Climate Smörgåsbord , vol 1, no 3

Save the environment, clear cut the Forrest.

When you think about replacing fossil fuel electricity generation with renewable sources like Solar or Wind, you need to find a place to put the collectors. Denmark has established aggressive national goals for wind generation, and has found the perfect place to site the near-thousand foot windmills: a National Park that they're going to clear cut:

The Danish environment minister Troels Lund Poulsen decided, on behalf of the government, on 30th September 2009, that the clearing of 15 km2 of forest in the north west of Denmark will take place. A test centre for the development of offshore windmills is planned to take up 30 km2 of land in the Thy region, near Østerild. This deforestation will create an increase of 400,000 tonnes of CO2 emission, the equivalent of the CO2 emission of 100,000 people per year.

The government will force the local population out of their homes. The reasoning behind this is said to be for the benefit of the Danish windmill industry, which will in turn create more Danish jobs. The regulations to finalise the evictions goes against Denmark’s constitution and is therefore clearly illegal.

...

The Danish government has not consulted properly about the plans. The Danish citizens had little time to put forward comments of the project. The hearing has only been 11 days long, with 9 of those being a national holiday.

Well of course they planned the public hearings when everyone is on holiday. Otherwise, people might have asked all sorts of embarrassing questions. Can't have a bunch of tree huggers getting in the way of saving the environment!

Oh, and now that it's clear what a disaster is the Spanish "green power" program that Obama used as a model, this bold action by the Danish government must now be the inspiration for the coming US "green" revolution.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Create Jobs! Quintuple the price of Electricity!

That Spanish Green Power program that's bankrupting the Spain.Gov? Seems even the Germans can't make it work:

he German solar subsidy is something like 50 cents per KwH — to give one a sense of scale, the typical electricity price from fossil fuels there or here is something like 8-10 cents per KwH. Subsidizing just 20% of US electricity production at this kind of rate would cost $50 billion a year. Subsidizing all production would cost a quarter of a trillion dollars a year.

Let's see: if you wanted to add 100,000 "green" jobs, a quarter trillion dollars means you could pay each person $2.5M a year. Man, this environmentalism thing sure sounds lucrative! Where do I sign up?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Public acceptance in climate warming scare continues to plummet.

Yeah, I know - dog bites man:

Climate agnostics now outnumber true believers who believe radical action is required for the first time, according to a YouGov poll.

The number of people who acknowledge scientific opinions differ has risen from 25 to 33 per cent, while the number who believe global warming is "a serious and urgent problem and radical steps must be taken NOW to prevent terrible damage being done to the planet" has fallen 10 per cent to 28 per cent over a year. The number of respondents who declare that they're "very interested" in global warming has fallen from 31 per cent in 2007 to 18 per cent.

Yeah I know - this is the UK. So how does the American public feel about it?

Only about a third (32%) says it is very important for Congress to address climate change in the coming months, including 47% of Democrats, 29% of independents and 17% of Republicans. This is consistent with earlier Pew Research surveys that show the public putting a relatively low priority on addressing climate change.

People dig the idea that their electric bills will quintuple. Yeah, sounds like a great time to muscle Cap-And-Trade through Congress. Note to Contemptible Democratic Party: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Theory can't be wrong, the Data must be, part XLVII.

Carbon Dioxide levels before the last Ice Age were 5 times what they are today:

The CO₂ folk are flummoxed. In the current issue of Science (14 May) William F. Ruddiman of the University of Virginia wrings his hands over the mismatch between unchanging carbon dioxide levels and the drastically cooling climate over the past 20 million years. “Major glaciations began in the Northern Hemisphere around 2.75 million years ago, after a long prior interval of climatic cooling,” Ruddiman says, “… but our understanding of the driving forces behind the cooling remains incomplete.” [emphasis in original - Borepatch]

But we have to act on CO₂ right now!!!!1!!one!