Lincolnshire Green!
By Paul Homewood
h/t stewgreen
The latest electric car technology is being trialled in Lincolnshire as part of a drive by the police and crime commissioner to create the “greenest” police force in the UK.
PCC Marc Jones has already instigated a project to change lighting at Lincolnshire Police headquarters to LEDs – saving the equivalent of two officers’ salaries a year.
And he has commissioned a full report on the latest sustainable technologies available to the force, which will form the basis of a new environmental strategy.
The first step for Lincolnshire Police is to trial electric cars and officers are currently testing the Nissan LEAF. Initially the force is looking at electric vehicles for community roles rather than pursuit. The Nissan LEAF is said by the force to have a range of up to 155 miles and is fitted with a braking system which converts some of the energy lost from braking into extra charge for the battery and stores it for later. Mr Jones said: “I’m ambitious for Lincolnshire Police to become the ‘greenest’ most sustainable force in the UK.
“I have requested a full assessment of opportunities to develop this aim. I want to see our buildings assessed for opportunities to be more efficient and to embrace new technologies to reduce carbon footprint and cost to the taxpayers of Lincolnshire. “I want to see the vehicles used by the force keeping pace with operational requirements but also with changing technology to ensure pollution and fuel use is kept to a minimum.
“Challenges around charging points for electric vehicles and the distances involved to cover Lincolnshire will present a huge challenge but one that we can and will meet.” This would require charging points installed at all the county’s police stations, as currently there are barely any public charging point anywhere on the eastern side of Lincolnshire.
The trial and drive for a sustainable force is backed by Chief Constable Bill Skelly. “I want Lincolnshire Police to make a positive contribution to the county, providing excellent policing, but we also need to look at how we deliver that service. To that end, I want to explore all options for improving our energy efficiency,” he said. “This trial of a single electric vehicle will be a pre-cursor to a much broader plan for using electric vehicles. Alongside this I support a review of energy efficiency across the whole estate to highlight opportunities for reducing energy usage and maximising our ability to utilise renewable energy sources.”
The LED project, which cost £350,000, has been paid for using a Government backed funding scheme which means the force pay back the cost of the work from the savings made. The force has some way to go to catch up with the likes of Gloucestershire Police who have been using a fleet of seven Nissan LEAF electric cars since the summer of 2016. Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire Chris Brierley said: “We love them.” He said they are committed to environmentalism and have been awarded for their drive to reduce energy consumption.
Mr Brierley said: “We use them mainly in urban areas and PCSOs use them a lot. We have made sure all our stations have charging points.” He and the Police and Crime Commissioner went to a low carbon conference and discovered zero emission motorcycles being trialled in London and hybrid engine police vans, fitting in line with EU rulings on emissions. Mr Brierley admitted: “Range is still an issue with some of them and we are quite rural so it makes you conscious of your range and the lack of charging points, but our pool car at the office is a Nissan LEAF with a range of about 90 miles. Whenever we look at replacing vehicles we will look at if it can be electric, or a hybrid or petrol – diesel is the last resort.”
It goes without saying that the police, and all public bodies, should continually strive to keep costs to a minimum.
Regardless of the specific costs of running electric cars, including the provision of charging points, there are other more fundamental issues.
As they admit, the Nissan Leafs only have a very short range. While this may be enough for limited, daytime urban use by PCSOs, all police cars should be available for use on a 24-hour basis.
If the Leafs are out of action overnight, either more cars are needed or the provision of police support is reduced.
The prime role of the police force is to help enforce the law and protect the public, and nothing else should be allowed to detract from that.
It is certainly not their job to save the planet. Pursuing a green strategy can only divert resources, both time and money, from their proper job.
Crooks Still Pursuing Arctic Ice Scam
By Paul Homewood
h/t stewgreen
The crooks don’t give up, do they?
As the Arctic continues to heat up, so does concern in the scientific community about climate change.
Researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have discovered the Arctic sea ice has once again experienced ‘considerable melting.’
