Australian climate change professor who warned about melting East Antarctic remains trapped in thick ice

"there is an increasing body of evidence, including by the AAE members, that have identified parts of the East Antarctic which are highly susceptible to melting and collapse from ocean warming"

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition

The reality:

Chris Turney, the leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (and Professor of Climate Change at the University of New South Wales) who, together with 73 scientists, tourists and crew is trapped in thick Antarctic ice, is still waiting to be rescued.

This is the latest tweet from Turney:

Chris Turney @ProfChrisTurney

Still waiting. #spiritofmawson Alok Jha vine.co/v/h9tqx3bWgVx

about 1 hour ago 

 

 

Even the Chinese icebreaker which was supposed to rescue the professor and his team had to retreat:

 

Passengers aboard an ice-bound cruise ship trapped off the coast of Antarctica cheered Friday night when they spotted the Chinese ice-breaker Snow Dragon on the horizon.
"There's a lot of relief among the team and a lot of happy faces," said expedition leader Chris Turney in a video posted on YouTube.
However, the jubilance was short-lived.
The Snow Dragon icebreaker came within 7 miles of the stranded ship but had to retreat after the ice became too thick, expedition spokesman Alvin Stone told the Associated Press. France's L'Astrolabe made it to the edge of the sea ice surrounding the ship, too, but also called off its mission for the same reason.
Turney, professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales, Australia, has been tweeting and blogging the adventure, and has become a minor celebrity of sorts. Using tools unimaginable to adventurers who explored the frozen continent a century ago, his reports recorded in howling blizzard winds show the enthusiasm and nonchalance of a real-life Indiana Jones.

 

 

      

Warmist filmmaker Randy Olsen trashes Gore's film and "green" documentaries

Warmist filmmaker Randy Olsen trashes Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and "green" documentaries in general:

The Gore movie cashed in on his personality and the question of where he had been in the six years since his failed US presidential bid. The same movie starring any NASA scientist would have lost money.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: That's a bold claim, how can you be so sure?
Olson: Because the movie itself, stripped of its celebrity element, was boring. There was almost no narrative structure to it. It failed to tell an interesting and compelling story.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But Al Gore presented dramatic nature scenes and frightening graphics. Didn't that create attention?
Olson: Maybe if you were one of the hardcore lefties who turned out for it in droves. But if it was so good, why don't you see it re-run on cable the way popular movies are?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But Gore's film drew tremendous attention to the climate problem. Isn't that proof of science successfully communicating?
Olson: It made a ton of money which made some people think that suddenly the topic was unboring. Which produced a spate of climate documentaries that were all boring, and eventually resulted in an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker friend saying to me they all blend together -- all the same shots of melting glaciers, polar bears, carbon emissions ... blah, blah, blah. By 2008 another friend was at a gathering of indy film distributors in which they were saying, "no more environmental documentaries!", there's no audience for them. And by 2010 a producer friend of mine said, "Even the Green Channel doesn't want "green programming." --

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How could the public possibly still be interested in climate research?
Olson: I fear it's too late and that the brand has been ruined, but I hope it's not. The climate crowd did a lousy job communicating. Several reports have itemized the fact that over a billion dollars was spent on climate by the environmental side over the past decade. There is simply no excuse for the failure to communicate.

 Olsen is of course quite right in his criticism, but because he still believes in the religion of climate change/global warming, he rather naively imagines that "professional storytellers" could save the sinking ship:   

What is needed is "Narrative Training" involving partnering with people from the more visceral end -- media people, professional storytellers, actors, etc. As I did with my new book -- partnering with two actors. But academics like to just keep to themselves in their ivory towers. And the boredom continues.

Quote of the Week: Dan Hannan on why Prince Charles is not likely to admit being wrong about the end of the world

Quote of the week:

"Fifty-five months have passed since the Prince of Wales assured us that we had less than 100 months to save the world. Do you imagine that, when the 100 months are up, he will say: “I was wrong: maybe life is getting better after all”? Of course not: the whole point of the looming disaster is that it’s always just around the corner."

Dan Hannan, MEP

Dan Hannan on the Green Jobs Fallacy

In just one minute Conservative MEP Dan Hannan manages to destroy the myth of green jobs:

Copenhagen - European Green Capital 2014: Myth and Reality

Copenhagen has now officially been crowned European Green Capital for 2014 by the European Commission.

 

Frank Jensen, the city's social democratic mayor was celebrating the "win" in Brussels the other day:

“It’s a major pat on the back for all Copenhageners and the city’s green businesses who everyday do what they can to make Copenhagen a more green and sustainable city,” Jensen said in a press release.

Among the initiatives that swayed the independent jury in Copenhagen’s favour are the city’s efforts to increase the number of cyclists, become carbon neutral in 2025, and ensure Copenhageners better access to nature areas.

