The results of Berlin’s Climate Neutrality By 2030 referendum tell us that FFF and Last Generation are fringe movements, remote of even Berlin’s mainstream.
It’ll take a longtime for the radical climate activists to recover from this major setback
The movement’s leaders reacted in disbelief and sourly to the defeat, as Twitter account holder Georg tweeted:
Da haben Luisa und ihre Klima-Kreuzritter wohl nicht damit gerechnet, dass 85% mit NEIN stimmen oder erst gar nicht zur Abstimmung gehen.
Last Sunday’s “Berlin Climate Neutrality By 2030” referendum failed resoundingly despite the more than a million euros spent in a massive run-up campaign that included plastering the city with posters, concerts by famous performers, huge support and propaganda by the media and hefty donations coming from left wing activists from the east and west coasts of USA.
Once the dust of the referendum had settled, it emerged that the “yes” side fell way short of the quorum 608,000 votes needed to pass the measure. Only 442,210 cast a vote in favor, which represents only 18% of Berlin’s eligible voters. The activists expected a far greater turnout. 82% refused to lend any support.
Berlin’s rejection of the climate neutrality by 2030 mandate is a massive body blow to the the radical Fridays for Future and Last Generation movement in Germany, and it will take months for the radicals to recover, it ever, from this setback.
The Berlin initiative to make the city climate neutral by 2030 was led by rich, upper class youths like Luisa “Longhaul” Neubauer. But Berliners, having been harassed for months by activists gluing themselves to the streets and blocking traffic, saw the folly of the initiative and the high costs it would entail politically and financially. They decided resoundingly they’d wanted no part of it.
Lashing out at the majority
The agony of referendum defeat was palpable as some of its leaders reacted by lashing out and insulting those who refused to vote “yes”, In a video, movement co-leader Luisa Neubauer sank into cynical accusations against the majority, even calling the uncooperative Berliners “fossil cynics” and “climate destroyers”.
Neubauer added: “There are forces in this city that are doing everything to get the last spark of climate destruction out.” In Neubauer’s view these forces include the vast 82% of Berliners who refused to vote “yes”. So troublesome democracy can be.
Social Democrat Dario Schramm wept on Twitter at the gloating that would now come from the other side. But he and other supporters of the green ban politics need not be surprised. For years they have been spreading their ideas of good politics for years in a self-righteous, arrogant and sometimes aggressive manner.
They, mostly members of the upper middle class, have declared war on the lower and lower middle class with their destructive climate measures. Outside the Berlin political bubble and the other urban feel-good oases of Germany, the Neubauers of this world never possessed much support. And now the bubble has finally burst. In the Marzahn, Köpenick and Lichtenberg districts, the majority of voters voted against the referendum. The normal working population of Berlin decided against the journalistic and political elite.”
But don’t expect the climate radicals to go away. They’ll be back at it soon enough.
The governmental need to portray elevated CO2 as dangerous to humans was recently pitted against the governmental need to require face masks be worn on healthy people.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic requiring healthy people of all ages to wear face masks in public settings became a common governmental policy – especially in Western Europe.
It was assumed at the time that wearing a surgical mask on one’s face in buildings, in crowded areas, on airplanes, at universities, etc., would prevent or reduce coronavirus transmission and death.
It did neither. In fact, the real-world data suggest that wearing a mask was positively correlated with both an increased risk of COVID-19 transmission as well as death across Western Europe (Spira, 2022).
“…the lack of negative correlation between mask usage and COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest the widespread use of masks…was not able to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Moreover, the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe also suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.”
Throughout late 2020 and nearly all of 2021, the routine exposure to elevated CO2 (~25,000 ppm and up) for hours on end experienced by mask-wearers was apparently viewed as a smaller “necessary evil” relative to the assumed risk of contracting COVID-19 and potentially dying.
And now research (Hurley et al., 2023 [pre-print]) has determined that even in a warm indoor setting (a university), hours-long exposure to 25,000 CO2 from wearing surgical masks “does not negatively impact the cognition of university students.”
This research is further supported by a 2021 study (Maniscalco et al.) indicating people exposed to 20,000 ppm CO2 for prolonged periods also experience “no adverse health effects.”
So apparently the intended effects of 2020-’21 governmental mask mandates – a reduction of COVID-19 transmission and death – had no or the opposite effect, and the presumed negative effects associated with prolonged exposure to elevated CO2 levels while wearing a facemask also was never realized.
