"There is no solution to the euro problem"

Spain is clearly the next big problem in the seemingly never ending euro crisis. Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo has admitted that Spain faces a "crisis of huge proportions", with unemployment already at 24% and another downgrade of government debt: 

Unemployment shot up to 24 percent in the first quarter, one of the worst jobless figures in the developed world. Retail sales slumped for the twenty-first consecutive month as a recession cuts into consumer spending.

"The figures are terrible for everyone and terrible for the government ... Spain is in a crisis of huge proportions," Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said in a radio interview.

Standard and Poor's cited risks of an increase in bad loans at Spanish banks and called on Europe to take action to encourage growth.

Read the entire article here

The problem is that there is no solution to the euro crisis, according to Tim Worstall, writing in Forbes. The huge transfers of money to the Southern European countries that would be needed to "save" the euro, are not forthcoming: 

Leave aside the willingness of the European North to make such transfers to the European South. Ponder instead whether it is actually possible. This depends on how much actually needs to be sent south.

We might take at the low end that, what, four or five percent of GDP that is incorporated in the military and health care. Or we might take at the top end the 20 odd percent of GDP that is collected and spent by the federal part of the US Government. Neither of these numbers is right but a useful assumption would be that the necessary fiscal transfers inside Europe would be somewhere between these two numbers that make the US system work.

The thing is though, in northern Europe the government already takes 40-50% of the entire GDP to pay for those lovely welfare states and free health and child care and so on. It’s extremely dubious that there’s room to collect another 5% of GDP to send south and absolutely impossible to imagine another 20% being so sent.

--

As everyone has been saying ever since Robert Mundell wrote on optimal currency areas, to be one requires fiscal transfers. Money raised in tax in rich areas and spent in poor ones. If we use the US as an example of the size of the transfers necessary then we find that the EU simply cannot do this. Not at the required size: for government is already too large to make it possible to collect the necessary taxes.

Thus there is no solution to the euro problem. Or to be more accurate, there is no managed solution: the best that can be hoped for is break up and starting again, however messy and painful that would be while it was actually happening.

The German solar power industry is wiped out

The sun is setting on the German solar power industry:


The global solar industry has entered a brutal phase of consolidation and nowhere are the effects as dramatic as in eastern Germany. Several companies have already declared bankruptcy, leaving towns and cities in the region struggling with job losses and tax revenue shortfalls. The future bodes ill.


The sun, it was said, was going to save Frankfurt an der Oder, a city of 60,000 on the Polish border. After years of post-reunification economic doldrums, whose nadir came with the 2003 failure of a much-ballyhooed microchip factory project, the burgeoning German solar industry took an interest in the down-on-its-luck city.

In 2006, solar-panel manufacturer Conergy moved into the never-used computer chip factory, joining Odersun, already headquartered in the city. In 2007, the United States solar giant First Solar opened a factory as well, followed by a second one last year.

Now, though, the future suddenly looks decidedly dark. Odersun declared bankruptcy in March and Conergy, while pledging to return to profit this year, has seen its share price lose 99.6 percent of its value in the last five years. Many doubt the company will survive. Worst of all, however, was the announcement earlier this month that First Solar was closing both of its factories in Frankfurt an der Oder; 1,200 people will soon be jobless as a result.
"We saw the solar industry as a chance to reindustrialize the region and invested significantly in incentives," Frankfurt an der Oder Mayor Martin Wilke told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "This is a serious setback. It is a very difficult situation."
Frankfurt an der Oder's pain is far from an isolated case. The solar industry, once a beacon of hope for an eastern German economy that struggled for years to revive following reunification in 1990, is undergoing a brutal phase of consolidation. There is a massive surplus of global production capacity and the bad news for eastern Germany keeps getting worse. Last December, the Berlin company Solon, which employed hundreds in the Baltic Sea coast town of Greifswald, filed for bankruptcy. Aleo-Solar, based in Prenzlau north of Berlin, lost over €30 million (about $40 million) last year after turning a profit of €31.8 million in 2010, leading many to fear for their jobs there.

