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GEORGE’S NEWSLETTER 9 MAY 2016

Please Note: “This newsletter contains articles that offer differing points of view regarding climate change, energy and other environmental issues. This newsletter is not an official Society sanctioned document. This document

reflects topics and items of interest to George Holliday and hopefully the reader.

A. ENVIRONMENT 1. CHIP KNAPPENBERGER: OBAMA IS MAKING GLOBAL WARMING PROMISES HE CAN’T KEEP http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/climate-change-obama-making-promises-he-cant-keep Judith Curry

2. INCONVENIENT STUDY: CO2 FERTILIZATION GREENING THE EARTH International team reports CO2 fertilization prompted plants and trees to sprout extra green leaves equivalent in area to two times the continental USA, or nearly 4.4 billion General Shermans (largest giant Sequoia tree) Thirteen Years of Greening from SeaWiFS – image from NASA Earth Observatory- not part of article below, for illustration only From BOSTON… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/25/inconvenient-study-co2-fertilization-greening-the-earth/

3. RISE IN CO2 HAS GREENED PLANET EARTH Posted on April 26, 2016 | 20 comments by Judith Curry We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend. – Zhu et al. https://judithcurry.com/2016/04/26/rise-in-co2-has-greened-planet-earth/#more-21465

4. MORE BURNING WATER FRACKING HYPE: AUSSIE CSIRO SAYS METHANE EMISSIONS ARE “NATURAL”. Guest essay by Eric Worrall An Aussie Green politician has attracted publicity, by “setting fire” to water in an Australian river, as part of a propaganda attack against local gas fracking operations. But CSIRO scientist Damian Barrett has been quick to dismiss the scare, stating that methane seeps are well known in the area, and… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/26/more-burning-water-fracking-hype-aussie-csiro-says-methane-emissions-are-natural/

5. THE SOLAR PLANE – A PERFECT METAPHOR FOR WHAT IS WRONG WITH RENEWABLES

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Guest essay by Eric Worrall The Solar Impulse 2 has finally completed the latest leg of its round the world flight. In engineering terms, a round the world flight using solar power is a remarkable achievement. But the difficulty of achieving this feat showcases why solar energy will never be a viable replacement for… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/25/the-solar-plane-a-perfect-metaphor-for-what-is-wrong-with-renewables/

6. AGU CONTINUES TO TAKE MONEY FROM OIL COMPANIES Climate News Guest opinion by James Wanliss When I first attended the Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in 1995 it was undoubtedly one of the goals of many of the PhD students and postdocs at the meeting to land a job at a corporation involved in earth science and mineral exploration. How times have changed. Today… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/25/agu-continues-to-take-money-from-oil-companies/

7. MY REVIEW: SKEPTIC FILM ‘CLIMATE HUSTLE’ TO APPEAR IN THEATERS NATIONWIDE ONE WEEK FROM TONIGHT One week from tonight on May 2nd, CFACT’s groundbreaking film Climate Hustle will be shown in movie theaters across the United States for a special one-night event. I’m in the film, and for the record I’m not paid to do so. That’s not a complaint, just a statement for those people who try to link… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/25/my-review-skeptic-film-climate-hustle-to-appear-in-theaters-nationwide-one-week-from-tonight/

8. FAIL: CO2 EMISSIONS INCREASING IN EU, DESPITE €1 TRILLION IN GREEN SUBSIDIES Cost Of Germany’s “Energiewende” To Soar To €31 Billion This Year Alone Eurostat estimates that in 2015 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion increased by 0.7% in the European Union (EU), compared with the previous year. —European Commission, 3 May 2016 Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions increased by an estimated 10 million tonnes from… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/03/fail-co2-emissions-increasing-in-eu-despite-1-trillion-in-green-subsidies/

9. CLIMATE HUSTLE Posted on May 1, 2016 | 259 comments by Judith Curry Are they trying to control the climate . . . or you? https://judithcurry.com/2016/05/01/climate-hustle/#more-20584

HEALTH 1. CONCERN GROWS OVER TAINTED DRINKING WATER

Officials in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York are expanding their efforts to find out how much of a potentially toxic chemical ended up in drinking water, from private wells to public water systems.

