John Happs
Dr John Happs, MSc 1st Class; DPhil. John has an academic background in the geosciences with special interests in climate, and paleoclimate. He has been a science educator at several universities in Australia and overseas and was President of the Western Australian Skeptics for 25 years.
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.
Winston Churchill (1874–1965)
It came as no surprise when (Australian Prime Minister) Anthony Albanese defended the alarmist statements King Charles made about climate change (The Weekend Australian, October 26-27, 2024), since neither have qualifications nor expertise in this complex, interdisciplinary area.
In March 2009, Charles warned us that the world had “less than 100 months to save itself.”
On the 15th of December 2009, at Copenhagen, he later declared:
For the grim reality is that our planet has reached a point of crisis and we have only seven years before we lose the levers of control.
https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop 15/statements/application/pdf/cop15 hls 091215 speech princeofwales.pdf
Prince Charles told us on July 18, 2015, that the world had “just 35 years to save the planet” from “global warming”. His new (hastily revised) climate ‘tipping point’ mercifully gave us all a huge reprieve from his original seven-year tipping point he warned us about in in 2009.
In 2021 Charles said that the Glasgow COP26 summit, was a “last chance saloon”. Without action “it will be a disaster”, he said. “It will be catastrophic. It is already beginning to be catastrophic.”
https://www.aol.com/just-talk-prince-charles-understands-095514149-171609696.html
Charles famously (and laughably) went on to say:
It seems to me that whilst there is now only a mercifully small, if vociferous, number of people who do not accept the science of climate change and who should know better.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/10/13/prince-charles-adds-to-his-list-of-climate-last-chances/
Charles called people (like me) who deny human-made climate change the “headless chicken brigade.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/prince-charles-finds-climate-change-denial-most-unbecoming-1.2518727
Both Charles and Albanese need to face up to facts, rather than the political/ideological nonsense promoted by the United Nations. They need to be constantly reminded that tens of thousands of scientists have signed petitions to say there is no climate emergency. I would suggest that Charles and Albanese look up the following to see that mercifully small number:
More than 4,000 scientists, including 70 Nobel Laureates have signed the Heidelberg Appeal to say there is no climate emergency: https://americanpolicy.org/2002/03/29/the-heidelberg-appeal/
More than 31,000 scientists, including geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers and environmental scientists, signed the Oregon Petition to say there is no climate emergency: http://www.petitionproject.org/
More than 1,600 scientists have signed the CLINTEL petition to say there is no climate emergency: https://nexusnewsfeed.com/article/climate-ecology/over-1-600-scientists-and-professionals-sign-no-climate-emergency-declaration/
Many NASA scientists, engineers and astronauts have signed a petition, objecting to the climate alarmism that has reached the media from several of NASA’s activist scientists. This petition can be found at: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/10/49-nasa-scientists-call-bs/
Charles went on to say:
I can only offer every encouragement for action with unequivocal determination to arrest rising temperatures by cutting emissions, building resilience as far as possible to both the current and forecast impacts of climate change in conserving and restoring nature, both on land and in the sea.
The Monarchy should stay out of politics and there is no doubt that climate alarmism is pure politics, based on the blatant fraud promoted by the United Nations, via its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
If King Charles and Anthony Albanese think that the global temperature is rising at an alarming rate, they need to look at what the peer-reviewed, published literature actually says – not the news media or the ‘massaged’ Summaries for Policymakers put out by UN officials.
Any geoscientist would tell Charles and Anthony Albanese that the Earth has been cooling for the last 65 million years and we are currently living in a mild period of an ice age. With a number of ups and downs, we are currently experiencing the coolest Earth has been in over 200 million years and carbon dioxide has never driven global temperature at any time during that time:
Surely, even the most scientifically challenged individuals can see from the above graph that carbon dioxide emissions have no impact on global temperatures.
Charles continued his unsubstantiated alarmism, saying:
This year alone, we have seen terrifying storms in the Caribbean, devastating flooding in East Africa and catastrophic wildfires in Canada. Lives, livelihoods and human rights are at risk across the Commonwealth.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-25/king-warns-against-climate-threat/104516712
Rather than trying to convince us that we are experiencing record extremes because of climate change, Charles and Anthony Albanese need to read and understood the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 technical report, Chapter 11 on Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate, where they would see the following summary chart:
King Charles and Anthony Albanese need to be told that the IPCC finds no detection of more extreme weather and no attribution to human activity. Of course, you can expect to find climate alarm promoted in the politicised Summaries for Policymakers, written by UN officials and mischievously distributed to the media, politicians and (presumably) to Charles and Anthony Albanese.