--
The growing crisis in the solar industry has not chosen to exclusively victimize eastern Germany. Solarhybrid, Solar Millennium and Scheuten Solar, all based in western Germany, likewise found themselves making their way to bankruptcy court recently. The Sarasin report also stated that Freiburg-based firm Solar-Fabrik faces an uncertain future as well. 
--
The problems currently facing the solar industry are not isolated to Germany. According to a report issued last November by the Swiss bank Sarasin, overcapacity in solar module production has made a market shakeout inevitable. "The imbalances between production capacities and demand have become too great," the report stated. In 2011, the global production capacity for solar modules soared to 50 gigawatts, but the industry only managed to sell 21 gigawatts of that photovoltaic potential. Furthermore, the growth of solar companies in low-wage countries such as China has contributed to plummeting solar-panel prices. 


Read the entire article here

The much hyped wind turbine industry is facing similar problems, when governments have began cutting subsidies.

The sad truth about the millions of  "green jobs" political leaders and environmentalists both in Germany and many other countries have promised is; they will never materialize.

Indian agriculture minister: "Global warming has not adversely impacted India´s agriculture production"

Remember all those doomsdays predictions about global warming leading to famine and huge harvest failures in India and other countries?

Well, it did not happen:

Global warming has not adversely impacted India's agriculture production which has been increasing over the last five years, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Friday.

"In the last five years ... wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton production has not dropped, but increased," agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said during Question Hour. "In fact," he said, "except for Nigeria, no negative impact of global warming has been reported globally so far".

Read the entire article here

But if anybody thinks that Lester Brown and the other scaremongers will admit that they were wrong - again -  it will not happen. These people never accept facts. Instead they will invent new "predictions" about even worse things to come ...

Blind Chinese human rights activist safe in the US embassy

Thank God, there is still one place in China - the US embassy - where an innocent blind human rights activist is safe from the terror of the ruling communist thugocracy!

A blind Chinese rights activist who made a daring escape from extrajudicial detention was on Friday under the protection of the US embassy in Beijing, according to a friend, as concerns were growing about possible retribution against his family and supporters.

After more than six years of jail and house arrest, Chen Guangcheng was said to have fled under cover of darkness, evading eight checkpoints and close to 100 guards who have been watching his home in the Shandong province countryside.

A photograph released on Friday night shows him with a friend and fellow activist, Hu Jia, who said Chen was under US protection. "It is my understanding that Chen is in the safest place in China. That is the US embassy," said Hu.

If confirmed, the incident could overshadow a planned trip to Beijing next week by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner.
--

According to the US-based human rights group China Aid, Chen was "100% safe" in Beijing. But it said the activist He Peirong, one of the people who helped Chen flee, had been arrested at her home in Nanjing on Friday morning.

He, who is said to have been in close contact with the Chen family, had earlier told CNN that Chen's hands were trembling, but his spirits were high. She said he was injured in the escape.

Read the entire article here

PS

Civilized people all over the world should never forget, that communist China´s leaders - no matter how "western" they look in their smart business suits - also are the ones who administer the system of state sponsored slavery - the Laogai - consisting of more than 1,000 slave labour prisons, with more than five million prisoners. Tens of thousands of these slave workers are political or religious prisoners.

Could pollution save the world from catastrophic global warming?

Could pollution save the world from catastrophic global warming?:


Climate scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered that particulate pollution in the late 20th century created a "warming hole" over the eastern United States -- that is, a cold patch where the effects of global warming were temporarily obscured. While greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane warm Earth's surface, tiny particles in the air can have the reverse effect on regional scales.
--

What we've shown is that particulate pollution over the eastern United States has delayed the warming that we would expect to see from increasing greenhouse gases," says lead author Eric Leibensperger (Ph.D. '11), who completed the work as a graduate student in applied physics at SEAS.
"For the sake of protecting human health and reducing acid rain, we've now cut the emissions that lead to particulate pollution," he adds, "but these cuts have caused the greenhouse warming in this region to ramp up to match the global trend."
At this point, most of the "catch-up" warming has already occurred.
The findings, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, present a more complete picture of the processes that affect regional climate change. The work also carries significant implications for the future climate of industrial nations, like China, that have not yet implemented air quality regulations to the same extent as the United States.

