Ravishing Rabbit
I once spent some time chatting to two American atmospheric chemists who were being honoured for their work on the photochemical reactions between CFCs and ozone. They were very impressive. I believe the evidence linking the two is equally impressive. CFCs were detected in the Antarctic stratosphere and were increasing. The complex interaction between CFCs and ozone is well studied in the lab, and the increasing loss of stratospheric ozone in Antarctica was accompanied by increasing amounts of CFCs. Ozone loss in Antarctica is a consequence of the very cold stratosphere there and AFAIK the only competing explanation for the increasing ozone hole was that it was associated with the decreasing temperature of the Antarctic stratosphere.

And it is true what you say that scientific institutions can come up with a theory, back it with dodgy evidence and get a policy implemented, and then the institutions can be wedded to the theory even though later evince show the theory to be weak
eg the idea that replacing butter with margarine will reduce heart disease [..]

Jun 23, 2019 at 11:49 AM | Registered Commenterstewgreen

Indeed. What troubles me much is that the ozone-depletion theory was well in place before the Antarctic ozone-hole was properly observed. They had no way of knowing what was normal and what normal variability looked like, so it was an absolute slam dunk for the alarmist camp when they got some data showing "a seasonal hole". I fell for it too.
Then, a few years later, I also recall reading an article saying that the hole was already disappearing faster than expected. I should have smelt the rat at that point. It strongly suggests that what they were really observing was natural variability in action, probably not much related to human CFC production.

While I was doing my PhD at UW Seattle one of the new star professors was an ozone man. Did he really know anything about the reasons for ozone hole formation? With hindsight, almost certainly not. He was an honest femto-second laser spectroscopist doing the best he could to get funding for expensive lasers.

To this day, I think the rapid success of implementing the Montreal Protocol paved the way for what we are now suffering from vis-a-vis the anti-CO2 campaign. Government knows that you get what you fund for and researchers know that researching potential disaster gets funded.

Jun 23, 2019 at 8:35 PM | michael hart

But thanks to Patent Laws, the money kept flowing for DuPont:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon

Regulation and DuPont

"In 1978 the United States banned the use of CFCs such as Freon in aerosol cans, the beginning of a long series of regulatory actions against their use. The critical DuPont manufacturing patent for Freon ("Process for Fluorinating Halohydrocarbons", U.S. Patent #3258500) was set to expire in 1979. In conjunction with other industrial peers DuPont formed a lobbying group, the "Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy," to combat regulations of ozone-depleting compounds.[24] In 1986 DuPont, with new patents in hand, reversed its previous stance and publicly condemned CFCs.[25] DuPont representatives appeared before the Montreal Protocol urging that CFCs be banned worldwide and stated that their new HCFCs would meet the worldwide demand for refrigerants.[25]"

Indeed, GC. Never was so much so convenient for so many.

Today we have energy companies that supply gas doing very well thank you very much from the elimination of coal as a base-load electricity supply. They know we can't do without fossil fuels but don't actually say so out loud, preferring to grab the tiger by the tail and use public sentiment to politically eliminate the main competitor from the market.

In between times, we also had the promotion of diesels to save the planet, except now it is admitted that they won't, and that they have other issues. Something that was well known at the time, but hey, when did obvious truth and facts ever get in the way of an environmental crusade.

Environmentalists just don't see how they are being played like a fiddle. In some ways that is one of the saddest things. There is always a genuine need for intelligently informed environmental protest groups. Yet they are so predictable in their luddite rejectionism that they are simply begging to be taken advantage of by others with quite different aims and objectives.

Today they pushed BBC briefing on Energy - how do I use it?
This is now backed by a Harra video?
Has Harra got HIV ?.. very gaunt

I expect his claims are bogus as usual
You guys have gone down a rabbit hole
cos it's not a still image.
Rather the page has a Harra video
and the image is from a montage of rapid epilepsy inducing video clips at the beginning
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-49728391/the-surprising-truth-about-uk-energy-use

Claim #0 that the average British household is using less electricity each year
I can believe that cos older TVs and lights drew more power before and threw it off as heat
(so your heating use was a touch less then)
Mind you if you get divorced or go on on more nights away the household energy use is lower.