UPDATE 21:05 CET: Berlin election office:FINAL RESULT: The Berlin referendum for a climate-neutral city by 2030 HAS FAILED RESOUNDINGLY.
Although there was a narrow majority of votes in favor, the 442,210 of “yes” votes fell far short the 25% quorum of all eligible voters (607,518 votes) needed to make the referendum valid.
Yes: 442,210 No: 423,418
The result shows that only 18% of Berlins 2,430,000 voters cared enough to go out and vote for a measure against the “climate crisis”.
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UPDATE 18:51 CET: Berlin election office, “yes” leading “no” 315,000 to 291,000, with roughly 80% of the votes counted. So it’s safe to say the Berlin referendum for climate neutrality by 2030 will fall far short of the 607,000 “yes” votes needed to pass the measure.
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UPDATE 18:51 CET: According to the Berlin election office, “yes” is leading “no” 315,000 to 291,000, with roughly 80% of the votes counted. So it’s safe to say the Berlin referendum for climate neutrality by 2030 will fall far short of the 607,000 “yes” votes needed to pass the measure.
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UPDATE 18:20 CET:
In the referendum in Berlin on climate neutrality, the RBB reports that 26.4 per cent of those eligible to vote had cast their ballot by 4 pm. Polling stations closed since 6 p.m.
25% of all voters (607.518) must vote “yes” in order for the initiative to be successful.
“While surveys showed Berliners narrowly in favor of the proposal, enthusiasm was muted on Saturday. A rally and concert at the city’s iconic Brandenburg Gate drew FAR FEWER than the 35,000 people organizers had hoped for.”
UPDATE 17:45 CET: Will enough Berliners even care to show up for the climate neutrality referendum?
At least 25 per cent of eligible voters will have to vote “yes”. But at lunchtime, only 11% of voters had bothered to show up and vote. Berlin may be telling us that very few people are in fact taking the “climate crisis” seriously at all!
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UPDATE 17:30 CET: Germany’s ZDF reports of “little participation” by Berlin’s 2.4 million eligible voters. The state election officer announced on Sunday afternoon, only eleven per cent of those eligible to vote cast their ballots across Berlin by 12 noon. “Voting in the 2,208 Berlin polling stations has been quiet so far.”
IN ORDER FOR THE REFERENDUM TO BE VALID, “a majority of voters must vote in favour, but at least 25 per cent of eligible voters. This means that around 608,000 yes votes are needed.”
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Berliners are going to the polls today in a referendum on whether or not to make the city “climate-neutral” already by 2030 instead of 2045.
That’s quite a lofty goal for a chaotic, financially broken city that couldn’t even build an airport.
In Germany’s capital, Berliners will vote today on whether or not to adopt a measure that would force the city to become climate-neutral already by 2030. Image cropped here.
Polls showing slight lead for “klimaneutral ja”.
And no campaign in Berlin has seen funding to this scale. Acc0rding to media reports, most funding has come from foreign countries, mainly from far left groups in the USA.
According to a report by online Bild here, one wealthy New York couple (Albert Wenger und Susan Danziger) even donated half a million euros to fund a campaign to get the people to vote “ja”.
Should Berliners vote to make the German capital CO2 neutral by 2030, it would mean enacting an amendment that would force the city of Berlin to achieve climate neutrality by 2030 instead of 2045. This would affect almost every aspect of Berlin life, from transportation, to heating and widescale major building renovation.
Foreign funding
The amendment is being pushed by the Green Party and radical groups like Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, who are largely financed by foreign funders like the Climate Emergency Fund, Abigail Disney and Hollywood film director Adam McKay.
If the amendment gets adopted, immense power will be transferred a small group of unelected people, a so-called Climate Protection Council of “experts”, appointed by the Berlin Senate. Climate targets for 2045 would turn into climate legal obligations for 2030.
Huge restrictions, astronomical costs, loss of private property
Critics warn this would mean many more restrictions on freedom, Berliners might even have to say goodbye to their cars completely. Under the amendment, the Berlin airport would be a part of the climate budget. thus posing the risk of reducing the number of flights.”
Moreover property owners would be forced to make largescale, costly renovations and have to install solar panels. No one knows where the money is magically supposed to come from.
Unachievable, pie-in-the-sky
Critics are speaking up, however, calling the radical climate project “factually impossible” and “out of the question”, noting that even the original 2045 target timetable was almost impossible to meet,” Bild reports.