--
Since the early 20th century, global mean temperatures have risen by approximately 0.8 degrees Celsius from 1906 to 2005, but in the U.S. "warming hole," temperatures decreased by as much as 1 degree Celsius during the period 1930-1990. U.S. particulate pollution peaked in 1980 and has since been reduced by about half. By 2010 the average cooling effect over the East had fallen to just 0.3 degrees Celsius.
--
"Something similar could happen in China, which is just beginning to tighten up its pollution standards," says co-author Loretta J. Mickley, a Senior Research Fellow in atmospheric chemistry at SEAS. "China could see significant climate change due to declining levels of particulate pollutants."


Read the entire article here

For the global warming doomsday alarmists the choice should be easy: Humanity could be saved by more pollution!

For the rest of us, this new study is just another sign of the absurdity of the entire global warming madness.

The enviro-fundamentalist Sierra Club wants to stop the American shale gas revolution

The Sierra Club is doing its best in order to prevent Americans from enjoying the benefits of the shale gas revolution - the best thing that has happened to the US economy in decades:

Exporting natural gas from the United States is a "dirty and dangerous" game that puts people at risk, environmental group Sierra Club said.

The Sierra Club said it filed a formal protest to the U.S. Department of Energy challenging a proposal to export natural gas from a facility on Lake Charles in Louisiana.

"Exporting natural gas is dirty and dangerous, and puts American families at risk," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement. "The Sierra Club's action today follows a series of filings in an ongoing effort to protect families from the natural gas industry's dirty and dangerous operating practices."

Last week, the Sierra Club filed a 51-page protest with the Energy Department following a decision to authorize liquefied natural gas exports from a terminal in Sabine Pass, La.

Read the entire article here

What many people do not know, is that The Sierra Club and other smilar environmentalist groups in reality represent an ideology for the protection of privilege: 

When stripped of its homilies about the beauties of the nature and virtues of a "sustainable" economy, environmentalism is basically an ideology for the protection of privilege. It works in favor of those who feel satisfied with current levels of consumption and against those who are trying to achieve greater levels of prosperity. As Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus expressed it in their landmark essay, "The Death of Environmentalism":

Environmentalists… aim to short-circuit democratic values by establishing Nature… as the ultimate authority that human societies must obey. And they insist that humanity's future is a zero-sum proposition -- that there is only so much prosperity, material comfort and modernity to go around. If too many people desire such things, we will all be ruined. We, of course, meaning those of us who have already achieved prosperity, material comfort and modernity.

Environmentalists make a living going around stirring up local opposition to all manner of development -- drilling for oil, harvesting forests, building power plants. The premise is always that this is the "wrong place" for such development and that whatever needs to be done is better taken care of somewhere else. What never gets noticed is that environmentalists are also doing the same thing in the next valley and the one after that and the sum of all this is that nothing gets done. They urge people to "think globally, act locally," but what this means in practice is professing some grand support for a "sustainable" economy built on "renewable" technologies while opposing the same things at the local level.

Read the entire article here

Australians losing interest in global warming - Warmists getting desperate

Australians are clearly losing their interest in global warming: 

ACCORDING TO THE Lowy Institute's annual poll, Australians are losing their conviction on climate change. The last poll, published in June 2011 showed that just 41 per cent of those polled agreed with the statement, "Global warming is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs" down from a whopping 68 per cent in 2006.

Meanwhile, support for the statement, "Until we are sure that global warming is really a problem, we should not take any steps that would have economic costs" has risen over the same period from seven per cent to 19 per cent.

