Head of UK Met Office Hadley Centre: "we now have rock-solid evidence to demonstrate that the world is warming"

UK Met Office has been forced to admit that global warming stopped 16 years ago, but that fact does not seem to bother professor Stephen Belcher, Head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, the least. There is no end to the praise he bestows on himself and his fellow modellers: 

We now have rock-solid evidence to demonstrate that the world is warming, and that this increase is due to human activity; we are as certain about these things as we ever can be in science.

The time has come for the climate science community to change its focus. We must now work to develop the tools that humanity needs in order to deal with climate change. This is what Climate Service UK is about. It is a framework to explain how weather-related events and their associated risks are likely to change over the coming seasons, years and decades. --

UK climate science is absolutely world class; there is no doubt about that. I am absolutely confident that the British climate science community has the skills and knowledge necessary to establish the type of service that will lead to job creation. Climate Service UK is about bringing this world-class expertise to the marketplace. This is a real opportunity for the UK.

But as Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama, points out, the real world looks somewhat different: 

In my opinion, the day of reckoning has arrived. The modellers and the IPCC have willingly ignored the evidence for low climate sensitivity for many years, despite the fact that some of us have shown that simply confusing cause and effect when examining cloud and temperature variations can totally mislead you on cloud feedbacks. The discrepancy between models and observations is not a new issue … just one that is becoming more glaring over time.

Hundreds of millions of dollars that have gone into the expensive climate modelling enterprise has all but destroyed governmental funding of research into natural sources of climate change. For years the modelers have maintained that there is no such thing as natural climate change … yet they now, ironically, have to invoke natural climate forces to explain why surface warming has essentially stopped in the last 15 years!

Forgive me if I sound frustrated, but we scientists who still believe that climate change can also be naturally forced have been virtually cut out of funding and publication by the “humans-cause-everything-bad-that-happens” juggernaut. Members of the public who fund their work will not stand for their willful blindness much longer.

The demise of Gazprom has a silver lining: It will also be the end of Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime

Many sad stories have a silver lining. The silver lining in the more and more likely demise of Gazprom, the world's most corrupt and mismanaged energy company, is that it also will be the end of the corrupt Putin regime. 

The Swedish Economist Anders Åslund, probably the leading western expert on Gazprom, does not have much positive to say about the company that has helped to finance Putin's mafia state:

No large company in the world has been so spectacularly mismanaged as Russia’s state-dominated natural-gas corporation Gazprom OAO. (GAZP) In the last decade, its management has made every conceivable mistake.

Even so, Russian President Vladimir Putin denies the very existence of a crisis and maintains his support for Alexei Miller, the chief executive officer since 2001. Gazprom’s situation is serious not only because it is Russia’s biggest company by market value, but because Putin is its real chairman. Where Gazprom goes, so does Russia and the Putin government.

In May 2008, Gazprom was one of the world’s most valuable companies with a market capitalization of $369 billion. Miller boasted that it would be the first global company to reach $1 trillion. Today, its market value has plummeted to $83 billion and the decline continues. Although it claimed the largest net income of any global company in 2011 at $44.5 billion and still at $38 billion in 2012, its price-earnings ratio has dropped to a fatally low 2.4 for 2013. It has no credibility with shareholders.

At the heart of Gazprom’s mismanagement lies extreme inertia; reluctance to absorb new information; corruption and outlandish arrogance. Its managers are used to exercising Soviet-style monopoly over consumers, not having realized that the market has taken over. The company has traditionally varied prices by countries for opaque reasons. For example,Lithuania pays 15 percent more for Gazprom gas than neighboring Latvia. --

Analysts at the state-controlled Sberbank (SBER) assess that Gazprom would need $11 billion a year for its gas production, but in 2011 its capital expenditure soared from an originally planned level of $27 billion to $53 billion. It stopped at $43.2 billion last year.