Recent opinion polls show the results of today’s referendum are expected to be very close, slightly tipping in favor of the referendum.
We’ll report the results this evening as they become available.
This means there’s a good chance that the City of Berlin might well end up being an even greater basket-case than California. Somebody needs to lead the way to show the rest of the world what a folly rapid climate neutrality can be.
But the development challenges are still enormous. It is also unclear where the gigantic amount of renewable energy needed will come from. Just to cover the current demand for paraffin synthetically, at least three times as much solar and wind energy would be needed as was produced worldwide in 2021. Everything that is currently planned will not be enough by far, says transport expert Gössling. “We need huge amounts of fuel.” And for that, hundreds, possibly even thousands of new, large production plants are needed worldwide.”
What about hydrogen or batteries? The article says: Don’t get your hopes up.
To avoid climate-damaging emissions, battery and hydrogen aircraft are also being developed. But these can only help to a small extent, even in optimistic scenarios. Batteries are much too heavy for large aircraft, and their energy density is much lower than that of paraffin. Therefore, they will probably only be used in very small aircraft on short routes. Hydrogen is also only suitable to a limited extent. It needs much more space than paraffin and will therefore probably not be used for long distances. Airbus, for example, is currently developing possible aircraft models for medium distances. A first prototype should be developed by the end of this decade, Airbus said on request. Approval will then take several more years. At the earliest, it should go into operation in 2035.”
So jet fuel still remains the only real option. But that isn’t good for CO2 emissions, which of course will need to be offset somehow. Flying thus may become a mode of transport for the rich and elite only.
Since the early 1990s the conventional assumption, aligned with modeling, has been that a molecule of human CO2 emission stays in the atmosphere – its residence time – for centuries. This fits the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) narrative. But empirical evidence contradicts these model-based assumptions. Residence time is closer to 5-10 years.
In Table 1 of a new study, Stallinga (2023) compiled a list of 36 published estimates of CO2 residence time spanning the decades 1957-1992. All of these scientists determined CO2’s atmospheric residence time is about 5 to 10 years or less.
Of course, these were the pre-IPCC decades in climate research, when “the science” was pursued independent of government interference. For example, it was still acceptable in the 1950s to early 1990s for scientists to publish actual ice core measurements showing the atmospheric CO2 content ranged up to 700 ppm, even 2,450 ppm, in the ice sheets and glaciers examined throughout the last 10,000 years (Jaworowski et al., 1992).
An actual residence time that is 20 to 40 times shorter in duration than what an AGW modeled thought experiments allow undermines the dangerous greenhouse gas accumulation talking points, as “if the residence time is below 30 years, injections of CO2 in the atmosphere would, just as water, not affect the climate” (Stallinga, 2023).
In addition to compiling an exhaustive list of past estimates supporting a 5-10 year residence time, Dr. Stallinga cites the evidence from atomic bomb tests, the lack of any atmospheric CO2 effect from the pandemic lockdowns and associated sharp drop in emissions, and the lead-lag relationship CO2 emission has with temperature as evidence supporting the once commonly-accepted conclusion that CO2 residence is closer to 5 years, not centuries.
And if residence time is only 5 years, nearly “90% of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide has already been removed from the atmosphere.”
Stallinga’s conclusions are very similar to that of Dr. Chauncey Starr (1993), a nuclear physicist who emphasized that a centuries-long residence time claims are derived from “global carbon cycle models which are adjusted to fit the assumption that anthropogenic emissions are primarily the cause of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2.”
Starr provided empirical support for the conclusion residence time is 4-5 years. For example, the high altitude 1964 nuclear bomb testing revealed how quickly (3-11 years) the atmosphere cycled through these perturbations. The constancy of the amplitude of seasonal cycle of CO2 and the magnitude of the swing in annual concentrations are both consistent with photosynthesis as the driver of CO2 variability, further affirming a residence time of 5 years or less.
Also, similar to Dr. Stallinga’s analysis, Starr reported “only about 15% of the fossil-fuel emissions remain in the atmosphere.”
German public broadcasting show SWR3-Wissen had a podcast about burning wood in Europe. In Germany’s forests, less wood is taken than what grows back, but in Europe it’s different. Here, the forest is losing total area, which also means that carbon sinks are disappearing. But deforestation is not the only problem; forests also store water and release it with a delay. These “sponges” are lost after clear-cutting. Apparently, the EU’s plans to substitute wood for coal call for expanding that as well.
In the United Kingdom, the former Drax coal-fired power plant burns significant amounts of wood.