This positive development, which is happening despite of the long standing mainstream media global warming  propaganda campaign, is clearly making the the Austrian warmists desperate. An ABC documentary, which also gives a number of sceptics a chance to voice their views, is now criticized on the television channel´s webpage by one of its own reporters:

So a documentary, I can change your mind about climate, which attempts to pit the evidence for climate change against the evidence that everything will be just fine must have seemed like a good idea. It would seem Australians are not clear on the science and a telly special could help present the two sides of the 'debate'.
--

Whatever the true cause for the loss of conviction on climate change, the airing of this program on the ABC puts the national broadcaster in an invidious position. Around one fifth of people in the Australian community genuinely believe that we don't need to act on climate change. That's not an insignificant number and these people have a right to a voice.
On the other hand, by airing their non-factual views, it lends legitimacy to them. And it further alienates the majority (is 41% a majority?, NNoN) of Australians who just want to get on and address the problem.
With every report from scientists and economists further emphasising the increasing urgency of acting on climate, and with our political leaders in agreement on the need for action, the time for 'debate' is past. Even though they may be opposed, climate sceptics must accept the inevitability of the world moving on climate change.


In addition, ABC has given the alarmist John Cook a chance to personally attack the "deniers":

How does one deny the consensus of evidence? One straightforward approach is to simply ignore it! Jo Nova ignores satellite observations that directly measure an increased greenhouse effect when she claims the warming effect from carbon dioxide (CO₂) is immeasurable. Richard Lindzen claims negative feedbacks will cancel out CO₂ warming, citing the Earth's past. But it's precisely the Earth's past that provides many independent lines of evidence for reinforcing feedbacks that are an integral part of our climate system.

Marc Morano delivers a breathtaking torrent of misinformation (although I'm not sure he did take a breath) that ignores entire swathes of evidence. He overlooks the fact that Arctic sea ice has dramatically thinned with the total amount of ice hitting record low levels in 2011. He ignores that global warming is still happening, with our planet currently absorbing heat at a rate of two Hiroshima bombs per second. Genuine scepticism requires considering the full body of evidence in order to properly understand what's happening to our climate. What we witness from Nick Minchin's witnesses is not genuine scepticism but rejection of any inconvenient evidence.

Why does this small minority deny the evidence and the overwhelming opinion of experts? The major driving force behind climate denial is conservative ideology and the fear of government regulation. The most concise explanation of this influence is provided by Naomi Oreskes in a scene that sadly didn't make it into the final cut.

It is, of course, no accident that Oreskes did not make it to the final cut. This "Conspiracy Queen" has long ago lost her credibility - if she ever had any: 

Naomi Oreskes is the environmentalist Noam Chomsky. She thinks that anyone who questions environmentalist doctrine is evil. Her crusade is to expose the presumed ulterior motives of the critics. According to Oreskes, if you question the dubious studies concerning secondhand tobacco smoke, you must be in the pay of tobacco companies. If you question global warming, you must be working for a fossil fuel company. If you question the DDT ban, you must part of a right wing conspiracy to weaken faith in government regulators.


Oreskes is the author of one of the silliest article ever to appear in the journal Science. She claimed that she analyzed 928 peer-reviewed papers on global warming and 100% agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concerning global warming. If you go to the website of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) you can find hundreds of peer reviewed papers that disagree with the IPCC in one way or another.
Her latest book, with co-author Erik Conway, is Merchants of Doubt. In this tedious book she treats us to the details of numerous disputes between those who subscribe to normative environmental theology and those who don't. Normative environmental theology is the sort of theology that is preached by the Sierra Club or the Union of Concerned Scientists. Oreskes is a professor and an important administrator at the University of California. Like Chomsky, she cloaks her endless conspiracy theories in the machinery of scholarship. Her 343 page book has 64 pages of notes. A pig with lipstick is still a pig.

