How important is climate policy to the rise of UKIP?

The Exeter energy blog looks at the rise of UKIP and wonders to what extent its success can be put down to its position on climate.

With yesterday’s county council election results now showing a big UKIP vote, today seems an appropriate time to note that the rise in UKIP support correlates pretty well with an increase in scepticism expressed in polls.

I have no doubt that climate and, in particular, energy policy is a factor, but I would have thought it was a bit esoteric for most voters. The feeling that the inhabitants of the Westminster village are just taking it in turns to do the same ineffective things has more to do with it IMHO.

Kevin Anderson gets shirty

Kevin Anderson, the Tyndall Centre's uber green worrier-in-chief has written a heated riposte to Peter Lilley's Spectator piece about shale gas. It's pretty strange stuff.

The immediate source of his ire appears to be Lilley's description of him as the "Ayatollah of the green movement". It's hardly how you'd like to be introduced to your prospective mother-in-law, but it's not exactly the most cutting insult around, particularly in the climate debate. However, Anderson seems to take considerable umbrage. In particular, the fact that his name only appears once in the article - in connection with a wish to keep shale gas in the ground - seems to have escaped him, and he leaps to the conclusion that every criticism made by Lilley is directed at him. Much huffing and puffing ensues, and on Twitter, dark accusations of "lies and half truths".

Last time an university bod went off on one like this, I wondered out loud about the lack of professionalism within the academy. It was Doug McNeall, I think, who said "welcome to academia".

Upholders do climate sensitivity. Badly.

With all the interest in climate sensitivity, it was perhaps inevitable that the activist arm of the global warming consensus would continue to wail and gnash its collective teeth. I'm not entirely convinced that people are going to be persuaded by the latest contributions though.

In the first of these, Dana Nuccitelli continues his long struggle to become the least reputable person upholding the IPCC consensus (and heaven knows it's a strong field). In his latest contribution to the pages of the Guardian he continues to tell his readers that there is only a single study pointing to low climate sensitivity.

...when we put all the evidence together, we can be confident that average surface temperatures will warm between about 2 and 4.5°C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It's also important to remember that this range is based on a large body of evidence using several different approaches, which all give us about the same answer. No single study is going to overturn that vast body of evidence.

Click to read more ...

The word spreads

In the current edition of The Field (not online), motoring correspondent (and occasional BH commenter) Charlie Flindt is reviewing the latest Chelsea tractor from Mazda:

It’s funny how the world goes round. Not many years ago, four-wheel-drives were the most evil machines on the road, the spawn of the devil. The once-powerful Global Warming fraternity made it clear that such machines were redundant. Snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”, Dr David Viner, of the  University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, told the Independent. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” So to own a four-wheel-drive was to invite scorn, ridicule or worse from Prius-owning, yoghurt-wearing, muesli-knitters. How things have changed. Snow is regular, as well as crisp and even. The supplements bulge with adverts for fourwheel-drive cars – a well-known German car maker, famous for its obsession with rear-wheeldrive, ran a series of ads over the winter pointing out that many of its models had four-wheel-drive. Small comfort for those who may have spent 60 grand on a machine that spins impotently at the bottom of a snowy slope – a sign of the meteorological times.

Efficiency gains in the Marcellus

From an article about the continued growth of shale gas in the US comes this interesting snippet:

"Despite losing 53 rigs, gas production is still up an estimated 3.1 Bcf/d this gas year (November to November)," Adkins said.

"Wait a minute! Weren't low prices and high shale gas decline rates supposed to force U.S. gas supply sharply lower? Not for the Marcellus," Adkins said, noting that drillers can make money at $3.00/Mcf in the Marcellus.

My understanding had always been that you couldn't really make money from shale gas at less than $6/Mcf, hence the losses being accrued by many producers in the USA. Given that UK shale beds are much, much thicker than those in the Marcellus, this bodes well for the possibility of a financial bonanza and/or cheap gas.

Fracking in Sussex

The BBC's World This Weekend programme yesterday looked at the prospects for Cuadrilla's plans for frack for shale oil in the leafy south-east of England. This was a pretty balanced piece, with the prospect of the lights going out repeatedly raised as an important factor in the decision-making process. I think it's probably significant that this prospect is no longer considered eccentric or controversial but a real and present danger.

