UPDATED 12-19-2015
This week’s Global Research News Hour invites three analysts with three different perspectives related to fossil fuel dependence and climate change. In my opinion, only Richard Heinberg knows what he's talking about: how transitioning to renewables pose to be much more difficult than is commonly believed in Climate Change activist circles and feared in fossil fuel corporation boardrooms -- the other two, Dave Wigington and GuyMcPherson, are cranks. Still, all these two are worth listening to because there are nuggets of truth behind Wigington's HAARP conspiracy theories and McPherson's Near Term Human Extinction by the Year of Our Lord 2050 nonsense.
This week’s Global Research News Hour invites three analysts with three different perspectives related to fossil fuel dependence and climate change. In my opinion, only Richard Heinberg knows what he's talking about: how transitioning to renewables pose to be much more difficult than is commonly believed in Climate Change activist circles and feared in fossil fuel corporation boardrooms -- the other two, Dave Wigington and GuyMcPherson, are cranks. Still, all these two are worth listening to because there are nuggets of truth behind Wigington's HAARP conspiracy theories and McPherson's Near Term Human Extinction by the Year of Our Lord 2050 nonsense.
Now, no sooner did the ink run dry on the COP21 agreement with no mandatory targets, no compulsory financing (despite $100 bn annual commitment for climate financing in developing countries), and commitments to reduce emissions that were panned as missing the 2 degrees C (3.6 F) by 0.7 C (1.3 F) on the warm side, which is not good if we want to avoid a stormy climate that will completely demolish civilization, utterly, we have countries giving the green light for MORE fossil fuel emitting projects! Plus the TPP, TPiP and other free trade agreements in the wings that will deprive governments of the power to mandate emissions, and make them pay damages to boot, if some corporation sues them in secret trade commission court set up under these bad bad treaties.
First, we hear from the UK Guardian -- Members of Parliament have voted to allow fracking under Britain’s national parks, amid accusations that the government has sneaked the measure through parliament without a proper debate.
Ministers used a statutory instrument – a form of secondary legislation – to push through the new rules, which means legislation can pass into law without a debate in the House of Commons. MPs voted in favour by 298 to 261.
The new rules allow fracking 1,200 metres below national parks and sites of special scientific interest, as long as drilling takes place from outside protected areas. This comes despite the government previously pledging an outright ban on the controversial technique for extracting shale gas in such areas.
In January Amber Rudd, the then parliamentary undersecretary of state for climate change, told MPs: “We have agreed an outright ban on fracking in national parks [and] sites of special scientific interest.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/16/fracking-under-national-parks-approved-by-mps-amid-acrimony
Second, North Korea and Japan are going ahead with building more coal-fired power plants. I wonder how many are set to go up in People's Republic of China?
Less than a week since signing the global climate deal in Paris, Japan and South Korea are pressing ahead with plans to open scores of new coal-fired power plants, casting doubt on the strength of their commitment to cutting CO2 emissions.
Even as many of the world’s rich nations seek to phase out the use of coal, Asia’s two most developed economies are burning more than ever and plan to add at least 60 new coal-fired power plants over the next 10 years
http://www.dailysabah.com/asia/2015/12/15/japan-s-korea-plan-61-new-coal-plants-in-next-10-years-despite-global-climate-deal
India to double its coal output. That means doubling its CO2 emissions, too. Because "most efficient" energy source means it's also the least expensive.
India still plans to double coal output by 2020 and rely on the resource for decades afterwards, a senior official said on Monday, days after rich and poor countries agreed in Paris to curb carbon emissions blamed for global warming.India, the world's third-largest carbon emitter, is dependant on coal for about two-thirds of its energy needs and has pledged to mine more of the fuel to power its resource-hungry economy while also promising to increase clean energy generation."The environment is non-negotiable and we are extremely careful about it," Anil Swarup, the top bureaucrat in the coal ministry, told Reuters. "(But) our dependence on coal will continue. There are no other alternatives available."While India has plans to add 30 times more solar-powered generation capacity by 2022, there were limitations to clean energy and coal would remain the most efficient energy source for decades, he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-summit-india-coal-idUSKBN0TX15F20151214
Decline of the Empire asks, "What climate deal?"
This is a short follow-up to yesterday's post. Reuters reports today that Japan and South Korea stick to coal despite global climate deal....Here's my favorite quote from the report."Japan, in particular, has been criticized for its lack of ambition — its 18-percent target for emissions cuts from 1990 to 2030 is less than half of Europe's — and questions have been raised about its ability to deliver, since the target relies on atomic energy.... Mutsuyoshi Nishimura, a former climate negotiator for Japan, said Japanese industry and the government had been caught napping by the Paris agreement.... "They were too caught up in the belief that industrialization and economic growth would entail such huge CO2 emissions in developing countries that China, India etc. would oppose any notion of decarbonization," he said. To be sure, China uses vastly more coal and has nearly a thousand more such plants in various stages of planning and construction.
That belief those Japanese and Koreans were "caught up in" is correct! China and India will indeed oppose de-carbonizing their economies if such measures threaten further expansion of those economies.But, in 2015 it is politically expedient ("correct") to go along with a toothless non-binding climate deal.
