The Alberta Climate Plan: Is Ezra Levant Right?

Not when he says the oil companies don't represent the oil companies, but in his generally negative attitude towards the whole thing?  Well, let's play Devil's advocate for a minute.  What does Alberta get from the rest of the planet for imposing on itself an economy-wide carbon tax?  We know what it wants: pipelines West and South so it can sell its oil to Asia.   Nobody really cares about Energy East.

But Keystone is dead.  So we're down to Northern Gateway and Transmountain.   Does the plan buy them either?  Well, the Trudeau government is going to formally ban oil tankers along B.C.'s North coast, so Northern Gateway is still dead.  What about Transmountain?  Well, a lot of the opposition to this line has nothing to with climate change, and of course there is a faction in the enviro community who would like the oil-sands shut down regardless of any commitments to better behavior the province and the oil companies might make.  They won't be swayed.  So maybe Transmountain goes through, or maybe not, but even if so it will be years down the line and billions spent along the proposed route to grease the skids before its open.  And who knows whether the market will need it by then.

And that's the only prize Alberta gets...potentially...from the whole endeavor.  So: good for the planet, good for Canada, but arguably not so great for Alberta.

IPCC Chair Rajendra K Pachauri Steps Down

The right thing to do, whatever the truth of the sexual harassment charges against him.  And in this case it was starting to look like there might have been some fire under all that smoke.

Arctic Gateway Route Relies On Global Warming To Thin The Ice

Stymied by opposition on the West Coast, the Alberta government has prepared a technical report outlining the possibility of an "arctic gateway" as an alternative means of getting their bitumen to market.

The entire report can be found here.  And below is a graphic showing some of the proposed routes out. (Note: click on the images for larger versions)

Contrary to news reports about it, the report authors seem to realize that their plan is a bit of a "hail Mary".  For example, it is "conceivable" that the plan could attract support among the local population "...if it can be done without undue risk to the environment..."  The text is filled with this kind of heavily qualified language.

 Furthermore, there is a handy chart which provides an economic benefits vs. environmental risk vs. "aboriginal subsistence value" ...

...which makes me think that it will be difficult to convince most of the First Nations in the area to sign on to the scheme.

And, ironically enough, the whole plan relies on global warning making the shipping season longer and therefore "... lessen required icebreaker escort/support, decrease transit times, and require much less ice-reinforcement of vessel hulls."  The entire eighth chapter is given over to discussing how the changes in the ice environment should enable increased tanker traffic in the area.

On the other hand, the passages relating to the effects of an arctic bitumen spill (possibly catastrophic), and the nation's preparedness for such a likelihood (0) make for some grim reading:

So there you have it.  Not really a serious alternative as far as I can tell.

Mark Steyn Hires A Spy

As my readers may know, conservative political commentator Mark Steyn is in some legal trouble, having gotten himself sued by climate scientist Mike Mann.  While we should be careful to judge these things before they are done, it is fair to say that things are not going well for Mr. Steyn.  His legal arguments have been shot down at every turn; one team of lawyers have already abandoned him suspecting, perhaps, madness.

Certainly, Mark's latest activity on this file has the stench of lunacy about it.  He has hired a private investigator to follow Mike Mann around and collect "evidence" of something or other:

I'm happy to announce we're now taking it to another level. As you know, legal maneuvering and the usual procedural folderol of the sclerotic US "justice" system has delayed my efforts to get Mann deposed, discovered, and for the first time in his life up on the witness stand, testifying about the "hockey stick" under oath. So it seems to me this is an excellent time to get on with the broader campaign against the climate mullahs. Aside from the best free-speech legal team in the land, we've now taken on someone to direct this side of the investigation against Mann. He's already working full-time on the case - he was in Washington yesterday for the Congressional hearings on the IPCC, and meeting with climate scientists and others. He'll also be heading to Penn State and other places hither and yon. I've been very grateful for your suggestions since I struck out on my own five months ago, and if you've any more I hope you'll continue to send them our team...

I don't know what Mark expects to find:  Dr. Mann handing off attache cases to Russia assasins, or maybe lunching with an agent from Hydra.  But it is particularly noteworthy that he's making public the fact that he has hired someone to tail the good doc. It smacks of an attempt to intimidate. When his case finally does get to trial, I imagine this will be useful in proving malice.