UK foreign secretary Hague unaware of the unconventional gas and oil revolution

UK foreign secretary William Hague in Huffington Post:

We have left behind an era in which energy, food, water, and other resources have been relatively cheap and plentiful. Rising demand is carrying us into an age of higher and more volatile prices for energy, food and raw materials. Political tensions in the regions traditionally supplying the world's oil have added to the uncertainties. Climate change is amplifying these stresses, and will do so increasingly.

Clearly Hague does not know what he is talking about. Somebody should have told him about the shale gas revolution (soon also coming to the UK) and this: 

It's widely believed nowadays that global oil production is running up against its limits. "The days of easy oil are over", we are told and we should brace ourselves for an age of relative oil scarcity. The reality, however, is very different. As more and more people within the oil industry have come to realize in recent years, the world has plenty of oil that can be produced at competitive prices for a long, long time to come. This means the world does not face inevitable "energy poverty" and there is no reason to be afraid of unavoidable "energy wars". 

Antonio Brufau, the CEO of Spanish oil producer Repsol, told the World Petroleum Congress in Doha in December, "The speed at which technology changes and its consequences have taken us largely by surprise. The peak oil debate, for example, has lost a great deal of its relevance in the past three years".

The key issue driving Brufau's confidence was the extension of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques, the cornerstone of the US’s shale gas revolution, into 'tight' oil production. With these technologies it is possible to exploit low-permeability reservoirs which would otherwise not flow oil at commercial rates. 

Hague is also unbeliavably naive with regard to the "green economy": 

One of the biggest drivers of that export-led recovery will be the green economy. There is unprecedented global demand for green innovation, which could provide an enormous boost to UK industry in the years to come. Thankfully, actions taken across government will mean Britain is well placed in the decades to come.

So far the heavily subsidised "green economy" has brought nothing but higher energy prices and bankruptcies, and even according to the wind energy industry´s own forecast, the future does not look promising:

The outlook remains bumpy for the wind-power industry after regulatory turmoil along with flattening demand in China hampered growth in key markets last year, according to a report from the Global Wind Energy Council released Tuesday at the European Wind Energy Association’s annual event in Copenhagen.

Expensive Belgians

Now we know why Belgian chocolate is so damned expensive:

Belgian workers are the most expensive in the Union at €35.6 per hour in costs for employers, including wages and social security, the EU commission says. Denmark, France and the Netherlands are also above €30. Bulgaria is the cheapest on €2.5, while the EU average hovers at around €22.


China is even cheaper than Bulgaria. No wonder then that the first Belgian choco factory in China is already in operation. Soon we will probably see a Chinese speaking Lady Godiva.

Goodbye to Sir Bob

Global warming alarmist Bob Watson, or Sir Robert Watson, as he now can call himself, is - finally - leaving Defra. He will not be missed:

The government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has appointed Ian Boyd as its chief scientific adviser to replace Sir Robert Watson, who is leaving after five years in the post.

Sir Bobs future plans were not disclosed, Reuters reports.

UK Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman thanked Watson:

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said:
“Scientific evidence is absolutely crucial at Defra and helps us make the right decisions on how to protect and improve the environment. I have been immensely grateful for the scientific advice and oversight of all our research by Sir Bob


Spelman must certainly have been most grateful e.g. for this last piece of advice offered by Sir Bob a few days ago at a conference in London:

We have to realise that we are looking at a loss of biodiversity that is unprecedented in the last 65 million years. We are clearly entering the (planet’s) sixth mass extinction

Watson is clearly no novice when it comes to doomsday scaremongering. Already in 1986, when he was empoyed by NASA, Watson was one of those who predicted the "eventual extinction of the human species": 

The AP report quotes Robert Watson, then director of NASA’s upper atmospheric program, as warning that earth’s temperature could rise as much as 10 degrees if “air pollution” is not addressed.

“A dramatic loss of ozone over antarctica proves the “greenhouse effect” is real and presages a gradual warming of the Earth that threatens floods, drought, human misery in a few decades and – if not checked – eventual extinction of the human species, scientists warned Tuesday,” states the report.

