Be careful what you wish for...

..AND WHATEVER IT IS, if you don't get it, blame ex-President George W. Bush. He is responsible, check it out here... Ask the German greens, and greens worldwide who have been barking mad and nuclearphobic since their conception. Their fear of nuclear energy arises from the fact that nuclear energy represents the spectre of cheap electricity, and cheap electricity represents unbridled and unrestricted capitalism. They have a similar aversion to oil and the private car (for everyone except themselves of course) which has given billions of people the freedom the green left detest, a freedom to do as they wish - even to travel to their corporate capitalist workplace. Now, German greens have been granted their anti-nuclear wish - a nuclear free future. The German people have been told that a conversion to alternative energy sources, ie solar and wind power, will cost the average German consumer no more than the price of one latte per month... Surprise ! the truth may be a tiny bit different, and with the truth it may well be that the voting public, in Germany and around the world, will at last see the hypocritical greens for what they really are, the last faintly glowing embers of their red beginning...Chancellor Angela Merkel's government insists that electricity bills will only grow modestly as a result of the nuclear energy phase-out. Experts, however, disagree, with many pointing to Berlin's massive subsidies for solar power as the culprit...According to an assessment by the Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI), the politicians' estimate of the costs of expanding renewable sources of energy is far too low, while the environmental benefits have been systematically overstated. RWI experts estimate that the cost of electricity could increase by as much as five times the government's estimate of one cent per kilowatt hour. In an internal prognosis, the semi-governmental German Energy Agency anticipates an increase of four to five cents. According to the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, the additional cost could easily amount to "five cents or more per kilowatt hour." An internal estimate making the rounds at the Economics Ministry also exceeds the official announcements. It concludes that an average three-person household will pay an additional 0.5 to 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour, and up to five cents more in the mid-term. This would come to an additional cost of €175 ($250) a year. "Not exactly the price of a latte," says Manuel Frondel of the RWI. The problem is the federal government's outlandish subsidies policy. Electricity customers are already paying more than €13 billion this year to subsidize renewable energy. The largest subsidies go to solar plants, which contribute relatively little to overall power generation, as well as offshore wind farms in the north, which are far away from the countries largest electricity consumers in Germany's deep south..."We are dumping billions into the least effective technology," says Fritz Vahrenholt, the former environment minister for the city-state of Hamburg and now the head of utility RWE's renewable electricity subsidy Innogy. In its most recent report, the expert council on environmental issues assembled by the federal government advocates sharply reducing subsidies for solar power... "From the standpoint of the climate, every solar plant is a bad investment," says Joachim Weimann, an environmental economist at the University of Magdeburg. He has calculated that it costs about €500 to save a ton of CO2 emissions with solar power. In the case of wind energy, it costs only €150. In combination with building upgrades, the cost plummets to only €15 per ton of CO2 emissions savings. Environment Minister Röttgen did in fact intend to significantly reduce solar subsidies through the Renewable Energy Act. But then came the nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant in Japan, which lead to Germany's radical change of course. Now, in order to phase out nuclear energy as quickly as possible, every kilowatt hour of electricity is badly needed , no matter what the cost...The electricity that was once generated by those German nuclear power plants now comes primarily from the Czech Republic and France -- and is, of course, more expensive. The demand for electricity is expected to increase in the coming years, particularly with growing numbers of electric cars being connected to the grid as they charge their batteries.
Experts can only shake their heads in disbelief at the notion that solar roof panels could satisfy demand in the foreseeable future..read the full article from der Spiegel online here...

The demonisation of Christians...

