Climate Change

[Matt.GC]

Hasn't this government's policy agenda always been shaped by debunked conspiracy theories?

You won't be saying that when you have 7 bins and have to pay the meat tax this time next year!

The most alarming thing about this rediclous, 'Great Reset' derived conspiracy theory shaping policies that have a long-term effect on the climate is the fact the government have debunked Mark Harper's own lies themselves.

Politics latest: 'One of the worst PMs in history': Reform chief's withering verdict on Johnson

Zia Yusuf, the head of policy for Reform UK, told Sky News that Boris Johnson was "one of the worst prime ministers in British history" and accused him of betraying Brexit voters.

news.sky.com

So if we have another year of a government, who know they are lying, have admitted that they are lying, yet then shape policies around people believing their lies, then this is very troubling indeed.

 

[rob666]

I have three Spirea bushes in my front garden, nice little flowers on feathery stems.
They used to come out into flower around the end of the football season...I remember it well when Rovers won the Premiership...coincidentally my garden was blue and white.
It is coming into full flower right now...before an early Easter.
Around seven weeks earlier...dragged back a week or so every couple of years.

 

[BarryZola]

I wish the rain would go away. Ruining my week off (was planning a couple of non-theme park days out) and most of the other weeks. Would rather it was just cold, than getting warmer and rainier.

 

[rob666]

We are now up to three dry spells of about five days each, since last July.
The ground has never dried out round here since then.
Buggers up my gardening round no end, I need hover shoes.

 

[GaryH]

Damning report published into the increased use of coal power stations in China and subsequent emissions :

New coal plants in China soar despite President Xi's pledge to 'strictly control' dirtiest fuel

In 2021 China promised to "strictly control" new coal power. Two years later, it surged, Global Energy Monitor found, fuelling fears about further emissions just as they should be tumbling. But the new capacity may not be used, and other countries need to step up too, GEM said.

news.sky.com

 

[GaryH]

Interesting read about scientists trying to find out why the planet is heating up much quicker than modelled think it may actually be due to us being “greener” and having cleaner air!

Apparently dirty air blocked some of the suns radiation from hitting the ground whereas with cleaner air, more of the suns rays are able to hit the ground and make the temperatures hotter.

Found it in two places. The first needs an Apple News subscriptions, the other I think is free :

European summers will be hotter than predicted because of cleaner air — New Scientist

By ignoring declining air pollution, regional climate models have greatly underestimated how hot Europe's summers and heatwaves will become

apple.news

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/climate/less-pollution-more-global-warming.html

Mentions that scientists didn’t factor this in their models and now need to redo some of the models to compensate for the cleaner air!

 

[BarryZola]

Wait there a minute, I was told that the scientists knew what they were doing!!

 

[rob666]

Nope, sounds absolute ******** to me.
Some people still argue that a flat earth is a scientific fact.

Can't actually read the articles, both locked out, but it will probably be a single report, funded by big industry or a plane company, attempting to cover their polluting arses.
Show me a single piece of scientific peer reviewed research that shows this.
Bet there isn't a single jot of actual evidence.

Pollution darkens the remaining glaciers, the sun doesn't reflect off grey the same as white snow, increasing glacier thaw, raising water levels.
Pollution causes further climate change, a couple of thousand empirical, scientifically researched climate studies have accepted this.

Pollution causes climate change, follow the clear, obvious science...we have just had the wettest 18 months on record in this country, ever...every month has been the hottest ever globally, but people keep insisting on looking the other way, refusing to change their comfortable habits to keep future generations alive.

The rich and comfortable, in their energy hungry habits, are killing off the poor between the tropics, they don't have electricity, let alone western air conditioning.
They just die of heat exhaustion, the young and old, simple.

It is happening now, today, every day.

I'm afraid the travel addicted multi holiday thoosies on thirty quid cross continental flights are going to have to find a better research report.
Zero faith in this one.
Time to look away again.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Nope, sounds absolute ******** to me.
Some people still argue that a flat earth is a scientific fact.

Can't actually read the articles, both locked out, but it will probably be a single report, funded by big industry or a plane company, attempting to cover their polluting arses.
Show me a single piece of scientific peer reviewed research that shows this.
Bet there isn't a single jot of actual evidence.