UK Climate Change Deniers Forced To Clean Up Act?

The GWPF  are an organized group of  AGW denialists based in the UK.  They are fronted by the notorious Benny Peiser,  and are known more widely  for the fact that one of their money men  and spokespeople is Nigel Lawson, dad to the sweet and buxom Nigella.

Earlier this year they were called out, by Bob Ward among others, for being a lobby group and not, as they have always claimed, "an educational charity", as this term is defined by British law.

Earlier this week they basically admitted this charge to be true, and  offered to rejig their website so that a part of it would be separated off and proffer the straight-up lies you are allowed to peddle as a lobby group. The other portion, would, presumably, offer misinformation that didn't quite make the straight-up lie standard.

Mann Vs. Steyn: Steve McIntyre Weighs In

I've written fairly extensively on the topic of Michael Mann's defamation case against Mark Steyn. Earlier this month, having fired, or been fired by, his lawyers, Mark Steyn appealed to the Internet to help build a case for claiming that, when he described Michael Mann's work as "fraudulent", he was not accusing him of scientific misconduct.  

Canadian climate change denier Steve McIntyre has now stepped up to make that case.  It's not going to help.

As usual, reading through McI's writing at Climate Audit is a joyless experience.  There's veiled accusations, insinuations, quote-mining, tortured semantics ...the works.  It's a hard job to boil it down to some at-bottom essence.  I am going to focus on this post, mostly because it's been reproduced uncritically at The Volokh Conspiracy blog, a right-wing legal blog which the Washington Post has, for some reason, decided to carry, and where it may therefore be seen by a larger audience.  The end-point of McI's argument  is that Michael Mann was not exonerated by the many, many panels, boards, and etc. which investigated him.  Therefore Steyn's claim, that Mann's results were "fraudulent", can somehow be supported.  That's what I gather, at least, having read through his original piece and its regurgitation at the VC site twice now.

McI's analysis of the Oxburgh Panel's report lean quite heavily on a few tossed-off comments made by statistician David Hand at a press-conference announcing the panel's findings.  These remarks were widely reported at the time.  McI quotes three or four press outlets, but I will reference just The Daily Telegraph, which seems to have reproduced them most extensively:

Professor David Hand said that the research – led by US scientist Michael Mann – would have shown less dramatic results if more reliable techniques had been used to analyse the data… But the reviewers found that the scientists could have used better statistical methods in analysing some of their data, although it was unlikely to have made much difference to their results.
That was not the case with some previous climate change reports, where “inappropriate methods” had exaggerated the global warming phenomenon. Prof Hand singled out a 1998 paper by Prof Mann of Pennsylvania State University, a constant target for climate change sceptics, as an example of this. He said the graph, that showed global temperature records going back 1,000 years, was exaggerated – although any reproduction using improved techniques is likely to also show a sharp rise in global warming. He agreed the graph would be more like a field hockey stick than the ice hockey blade it was originally compared to. “The particular technique they used exaggerated the size of the blade at the end of the hockey stick. Had they used an appropriate technique the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller,” he said. “The change in temperature is not as great over the 20th century compared to the past as suggested by the Mann paper.”

So, to begin with, let's assume that David Hand is strictly speaking correct here.  Mann's research team could have used more appropriate statistical techniques, and these would have given less "exaggerated" results.  Although the results obtained were not greatly exaggerated, because as Hand notes better techniques would also have shown "a sharp rise in global warming".  The work might have been done more carefully, in other words, but the fact it wasn't doesn't matter much.

This a long, long way from an accusation of scientific misconduct.  And remember, previous judges have already concluded that in this particular setting Steyn's use of "fraudulent" = "scientific misconduct. There is no colloquial sense of the term where it means something less serious.  So how this is suppose to help Steyn's case is a little bit mysterious.

But, of course, it's pretty clear that Hand has got his facts bungled.  Mann's team was interested in a paleoclimatic reconstruction--in an attempt to determine temperature changes before the instrumental record.  This work took the 20th century instrumental record, which shows rapid increases in temperature,  as a given, and did nothing to transform it in either an exaggerated or any other manner.  Therefore Hand's criticism seems to have little merit.