...is a predictable response from the political left after the Norwegian massacre. Never mind that Christianity's 2 main tenets are to love God, and to love "thy neighbour as thyself"...two principles that the perpetrator Breivik ignored on his rampage. Breivik may think he is a Christian, but he will be remembered as a psychopathic monster... as a response to media stereotyping, this from the irrepresible Cranmer...The subliminal message is inescapable: ‘Left is good; Right is bad’, because right-wing beliefs breed right-wing philosophy which spawns right-wing extremism which is malignant. Ergo, those who tend towards the political Right must be subject to state surveillance.And so we arrive at the unquestionable BBC state orthodoxy and narrative of enlightenment. It is ‘spin’, but of such an Orwellian subliminal manipulation of the vernacular that any contrary utterance strikes a chord of jarring dissonance, and the speaker or writer is cast into political, social or spiritual oblivion. Norman Tebbit, Simon Heffer, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, Daniel Hannan, Peter Hitchens, John Redwood, Melanie Phillips, The Freedom Association... These are the new ‘fascists’ of the Right; they exist at the periphery of social acceptability, while the fascistic tendencies of those left-wing groups which seek to intimidate and silence any reasoned protest against socially-liberal, ecumenical, europhiliac multiculturalism are completely ignored.It appears now that if you believe in small state, low tax policies; are fiscally conservative; oppose on-tap abortion; support the traditional, nuclear family; seek to limit immigration; support withdrawal from the EU; advocate freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and freedom of belief, you are without doubt a racist, bigoted zealot, and almost certainly a ‘right-wing extremist’ or a ‘right-wing nutter’. And if it is ‘fascist’ or ‘extremist’ or ‘right-wing’ to say this, then it would appear that His Grace also needs watching. But so do the vast majority of Britons who are proud to stand up for such beliefs and advocate such policies, for there beats yet the Conservative heart of the nation...and from Holland...Dutch politician Geert Wilders called Norwegian suspect Anders Behring Breivik's twin attacks a "slap in the face of the global anti-Islam movement". The leader of the controversial Party for Freedom (PVV) made the statement after he was asked by Dutch media to clarify his own position, being at the forefront of verbal attacks on Islam in the Netherlands. "That the fight against Islamisation can be abused by a psychopath in such a violent way is disgusting and a slap in the face of the global anti-Islamist movement," said Wilders in a statement issued by his party. Wilders, who last month was acquitted by a Dutch court on hate speech and discrimination charges for statements made attacking Islam, said neither he, nor his party was responsible for the actions of the 32-year-old Norwegian, who claimed to be trying to bring about an anti-Muslim revolution.
"Neither the PVV is, nor I am, responsible for the actions of a lonely, ill-adjusted idiot who abused the peace-loving ideals of the anti-Islamist movement in such a violent manner, no matter how much some people would like that to be the case," he said. Wilders said he was "repulsed" by the fact that Behring Breivik referred to him and the PVV in a 1500-page manifesto, which was published immediately before the Norwegian started his bombing and shooting spree, killing 76. "We are democrats at heart and soul. The PVV has never issued a call to violence and will never do so," Wilders said. "We believe in the power of the ballot and the wisdom of the voter. Not bombs and pistols," he added...read the full report from The Australian here...

Well done that man...

...whoever he is, who leaked the emails from the UEA Climate Research Unit. He deserves accolades and our thanks. If Al Gore was thought fit to receive the Nobel Prize, Mr/Ms Anon should be similarly honoured. His actions precipitated ClimateGate, and for the alarmist greens life has never been the same. We now have a level of public debate and satire that is succeeding in turning public opinion away from fear, social control and economic disaster. This morning's NZ Herald carried a full page feature, aptly headlined "The great climate debate" between Chris de Freitas (Nature is the key) and Keith Hunter (The human component.) The verdict ? The science behind climate change is definitely not settled, the alarmist claims are not warranted, and the main drivers of climate change are natural. Similarly in Australia, the state funded ABC no less have announced a new comedy series At Home with Julia (Gillard) featuring the PM and her hairdresser partner. The blurb explains...They're just like any other busy modern couple, trying to balance their relationship with critical tasks like introducing taxes no one voted for...