If “Lives, livelihoods and human rights are at risk across the Commonwealth,” it is because more people have more assets to lose and are choosing to live in areas where floods, fire, hurricanes and drought have always visited. Alarmists might want to ask why numerous councils allow building on flood plains, only to blame climate change when the next inevitable flood arrives. They might also ask why people build in the Australian bush in areas where prescribed burning is prohibited.
Matt Canavan sensibly suggested that, “Charles should stay out of contemporary political debates.”
As should Anthony Albanese who famously told us we could charge our electric cars overnight from our solar panels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyS9uqRLbB8
Anthony Albanese said that climate change was: “A substantial threat that exists in countries like Tuvalu….”
I recently visited a number of Pacific islands but saw no evidence of islands ‘sinking’. I trust Charles and Albanese will be pleased to learn there is absolutely no evidence to support any contention that there is a substantial threat that exists in countries like Tuvalu….”
No islands in the Pacific or Indian Oceans are threatened by sea level rise. In 2010, Drs Webb and Kench from Auckland University showed that 23 out of 27 Pacific Islands had either remained intact or had actually grown in area. Some Pacific islands had grown dramatically. The two researchers told the BBC:
That rather gloomy prognosis for these nations is incorrect … It has been thought that as the sea level goes up, islands will sit there and drown. But they won’t. The sea level will go up and the island will start responding.
https://www.bbc.com/news/10222679
Webb and Kench indicated that the islands of Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia are among those which have grown. Kench made it clear:
We have now got the evidence to suggest that the physical foundation of these countries will still be there in 100 years…
Charles and Albanese should be pleased to note that relative sea level in the Maldives is not rising but has indeed fallen and the Maldives government mines coral for building and is constructing 11 new regional airports.
Abdulla Ziyath, managing director of the Maldives Marketing and PR Corporation has described how the Maldives government is opening a $100 million resort with the creation of 23 hotels and an estimated 2,100 new beds. Additionally, they will spend $500 million on a complex that includes an 18-hole floating golf course:
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Hotels-g293953-zff8-Maldives-Hotels.html
Do Charles and Albanese think this looks like an island group expecting to be inundated by rising seas? No doubt they were impressed when Maldives President Nasheed appeared to work underwater – either in preparation for the drowning of the Maldives or to fool gullible western politicians into giving him money as climate compensation?
I suggest Charles and Albanese do what I have done – ask one of the Maldives real estate agents how much one would have to pay to own even the smallest of their islands. Never has land about to be submerged (according to climate alarmists) been so expensive.
https://island-seeker.com/islands-for-sale/maldives/
In 2005, climate alarmists predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010 as a result of sea level rise and extreme weather. It’s now 2024. So, where are those 50 million climate refugees?
Charles and Albanese claim that Australia and Britain are both on the path to net zero with schemes for offshore wind turbines and hydrogen.
More than a thousand whales, dolphins and porpoises have died around the UK’s coastline every year for the last eight years. This is roughly twice as many as in the previous 25 years, thanks to the construction of offshore wind turbines. The Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas reports:
The UK’s 2023 annual report to Ascobans reveals an appalling level of cetacean deaths in British seas, and comes in the wake of record-breaking increases in whale, dolphin and porpoise mortality in recent years. This shocking statistic should be a wake-up call to those planning to further industrialise our seas…
https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/10/22/latest-uk-data-reveals-record-breaking-5000-dead-whales-dolphins-porpoises-in-just-5-years-coincides-with-massive-offshore-wind-projects/
Presumably, King Charles and Anthony Albanese have no objections to those offshore wind turbines that are killing whales and dolphins:
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/10/the-mystery-of-a-thousand-dead-whales-and-dolphins/#comments
Presumably, King Charles and Anthony Albanese have no objections to wind turbines that are killing large numbers of birds, bats and insects:
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2023/08/17/cutting-edge-wind-farm-still-an-eagle-killer/
I would like King Charles and Anthony Albanese to watch the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw
Presumably, King Charles and Anthony Albanese support solar plants that are “frying” large numbers of birds. Federal biologists say about 6,000 birds die from collisions or immolation annually while chasing flying insects around the facility’s three 40-story towers:
https://undark.org/2016/08/11/video-surveillance-ivanpah-solar-wildlife-deaths/
Presumably, King Charles and Anthony Albanese support wind turbines that are killing large numbers of bats:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-three-bat-species-now-considered-endangered-as-wind-turbines-take/
I wonder if Charles and Albanese know that solar panels and wind turbines are made using energy from coal?
The other energy fantasy, supported by Charles and Albanese is so-called “green hydrogen.”