And it is significant that shortly after the Panel published its findings, it added the following addendum to them:

Addendum to report, 19 April 2010

For the avoidance of misunderstanding in the light of various press stories, it is important to be clear that the neither the panel report nor the press briefing intended to imply that any research group in the field of climate change had been deliberately misleading in any of their analyses or intentionally exaggerated their findings. Rather, the aim was to draw attention to the complexity of statistics in this field, and the need to use the best possible methods. 

As I argued at the time, this sounds pretty close to a grovelling apology.  Oddly enough, McI and the folks at the VC blog interpret it differently:

Note that this statement doesn’t actually offer an opinion on whether the (criticized) findings were “deliberately misleading” or “intentionally exaggerated,” merely stating that their comments were not intended to imply this accusation.

This strikes me as semantic noodling, but if we are going to engage in such things, note that the addendum references not just Mann's team but "any research group in the field of climate change".  So if it is refusing to offer an opinion of Mann's work, it is also refusing to offer one on the work of the CRU scientists who were the subject of its investigation in the first place.  And such a stance would be ridiculous given the reason for the panel's existence.

Finally, McI seems to be claiming that, since the panel was not investigating Mann directly, it cannot "exonerate" him.  Indeed, the Oxburgh Panel had other concerns, and if I remember events correctly, it was only when a small group of deniers within the  U.K. Institute of Physics hijacked a sub-committee and used it to spread the accusations of misconduct more broadly, that Mann and his team were dragged into this mess.  But insofar as the panel touched on Mann's work, it cleared him of wrong-doing.  Other investigations, more directly focused, cleared him in a more decisive fashion.  And it's more than a little silly that McI would lean on a non-existent colloquial sense of "fraudulent" while insisting on a legalistic reading of "exonerate".

Global Warming Denier James Delingpole Gets Ass Booted Out Door

Word is the UK Telegraph (the Torygraph, as they call it) felt he was an embarrassment.  And of course, in his sign-off column he admits he knew nothing about science.  Something most of us figured out long ago.

Although I would also suggest he's pretty ignorant even for one of us English grads.

Copernicus Publishing Terminates Pattern Recognition In Physics

Here's what you see when you go to the home page of the journal Pattern Recognition In Physics:

It looks like I may have been wrong about this being a first issue in my previous post.  It was still, however, a relatively new journal.

In any case, Kudos to Copernicus Publications.

On Pattern Recognition In Physics

Pattern Recognition In Physics (PRP, I'll call it) is a new, open access journal devoted to "experimental and applied aspects of pattern analysis, extraction, classification and clustering in all branches and disciplines of physics".  This sounds quite sciency but may mean not very much when you parse it carefully.  Anyway, it's published by Copernicus Publications, an "innovative" open access publisher of open access scientific journals that, from what I hear, is making an  honest stab at intellectual respectability.

To do a bit of foreshadowing, publishing PRP won't help them in achieving that goal.

One of Copernicus publishing's "innovations" is that they allow you to "Launch Your Own Journal":

PRP appears to one of these launch-your-own numbers.  And if you look at the Copernicus home-page its shown as a "new title", and the only papers listed are very recent.  We are looking at a first  issue.

Here's a cover shot of that issue:

Hmm.  So its a "Special Issue".  What exactly does that mean?  Lets see:

Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP) offers an efficient new way of publishing special issues which are commonly the result of a session or multiple sessions at conferences, but can also be from a small group of people deciding that a given special issue on a given subject of theme would be appropriate. 

Now that's what it says for PRP.  The language seems to be adapted from Copernicus Publishing boiler-plate.  Here's another example.  But note that the last clause of the above (starting with "but can also...") is missing from the ESurf statement, and from similar statements made re other Copernicus journals.

So this is the first issue of a journal that's basically the result of a "small group of people deciding etc.".  Lets see who these are, shall we? Below is the authors list for the General Conclusions paper; the authors of the other papers in the issue are a subset of this list.

People that read this blog may be familiar with some of these names.  They are climate change denialists of one stripe or another.  Tattersall is a blogger who writes under the name of Tallbloke.   W. Soon = Willie Wei-Hock Soon. N. Scaffeta = Nick Scaffeta.  Nils-Axel Mörner is a crazed wingnut who is also a goddamn water witch!  JE Solheim thinks that a simple harmonic model (movements of the sun, moon and planets together with linear trends) provides a better fit to the global temperature data since 1850 and likely a better predictor than the assembly of 44 climate models used by the IPCC.  So you knows he's messed up in the head.