Such news items and parody must send a shiver down green spines. In fact in the topsy turvy world of greenpeace bad news for humanity's future must be an absolute joy. So dependant are they on bad environmental news and a supportive media they have been able to manufacture it when it's not there. So of course people now laugh at their foolishness, their credibility sinks even lower and their army of young useful fools shrinks a little more. How terrible for their collective psyche then when research shows that their apocalyptic scenarios won't come to pass. Such as this news re sea level rises...analysis of the four longest continuous Australian and New Zealand records is consistent with the findings of US researchers Robert Dean and James Houston, who analysed monthly averaged records for 57 tide gauges, covering periods of 60 to 156 years. The US research concluded there was "no evidence to support positive acceleration over the 20th century as suggested by the IPCC, global climate change models and some researchers"...read the full article here...HT PKH

An environmental reformation...

...is at hand. Fossils of the environmental movement are on their knees, stunned by the influence of neo-liberal thinkers who see that decades of Malthusian doom gloom and catastrophe have failed. This reformation is profound and universal and will eventually see remants of the discredited green watermelons seek their political vehicle elsewhere. In NZ we think of relics such as Sue Bradford, John Minto and their newly formed Mana Party. Green navel gazing and regrouping is producing startling treats such as recantation from the likes of the Guardian's George Moonbeam Monbiot (I was wrong about nuclear energy)and the Daily Mail's Mark Lynas. This particular summation is excellent, and would of course please Denis Dutton, smiling above, and the late Petr Beckmann who tirelessly edited the pink monthly newsletter Access to Energy and the late, great Julian Simon, who saw it all coming in 1981 when he wrote "The Ultimate Resource" ...

...When Gregg Easterbrook's voluminous book A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism was published in 1995, it received the predictable reaction from the environmental community: outrage...Something similar happened in 2001 when Bjorn Lomborg published The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, which also argued that most environmental problems were overestimated and most global conditions were stable or improving...there are additional signs that at least a few within the environmental establishment are starting to have some long-overdue second thoughts. There are starting to appear serious books from major publishers that not only break with standard environmental orthodoxy but verge on outright optimism about the planet's future. Perhaps the most surprising is British journalist Fred Pearce's The Coming Population Crash and Our Planet's Surprising Future. There's not much left standing of Malthus and his epigones (especially Paul Ehrlich) after Pearce gets through mauling their factual and conceptual errors. And David Roberts, the deep-green writer for Grist.org who coined the term "climate hawks" to describe the most dedicated global-warming crusaders, wrote recently in The American Prospect that "after 20 years, it may be time to admit that the climate movement's fundamental strategy, not a deficit of personal courage or heroic striving, is behind the lack of progress."

With thanks to Climate Debate Daily...Read the full article here...

You're obsolete my baby...

...my poor old fashoned baby...sang the Rolling Stones (and the Ramones) in the 70's. If Mick, Keith or anyone else chose to re-launch the song these days, they could dedicate it to a carbon or emissions trading scheme. Any Western political enthusiast for such a dingbat scheme has to sell the fact that it will cost billions or trillions and it will have a negligible impact on the global environment. They also have to explain - very patiently to a cynical and fed-up and over-taxed electorate - that their country must be seen to be pulling its weight internationally. Not leading the international pack of course, but not shirking from an international obligation to inflict severe economic pain on themselves.

Such a political balancing act is getting more and more laughable, and more and more difficult.

The Spectator (Australia) looks at ETS's and carbon trading internationally and observes...Nonetheless, Ms Gillard and her senior ministers keep running the intellectually bankrupt argument that Australia...is catching up with other nations that are decarbonising their economies. So...start with North America (which has) given up on implementing either a carbon tax or an ETS...the overall impact on reducing US net emissions is negigible...It's the same story in Canada...where Stephen Harper's government increased its parliamentary majority...after promising not to legislate a carbon price. Check out China, where carbon emissions are steadily increasing...if Beijing really is an environmental leader why...in Kevin Rudd's colourful language, have its diplomats "ratf***ed global efforts to reach a genuinely global deal"? The answer is that China's leaders recognise that decarbonising the economy is a costly venture. Then there is the 27 member European Union: simply put, carbon pricing there has been a disaster...more here...

