Climate: LNG in B.C. vs Alberta tarsands
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OldBlackDog
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Google Engineers Explain Why They Stopped R&D in Renewable Energy
Google Engineers Explain Why They Stopped R&D in Renewable Energy
2nix Studio / Shutterstock.com
“This realization was frankly shocking.”
Stephen Lacey
November 19, 2014
In 2007, when Google unveiled its initiative to make renewable energy competitive with coal, called RE<C, it represented a major breakthrough for the industry.
The tech giant said it was prepared to invest tens of millions of dollars to boost emerging solar, wind and geothermal technologies in order to rival the economics of coal. The initiative was unprecedented for a company of its type and put it in the same league with GE, which had undertaken its own ambitious multi-billion-dollar effort years earlier, ecomagination, to commercialize emerging clean energy technologies.
Then, in 2011, Google stopped its R&D efforts prematurely. It appeared the company was more bullish on the deployment of renewables, not on spending lots of money on R&D. In the years since, Google has invested more than $1 billion directly in solar and wind projects.
"You’d think the thrill might wear off this whole renewable energy investing thing after a while. Nope -- we’re still as into it as ever," rejoiced the company in a blog post last fall.
The company has now procured enough renewable energy and efficiency to offset its carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the levelized cost of renewables has come down to rival the cost of building new coal plants.
So did Google just see the trend line early and pull the plug on unnecessary investments?
Actually, it was the opposite.
Two Google engineers who worked on the RE<C initiative have finally opened up about why the team halted their efforts. And it wasn't because they thought existing renewables were enough to decarbonize the global economy.
"Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach," wrote Google's Ross Koningstein and David Fork in a piece published yesterday in IEEE's Spectrum.
It's a striking admission from a company that has relentlessly supported the growth of renewable energy.
When Google first set out on its mission, the RE<C team was convinced that existing renewables (or those close to commercialization) could reduce emissions enough to avoid the worst climate change scenarios. But by 2011, when engineers realized that their investments were not playing out as expected, they ditched the program and set out to rethink its goals.
"As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions," wrote Koningstein and Fork.
The team came to that conclusion after examining different scenarios for renewable energy penetration using a low-carbon modeling tool from the consulting firm McKinsey. They compared those scenarios to former NASA scientist James Hansen's famous 2008 model showing that a 350 ppm emissions level was needed to stabilize the climate.
They didn't find promising results:
We decided to combine our energy innovation study’s best-case scenario results with Hansen’s climate model to see whether a 55 percent emission cut by 2050 would bring the world back below that 350-ppm threshold. Our calculations revealed otherwise. Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use. So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require...radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon.
Those calculations cast our work at Google’s RE<C program in a sobering new light. Suppose for a moment that it had achieved the most extraordinary success possible, and that we had found cheap renewable energy technologies that could gradually replace all the world’s coal plants -- a situation roughly equivalent to the energy innovation study’s best-case scenario. Even if that dream had come to pass, it still wouldn’t have solved climate change. This realization was frankly shocking: Not only had RE<C failed to reach its goal of creating energy cheaper than coal, but that goal had not been ambitious enough to reverse climate change.
So what does that mean for Google's strategy?
Koningstein and Fork hint at one possible focus: technologies like power electronics that can efficiently control the grid and enable higher penetrations of distributed generation. In July, Google unveiled a $1 million challenge to build an inverter one-tenth the size of existing devices.
Unfortunately, most of today’s clean generation sources can’t provide power that is both distributed and dispatchable. Solar panels, for example, can be put on every rooftop, but can’t provide power if the sun isn’t shining. Yet if we invented a distributed, dispatchable power technology, it could transform the energy marketplace and the roles played by utilities and their customers. Smaller players could generate not only electricity but also profit, buying and selling energy locally from one another at real-time prices. Small operators, with far less infrastructure than a utility company and far more derring-do, might experiment more freely and come up with valuable innovations more quickly.
The engineers stop short of advocating for specific technology investments such as advanced nuclear. Instead, they call for a "70-20-10" approach to pursuing technology development similar to the one Google has implemented.
Incremental improvements to existing technologies aren’t enough; we need something truly disruptive to reverse climate change. What, then, is the energy technology that can meet the challenging cost targets? How will we remove CO2 from the air? We don’t have the answers. Those technologies haven’t been invented yet. However, we have a suggestion for how to foster innovation in the energy sector and allow for those breakthrough inventions.
Consider Google’s approach to innovation, which is summed up in the 70-20-10 rule espoused by executive chairman Eric Schmidt. The approach suggests that 70 percent of employee time be spent working on core business tasks, 20 percent on side projects related to core business, and the final 10 percent on strange new ideas that have the potential to be truly disruptive.
Wouldn’t it be great if governments and energy companies adopted a similar approach in their technology R&D investments? The result could be energy innovation at Google speed. Adopting the 70-20-10 rubric could lead to a portfolio of projects. The bulk of R&D resources could go to existing energy technologies that industry knows how to build and profitably deploy. These technologies probably won’t save us, but they can reduce the scale of the problem that needs fixing. The next 20 percent could be dedicated to cutting-edge technologies that are on the path to economic viability. Most crucially, the final 10 percent could be dedicated to ideas that may seem crazy but might have huge impact. Our society needs to fund scientists and engineers to propose and test new ideas, fail quickly, and share what they learn. Today, the energy innovation cycle is measured in decades, in large part because so little money is spent on critical types of R&D.
The piece does not say whether Google intends to follow its own advice and develop a similar approach to investing in next-generation energy technologies. Indeed, the company has taken a somewhat incremental, deployment-heavy strategy itself in the wake of the failure of the RE<C by focusing on driverless cars, conventional renewable energy procurement and home automation through its acquisition of Nest.
But Koningstein and Fork had a blunt message about their experience: "With 20/20 hindsight, we see that it didn’t go far enough."
TAGS: carbon emissions, climate change, google, innovation, james hansen, renewable energy investment
Stephen Lacey
Stephen Lacey is a Senior Editor at Greentech Media, where he reports on energy efficiency, solar and grid modernization. He is also host of the Energy Gang podcast, a weekly audio digest of cleantech news.
Tracker Pixel for Entry
Google Engineers Explain Why They Stopped R&D in Renewable Energy
Google Engineers Explain Why They Stopped R&D in Renewable Energy
2nix Studio / Shutterstock.com
“This realization was frankly shocking.”
Stephen Lacey
November 19, 2014
In 2007, when Google unveiled its initiative to make renewable energy competitive with coal, called RE<C, it represented a major breakthrough for the industry.
The tech giant said it was prepared to invest tens of millions of dollars to boost emerging solar, wind and geothermal technologies in order to rival the economics of coal. The initiative was unprecedented for a company of its type and put it in the same league with GE, which had undertaken its own ambitious multi-billion-dollar effort years earlier, ecomagination, to commercialize emerging clean energy technologies.
Then, in 2011, Google stopped its R&D efforts prematurely. It appeared the company was more bullish on the deployment of renewables, not on spending lots of money on R&D. In the years since, Google has invested more than $1 billion directly in solar and wind projects.
"You’d think the thrill might wear off this whole renewable energy investing thing after a while. Nope -- we’re still as into it as ever," rejoiced the company in a blog post last fall.
The company has now procured enough renewable energy and efficiency to offset its carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the levelized cost of renewables has come down to rival the cost of building new coal plants.
So did Google just see the trend line early and pull the plug on unnecessary investments?
Actually, it was the opposite.
Two Google engineers who worked on the RE<C initiative have finally opened up about why the team halted their efforts. And it wasn't because they thought existing renewables were enough to decarbonize the global economy.
"Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach," wrote Google's Ross Koningstein and David Fork in a piece published yesterday in IEEE's Spectrum.
It's a striking admission from a company that has relentlessly supported the growth of renewable energy.
When Google first set out on its mission, the RE<C team was convinced that existing renewables (or those close to commercialization) could reduce emissions enough to avoid the worst climate change scenarios. But by 2011, when engineers realized that their investments were not playing out as expected, they ditched the program and set out to rethink its goals.
"As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions," wrote Koningstein and Fork.
The team came to that conclusion after examining different scenarios for renewable energy penetration using a low-carbon modeling tool from the consulting firm McKinsey. They compared those scenarios to former NASA scientist James Hansen's famous 2008 model showing that a 350 ppm emissions level was needed to stabilize the climate.
They didn't find promising results:
We decided to combine our energy innovation study’s best-case scenario results with Hansen’s climate model to see whether a 55 percent emission cut by 2050 would bring the world back below that 350-ppm threshold. Our calculations revealed otherwise. Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use. So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require...radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon.
Those calculations cast our work at Google’s RE<C program in a sobering new light. Suppose for a moment that it had achieved the most extraordinary success possible, and that we had found cheap renewable energy technologies that could gradually replace all the world’s coal plants -- a situation roughly equivalent to the energy innovation study’s best-case scenario. Even if that dream had come to pass, it still wouldn’t have solved climate change. This realization was frankly shocking: Not only had RE<C failed to reach its goal of creating energy cheaper than coal, but that goal had not been ambitious enough to reverse climate change.
So what does that mean for Google's strategy?
Koningstein and Fork hint at one possible focus: technologies like power electronics that can efficiently control the grid and enable higher penetrations of distributed generation. In July, Google unveiled a $1 million challenge to build an inverter one-tenth the size of existing devices.
Unfortunately, most of today’s clean generation sources can’t provide power that is both distributed and dispatchable. Solar panels, for example, can be put on every rooftop, but can’t provide power if the sun isn’t shining. Yet if we invented a distributed, dispatchable power technology, it could transform the energy marketplace and the roles played by utilities and their customers. Smaller players could generate not only electricity but also profit, buying and selling energy locally from one another at real-time prices. Small operators, with far less infrastructure than a utility company and far more derring-do, might experiment more freely and come up with valuable innovations more quickly.
The engineers stop short of advocating for specific technology investments such as advanced nuclear. Instead, they call for a "70-20-10" approach to pursuing technology development similar to the one Google has implemented.
Incremental improvements to existing technologies aren’t enough; we need something truly disruptive to reverse climate change. What, then, is the energy technology that can meet the challenging cost targets? How will we remove CO2 from the air? We don’t have the answers. Those technologies haven’t been invented yet. However, we have a suggestion for how to foster innovation in the energy sector and allow for those breakthrough inventions.
Consider Google’s approach to innovation, which is summed up in the 70-20-10 rule espoused by executive chairman Eric Schmidt. The approach suggests that 70 percent of employee time be spent working on core business tasks, 20 percent on side projects related to core business, and the final 10 percent on strange new ideas that have the potential to be truly disruptive.
Wouldn’t it be great if governments and energy companies adopted a similar approach in their technology R&D investments? The result could be energy innovation at Google speed. Adopting the 70-20-10 rubric could lead to a portfolio of projects. The bulk of R&D resources could go to existing energy technologies that industry knows how to build and profitably deploy. These technologies probably won’t save us, but they can reduce the scale of the problem that needs fixing. The next 20 percent could be dedicated to cutting-edge technologies that are on the path to economic viability. Most crucially, the final 10 percent could be dedicated to ideas that may seem crazy but might have huge impact. Our society needs to fund scientists and engineers to propose and test new ideas, fail quickly, and share what they learn. Today, the energy innovation cycle is measured in decades, in large part because so little money is spent on critical types of R&D.
The piece does not say whether Google intends to follow its own advice and develop a similar approach to investing in next-generation energy technologies. Indeed, the company has taken a somewhat incremental, deployment-heavy strategy itself in the wake of the failure of the RE<C by focusing on driverless cars, conventional renewable energy procurement and home automation through its acquisition of Nest.
But Koningstein and Fork had a blunt message about their experience: "With 20/20 hindsight, we see that it didn’t go far enough."
TAGS: carbon emissions, climate change, google, innovation, james hansen, renewable energy investment
Stephen Lacey
Stephen Lacey is a Senior Editor at Greentech Media, where he reports on energy efficiency, solar and grid modernization. He is also host of the Energy Gang podcast, a weekly audio digest of cleantech news.
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
Why mining companies might be the Arctic’s best hope
AUTHOR
Edvard Glücksman
Associate Research Fellow at University of Exeter
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Edvard Glücksman does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
The Conversation is funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Alfred P Sloan Foundation and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Our global publishing platform is funded by Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Time to get on the Arctic mine train? Kitty Terwolbeck, CC BY
Economic interests are set to play an increasingly important role in shaping development in the Arctic. Yet prominent members of the mining industry, familiar with the economic and reputational perils of impatient investment, remain cautious. They can – and should – play a pivotal role in guiding responsible industrial activity in the region.
