Greenpeace "activist": "The highlight for me was getting to surf and dive in places that not a lot of people have actually gone to"

Greenpeace ain't what it used to be, if one is to believe "activist" Dominico Zapata, who traveled "halfway around the world" during four months on board the new Rainbow Warrior III mega yacht:

The trip began in Durban, South Africa, in September. The 60m-long ship then sailed to Mozambique, Mauritius, the Maldives and Sri Lanka during the next two months.

Mr Zapata remained aboard for the final five-week transit to New Zealand and anchored in the Bay of Islands earlier this month.

Mr Zapata spent the first half of the trip working as assistant chef and the second half as a deckhand.

It was his first long-distance ocean-sailing experience and a trip he will never forget. "The highlight for me was getting to surf and dive in places that not a lot of people have actually gone to and just getting to see the amazing beauty of what's out there and the need to protect it.

It is easy to understand why Zapata and his fellow "activists" enjoyed their cruise. Who would not like four months of cruising in the Indian och Pacific Oceans, visiting exotic destinations, out of reach for ordinary cruise ships?

In order not to upset the "progressive" supporters, who finance Greenpeace's cruising activities, the NGO had chosen to call this particular cruise "The Greenpeace Indian Ocean campaign":

"It was mainly a research campaign," he said. "It was to try to cut out pirate fishing in the Indian Ocean and look at creating a series of marine reserves."

For all those probably thousands of young people, who would like the same unique cruise experience, the Bay of Plenty Times offers some good advice. 

This is how "activist" Zapata got his free cruise:

He has previously chained himself to a ship anchor in protest at the use of palm kernel and covered himself in molasses to highlight the issue of deep-sea oil drilling.

Read the entire article here

Merkel's senseless energy transition policy is hurting poor people, small businesses - and neighboring countries

Merkel's senseless energy transition policy is seriously hurting poor people and small businesses in Germany.

Germans are beginning to understand what chancellor Angela Merkel's energy transition policy means in practice. Last year electricity prices rose by a record 12 % - which means an additional cost of 125 euros for an average household - and the rise in the prices of electricity and gas is expected to continue. No wonder then that thousands of poor, mostly elderly people, are forced to live in unheated apartments, because they are unable to pay for the energy.

At the same time taxpayers last year paid in excess of 20 billion euros in subsidies to owners of inefficient wind turbines and other renewable energy producers.

In addition, taxpayers are also paying large sums as compensation for companies, which suffer because of fluctuations in the power grid caused by unreliable wind energy: 

Wind being an inconsistent source of energy, Germany's heavy reliance on it causes fluctuations in the power grid that, in turn, can force companies to shut down production for fear of a blackout.Such companies are financially compensated at the taxpayers' expense - up to 20,000 euros per megawatt per year when analysts say 2,000 euros would be a perfectly reasonable figure. The total cost of Germany's green-energy project thus rises by the millions.

The senseless energy transition policy is not only hurting taxpayers, and particularly poor and elderly people. It is also hurting Germany's small businesses, which unlike large companies are unable to avoid paying the "green" surcharges: 

Additionally, businesses can apply to be exempt from paying a surcharge that finances green-energy subsidies when it would inhibit their ability to compete globally. But it's not just multinationals that are granted such exempt status. Weekly Der Spiegel reports that among the more than 1,500 companies that are able to escape paying the tax this year are chocolate factories, poultry farms and slaughterhouses. It quotes energy expert Andreas Löschel as warning that if the policy isn't reversed, "only the stupid ones will not be freed from the surcharge." Even many midsize companies can prove some sort of international competition, so the tax burden falls disproportionately on small businesses.

And the negative effects of Merkel's Energiewende are hurting even Germany's neighbors:

Germany's green-energy push nevertheless remains fairly popular at home, but not abroad. Neighboring countries like the Czech Republic and Poland, which are tied to the same electricity grid as Germany, have been compelled to absorb the fluctuations that stem from its wind-energy production. These countries now intend to build security switches on their borders to prevent overloads and blackouts.