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Factories for decades used the chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, as a plastic coating and to make consumer products such as Teflon nonstick pans, waterproof jackets and pizza boxes http://www.wsj.com/articles/concern-grows-over-tainted-drinking-water-1461606220

COMMENTS A. THE WEEK THAT WAS: 2016-04-30 (APRIL 30, 2016) BROUGHT TO YOU BY SEPP (WWW.SEPP.ORG) THE SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY PROJECT Types of Climate Science: The four-minute video by MIT Professor Emeritus of Meteorology Richard Lindzen so concisely highlights the ongoing conflicts regarding the human influence on global warming, (now called climate change), that it bears repeating. The major issue: Does 20th century warming come primarily from human emissions of greenhouse gases, chiefly from carbon dioxide (CO2), or largely natural causes with other human causes such as land use change included. Lindzen divides the participants into three groups: 1) knowledgeable scientists who largely agree with the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its five assessment reports (ARs); 2) knowledgeable scientists (such as those in the Non-governmental Panel for Climate Change (NIPCC)) who largely disagree with the findings of the IPCC that burning of fossil fuels may cause dangerous global warming; and 3) politicians, environmentalists, and the media. [It should be noted that a number of scientists in group 2 participated in earlier IPCC reports, including Mr. Lindzen, and departed from it. Some stated that the IPCC has become too politicized.] Lindzen notes that the two groups of knowledgeable scientists who disagree on the effects of burning of fossil fuels largely agree on a surprising number of points. • The climate is always changing. • CO2 is a greenhouse gas, without which life on earth is not possible, but adding it to the atmosphere should lead to some warming. • Atmospheric levels of CO2 have been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century. • Over the past two centuries, the global mean temperature has increased slightly and erratically by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or one degree Celsius. • Given the complexity of climate, no confident prediction about future global mean temperature or its impact can be made. Some may find the last point surprising. But, the IPCC fourth assessment report (AR-4, 2007) stated that: “The long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Here we see a major problem between what the groups 1 & 2 scientists have articulated and what members of group 3, the politicians, environmentalists, and the media, have claimed. Unfortunately, the clamor created by group 3 has virtually drowned out the clear agreements between groups 1 & 2, and the sharp distinctions between them. According to Lindzen, group 3 have their own reasons –money, power, and ideology – to promote a catastrophic scenario. The impact of group 3 is making pure scientific research into the actual influence of carbon dioxide on the climate very difficult. Adding to the difficulty is the participation of scientists who are not knowledgeable on climate science issues and business interests hoping to benefit from the fear of global warming, mostly from subsidies or direct payments for “green” energy technologies, which governments continue to lavishly provide. Lindzen does not give this subset of group 3 a name, or label. He does state that they have joined the bandwagon of group 3 and are publishing papers blaming global warming for everything from acne to the Syrian civil war.

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If we term the scientific debates as the climate wars, the latter group can be termed as climate war profiteers, or climate profiteers. These include scientists who contribute little or nothing to the scientific issues, frequently incorrectly stating the issues, and who hope to advance their careers by making a fuss out of little. Examples include those who attack climate skeptics for irrelevant reasons, such as being allegedly paid by tobacco interests, and those who manufacture a non-existing consensus, or use inferior polls to declare a consensus or an agreement where one does not exist. Of course, politicians and state attorneys general who are calling for investigation of private individuals and groups skeptical of “dangerous” human-caused global warming fall into this group of climate profiteers. Lindzen’s short video greatly clarifies the myriad of motivations of those advocating political policies in the name of “climate science” and should make anyone reading an article that states “scientists say” very skeptical. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC. ***************** Type 1 & 2 Scientific Issue – Surface Measurements: Anthony Watts presented a scientific paper by John R. Christy, Alabama Office of the State Climatologist, and Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama (UAH) and Richard T. McNider, Earth System Science Center, UAH, published in the “Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology” published by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The paper addresses issues such as which surface measurements should be used, and how are they verified? The issues are critical because many IPCC supporters, Group 1 scientists, ignore atmospheric data from satellites, even though that is where the greenhouse effect takes place – largely, in the lower troposphere below 50,000 feet (15,200 meters). Some of these scientists justify this selected ignorance by saying they use only surface data “because that’s where people live.” One valid argument for ignoring atmospheric temperatures is that the comprehensive satellite temperature dataset (starting in December 1978) is too short, and the independent weather balloon dataset, starting in the 1950s, is not comprehensive. Using data going back to 1883 from three different datasets of inland Alabama, (Montgomery, Birmingham and Huntsville), the UAH team examined daytime, nighttime, and daily average datasets. They found that the daytime highs were least disturbed by human activity, such as urbanization, including buildings causing turbulence, disrupting nighttime airflow. [It should be noted irrigation can cause daytime cooling and nighttime warming: “Irrigation increases dry soil’s ability to hold heat and releases a powerful greenhouse gas (water vapor) into the lowest levels of the atmosphere over dry and desert areas.”] “When the cool layer of air near the surface is disturbed, warmer air aloft is drawn down to the surface. All of those cause real changes in the local climate, raising local surface temperatures, especially at night, by amounts large enough to be noticed both by weather station thermometers and by people living in some of those areas. “But none of those changes has anything to do with widespread climate change in the deep atmosphere over large areas of the globe, such as might be seen if caused by increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. “’Over time this might look like warming or an accumulation of heat in the temperature record, but this temperature change is only caused by the redistribution of warmer air that has always been there, just not at the surface,’ said Richard McNider, a distinguished professor of science at UAH. “So how can climatologists use existing long-term surface temperature records to accurately track the potential effects of enhanced CO2? Take the nighttime boundary layer (and all of the things we do to interfere with it) out of play, say Christy and McNider.” Christy stated: “Because of the natural mixing of the atmosphere caused by daytime heating, daily maximum temperatures are the best surface data to use to look at temperatures in the deep atmosphere. At the surface, the daytime maximum temperature just represents more air than the nighttime low.”