Corporate development of the Arctic appears to be a foregone conclusion and this is reflected by the development of major transnational agreements. For example, with Arctic shipping projected to increase massively in the coming years, the UN Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) will adopt the Polar Code, international guidelines for the safety of ships operating in polar waters.
On the back of such recognition, countries are making longer term economic commitments. China, for instance, has just agreed to purchase oil and gas from the Russian Arctic over the next decades, while at the same time having secured stakes in Russian oil platforms in the region.
The Arctic is rich in oil, gas, and metals such as nickel, copper, gold, uranium, or tungsten. It even has large diamond reserves. Rapidly shrinking sea ice exposes new shipping routes through the Arctic Ocean that will save time and money for companies moving goods from Asia to Europe, while also providing new opportunities for tourism and fishing.
Strong leadership
Mining companies have a big opportunity here, and some of the planet’s northernmost mines are already making an impact. Alaska’s Red Dog mine is one of the world’s biggest producers of zinc and lead, whereas Greenland’s Ilimaussaq complex is estimated to meet a quarter of global demand for rare earth elements, critical components in a wide range of electronic devices, over the next 50 years. With Arctic mining in its infancy, many non-Arctic states, including China and the UK, are lining up to invest in future projects.
In spite of these riches, mining companies, particularly the mega-multinationals such as BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto, remain cautious about the Arctic. This is partly because mining companies have had their fingers burnt by high-profile environmental accidents, such as the 2006 lead poisoning of the Australian town of Esperance or the discharge of over two billion tons of untreated mine waste, over nearly three decades, into the Ok Tedi river in Papua New Guinea. Mining accidents have also killed or disabled workers. For example, around 170 miners are killed each year in the South American gold industry. Expensive mining projects built in a hurry have hit the industry’s reputation.
Yet these companies can only avoid the Arctic for so long. Climate change coupled with the global decline of ore quality has already made life difficult for extractive industries, which find themselves having to operate in increasingly remote environments where they encounter heightened competition with local inhabitants for water and energy.
In addition, most major mining companies are part of the International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM), founded in 2001 with the specific aim of addressing sustainable development challenges. As members, major mining companies commit to a set of principles designed to maintain sustainable development standards. This arrangement is unique for large-scale industries; for example, the equivalent global oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues (IPIECA) allows any company to join regardless of environmental performance.
As the Arctic opens up for business, mining has taken an important step towards a leadership position in private-sector environmental stewardship. At the recent Arctic Circle Assembly in Iceland, ICMM president Anthony Hodge urged other industries to follow mining’s lead in endorsing full sustainability perspectives in the Arctic, taking into account the well-being of the region’s people and the broader natural environment.
Arctic online
Admiral Robert Papp, the newly appointed US Special Representative for the Arctic, believes social media has completely changed how the US government interacts with remote communities in Alaska, increasing pressure for accountability by establishing a transparent two-way dialogue. It’s a lot harder to put a zinc mine next to a village in the middle of nowhere if the residents are able to tweet their concerns.
Modern communication has also pushed industry transparency and disclosure policies to the top of the agenda. This bottom-up approach to whistleblowing has contributed to rapidly improved standards of accountability among extractive companies, suggested within the broader Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the more recent industry-specific Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA).
Operating in the Arctic is challenging, whatever industry you’re in. But mining firms have already made many of the mistakes, and learnt many of the lessons, that lie ahead of the oil, gas and shipping industries. Before these mistakes are repeated by others, mining representatives must step up to facilitate the sensible economic development of Earth’s northernmost latitudes.
AUTHOR
Edvard Glücksman
Associate Research Fellow at University of Exeter
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Edvard Glücksman does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
The Conversation is funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Alfred P Sloan Foundation and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Our global publishing platform is funded by Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Time to get on the Arctic mine train? Kitty Terwolbeck, CC BY
Economic interests are set to play an increasingly important role in shaping development in the Arctic. Yet prominent members of the mining industry, familiar with the economic and reputational perils of impatient investment, remain cautious. They can – and should – play a pivotal role in guiding responsible industrial activity in the region.
Corporate development of the Arctic appears to be a foregone conclusion and this is reflected by the development of major transnational agreements. For example, with Arctic shipping projected to increase massively in the coming years, the UN Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) will adopt the Polar Code, international guidelines for the safety of ships operating in polar waters.
On the back of such recognition, countries are making longer term economic commitments. China, for instance, has just agreed to purchase oil and gas from the Russian Arctic over the next decades, while at the same time having secured stakes in Russian oil platforms in the region.
The Arctic is rich in oil, gas, and metals such as nickel, copper, gold, uranium, or tungsten. It even has large diamond reserves. Rapidly shrinking sea ice exposes new shipping routes through the Arctic Ocean that will save time and money for companies moving goods from Asia to Europe, while also providing new opportunities for tourism and fishing.
Strong leadership
Mining companies have a big opportunity here, and some of the planet’s northernmost mines are already making an impact. Alaska’s Red Dog mine is one of the world’s biggest producers of zinc and lead, whereas Greenland’s Ilimaussaq complex is estimated to meet a quarter of global demand for rare earth elements, critical components in a wide range of electronic devices, over the next 50 years. With Arctic mining in its infancy, many non-Arctic states, including China and the UK, are lining up to invest in future projects.
In spite of these riches, mining companies, particularly the mega-multinationals such as BHP Billiton or Rio Tinto, remain cautious about the Arctic. This is partly because mining companies have had their fingers burnt by high-profile environmental accidents, such as the 2006 lead poisoning of the Australian town of Esperance or the discharge of over two billion tons of untreated mine waste, over nearly three decades, into the Ok Tedi river in Papua New Guinea. Mining accidents have also killed or disabled workers. For example, around 170 miners are killed each year in the South American gold industry. Expensive mining projects built in a hurry have hit the industry’s reputation.
Yet these companies can only avoid the Arctic for so long. Climate change coupled with the global decline of ore quality has already made life difficult for extractive industries, which find themselves having to operate in increasingly remote environments where they encounter heightened competition with local inhabitants for water and energy.
In addition, most major mining companies are part of the International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM), founded in 2001 with the specific aim of addressing sustainable development challenges. As members, major mining companies commit to a set of principles designed to maintain sustainable development standards. This arrangement is unique for large-scale industries; for example, the equivalent global oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues (IPIECA) allows any company to join regardless of environmental performance.
As the Arctic opens up for business, mining has taken an important step towards a leadership position in private-sector environmental stewardship. At the recent Arctic Circle Assembly in Iceland, ICMM president Anthony Hodge urged other industries to follow mining’s lead in endorsing full sustainability perspectives in the Arctic, taking into account the well-being of the region’s people and the broader natural environment.
Arctic online
Admiral Robert Papp, the newly appointed US Special Representative for the Arctic, believes social media has completely changed how the US government interacts with remote communities in Alaska, increasing pressure for accountability by establishing a transparent two-way dialogue. It’s a lot harder to put a zinc mine next to a village in the middle of nowhere if the residents are able to tweet their concerns.
Modern communication has also pushed industry transparency and disclosure policies to the top of the agenda. This bottom-up approach to whistleblowing has contributed to rapidly improved standards of accountability among extractive companies, suggested within the broader Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the more recent industry-specific Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA).
Operating in the Arctic is challenging, whatever industry you’re in. But mining firms have already made many of the mistakes, and learnt many of the lessons, that lie ahead of the oil, gas and shipping industries. Before these mistakes are repeated by others, mining representatives must step up to facilitate the sensible economic development of Earth’s northernmost latitudes.
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
GLG
Well-Known Member
How does the Medieval Warm Period compare to current global temperatures?
What The Science Says:
While the Medieval Warm Period saw unusually warm temperatures in some regions, globally the planet was cooler than current conditions.
Climate Myth: Medieval Warm Period was warmer
The Medieval Warm Period was warmer than current conditions. This means recent warming is not unusual and hence must be natural, not man-made.
One of the most often cited arguments of those skeptical of global warming is that the Medieval Warm Period (800-1400 AD) was as warm as or warmer than today. Using this as proof to say that we cannot be causing current warming is a faulty notion based upon rhetoric rather than science. So what are the holes in this line of thinking?
Firstly, evidence suggests that the Medieval Warm Period may have been warmer than today in many parts of the globe such as in the North Atlantic. This warming thereby allowed Vikings to travel further north than had been previously possible because of reductions in sea ice and land ice in the Arctic. However, evidence also suggests that some places were very much cooler than today including the tropical pacific. All in all, when the warm places are averaged out with the cool places, it becomes clear that the overall warmth was likely similar to early to mid 20th century warming.
Since that early century warming, temperatures have risen well-beyond those achieved during the Medieval Warm Period across most of the globe. The National Academy of Sciences Report on Climate Reconstructions in 2006 found it plausible that current temperatures are hotter than during the Medieval Warm Period. Further evidence obtained since 2006 suggests that even in the Northern Hemisphere where the Medieval Warm Period was the most visible, temperatures are now beyond those experienced during Medieval times (Figure 1). This was also confirmed by a major paper from 78 scientists representing 60 scientific institutions around the world in 2013.
Secondly, the Medieval Warm Period has known causes which explain both the scale of the warmth and the pattern. It has now become clear to scientists that the Medieval Warm Period occurred during a time which had higher than average solar radiation and less volcanic activity (both resulting in warming). New evidence is also suggesting that changes in ocean circulation patterns played a very important role in bringing warmer seawater into the North Atlantic. This explains much of the extraordinary warmth in that region. These causes of warming contrast significantly with today's warming, which we know cannot be caused by the same mechanisms.
Overall, our conclusions are:
a) Globally temperatures are warmer than they have been during the last 2,000 years, and
b) the causes of Medieval warming are not the same as those causing late 20th century warming.
Figure 1: Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction by Moberg et al. (2005) shown in blue, Instrumental Temperatures from NASA shown in Red.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=149
OBD let me see if I understand your logic.....
In the 1300's the Black Death (plague) killed millions of people in Europe and it was cause by a bacterium.
Therefore, in the the 1940's WW2 killed millions of people in Europe and it was due to natural causes, not man-made
Last edited by a moderator:
GLG
Well-Known Member
Oh boy another "paws'er" .... when will this zombie dog die......
So this math whiz is telling us that nothing to see here move along.
To prove it look at this graph he gives us .......
what he is not telling us is to look at this graph from real science.... Perhaps compare the dates on the two ....
Nice try OBD but your team is so transparent and such a fail.
What are you going to do when 2014 turns out to be the warmest year since man walked the earth. Including your other local warming periods.... hint they call it global warming for a reason and not local warming.....
My guess we will see heads explode...... and WSJ, Daily Mail, and Watts go into overdrive claiming a fraud......
Last edited by a moderator:
GLG
Well-Known Member
sounds more like it's worst nightmare.....
Hey wait a minute.... you told us that global warming was not true.. The Arctic Sea Ice was recovered... all back to normal. The "paw's" proves there is no global warming and if there was it is natural as the dark ages warming period. And last but not least we can't do anything about it because we 1) can't afford it.. 2) china isn't doing anything... 3) it won't be bad... 4) we will have to live in a cave.... 5) It's so far in the future we should not worry about it.......6) Action Plan Jobs Jobs Jobs.....7) LNG is good because it's clean Carbon pollution..... Did I miss any?
How about our own backyard? Think the river temps in the Puntledge are going to get higher every summer? Do you think we can keep it open? You do know that there comes a point that the stress is too much for the fish even with a gentle catch and release. Then there is the salmon fry.... they die when the water temp goes too high.... You and I both know where that takes us........ But I guess you know best, because you read it in a denial blog that the oil companies fund.......
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119204521.htm
Little Ice Age was global: Implications for current global warming
Date:
November 19, 2014
Source:
University of Gloucestershire
Summary:
Researchers have shed new light on the climate of the Little Ice Age, and rekindled debate over the role of the sun in climate change. The new study, which involved detailed scientific examination of a peat bog in southern South America, indicates that the most extreme climate episodes of the Little Ice Age were felt not just in Europe and North America, which is well known, but apparently globally. The research has implications for current concerns over global warming.