The conservative German newspaper Die Welt has little sympathy for its own government, arguing the Czechs and the Poles cannot be blamed for acting in what it calls "self-defense." Rather, Merkel's administration was "blinded" by its lofty ambitions, the paper editorialized last month, and used the grids of neighboring countries without even asking their permission, let alone paying for it.

Die Welt recognizes that the Czech Republic's and Poland's decision fragments the European energy market and "makes Germany the electric island in the European energy network."

Germany may meet its goal of boosting renewable energy production significantly to wane itself of coal, natural gas and nuclear, but that achievement will come at a price: literally for the German consumer, who will be paying a higher electricity rate than his European counterparts, but more importantly to the European single market which is now one bit less integrated.

Read the entire article here

Germans are hard working and law abiding people, which is why they so far have been prepared to pay for Merkel's energy madness, without complaining too much. But it is most likely that their patience will run thin in the not too distant future, forcing Merkel - or her successor - to make another Energiewende, reversing the entire policy. 

Francois Hollande's empty "global warming" speech

French President Francois Hollande,again today showed why he is a lightweight at a time when his country is in need of a real leader. 

The French economy is in free fall, with record high unemployment (25%) and a shocking deterioration of competitiveness. But instead of addressing these urgent real problems, Hollande today found time for grandstanding at one of the many useless international gatherings, where "world leaders" give empty speeches about "renewable energy" and "global warming" (This time the event, which was sponsored by Abu Dhabi oil money, was called "The World Future Energy Summit"). 

This was Hollande's message:
"If we do not act ... you can be very sure we will have a catastrophe very soon," he said.

Mr Hollande said governments needed to unite in cutting greenhouse emissions and avoid climate change.

Failure to spend in developing renewable energy will increase demand
for fossil energy and "make its prices unaffordable," besides
increasing risks of global warming, he said.

And in order to avoid the "catastrophe", Hollande - suprise, surprise - called for yet another (useless) international mega conference!:

He reiterated France's offer to host the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in 2015 – the deadline set for world governments to sign a new global treaty on reducing emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

With regard to energy, Hollande has himself done his best in order to make prices "unaffordable" by supporting France's incredibly unwise ban on shale gas exploration. 

PS

The military intervention in Mali is another serious mistake by Hollande, who more and more looks like an emperor without clothes. 

Should Berlin's failed airport be renamed?

In Germany the foundation entrusted with the task of preserving the legacy of former chancellor Willy Brandt is not happy about the scandal-ridden new Berlin airport's name:

Berlin's new airport is named after former Chancellor Willy Brandt, but its construction faults have brought it such infamy that the foundation managing Brandt's political legacy is worried about having the Nobel laureate associated with the project.

For now, Berlin's new airport is officially called Willy Brandt Airport after the former Germ chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner widely acknowledged to have been one of post-war Germany's greatest leaders.

However, it is still not too late to rename the failure. The most suitable name for the new airport - if it ever will be operational - would of course be "Gerhard Schröder Airport"  (perhaps sponsored by Gazprom and the former chancellor's friend, the "flawless democrat" Vladimir Putin?).

Germany's Potsdam Institute continues its global warming scaremongering

The warmists at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have - with the help of fellow warmists at the Madrid Complutence University - claim that they have "developed a robust statistical model that explains the surge in the number of (temperature) records to be a consequence of the long-term global warming trend": 

Monthly temperature extremes have become much more frequent, as measurements from around the world indicate. On average, there are now five times as many record-breaking hot months worldwide than could be expected without long-term global warming, shows a study now published in Climatic Change. In parts of Europe, Africa and southern Asia the number of monthly records has increased even by a factor of ten. 80 percent of observed monthly records would not have occurred without human influence on climate, concludes the authors-team of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Complutense University of Madrid.