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“Summers in Alabama have been cooling, especially since 1954. Interior Alabama’s ten coolest summers were after 1960, with most of those after 1990. As might be expected given that cooling, climate models individually and in groups do a poor job of modeling the state’s long-term temperature and rainfall changes since 1883. “The researchers conclude the models — the same models widely used to forecast climate change — show “no skill” in explaining long-term changes since 1883.” In his comments, Anthony Watts added the surface temperatures of Las Vegas, Nevada, which has undergone a major building boom in recent decades. The annual average maximum temperatures show no increase since records started in 1937, but the average annual minimum temperatures show a steady increase. Surface temperatures may be measuring a human influence that has little to do with greenhouse gases. If so, then programs to greatly restrict CO2 emissions will not have much bearing on global warming/climate change, and are purely wasteful and punitive. See links under Measurement Issues – Surface. ***************** Type 3 Issues – Defining Experts: An example of Lindzen’s Group 3 can be found in a publication by a group comprising of Cook, Oreskes, et al. (including Maibach, Lewandowsky, and Nuccitelli) in Environmental Research Letters, an open access publication. The abstract reads: The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90% – 100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. [Boldface added] The dates covered are 1991 to 2011. The authors reply to a letter by Richard Tol who pointed out that the prior Cook 97% consensus “omits tests for systematic differences between raters. Many abstracts are unaccounted for. The paper does not discuss the procedures used to ensure independence between the raters, to ensure that raters did not use additional information, and to ensure that later ratings were not influenced by earlier results.” Also, Tol included additional authors, which the group does not consider to be experts. Using the group’s criteria, the writings of climate change pioneer H.H. Lamb, and many others, including early researchers on the Ice Ages, are excluded, or the authors are considered non-experts. Interestingly, the group invokes the revolutionary concept of plate tectonics, which was greatly advanced by petroleum engineers. Maibach, one of the group, is a member of the RICO-20, advocating criminal investigation of those who disagree with their ideas on climate change for possible influence by oil companies. Such is the state of Group 3 Climate Science. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy and http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048001/meta ***************** Paris Agreement: The political show of the signing of the Paris Agreement took place on UN declared International Mother Earth Day, April 22, 2016. Questions regarding the enforceability of the Agreement remain, including will the US government claw back the $500,000,000 the US State Department, transferred to the UN Green Climate Fund, which was not authorized by Congress This brings up a number of interesting issues. As Martin Livermore points out in an essay: as unsubstantiated claims by the IPCC intensified, anti-fossil fuel advocates intensified their willingness to punish fossil-fuel users, regardless of the costs to the economy, and even as evidence of the need diminishes. De-carbonizing electricity, now becoming very difficult, will be easy compared with de-carbonizing transport and heating. Further, in Western Europe, and elsewhere, we are witnessing high costs and unreliability of alternatives to fossil fuels. The inflated claims that accompany alternative projects is turning out to be little else than marketing propaganda. What if there is no other solution for requiring fossil fuels to provide affordable, reliable energy for electricity, transport, heating/cooling, medical, and health needs? No doubt, many