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A team of UK researchers has shed new light on the climate of the Little Ice Age, and rekindled debate over the role of the sun in climate change. The new study, which involved detailed scientific examination of a peat bog in southern South America, indicates that the most extreme climate episodes of the Little Ice Age were felt not just in Europe and North America, which is well known, but apparently globally. The research has implications for current concerns over global warming.
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Climate sceptics and believers of global warming have long argued about whether the Little Ice Age (from c. early 15th to 19th Centuries) was global, its causes, and how much influence the sun has had on global climate, both during the Little Ice Age and in recent decades. This new study helps clarify those debates.
The team of researchers, from the Universities of Gloucestershire, Aberdeen and Plymouth, conducted studies on past climate through detailed laboratory examination of peat from a bog near Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. They used exactly the same laboratory methods as have been developed for peat bogs in Europe. Two principal techniques were used to reconstruct past climates over the past 3000 years: at close intervals throughout a vertical column of peat, the researchers investigated the degree of peat decomposition, which is directly related to climate, and also examined the peat matrix to reveal the changing amounts of different plants that previously grew on the bog.
The data show that the most extreme cold phases of the Little Ice Age -- in the mid-15th and then again in the early 18th centuries -- were synchronous in Europe and South America. There is one stark difference: while in continental north-west Europe, bogs became wetter, in Tierra del Fuego, the bog became drier -- in both cases probably a result of a dramatic equator-ward shift of moisture-bearing winds.
These extreme times coincide with periods when it is known that the sun was unusually quiet. In the late 17th to mid-18th centuries it had very few sunspots -- fewer even than during the run of recent cold winters in Europe, which other UK scientists have linked to a relatively quiet sun.
Professor Frank Chambers, Head of the University of Gloucestershire's Centre for Environmental Change and Quaternary Research, who led the writing of the Fast-Track Research Report, said: "Both sceptics and adherents of Global Warming might draw succour from this work. Our study is significant because, while there are various different estimates for the start and end of the Little Ice Age in different regions of the world, our data show that the most extreme phases occurred at the same time in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. These extreme episodes were abrupt global events. They were probably related to sudden, equator-ward shifts of the Westerlies in the Southern Hemisphere, and the Atlantic depression tracks in the Northern Hemisphere. The same shifts seem to have happened abruptly before, such as c. 2800 years ago, when the same synchronous but opposite response is shown in bogs in Northwest Europe compared with southern South America.
"It seems that the sun's quiescence was responsible for the most extreme phases of the Little Ice Age, implying that solar variability sometimes plays a significant role in climate change. A change in solar activity may also, for example, have contributed to the post Little Ice Age rise in global temperatures in the first half of the 20th Century. However, solar variability alone cannot explain the post-1970 global temperature trends, especially the global temperature rise in the last three decades of the 20th Century, which has been attributed by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
Professor Chambers concluded: "I must stress that our research findings are only interpretable for the period from 3000 years ago to the end of the Little Ice Age. That is the period upon which our research is focused. However, in light of our substantiation of the effects of 'grand solar minima' upon past global climates, it could be speculated that the current pausing of 'Global Warming', which is frequently referenced by those sceptical of climate projections by the IPCC, might relate at least in part to a countervailing effect of reduced solar activity, as shown in the recent sunspot cycle."
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The above story is based on materials provided by University of Gloucestershire. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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University of Gloucestershire. "Little Ice Age was global: Implications for current global warming." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 November 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119204521.htm>.
Little Ice Age was global: Implications for current global warming
Date:
November 19, 2014
Source:
University of Gloucestershire
Summary:
Researchers have shed new light on the climate of the Little Ice Age, and rekindled debate over the role of the sun in climate change. The new study, which involved detailed scientific examination of a peat bog in southern South America, indicates that the most extreme climate episodes of the Little Ice Age were felt not just in Europe and North America, which is well known, but apparently globally. The research has implications for current concerns over global warming.
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A team of UK researchers has shed new light on the climate of the Little Ice Age, and rekindled debate over the role of the sun in climate change. The new study, which involved detailed scientific examination of a peat bog in southern South America, indicates that the most extreme climate episodes of the Little Ice Age were felt not just in Europe and North America, which is well known, but apparently globally. The research has implications for current concerns over global warming.
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IPCC Report on Climate Change - 2007
Climate sceptics and believers of global warming have long argued about whether the Little Ice Age (from c. early 15th to 19th Centuries) was global, its causes, and how much influence the sun has had on global climate, both during the Little Ice Age and in recent decades. This new study helps clarify those debates.
The team of researchers, from the Universities of Gloucestershire, Aberdeen and Plymouth, conducted studies on past climate through detailed laboratory examination of peat from a bog near Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. They used exactly the same laboratory methods as have been developed for peat bogs in Europe. Two principal techniques were used to reconstruct past climates over the past 3000 years: at close intervals throughout a vertical column of peat, the researchers investigated the degree of peat decomposition, which is directly related to climate, and also examined the peat matrix to reveal the changing amounts of different plants that previously grew on the bog.
The data show that the most extreme cold phases of the Little Ice Age -- in the mid-15th and then again in the early 18th centuries -- were synchronous in Europe and South America. There is one stark difference: while in continental north-west Europe, bogs became wetter, in Tierra del Fuego, the bog became drier -- in both cases probably a result of a dramatic equator-ward shift of moisture-bearing winds.
These extreme times coincide with periods when it is known that the sun was unusually quiet. In the late 17th to mid-18th centuries it had very few sunspots -- fewer even than during the run of recent cold winters in Europe, which other UK scientists have linked to a relatively quiet sun.
Professor Frank Chambers, Head of the University of Gloucestershire's Centre for Environmental Change and Quaternary Research, who led the writing of the Fast-Track Research Report, said: "Both sceptics and adherents of Global Warming might draw succour from this work. Our study is significant because, while there are various different estimates for the start and end of the Little Ice Age in different regions of the world, our data show that the most extreme phases occurred at the same time in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. These extreme episodes were abrupt global events. They were probably related to sudden, equator-ward shifts of the Westerlies in the Southern Hemisphere, and the Atlantic depression tracks in the Northern Hemisphere. The same shifts seem to have happened abruptly before, such as c. 2800 years ago, when the same synchronous but opposite response is shown in bogs in Northwest Europe compared with southern South America.
"It seems that the sun's quiescence was responsible for the most extreme phases of the Little Ice Age, implying that solar variability sometimes plays a significant role in climate change. A change in solar activity may also, for example, have contributed to the post Little Ice Age rise in global temperatures in the first half of the 20th Century. However, solar variability alone cannot explain the post-1970 global temperature trends, especially the global temperature rise in the last three decades of the 20th Century, which has been attributed by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
Professor Chambers concluded: "I must stress that our research findings are only interpretable for the period from 3000 years ago to the end of the Little Ice Age. That is the period upon which our research is focused. However, in light of our substantiation of the effects of 'grand solar minima' upon past global climates, it could be speculated that the current pausing of 'Global Warming', which is frequently referenced by those sceptical of climate projections by the IPCC, might relate at least in part to a countervailing effect of reduced solar activity, as shown in the recent sunspot cycle."
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of Gloucestershire. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Cite This Page:
MLA APA Chicago
University of Gloucestershire. "Little Ice Age was global: Implications for current global warming." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 November 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119204521.htm>.
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
The puntledge river if it did not have a dam would be fine.
If it had trees and no roads it would be fine.
This has nothing to do with co2 and everything to do with mans messing with it.
Man could fix it as well if he would just put a system in it as on the big Q.
Your arguments are about co2 remember.
If it had trees and no roads it would be fine.
This has nothing to do with co2 and everything to do with mans messing with it.
Man could fix it as well if he would just put a system in it as on the big Q.
Your arguments are about co2 remember.
Last edited by a moderator:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ki...tive+effects/9793673/story.html#ixzz3K0caVliO
Kinder Morgan pipeline application says oil spills can have both negative and positive effects
Accused of ‘insensitivity,’ company says study was to fulfil a legal requirement and no spill is acceptable
BY PETER O'NEIL, VANCOUVER SUN APRIL 30, 2014
2 39
STORYPHOTOS ( 1 )
Kinder Morgan pipeline application says oil spills can have both negative and positive effects
Tanker FSL Shanghai is moored at the Westridge Marine Terminal, terminus of the Kinder Morgran pipeline, in Burnaby.
Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider , Vancouver Sun
OTTAWA — There can be economic benefits from oil spills, Kinder Morgan says in its $5.4-billion proposal to the federal government to triple the capacity of its pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby.
The company submission says its risk assessment and 60-year history operating the existing pipeline show “the probability of a large pipeline spill is low.”
But the 15,000-page submission, required by federal regulations, analyzes numerous moderate and catastrophic spill scenarios along the pipeline route in both provinces. It looks at the socio-economic, environmental and even psychological impact of major spills in areas such as the Fraser River near the Port Mann Bridge.
“Pipeline spills can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies, both in the short- and long-term,” the company states in its submission to the National Energy Board, the federal government’s Calgary-based regulatory agency. “Spill response and cleanup creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and cleanup service providers.”
The New Democratic Party MP who represents Burnaby, including the Westridge Marine Terminal where large tankers will arrive to carry diluted bitumen overseas, accused the company of insensitivity.
“We know Kinder Morgan is using every trick in the book to push this pipeline through our community, but this takes the cake — proposing that a spill would actually be good for the local economy,” said Kennedy Stewart, MP for Burnaby-Douglas riding. “This assertion shows the utter disregard this company has for British Columbians.”
The company said it was just fulfilling its regulatory requirements.
“No spill is acceptable to us,” Michael Davies of Kinder Morgan Canada said by email. “While we are required by the National Energy Board to explore both the positive and negative socio-economic effects of a spill, it in no way means we accept the inevitability of a spill, nor justify one.”
The overall economic effect of a spill depends on several factors, according to the Kinder Morgan submission.
“The net overall effect depends on the size and extent of a spill, the associated demand for cleanup services and personnel, the capacity of local and regional businesses to meet this demand, the willingness of local businesses and residents to pursue response opportunities, the extent of business and livelihoods adversely affected (directly or indirectly) by the spill, and the duration and extent of spill response and cleanup activities.
“Evidence from past incidents shows that economic activities would be affected if a large spill were to directly affect a (high consequence area) such as a community or water body. The magnitude of effects resulting from a small spill on land would be smaller.”
Kinder Morgan’s proposed twinning of the existing pipeline will increase its capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of oil a day, increasing the number of tankers arriving at Westridge from five to 34 a month.
One of the scenarios Kinder Morgan was required the analyze was a full-bore summertime pipeline rupture into the Fraser River adjacent near the Port Mann Bridge.
That scenario would coat the surface of the river with oil from the Port Mann Bridge to past the George Massey Tunnel, the submission said. “From there to the mouth of the river, the probability of oil on the surface is between 60 and 80 per cent. There is about a 40 per cent probability of oil on the surface of the water entering the side channels and marshes near Ladner and Port Guichon.
“Oil that reaches the mouth of the river is discharged into the Strait of Georgia with considerable momentum, so it is likely to disperse to the north or south in the strait and does not have a high probability of directly affecting the Sturgeon or Roberts Banks. It is more likely that this oil will affect shorelines on the opposite side of the strait.”
The submission says the ecological impact depends on the timing and intensity of the spill, with the impact on mammals like muskrat, beaver, otter and mink “potentially high.”
While cleaning up the riverbank would be fairly straightforward, clean up of the main channel of the river and the marsh areas near Port Guichon would require much more work.
The next step in the process is a May 12 deadline for interveners to file requests for the company to provide additional information.
poneil@postmedia.comTwitter.com/poneilinottawag
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ki...tive+effects/9793673/story.html#ixzz3K0pR0RPN
Kinder Morgan pipeline application says oil spills can have both negative and positive effects
Accused of ‘insensitivity,’ company says study was to fulfil a legal requirement and no spill is acceptable
BY PETER O'NEIL, VANCOUVER SUN APRIL 30, 2014
2 39
STORYPHOTOS ( 1 )
Kinder Morgan pipeline application says oil spills can have both negative and positive effects
Tanker FSL Shanghai is moored at the Westridge Marine Terminal, terminus of the Kinder Morgran pipeline, in Burnaby.
Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider , Vancouver Sun
OTTAWA — There can be economic benefits from oil spills, Kinder Morgan says in its $5.4-billion proposal to the federal government to triple the capacity of its pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby.