Andrew Tillett and Brad Thompson have reported that:
The Albanese government is sticking with its plan to dole out billions in taxpayer-funded handouts for green hydrogen despite Fortescue scaling back ambitious production goals and axing 700 jobs.
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/albanese-sticks-to-hydrogen-despite-fortescue-retreat-20240718-p5juq5
Cheered on by Charles and Albanese, the green hydrogen fantasy has already been shown to be ridiculous. It is costly to produce hydrogen from water and the problems of production, storing, transport, pipeline deterioration and cracking and its low energy content should be sufficient to abandon the idea of hydrogen as a fuel. Note also that existing home appliances, currently and successfully using natural gas are unsuitable for using hydrogen.
Norwegian energy giant Equinor has now abandoned plans to produce hydrogen, citing high costs and lack of demand. It is unlikely there will ever be a demand for hydrogen because it is far more expensive than natural gas and the problems with production, storage and transport look to be insurmountable.
The green hydrogen project Westküste 100 in Heide, Germany, has been “halted prematurely”. The reason being that it’s uneconomical.
Greg Jackson, the boss of the UK’s Octopus Energy company, has compared using hydrogen for home heating to “flushing the toilet with champagne.”
Presumably, Charles and Albanese continue to think that hydrogen is a “super-fuel” when it is hopelessly energy inefficient, massively expensive, and extremely difficult to store and transport. Furthermore, they don’t see the lack of logic behind taking one form of energy only to waste much of that energy in converting it into another less energy-dense form at massive cost.
Meanwhile, Australian and British taxpayers are already suffering because of the pointless net zero policy that has led to significant hikes in electricity charges.
It will not be long before both countries face a power crisis as grid guaranteed capacity will be less than power demands.
Ross Clark points out that the UK is much closer to blackouts than anyone dares to admit and Australia has already had a glimpse of the net zero future with blackouts in Broken Hill (population 19,000), resulting in Mayor Tom Kennedy pointing out that state and federal governments “needed to learn” from the experience, and how wind and solar energy are “almost useless” in a crisis without baseload power. Indeed, 650 million AUD worth of renewable energy investment within a 25km radius of Broken Hill has indeed proved to be useless.
So, how is progress to eliminate that invisible, non-toxic, life-giving atmospheric trace gas carbon dioxide going? Fortunately, we are seeing a rise in that essential, life-giving atmospheric gas, despite nations having now spent close to 12 trillion dollars on useless mitigation schemes and the 29 equally useless Conferences of the Parties. Here is the result:
No progress at all after 29 taxpayer-funded useless Conferences of the Parties.
The majority of non-Western countries produce more than 70 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions and they are home to more than 80 per cent of the global population. Sensibly, they don’t regard carbon dioxide reduction as a priority, rather, they are focussed on economic development and having a reliable electricity supply.
Energy analyst Robert Bryce has reported how USA citizens have rejected or restricted 735 wind and solar projects since 2015, along with 58 solar and 35 wind proposals so far this year. They simply don’t want them.
Kathryn Porter in the Telegraph, has compiled a long list of failures as offshore wind projects get frozen around the world. After years of subsidies, wind power was meant to get cheap enough to be profitable and competitive all by itself, instead, 25 years later, it just demands bigger subsidies. In fact, wind projects have been drying up around the world with Germany’s expansion of wind energy having ground to a halt.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/10/green-energy-plans-wind-solar-power-myth/
Unlike President Donald Trump, King Charles and Anthony Albanese can’t see that many countries are gradually waking up to the green energy mirage, along with the economic and political debacles that are entirely self-inflicted. Led by the USA, country after country is now abandoning its once-generous support for renewable energy. Europe now realises that its green energy strategy is dying and green dreams about running nations on unreliable, inefficient wind and solar energy are giving way to harsh economic realities.
Unfortunately, Australia’s Labor party continues to have green dreams.
One would think that King Charles and Anthony Albanese would be aware that spending billions of dollars on useless wind and solar schemes has only resulted in energy poverty for many in the UK and Australia with many having to choose between eating or heating/cooling.
Neither Anthony Albanese nor King Charles have learned from the failed net zero/off-grid attempts by small islands such as El Hierro, Eigg and King Island where the not-surprising failure of wind and solar have show-cased the nonsense of net zero and the financial burden that is inevitably borne by consumers.
Of course, the wealthy will not be impacted by the green energy nonsense that disproportionately impacts poor people. King Charles and Anthony Albanese will be well insulated by their personal wealth and positions.
