Yesterday (Monday 25th February) four Greenpeace protesters breached security at London’s Heathrow airport and climbed on the tail of a Boeing 777 in order to display a banner saying, ‘Climate Emergency, No 3rd Runway.’
Prometheus points out in an article entitled, ‘A sense of proportion’ that last month the Chinese government announced plans to build 97 new airports in the next 12 years. Furthermore, on Saturday China announced plans to build nearly 100 new airports by 2020 to cater for soaring demand.
So why can’t Heathrow have a much needed 3rd runway and what difference would it make to climate anyway? Not much point asking Greenpeace unless you want a silly answer devoid of facts.
Meanwhile back in Oz, The Australian carries a story today containing the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) explanation for cooler February temperatures across most of Australia straight after record hot temperatures in January. Another one of those ‘climate experts’ is qouted as saying, “It’s just year-to-year variability. Underneath that variability is this insidious slow warming, which is the greenhouse effect, but it’s not big enough to stop natural variability, and it’s going to take a long time before it is.”
Read the entire article entitled, ‘Natural changes blow hot and cold.’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Strange days – Barrie Hunt was the denialists’ adopted friend last year when he said multi-year droughts were part of natural climate variability, but now he’s turned – not really. You just have to listen carefully.
Of course it’s complicated – if you don’t dig what he said you’re not even on the page.
Indeed it is complicated – too complicated to make the attempted manipulation of atmospheric CO2 worthwhile or measureable. Natural variability wins.
Airline in first biofuel flight
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7261214.stm
A Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet has flown between London’s Heathrow and Amsterdam using fuel derived from a mixture of Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts.
Kenneth Richter, of Friends of the Earth, said the flight was a “gimmick”, distracting from real solutions to climate change.
Greenpeace’s chief scientist, Dr Doug Parr:
“Instead of looking for a magic green bullet, Virgin should focus on the real solution to this problem and call for a halt to relentless airport expansion.”
“Research has found that, in some cases, converting land to biofuel production caused many times more emissions than the savings the fuels delivered. And the demand for palm oil has also been linked to human rights abuses, with conversion of millions of hectares of forests into plantations in Indonesia said to have destroyed the lives of indigenous peoples”
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/article3464007.ece
And my daily paper wrote some days ago , that using biofuels cause more damage than ordinary fossil fuels….
Hello Ann Novek,
“using biofuels cause more damage than ordinary fossil fuels”
Well, if you put a bit of logic into it, it makes a lot of sense, you have to use fuel to clear the land, plant , harvest, process the plant into fuel just to catch up with fossil fuel at that stage.
The Media needs reports of doom and gloom, it sells and that is what they are there for. The article seems to trying to strike a balance which is unusual in a newspaper. It probably is within normal variation whether it be hot or cold only a long term change will say anything. But a long term cold trend will tell us it was not CO2 that caused the warming that started around 1750. There have been some very unusual cold events in the NH recently though. Much colder in January that it has been been for decades in most parts, ever (recorded) in some. Fish dying of cold near Taiwan and snow in Saudi Arabia which has never been recorded before are of concern. That leaves me in somewhat of a dilemma, is the weather turning dramatically colder as it has in the past? If so then it certainly puts paid to the CO2 argument, but a cold change is something that can be very damaging. Millions died during such changes in the past.
” There have been some very unusual cold events in the NH recently though. ” – DHMO
I have no position on the climate issue as I’m not very familiar with the topic, but in Sweden , this winter has been the warmest since they started to monitor temperature back 250 years ago.
This is the very first winter in my lifetime that has been almost without any snow at all…
OK, I have a quote from the Norwegian paper, where I got all my whaling information from. They cited a paper in Murmansk, that stated that the Russians are builing icebreakers for the future!!!
According to the Russians, it will be warmer for some years still, but around 2010 the temperature will stabilise for some 10 years, and then will we experience a little ice age till year 2064!!!
The Norwegian think tank Cicero, stated this is unconfirmed science.
Depends on the region you live in Ann:
Global Cooling: Amazing pictures of countries joining Britain in the big freeze:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=516969&in_page_id=1811
“The total cost of the disaster to the Chinese economy may be more than £10billion.” Disaster? £10billion?
I thought that were still above average in temps… I’d hate to see what the cost would be if things really cooled down.
Our town has some of the worst traffic in the U.S. When the State was trying to widen some expressways, the “environmentalists” got a court order to stop them because pollution was already too high. So, more cars were continually crammed onto narrow roads and sat there for longer commutes spewing out even more exhaust gas. The roads eventually were widened, but the pollution from the stalled traffic could have been avoided. That’s environmental logic for you.
