of full professor and who were actively engaged in climate change research. Altogether, 300 such scientists were identified and invited to participate in her survey, and 42 percent of them responded with a completed questionnaire in which they were queried about “various aspects of climate change, their attitudes toward publicly communicating scientific uncertainty, and their media relations.”
According to Post, the results of her survey indicated that “the more climate scientists are engaged with the media the less they intend to point out uncertainties about climate change and the more unambiguously they confirm the publicly held convictions that it is man-made, historically unique, dangerous and calculable.”
Similarly, the more scientists were convinced of the alarmist narrative that rising atmospheric CO2 is causing dangerous climate change, the more they worked with the media to disseminate that narrative. Post’s survey also revealed that “climate scientists object to publishing a result in the media significantly more when it indicates that climate change proceeds more slowly rather than faster than expected,” which finding, in her words, “gives reason to assume that the German climate scientists are more inclined to communicate their results in public when they confirm rather than contradict that climate change is dramatic.”
Such findings are saddening and shameful, highlighting a near-ubiquitous bias among climate scientists (at least in Germany) who wilfully suppress the communication of research findings and uncertainties to the public when they do not support the alarmist narrative of CO2-induced global warming. Such deceit has no place in science.
Reference: Post, S. 2016. Communicating science in public controversies: Strategic considerations of the German climate scientists. Public Understanding of Science 25: 61-70.
Abstract In public controversies on scientific issues, scientists likely consider the effects of their findings on journalists and on the public debate. A representative survey of 123 German climate scientists (42%) finds that although most climate scientists think that uncertainties about climate change should be made clearer in public they do not actively communicate this to journalists. Moreover, the climate scientists fear that their results could be misinterpreted in public or exploited by interest groups. Asking scientists about their readiness to publish one of two versions of a fictitious research finding shows that their concerns weigh heavier when a result implies that climate change will proceed slowly than when it implies that climate change will proceed fast.
2) UN Climate Deal Could Make 5 Million More Africans Homeless To Fight Global Warming
Daily Caller News Foundation, 4 February 2016
Andrew Follett
The United Nations global warming deal could make another five million people homeless in the world’s poorest countries, for the express purpose of setting forest land aside to slow global warming through conservation.
Millions who live in and depend on forests for their livelihoods could be evicted from their wooded homes, according to new study which will be released later this month.
The new study by the Rights and Resources Initiative shows implementation of the U.N.’s agenda in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could displace up to 4.1 million living in the heavily inhabited ecologically “protected” areas and another 0.9 million who depend on the region for their economic well-being. The intended goal of this mass displacement is to set aside local forest land to fight global warming.
“Governments have targets to expand their protected areas, and now with new climate funding being available the risk is they will use this to expand in a way that doesn’t respect local rights. It could result in the displacement of millions of people,” Andy White, from the Rights and Resources Initiative, told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Previous analysis shows that as many as 17 million people have already been displaced from newly “ecologically protected” areas in the DRC alone by the local government and “international conservation organisations.” That’s almost a quarter of the DRC’s population. The new study suggests that the impacts on displaced people would be extremely difficult to mitigate.
“Our new masters … like the animals more than humans and do not mind that people suffer as long as the animals are happy,” a local Mbuti tribal leader in the DRC said.
The new analysis used data from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to calculate how many people would be forced to migrate after their livelihoods were destroyed by ecological protection.
3) Texas Isn’t Scared of $30 Oil
Bloomberg, 3 February 2016
Dan Murtaugh
Texas has a message for $30 crude doomsayers: Bring it on.
A handful of shale patches in the state, which would be the world’s sixth-largest oil producer if it were a country, are profitable with crude below $30 a barrel, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence.
In DeWitt County, which produced more than 100,000 barrels a day in November from the Eagle Ford formation, the average well can be profitable with U.S. benchmark crude at $22.52 a barrel, $4 below the lowest level this year. Drive 200 miles southwest to Dimmit County, and drillers need $58 oil. The wide range of break-evens, a term for the price at which a well goes from unprofitable to profitable, illustrates one reason why shale production from exploration and production companies has been more resilient than expected, filling storage tanks in the U.S. to levels not seen in 85 years.