EU environment commissioner Janez Potočnik congratulated Copenhagen on the award.
“The rest of Europe could learn a lot from Copenhagen’s climate efforts and the high quality of life that Copenhageners lead. This prize reflects the fact that Copenhagen is making significant efforts to develop its urban space in order to deliver a more healthy and sustainable city for Copenhageners,” Potočnik said.

It is a well known fact, that Danes are very good in marketing (also themselves). They have obviously done a great marketing and promotion job with the EU Commission, as they were able to beat eleven who were also competing for the title.

But as somebody who has lived in Copenhagen a few years ago (and enjoyed it), I would agree with British journalist Richard Steed, who has lived in Copenhagen since 1998:

We love to create myth! And so too, it seems, does the European Commission, which has named

Copenhagen the European Green Capital of 2014. I am sorry, but if you think Copenhagen is one of the most litter-free and greenest cities in the world, I would recommend you visit Valbyparken. Head towards Kalveboderne and discover for yourselves the amount of rubbish by the side of the shore. It is simply embarrassing.  I feel sorry for the poor local swans who are probably some of the most toxic birds in Europe right now. Or does this simply not matter because it’s outside the city centre, and out of sight from the tourists? --

 I bet the European officials who voted for this didn’t consider that in 2014 this city would more resemble one big dirty building site than a harmonious, green and pleasant place to be.
Obviously Copenhagen didn’t award this accolade itself, but the council did nominate itself and produce a glossy multimedia brochure to showcase the city. Yet in my view, the city should be embarrassed by winning this award, and looking at the council’s meagre budget, I can only assume it’s not their top priority. Right now all they are doing is recycling the same old ‘green stories’ that we’ve all heard over and over. 

The Pardoning of Mikhail Khodorkovsky - A Bizarre Twist

Putin's pardoning of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, is creating a huge amount of speculation. The fate of Putin's (former?) friend from his time in Leningrad, Igor Sechin, is an interesting "sideshow" in this affair:

In another bizarre twist, just after the prison service statement came out, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin was quoted by Russian news agencies as telling Putin in a meeting that the state-owned oil giant would be willing to give Khodorkovsky a job but that "all top-manager posts are currently filled."

Rosneft acquired most of the assets of Khodorkovsky's oil company Yukos after it was liquidated and sold off in pieces upon Khodorkovsky's arrest in 2003.

This bizarre twist is even more bizarre when we consider Sechin's background as the figurehead of the Siloviki, the network of current and former security service officers who run Russia's intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies and his role in the Yukos affair:

Their figurehead since Putin's arrival in the Kremlin in 2000 has been Igor Sechin, a long-time close Putin ally from St. Petersburg. Sechin managed to transfer a majority of the assets of Khodorkovsky's defunct Yukos oil empire to Rosneft, the government-owned oil company of which he is chairman.
Sechin has always insisted that the Yukos affair was not only "about tax offenses, but also serious capital crimes like murder, torture and blackmail." Such charges were intended to put Khodorkovsky behind bars for many more long years. Now it appears that Sechin's influence is waning.

A Single European Battery Charger - A Great Idea?

The EUSSR is alive and kicking:

Mobile phone makers will have to provide a standard battery charger that can fit any device, including smart phones, under a provisional deal on a new EU law reached on Thursday.

Provided the outline agreement gets endorsement from the European Parliament and EU member states, it would be implemented in around 2017, EU officials said.

If you think that is a great idea, think again:

no doubt a case could be made for it being a sensible idea. If we all have the same charger then we can use any charger: we’re not tied to one from the manufacturer of our particular phone.

However, there is a very large and incorrect assumption here. That technology is static. Something that simply isn’t true about technology of course.
For what is being assumed here is that by 2017 we’ll have the finest form of phone charger that we’ll ever have and that we can all standardise on just that one design. But, and here’s the catch, if we all standardise on that one design we’ll not have the market experimentation that provides us with those incremental improvements from innovation. For by standardising on one design we’ve made it impossible for anyone to experiment with that design. We have, in fact, set phone charging technology in stone and ensured that it will never change or advance.
And that’s not actually a very good idea. But then you weren’t expecting good ideas from the EU, were you?

Instead of innovation, the EU will probably end up with The European Centre for Battery Charger Standardisation Affairs (ECBCSA), with a few hundred bureaucrats toiling in a building just a little bit tinier than the new ECB skyscraper. The competition among member countries over who will get the new centre has probably already started.

Germany lost the bid for hosting the UN Green Climate Fund Headquarters. Maybe Angela Merkel will now submit the same design with "rooftop gardens" and a "sunken terrace restaurant" for the ECBCSA? :-)