'Tiny the Turbine'

It might not look like it has been a busy summer but I've been beavering away on a follow up to the Subisdy Sam story produced earlier in the year. Today we are launching 'Tiny the Turbine' written by Lyndsey Ward and illustrated by me.

Lyndsey writes:

Tiny the Turbine is a story that really is for children. Following Subsidy Sam’s release it was clear that there was a need for something that would help children understand the negative impacts of large scale wind developments. Happily Josh agreed and we have worked together to produce this second story specifically for children. Subsidy Sam is a dark tale but Tiny the Turbine is a moral and uplifting story and shows that it is possible to succeed in fighting against the bad things in life no matter how daunting it may seem.

If you head over to this page on the Cartoons by Josh website you can download the story and, if you haven't yet, donate something - all funds greatly appreciated - please share on social media and generally spread the word - that would also be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks,

Cartoons by Josh 

Playing the Lead - Josh 378

Please note, no actual Labour Leaders were harmed during the making of this cartoon.

Cartoons by Josh

Bremorse - Josh 377

I think Brexit might need cartoons, so here is one plus some reading. A hilarious post by Julie Birchill in the Spectator and something a bit more sensible from 'futurist' Patrick Dixon:

Ignore 96% of what you are reading and hearing in the media, which is on the whole pompous nonsense.

Cartoons by Josh

Subsidy Sam - the book!

As readers might recall I drew a cartoon for anti-wind campaigner Lyndsey Ward whose story 'Subsidy Sam' was in the news back in April. 

I have now completed all the other illustrations for her story and put them all into a book format which is free to download via the Cartoons by Josh website. 

If you do download the book please think about making a donation - we are hoping to raise enough funds for a second story, 'Timmy the Tiny Turbine', which Lyndsey has written for younger children.

Many thanks!

Posted by Josh

How to Starve Africa: Ask the European Green Party

Posted by Josh

I read this today on Risk-monger.com

There is a commonly shared neo-colonialist expression: The Europeans have the watches; the Africans have the time. Today, the European Green Party, with the support of countless environmentalist NGOs, proposed an initiative in the European Parliament to make Africa wait for at least another generation to be able to lift itself out of poverty.

It's a shocking read and ends:

A sad day for Africa

Today, in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs voted “overwhelmingly” by 577 MEPs, with only 24 against and 69 abstentions to accept the Green Party’s Heubuch Report and demand that the European Union stop funding the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. It is with great hope that the world ignores this unfortunate act, considering it as a narrow-minded gesture towards appeasing a backward looking European green constituency.

In 2015, after 30 years of residence in the Brussels area, I became a Belgian citizen. Today, for the first time since officially becoming a European, I was ashamed of what ill-guided people in the European Parliament had done in the name of Europe. This act of selfish science denialism (with the potential for massive negative consequences) is no way for reasonable Europeans to act.

We need to let Africa have the chance to develop, not on our terms or demands, but on theirs. It is time to give Africans the watch and let them manage their affairs on their time, not ours.

Shame on Maria Heubuch and her band of eco-religious missionary zealots.

Shame on our MEPs too.  Read the whole thing here.

Upper Tribunal Decision

Guest post by David Holland

I have temporarily put on the Internet a scanned copy of the decision of the Upper Tribunal to refuse my appeal in regard to my request to the University of Cambridge.   I have also posted my oral arguments to that Tribunal.   Naturally I entirely disagree with this decision as well as the First Tier Tribunal refusal in regard to the ZODs held by the Met Office, which was discussed at CLB.   The Upper Tribunal refused me permission to appeal it.   Taken together these two decisions largely if not wholly exempt climate change information from the EIR.

I am not inclined to pursue either judgement and shall leave it to readers to make their own judgment as to why the climate scientists involved in these two cases do not want to disclose the environmental information they hold.

What New Scientist wouldn't print

A couple of weeks back, New Scientist published an article trying to up the ante on climate sensitivity. 

One headline-making 2013 study had concluded that the immediate warming that would result froma doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere would be around 1.3°C - significantly less than most previous estimates. But this was before global temperatures shot past 1°C above pre-industrial levels last year, as predicted by New Scientist in July 2015. If the 2013 study was repeated using that value, it would give an estimate for the immediate warming of 1.6°C, says Piers Forster...

It also claimed that Forster and Lewis's 2013 paper had got its estimates of aerosol forcing wrong:

[Other studies] suggested that Forster's team underestimated how much warming has been masked by the cooling effect of other pollutants, such as sulphur aerosols, that we pump out alongside CO2. 

Quite why anyone would want to estimate TCR from a single year's temperature figure is anyone's guess. This observation prompted Nic Lewis to write a letter to the editor, which, needless to say, has not been published. So you can read it here.

Letter to the Editor concerning New Scientist article in the 28 May 2016  issue, Vol 230, No 3075, page 8: 'Earth's sensitive side'

The claim in your 28 May article 'Earth's sensitive side' that the strong warming over the last few years means we can now rule out low estimates of climate sensitivity is wrong. You quote Piers Forster, a co-author (along with myself) of one 2013 study that concluded near-term warming from a doubling of CO₂ in the atmosphere would only be around 1.3°C. I have also been sole or lead author of three different studies published since then, all of which support that conclusion. One of those studies used the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014 assessment report's estimates for the effects on the Earth's radiation balance of both warming agents such as CO₂ and of cooling agents such as sulphur aerosols. I have extended these estimates to 2015 and recomputed the warming from a doubling of CO₂. It is unchanged at 1.3 °C, averaging over 1995-2015 data. It remains 1.3 °C when using data just for the last ten, or five, years. Use of a shorter period gives a less reliable estimate; using a single year's temperature is unsound.