The company submission says its risk assessment and 60-year history operating the existing pipeline show “the probability of a large pipeline spill is low.”
But the 15,000-page submission, required by federal regulations, analyzes numerous moderate and catastrophic spill scenarios along the pipeline route in both provinces. It looks at the socio-economic, environmental and even psychological impact of major spills in areas such as the Fraser River near the Port Mann Bridge.
“Pipeline spills can have both positive and negative effects on local and regional economies, both in the short- and long-term,” the company states in its submission to the National Energy Board, the federal government’s Calgary-based regulatory agency. “Spill response and cleanup creates business and employment opportunities for affected communities, regions, and cleanup service providers.”
The New Democratic Party MP who represents Burnaby, including the Westridge Marine Terminal where large tankers will arrive to carry diluted bitumen overseas, accused the company of insensitivity.
“We know Kinder Morgan is using every trick in the book to push this pipeline through our community, but this takes the cake — proposing that a spill would actually be good for the local economy,” said Kennedy Stewart, MP for Burnaby-Douglas riding. “This assertion shows the utter disregard this company has for British Columbians.”
The company said it was just fulfilling its regulatory requirements.
“No spill is acceptable to us,” Michael Davies of Kinder Morgan Canada said by email. “While we are required by the National Energy Board to explore both the positive and negative socio-economic effects of a spill, it in no way means we accept the inevitability of a spill, nor justify one.”
The overall economic effect of a spill depends on several factors, according to the Kinder Morgan submission.
“The net overall effect depends on the size and extent of a spill, the associated demand for cleanup services and personnel, the capacity of local and regional businesses to meet this demand, the willingness of local businesses and residents to pursue response opportunities, the extent of business and livelihoods adversely affected (directly or indirectly) by the spill, and the duration and extent of spill response and cleanup activities.
“Evidence from past incidents shows that economic activities would be affected if a large spill were to directly affect a (high consequence area) such as a community or water body. The magnitude of effects resulting from a small spill on land would be smaller.”
Kinder Morgan’s proposed twinning of the existing pipeline will increase its capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of oil a day, increasing the number of tankers arriving at Westridge from five to 34 a month.
One of the scenarios Kinder Morgan was required the analyze was a full-bore summertime pipeline rupture into the Fraser River adjacent near the Port Mann Bridge.
That scenario would coat the surface of the river with oil from the Port Mann Bridge to past the George Massey Tunnel, the submission said. “From there to the mouth of the river, the probability of oil on the surface is between 60 and 80 per cent. There is about a 40 per cent probability of oil on the surface of the water entering the side channels and marshes near Ladner and Port Guichon.
“Oil that reaches the mouth of the river is discharged into the Strait of Georgia with considerable momentum, so it is likely to disperse to the north or south in the strait and does not have a high probability of directly affecting the Sturgeon or Roberts Banks. It is more likely that this oil will affect shorelines on the opposite side of the strait.”
The submission says the ecological impact depends on the timing and intensity of the spill, with the impact on mammals like muskrat, beaver, otter and mink “potentially high.”
While cleaning up the riverbank would be fairly straightforward, clean up of the main channel of the river and the marsh areas near Port Guichon would require much more work.
The next step in the process is a May 12 deadline for interveners to file requests for the company to provide additional information.
poneil@postmedia.comTwitter.com/poneilinottawag
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ki...tive+effects/9793673/story.html#ixzz3K0pR0RPN
GLG
Well-Known Member
This has everything to do with CO2....
So the dam has been there since 1902 and was increased, in size, in the 50's but for some reason the river temps stayed the same for all that time. Then for some reason the temps have gone up and DFO can't raise Coho smolts because they die from the hot water. Even though they have been doing it from as far back as the 70's..... Yup .... Your explanation is ... it's the dam and the trees and the roads that are causing the temp to go up. If this was not so serious I would have given up long ago. My advice is to educate yourself with what is going on.
http://pics.uvic.ca/education/climate-insights-101
this too
http://www.bchydro.com/content/dam/...ocuments/about/climate_change_report_2012.pdf
and another
http://www.pacificclimate.org/sites...mary-CampbellPeaceColumbia.Jul2011-SCREEN.pdf
Links to more information
http://pics.uvic.ca/insights/bc-reg...downloads/module 2 resources_july 25_2014.pdf
You are a valued elder in this community, we need educated leaders, people to follow, or if you refuse, get the heck out of the way.
Last edited by a moderator:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/10/20/German-Clean-Energy-Revolution/
Five Lessons for Canada from Germany's Clean Energy Revolution
The biggest? That renewables make the economy stronger, says German energy expert David Jacobs.
By Geoff Dembicki, 20 Oct 2014, TheTyee.ca
Share article via email Print this article
GermanRuralWind_600px.jpg
Clean energy now supplies nearly one-third of Germany's electricity. Rural Germany photo via Shutterstock.
Also in this series:
A MILLENNIAL ASKS: ARE WE SCREWED?
A Millennial Asks: Are We Screwed?
Can Big Data 'Solve' Climate Change?
Are We Screwed? 'No,' Says Clean Energy Icon
Embedded with the Planet Savers
Civilization in 2025: Cleaner, Richer, Decentralized?
Will Alberta's Oilsands Become 'Stranded Assets'?
How Millennials Are Changing Wall Street
A Future Green Utopia? Forget About It
So What Do You Think, Is My Generation Screwed?
I Asked You, Tyee Reader, Is My Generation Screwed?
Fake Your Own Personal Brand: A Vocabulary Guide
Why I Couldn't Live in Mr. Eco-Footprint's Future
What If Canada Exported Clean Energy Instead of Oil?
'Canada Should Not Be Hostage' to Alberta: Jeremy Rifkin
Can We Fix the Climate by Being More Like Hawaii?
How This Teen's Quest to Define 'Sustainability' Changed State Law
Five Lessons for Canada from Germany's Clean Energy Revolution
What the 1970s Can Teach Us about Inventing a New Economy
Related
A Millennial Asks: Are We Screwed?
What I Saw with a German Tour of the Oilsands
Strangely, it wasn't the oilsands anyone can find on the Internet.
How Greens in One German State Threaten Euro-Canada Trade Deal
Resistance to CETA sprouts over investor rights vs. government power.
Read more: Energy, Environment
When Dr. David Jacobs comes to North America from Europe, he hears the same myths repeated over and over about Germany's state-led shift to a zero-carbon society. Replacing oil, coal, gas and nuclear with wind and solar will tank the economy; clean energy is a luxury only citizens of wealthy European countries can afford; and embracing it hasn't even reduced carbon emissions. "There are lots of very basic misconceptions," he said during a recent interview at Vancouver's Georgia Hotel.
Jacobs, who heads a consulting firm called International Energy Transition and teaches energy policy at the Free University of Berlin, was brought into town by Clean Energy Canada for the Generate 2014 conference. He'd spent the morning before our chat correcting misconceptions about Germany's Energiewende (or energy transition) for a private audience of local policymakers and academics. The best myth-busting tools at his disposal are hard economic facts. These days, Jacobs has a lot of them to share.
Clean energy now supplies nearly one-third of Germany's electricity. The industry has created 370,000 jobs. Environmental sectors contribute over eight per cent of the country's GDP. And carbon emissions are down 23 per cent from 1990 levels. If the world's fourth largest economy can achieve such results, then Jacobs thinks developed countries like Canada can certainly learn a thing or two.
From my chat with Jacobs, I've compiled five crucial lessons from Germany's energy transition.
1) Admitting our fossil fuel era is ending creates political opportunities
"You have policy front-runners and policy laggards. Germany was always considering itself as a policy front-runner, starting to promote renewable energy sources in the mid 1980s.... When you look at energy from a very neutral perspective, it is rather clear that the age of fossil fuels is a limited age compared to human history. It will end up being 300 to 400 years and afterwards we go back to renewables, because it is economically more sensible and we will run out of fossil fuels.
"If you have this mindset it makes sense to invest in renewables at an early stage, because everyone else will follow you at some point. If you make this a national business opportunity, then more and more people start to get interested in this story, which is what happened... eventually it just became common sense."
2) Building a social movement in favour of clean energy is critical
"You have to understand that there is very strong social support for the energy transition in Germany. This is based in a long tradition of the antinuclear movement in the 1960s and '70s. Then this evolved into a pro-renewable energy movement, which was actually the foundation of the German green party in the late 1980s.
"This very strong social foundation got bigger and bigger, year after year.... Now 92 per cent of Germans say we need more renewables and 82 per cent support the energy transition, so without this very strong base it wouldn't have been possible."
3) Shifting to renewables makes the economy stronger, not weaker
"Germany now has 1.3 million jobs in green industries, and in renewable energy it's directly and indirectly 370,000 jobs. What is probably even more important is the annual turnover of the renewable energy industry, which is more than 20 billion euros [C$36 billion] per year, because we also export a lot of our manufactured goods and services to other countries. More than eight per cent of [Germany's] GDP comes from all the environmentally related sectors. That's very important for policymakers."
4) Higher energy prices don't necessarily mean higher energy costs
"People can lose their focus when they look at the cost of electricity. They look at prices instead, so they say one kilowatt hour costs 30 [euro] cents in Germany but only 10 [euro] cents in the U.S.... But instead of looking at prices, you actually have to look at cost. And in Germany, yearly electricity consumption of an average household is 3,500 kW-h, whereas in the U.S. you normally have 11-12,000 kW-h, so household bills are actually slightly higher in the U.S. and Canada than in Germany.
DavidJacobs_300px.jpg
Dr. David Jacobs: Germany's clean energy transition back by 'very strong social support.'
"In North America, you are used to very low energy prices, which incentivize a certain behaviour, so you buy a second TV, a second fridge for having cold drinks.... All of this is not happening in the average German household, where people are much more conscious of their electricity consumption behaviour."
5) Getting to a zero-carbon society is difficult, but ultimately doable
"Germany's carbon emissions have been dropping quite considerably. We've been able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 23 per cent compared to 1990 levels, so that's already quite something. The target is 40 per cent by 2020. If we continue down the road we're headed, we probably won't reach the 40 per cent but get closer to 35 per cent, which is still reasonable.
"The problem is we saw a slight increase of coal-fired generation in the last two years, due to a complex policy making process for modifying the European carbon emissions trading mechanism, where the prices are very low at the moment. This led to an increase of coal in the power mix. Germany is now considering additional national policy measures.
"The long-term target for 2050 is an 80 to 95 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions. That would translate into a full decarbonization of the electricity system. In the electricity sector, renewables now provide 28 per cent, so it's still a long way to go.... But there's not going to be room for coal-fired power in the future.
Five Lessons for Canada from Germany's Clean Energy Revolution
The biggest? That renewables make the economy stronger, says German energy expert David Jacobs.
By Geoff Dembicki, 20 Oct 2014, TheTyee.ca
Share article via email Print this article
GermanRuralWind_600px.jpg
Clean energy now supplies nearly one-third of Germany's electricity. Rural Germany photo via Shutterstock.
Also in this series:
A MILLENNIAL ASKS: ARE WE SCREWED?
A Millennial Asks: Are We Screwed?
Can Big Data 'Solve' Climate Change?
Are We Screwed? 'No,' Says Clean Energy Icon
Embedded with the Planet Savers
Civilization in 2025: Cleaner, Richer, Decentralized?
Will Alberta's Oilsands Become 'Stranded Assets'?
How Millennials Are Changing Wall Street
A Future Green Utopia? Forget About It
So What Do You Think, Is My Generation Screwed?
I Asked You, Tyee Reader, Is My Generation Screwed?
Fake Your Own Personal Brand: A Vocabulary Guide
Why I Couldn't Live in Mr. Eco-Footprint's Future
What If Canada Exported Clean Energy Instead of Oil?
'Canada Should Not Be Hostage' to Alberta: Jeremy Rifkin
Can We Fix the Climate by Being More Like Hawaii?
How This Teen's Quest to Define 'Sustainability' Changed State Law
Five Lessons for Canada from Germany's Clean Energy Revolution
What the 1970s Can Teach Us about Inventing a New Economy
Related
A Millennial Asks: Are We Screwed?
What I Saw with a German Tour of the Oilsands
Strangely, it wasn't the oilsands anyone can find on the Internet.
How Greens in One German State Threaten Euro-Canada Trade Deal
Resistance to CETA sprouts over investor rights vs. government power.