“It may be harder to kill many U.S. E&Ps than analysts originally thought,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst William Foiles said in the report. “The wide range of break-evens undermines efforts to come up with a single threshold for U.S. shale producers.”
Since oil started falling in June 2014, U.S. shale drillers have survived by cutting costs, experimenting with new techniques and technology and boosting output to keep their wells competitive. West Texas Intermediate crude settled at $31.72 a barrel Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Idling Rigs Still, the big picture isn’t pretty. Two out of every three drilling rigs in the U.S. have been idled and scores of roughnecks who worked them laid off.
Law firm Haynes and Boone LLP says 42 companies filed for bankruptcy as of Jan. 6. On the other hand, U.S. crude output last week was 9.2 million barrels, the highest January level since 1971 and just 5 percent down from last year’s peak. It’s easier to survive low prices in some places than in others.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyzed everything from average output per well to the level of local school taxes to calculate break-even costs to drill in different rock formations across Texas’s two big shale regions, the Eagle Ford in south Texas and the Permian Basin. Nine areas had break-even costs at $30 or below.
4) Renewable-Energy Investors Pull Back From Europe
The Wall Street Journal, 4 February 2016
Justin Scheck
Europe is tired of paying for renewable energy.
For more than a decade, countries across Europe used big financial incentives to become world leaders in wind and solar development. In 2004, renewable sources accounted for about 14% of European Union electricity generation; by 2013 that exceeded 25%, according to the most recent EU data.
But in the past few years, Spain, the U.K., Italy and others have cut incentives for renewable-energy projects, citing desires to reduce government spending and electricity rates during a period of economic turmoil. And in turn, the number of new projects getting approval has fallen as investors turn away from an industry that offered the assurance of steady, government-backed profits.
Now, in much of Europe, solar and wind farms will compete with conventional power sources with less government support. Cutting subsidies “sends a very strong message that renewable energy has to stand on its own feet,” said Alex Chavarot, a banker with Access Financial Partners who works on renewable-energy transactions.
Only one new large-scale solar-energy project was approved in European Union countries other than the U.K. in the first 11 months of 2015, for a total of 2 megawatts of new generation capacity—a five-year low, and down from 14 new projects for 240 MW in 2010, according to an Ernst & Young analysis of data compiled by Bloomberg.
In 2010, European Union countries approved close to 6,000 MW of new onshore wind projects. That dropped to 1,020 MW in the first 11 months of last year, Ernst and Young said.
Offshore wind projects also declined, but not as much. The number of new U.K. onshore-wind and solar project approvals fell in 2015. The U.K. government last year cut renewable incentives, ending subsidies for onshore wind farms starting this year. At the same time, the government raised tax breaks for oil production.
In Europe, new investment in renewable energy totaled $120.7 billion in 2011, says REN21, a group of government and industry organizations that tracks the industry. In 2014 that was down to $57.5 billion.
Still, Ernst & Young partner Ben Warren said, several European nations rank among the best for renewable-energy investing, including Germany, France and the Netherlands. Germany have largely maintained significant levels of subsidies. Several offshore wind projects approved years ago came online in 2015, resulting in a doubling of new electricity-generation capacity from a year earlier, the European Wind Energy Association says.
The association says it expects investment in offshore wind—which hasn’t been subject to subsidy cuts in the U.K and elsewhere—to remain robust in coming years. And Denmark’s Dong Energy said this week it would move ahead with a plan to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm off northeast England, a giant project that could power more than a million homes.
But Ernst and Young says the U.S., China and India now are better places than most of Europe to fund clean-energy projects largely because of assurances by governments that incentives won’t change in the short term.
see also Benny Peiser (2013): Europe Pulls The Plug On Its Green Future