The analysts call this excess expenditure “value destruction,” which is their euphemism for waste and corruption, amounting to $30 billion to $40 billion a year. Investment analysts in Moscow suggest privately that two-thirds of this might be sheer corruption, while the rest is wasteful overinvestment. Corruption at that level may explain the poor management of the company’s official business.

Rather than reducing capital investment, however, Putin comes up with ever more expensive projects. Last October, he decided that Gazprom should develop the giant virgin Chayadinsk field in Yakutia in eastern Siberia, building a pipeline to Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast and an LNG plant there for export to China.

Officially, this project is supposed to be completed by 2017 and cost $40 billion, but Sberbank analysts assessed it at $65 billion. This production would be too expensive for it ever to be profitable, and Russia has no supply contract with China. This is as white an elephant as there ever was.

Last December, Gazprom went ahead with its South Stream pipeline through the Black Sea to the Balkans. It was supposed to cost $21 billion, but in February Gazprom announced it would cost $39 billion. In April, Putin and Miller decided to build a second pipeline from the Yamal field in northwestern Siberia to Europe. (The project, which was supposed to go through Poland, was immediately repudiated by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.)

In addition, Gazprom has plans to build two more superfluous Nord Stream pipes through the Baltic Sea at a cost of probably $20 billion. They have the single purpose of replacing the existing pipeline through Ukraine that Putin wants to abandon. None adds any value. --

Read the entire article here

German Der Spiegel: The UN 2 degrees goal "has become patently unrealistic"

Now, when climate change alarmism has peaked, it is time to skip the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 2 degrees goal, which, according to German weekly Der Spiegel "has become patently unrealistic":

Limiting global warming to just 2 degrees Celsius, as called for by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has become patently unrealistic. Political will is lacking, and emissions continue to increase. The target needs to be revised. --

Basically, there are three options to changing the primary target of international climate policy. World leaders could either allow the 2 degrees Celsius goal to become a benchmark that can be temporarily overshot, accept a less stringent target or give up on such an objective altogether.

The only sensible option is, of course, to give up the 2 degrees objective altogether, but this kind of honesty cannot be expected from the EU, the self proclaimed "global leader in climate policy": 

The EU will probably favor a reinterpretation over a complete revision of the 2 degrees Celsius target. However, that does not mean its preferences will necessarily prevail. What ultimately happens will be determined by the actions of major emitters, such as China and the US, and even more by how global emissions levels evolve over the next several years. If the trend is not reversed soon, a mere reinterpretation of the 2 degrees Celsius target might not be enough. If the EU wants to maintain its role as a global leader in climate policy, it will have to investigate all options for target modification as soon as possible, even those that seem politically unappealing.

No matter which option the EU chooses to pursue in the medium term, and which one is ultimately adopted in international climate policy, the relationship between climate policy and climate science will undoubtedly become much more pragmatic. The need to reinterpret or revise the 2 degrees Celsius target arises primarily from international climate policy's lack of success.

Thus, more political smokescreens are in the pipeline from the EU global warming alarmists, who are obviously not quite yet ready to admit that their costly climate adventure has been a huge mistake ....  

New Australian study: Marine algae species adapts to climate change, contrary to what was assumed until now

These algae have no problems adapting to possible global warming.
(image wikipedia)

A new Australian study shows that, contrary to what was assumed until now, marine organisms - in this case the algae commonly known as Neptune' s necklace - adapt well to possible climate change: 

Breakthrough research has shown a species of marine algae commonly found along Australia’s rocky shores may be able to adapt to increasing air and seawater temperatures, providing insight into the impacts of global warming on the future biodiversity of Australia’s coastline 

The ability of Hormosira banksii, commonly known as Neptune’s necklace, to tolerate higher temperatures suggests that this habitat-forming alga has an intrinsic capacity to cope with climate change. --

“Hormosira banksii makes an excellent model for examining the potential for marine organisms to adapt because it is an important intertidal species in Australia and New Zealand, providing habitat for many other species.