Pollution darkens the remaining glaciers, the sun doesn't reflect off grey the same as white snow, increasing glacier thaw, raising water levels.
Pollution causes further climate change, a couple of thousand empirical, scientifically researched climate studies have accepted this.

Pollution causes climate change, follow the clear, obvious science...we have just had the wettest 18 months on record in this country, ever...every month has been the hottest ever globally, but people keep insisting on looking the other way, refusing to change their comfortable habits to keep future generations alive.

The rich and comfortable, in their energy hungry habits, are killing off the poor between the tropics, they don't have electricity, let alone western air conditioning.
They just die of heat exhaustion, the young and old, simple.

It is happening now, today, every day.

I'm afraid the travel addicted multi holiday thoosies on thirty quid cross continental flights are going to have to find a better research report.
Zero faith in this one.
Time to look away again.

De-paywalled link for you:

https://archive.is/88ajk

The analysis was undertaken by Carbon Brief

Analysis: How low-sulphur shipping rules are affecting global warming - Carbon Brief

Carbon Brief analyses the likely side-effects of regulations to reduce the sulphur content of marine fuels.

www.carbonbrief.org

But their analysis and article was written off the back of this tweet by Leon Simmons

From: https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1669667629844267008



I can't find any links, financial or otherwise, between him and the fossil fuel industry. He is affiliated with the Club of Rome, who also don't appear to have any affiliation with the fossil fuel industry.

Make of this what you will.

 

[rob666]

Having now read the article...cheers goosey, there seems to have been some selective headline creation.
The report states very early on, that less pollution is a good thing...full stop.
We must reduce carbon fuel use.
It also makes clear, giving the usual "more research needed", that the effect of less particulate pollution will probably only increase temperatures overall by 0.05% over the next 25 years.

We know the rate of temperature increase is ever increasing, but I cannot see how that is the real fault of less pollution.
Burn less stuff, selfish desires, burn like fires.

 

[GaryH]

Having now read the article...cheers goosey, there seems to have been some selective headline creation.
The report states very early on, that less pollution is a good thing...full stop.
We must reduce carbon fuel use.
It also makes clear, giving the usual "more research needed", that the effect of less particulate pollution will probably only increase temperatures overall by 0.05% over the next 25 years.

We know the rate of temperature increase is ever increasing, but I cannot see how that is the real fault of less pollution.
Burn less stuff, selfish desires, burn like fires.

Depends on the article. The new scientist one predicts it higher. To quote from the article:

“This means the regional models are underestimating how much warmer European summers will be by 2100 by more than 2°C, the team concludes. The underestimation of heatwaves is even greater, because during heatwaves there are usually clear skies and even more sunshine than normal”

Of course less pollution is good. It’s just interesting scientists are considering this as a possible contributing factor to the increase in temperatures. As we burn less fossil fuels and drive cleaner cars, could this actually accelerate the speed of global warming? (and no, i'm not advocating everyone start driving a big diesel motor and reopening coal power stations)



Here is the text from new scientist article:

European summers will be hotter than predicted because of cleaner air
By ignoring declining air pollution, regional climate models have greatly underestimated how hot Europe's summers and heatwaves will become
1 May 2024

Summers and heatwaves in Europe will be even more sweltering than feared. The regional climate models relied on by planners greatly underestimate summer heat because they don’t factor in more intense sunshine due to falling air pollution, a study has shown.
“If models don’t take air pollution changes into account, they will underestimate the intensity of future heatwaves even more than they underestimate mean summer warming,” says Dominik Schumacher at ETH Zürich in Switzerland. “It’s problematic because a lot of European countries strongly rely on these simulations to plan for the future.”

Running global climate models requires a lot of expensive computer time, so researchers often look only at smaller regions, allowing them to run more detailed models. These higher-resolution regional models are typically relied on by governments, as their projections for specific locations are supposed to be more accurate than global models.

But when he and his colleagues compared the observed summer warming in Europe between 1980 and 2022 with the projections of global and regional climate models, they found the regional models underestimated the actual warming by more than 1°C, on average. The global models did better, only underestimating by an average of around 0.5°C.
One explanation is the models are missing changes in air circulation patterns that are bringing more heat into the region. When Schumacher excluded the effects of circulation changes, this brought the global models nearly in line with the observed warming, but the regional models still underestimated the changes by more than half a degree on average.