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western leaders do not care today, but the results can be very damaging for many people. See links under After Paris? Questioning European Green and Non-Green Jobs ***************** Solar Disruptive? Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and U. California, Berkeley, produced a study that may remove some of the exaggeration that too often accompanies promoters of industrial solar-power projects. This empirical and statistical study evaluates factors determining solar plant (industrial) performance. Their study reveals useful suggestions for improving cost-efficiency of industrial solar-power plants. Just adding more solar modules may not be cost effective. Their study finds that rooftop solar panels feeding the grid are disruptive, and appear to be more costly to the consumer than reliable power plants – such as fossil fuels and nuclear. Cloudy and northern situations with a low azimuth to the sun; are not desirable. Germany provides an extreme example of what not to do. What is needed is project-level energy storage – rare in the US for the utility-scale markets. The only type that appears to be effective is pumped hydraulic storage, which entails significant environmental and location issues. Initial reports indicate that Germany is no longer looking at battery storage for back-up needs. As an aside, it is amazing the number of political entities that push solar power even though their locations are unsuitable. Many useful maps have been published, including a global map that has some interesting locations for sunny days. See links under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind and Questioning European Green ***************** Another Pipeline Blocked: Pipelines are considered the safest way to transport liquid fuels and gases. For no clear reasons other than political, the Obama Administration blocked the building of the extension of the Keystone Pipeline from Canada into the US. The pipeline would have expanded crude deliveries from Canada to Texas, partially replacing imports of heavy crude from unstable Venezuela and elsewhere outside of North America. For no clear reasons, other than political, the administration of Governor Cuomo of New York blocked a pipeline from Pennsylvania to New York and New England, which would bring inexpensive natural gas to these areas that have some of the highest electricity prices in the country. Natural gas is the low-cost alternative to coal-fired power plants for electricity and is also needed for heating. The pipeline may save up-state New York homeowners $1000 per year. There was no solid justification given for this denial of permits except the pipeline failed to meet the state’s water quality standards, which were unspecified. Cuomo has used the same argument to ban hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the state. Governor Cuomo considers himself to be a progressive-liberal, as does President Obama. Though not directly these actions, political columnist George Will writes about the attitudes of progressive-liberals when writing about the calls for RICO investigations: “Four core tenets of progressivism are: First, history has a destination. Second, progressives uniquely discern it. (Barack Obama frequently declares things to be on or opposed to “the right side of history.”) Third, politics should be democratic but peripheral to governance, which is the responsibility of experts scientifically administering the regulatory state. Fourth, enlightened progressives should enforce limits on speech (witness IRS suppression of conservative advocacy groups) in order to prevent thinking unhelpful to history’s progressive unfolding.” There is little reasoning with those who have such high beliefs in themselves. See article #2 and links under Suppressing Scientific Inquiry – The Witch Hunt – Push-Back and Energy Issues -- US ***************** Push-Back: The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has responded to the legally questionable subpoena by the Attorney General for the Virgin Islands. CEI’s attorneys are Grossman and Rivkin, who

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appear to have a solid understanding of the situation. In addition to violation of First Amendment Rights, the reasons why the CEI attorneys consider the subpoena defective is 1) that it needed to be issued by a court of record, and there is no court of record, and 2) that such subpoenas of discovery apply to pending judicial actions, and there are no such actions. It will be interesting if the entire effort to investigate amounts to a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1985. See links under Suppressing Scientific Inquiry – The Witch Hunt – Push-Back ***************** Greening Earth: A paper in the magazine Nature Climate Change reinforces the studies produced by the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) that humans adding carbon dioxide (CO2) is a net benefit to the environment and to humanity. Plants are flourishing and the overall environment is becoming more robust. The new study was based on satellite photos taken by NASA that show higher rates of photosynthesis are occurring. CO2 is a main source of fuel for plants, thus for all life on Earth. The composite photos show all parts of the US are greening – benefiting from increased CO2. Yet, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), of which NASA and NOAA are a part, continues to calculate a social cost of carbon dioxide (SCC), without regard to the benefits, -- truly a dysfunctional enterprise. See Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC, particularly Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts and links under Social Benefits of Carbon ***************** More EPA Non-Science: EPA announced it is intensifying haze regulations under the clean air act. Amusingly, a cited example is the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Discussed in prior TWTWs, the Okefenokee is a natural bog, extending from southern Georgia into northern Florida. The waters are naturally highly acidic, with ph as low as 3.5 (7 is neutral). Yet, non-specialized wildlife and aquatic-life thrive there. As with many eastern parks, truly cleaning the air of “pollutants” causing haze would require clear-cutting the extensive woodlands which emit significant volatile organic compounds, causing haze. The EPA does not bother understanding the science behind its regulations. See link under EPA and other Regulators on the March ***************** Climate Hustle: C-FACT has released a humorous movie, Climate Hustle, which will appear in many local US theaters on the evening of Monday, May 2, for a one-night special. For a list of theaters by state see: http://www.climatehustlemovie.com/. For a review by Anthony Watts see link under Questioning the Orthodoxy. ***************** SEPP’S APRIL FOOLS AWARD THE JACKSON SEPP is conducting its annual vote for the recipient of the coveted trophy, The Jackson, a lump of coal. Readers are asked to nominate and vote for who they think is most deserving, following these criteria: • The nominee has advanced, or proposes to advance, significant expansion of governmental power, regulation, or control over the public or significant sections of the general economy. • The nominee does so by declaring such measures are necessary to protect public health, welfare, or the environment. • The nominee declares that physical science supports such measures. • The physical science supporting the measures is flimsy at best, and possibly non-existent. The four past recipients, Lisa Jackson, Barrack Obama, John Kerry, and Ernest Moniz are not eligible. Generally, the committee that makes the selection prefers a candidate with a national or international presence. The voting will close on June 1. Please send your nominee and a brief reason why the person