“These macroalgae cling to rock platforms and don’t have much ability to disperse, limiting the genetic diversity amongst populations. It was therefore assumed, until now, that they wouldn’t be able to adapt to changes in climate as they can’t move to avoid temperature changes and they are already living close to their thermal tolerances,” she said.

However, the research of Ms Clark and her C3 colleagues showed that temperature tolerance in this habitat-forming species can be passed on to the next generation, meaning they have the potential to adapt to rising temperatures. 

New plants may therefore be less sensitive to heat waves during the summer, or high temperature events during other seasons, giving the researchers some optimism that this iconic species will remain prominent on our rocky shores.

Read the entire article here

Obama's "shirt-sleeves' summit" with China's Xi Jinping is a mistake

Later this week, US President Barack Obama will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in California. Yale historian Michael Auslin thinks - rightly - that the meeting, which is pitched as a 'shirt-sleeves' summit', is a mistake: 

... summits like this one should be reserved for friends and allies with whom the United States has close working relationships.--

While it is too late to pull out of this summit, the president still has time to come up with a concrete list of issues that Washington expects movement on. He should make it clear that this experiment in going outside the boundaries of traditional Sino-U.S. meetings will be a one-off if there is no change in Chinese behavior. A better approach in general would be to restrict such top-level meetings until truly necessary, or when it is clear that some agreement on a significant issue has been reached and there will be a measureable outcome. Washington needs not merely to accept that its relations with China are purely transactional, but to act that way, as well. 

Focusing on results during future summits would communicate that Washington is serious about protecting its interests. While our diplomats certainly deal seriously with their Chinese counterparts, the tone set at the top of this administration (and previous ones) has been too accommodating, too willing to play what we think is the long-game of engagement, while ignoring the longer Chinese game of undermining U.S. influence in Asia and globally while avoiding commitment to solving disagreements between us. Unfortunately, this week's "shirt-sleeves" summit will fail to produce a more meaningful U.S.-China relationship because it is driven by wishful thinking, and not by a ruthless desire to protect U.S. interests.

In addition, people should not forget that Xi is in charge of one of the world's most corrupt countries. Although Xi is officially fighting corruption, it should be remembered that his extended family has enriched itself enormously during his time as a Communist Party apparatchik, as Bloomberg found out last year: 

As Xi climbed the Communist Party ranks, his extended family expanded their business interests to include minerals, real estate and mobile-phone equipment, according to public documents compiled by Bloomberg.

Those interests include investments in companies with total assets of $376 million; an 18 percent indirect stake in a rare- earths company with $1.73 billion in assets; and a $20.2 million holding in a publicly traded technology company. --

Most of the extended Xi family’s assets traced by Bloomberg were owned by Xi’s older sister,Qi Qiaoqiao, 63; her husband Deng Jiagui, 61; and Qi’s daughter Zhang Yannan, 33, according to public records compiled by Bloomberg. --

Deng, reached on his mobile phone, said he was retired. When asked about his wife, Zhang and their businesses across the country, he said: “It’s not convenient for me to talk to you about this too much.”

Neither should it be forgotten, as Robert I. Rotberg points out, that Xi is "a corrupt autocrat's best friend": 

African autocrats absolutely adore China’s President Xi Jinping. At a meeting last month with 13 prominent African leaders in Durban, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea’s hard-fisted President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo led the others in lavishing praise on China. The front page of the weekend China Daily for March 29 trumpeted their obsequieousness and China-Africa friendship.

None of Africa’s despots dare bite the hand that has fed so well, and so consistently. While Chinese support keeps rolling in, these leaders enrich themselves and their inner circles while their people go without.

China directly supports the leaders and enables their continued internal tyrannies by refusing to “interfere” in local politics, by willfully ignoring well-documented trails of human rights violations, by turning a blind eye to egregious corrupt practices, and by protecting presidents such as Zimbabwae’s Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir when the UN or other regional organizations threaten to investigate their regimes. China has also helped to shield Bashir from the consequences of his indictment for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

China has also provided weapons of war to enable Africa’s worst regimes to prey on their internal opponents.  Chinese aircraft and ammunition were used by the Sudan against its opponents in Darfur and now in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Zimbabwe received Chinese jets, uniforms for its army, a military staff training college constructed by Chinese labour, and material assistance when Mugabe’s military and family forcibly ousted artisanal miners from Zimbabwe’s lucrative Marange diamond fields.