Watson´s successor appears to be a scientist somewhat less prone to alarmism:

Much of his recent research has focussed upon the effects of sound on marine life and this led to his role as co-chair of the International Quiet Oceans Experiment, a joint initiative of the Scientific Committee for Ocean Research and the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean 

"climate change is a threat every bit as serious as a nuclear holocaust"

If you as an academic do not have anything of particular importance and interest to say, there is always the possibility to turn to global warming/climate change doomsday scaremongering in order to get attention - and future funding.

That is exactly what associate professor Tim Stephens, Director, Sydney Center for International Law at University of Sydney, has done:


 There is the prospect for food riots, internal instability, civil disorder, and internal and transboundary migration. In most cases climate change is not a destabilising factor in and of itself, but is rather a “threat multiplier”, exacerbating underlying problems.
In the medium term, the prospect of a “climate war” can be discounted. But in the longer term the prospects of major disruption and destabilisation leading to “failed states” is a virtual certainty. In this strategic vision of the future, climate change is an entropic force, pulling societies and institutions apart, rather than a catalyst for traditional inter-state conflict.

--
Strategic analysts think climate change is a threat every bit as serious as a nuclear holocaust. The Doomsday Clock, maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago, symbolises just how close the world remains to global disaster. It was moved forward to 11.55pm in January this year. This was in part in recognition of the lack of global political action to address climate change.
--
However the discussion of climate change and security has largely been confined to governments, militaries and think tanks, and has not permeated public debate in any significant way. Mainstream discussion of climate change has tended to fixate on quotidian issues – such as the modest impact of Australia’s carbon price on the cost of living – rather than higher order questions including the very capacity of Australia to survive into the next century as a nation state.
--

There is still a limited capacity in our institutions to make hard-nosed strategic assessments about the impact of climate change in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region. And while the Australian government has begun the task of reducing Australia’s emissions through the Clean Energy Future emissions trading scheme, these are but baby steps towards the decarbonisation of the Australian economy.
--

Above all the Australian government appears fearful of having a frank discussion about climate change and security. While there would be no merit in invoking images of invading hordes from the North, or a modern-day Brisbane line, it is time for a conversation about how Australia can be kept secure from the impacts of climate change in the Asian century.


Read the entire article here


It is maybe interesting to note that Dr. Stephens writes that there "would be no merit in invoking images of invading hordes from the North", while at the same time referring to climate change as "a threat every bit as serious as a nuclear holocaust".

Nobody denies, that natural catastrophes can have security implications, but the kind of empty, overblown language Dr. Stephens uses should not be taken seriously. That is why neither Australia, nor the rest of the world, needs the kind of "conversion" the scaremongering professor is suggesting.

New study promises "hundreds of millions" of new green jobs

"We can create 48 million green and decent jobs over 
five years in just 12 countries. Imagine what we can 
do in 24 countries, imagine in 50 countries, how 
many hundreds of millions of jobs that would create".


Sharan Burrow, General Secretary,
International Trade Union Confederation.



"Hundreds of millions" of green jobs could be created if only governments would invest  2% of GDP in the green economy, according to a new International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) study:

That research finds that 48 million ‘green and decent' jobs would be created if just 12 countries participated over the next five years.

24 million jobs could be created in the US, Germany and Australia, and 18 million jobs in Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa.

"Imagine what we can do in 24 countries, imagine in 50 countries, how many hundreds of millions of jobs that would create," says the report.

Sounds like great news. However, a look at how ITUC has arrived at these fantastic job numbers, may dampen the initial enthusiasm: 

"The number of jobs quantified that could be created or transformed into green and 
decent jobs under green investment scenarios were identified through quantitative 
simulations."


Well, we all know what warmist  climate modellers have been able to create with their simulations. The ITUC researchers appear to have used the same creative simulation techniques in order to achieve these "hundreds of millions" of new green jobs.

President Obama´s "jobs pledge" demonstrates according to the ITUC study "how policies, regulation and investment can drive investment into the greeen economy and create jobs". 