Now, the “environmentalists” think that airplanes won’t sit on the tarmacs spewing more carbon while waiting for a take-off slot than when the planes could leave faster on an additonal runway.
Global warming causes idiots.
My money is on the sun, puny man stands no chance.
The Greenpeace action is rather ironic considering that a Boeing 777 crash-landed at Heathrow last month because extreme cold during its flight through the sub-Arctic had chilled its fuel to point that it didn’t flow properly.
Other pilots flying through region that day said that they had never seen such cold temperatures at cruising altitude, and had had to reduce altitude to keep the fuel flowing.
I suppose that Greenpeace would argue that they are protesting ‘climate change’ not
‘global warming’. That’s a “heads I win, tails you lose” sort of argument.
“this winter has been the warmest since they started to monitor temperature back 250 years ago” Ann Novek
These sort of statements are a worry. One would like to know who said it and in what context. It may be perfectly accurate but it is surprising. Did they have thermometers 250 years ago (I thought not) how many compared to today and where were they placed compared to the ones which took the measurements for the current winter. Also what was the temperature differential. I live 20km from the centre of the city I live in OZ my temperature is typically a degree hoter in summer and a degree colder in winter. When you have a temperature field getting an average is very vexed. These sort of statements are bandied about by the media and politicians. Of course this also applies to the NH has been very cold this year reports. There seems to be a lot though and our summer has been colder than usual. Here we have had a drought which might be breaking. In the middle of this the Goracle told us it was our fault because we generate a lot of GHG on a percapita basis. Others the media and politicians claimed this was the worst drought for a thousand years and it was that guy down the street who had turned his air conditioner on and did not use energy saving lights to offset it. Yet if you look at empirical data we had a severe drought from 1900 to 1940 much worse than now. I suspect your 250 years comes from a computer model as did our 1000 year drought.
Ann, Paul, indeed. This has been the coldest winter I can remember since living in Tokyo. Last year was quite warm as far as winters go. This year it has snowed several times to varying degrees. Took me ages to get my shoes dry. A real disaster.
Hi DHMO,
Thanks for your comment. Of course I know that my above statement is very unscientific, it’s only about local temperature/ weather. It was only meant as an indicator there are regional differences.( FYI, it was a devilish cold spring back here just two years ago).
DHMO, the 1000 year drought, didn’t that data come from sediment analysis of lake beds? That’s my recollection although I couldn’t describe which ones or by whom, but if you’re interested I am sure you could find out.
And FWIW the Summer here in WA has been anything but “cold”.
Ann – Instrumental measurements of temperature began in Stockholm in 1756. Taking documentary and instrumental data together, the post 1990 period in Sweden is the warmest in 3 centuries, but that is uncontroversial as it is post Little Ice Age. We need to go much further back to put current temperatures into proper perspective.
Mr T
You are right sorry I attributed it to a climate model. In south east Australia it was much drier though 6o years ago so the research seems way off. So I guess on the it depends on the point in Australia the measurement is being taken. I do have a photo of the a camel train on the bed of the Murray in 1914. I have noted Perth is very hot this year Canberra has been weird much cooler than usual. Perhaps someone over there nicked our heat.
Barrie Hunt’s quote really is a gem..’Underneath that variability is…….’
Yes Barrie, it really is going to take a loooong time. And what’s insidious about the gentle warming we’re experiencing? Its natural and it is great. Far more insidious is the possibility of a cooling that may have the world slip back into, at best, a ‘little ice age’. Which could be aggravated by world economies, devestated by AGW mania, being too feeble to adapt to the colder change.
Great photos Paul. My sister has sent some great pics from S Dakota where she lives; the Dakotas have experienced the coldest winter, so far, in 119 years.
Of course all these temp extremes have been seen before, and fall within natural variability. Two examples from UK. London, mid 1960’s, (I will find and post the year,[away from home at present]) ‘Extremely warm winter in Britain,..with young people swimming in London’s Serpantine in January!’
A few years earlier in 1948 Britain was paralised by an extremely cold winter, with newspapers at the time giving a vivid description such as ‘Thousands die from the cold’; transport paralised..roads and railway lines buried..RAF making continuous drops of food and medical supplies’; and this gem..’Skaters waltzed on the Trent, the Tyne and the Thames, where above the latter, Big Ben has not struck the hour for 18 days with the hammer ice glued to the bell, and where the temperature, between the 12th of january and the 23rd of February, has only risen above freezing twice, and then by a fraction only.’