The magazine piece is followed by an interview with the man in charge of this shambles, Ed Davey, whose "answers" to questions are the epitome of vacuity. Towards the end, however, one does sense that the penny may be starting to drop.

The audio is attached below.

World This Weekend on Fracking

Head of SSE on the energy crunch

Ian Marchant, the head of Scottish and Southern Electricity is interviewed on the BBC. The section on the lights going out, on government energy policy, and some diplomatically worded thoughts on renewables starts at 18 minutes.

AR5: A Progress report - Josh 221

Steve McIntyre has a hilarious post on the desperate measures needed to get some non peer reviewed papers into the IPCC's AR5. I am not sure where the phrase 'Frankenscience' comes from but it seems appropriate for AR5 which already looks DOA.

Cartoons by Josh

Royal Society hits the big time

The Royal Society's election of Prince Andrew to the fellowship has hit prime time TV, with a prominent mention on Have I Got News For You.

Diary dates

13 May 2013

5.30 – 7.00pm

Fulton A Lecture Theatre
University of Sussex

Public lecture: Capitalism, carbon and climate change

Prof Michael Jacobs, LSE

This event will be followed by a drinks reception to which all are welcome

Public lecture
All welcome

Michael Jacobs is a Visiting Professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, and in the School of Public Policy at University College London. He is a former Special Adviser at the Treasury and 10 Downing St.

About the lecture

Climate change is now upon us: the science is incontrovertible.  But the economic downturn has turned public and political attention to more immediate concerns, and climate policy in Britain and the EU is going into reverse.

In this keynote lecture, Michael Jacobs will draw parallels between the financial crisis and the crisis of climate change, both rooted in a failure of orthodox economic theory and political debate to understand the systemic risks built up by an under-regulated capitalism.  Tackling both crises will require a new way of thinking about economic value and economic policy, and a reassertion of the role of politics in securing the public good.

Details here.

20 May 2013

Jubilee Library, Brighton
7.00 – 8.30pm

At a time of rising unemployment, energy and food costs, many families are struggling to heat their homes. But can fuel poverty be tackled without tackling climate change? And will tackling climate change – and other planetary boundaries such as water and land use – and keep the planet safe but make the poor poorer?

This debate will use the local issues such as fuel poverty and fracking to look at the global issues of environmental sustainability, poverty and social justice.

Speakers:

• Kirsty Alexander, Head of Communications, Nuclear Industry Association
• Thurstan Crockett, Head of Sustainability, Brighton and Hove City Council
• Doug Parr, Chief Scientist, Greenpeace
• Jim Watson, Research Director, UK Energy Research Centre

Details here.

2 December, 2013
6pm, The Royal Society of Edinburgh

Speaker

Professor Colin R McInnes FREng FRSE, Director, Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Strathclyde

The growing availability of energy dense fuels since the industrial revolution has been an overwhelmingly civilising and liberating influence. By replacing carbohydrate-fuelled human labour with hydrocarbon-fuelled machines, many of us have been freed from the land to think, innovate and create. This lecture will explore how energy has enabled us to re-arrange matter into organised structures, imprinting our ideas on the physical world. Contrary to contemporary limit-setting views, it will be argued that our ideas and enterprise can deliver a future of shared prosperity which can flourish into the deep future.

Details here.

Update on May 11, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Thursday 16 May, 6.30-8pm

Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE, London WC2A 2AE

Itinerant Farming to White House Arrests: a scientist’s view of the climate crisis

The unfolding human-made climate crisis seems almost surrealistic from a scientific perspective. As knowledge of a climate emergency improves, policies change in ways that exacerbate rather than mitigate the situation. The tragedy is that actions needed to stabilise climate, rather than being painful to society, would have multiple benefits, including stronger economies, more good jobs, and more equitable opportunities for individuals.

If our governments continue to fail to advance effective policy, thus causing continued extraction of every fossil fuel that can be found, today's children, future generations, and nature will bear the consequences through no fault of their own.

A variety of options for making governments do their job will be discussed.