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is qualified for the honor to Ken@SEPP.org. Thank you. The award will be presented at the annual meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness on July 9. ***************** Number of the Week: 70% of observed greening. According to authors of the new study on the benefits of increased CO2 (cited above): “Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models, suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%).” See links under Social Benefits of Carbon. ################################################### http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2016/TWTW4-30-16.pdf

B. CLIMATE ALARMISM AND THE MUZZLING OF INDEPENDENT SCIENCE By Ari Halperin This Friday (Earth Day and Lenin’s Birthday) President Obama will sign the Paris Agreement, supposedly to control global climate. Last week, the attorney general of a tax shelter – the US Virgin Islands -- subpoenaed the Competitive Enterprise Institute. This was part of a campaign to intimidate climate realists and to shake down, and possibly shut down, the energy industry. The campaign was launched by a number of Democrat Attorneys General and Al Gore, colluding with trial lawyers and other special interests, under the guise of investigating ExxonMobil. As bizarre as these moves are, they are just an escalation of 30 years of persecuting distinguished scientists who disagreed with Al Gore’s climate change fantasies. http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/climate_alarmism_and_the_muzzling_of_independent_science.html

C. NASA: CARBON DIOXIDE FERTILIZATION GREENING EARTH, STUDY FINDS

From NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER – (we covered this in a previous release,

but this press release brings new information – Anthony) From a quarter to half of Earth’s

vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels

of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published…

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/27/nasa-carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth-study-

finds/

D. THE AUTO EMISSIONS CRACKUP

One more example of what an analyst calls ‘sophisticated state failure.’

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. April 26, 2016 6:55 p.m. ET

As expected, scandal over emissions cheating is spreading to other car makers. Porsche, Audi,

Mercedes and GM Opel division in Germany are recalling cars for failing emissions tests. In

France, Renault and tests. In France, Renault and Peugeot have been raided by police. Japan’s

Mitsubishi admitted on Tuesday that it had been fudging mileage data for 25 years, putting the

company’s survival in doubt. In an honest world the scandal would now spread to the agencies

and politicians that conspire to set implausible rules and then help have been raided by police..

The crackup here is bigger than the crackup of a single regulatory initiative. The problem only

begins with agencies maniacally hoeing their row because it’s theirs, beyond reason, with

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science reduced to their useful idiot. Take the Environmental Protection Agency standard that

Volkswagen, in its still-unexplained obsession with reconquering the U.S. market with diesel

cars, is guilty of flouting. EPA’s latest target of 0.07 grams of nitrogen oxide per mile represents

a 90% reduction from NOx output of the average car on the road today. It represents a 97%

reduction compared to the 100 million pickup trucks on the road.

The law of diminishing returns, if agencies behaved rationally, would have caused EPA long ago

to declare victory on nitrogen oxide and turn to other matters. But acting rationally is not an

agency interest.

The Clean Air Act gave EPA the atmosphere as its regulatory bailiwick, and it won’t let go. And

since racking up of continued costs for small gains must be justified somehow, an unsupported

scientific orthodoxy is rolled out—the theory, which permeates federal regulatory endeavors,

that anything toxic in large amounts is toxic in small amounts.

Even the chair of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee testified in 1997: “I do

not believe we are sufficiently well-informed to make the judgment that regulating [fine

particulates] to near background levels is an appropriate national commitment.”