Reality check: 

Out Of Work: When they voted for Barack Obama in 2008, some Americans believed his promise of a green economy bursting with jobs. Some still do. Unfortunately, there's this little matter of reality.
While campaigning four years ago, Sen. Barack Obama promised that a $150 billion in government spending on renewable energy projects would create 5 million green-collar jobs over 10 years. Near the end of this administration's first year in office, Vice President Joe Biden promised 722,000 green jobs would be generated by the stimulus. A green-jobs czar was even appointed.
So what's happened?
Well, the jobless rate is still above 8% and the number of workers no longer in the labor force is nearly 88 million, up almost 10 million from the day this president entered the White House.
Obama could have boosted job growth by approving the Keystone XL pipeline and opening more federal tracts to oil and gas drilling. But he didn't. Instead he chose to stay on the green-collar route, which has yielded virtually nothing in the way of jobs.
Last summer the New York Times reported that "federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed." More recently, an analysis by Reuters found that "the millions of 'green jobs' Obama promised have been slow to sprout."
Within the stimulus package there's a $500 million job-training program that "has so far helped fewer than 20,000 people find work, far short of its goal." Reuters reported last week that the program's initial results "were so poor that the Labor Department's inspector general recommended last fall that the agency should return the $327 million that remained unspent."
Meantime, the wind industry "has shed 10,000 jobs since 2009," said Reuters, and renewable and alternative energy companies that the government has shown favor to keep shutting down or filing for bankruptcy.

Michael Mann - The proud winner of a Mutual Admiration Society Prize

Michael Mann, the proud winner of a Mutual Admiration Society  prize

The international global warming cult in many respects follows the traditions of other closed occult societies. One distinct feature the AGW cult shares with the rest, is the strong need to praise each other. Thus e.g. the European Geosciences Union, in the true spirit of a Mutual Admiration Society, has this week awarded its "Hans Oeschger Medal" to Dr. Michael Mann, of Climategate and "hockey stick" fame:


The medal "is reserved for scientists for their outstanding achievements in ice research and/or short term climatic changes (past, present, future)".


The EGU gives these reasons for awarding Mann: 


Michael Mann obtained his PhD from Yale University and is Professor of Meteorology at the Pennsylvania State University. Mann deserves the award on the basis of his important contributions to the understanding of climate change over the last two millennia but also for pioneering statistical techniques for isolating climate signals in noisy data. He has chosen to work primarily in paleoclimate, but he has a strong mathematical and statistical background. Together, these strengths have made him a leader in his field. Mann’s climate reconstruction of the last 1000 years is popularly known as the “Hockey Stick” and gave tremendous impetus to the study of historical climate change, even though some questions remains about the magnitude of these past changes. By doing so, he had to face escalating political and personal attacks.


(It is interesting to note that even Mann´s ardent admirers at the EGU admit that "some questions remain" in the prize winners research!)


A look at the list of previous winners of the "Hans Oeschger Medal" brings forth a familiar face:

The first winner of the "Hans Oeschger Medal" was - surprise, surprise -  Mann´s British Climategate "colleague"


Philip D. Jones


for his remarkable contribution and sustained effort in reconstructing the climate of the last 250 years at the global and regional scales


And the chairman of the committee which awarded Mann this year is a Frenchman - Dominique Raynaud - who himself received the medal in 2008: 


The 2008 Hans Oeschger Medal is awarded to Dominique Raynaud for his key contribution to the reconstruction of past atmospheric composition over the last 800000 years from Antarctic ice cores and to the understanding of the link between greenhouse gases and climate.


Mann will most likely soon be in a position to award a prize - and plenty of research funding - to some "distinguished" European member of the Mutual Admiration Society. 


This is the way the science of climatology works ....

Danish minister - and the IEA - mislead about fossil fuel subsidies

As the profitability of wind and solar is fast declining, due to cuts in subsidies and tax breaks, the international renewable energy lobby and warmist ministers are desperately trying to counteract by using dubious International Energy Agency statistics:

Last year, David Cameron´s - now deposed retired - energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne noted in a speech:

 “Globally, subsidies for fossil fuels outstrip subsidies for renewables by a factor of five.”