Green NGOs Spend Taxpayers’ Millions Lobbying Govt
By Paul Homewood
h/t HotScot
Green NGOs are spending millions lobbying against the interests of British taxpayers, analysis by the Taxpayers’ Alliance has found. Taxpayers’ cash received by charities including Friends of the Earth and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is being splurged on partisan political activities such as supporting parliamentary candidates and lobbying ministers. The cash has been used to block projects which experts say would bring down energy costs for consumers.
The RSPB received £27.5 million in grants from UK taxpayers in 2015 and 2016. Its sister organisation Birdlife International received the third highest amount of European Commission taxpayer funding of any green group, being granted €3.8 million. Likewise, Friends of the Earth received the second highest amount of any such group, being handed €7.6 million. In conjunction with Greenpeace (which does not receive EC funding), these charities have acted more like pressure groups by:
- Orchestrating a massive media campaign to fight a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point;
- Launching law suits to obstruct the construction of new power stations;
- Lobbying the UK government to prevent expansion of infrastructure;
- Lobbying successfully to prevent exploration for shale gas taking place in Wiltshire;
- Publishing misleading advertising to influence consumer and public opinion, and spread falsehoods about shale gas exploration.
Full story here.
Puerto Rico’s Hurricane History
By Paul Homewood
As Hurricane Maria heads north as a Cat 3 storm, much is being made of the fact that it is the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1928. The implication is that Maria must have been exceptionally strong.
But the reality is that Puerto Rico is little more than a speck in the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. The odds of the eye of a major hurricane, often just 10 or 20 miles wide, making a direct hit on Puerto Rico are probably hundreds to one, given that there are thousands of miles of ocean through which hurricanes can commonly travel.
![[Tropical Cyclone History Map for Atlantic and Eastern Pacific]](http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/images/1851_2015_allstorms_sm.jpg)
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/#ncy
Where a particular hurricane goes is a matter of luck. Puerto Rico has been lucky to have gone nearly 90 years without a hurricane as powerful as Maria. But they were not as lucky back then, as two Cat 4 and 1 Cat 5 hurricanes hit the island in the space of 33 years, as Weather Underground relate:
Maria was the second strongest hurricane ever recorded to hit Puerto Rico, behind only the 1928 San Felipe Segundo hurricane, which killed 328 people on the island and caused catastrophic damage. Puerto Rico’s main island has also been hit by two other Category 4 hurricanes, the 1932 San Ciprian Hurricane, and the 1899 San Ciriaco Hurricane.
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/maria-slams-st-croix-now-ripping-across-puerto-rico
The San Felipe Segundo hurricane, also known as the Lake Okechobee hurricane, was one of the deadliest in history. It hit Puerto Rico as a Cat 5, and left 500,000 homeless.
It then continued on to Florida, leaving thousands dead.
E.On’s Con Trick To Persuade Customers To Get Smart Meters
By Paul Homewood
The latest con trick to get us all on to smart meters:
One of the UK’s biggest energy firms will for the first time offer cheaper deals to customers if they agree to have a smart meter installed.
The move by E.on, which has nearly 5 million customers, the vast majority of which do not yet have a smart meter, is being described as a "ploy" to get more people to accept the new-style meters.
From next year E.On customers with smart meters will no longer pay its so-called "standard variable tariff", which is the default option they are moved onto when they have finished a fixed deal.
SVTs are notoriously poor value with the Government preparing to impose a cap to stop consumers’s bills spiraling out of control.
E.On will replace its SVT with a one-year fixed deal which it promises will be a cheaper option. A spokesman refused to reveal how competitive the rate would be.
The controversial move will draw criticism both from customers – many of whom doubt the new technology – and consumer groups, who argue that lower tariffs should be unconditional.
It comes as the Government’s smart meter roll-out is in chaos as a number of Big Six energy firms have admitted that more than half of households are not accepting them.
Only 750,000 of E.On’s 4.6 million customers currently have one, a rate of just 16pc, however the rate could rise if consumers find they can slash their bills by getting a smart meter.
E.On are still working on the detail, but drawbacks are plain to see.
Although customers will not automatically be transferred to expensive standard tariffs, they will instead be put on to one-year fixed deals.
Even though the latter may be cheaper, it is not clear that customers will actually benefit. As the deal is fixed, they will be stuck for a year on a deal that may still be a lot more expensive than alternative offers.