All this of course leading to the question, where does our ex-international currency trader, Prime Minister John Key see NZ heading ? With a population of just over 4 million, and carbon emissions that make up less than 0.01% of the world's total we are an environmental irrelevancy. Is John Key really so slavishly adherant to ex-PM Helen Clark's ideology and her employer that he would hobble our very fragile economy ? Has he in fact become a lemming trader ?

Kraut angst...

...over nuclear energy seems to be delivering a surprise or two. Germany of course is to phase out its nuclear energy industry in the wake of the Fukushima "meltdown". (A catastrophe that killed no-one, unlike the European mung bean massacre recently where up to 30 deaths were reported...a single organic farm in Germany has recently killed more people than have all the nuclear power plants Germany is rushing to shut down.) To replace electricity generated from nuclear energy it has been assumed that Germany would build 20 million windmills, and cover all its rooftops with solar panels. No way. Believe it or not... Germany is going to burn more coal...The German government wants to encourage the construction of new coal and gas power plants with millions of euros from a fund for promoting clean energy and combating climate change.The plan has come under stiff criticism, but the Ministry of Economics and Technology defended the idea. A spokeswoman said it was necessary as the government switches from nuclear to other renewable energy sources and added that the money would promote the most efficient plants possible. Funding for the initiative is limited to five percent of the energy and climate change fund’s annual expenditure between 2013 and 2016.Annual funding for the new plants could total more than €160 million per year between 2013 and 2014 alone, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported on Wednesday.The fund was first established to encourage nuclear plant operators to develop new, renewable forms of energy production. Now that nuclear power is to be phased out by 2022, the fund will pay for research into reducing carbon dioxide emissions from buildings, developing renewable energy sources and storage technologies for them.Opposition politicians and environmental groups said the plan was wrong because it would promote what they argued were climate-damaging plants. They also worried that money earmarked for other valuable projects could be reduced as a result.Oliver Krischer, a member in the Bundestag of the Green party, told the Berliner Zeitung that the country would do better to encourage more investment in energy efficiencyAnd the environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) said additional coal-fired plants were entirely unnecessary...read more from Colonel Klink and Private Schultz here...
UPDATE...Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants...MORE from Der Spiegel online here...
...and simply because it's a treasure, the late Denis Dutton's review of Bjorn Lomborg's "The Skeptical Environmentalist" here...

A greenie pie thrower recants (2)

...you mustn't believe green zealots - and I should know, I was one says the confession in this morning's UK Daily Mail. This is from Mark Lynas, who sadly escaped a broken nose after throwing a pie in Bjorn Lomborg's face. Perhaps his hooter may yet receive attention from his angry lefty ex-friends ... However, we must be charitable, and recognise his penitence. He now joins George Monbiot who acknowledges the shameful history of green lies over nuclear energy. How long will it be before green activists such as Monbiot and Lynas face up to green perfidy over AGW, GM crops, DDT, coral bleaching, acid rain... ? No matter, enjoy this now...
... I used to passionately oppose not only nuclear power but GM crops. I once even threw a pie in the face of a Danish scientist who dared to question the orthodox environmental line. So what changed? Through research, (oh yeah ?) I found that much of what I believed about environmental issues had little, if any, basis in science. Put simply, though my concerns were right, my solutions were wrong. In my new book, I propose that Campaigning groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth insist climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, while doggedly refusing to reconsider their opposition to atomic power stations, which already provide massive amounts of zero-carbon electricity and could yield much more...had the green movement of the Seventies and Eighties supported nuclear power — instead of violently opposing plans for greater use of atomic energy, a move that led to more coal power plants being built — we would not be facing the climate crisis we are ...One of the reasons the Green movement is failing to attract support is that it has too much cultural baggage and is too ideologically rigid. Any reconsideration of the orthodox position — even for the sake of the environment — is seen as a betrayal. Politically speaking, the Green Party is trapped in the irrelevance of the Far Left...read more hand wringing from this climate alarmist here...
...AND from Spiked...The attempt to locate planetary boundaries is equally an attempt to locate boundaries for humanity – to put it in its place within a supposed natural order. And within that order is a design for political institutions that are not legitimised by the public contest of values and ideas, but by the claim that they are necessary for ‘saving the planet’ and ourselves. Environmentalism is an ugly political experiment. That experiment failed, but not simply because its material science was flawed. Just as it was environmentalism’s political failure that preceded Lynas’s revision of its scientific basis, environmentalism’s political idea - its ideology - precedes the science. Rewriting the science won’t make the experiment any more successful for Lynas than it was for Ehrlich...more here...
An apology to the courageous Bjorn Lomborg might be in order Mr Lynas...

