pmccarthy

WHO misleads public with cherrypicked climate data Sorry about the length of this, but the original is behind a paywall. At the start of the FIFA World Cup in North America, sensationalist headlines suggested climate change could make the games “the most dangerous ever” because of the heat. Of course the claim is absurd given that the previous tournament was played in much hotter conditions in Qatar, but it is an excellent example of the activist-driven climate alarm stories we see every summer. Riding this wave, the World Health Organisation is again blurring the line between evidence-based public health and climate advocacy. A WHO commission made up of politicians and green advocates has urged the organisation to declare climate change a “public health emergency of international concern”. This is a flashback to the 2010s when WHO’s director-general named climate change the most important health issue of the 21st century. Not long after, Covid arrived – and WHO’s preparedness and early response were found deeply wanting. The lesson clearly was not learned. The WHO commission’s headline claim is that climate change poses a “catastrophic threat to human health”. Its key evidence comes from a Lancet study showing heat deaths in Europe are rising rapidly, reaching 63,000 a year. Even setting aside the peculiarity of a global health emergency built primarily on European data, the argument collapses under scrutiny. European heat death risk has risen 82 per cent since 1990. But heat mortality risk rises sharply with age and Europe has aged dramatically. Since 1990, the share of the European population over 70 has increased by 78 per cent. Ageing alone explains virtually all of the observed increase in heat deaths. The study and the commission simply ignore this. Any honest analysis of mortality would use age-standardised death rates that make figures comparable over time. The WHO report makes no such adjustment. The Global Burden of Disease, the leading mortality database, does. It shows that Europe’s age-standardised heat death risk has changed only marginally since 1990. Adjusted to reflect today’s population size and age distribution, the increase amounts to fewer than 850 additional heat deaths. The WHO commission’s figures exaggerate the problem more than 50-fold. The deeper dishonesty lies in what the report omits. As temperatures rise, heat deaths increase but cold deaths fall. Cold deaths far outnumber heat deaths on every continent. Using the age-standardised methodology that reveals minimal heat death increases, cold death rates in Europe have nearly halved since 1990. At today’s population levels, that translates to about 210,000 fewer cold deaths each year. The WHO commission conceals the fact cold deaths have declined by about 250 times as much as heat deaths have risen. The report’s second big claim is that climate change in Europe has made more Europeans food insecure. This strains credulity. Real food insecurity lies in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The claim also ignores UN projections showing the world on track for record cereal production. If the WHO commission were genuinely concerned about the world’s hungry, it would lead with those facts. There is a cruel irony in the commission’s prescription. Climate policies have already made electricity three to four times costlier for consumers in Europe than in the US and China, and more than a third of all Europeans now say they can’t afford airconditioning. Making even more aggressive emissions cuts would raise energy costs further, making heatwaves even deadlier for those who cannot afford airconditioning and prolonged cold deadlier for those who cannot afford heating. Higher energy prices also raise the cost of fertiliser and mechanised farming, pushing more people in developing countries into hunger. The prescribed cure is worse than the disease. The WHO director who convened the commission writes that “our citizens expect urgency from us” as though he were an elected politician rather than a health official. What global citizens expect from doctors is honest, evidence-based counsel. They do not expect clinical authority to be borrowed for political purposes or public alarm to be manufactured by omitting data that would defuse it. WHO exists to prevent disease and protect human health. Declaring a climate emergency on the basis of cherrypicked, misleading statistics will not protect the most vulnerable. It will erode the organisation’s credibility further, divert attention and resources from real threats and lend political cover to costly policies that harm the people WHO claims to champion. Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of False Alarm and Best Things First.

Japan cuts LNG imports in favour of coal Japan last month reduced gas-fired generation in favour of coal as the price of liquefied natural gas remained elevated, according to data from the nine largest Japanese power utilities. Japan has been burning more coal and less gas for power generation since the war in the Middle East started, and it is not the only one. All Asian countries have made the switch from gas to coal on affordability and availability grounds. Japan's LNG Imports Fall 7% as Utilities Chase Cheaper Coal | OilPrice.com Judith Curry: the era of “climate stupidity” is done. Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry says “It’s time to declare victory against climate stupidity and move on,” as major media outlets shut down their climate desks, corporations ease back on emission-reduction targets, and polls consistently show the public rates climate change low on their list of priorities. Climate researcher Judith Curry says the era of ‘climate stupidity’ is done and declares victory | Just The News

That all seems right. The estimate was made by a credible person. We had grid that worked, radiating from power stations. For taxpayers to benefit from SH2.0 we need a new grid, total cost of both is about one trillion. i am quoting Robert Gottliebsen in April. He called it the biggest financial disaster since Federation.

Then one example. The cost of connecting Snowy Hydro 2.0 to consumers via grid upgrades has been estimated at one Trillion dollars. How is that competitive with anything?

Wonder how they'd go fried in batter.

I just picked up my car from a service. The dealer gives me a little bag of jelly lollies. I don't know whether this is common practice, I'm afraid to try another dealer in case I don't get the jelly lollies.

Arnott's has undergone several ownership changes over the years: 1997: Arnott's was acquired by the Campbell Soup Company. 2019: Campbell's sold Arnott's to the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), making it a subsidiary of KKR.

I guess I am a serial offender. Just published a second book on gold mining history. https://www.echobooks.com.au/books/gold-beneath-the-hill

Jerry those free electricity hours will only be available to users who get a smart meter and sign a new contract. The new contract is expected to have higher rates at times outside the free time. Unless carefully managed with a lot of use in the free time, consumers will end up paying more than they do now. This is explained in a piece on the ABC news site.

Thanks, Octave for well argued AI analysis. As you might expect, it doesn’t change my point that there are studies ( indeed books) that challenge the science. And as for the political arguments from others, no further comment needed.

There are several studies that challenge the ice core data, and show that it is incompatible with actual conditions. For example https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396389619_Historical_CO_levels_in_periods_of_global_greening

Yes CO2 as been much higher in the past.

The trolley wire Kiruna trucks were quite popular in Europe. But they failed at Mt Isa as they produced too much heat from braking downhill. They did not have batteries, just produced the braking effect by sending the power into big resistor banks. Many mines in Europe and Canada have heaters at the surface just to stop the intake shaft from freezing up.

Trailing cable electric excavators have been around for fifty years at least.all the really big shovels and draglines are electric. Also the bucket wheel excavators in the Latrobe Valley. Electric wheel haultrucks, with diesel engines driving generators, were developed in the 1960s and widely used. Underground, we had trolley wire electric haul trucks from Kiruna at Mount Isa in the 1980s. The first trolley wire electric locomotives were used in Victorian gold mines and at Broken Hill South from 1902 onward.