Next, the researchers looked at what assumptions the models make about sunlight intensity. They found that most regional models didn’t account for the fact that sunlight intensity is increasing in Europe as levels of air pollutants decline. The few models that do factor this in match the observed warming.
“The key reason why these regional climate models failed to reproduce this human-induced warming is that most of them assume that air pollution is constant,” says Schumacher, who presented the finding at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria.

This means the regional models are underestimating how much warmer European summers will be by 2100 by more than 2°C, the team concludes. The underestimation of heatwaves is even greater, because during heatwaves there are usually clear skies and even more sunshine than normal, says Schumacher.
Regional models will now all be altered to take account of falling air pollution, but this will take time, he says.

It has been suggested that falling air pollution is partly responsible for the record-smashing global temperature rises in the past year or so, which were even higher than expected due to rising greenhouse emissions. Schumacher says the team’s study doesn’t shed any light on this question, but that other studies presented at the meeting found this isn’t the case.

He also stresses that his team’s findings shouldn’t be taken to mean that air pollution is a good thing, pointing out that it is estimated to cause millions of deaths every year.

 

[rob666]

Not caused by a reduction in pollution it doesn't!
That states a two degree increase overall, not an increase due to reductions in pollution.

 

[Benzin]

Amazing how theory often doesn't work in practice.

But like with anything else, people have to go "they got it WRONG" rather than look into the context of the situation at hand.

 

[rob666]

One of my very favourite albums of my youth...played it to death, but sadly it didn't get updated from vinyl...
Clear Air Turbulence...Ian Gillan Band.
My A level geography teacher spotted it at the lunchtime vinyl session, and described "the most terrifying day of my life" to us all...coming back from the typical Spanish holiday of the seventies, they hit the top of the jetstream and dropped a couple of thousand feet in seconds, no warnings, or seatbelts.

And of course with all this climate change, these things are only going to become more violent, and more frequent.

Reasons not to be a frequent flier no.27.

 

[GaryH]

So much for the Congestion Zone being about clean air and not money. Lots of people have bought EVs in London to pay a cheaper fee due to having a zero emission vehicle, but just spotted this hidden away on the website. Obviously London is losing too much in taxes from all those people driving EVs in the city:

"Only battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are eligible for the cleaner vehicle discount. From 25 December 2025, the cleaner vehicle discount will be discontinued. From this date, all vehicle owners, unless in receipt of another discount or exemption, will need to pay to enter the Congestion Charge zone during charging hours."

Discounts and exemptions for Congestion Charge and Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels charge

Exemptions list and eligibility criteria and how to apply online for discounts for Congestion Charge or Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels charge including discounts for Blue Badge holders and local residents.

tfl.gov.uk

Bit like the Government forcing EV owners to pay road tax from April 2025 of £165 a year same as a petrol and diesel vehicle. Also , taking into account most EVs cost more than £40k to buy new, the vehicle will be subject to the "posh car tax" of an additional £335 a year for the first 5 years.

So much for encouraging people to make the switch and try and achieve net zero! People are not going to switch unless owning an EV is considerably cheaper than a petrol/diesel equivalent, and with changes like this coming in, its going to make EVs even more unattractive to buyers.

 

[DiogoJ42]

Doesn't surprise me. Though you could technically argue that an EV still contributes to congestion. If- no, when - they try and pull this with ULEZ, on the other hand...

 

[rob666]

Clarification statement.
All the technology stuff that happened yesterday.
It wasn't me.
I stopped messing with computer stuff with the BBC model B.
Yesterday would have been the busiest day in our skies for five years.
It wasn't.
Last year it was the air traffic control computers that said no.
Mother Earth is having to take matters into her own hands, bribing software engineers.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

So much for the Congestion Zone being about clean air and not money. Lots of people have bought EVs in London to pay a cheaper fee due to having a zero emission vehicle, but just spotted this hidden away on the website. Obviously London is losing too much in taxes from all those people driving EVs in the city:

"Only battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are eligible for the cleaner vehicle discount. From 25 December 2025, the cleaner vehicle discount will be discontinued. From this date, all vehicle owners, unless in receipt of another discount or exemption, will need to pay to enter the Congestion Charge zone during charging hours."