A step in the right direction: UK citizens will be given power to kill off new onshore wind turbines

No more landscape destroying, bird-killing monster turbines in the UK.
(image wikipedia)

Finally, David Cameron has seen the light: 

Residents given the power to kill off new wind turbines in move Tories claim will end controversial onshore developments

• Schemes will need local residents' consent before planning application can be made - handing them the power to prevent turbines being erected
• The drive for renewable energy will no longer be used as a reason for overriding environmental and other concerns

Communities are to be given a powerful ‘veto’ over wind farms in a move that Tories claim will mean the death of controversial new onshore developments.

Schemes will have to gain local residents’ consent before a planning application can even be made, effectively handing them the power to prevent turbines being erected.

Planning rules are also to be changed so that the drive for renewable energy can no longer be used as a reason for overriding environmental and other concerns.

Former energy minister John Hayes, a leading critic of onshore wind turbines who has been pushing for reform since moving to Downing Street as a senior adviser to David Cameron, told the Daily Mail: ‘No means no.

‘No longer will councils and communities be bullied into accepting developments because national energy policy trumps local opinion. Meeting our energy goals is no excuse for building wind turbines in the wrong places.’

Read the entire article here.

The next move should be to eliminate subsidies for useless and expensive offshore wind turbines. 

Robert D Kaplan praises criminal dictator Vladimir Putin

Kaplan: "Putin must seek a buffer zone in Eastern Europe; Russian history demands no less of him."

Robert D. Kaplan, Chief Geopolitical Analyst at Stratfor, was in 2011 and 2012 chosen by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world's "Top 100 Global Thinkers". Having read Kaplan's article "The World Through Putin's Eyes" - which marks a new low in any foreign policy writing - one wonders who the other top 99 "Global Thinkers" on the FP  list are.

My initial reaction was that Kaplan must be joking, but unfortunately this "Global Thinker" seems to be dead serious: 

Few people comprehend Russia’s vulnerabilities like its leader, Vladimir Putin. He must try to govern a country that extends through nearly half the longitudes of the earth but that has fewer people than Bangladesh. What’s more, Russia’s population is declining, not increasing. All the Arctic seas to Russia’s north are ice-blocked many months of the year, so with the exception of its Far East, Russia is essentially a landlocked nation. Moreover, Russia’s flat topography affords little natural protection and is therefore bereft of natural borders. Land powers, as they have no seas to protect them, are more insecure than island nations and continents like the United States and Great Britain.

Putin knows that it hasn’t been just the French and the Germans who have invaded Russia from the west in centuries past, but Swedes, Poles, and Lithuanians, too. So Putin must seek a buffer zone in Eastern Europe; Russian history demands no less of him. This is not the recreation of the Warsaw Pact we are talking about. For the need to economically support disparate states in Eastern Europe for half a century was a burden that helped topple the Soviet Union. Putin knows, therefore, that Russia cannot rule Eastern Europe. But he does require a degree of diplomatic and economic acquiescence in order to keep countries like Poland and Romania hobbled.--

American journalists, politicians and government officials must drive Putin to distraction. They assault him on moral grounds. After all, “He is a dictator!” they say. “He tolerates and even encourages corruption and rampant thuggery!” But do they know I am dealing with Russia — not with the United States? Putin must think. Are they aware that when I took power there was political chaos and criminal anarchy, with ordinary Russians robbed of their dignity.

Back in the Kremlin, the corrupt dictator of "the virtual mafia state"  (State Department cable) must be smiling - this kind of praise  is a rare treat for the former second rate KGB agent, who now is trying to destroy all opposition to his criminal regime.