And the US Congress is on record of enabling other countries to burn more petroleum than otherwise by lifting the US oil export ban. They are adding to the insanity -- and as far as I am concerned, mandatory hypocrisy -- of continued carbon combustion. Obama will probably sign it into law; it's embedded in a big spending bill.
The U.S. could soon end restrictions on oil exports put in place in the mid-1970s. The lifting of the embargo is part of a spending deal expected to be pushed through the House and Senate by the end of the week.
http://www.bigstory.ap.org/ba5445dbae1a449984bf691556bd64e9
And the so-called "liberal media" are responsible for so much of this mandatory hypocrisy. They more than anyone else catapult the propaganda -- whether it's We-Can-Save-the-Planet-by-Driving-Hybris-SUVs, or Saddam's-Got-WMDs-and-Is-Prepared-to-Use-Them or what have you -- by giving it a sheen of legitimacy. They are the ones, after all, who crucified Jimmy Carter with his "Malaise" speech after the public initially responded positively to it. The rest was inevitable and is now history.
The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an “invisible government”. It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies.” .....
The most effective propaganda is found not in the Sun or on Fox News – but beneath a liberal halo. When the New York Times published claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, its fake evidence was believed, because it wasn’t Fox News; it was the New York Times.” ....
“What we need is a Fifth Estate: a journalism that monitors, deconstructs and counters propaganda and teaches the young to be agents of people, not power.”
http://johnpilger.com/articles/war-by-media-and-the-triumph-of-propaganda
But it looks like China realises that continued fossil fuel burning will do quite a disasterous number on their river systems, which are already stressed. Even though they're building coal power stations like mad.
Even if the global warming scare were a hoax, we would still need it
China is the low-carbon superpower and will be the ultimate enforcer of the COP21 climate deal in Paris
Chinese scientists have published two alarming reports in a matter of weeks. Both conclude that the Himalayan glaciers and the Tibetan permafrost are succumbing to catastrophic climate change, threatening the water systems of the Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Mekong.
The Tibetan plateau is the world’s “third pole”, the biggest reservoir of fresh water outside the Arctic and Antarctica. The area is warming at twice the global pace, making it the epicentre of global climate risk.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12052582/Even-if-the-global-warming-scare-were-a-hoax-we-would-still-need-it.html
The UK government cuts subsidies to homeowners even though its own review indicates the cuts will cost almost 19,000 jobs. THis is just days after their representative agreed to move swiftly to a low-carbon energy future at the climate change conference in Paris. Like India says, what is the most cost-efficient is the form that will be used. Government policy changes revise the equation. Revisions in favor of fossil fuels is madness!
The government has decided to cut subsidies to householders installing rooftop solar panels by 65% just days after agreeing to move swiftly to a low-carbon energy future at the climate change conference in Paris.
An impact assessment study by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) admits the move could wipe out up to 18,700 of the industry’s 32,000 jobs.
A second subsidy scheme known as the renewables obligation has also been cut for small-scale and large projects angering both the solar industry and environmentalists, who dismissed the moves as “huge and misguided”.
The government argues it needs to protect wider energy bills from the rising impact of renewable energy subsidies and that this justifies paying rooftop solar installers 4.39p per kilowatt hour from February instead of the existing 12.47p.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/17/uk-solar-panel-subsidies-slashed-paris-climate-change
More madness from the UK. Diesel backup generators when they could keep their nuclear power stations instead. Not that nukes are a good thing, but still...
The government is facing calls for an urgent investigation into how companies were awarded more than £175m in subsidies to build heavily polluting “diesel farms” to provide the UK with backup energy generating capacity.
Critics said an energy generation auction overseen by the National Grid had descended into a farce by rewarding intensive carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters, just as ministers committed Britain to lower carbon emissions at UN climate change talks in Paris
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/11/diesel-farms-built-subsidies-national-grid-auction
But the far side Peak Oil will soon distort Business As Usual, as global warming bankrupts the fossil fuel industry: both by change and reduction in energy demand, and by less heating degree-days each winter.
Global Warming is bankrupting the Energy industry
But we'll just pretend it's not actually happening...
The MAX PAIN trade is not in oil it's in Natural Gas which just hit a new 17 year low this week, mostly due to the unseasonably warm "weather", that happens to take place every day now.
Energy companies exposed to natural gas are getting decimated, along with their junk debt...
My advice for those reality skeptics who don't "believe" in Global Warming - keep holding onto those soon-to-be-bankrupt stocks, they'll make good 4-ply...
http://ponziworld.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/global-warming-is-obliterating-energy.html
And US consumers apparently think cheap gasoline is never going to end.
Surging demand for trucks and SUVs fueled by cheap gasoline is holding back improvements in U.S. fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions, a government report due out on Wednesday is expected to show.
In November, fuel efficiency of vehicles purchased fell sharply to 25 mpg – down 0.8 mpg from a peak in August 2014, said University of Michigan researcher Michael Sivak, who tracks fuel efficiency.
Nearly 59 percent of U.S. vehicle sales this year have been of sport-utility vehicles, pickup trucks or other larger vehicles, up from 54 percent last year, according to industry consultant Autodata Corp.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-emissions-idUSKBN0TZ0HY20151216
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