Discounts and exemptions for Congestion Charge and Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels charge

Exemptions list and eligibility criteria and how to apply online for discounts for Congestion Charge or Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels charge including discounts for Blue Badge holders and local residents.

tfl.gov.uk

Bit like the Government forcing EV owners to pay road tax from April 2025 of £165 a year same as a petrol and diesel vehicle. Also , taking into account most EVs cost more than £40k to buy new, the vehicle will be subject to the "posh car tax" of an additional £335 a year for the first 5 years.

So much for encouraging people to make the switch and try and achieve net zero! People are not going to switch unless owning an EV is considerably cheaper than a petrol/diesel equivalent, and with changes like this coming in, its going to make EVs even more unattractive to buyers.

You're getting the purpose of Congestion Charge confused with with the Ultra Low Emission Zone. The latter is about encouraging people to drive less polluting cars and get cleaner air; the former is about discouraging people from driving to prevent congestion / traffic. The differences are self explanatory in their titles.

The Congestion Charge has never been about clean air, though that was a side benefit. It was about reducing congestion and regulating traffic, without the need to build further infrastructure as space is limited. Discounts were provided through Ultra Low Emissions Discounts, but at the time electric vehicles accounted for a trace amount of traffic through the Congestion Charge Zone. As the number of electric vehicles exponentially grows, and replace combustion engine vehicles, the discount has been revisited as it's no longer suitable for purpose. The purpose is to discourage traffic and prevent congestion; whether your car is electric, coal, petrol, diesel or wood chip doesn't matter, it's a car. It's on the road. It's adding congestion. It will be charged / discouraged.

We are proposing to set the charge level at £XX to help reduce traffic and congestion in central London and support the aims of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy. The increase in charge level reflects the high value of road space in central London and has been assessed to have a positive impact on traffic in the zone. This would also have a positive impact on air quality and carbon emissions. Road space in central London is tightly constrained and as far as possible, motorised traffic should be disincentivised from entering the CCZ.

High levels of motorised traffic in such a small area have significant negative impacts on those who work, visit and live in central London; increasing costs for businesses, slowing down essential journeys and negatively impacting air quality.

We expect the charge increase will reduce car traffic (measured in total kms driven) in the Congestion Charge zone (CCZ) by around 4% on an average weekday in proposed charging hours (0700-1800), compared to a situation where no changes were made to the pre-pandemic scheme. This is a significant reduction in an area where road space is heavily constrained and demand is high. The reduction in car usage is expected to result in an increase in sustainable travel to the CCZ with around 6,000 new trips made by public transport and a total of 2,000 new walking and cycling trips each weekday.

A smaller price increase would be less effective in reducing traffic. Modelling analysis indicates that a £XX charge would have a lesser impact on traffic in the zone, reducing car traffic (measured in total kms driven) in the Congestion Charge zone by around 1.5%.

While previous assessments have shown that a larger increase could have a more significant impact on traffic, we have proposed a charge level which provides a worthwhile traffic benefit while balancing the impact on individuals and businesses.

Source: - https://haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/congestion-charge-changes/widgets/26438/faqs#question9080

London Congestion Charge: a simple guide | RAC Drive

All you need to know about the London Congestion Charge, including when it applies, how much it costs, penalties for not paying and appealing a fine.

www.rac.co.uk

 

[rob666]

Back to the big elephant in the room.

Florida had a "one in fifty years" storm event two weeks ago.
It will have a "Once in a hundred years" event tomorrow.
New terminology required to cover these lies!

The insurance industry is having kittens, big ones.
You cannot insure for a 100% possibility/certainty...it does not happen.
So individuals have struggled for house and content insurance for some time.
Now seafront businesses, and inland businesses, can no longer get any insurance, and are moving away from the region.
If you don't get insurance, development collapses.
If you don't get development, economies start collapsing.
The whole of Florida is on a knife edge, and the banks are realising climate change isn't coming, it is here, and biting hard.

We are heading to hell in a handcart.
Florida is already there, now.

 

[RustyRider]

What’s happening in Florida right now is heartbreaking. They’re about 3 hours away from landfall and are currently being hit by 1/2 mile wide tornados in 3 different locations.

If you do one thing tonight, get onto a popular storm chasing live stream and feed as much as that info as you can onto X/twitter. So many locals aren’t heeding the warnings and are being caught out. You may think it won’t do any good but people are crying out for info who don’t truly know where to look. Ive seen webcams of people walking dogs on the beach with an imminent 12ft storm surge approaching.