Read more: Energy, Environment
When Dr. David Jacobs comes to North America from Europe, he hears the same myths repeated over and over about Germany's state-led shift to a zero-carbon society. Replacing oil, coal, gas and nuclear with wind and solar will tank the economy; clean energy is a luxury only citizens of wealthy European countries can afford; and embracing it hasn't even reduced carbon emissions. "There are lots of very basic misconceptions," he said during a recent interview at Vancouver's Georgia Hotel.
Jacobs, who heads a consulting firm called International Energy Transition and teaches energy policy at the Free University of Berlin, was brought into town by Clean Energy Canada for the Generate 2014 conference. He'd spent the morning before our chat correcting misconceptions about Germany's Energiewende (or energy transition) for a private audience of local policymakers and academics. The best myth-busting tools at his disposal are hard economic facts. These days, Jacobs has a lot of them to share.
Clean energy now supplies nearly one-third of Germany's electricity. The industry has created 370,000 jobs. Environmental sectors contribute over eight per cent of the country's GDP. And carbon emissions are down 23 per cent from 1990 levels. If the world's fourth largest economy can achieve such results, then Jacobs thinks developed countries like Canada can certainly learn a thing or two.
From my chat with Jacobs, I've compiled five crucial lessons from Germany's energy transition.
1) Admitting our fossil fuel era is ending creates political opportunities
"You have policy front-runners and policy laggards. Germany was always considering itself as a policy front-runner, starting to promote renewable energy sources in the mid 1980s.... When you look at energy from a very neutral perspective, it is rather clear that the age of fossil fuels is a limited age compared to human history. It will end up being 300 to 400 years and afterwards we go back to renewables, because it is economically more sensible and we will run out of fossil fuels.
"If you have this mindset it makes sense to invest in renewables at an early stage, because everyone else will follow you at some point. If you make this a national business opportunity, then more and more people start to get interested in this story, which is what happened... eventually it just became common sense."
2) Building a social movement in favour of clean energy is critical
"You have to understand that there is very strong social support for the energy transition in Germany. This is based in a long tradition of the antinuclear movement in the 1960s and '70s. Then this evolved into a pro-renewable energy movement, which was actually the foundation of the German green party in the late 1980s.
"This very strong social foundation got bigger and bigger, year after year.... Now 92 per cent of Germans say we need more renewables and 82 per cent support the energy transition, so without this very strong base it wouldn't have been possible."
3) Shifting to renewables makes the economy stronger, not weaker
"Germany now has 1.3 million jobs in green industries, and in renewable energy it's directly and indirectly 370,000 jobs. What is probably even more important is the annual turnover of the renewable energy industry, which is more than 20 billion euros [C$36 billion] per year, because we also export a lot of our manufactured goods and services to other countries. More than eight per cent of [Germany's] GDP comes from all the environmentally related sectors. That's very important for policymakers."
4) Higher energy prices don't necessarily mean higher energy costs
"People can lose their focus when they look at the cost of electricity. They look at prices instead, so they say one kilowatt hour costs 30 [euro] cents in Germany but only 10 [euro] cents in the U.S.... But instead of looking at prices, you actually have to look at cost. And in Germany, yearly electricity consumption of an average household is 3,500 kW-h, whereas in the U.S. you normally have 11-12,000 kW-h, so household bills are actually slightly higher in the U.S. and Canada than in Germany.
DavidJacobs_300px.jpg
Dr. David Jacobs: Germany's clean energy transition back by 'very strong social support.'
"In North America, you are used to very low energy prices, which incentivize a certain behaviour, so you buy a second TV, a second fridge for having cold drinks.... All of this is not happening in the average German household, where people are much more conscious of their electricity consumption behaviour."
5) Getting to a zero-carbon society is difficult, but ultimately doable
"Germany's carbon emissions have been dropping quite considerably. We've been able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 23 per cent compared to 1990 levels, so that's already quite something. The target is 40 per cent by 2020. If we continue down the road we're headed, we probably won't reach the 40 per cent but get closer to 35 per cent, which is still reasonable.
"The problem is we saw a slight increase of coal-fired generation in the last two years, due to a complex policy making process for modifying the European carbon emissions trading mechanism, where the prices are very low at the moment. This led to an increase of coal in the power mix. Germany is now considering additional national policy measures.
"The long-term target for 2050 is an 80 to 95 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions. That would translate into a full decarbonization of the electricity system. In the electricity sector, renewables now provide 28 per cent, so it's still a long way to go.... But there's not going to be room for coal-fired power in the future.
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
Really they have been moving fish to the biq q. To raise them for years as the water was to warm.
They can fix the problem that has been know for years by a deep water intake from the lake.
By the way, please explain the last eighteen years of no
Global Warming and the effect on the river?
You were talking about global warming and this was caused only by man.
That man was responsible due to co2.
That it has never been this warm since man walked the earth.
That here should never be any other opinion than the IPPC.
That the ocean would rise and wipe out Vancouver and all the people living on the ocean in the near future.
That Al Gore really knew what he was talking about with global warming and we all should believe him.
They can fix the problem that has been know for years by a deep water intake from the lake.
By the way, please explain the last eighteen years of no
Global Warming and the effect on the river?
You were talking about global warming and this was caused only by man.
That man was responsible due to co2.
That it has never been this warm since man walked the earth.
That here should never be any other opinion than the IPPC.
That the ocean would rise and wipe out Vancouver and all the people living on the ocean in the near future.
That Al Gore really knew what he was talking about with global warming and we all should believe him.
Last edited by a moderator:
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
NOVEMBER 21, 2014 5:23PM
How Hot Does It Have to Be to Break a Record?
By PATRICK J. MICHAELS SHARE
So who hasn’t seen one of the bajillion recent stories saying 2014 is going to set the instrumental record for the highest average global surface temperature? May we throw a teense of cold water on that hot news?
Annual temperatures are calculated by averaging up monthly readings, so the last data point that we have is October. The National Climatic Data Center, a part of the Department of Commerce, estimates that global average temperature was a record high of 58.46°F. The previous record was 58.45°.
The key word is “estimates.” When a scientist measures something—with a ruler, a scale, or a thermometer, for example—there’s always a measurement error owing to properties of the measuring device or even the skill of the scientist. When it comes to global temperature, scientists are averaging data from over a thousand thermometers scattered about the planet. Some are well-taken care of, and some are not. Some may have traces of urban warming in them. Nor is the number of readings exactly the same from year to year, or even from month to month.
The result is that there is a central estimate (58.46°) and a 95% confidence range as to where the “true” value lies.
The most recent and most transparent error analysis of global temperatures has been done by a group called Berkeley Earth. For October, they find that the 95% confidence range is 0.10°F, or +/- 0.05°.
So, using the normal rules of science, is 58.46° then distinguishable from 58.45°? In a word, “NO.”
How Hot Does It Have to Be to Break a Record?
By PATRICK J. MICHAELS SHARE
So who hasn’t seen one of the bajillion recent stories saying 2014 is going to set the instrumental record for the highest average global surface temperature? May we throw a teense of cold water on that hot news?
Annual temperatures are calculated by averaging up monthly readings, so the last data point that we have is October. The National Climatic Data Center, a part of the Department of Commerce, estimates that global average temperature was a record high of 58.46°F. The previous record was 58.45°.
The key word is “estimates.” When a scientist measures something—with a ruler, a scale, or a thermometer, for example—there’s always a measurement error owing to properties of the measuring device or even the skill of the scientist. When it comes to global temperature, scientists are averaging data from over a thousand thermometers scattered about the planet. Some are well-taken care of, and some are not. Some may have traces of urban warming in them. Nor is the number of readings exactly the same from year to year, or even from month to month.
The result is that there is a central estimate (58.46°) and a 95% confidence range as to where the “true” value lies.
The most recent and most transparent error analysis of global temperatures has been done by a group called Berkeley Earth. For October, they find that the 95% confidence range is 0.10°F, or +/- 0.05°.
So, using the normal rules of science, is 58.46° then distinguishable from 58.45°? In a word, “NO.”
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
Global Temperature Update
It’s official: no global warming for 18 years 1 month
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The RSS monthly satellite global temperature anomaly for September 2014 is in, and the Great Pause is now two months longer than it was last month. Would this year’s el Niño bite soon enough to stop the psychologically-significant 18-year threshold from being crossed? The official answer is No.
Globally, September was scarcely warmer than August, which was itself some distance below the 18-year trend-line. Therefore, taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies, there has now been no global warming for 18 years 1 month.
Dr Benny Peiser, our good friend at the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK, had anticipated the official crossing of the 18-year threshold by a day or two with an interesting note circulated to supporters on the ever-lengthening period without any global warming, and featuring our 17-years-11-months graph from last month.
The Great Pause is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979. It has endured for a little over half the satellite temperature record. Yet the Pause coincides with a continuing, rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Figure 1. RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies (dark blue) and trend (thick bright blue line), September 1996 to September 2014, showing no trend for 18 years 1 month.
The hiatus period of 18 years 1 month, or 217 months, is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.
RSS itself is now taking a serious interest in the length of the Great Pause. Dr Carl Mears, the senior research scientist at RSS, has a long and intriguing discussion of the Pause, and of the widening divergence between the models’ excitable predictions and the mundane reality in the RSS blog, at remss.com/blog/recent-slowing-rise-global-temperatures.
Dr Mears’ results are summarized in Fig. 2:
clip_image004
Figure 2. Output of 33 IPCC models (turquoise) compared with measured RSS global temperature change (black), 1979-2014. The transient coolings caused by the volcanic eruptions of Chichón (1983) and Pinatubo (1991) are shown, as is the spike in warming caused by the great el Niño of 1998.
Dr Mears writes:
“The denialists like to assume that the cause for the model/observation discrepancy is some kind of problem with the fundamental model physics, and they pooh-pooh any other sort of explanation. This leads them to conclude, very likely erroneously, that the long-term sensitivity of the climate is much less than is currently thought.”
Dr Mears’ regrettable use of the word “denialists”, with its deliberate overtones of comparison with Holocaust deniers, reveals Dr Mears as what we may call a “liarist” – one who is prone to push the evidence in the profitable direction of greater alarm than is scientifically justified.
Interestingly, therefore, the RSS data, which show less recent warming than all other datasets, are under the management of a liarist, while the UAH data, which (until v. 6 becomes available at any rate) continue to show more warming than the others, are managed by sceptics.
Dr Mears admits the discrepancy between the RSS data and the models’ exaggerations, but he echoes various trolls here in alleging the supposed “cherry-picking” of the start-date for the global-temperature graph:
“Recently, a number of articles in the mainstream press have pointed out that there appears to have been little or no change in globally averaged temperature over the last two decades. Because of this, we are getting a lot of questions along the lines of ‘I saw this plot on a denialist web site. Is this really your data?’ While some of these reports have ‘cherry-picked’ their end points to make their evidence seem even stronger, there is not much doubt that the rate of warming since the late 1990s is less than that predicted by most of the IPCC AR5 simulations of historical climate. … The denialists really like to fit trends starting in 1997, so that the huge 1997-98 ENSO event is at the start of their time series, resulting in a linear fit with the smallest possible slope.”
It is time to deal with this nonsense about start-dates very firmly. The spike in temperatures caused by the Great el Niño of 1998 is largely offset in the linear-trend calculation by two factors: the spike of the 2010 el Niño, and the sheer length of the Great Pause itself.
To demonstrate this, I replaced all the monthly RSS anomalies for 1998 with the mean anomaly value of 0.55 K that obtained during the 2010 el Niño. Then I recalculated the trend from September 1996 [not Dr Mears’ “1997”] to September 2014. All that happened is that the trend values “–0.00 C° (–0.00 C°/century)” shown in the unaltered data (Fig. 1) became “+0.00 C° (+0.00 C°/century)” in the recalculated graph. Not exactly a major difference. That is the end of that climate-liarist canard.
The length of the Great Pause in global warming, significant though it now is, is of less importance than the ever-growing discrepancy between the temperature trends predicted by models and the far less exciting real-world temperature change that has been observed.
IPCC’s First Assessment Report predicted that global temperature would rise by 1.0 [0.7, 1.5] Cº to 2025, equivalent to 2.8 [1.9, 4.2] Cº per century. The executive summary asked, “How much confidence do we have in our predictions?” IPCC pointed out some uncertainties (clouds, oceans, etc.), but concluded:
“Nevertheless, … we have substantial confidence that models can predict at least the broad-scale features of climate change. … There are similarities between results from the coupled models using simple representations of the ocean and those using more sophisticated descriptions, and our understanding of such differences as do occur gives us some confidence in the results.”