And etc. with the rest of them.

So what appears to have happened is that a small group of denialists paid money to Copernicus Publishing, launched their own journal under its  imprint, and published crap  Now they can say its all passed "peer review".  It will be interesting to see exactly what this means under the circumstances.  That they read one another's stuff?

On the other hand the reputation of Copernicus Publishing just took a boot to the nads.  I'm already hearing rumors of editors of/authors for other Copernicus journals launching complaints over this. If you are trying to maintain your cred as a scientist you don't want to be seen in proximity to this kind of nonsense.

PS.  I was wrong about this being a first issue.  Its the second issue but the first special issue, and the last of any kind, apparently. This is the first issue; its mostly the special issue with a few non-climate-related papers added.

Speaking Of Losing Your Lawyer: Mark Steyn Has Lost His in Mann v. National Review

A print-screen from a recently filed motion (its only two pages long):

One can only speculate.  But Steyn has, as Ezra Levant sometimes does, kept up with the abuse after proceedings have been launched against him.  For example last week on his N.R. blog. Lawyers don't like it when you make their job defending you more difficult by playing an asshole on the Internet.

So it might have something to do with that.

Some background here.

Kinder Morgan Pipeline: Might Be A Little Problem With That

Seventy-three per cent of the proposed new routing will follow existing rights-of-way. About 980 kilometres of new pipe would need to be constructed.

According to my calculations, Kinder Morgan will have to buy or otherwise gain access to a strip of land 311 klicks long (about 186 miles) and probably about 25/50 meters wide, if Keystone XL is any guide.  I've written earlier that  the chances of this project happening vary inversely with the amount of new right-of-way Kinder Morgan needs to get hold of.  I would suggest that those chances have fallen somewhat.

A Couple Of Polls On CDN Pipelines

From Forum, so FWIW:

A bit surprising, or at least other polls in B.C. have shown support for NG drifting upward.  And, nterestingly enough, opposition to the Keystone XL line is and remains much higher in Canada than in The United States.

Tom Adams In Sun: Mostly Sane

There are bits of it I don't agree with.  For instance, any fair reading of Ontario history would show that the province's dalliance with gas power predates the Green Energy Act, and wasn't  a conspiracy to cover-up (or "backstop") the poor performance of its wind farms.

But most of it (meaning over half) is OK, even relatively informative.  There are several bits that are particularly interesting, because they undermine the arguments anti-wind types, Adams among them, have made on previous occasions.  For instance this:

Adams said the real effect of the wind and solar investments on bills has yet to sting ratepayers but will drive up prices over the next few years.

...which is to say that, Vic Fedeli aside, you can't really lay any serious portion of the recent increases to your power bill  at the feet of wind energy (well, a little bit--wind & solar account for about three per cent of your total bill though that, as everyone admits, will rise in time).

And then there's this bit:

Ontario hydro ratepayers pay Bruce nuclear and solar and wind generators even if the power isn’t needed or used, he said.

Gas plants are a guaranteed a rate of return through a monthly stipend — even at times when the power they generate is not needed, he said.

Which is to say that the kind of deal arrangement that critics of wind power complain about (ie wind farms are paid to produce unneeded power) also exist between the government and all the province's other electricity producers.  So why single out wind for special approbation?

Northern Gateway Set To Heat Up

The National Energy Board (NEB) report on the project is set to be released by month's end.  All the media hoopla around the release will occur...wait for it...in Alberta, with B.C., the province through which most of the pipe-line will run, made a mere spectator.  Assuming the NEB gives its approval, and Harper's cabinet signs off on the project, this issue will dominate B.C. politics up until the next federal election.  Former government chief of staff Norman Spector gives a hint of the gathering mood:

“There are a lot of people in Alberta who think the federal government is going to bowl this pipeline through British Columbia. It isn’t going to happen, whatever the legal authority. It isn’t going to happen. They better wake up and smell the coffee.”

Recent polls appear to have shown a rise in support for the pipeline, but I suspect that's because it has fallen out of the headlines for awhile.  Watch sentiment to turn negative as things heat up.  And if the feds try to push this thing through, expect national unity problems out on the West Coast.

