Tim Worstall

Because, you know, the glaciers and snow melt will all be gone? The world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows. The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that [...]

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Chris Huhne has become the first Cabinet minister in living memory to be charged with a serious criminal offence after the fall-out from his acrimonious divorce left him facing court, a potential jail sentence and the end of his political career. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke. So, is the next bloke at DECC [...]

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A good price for EU carbon allowances on the trading market is required in order to boost investment in the low carbon economy. No. Just no. For investment in the low carbon economy is not in fact something we want. Sure, we want the result of a low carbon economy (OK, well, let’s stick within [...]

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Booker’s misunderstandings, like his commentary in general, are not original – in this case they come second-hand from the former Ukip press officer-turned-blogger Tim Worstall, whose complaint on the Adam Smith Institute blog is entitled “Perhaps Decc would like to do their sums again“. Worstall’s problem is that he “can’t find the price assumptions they [...]

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But Dr Gordon Edge, Director of policy at the lobby group RenewableUK, said much of the information was gathered from “anti-wind farm cranks”. He explained that modern gas plants are not required to provide back-up for wind. Instead, wind is “integrated” into the existing system to act as a fuel saver, enabling the UK harness [...]

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This is probably one of those questions so stupid that those who know what they’re talking about will laugh. However. CH4. Methane. I know that it’s possible to strip the C out using a catalyst. However, I have a feeling that it comes out as CO or CO2. Which, if you were trying to generate [...]

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The figures – released by RenewableUK, the industry’s trade body – include four deaths and a further 300 injuries to workers. That’s just in the UK and just in the past 5 years you understand. And when you calculate it by deaths by amount of energy produced it gets worse. The death rate for wind [...]

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They have gone virtually unnoticed amid all the bombast, bargaining and breaking news of the past two weeks of top-level climate negotiations. But tucked away in an obscure corner of the giant conference site in the middle of Durban are two South African women, surrounded by a pile of brightly coloured bags, who promise to [...]

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Chris Huhne: Britain should lead the world in cutting carbon emissions Chris Huhne has called for Britain to lead the world in cutting carbon emissions, setting himself on a collision course with George Osborne, the Chancellor. This is to allow Chris Huhne to walk tall among the environmentalists. To accept, nay demand, their praise and [...]

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Climate change report: In the last decade wind and other renewables have grown to the point that they now provide nearly a tenth of UK generating capacity. With nuclear power generating 16% of total UK electricity, a quarter of electricity generation is now low carbon. There’s a difference between generating capacity and generation isn’t there [...]

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Cameron and Clegg on climate change: This plan shows that moving to a low carbon economy is practical, achievable and desirable. It will require investment in new ways of generating energy, not a sacrifice in living standards. Investing in low carbon stuff means that we don’t invest in something else which means that we have [...]

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Umm, really? The chief economist for the International Energy Agency said Monday that current global energy consumption levels put the Earth on a trajectory to warm by 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, an outcome he called “a catastrophe for all of us.”Fatih Birol spoke as as delegates from nearly [...]

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But Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Environmental Protection Agency in Germany, who advises the German government, said: “We are not missionaries, and every country will have to find its own way in energy policy, but it is obvious that nuclear plants are too inflexible and cannot sufficiently respond to variations in wind or solar generation, [...]

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Some more of the emails stolen from the Climate Research Centre in 2009 have been released. This time they are accompanied by a readme with out-of-context quotes that asserts the purpose of the release is information transparency, but that’s an obvious lie, since they’ve sat on them for two years and released them just before [...]

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Wednesday’s report also found that the amount of investment needed to exploit gas reserves – about £32bn – would be enough to build 2,300 offshore wind turbines, which would produce enough renewable energy to meet government targets. Shale gas exploration also supports fewer jobs than renewable energy generation – hundreds of thousands of jobs could [...]

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Green MP Caroline Lucas may instinctively defend the interests of people rich enough to put solar panels on their roofs against those of the lowly consumers who have to pay to subsidise them, but the Treasury is, quite rightly, reducing the feed-in tariff for solar panels.

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Major storms could submerge New York City in next decade Sea-level rise due to climate change could cripple the city in Irene-like storm scenarios, new climate report claims My word, gosh, that’s terrible. How will this happen? The report, commisioned by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said the effects of sea [...]

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The abundance of scientific research showing we have pushed nature beyond its limits does not just demand green products and market-based solutions; it demands a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded not in dominance over nature but in respect for natural cycles of renewal—and acutely sensitive to natural limits, including the limits of human intelligence. ……….. [...]

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We are told that all this tax has to be levied for a reason: to account for the impact of cars’ greenhouse gas emissions, now and in the future, and to pay for the construction and maintenance of our roads. But the numbers don’t stack up. In 2009-10, we spent £9.9 billion on the road [...]

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If the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. We see this point being made all the time. But I’m [...]

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