The agency since then, of course, has made an even bolder leap to claim that the Clean Air Act

entitles it to regulate virtually all activities in the atmosphere in the name of climate change,

though 85% of the relevant activities take place outside the U.S. beyond EPA’s reach.

It might seem easy to blame the politicians who superintend this machine, but politicians come

and go, while the machine endures. The Bush administration started out criticizing fuel-mileage

standards as perverse and ineffective, yet when the Iraq war went bad, President Bush seized on

tighter rules to suggest he was making war on America’s “oil addiction.”

The fuel-economy regime was created in 1975 when gasoline price controls were still extant. If

politicians wouldn’t let price ration usage, they needed another way to temper demand—that was

the idea behind fuel-economy mandates.

Those price controls are long gone but the mileage mandates survive because so many interests

have sprung into being around them, though the cited purpose has become “emissions,” not

“energy security.”In setting his own mileage goals, President Obama selected 54.5 miles-per-

gallon because the White House wanted an impressive “headline number.” The actual target is

closer to 40 mpg when various allowances, gimmes, favors to U.S. auto makers at the expense of

their foreign counterparts, subsidies to pet technologies, etc., are counted.

And of course, “your mileage may vary,” because the EPA and auto makers silently agreed on a

testing procedure that has nothing to do with real-world driving.

The ne plus ultra is Tesla, a company massively propped up by indirect and direct official

handouts. Electricity is the most important source of global greenhouse emissions, so the U.S.

pays Tesla to make a car that runs on electricity.

Multiply the emissions scandal by many thousands and you have the crackup of the Western

model of governance. Their retirement systems were premised on workforces growing faster

than retired populations, yet now are helpless to adjust when the opposite is true. Their tax and

welfare systems suppress work, entrepreneurship and eventually childbearing, and now need to

be kept ambulatory by direct lending from their central banks.

One thing that can’t be changed, though, is the programs themselves no matter how maladaptive

they prove.

Jan Techau, of Carnegie Europe, coined the phrase “sophisticated state failure” for the impasse

afflicting the advanced industrial nations. If you think the U.S. is somehow specially blessed,

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somehow immune to rigid elites and dysfunctional priorities, think again. If you suppose Donald

Trump is the solution, an even ruder awakening may be coming.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-auto-emissions-crackup-1461711346

E. THE FABLE OF A STABLE CLIMATE Translation from the Dutch book review “Het Sprookje van een stabiel klimaat” by Hans

Labohm. Posted on the climategate.nl blog. My loyal readers know him as co-author of my blog:

the geologist, paleoclimatologist and climate sceptic Gerrit van der Lingen, an antipode of Dutch

origin who has been living in New Zealand for many years.…

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/26/the-fable-of-a-stable-climate/

F. ICE FREEZE DATA FROM TWO LAKES SUGGEST WARMING WINTERS SINCE THE END OF THE LITTLE ICE AGE From York University Citizen scientists collected rare ice data, confirm warming since industrial revolution TORONTO, April 26, 2016 – In 1442, Shinto priests in Japan began keeping records of the freeze dates of a nearby lake, while in 1693 Finnish merchants started recording breakup dates on a local river. Together they create the oldest inland… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/27/ice-freeze-data-from-two-lakes-suggest-warming-winters-since-the-end-of-the-little-ice-age/

G. TEACHING PEOPLE CLIMATE SCIENCE “DAMPENS PUBLIC CONCERN” Guest essay by Eric Worrall Why would teaching people more about science, tend to reduce concern about Climate Change? The obvious explanation is there is something wrong with the science, that scientific literacy helps people see through the hype. But what happens, if a climate behaviorist ignores or refuses to consider the obvious? What makes… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/26/teaching-people-climate-science-dampens-public-concern/

H. NASA NOW TAMPERING WITH SEA LEVEL DATA IN ADDITION TO TEMPERATURE DATA? NASA has doubled 1880 to 1980 sea level rise since Hansen 1983. In 1983, NASA showed very little sea level rise after 1950. Now they show rapid sea level rise from 1950 to 1980.