That “substantial confidence” was substantial over-confidence. A quarter-century after 1990, the outturn to date – expressed as the least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the RSS and UAH monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies – is 0.34 Cº, equivalent to just 1.4 Cº/century, or exactly half of the central estimate in IPCC (1990) and well below even the least estimate (Fig. 3).
It’s official: no global warming for 18 years 1 month
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The RSS monthly satellite global temperature anomaly for September 2014 is in, and the Great Pause is now two months longer than it was last month. Would this year’s el Niño bite soon enough to stop the psychologically-significant 18-year threshold from being crossed? The official answer is No.
Globally, September was scarcely warmer than August, which was itself some distance below the 18-year trend-line. Therefore, taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies, there has now been no global warming for 18 years 1 month.
Dr Benny Peiser, our good friend at the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK, had anticipated the official crossing of the 18-year threshold by a day or two with an interesting note circulated to supporters on the ever-lengthening period without any global warming, and featuring our 17-years-11-months graph from last month.
The Great Pause is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979. It has endured for a little over half the satellite temperature record. Yet the Pause coincides with a continuing, rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Figure 1. RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies (dark blue) and trend (thick bright blue line), September 1996 to September 2014, showing no trend for 18 years 1 month.
The hiatus period of 18 years 1 month, or 217 months, is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.
RSS itself is now taking a serious interest in the length of the Great Pause. Dr Carl Mears, the senior research scientist at RSS, has a long and intriguing discussion of the Pause, and of the widening divergence between the models’ excitable predictions and the mundane reality in the RSS blog, at remss.com/blog/recent-slowing-rise-global-temperatures.
Dr Mears’ results are summarized in Fig. 2:
clip_image004
Figure 2. Output of 33 IPCC models (turquoise) compared with measured RSS global temperature change (black), 1979-2014. The transient coolings caused by the volcanic eruptions of Chichón (1983) and Pinatubo (1991) are shown, as is the spike in warming caused by the great el Niño of 1998.
Dr Mears writes:
“The denialists like to assume that the cause for the model/observation discrepancy is some kind of problem with the fundamental model physics, and they pooh-pooh any other sort of explanation. This leads them to conclude, very likely erroneously, that the long-term sensitivity of the climate is much less than is currently thought.”
Dr Mears’ regrettable use of the word “denialists”, with its deliberate overtones of comparison with Holocaust deniers, reveals Dr Mears as what we may call a “liarist” – one who is prone to push the evidence in the profitable direction of greater alarm than is scientifically justified.
Interestingly, therefore, the RSS data, which show less recent warming than all other datasets, are under the management of a liarist, while the UAH data, which (until v. 6 becomes available at any rate) continue to show more warming than the others, are managed by sceptics.
Dr Mears admits the discrepancy between the RSS data and the models’ exaggerations, but he echoes various trolls here in alleging the supposed “cherry-picking” of the start-date for the global-temperature graph:
“Recently, a number of articles in the mainstream press have pointed out that there appears to have been little or no change in globally averaged temperature over the last two decades. Because of this, we are getting a lot of questions along the lines of ‘I saw this plot on a denialist web site. Is this really your data?’ While some of these reports have ‘cherry-picked’ their end points to make their evidence seem even stronger, there is not much doubt that the rate of warming since the late 1990s is less than that predicted by most of the IPCC AR5 simulations of historical climate. … The denialists really like to fit trends starting in 1997, so that the huge 1997-98 ENSO event is at the start of their time series, resulting in a linear fit with the smallest possible slope.”
It is time to deal with this nonsense about start-dates very firmly. The spike in temperatures caused by the Great el Niño of 1998 is largely offset in the linear-trend calculation by two factors: the spike of the 2010 el Niño, and the sheer length of the Great Pause itself.
To demonstrate this, I replaced all the monthly RSS anomalies for 1998 with the mean anomaly value of 0.55 K that obtained during the 2010 el Niño. Then I recalculated the trend from September 1996 [not Dr Mears’ “1997”] to September 2014. All that happened is that the trend values “–0.00 C° (–0.00 C°/century)” shown in the unaltered data (Fig. 1) became “+0.00 C° (+0.00 C°/century)” in the recalculated graph. Not exactly a major difference. That is the end of that climate-liarist canard.
The length of the Great Pause in global warming, significant though it now is, is of less importance than the ever-growing discrepancy between the temperature trends predicted by models and the far less exciting real-world temperature change that has been observed.
IPCC’s First Assessment Report predicted that global temperature would rise by 1.0 [0.7, 1.5] Cº to 2025, equivalent to 2.8 [1.9, 4.2] Cº per century. The executive summary asked, “How much confidence do we have in our predictions?” IPCC pointed out some uncertainties (clouds, oceans, etc.), but concluded:
“Nevertheless, … we have substantial confidence that models can predict at least the broad-scale features of climate change. … There are similarities between results from the coupled models using simple representations of the ocean and those using more sophisticated descriptions, and our understanding of such differences as do occur gives us some confidence in the results.”
That “substantial confidence” was substantial over-confidence. A quarter-century after 1990, the outturn to date – expressed as the least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the RSS and UAH monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies – is 0.34 Cº, equivalent to just 1.4 Cº/century, or exactly half of the central estimate in IPCC (1990) and well below even the least estimate (Fig. 3).
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
clip_image006
Figure 3. Near-term projections of warming at a rate equivalent to 2.8 [1.9, 4.2] K/century , made with “substantial confidence” in IPCC (1990), January 1990 to August 2014 (orange region and red trend line), vs. observed anomalies (dark blue) and trend (bright blue) at less than 1.4 K/century equivalent, taken as the mean of the RSS and UAH satellite monthly mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies.
The Great Pause is a growing embarrassment to those who had told us with “substantial confidence” that the science was settled and the debate over. Nature had other ideas. Dr Mears, rightly, says the Pause is probably attributable to several factors rather than one. But the one factor he hastily rules out is any major error in the physics of the models.
Though more than 50 more or less implausible excuses for the Pause are appearing in nervous reviewed journals, the possibility that the Pause is occurring because the computer models are simply wrong about the sensitivity of temperature to manmade greenhouse gases can no longer be dismissed.
Remarkably, even the IPCC’s latest and much reduced near-term global-warming projections are also excessive (Fig. 3).
clip_image008
Figure 4. Predicted temperature change, January 2005 to August 2014, at a rate equivalent to 1.7 [1.0, 2.3] Cº/century (orange zone with thick red best-estimate trend line), compared with the observed anomalies (dark blue) and zero real-world trend (bright blue), taken as the average of the RSS and UAH satellite lower-troposphere temperature anomalies.
In 1990, the IPCC’s central estimate of near-term warming was higher by two-thirds than it is today. Then it was 2.8 C/century equivalent. Now it is just 1.7 Cº equivalent – and, as Fig. 4 shows, even that is proving to be a substantial exaggeration.
On the RSS satellite data, there has been no global warming statistically distinguishable from zero for more than 26 years. None of the models predicted that, in effect, there would be no global warming for a quarter of a century.
The Great Pause may well come to an end by this winter. An el Niño event is underway and would normally peak during the northern-hemisphere winter. There is too little information to say how much temporary warming it will cause, though. The temperature spikes of the 1998, 2007, and 2010 el Niños are evident in Figs. 1-4.
El Niños occur about every three or four years, though no one is entirely sure what triggers them. They cause a temporary spike in temperature, often followed by a sharp drop during the la Niña phase, as can be seen in 1999, 2008, and 2011-2012, where there was a “double-dip” la Niña that is one of the excuses for the Pause.
The ratio of el Niños to la Niñas tends to fall during the 30-year negative or cooling phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the latest of which began in late 2001. So, though the Pause may pause or even shorten for a few months at the turn of the year, it may well resume late in 2015 . Either way, it is ever clearer that global warming has not been happening at anything like the rate predicted by the climate models, and is not at all likely to occur even at the much-reduced rate now predicted. There could be as little as 1 Cº global warming this century, not the 3-4 Cº predicted by the IPCC.
Key facts about global temperature
The RSS satellite dataset shows no global warming at all for 217 months from September 1996 to September 2014. That is more than half the 429-month satellite record.
The global warming trend since 1900 is equivalent to 0.8 Cº per century. This is well within natural variability and may not have much to do with us.
The fastest measured warming trend lasting ten years or more occurred over the 40 years from 1694-1733 in Central England. It was equivalent to 4.3 Cº per century.
Since 1950, when a human influence on global temperature first became theoretically possible, the global warming trend has been equivalent to below 1.2 Cº per century.
The fastest warming rate lasting ten years or more since 1950 occurred over the 33 years from 1974 to 2006. It was equivalent to 2.0 Cº per century.
In 1990, the IPCC’s mid-range prediction of near-term warming was equivalent to 2.8 Cº per century, higher by two-thirds than its current prediction of 1.7 Cº/century.
The global warming trend since 1990, when the IPCC wrote its first report, is equivalent to below 1.4 Cº per century – half of what the IPCC had then predicted.
Though the IPCC has cut its near-term warming prediction, it has not cut its high-end business as usual centennial warming prediction of 4.8 Cº warming to 2100.
The IPCC’s predicted 4.8 Cº warming by 2100 is well over twice the greatest rate of warming lasting more than ten years that has been measured since 1950.
The IPCC’s 4.8 Cº-by-2100 prediction is almost four times the observed real-world warming trend since we might in theory have begun influencing it in 1950.
From August 2001 to August 2014, the warming trend on the mean of the 5 global-temperature datasets is nil. No warming for 13 years 1 month.
Recent extreme weather cannot be blamed on global warming, because there has not been any global warming. It is as simple as that.
Technical note
Our latest topical graph shows the RSS dataset for the 217 months September 1996 to September 2014 – just over half the 429-month satellite record. This is as far back as it is possible to go in the global instrumental record and find a zero trend. The start-date is not “cherry-picked” so as to coincide with the temperature spike caused by the 1998 el Niño: it is calculated so as to find the longest period with a zero trend.
Furthermore, the length of the pause in global warming, combined with the offsetting effect of the 2010 el Niño on the calculation, ensures that the distortion of the trend caused by the proximity of the 1998 el Niño to the 1996 start date for the trend is barely discernible.
Terrestrial temperatures are measured by thermometers. Thermometers correctly sited in rural areas away from manmade heat sources show warming rates appreciably below those that are published. The satellite datasets are based on measurements made by the most accurate thermometers available – platinum resistance thermometers, which not only measure temperature at various altitudes above the Earth’s surface via microwave sounding units but also constantly calibrate themselves by measuring via spaceward mirrors the known temperature of the cosmic background radiation, which is 1% of the freezing point of water, or just 2.73 degrees above absolute zero. It was by measuring minuscule variations in the cosmic background radiation that the NASA anisotropy probe determined the age of the Universe: 13.82 billion years.
The graph is accurate. The data are lifted monthly straight from the RSS website. A computer algorithm reads them down from the text file, takes their mean and plots them automatically using an advanced routine that automatically adjusts the aspect ratio of the data window at both axes so as to show the data at maximum scale, for clarity.
The latest monthly data point is visually inspected to ensure that it has been correctly positioned. The light blue trend line plotted across the dark blue spline-curve that shows the actual data is determined by the method of least-squares linear regression, which calculates the y-intercept and slope of the line via two well-established and functionally identical equations that are compared with one another to ensure no discrepancy between them. The IPCC and most other agencies use linear regression to determine global temperature trends. Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia recommends it in one of the Climategate emails. The method is appropriate because global temperature records exhibit little auto-regression.
Dr Stephen Farish, Professor of Epidemiological Statistics at the University of Melbourne, kindly verified the reliability of the algorithm that determines the trend on the graph and the correlation coefficient, which is very low because, though the data are highly variable, the trend is flat.
Figure 3. Near-term projections of warming at a rate equivalent to 2.8 [1.9, 4.2] K/century , made with “substantial confidence” in IPCC (1990), January 1990 to August 2014 (orange region and red trend line), vs. observed anomalies (dark blue) and trend (bright blue) at less than 1.4 K/century equivalent, taken as the mean of the RSS and UAH satellite monthly mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies.