The latest warmist government minister to use the same argument is "wind energy superpower" Denmark´s Christian Friis Bach:

Speaking at the Center for Global Development event, Danish Development Cooperation Minister Christian Friis Bach noted that fossil fuels received four to five times more subsidies worldwide than renewable energy. 


Many people have not yet realized that IEA is not anymore the kind energy security organization it used to be. The once highly revered Paris based institution is now in the forefront of the global warming "sustainability" crusade. This is also clearly reflected in its approach to statistics.

Ben Pile gives us the reality behind the IEA´s, Huhne´s and Friis Bach´s "facts":

Even more disingenuous is the claim that fossil fuel subsidies outstrip subsidies for the renewable sector by five (or twelve) times. It makes no sense to talk about the proportions of global and absolute subsidies without any idea of how much actual substance were produced by those subsidies. If conventional energy production is more than five or twelve times greater than renewable energy production, then in fact renewable energy enjoys a greater level of subsidy than conventional energy. 
--

However, according to the IEA (PDF here), in 2008, the world produced fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas, peat) equivalent to 10,065 million tonnes of oil (Mtoe), but only 90.2Mtoe of energy from renewables (geothermal, solar, electricity and heat, wind). So although renewables only enjoyed a tenth (or so) of the subsides that fossil fuels received, fossil fuels accounted for 112 times as much energy. In other words, on a Mtoe basis, the renewable sector received nearly 13 times as much subsidisation as the fossil fuel sector.
This calculation doesn’t include hyro-electric generation. Some might say this is unfair. But large hydro projects are not included in the UNEP’s definition of ‘renewable’, though small hydro is.

Pile admits that his calculation is crude, but the overall picture is clear: The renewable energy lobby and its warmist government supporters are not being honest about the true costs of wind and solar power.

How to pretend you are "discussing" human rights with a high Chinese visitor

We are told that Chinese premier Wen Jiabao - currently visiting Iceland - has had "in-depth discussions about human rights" with the island state´s president Olafur R. Grimsson:

“I didn’t discuss the matter of Bo Xilai in particular with him as I didn’t want to discuss specific individuals,” Grimsson said in an interview outside his residence at Bessastadir. “We did have in-depth discussions about human rights and the possibility of cooperation between China and Iceland in that field, where China could utilize Iceland’s experience and knowledge in the field of human rights.”

The Chinese leader “expressed interest in building up a dialogue between the two countries on human rights,” Grimsson said. “It’s important to bring about such cooperation, where Icelandic specialists in social rights and the representatives of human rights organizations and other humanitarian organizations can participate in our cooperation with China. The premier said that China would applaud such cooperation with Iceland and with the Icelandic academic society.”

Wen’s bodyguards pushed and blocked a Bloomberg News reporter yesterday when questions related to Bo’s detainment were asked following the meeting with Grimsson.

The Icelandic president here used the same formula as all other Western leaders when meeting China´s leaders:


In order to be able to answer media questions about China´s repression of human rights, pretend that you have had a serious or "in-depth" exchange of views on human rights, and that your Chinese counterpart has shown real interest in the issue. 

This formula is foolproof, because the media will never be able to find out that there was no serious "discussion". 


The usual talk about setting up academic and other "expert" meetings is also part of the smoke screen tactics. These meetings, which always happen behind closed doors, are just another way of pretending to act on human rights.


The real reason for Grimsson´s meeting with Jiabao was, of course, this: 

For Iceland, the visit is a chance to deepen ties with China and speed efforts to emerge from its 2008 economic collapse when its three largest banks defaulted. Iceland is seeking to revive its $13 billion economy by returning to the industries it once relied on including tourism and clean energy.


Read the entire article here

The Chinese - as Wen Jiabao now in Iceland - willingly participate in this role play with masks, fully aware of he fact that the script, involving western beggars, is only a farce.