The suggestion that the team Forster and I were part of underestimated how much warming had been masked by the cooling effects of sulphur aerosols and other pollutants is mistaken. Our team's method is unaffected by the arguments on this point raised by the Shindell and Schmidt team studies referred to. The latter study anyway contained several errors.  The corrected version fixed two of the errors I had pointed out, and shows that near term warming from a doubling of CO₂ is correctly estimated from the historical mix of warming and cooling agents, including sulphur aerosols. Moreover, the findings by the Storelvmo team relied on a relationship existing between solar radiation at the surface and sulphur emissions, but over their full data period that relationship is statistically insignificant. Furthermore, two recent studies (Stevens 2015 and Kirkby et al. 2016) conclude that sulphur aerosols have had less effect on radiation than previously thought, implying that estimates of the warming from a doubling of CO₂ are actually too high.

Yorkshire goes unconventional

Well this was enough to lull me from my blogging stupor:

Fracking given green light in North Yorkshire

Protesters booed and jeered as councillors gave the go-ahead for the first fracking operation in the UK for five years.

The problem the greens are going to have now is that when the sky doesn't actually fall in, they are going to be left looking pretty dishonest. 

Again.

Still going slow

As readers can probably tell, I'm still struggling to get back in the blogging groove - a combination of being busy earning a living and a distinct lack of anything to say.

No idea whether the situation will change any time soon. I survey the news every morning and can't think of anything to talk about. Perhaps I just need a break.

Vulture Capitalism - Josh 376

Cartoons by Josh

Update on Jun 16, 2016 by Josh

"Head of the IMF Christine Lagarde in court charged with embezzlement and fraud."

EU in or out? Brexit: The Movie

Whether you are a Remainer or a Leaver the film by Martin Durkin, which came out last week, is well worth watching - it's funny, entertaining and challenging.

You can also watch on Vimeo.

Spin this - Josh 375

Updated on May 16, 2016 by Josh

Following Ed Hawkins lovely Global Temperature Change spirograph I thought I would add a few more centuries of data. Just for balance.

Click to read more ...

How low can ECS go?

A new paper in a journal called Earth and Space Science says that effective climate sensititivity could be as low as 1°C. Here's the abstract.

Estimates of 2xCO2 equilibrium climate sensitivity (EqCS) derive from running global climate models (GCMs) to equilibrium. Estimates of effective climate sensitivity (EfCS) are the corresponding quantities obtained using transient GCM output or observations. The EfCS approach uses an accompanying energy balance model (EBM), the zero-dimensional model (ZDM) being standard. GCM values of EqCS and EfCS vary widely [IPCC range: (1.5, 4.5)°C] and have failed to converge over the past 35 years. Recently, attempts have been made to refine the EfCS approach by using two-zone (tropical/extratropical) EBMs. When applied using satellite radiation data, these give low and tightly-constrained EfCS values, in the neighbourhood of 1°C. These low observational EfCS/two-zone EBM values have been questioned because (a) they disagree with higher observational EfCS/ZDM values, and (b) the EfCS/two-zone EBM values given by GCMs are poorly correlated with the standard GCM sensitivity estimates. The validity of the low observational EfCS/two-zone EBM values is here explored, with focus on the limitations of the observational EfCS/ZDM approach, the disagreement between the GCM and observational radiative responses to surface temperature perturbations in the tropics, and on the modified EfCS values provided by an extended twozone EBM that includes an explicit parameterization of dynamical heat transport. The results support the low observational EfCS/two-zone EBM values, indicating that objections (a) and (b) to these values both need to be reconsidered. It is shown that in the EBM with explicit dynamical heat transport the traditional formulism of climate feedbacks can break down because of lack of additivity.

Predictably, our scientivist friends don't like it, but it's interesting to see that there are still a few hardy souls who are willing to say what they think.

Drought links

In the aftermath of my GWPF paper on drought the other day, ECIU has published a piece on the same subject. Entitled "Syria and climate change - did the media get it right?" it looks at the execrable Kelley et al paper that I have been so critical of over the last year or so. The author, Alex Randall, describes the paper as "measured and robust", which is a surprising thing to say about research that blamed a long-term, but slight decline in rainfall in Iran for social unrest in Syria, but as someone once said "Hey, it's climate science". 

His case is that the media have been misleading the public, hyping Kelley's paper and creating illusory links to the unrest. No doubt he is thinking of people like the ECIU.

In a companion piece, Randall claims that

 the media reporting and the Kelley paper were also broadly consistent with research exploring the impacts of drought on migration and displacement across the world. Specifically, there is strong evidence linking climate change impacts such as drought with patterns of rural to urban migration.

But if you read his links you find only support for the hypothesis that drought causes migration. With no evidence that climate change causes droughts to become more intense or more prevalent, our green friends are left to insert the word "climate change" whereever they can, and to hope that nobody notices what they are up to.

Byway robbery - Josh 374

There is a fairly persistent alarmist idea that if only 'Climate Change' was properly communicated then everyone would believe all the hype, spin and misinformation and ignore the politicking, the dodgy science, and the duff statistics.

The latest study from the University of California outlines how to talk about climate change to increase donations.

How to talk about climate change so people will act

What can you do about climate change? The better question might be: What can we? University of California San Diego researchers show in a new study that framing the issue collectively is significantly more effective than emphasis on personal responsibility.

Published in the journal Climatic Change, the study finds that people are willing to donate up to 50 percent more cash to the cause when thinking about the problem in collective terms.

Thinking about climate change from a personal perspective produced little to no change in behaviour.

Click to read more ...