The Great Pause is a growing embarrassment to those who had told us with “substantial confidence” that the science was settled and the debate over. Nature had other ideas. Dr Mears, rightly, says the Pause is probably attributable to several factors rather than one. But the one factor he hastily rules out is any major error in the physics of the models.
Though more than 50 more or less implausible excuses for the Pause are appearing in nervous reviewed journals, the possibility that the Pause is occurring because the computer models are simply wrong about the sensitivity of temperature to manmade greenhouse gases can no longer be dismissed.
Remarkably, even the IPCC’s latest and much reduced near-term global-warming projections are also excessive (Fig. 3).
clip_image008
Figure 4. Predicted temperature change, January 2005 to August 2014, at a rate equivalent to 1.7 [1.0, 2.3] Cº/century (orange zone with thick red best-estimate trend line), compared with the observed anomalies (dark blue) and zero real-world trend (bright blue), taken as the average of the RSS and UAH satellite lower-troposphere temperature anomalies.
In 1990, the IPCC’s central estimate of near-term warming was higher by two-thirds than it is today. Then it was 2.8 C/century equivalent. Now it is just 1.7 Cº equivalent – and, as Fig. 4 shows, even that is proving to be a substantial exaggeration.
On the RSS satellite data, there has been no global warming statistically distinguishable from zero for more than 26 years. None of the models predicted that, in effect, there would be no global warming for a quarter of a century.
The Great Pause may well come to an end by this winter. An el Niño event is underway and would normally peak during the northern-hemisphere winter. There is too little information to say how much temporary warming it will cause, though. The temperature spikes of the 1998, 2007, and 2010 el Niños are evident in Figs. 1-4.
El Niños occur about every three or four years, though no one is entirely sure what triggers them. They cause a temporary spike in temperature, often followed by a sharp drop during the la Niña phase, as can be seen in 1999, 2008, and 2011-2012, where there was a “double-dip” la Niña that is one of the excuses for the Pause.
The ratio of el Niños to la Niñas tends to fall during the 30-year negative or cooling phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the latest of which began in late 2001. So, though the Pause may pause or even shorten for a few months at the turn of the year, it may well resume late in 2015 . Either way, it is ever clearer that global warming has not been happening at anything like the rate predicted by the climate models, and is not at all likely to occur even at the much-reduced rate now predicted. There could be as little as 1 Cº global warming this century, not the 3-4 Cº predicted by the IPCC.
Key facts about global temperature
The RSS satellite dataset shows no global warming at all for 217 months from September 1996 to September 2014. That is more than half the 429-month satellite record.
The global warming trend since 1900 is equivalent to 0.8 Cº per century. This is well within natural variability and may not have much to do with us.
The fastest measured warming trend lasting ten years or more occurred over the 40 years from 1694-1733 in Central England. It was equivalent to 4.3 Cº per century.
Since 1950, when a human influence on global temperature first became theoretically possible, the global warming trend has been equivalent to below 1.2 Cº per century.
The fastest warming rate lasting ten years or more since 1950 occurred over the 33 years from 1974 to 2006. It was equivalent to 2.0 Cº per century.
In 1990, the IPCC’s mid-range prediction of near-term warming was equivalent to 2.8 Cº per century, higher by two-thirds than its current prediction of 1.7 Cº/century.
The global warming trend since 1990, when the IPCC wrote its first report, is equivalent to below 1.4 Cº per century – half of what the IPCC had then predicted.
Though the IPCC has cut its near-term warming prediction, it has not cut its high-end business as usual centennial warming prediction of 4.8 Cº warming to 2100.
The IPCC’s predicted 4.8 Cº warming by 2100 is well over twice the greatest rate of warming lasting more than ten years that has been measured since 1950.
The IPCC’s 4.8 Cº-by-2100 prediction is almost four times the observed real-world warming trend since we might in theory have begun influencing it in 1950.
From August 2001 to August 2014, the warming trend on the mean of the 5 global-temperature datasets is nil. No warming for 13 years 1 month.
Recent extreme weather cannot be blamed on global warming, because there has not been any global warming. It is as simple as that.
Technical note
Our latest topical graph shows the RSS dataset for the 217 months September 1996 to September 2014 – just over half the 429-month satellite record. This is as far back as it is possible to go in the global instrumental record and find a zero trend. The start-date is not “cherry-picked” so as to coincide with the temperature spike caused by the 1998 el Niño: it is calculated so as to find the longest period with a zero trend.
Furthermore, the length of the pause in global warming, combined with the offsetting effect of the 2010 el Niño on the calculation, ensures that the distortion of the trend caused by the proximity of the 1998 el Niño to the 1996 start date for the trend is barely discernible.
Terrestrial temperatures are measured by thermometers. Thermometers correctly sited in rural areas away from manmade heat sources show warming rates appreciably below those that are published. The satellite datasets are based on measurements made by the most accurate thermometers available – platinum resistance thermometers, which not only measure temperature at various altitudes above the Earth’s surface via microwave sounding units but also constantly calibrate themselves by measuring via spaceward mirrors the known temperature of the cosmic background radiation, which is 1% of the freezing point of water, or just 2.73 degrees above absolute zero. It was by measuring minuscule variations in the cosmic background radiation that the NASA anisotropy probe determined the age of the Universe: 13.82 billion years.
The graph is accurate. The data are lifted monthly straight from the RSS website. A computer algorithm reads them down from the text file, takes their mean and plots them automatically using an advanced routine that automatically adjusts the aspect ratio of the data window at both axes so as to show the data at maximum scale, for clarity.
The latest monthly data point is visually inspected to ensure that it has been correctly positioned. The light blue trend line plotted across the dark blue spline-curve that shows the actual data is determined by the method of least-squares linear regression, which calculates the y-intercept and slope of the line via two well-established and functionally identical equations that are compared with one another to ensure no discrepancy between them. The IPCC and most other agencies use linear regression to determine global temperature trends. Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia recommends it in one of the Climategate emails. The method is appropriate because global temperature records exhibit little auto-regression.
Dr Stephen Farish, Professor of Epidemiological Statistics at the University of Melbourne, kindly verified the reliability of the algorithm that determines the trend on the graph and the correlation coefficient, which is very low because, though the data are highly variable, the trend is flat.
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/ne...-million-pipeline-war-chest-be-paid-canadians
Kinder Morgan's $136 million pipeline 'war chest' to be paid by Canadians
"The decision to enable this unfair advantage is unprecedented. The approach has been rejected out of hand by US regulators," said economist Robyn Allan.
Jenny Uechi Jul 1st, 2014
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Photo of tanker in Burrard Inlet by "Judy_and_Ed" on Flickr Creative Commons
In what an economist calls an "unfair" decision, the National Energy Board has allowed Kinder Morgan to build a $136 million 'war chest' to fund its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion application through shipping surcharges. The charge, called a "firm service fee", allows Texas-based pipeline company Kinder Morgan to offload the cost of the pipeline application to Canadian shippers.
"The decision to enable this unfair advantage is unprecedented. The approach has been rejected out of hand by US regulators," said Robyn Allan, an independent economist and former CEO of ICBC, who outlined the finding in her report.
The NEB's ruling -- made back in 2011 -- grants Kinder Morgan permission to start charging a firm service fee of $1.45 for every barrel of oil shipped from its Burnaby facility. When these fees are incurred by Canada-based shippers, they reduce Kinder Morgan's taxes payable. As a result, Allan wrote, "it is Canadians who are helping to finance Kinder Morgan’s expansion plans through foregone tax revenue, not Kinder Morgan’s shareholders, which is the normal course of business practice".
The controversial pipeline expansion proposes to twin the existing 60-year-old Trans Mountain pipeline and triple the current flow of bitumen from Alberta to Burnaby. The expansion, if approved, would increase pipeline capacity to carry 890,000 barrels of diluted bitumen, and boost oil tanker traffic more than five-fold from around 60 to 408 tankers a year in the Burrard Inlet.
"No risk" to Kinder Morgan
"The NEB has allowed a situation where Kinder Morgan's shareholders bear no risk or cost in advancing its (Trans Mountain expansion) Application," Allan said.
She noted that Kinder Morgan Canada President Ian Anderson said in 2013 that even if Trans Mountain pipeline expansion plans fall through, "all of the development costs are being covered by the firm service fees that we are collecting, so there is no risk to us."
Kinder Morgan spokesperson Andy Galarnyk wrote in an email to the Globe and Mail:
“Development of a project such as the Trans Mountain expansion entails significant study and environmental and engineering work such that Kinder Morgan and its customers are collectively sharing the development cost risk for the project.”
But the response, Allan said, is inconsistent with what Anderson said under oath during a cross-examination on February 12, 2013. When questioned by Suncor lawyer Bernard Roth, Anderson agreed that 100 per cent of the application cost would being covered by the added fee for shippers, and not by Kinder Morgan. Roth said the Trans Mountain pipeline was "excellent" and "well-respected" but pressed Anderson to acknowledge that the service fees would be used to offset the cost of the Trans Mountain pipeline application.
"It's a basic tenant of capitalism -- when a company wants to undertake a big project, shareholders incur the risk, and they reap the benefits," Allan said. "But Kinder Morgan wants all the rewards, and none of the risk."
In the NEB hearing in Calgary on the Trans Mountain pipeline in August 2011, Dr. J. Stephen Gaske of Chevron emphasized what an unusual decision this was for the NEB:
"Essentially, this idea that shippers should finance -- be the ones putting up the finance money for new projects I think is an extraordinarily large step for a regulator to take.
The way things have traditionally worked, and worked well, is that if Kinder Morgan or Trans Mountain does not have enough equity capital to do an expansion, they could look for additional equity investors...."
He noted that Enbridge had made a similar request to regulators before (for its Lakehead project in December 2006), and U.S. regulators "handily rejected" it.
Critics say the NEB is doing more to assist the proponents than the intervenors, many of whom are citizens without access to large funds, living near the pipeline right-of-way. Currently, the NEB has set aside some funds to help intervenors, but the amount is dwarfed by Kinder Morgan's $136 million.
“This is shocking and unfair," said Burnaby Mayor and intervenor Derek Corrigan, who has been a vocal opponent of the project, in a news release. "The NEB has authorized only $1.5 million dollars for all other intervenors. How fair is that?"
Last month, the NEB turned down the applications of eight Fort Langley landowners living along the pipeline route, who applied for a grant to help finance studies of the pipeline's impacts on their property.
“The company gets their costs paid by the consumer, but Burnaby and our citizens have to pay our own costs to protect ourselves," Corrigan said. "The integrity of the National Energy Board is seriously compromised here.”
Corporate culture of 'systemic risk'
In addition to this latest finding, Allan also found that Kinder Morgan's application was using oil spill cleanup costs was referencing a 2004 study the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had thrown out as bad science. The City of Burnaby reported earlier this month that Kinder Morgan had claimed in its application that it had already applied for permits to access Burnaby conservation areas, when it in fact had not done so.
"What we call this in the insurance industry is systemic risk -- every catastrophic or major event, major accident, usually has a series of mistakes," Allan said.
"What I'm finding out about Kinder Morgan is that they're suffering from a corporate culture of systemic risk. When you find out something and you dig deeper, you find it's still not clarified and they still don't give you the right answer."
Kinder Morgan's $136 million pipeline 'war chest' to be paid by Canadians
"The decision to enable this unfair advantage is unprecedented. The approach has been rejected out of hand by US regulators," said economist Robyn Allan.
Jenny Uechi Jul 1st, 2014
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Photo of tanker in Burrard Inlet by "Judy_and_Ed" on Flickr Creative Commons
In what an economist calls an "unfair" decision, the National Energy Board has allowed Kinder Morgan to build a $136 million 'war chest' to fund its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion application through shipping surcharges. The charge, called a "firm service fee", allows Texas-based pipeline company Kinder Morgan to offload the cost of the pipeline application to Canadian shippers.
"The decision to enable this unfair advantage is unprecedented. The approach has been rejected out of hand by US regulators," said Robyn Allan, an independent economist and former CEO of ICBC, who outlined the finding in her report.
The NEB's ruling -- made back in 2011 -- grants Kinder Morgan permission to start charging a firm service fee of $1.45 for every barrel of oil shipped from its Burnaby facility. When these fees are incurred by Canada-based shippers, they reduce Kinder Morgan's taxes payable. As a result, Allan wrote, "it is Canadians who are helping to finance Kinder Morgan’s expansion plans through foregone tax revenue, not Kinder Morgan’s shareholders, which is the normal course of business practice".