Watch THIS space...

...from the UK Guardian comes news that the University of East Anglia
has been forced to release up to 4million individual thermometer readings taken from 4,000 weather stations over the past 160 years, data that is the life's work of the head of the UEA's Climatic Research Unit, Phil (Hide the Decline) Jones. The same Phil who wrote ... "Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" UEA resisted the requests to disclose the data, but this week it was compelled to do so.

...An Oxford academic has won the right to read previously secret data on climate change held by the University of East Anglia (UEA). The decision, by the government'sinformation commisioner, Christopher Graham, is being hailed as a landmark ruling that will mean that thousands of British researchers are required to share their data with the public. The ruling also marks a victory for critics of the UEA and itsClimatic Research Unit in the "climategate" affair. It comes at the end of a two-year rearguard action by UEA climate scientists to prevent publication of their "crown jewels", an archive of world temperature records collected jointly with the Met Office. Jonathan Jones, physics professor at Oxford University and self-confessed "climate change agnostic", used freedom of information law to demand the data that is the life's work of the head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Phil Jones. UEA resisted the requests to disclose the data, but this week it was compelled to do so...Under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act, public bodies such as universities have to share their data unless there are good reasons not to. But when Jonathan Jones and others asked for the data in the summer of 2009, the UEA said legal exemptions applied. It said variously that the temperature data were the property of foreign meteorological offices; were intellectual property that might be valuable if sold to other researchers; and were in any case often publicly available. But in a damning verdict, Graham said suggestions that international relations could be upset by disclosure were "highly speculative", and "it is not clear how UEA might have planned to commercially exploit the information requested...more here...

An anguished hippy...

...speaks for many deluded "progressives" who had hoped to use fear of climatastrophe to advance their cause. This poor soul sees that his "progressive and environmentalist" cause has been mortally wounded, and calls for a refocus towards "system change not climate change"...

...I’m a planet lover, progressive and environmentalist and I for one am happy and relieved my children will not die an unspeakable death on a planet heating up from CO2. I’m happy the science was exaggerated and all is well again. It’s peace we want isn’t it? Have we lost focus of that fact? Let’s progress in peace and optimism to the future of progress. Why was fear our only motivator to get the kids to turn out the darn lights more often? Where we the neocons of environMENTAL fear mongering? Turn the lights out or die? Was this our Iraq War?

...This IS the worst possible emergency EVER! Climate Change wasn’t “environmentalism”, it was a 25 year old death threat to our children and marching orders for mindless ideologues. Real planet lovers were glad it was a criminal exaggeration of disco science and fear mongering media and thus averting an unspeakable end of the world by unstoppable warming. It was a sick and twisted mistake and history is cursing us all for this madness..Real planet lovers were happy the CO2 unstoppable warming was a criminal exaggeration. Why did we hope for this misery to have happened? History will not be kind. It’s time to be a former believer like the majority of voters now.Continued support of climate change is hurting the planet as it divides environmental efforts and all of progressivism. It's time we evolved and stopped holding a spear of CO2 fear to our children's backs. Love, not windmills. System change, not climate change...read more, with some Kevin Trenberth thrown in, here...