Denier Down: Lindzen Retires

Climate change skeptic Richard Lindzen, most famous perhaps for arguing that global warming would be naturally offset by the Earth's adaptive infrared iris ( a theory which has been pretty thoroughly discredited over the years) , has officially retired.  Perhaps, and hopefully, he will step away from various odd theories, but who knows he might take this as an opportunity to pursue the right-wing talking-head circuit with renewed vigor. His work passed long ago from the realm of science to propaganda.

23 Seconds Of Truth

...on the tar-sands, from Alberta's Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths.  Kooky boy thinks this will get the minister in trouble.  I don't pretend to know the politics out there well enough to say.  But stay tuned for possible recantations.

Update: A warm-up to a recantation?  Will his career implode, or will he be forced to grovel before an angry mob of tar miners?

Jonathan Chait's Puzzling Defense Of Keystone XL

He writes:

Keystone is at best marginally relevant to the cause of stopping global warming. The whole crusade increasingly looks like a bizarre misallocation of political attention.

My view, which I laid out in a long feature story last spring, is that the central environmental issue of Obama’s presidency is not Keystone at all but using the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate existing power plants. That’s a tool Obama has that can bring American greenhouse gas emissions in line with international standards, and thus open the door to lead an international climate treaty in 2015. The amount of carbon emissions at stake in the EPA fight dwarf the stakes of the Keystone decision.

This is bizarre.  The Obama administration has already committed to having the EPA regulate new and exiting power plants (starting with the easier and less controversial situation re new plants).   Chait is asking the environmental movement to focus its attention on a battle that, for the time-being at least, they seem to have already won.  What is the point of that?  Why not look for new victories?  Why not aim and for Keystone dead AND coal regulated into obsolescence?

For Mac Mayor Talks Global Warming: B.C. Is Sinking And Alta. Real Estate Is Going UP UP UP

 Three-time mayor Melissa Blake on AGW:

“I’m a big believer that, yes, the climate is changing. If the climate goes up by two, three, four degrees in the future, we’re lucky to be here in Fort McMurray. We’re lucky not to be in California or BC. They’re going to fall in the ocean. In a place like this, we’re going to survive a lot better.”

You mean digging up bitumen is a good thing, because it will make Fort McMurray’s winters milder?

With a nervous laugh, she assents: “And that means my real estate becomes a very important asset in the future, so I’m not selling my house anytime soon.”

What sweet sentiments.  I am sure the folks in B.C., though which Alberta oil must flow, will be very happy.

Its David Rose

So its best to ignore him when he writes on the issue of Global Warming or, really, on any issue, but this bit:

The continuing furore caused by The Mail on Sunday’s revelations – which will now be amplified by the return of the Arctic ice sheet – has forced the UN’s climate change body to hold a crisis meeting.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was due in October to start publishing its Fifth Assessment Report – a huge three-volume study issued every six or seven years. It will now hold a pre-summit in Stockholm later this month.

...is pretty close to a straight-out falsehood, as Mr. Rose has already been told by one of the scientists he quotes in the article that, well...

@StottPeter Yes - I told David Rose on the phone and by email on Thursday about the IPCC process and lack of 'crisis' meeting.
— Ed Hawkins (@ed_hawkins) September 8, 2013

But, again, its David Rose.  He has a long history of mis-hearing what he's been told.

Harper's New Enviro Plan: Show Me The Money

...or, more precisely, the cuts in Carbon Emissions.  Simon Donner of UBC has it right:

@tyler_bryant @StephenLeahy Right. Climate value of "trading" pipeline for GHG reduction elsewhere will depend on the numbers
— Simon Donner (@simondonner) September 6, 2013

...which is to say that a deal is doable, if whatever Keystone XL produces by way of carbon emissions can be offset elsewhere.  To embed Mr. Donner again:

@StephenLeahy Not ideal, but not impossible. Lots of other GHG reduction opportunities in Canada which could be offered.
— Simon Donner (@simondonner) September 6, 2013

We shall see.  But I should say I doubt this government's ability to whomp up a real CO2 reduction plan in the time available, especially if it needs buy-in from the provinces.  For example, to save the tar sands does Ontario's auto industry get thumped?

But, once again, doable...as in not impossible.