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http://realclimatescience.com/2016/04/nasa-doubling-sea-level-rise-by-data-tampering/ Don Shaw

I. ONE MOVIE I PLAN TO VIEW AS A SKEPTIC, CHECK IT OUT https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/25/my-review-skeptic-film-climate-hustle-to-appear-in-theaters-nationwide-one-week-from-tonight/

J. HOW TO KILL THE INTERNET STEVE CASE REMINDS US THAT AOL FLOURISHED WITH WEB FREEDOM—THE SORT NOW IN DANGER.

By L. Gordon Crovitz May 1, 2016 5:53 p.m. ET The 20th anniversary of the launch of The Wall Street Journal’s website last week was a reminder of a simpler time. No one at Dow Jones had to ask permission of any government agency or gatekeeper. The company developed its own business model—the then-revolutionary idea of charging a subscription fee. Consumers decided if access was worth the original $49 a year. This era of permissionless innovation has slammed to a halt. President Obama insisted last year that the Internet be regulated as an old-fashion utility, with bureaucrats setting rates,

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suppressing innovation and discouraging investment. AOL founder Steve Case’s new book, “The Third Wave,” warns what could happen next. When his company launched in the 1980s as America Online, it was a closed network. Internet access was limited to the government and universities—it was actually unlawful to use the Internet for business. That changed after a bipartisan consensus led to deregulation. In its heyday, AOL accounted for half of Internet traffic. “For most Americans,” Mr. Case recounts, “AOL was, for its time, Google, Facebook, Twitter, TWTR Amazon, Spotify, YouTube and Instagram combined.” Mr. Case describes how that first wave of innovation was followed by a second wave of rapid creation of websites and services. Google, Facebook and thousands of other companies launched products and services into the open, unregulated Internet. If today’s Internet regulations had been in place, AOL would have been stymied. One key to AOL’s success, he writes, was “striking deals with media companies that had trusted brands in order to attract a mainstream audience.” The 2002 how-to book “AOL for Dummies” described how to use the service to gain access to premium news: “Reading a two-paragraph newswire story is one thing, but reviewing an in-depth analysis of those same events in The Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times is another thing entirely.” The new Internet rules put access to selected content through mobile subscriptions at risk. The Federal Communications Commission is considering a ban on inexpensive plans, including selected Web access, offered by T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon to millions of Americans. Similar regulations in India prohibited Facebook’s Free Basics for daring to offer a free version of the Internet. As a federal appeals court in Washington considers whether to invalidate Obamanet regulations, the FCC is doubling down. Last week the Democratic majority voted for the first time to regulate the price of business broadband, such as the dedicated lines linking banks to ATMs. That’s just the latest violation of Chairman Tom Wheeler’s many pledges that his agency wouldn’t set prices. These regulations will further discourage needed investment in broadband. Mr. Case warns that the third wave of innovation will require entrepreneurs to persevere through heavy regulation. What he calls the “Internet of Everything” has the potential to disrupt “some of the most regulated” industries in the country, including health care, education and finance. But that can happen only if regulators change their focus from keeping bad things from happening to allowing good things to happen. He cites the example of Uber, whose success came despite, not because of, heavy regulations. “Uber didn’t partner with government or even work with government,” he writes. It had the advantage of dealing with hundreds of relatively weak city governments and taxi regulators, “each with different rules and regulations, different power bases, and different degrees of influence.” Federal regulators are more powerful and thus more effective at chilling innovation. The Federal Aviation Administration took so long to issue regulations allowing drones that the industry moved overseas. The Food and Drug Administration bans consumers from full access to gene testing. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration limits self-driving cars, which is why Europeans have access to advanced features years before Americans do. “While our politicians love to tell us how important it is to encourage entrepreneurship, talk is often cheap,” Mr. Case writes. “If our elected officials truly want to support the next Jobs or Zuckerberg or Musk, they must replace those platitudes with policies.” The alternative is sobering: “It may well be America that is disrupted. The world will no longer look to us as a source of radical innovation.” In that case, “we’ll end up playing catch-up, attempting to emulate the creations of other nations rather than introducing the ideas that others try to copy.”

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The U.S. has counted on the Internet as one of the few drivers of economic growth in recent years. The future of the Internet is in great doubt now that so much depends on Washington getting out of the way. http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-kill-the-internet-1462139582

K. IN 1959 A US SUB SURFACED AT THE NORTH POLE IN MARCH

The Arctic ice is low for this time of year, However in March 1959 a US Sub surfaced at the North Pole. See here: https://library.osu.edu/projects/under-the-north-pole/images/wilkins35_5_1.jpg Don Shaw