The controversial pipeline expansion proposes to twin the existing 60-year-old Trans Mountain pipeline and triple the current flow of bitumen from Alberta to Burnaby. The expansion, if approved, would increase pipeline capacity to carry 890,000 barrels of diluted bitumen, and boost oil tanker traffic more than five-fold from around 60 to 408 tankers a year in the Burrard Inlet.
"No risk" to Kinder Morgan
"The NEB has allowed a situation where Kinder Morgan's shareholders bear no risk or cost in advancing its (Trans Mountain expansion) Application," Allan said.
She noted that Kinder Morgan Canada President Ian Anderson said in 2013 that even if Trans Mountain pipeline expansion plans fall through, "all of the development costs are being covered by the firm service fees that we are collecting, so there is no risk to us."
Kinder Morgan spokesperson Andy Galarnyk wrote in an email to the Globe and Mail:
“Development of a project such as the Trans Mountain expansion entails significant study and environmental and engineering work such that Kinder Morgan and its customers are collectively sharing the development cost risk for the project.”
But the response, Allan said, is inconsistent with what Anderson said under oath during a cross-examination on February 12, 2013. When questioned by Suncor lawyer Bernard Roth, Anderson agreed that 100 per cent of the application cost would being covered by the added fee for shippers, and not by Kinder Morgan. Roth said the Trans Mountain pipeline was "excellent" and "well-respected" but pressed Anderson to acknowledge that the service fees would be used to offset the cost of the Trans Mountain pipeline application.
"It's a basic tenant of capitalism -- when a company wants to undertake a big project, shareholders incur the risk, and they reap the benefits," Allan said. "But Kinder Morgan wants all the rewards, and none of the risk."
In the NEB hearing in Calgary on the Trans Mountain pipeline in August 2011, Dr. J. Stephen Gaske of Chevron emphasized what an unusual decision this was for the NEB:
"Essentially, this idea that shippers should finance -- be the ones putting up the finance money for new projects I think is an extraordinarily large step for a regulator to take.
The way things have traditionally worked, and worked well, is that if Kinder Morgan or Trans Mountain does not have enough equity capital to do an expansion, they could look for additional equity investors...."
He noted that Enbridge had made a similar request to regulators before (for its Lakehead project in December 2006), and U.S. regulators "handily rejected" it.
Critics say the NEB is doing more to assist the proponents than the intervenors, many of whom are citizens without access to large funds, living near the pipeline right-of-way. Currently, the NEB has set aside some funds to help intervenors, but the amount is dwarfed by Kinder Morgan's $136 million.
“This is shocking and unfair," said Burnaby Mayor and intervenor Derek Corrigan, who has been a vocal opponent of the project, in a news release. "The NEB has authorized only $1.5 million dollars for all other intervenors. How fair is that?"
Last month, the NEB turned down the applications of eight Fort Langley landowners living along the pipeline route, who applied for a grant to help finance studies of the pipeline's impacts on their property.
“The company gets their costs paid by the consumer, but Burnaby and our citizens have to pay our own costs to protect ourselves," Corrigan said. "The integrity of the National Energy Board is seriously compromised here.”
Corporate culture of 'systemic risk'
In addition to this latest finding, Allan also found that Kinder Morgan's application was using oil spill cleanup costs was referencing a 2004 study the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had thrown out as bad science. The City of Burnaby reported earlier this month that Kinder Morgan had claimed in its application that it had already applied for permits to access Burnaby conservation areas, when it in fact had not done so.
"What we call this in the insurance industry is systemic risk -- every catastrophic or major event, major accident, usually has a series of mistakes," Allan said.
"What I'm finding out about Kinder Morgan is that they're suffering from a corporate culture of systemic risk. When you find out something and you dig deeper, you find it's still not clarified and they still don't give you the right answer."
LNG in Northern BC: a conversation
http://bclnginfo.com/newsroom/date-set-for-public-hearing-on-lot-444-lng-project
http://bclnginfo.com/newsroom/date-set-for-public-hearing-on-lot-444-lng-project
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/..._legacy_stephen_harper_had_in_mind_hbert.html
Anti-pipeline fervour not the legacy Stephen Harper had in mind: Hébert
Nearly a decade ago Stephen Harper’s Conservative government set out to aggressively champion Alberta’s energy ambitions.
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Since activist Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois announced he was giving his Governor General’s prize winnings to a group opposed to the Energy East pipeline, donations to the anti-pipeline cause have been pouring in, writes Chantal Hébert.
GRAHAM HUGHES / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
Since activist Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois announced he was giving his Governor General’s prize winnings to a group opposed to the Energy East pipeline, donations to the anti-pipeline cause have been pouring in, writes Chantal Hébert.
By: Chantal Hébert National Affairs, Published on Mon Nov 24 2014
MONTRÉAL — Two years ago student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois rose to fame by becoming the face of Quebec’s so-called Maple Spring. He turned the episode that spelled the beginning of the end of premier Jean Charest’s tenure into a book titled Tenir tête.
Last week, the book won the Governor General’s 2014 French-language non-fiction prize. On Sunday, Nadeau-Dubois revealed that he was giving his $25,000 prize to a citizens’ coalition devoted to blocking TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline.
He used the prime time television platform of the Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle to make his announcement. He said he hoped to lead by example. Since then donations to the anti-pipeline cause have been pouring in.
This is only one small measure of how quickly Central Canada’s public opinion is gelling against the plan to link the Alberta oilfields to the refineries of eastern Canada.
Once considered the pipeline bid most likely to succeed, TransCanada’s project is on the way to joining Enbridge’s Northern Gateway on the long shots list.
According to a poll on Friday two thirds of Quebecers oppose Energy East.
On that same day, the premiers of Ontario and Quebec put forward a list of provincial conditions that TransCanada would have to meet to secure their support.
In so doing Kathleen Wynne and Philippe Couillard borrowed a page from British Columbia Premier Christy Clark’s handbook.
Two years ago she presented Enbridge with a list of conditions to meet in exchange for her government’s support for its Northern Gateway pipeline.
B.C. had five conditions. Quebec and Ontario have seven.
On paper the federal government and the National Energy Board have the final say on the way forward.
But there are myriad ways for a province to block or delay a federal infrastructure project and it would not be the first time that voters had forced governments to think twice about allowing a controversial one to go forward.
The fact that otherwise business-friendly provincial governments are putting more and more distance between themselves and the pipeline file is a sign that public opposition to these projects is fast spreading well beyond the environmental movement.
Knowing all this, Alberta Premier Jim Prentice is embarking on a goodwill mission to Quebec and Ontario. But this may be a case of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.
Like Clark, Wynne and Couillard have made social acceptability a condition of provincial support. But securing a social licence for its projects may amount to mission impossible for the energy industry.
In British Columbia, municipal politicians have joined the First Nations and the environmentalists on the barricades.
In Ontario and Quebec, opponents of TransCanada’s plan include the major natural gas carriers.
The Parti Québécois and its Bloc cousin have also joined the battle against Energy East, reconnecting in the process with social activists such as Nadeau-Dubois who had otherwise been keeping their distance from conventional sovereigntist politics.
So far the main federal opposition parties support the notion of an expanded pipeline network to get Western Canada’s energy resources to markets. Both the Liberals and the NDP are cautiously on side with TransCanada’s pipeline.
But for how long?
Last weekend, a resolution urging Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to oppose Energy East was defeated by the party’s Quebec youth wing. The fact that it came to the fore at all confirms that the project will be on the federal election radar.
With a Quebec anti-pipeline backlash gaining steam and against the threat of bleeding support over the pipelines issue to the Green party in B.C. next year, pressure on NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair to join the fight against pipeline developments is also mounting.
Nearly a decade ago Stephen Harper’s government set out to aggressively champion Alberta’s energy ambitions.
In the name of Canada’s superior economic interest, the ruling Conservatives removed potential regulatory roadblocks from the pipelines’ path.
They cast environmental activists as public enemies and themselves as the best friends of the energy industry.
But instead of a clearer course to its goal, Canada’s energy industry is now left to cope with movable lines in the provincial sand and a politically poisoned pipeline well. This is obviously not the legacy Harper had in mind.
Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Anti-pipeline fervour not the legacy Stephen Harper had in mind: Hébert
Nearly a decade ago Stephen Harper’s Conservative government set out to aggressively champion Alberta’s energy ambitions.
Share on Facebook
Reddit this!
Since activist Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois announced he was giving his Governor General’s prize winnings to a group opposed to the Energy East pipeline, donations to the anti-pipeline cause have been pouring in, writes Chantal Hébert.
GRAHAM HUGHES / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
Since activist Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois announced he was giving his Governor General’s prize winnings to a group opposed to the Energy East pipeline, donations to the anti-pipeline cause have been pouring in, writes Chantal Hébert.
By: Chantal Hébert National Affairs, Published on Mon Nov 24 2014
MONTRÉAL — Two years ago student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois rose to fame by becoming the face of Quebec’s so-called Maple Spring. He turned the episode that spelled the beginning of the end of premier Jean Charest’s tenure into a book titled Tenir tête.
Last week, the book won the Governor General’s 2014 French-language non-fiction prize. On Sunday, Nadeau-Dubois revealed that he was giving his $25,000 prize to a citizens’ coalition devoted to blocking TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline.
He used the prime time television platform of the Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle to make his announcement. He said he hoped to lead by example. Since then donations to the anti-pipeline cause have been pouring in.
This is only one small measure of how quickly Central Canada’s public opinion is gelling against the plan to link the Alberta oilfields to the refineries of eastern Canada.
Once considered the pipeline bid most likely to succeed, TransCanada’s project is on the way to joining Enbridge’s Northern Gateway on the long shots list.
According to a poll on Friday two thirds of Quebecers oppose Energy East.
On that same day, the premiers of Ontario and Quebec put forward a list of provincial conditions that TransCanada would have to meet to secure their support.
In so doing Kathleen Wynne and Philippe Couillard borrowed a page from British Columbia Premier Christy Clark’s handbook.
Two years ago she presented Enbridge with a list of conditions to meet in exchange for her government’s support for its Northern Gateway pipeline.
B.C. had five conditions. Quebec and Ontario have seven.
On paper the federal government and the National Energy Board have the final say on the way forward.
But there are myriad ways for a province to block or delay a federal infrastructure project and it would not be the first time that voters had forced governments to think twice about allowing a controversial one to go forward.
The fact that otherwise business-friendly provincial governments are putting more and more distance between themselves and the pipeline file is a sign that public opposition to these projects is fast spreading well beyond the environmental movement.
Knowing all this, Alberta Premier Jim Prentice is embarking on a goodwill mission to Quebec and Ontario. But this may be a case of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.
Like Clark, Wynne and Couillard have made social acceptability a condition of provincial support. But securing a social licence for its projects may amount to mission impossible for the energy industry.
In British Columbia, municipal politicians have joined the First Nations and the environmentalists on the barricades.
In Ontario and Quebec, opponents of TransCanada’s plan include the major natural gas carriers.
The Parti Québécois and its Bloc cousin have also joined the battle against Energy East, reconnecting in the process with social activists such as Nadeau-Dubois who had otherwise been keeping their distance from conventional sovereigntist politics.
So far the main federal opposition parties support the notion of an expanded pipeline network to get Western Canada’s energy resources to markets. Both the Liberals and the NDP are cautiously on side with TransCanada’s pipeline.
But for how long?
Last weekend, a resolution urging Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to oppose Energy East was defeated by the party’s Quebec youth wing. The fact that it came to the fore at all confirms that the project will be on the federal election radar.
With a Quebec anti-pipeline backlash gaining steam and against the threat of bleeding support over the pipelines issue to the Green party in B.C. next year, pressure on NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair to join the fight against pipeline developments is also mounting.
Nearly a decade ago Stephen Harper’s government set out to aggressively champion Alberta’s energy ambitions.
In the name of Canada’s superior economic interest, the ruling Conservatives removed potential regulatory roadblocks from the pipelines’ path.
They cast environmental activists as public enemies and themselves as the best friends of the energy industry.
But instead of a clearer course to its goal, Canada’s energy industry is now left to cope with movable lines in the provincial sand and a politically poisoned pipeline well. This is obviously not the legacy Harper had in mind.
Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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