Most countries have now committed to reducing their CO2 emissions to Net Zero; Germany by 2045, the USA, Japan and Europe, including the U.K., by 2050, China by 2060 and India by 2070. Under these circumstances, I suggested in the Daily Sceptic on March 11th that climate sceptics should accept the direction of travel and focus their time and energy on trying to ensure the Government puts forward reasonable policies in order to achieve Net Zero.
From the comments on my article, it seems that some climate sceptics still believe it is realistic to persuade the Government to abandon Net Zero. I would certainly agree that the Government needs to slow down the timetable for Net Zero and it needs to ignore the claims about ‘climate emergency’ and ‘the clock is ticking and we are at one minute to midnight’. If these claims are true then we are all doomed anyway because it was clear from COP26 that China and the other countries of the developing world, which between them produce 63% of global CO2 emissions, have no intention of reducing their emissions in the near future.
Our Government needs to consider carefully which policies will work and which won’t. For example, I listened to Any Question on the radio on Saturday April 2nd and the panellists from all the political parties blithely talked about generating ever more energy from wind. This is madness. If we become too dependent on wind energy then when we have spells of weather with low wind speeds there will be power cuts and our homes will be without light and heat.
There is also talk of increasing the amount of solar energy, which at the moment is much less developed than wind. But there is a reason why solar energy is less developed and that is because it does not make sense in the U.K. Our maximum energy requirement is during the winter when we need to heat our homes and offices. But in the winter there is very little sun in the U.K., the days are short and the sunlight weak.
The only presently available option for both reducing CO2 and having a reliable electricity supply is nuclear energy and the Government should be upfront about this and commit to a major programme of new nuclear power stations. But successive governments have neglected nuclear energy and the industry has all but disappeared in this country. We cannot just wave a magic wand and new nuclear power stations will appear. Even if the Government decides tomorrow to go with nuclear it is unlikely that any new power stations will be operational until the 2030s and in the meantime fossil fuel power stations will still be needed.
There is also the issue of China, which is by far the largest emitter of CO2; it produces approximately 30% of global CO2 emissions. China and other developing nations have been quite clear that their priority is not climate change but improving the living standards of their population. So China has said it will keep increasing its CO2 emissions during the present decade but from 2030 onwards it will gradually reduce them until reaching Net Zero in 2060. Many people question how much we can rely on the word of the Chinese Government and would argue that the U.K., which produces only 1% of global CO2 emissions, should pedal more slowly until we are clear that China, and indeed the other countries with large CO2 emissions such as the USA and India, are keeping to their promises.
So there are practical reasons why the U.K. should move more slowly towards Net Zero but is it realistic to argue it should abandon Net Zero altogether? A point often made by climate sceptics is that throughout its history the Earth has shown variations in temperature. There were periods when it was warmer than now and periods when it was colder. But human beings were not around for most of these previous climate change episodes, whereas we are around now and we have the technological and scientific tools to better understand the Earth and its climate. The theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) has been proposed to explain the main observations. Firstly, the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels, from under 300 parts per million (ppm) before the Industrial Revolution to over 400 ppm now, is assumed to be due to human activity, burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees. Secondly, the increase of just under one degree Celsius in the Earth’s temperature over the same time period is assumed to arise from the increase in CO2 because CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Whilst I would completely agree that AGW is not proven, it is plausible and has the support of the majority of scientists.
Over the years, climate sceptics have made a number of criticisms of AGW, for example that CO2 absorption is largely ‘saturated’ and adding further CO2 will not greatly increase atmospheric warming, or that the correlation between CO2 density and temperature is imperfect and in the middle of the last century there was a period of 30 years when the temperature did not change. AGW supporters then counter these criticisms, for example by agreeing that the main absorption band in CO2 is ‘saturated’ but adding there is still absorption in weaker lines and the wings of main band, or that the Earth is a large and complex planet and when plotting CO2 density versus temperature you need to take a multi-decadal view such that you use the running mean over 20, 30 or 40 years. These and other technical issues have been widely discussed over the years but the majority of scientists still support AGW.
Climate sceptics have also proposed a number of alternative explanations for the increase in the Earth’s temperature, for example it is caused by solar activity or it is a natural statistical fluctuation. But again, these explanations have not attracted widespread scientific support. Until there is either a show-stopping criticism of AGW or a compelling alternative theory to AGW it seems unlikely that governments will abandon Net Zero.
John Fernley is a retired scientist who was a Research Fellow at University College London working on Atomic Physics and subsequently a director of a wind energy development company.
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https://neasa.co.za/covid-19-a-momentous-court-victory/
I’m dumping this here because otherwise it won’t be seen.
Thanks to Dr Mike Yeadon.
Excellent. Would be very interested to see those documents and the equivalents for other countries. I wonder how clever they have been in not saying anything damaging in the parts of the meetings that were minuted, and in emails.
I’ll see your off-territory dump and I’ll raise you…another pilot death. The 3rd in a week actually!
Tbh though, I have no idea what the stats are on pilot deaths from years gone by, before bioweapon deployment all across the aviation industry. Are we just more hyper-alert for such things now?? Did a quick search and can’t find any source which looks reliable and worth sharing.
”BREAKING NEWS: 3rd PILOT has died suddenly!
(3rd pilot death this week, 5 pilot collapses in total)
Aug.17, 2023 – IndiGo Pilot (40 years old) who was to operate flight (NAG-PNQ) Nagpur to Pune, India, fell unconscious & collapsed at boarding gate, was declared dead at hospital! Pilot identified as 40 year old Manoj Subramanium.
Aug.16, 2023 – Qatar Airways QR579 (DEL-DOH) Delhi to Doha diverted to Dubai as 51 yo pilot collapsed inflight and died!
Aug.14, 2023 – LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) Miami to Santiago, 56 year old Captain Ivan Andaur collapsed and died in the lavatory of the plane.”
https://twitter.com/MakisMD/status/1692230503519379561
Given that pilots have to undergo regular medical checks I reckon that the number of sudden deaths prior to the clot shots was very very low.
“Are you a communist?”
“No I am an anti-fascist”
“For a long time?”
“Since I have understood fascism.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls
“Employees With Lawful But Unfashionable Views”
Er, sorry, what are “unlawful” views? I’m not aware of any such legal concept. Certain speech or writing may be unlawful under the UK laws of libel and slander, but I think the scope of those laws is fairly limited and would not cover most “views”, however “unfashionable” they might be. Possibly some views if expressed publicly might be illegal under racial and religious hatred laws.
Tyranny does not like you having an opinion because you might not choose theirs. So they have to shut you up. ————Some time ago I had to attend a job Interview. After a weeks training the group of new employees were ready to start work. We were addressed with the following —-“You all will have noticed that there are many Muslim and Asian people working here. Should any of you say anything to upset these people you may face disciplinary action or possible dismissal. Are there any questions” ? I immediately raised my hand. I asked “If a Muslim or Asian person says anything to upset me, will they also face disciplinary action and possible dismissal”? ———-The look of astonishment on the trainers face was something I won’t forget. ——And that is the problem. Diversity only works in one direction (Less white people). It is the same with all of the other wokery being imposed on us. There can only be one point of view —THEIRS.
Lots of self censorship going on, wrong think is unfortunately real.