Harra Claim #1 It's partially due to the efficiency standards imposed by the EU (fancy EU graphic behind him)

Harra Claim #2
Visit to vacuum museum,' oh look the EU limited vacuum power to 900W, see how we can get good suction at just 440W.
Roger asserts "that's a quarter of the power of a 1,800W machine"
Emm AFAIK a a sports car doesn't use maximum fuel, when it goes downhill, and so a big vacuum motor won't actually draw full power normally.
(BTW in a separate case Dyson got the EU efficiency labels thrown own)

Harra Claim #3
"Taxes and grants are another way of getting us to use less energy"
Translation : They tax the poor to pay for SUBSIDIES of gimmicks rich people buy
Harra 'an electric car pays no Road Tax, and only 5% electricity tax'
Against a £145pa and 60% petrol tax"
(emm leccy fuel has paid a mining tax, and the gov will need to eventually tax EVs to pay for roads etc

Harra Claim #4
"Fast fashion is a MASSIVE user of energy"
(hmm energy used in a products manufacture is roughly proportionate to retail price so a fashionista who buys £600 of clothes/year doesn't use as much energy a Beeboid refurbishing their Tuscan villa for £6K)
.. footage of Oxfam shop manager
"Fast fashion does IMMENSE DAMAGE to the ENVIRO and the WORLD'S POOREST PEOPLE" (wacky claim)

Harra Claim #45
Business is saving leccy : eg A Derbyshire quarry has sensors on equipment , eg conveyors switch off when there is no material on them.
(A empty conveyor actually draws less power, than a full one anyway)

Harra's take away "And this won't solve Britain's *energy problems* but it will help"
(Hmm that's the psychological framing PR-trick : he frames it as a PROBLEM, yet strip away taxes and Fossil Fuels are almost free)

take away "And this won't solve Britain's *energy problems* but it will help"
(Hmm that's the psychological framing PR-trick : he frames it as a PROBLEM, yet strip away taxes and Fossil Fuels are almost free)

Sep 18, 2019 at 2:00 PM | Unregistered Commenterstewgreen

It's the politics of the futile gesture, making expensive, often counterproductive, attempts to solve an insoluble problem. Like "the war on drugs", particularly in the USA where a large fraction of the prison population is poor black men serving time for trivial marijuana offences. So much wastage of human resources and human lives, now feeding a private prison-industrial complex which has lobbyists and a political life of its own. And all built upon the perceived need to "do something" about drug use, even though the solutions are worse than the problems.

BBC-Harrabin is cast from the same mould. Greenery is so often about restricting the personal consumption choices of other people. If a man wishes to have three drinks or three scoops of ice-cream instead of one or two shouldn't it be his choice where he spends his excess disposable income? Some people may choose to forgo drinks and ice-cream altogether in order to be able to go on an occasional extra flight to a foreign destination.

None of this even seems to enter into the thinking of people like Harrabin, who may not like the idea of excess personal disposable income at all. They want to restrict the choices of all to some regulated amount, decided by themselves presumably. I recall again my father's account of a business trip to Moscow in the 1970's. Locals removed the windscreen wipers from their cars after they parked them so that they wouldn't be stolen while the car was unattended. This was because the infinite wisdom of the government had decreed that each car manufactured would have only a corresponding number of windscreen wipers manufactured. So when a replacement was needed, stealing one was the only option for most people.

BBC-Harrabin don't think any differently than the Soviet Commissariat.

Why would I want to do that (except to moan perhaps)?

Maybe it's unfair to call the article below BBC climate bias, but it's very much an example of the way in which press releases by the climate concerned, such as Oxfam, are publicised by the BBC in such a way as to give them credibility without testing any of the claims made.

"Weather extremes 'leaving 52 million Africans hungry'"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment

By putting 'leaving 52 million Africans hungry' in inverted commas, the BBC can claim they are merely reporting what someone else says, but it is done in such a way as to make it sound like solid fact, including the link between weather extremes and the hunger.

It does link to an Oxfam report:

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/more-52-million-people-across-africa-going-hungry-weather-extremes-hit-continent

However, a read of the Oxfam report soon reveals that this is more about lobbying (however well-intentioned) than it is about science.