There is one further issue. If customers are so keen to monitor their electricity usage with smart meters, are they really then dopey enough to stay on standard tariffs when their deals are up?
This desperate behaviour from E.On is an indication of how poor the uptake of smart meters has been so far.
As Two Cities File Lawsuits, U.S. Supreme Court Will Have To Rule About Claims (And Counter-Claims) By Climate Scientists
By Paul Homewood
GWPF report:.
The suits, filed by San Francisco and Oakland in state Superior Court, are among the first in which plaintiffs are seeking to force companies to pay for infrastructure to protect coastal cities from potential damages caused by rising sea levels. The cities are asking for the oil companies to pay for sea walls and other infrastructure projects, the cost of which aren’t yet known, according to the cities, but are expected to be in the billions of dollars, they said.
Scientists have linked rising sea levels to the burning of fossil fuels and warming global temperatures.
The cases open a new front in a years long effort by environmental groups, Democratic state attorneys general and municipalities to hold big oil companies accountable for the societal costs of climate change.
Plaintiffs in a number of lawsuits or investigations have argued companies knew or should have known about the potential impacts of burning fossil fuels, but instead made efforts to sow doubt about the science behind global warming.
The companies dispute those allegations.
City attorneys reiterated those complaints Wednesday, with San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera saying large oil companies “copied a page from the Big Tobacco playbook.”
“These fossil fuel companies profited handsomely for decades while knowing they were putting the fate of our cities at risk,” Mr. Herrera said.
Matthew Pawa, an attorney who participated in a 2012 California conference that dealt with the potential for seeking climate change damages from oil companies and compared the effort to tobacco-company litigation, is part of the cities’ legal teams, according to court documents.
The San Francisco and Oakland suits allege the companies are a “public nuisance” and ask courts to force the firms— BP PLC, Chevron Corp. , ConocoPhillips , Exxon MobilCorp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC—to create a fund for each city to pay for infrastructure projects likely to cost billions of dollars.
In fact, sea levels have been rising steadily at San Francisco since 1850, long before Big Oil came along:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9414290
Worse still for the con merchants, the rate of rise peaked in 1945, since when the rate of rise has slowed to 1.43mm/year:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.htm?stnid=9414290
Still, if San Francisco is so concerned, why don’t they stop using fossil fuels completely? They could start tomorrow.
The European Heatwave Of 2003
By Paul Homewood
Difference in average temperature (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004) from 2003, covering the date range of 20 July – 20 August
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
There is little doubt that the European heatwave of 2003 was one of the defining meteorological events of the last hundred years.
Climate scientists have often held it up as an example of what the future has in store, as global warming takes hold. Indeed, every time the sun comes out in summer, we seem to get the mantra that “heatwaves are becoming more common”.
We heard the usual nonsense this summer when southern Europe had a hot spell. It was even given a name, Lucifer. The Telegraph reported:
Unusually high temperatures, in some cases unprecedented, are being recorded across an area spanning much of the Iberian peninsula, southern France, Italy, the Balkans and Hungary.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40825668
But was this summer abnormally hot, and have we been seeing 2003 style heatwaves since?
Who’s the world’s leading eco-vandal? It’s Angela Merkel
By Paul Homewood
Monbiot unloads on Merkel!
Which living person has done most to destroy the natural world and the future wellbeing of humanity? Donald Trump will soon be the correct answer, when the full force of his havoc has been felt. But for now I would place another name in the frame: Angela Merkel.
Trends In Atlantic Hurricanes
By Paul Homewood
With Hurricane Maria tearing heading towards Puerto Rico, there will be yet more alarmist claims about how climate change is making hurricanes worse.
Maria is the fourth major hurricane in the Atlantic this year, following Harvey, Irma and Jose. But how unusual is this?
Fortunately we don’t have to rely on Al Gore or Jennifer Lawrence. The reality is that it is not unusual at all.
Leading tropical cyclone expert, Chris Landsea of NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division has put together a list of Atlantic storms back to 1851.
This is what he has to say:
Ocean Cycles, Not Humans, May Be Behind Most Observed Climate Change
By Paul Homewood