Speaker: Dr James Hansen, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), Adjunct Professor of Earth Sciences at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and designated by Time Magazine, in 2006, as one of the world’s 100 most influential people

Chair: Professor Sam Fankhauser

Pointman on the state of the debate

Pointman looks at the climate debate and forms an optimistic view of where we are. It's a must-read:

Replace food stables with biofuel crops and let the food riots begin. Refuse to let the developing world have access to better GM seeds, and let the crops fail. Let them starve. Don’t allow them funds to build power plants, leave them without light and heat. Don’t let them have access to DDT, let millions die needlessly of malaria every year. The list is endless but the common denominator of them all, is spending lives to save the Earth from various perceived but illusory threats.

Another one bites the dust

Following close on the resignations of key officials at DECC, the Prime Minister's climate change adviser Ben Moxham has decided to call it a day too.

Ben Moxham, senior policy adviser on energy and the environment at Number 10, has become the latest in a line of key energy experts to leave government.

Moxham is understood to have become frustrated that climate change has slid down the government's agenda.

Update on May 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

The Telegraph's Emily Gosden reports that Moxham's replacement is to be Tara Singh, a PR person who used to work at Centrica and before that was a Conservative special adviser.

Update on May 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Joss Garman of Greenpeace tweets:

Guardian political chief @patrickwintour is reporting leading climate sceptic Peter Lilley is David Cameron's new energy adviser. #gp

Update on May 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Wintour's tweet is:

Shake up of no 10 climate change team. Peter Lilley, one of 5 Tory MPs to oppose climate change act, now overseeing energy, but not cc.

Update on May 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Press Association says Lilley has foreign affairs and not energy, according to Josh Garman.

Update on May 10, 2013 by Bishop Hill

Apparently Tara Singh is currently a spin doctor for Renewables UK.

Quote of the day

[In 2008] Scientists from the Met Office's Hadley Centre responded to Lord Lawson's contention that there has been no global warming since 2000, saying this was due to the La Niña cooling event of early 2007.

From the Wikipedia page on Nigel Lawson's An Appeal to Reason.

Another devastating indictment of energy policy

The FT's Nick Butler has added to the chorus of condemnation of government energy policy. His article is almost as good as the Liberum Capital briefing last week, and suggests that the whole policy is close to collapse:

The problems facing the Government’s plan to reform the UK’s electricity market go well beyond the departure of two of the limited number of civil servants who actually understand the proposals. The reality is that the Government is losing its appetite for a scheme which is liable to disintegrate under the weight of its own complexity...

The real problem is that the plans freeze the system in aspic at a time when the market and new technology are producing dramatic changes. The prices (we are not allowed to call them subsidies) represent corporate welfare on a very big scale – a transfer of wealth from consumers to suppliers which means that those who win the lobbying battle will be celebrating for decades to come.

With the roll-call of ministers responsible for DECC including Ed Miliband, Chris Huhne and Ed Davey, that the policy should by turns be corrupt, incompetent, and risible is hardly surprising. Its collapse cannot come a moment too soon. Nevertheless, it's hard to see the coalition (or indeed HM Opposition) being able to pull a more coherent alternative out of the bag: they have painted themselves into a corner with their green rhetoric.

Read the whole thing.

No let-up for the Met Office

Doug Keenan writes:

A new session of parliament began yesterday, and already parliamentary questions about the statistical analyses of Chief Scientist Slingo have been tabled in both houses.

In the House of Lords:

Lord Donoughue to ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Baroness Verma on 14 January (WA 110), 5 February (WA 31–2), 21 March (WA 170–1), and by Lord Newby on 23 April (WA 359), whether they will give their numerical assessment of the probability in relation to global temperatures of a linear trend with first-order autoregressive noise, as used by the Met Office, compared with a driftless third-order autoregressive integrated model and ensure that that numerical assessment is published in the Official Report; and if not, why not. [HL62]

(Background posts include “Questions to ministers” and “Advisers advise politicians to look in the peer-reviewed literature”.)

In the House of Commons:

Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the Answer of 15 April 2013, Official Report, column 261W, on climate change, what statistical models were used in any analyses done to calculate significances. [153909]

(Background posts include “Not answering the question” and “More from the Beddington FOI”.)