Forbes reported that:
Even before his coronation on May 6, Charles now oversees some $46 billion in assets and inherited at least $500 million from Queen Elizabeth, including her castles, jewels, art collection and a horse farm – all of it tax-free.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2023/05/04/how-rich-is-king-charles-iii-inside-the-new-monarchs-outrageous-fortune/
So, no problem with power bills or transport for Charles.
Kevin Airs reported how:
In almost a decade Anthony Albanese has quietly been putting together a significant real estate portfolio. Over the last 32 years, Mr Albanese has been climbing the property ladder and now owns several homes worth around $5million in Sydney and Canberra.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10666653/Anthony-Albaneses-net-worth-Labor-leader-secret-property-tycoon-Sydney-Canberra.html
Sky News revealed that Albanese receives a salary of $564,356 which was increased by $15,500. Last year, his property portfolio gives the prime minister an impressive $115,000 salary top up. Renting out his family home adds $70,000 to his yearly income.
Again, no problem with power bills or transport for Anthony Albanese.
China, India, Russia, Indonesia, the US and other nations refuse to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. Hopefully, there are signs that the net zero fantasy is coming to an end in the UK with an admission from the Government that the political consensus for a need to achieve net zero has faltered as the Minister of State, Lord Hunt commented:
I sense, as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, suggested, that some of the political consensus on net zero may be breaking down.
Andrew Montford added:
The cross-party enthusiasm for net zero has been, and is still, immensely damaging, allowing crazy policies to go almost unscrutinised. If the days of opposition parties refusing to oppose are coming to an end, taxpayers and consumers should be grateful.
Fortunately, the crazy climate policies are not going unscrutinised.
King Charles and Anthony Albanese would do well to look at a few surveys. They would see that Americans placed climate change at the bottom of their list of important issues:
Charles should note that a third of British teenagers now think that climate change alarmism is exaggerated:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/01/17/guardian-a-third-of-british-teenagers-think-climate-change-is-exaggerated/
Albanese should note that polling results indicate how most Australians don’t believe there is much of a climate crisis:
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/08/australians-still-dont-want-to-give-up-steak-cars-gas-stoves-or-pay-much-for-netzero/
Government polling has shown that most Canadians are not alarmed about climate change.
More recent polling has shown that 60 per cent of US voters see climate change as a religion and has nothing to do with the climate.
In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll just one per cent of voters named climate change as the most important issue facing the country. Climate change was far behind concerns about inflation and the economy.
Major financial institutions have withdrawn from Global Climate Investments and others are about to follow.
Many large corporations are now abandoning their climate commitments. The asset management behemoth BlackRock (the world largest asset manager and once a leader in Environmental Social Governance investing) has contacted its institutional investors to announce its exit from an emissions-focused investor group.
BlackRock has managed more than $10 trillion and has been a leader in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. Having seen the writing on the wall for the nonsense that is climate alarmism, Blackrock has now left the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) coalition.
No doubt BlackRock has reflected on the election of Donald Trump, who is aware of the United Nation’s climate scam. The US (and other nations) will now embrace coal and gas investment strategies. Other corporations to see the light, include Goldman Sachs Group, Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Investment firm Vanguard left NZAM in 2022.
Jeanne Martin, head of banking programme at advocacy group ShareAction, said those leaving NZAM were sending a signal to the market that climate change is no longer a priority for them.
Emboldened by the recent electoral victory in the Netherlands, Farmers in Slovenia, Germany and Flanders are staging protests against the EU’s “climate war” on agriculture. The Netherlands is now seeing a farmer-led revolt against extreme climate policies.
Thousands of protesters have marched through the streets of the Polish capital Warsaw to show their opposition to European Union environmental regulations that farmers say are driving them out of business.
The French have rejected the draconian energy restrictions and the hoax of man-made climate change and renewable energy.
Surveys show that most people in Ireland do not believe that climate change is harmful and they have no plans to give up meat or their ICE cars.
The New Zealand government intends to miss its 2035 and 2050 net zero commitments and has cut 100 million dollars from environmental spending.
An increasing number of citizens now realise that wind turbines provide zero reliability, increase utility costs, and will devastate birds, bats and marine life.
Despite evidence and the examples provided, King Charles and Anthony Albanese represent two wealthy and influential scientific illiterates stubbornly trying to push the world towards total reliance on expensive, inefficient, unreliable wind and solar schemes. They are wealthy elites who have little concept of people struggling to make ends meet, essentially because of their ridiculous net zero ambitions.
I suggest that King Charles and Anthony Albanese get together and write down all they know about climate science and energy.
The back of an envelope should suffice!
This article was originally published by Climate Alarmists and republished by PA Pundits – International.