L. LATEST GLOBAL TEMPS

Latest Global Average Tropospheric Temperatures Since 1979, NOAA satellites have been carrying instruments which measure the natural microwave thermal emissions from oxygen in the atmosphere. The intensity of the signals these microwave radiometers measure at different microwave frequencies is directly proportional to the temperature of different, deep layers of the atmosphere. Every month, John Christy and I update global temperature datasets that represent the piecing together of the temperature data from a total of fourteen instruments flying on different satellites over the years. A discussion of the latest version (6.0) of the dataset is located here. The graph above represents the latest update; updates are usually made within the first week of every month. Contrary to some reports, the satellite measurements are not calibrated in any way with the global surface-based thermometer records of temperature. They instead use their own on-board precision redundant platinum resistance thermometers (PRTs) calibrated to a laboratory reference standard before launch. http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

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M. SCIENCE INTO AGITPROP: “CLIMATE CHANGE IS STRANGLING OUR OCEANS” Posted on May 2, 2016 | 52 comments by Larry Kummer, from the Fabius Maximus website The public policy debate about climate science shows the dysfunctional nature of the US media. Here’s another example of how propaganda has contaminated the news reporting of this vital subject, looking at stories about a new study of our oceans. https://judithcurry.com/2016/05/02/science-into-agitprop-climate-change-is-strangling-our-oceans/#more-21498 Judith Curry

N. CLIMATE HUSTLE Posted on May 1, 2016 | 198 comments by Judith Curry Are they trying to control the climate . . . or you? https://judithcurry.com/2016/05/01/climate-hustle/#more-20584 Judith Curry

O. ATLANTIC OCEAN SHOWING SIGNS OF A SIGNIFICANT LONG-TERM SHIFT IN TEMPERATURES FROM WARM-TO-COLD http://www.vencoreweather.com/blog/2016/4/28/215-pm-atlantic-ocean-showing-signs-of-a-significant-long-term-shift-in-temperatures-from-warm-to-cold Judith Curry

P. CORN ETHANOL IS NOT A RENEWABLE FUEL By Emily Cassidy, Research Analyst Thursday, March 17, 2016 Production of corn ethanol has led growers to plow up of millions of acres of prairie grassland and wetlands to plant more corn. By the Environmental Protection Agency’s own definition, this means that corn ethanol is not a renewable fuel. A recent study by researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that native prairie habitats located close to corn ethanol-producing facilities are being destroyed to grow more corn. This conversion of vulnerable land to grow corn for ethanol not only breaks the law, it’s an environmental disaster. The 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard, the federal mandate that requires that corn ethanol be blended into gasoline, strictly prohibited destruction of the landscape to grow more corn. The EPA, which enforces the standard, required that for corn to be considered a “renewable fuel,” it could not be grown on previously uncultivated land. In other words, the ethanol industry was prohibited from using corn from recently destroyed prairies and wetlands. But that’s exactly what’s happening, research shows.. Ethanol producers have broken the law by growing corn on destroyed habitats, and the EPA has dropped the ball by not enforcing the law.

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In contrast to the USDA researchers’ paper, the EPA doesn’t monitor land conversion near ethanol plants. It only tallies total farmland acreage and completely ignores the rampant land conversion occurring in the Midwest. A paper published last year by Tyler Lark at the University of Wisconsin found that more than 7 million acres – mostly grasslands – had been converted to grow more crops to satisfy the ethanol mandate. This is further evidence that corn ethanol has been an environmental disaster. Plowing up prairie land releases the carbon stored in plants and soil into the atmosphere, increasing climate-warming carbon emissions. So corn ethanol, instead of reducing carbon emissions as claimed by the industry, is actually much worse for the climate than gasoline. Corn ethanol is environmentally destructive and is not a renewable fuel. The EPA should take this USDA research to heart and stop allowing corn ethanol to masquerade as a clean, renewable fuel. http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2016/03/corn-ethanol-not-renewable-fuel#.VyKRRXf-yTk.twitter Judith Curry

Q. CLAIM: SKEPTICISM ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE MAY BE LINKED TO CONCERNS ABOUT ECONOMY According to a new study, we are more likely to be skeptical about climate change, if we are worried about paying our living expenses. Skepticism about climate change may be linked to concerns about economy Americans dismiss scientific evidence of climate change despite education efforts, study finds WASHINGTON — Americans may be more likely to… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/04/claim-skepticism-about-climate-change-may-be-linked-to-concerns-about-economy/

R. LIBERAL ACTIVISTS WORKED WITH AGS TO TARGET CONSERVATIVES http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/05/liberal-activists-worked-with-ags-to-target-conservatives

S. SOLAR PLANES AREN'T THE GREEN FUTURE OF AIR TRAVEL. BUT HERE'S WHAT COULD BE. http://www.vox.com/2016/5/6/11569202/aviation-emissions-solar-plane Judith Curry Regards George