“The last decade brought unprecedented heat waves; for instance in the US in 2012, in Russia in 2010, in Australia in 2009, and in Europe in 2003,” lead-author Dim Coumou says. “Heat extremes are causing many deaths, major forest fires, and harvest losses – societies and ecosystems are not adapted to ever new record-breaking temperatures.” The new study relies on 131 years of monthly temperature data for more than 12.000 grid points around the world, provided by NASA. Comprehensive analysis reveals the increase in records.
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If global warming continues, the study projects that the number of new monthly records will be 12 times as high in 30 years as it would be without climate change. “Now this doesn’t mean there will be 12 times more hot summers in Europe than today – it actually is worse,“ Coumou points out. For the new records set in the 2040s will not just be hot by today’s standards. “To count as new records, they actually have to beat heat records set in the 2020s and 2030s, which will already be hotter than anything we have experienced to date,” explains Coumou. “And this is just the global average – in some continental regions, the increase in new records will be even greater.”

“Statistics alone cannot tell us what the cause of any single heat wave is, but they show a large and systematic increase in the number of heat records due to global warming,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, a co-author of the study and co-chair of PIK’s research domain Earth System Analysis. “Today, this increase is already so large that by far most monthly heat records are due to climate change. The science is clear that only a small fraction would have occurred naturally.”

There is no reason to believe that relying on NASA's "131 years of monthly temperature data" does make this "study" any more believable than earlier warmist "studies". And the projections for the future -  "if global warming continues" - are pure scaremongering. Perhaps somebody should tell Rahmstorf and his colleagues about the UK Met Office's findings, which show that "global warming" stopped in 1997. 

New Zealand climatologist on claims that Australian heatwave is related to global warming: “It’s really [just] hype.”

Not unsurprisingly, warmists like Prime Minister Julia Gillard have been quick to link the heatwave in Australia and New Zealand to human caused global warming. Fortunately, there are still scientists, who refuse to jump on the lucrative global warming bandwagon:

A New Zealand scientist has denied popular claims the recent Australian heatwave and other extreme weather events around the world are linked to global warming.

Australia has experienced record hot weather in the last week, with temperatures reaching 48degC and bush fires burning throughout the south-east of the country.

New Zealand has also had an extreme summer of weather, with record-breaking high temperatures in some areas, and tornados and flooding in others.

These extreme weather patterns have again sparked debate over global warming, with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard suggesting a link between the country’s recent heatwave and climate change.

"Whilst you would not put any one event down to climate change,” Ms Gillard told media last week, “we do know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weather events and conditions."

The Australian government’s Climate Commission released a report last week stating: “climate change has contributed to making the current extreme heat conditions and bushfires worse”.

But associate professor of climate and environment science Chris de Freitas, from the University of Auckland, says this is not the case.

“There is no evidence to suggest that,” he says. “It’s really [just] hype.”

Dr Freitas says Australia is a “land of extremes” with heatwaves like those seen this month not uncommon. He says they are not necessarily a sign of global warming.

“It’s speculation, not fact.”

Read the entire article here

"Top green blog": "We're committing mass murder on a daily basis"

The envirofundamentalists behind Planetsave, a blog that describes itself as "one of the top green blogs on the internet", appear to believe that this kind of "information" will appeal to parents:

How We’re Killing Our Kids (& Ourselves)… But Don’t Care

If a mass shooting occurs at an elementary school, the whole country (and even much of the world) pays notice. And we focus on the news and what to do about it for days, or even weeks or months.

No complaint here at all! I think it’s an important matter that deserves our attention, and I do give it mine.

However, what’s absurd to me is that we’re committing mass murder on a daily basis and almost no one is paying any attention or working to solve the problem.---

...  without a livable climate, without the basics of human life, we die.

And so do our children.

And so do our grandchildren.

Unfortunately, that’s where we’re headed. Where’s the uproar? Where’s the nationwide or global focus on solutions? Each human life, one can easily argue, is priceless. But we’re treating them as worthless.

So, getting worked up about amass shooting is warranted, but it’s completely absurd that the world isn’t worked up about the many lives we sacrifice every day.