Europe massively subsidizing a forest-destroying energy source
“Nearly nine million tons of pellets per year are burned by the Drax power plant. That’s three times Germany’s pellet production and one and a half times the UK’s wood production. With this huge amount of wood, the power plant generates seven percent of the UK’s electricity needs and gets plenty of subsidies for it: 3.5 million euros per day. Like the British, the EU is also promoting the conversion of coal-fired power plants to wood – with its Renewable Energies Directive adopted in 2009. Taxes on CO2 emissions from fossil energy are rising, but wood-burning is exempt.
Coal plants across Europe are converting to wood pellets
Several power plants in the Netherlands and Denmark have already converted from coal to wood. French power plant operator Veolia has just announced that it is converting a coal-fired power plant in Hungary over to biomass. German power plant operators are currently still hesitant. The operators of the Onyx coal-fired power plant in Wilhelmshaven are considering burning 2.9 million tons of pellets annually. Vattenfall’s power plant in Berlin’s Moabit district is to be converted; and the East German energy company LEAG has already bought two pelleting companies.”
US forests being cut down largescale to make Europe “green”
Wood pellets come to a good part from the USA. In this context, once again the reference to the US documentary Burned. It is about forest loss in the southwestern United States. A review of the film has already been presented in this blog 2020. The documentary has lost none of its topicality.
Irony: Coal kept the lights on in Germany this winter
Germany’s Blackout News reports how the global media is making fun of the clown show that’s become Germany’s energy policy.
Incompetent hands
For decades, Germany’s energy policy has been overtaken and revamped by green environmentalist and pacifist politicians who have little or no technical competence at all in the fields of energy engineering. They promised it would be cheap, clean and plentiful. The sun and wind, after all, are free for the taking!
Today, the German public is painfully starting to find out that solar and wind energy indeed do send bills, and quite large ones at that. And if you think Germany’s energy policies sound really dumb, then come out and see how they feel! One single grandmother I know recently got her new natural gas prices: 600 euros a month!
“World’s dumbest energy policy”
So it’s little wonder that not long ago, the Wall Street Journal called Germany’s it: “The world’s dumbest energy policy.”
First the WSJ reports how Europe managed (ironically) “to avert an energy-shortage recession this winter”, by using “evil coal”, citing recently released data. This past winter, without coal stepping up to the plate, the natural gas shortages would have left a number of German households out in the cold.
Coal is doing the job, according to the WSJ, because “wind and solar don’t work when the winds are still or the skies are cloudy” and “when the weather doesn’t cooperate” – which is often the case in Germany in the wintertime.
“Another explanation for coal’s resurgence is the political hostility of Germany’s green left to nuclear power” and to its shale-gas reserves,” comments the WSJ. “So in an hilarious green irony, coal is keeping the lights on.”
The WSJ keeps the hope alive that “Berlin will catch up to what the market already knows: Fossil fuels remain indispensable for powering modern economies.” My message to the WSJ editors: Don’t keep your hopes up. The “world’s dumbest energy policy” is being run by the world’s dumbest energy politicians. So don’t expect them to solve the huge mess they themselves have created.
The observed incapacity for southern elephant seals (SES) to withstand late 20th and early 21st century extreme cold and expanding sea ice conditions suggest coastal Antarctica (Victoria Land Coast, VLC) climate is colder and icier today than any time since the last glacial. A new study even suggests the last glacial (CO2 ~190 ppm) may have been warmer with less ice than today in this region.
Southern elephant seals (SES) require extended sea ice-free sea waters to breed, forage, and provide nourishment for their pups.
Throughout the Holocene (Medieval Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, and earlier) and until a few hundred years ago (from ~7100 to 500 years before present), coastal Antarctica’s Victoria Land (VLC) was substantially warmer than today. The Ross Sea was also sufficiently ice-free to allow for elephant seal populations (as large as ~200,000 individuals) to thrive at 73-78°S.
Today, however, elephant seal populations can no longer subsist anywhere even remotely close to the coasts of the Antarctic continent. It is now too cold and the sea ice is too extensive.
The substantially reduced number of remaining SES today can only survive on subantarctic islands (South Georgia, Macquarie) at southern South American latitudes (~54.5°S) situated 2400 kilometers north of VLC (Koch et al., 2019).
The “genetically distinct” VLC elephant seal populations that endured throughout the Holocene and even through Medieval times have tragically died off in the last few centuries due to the modern-era cooling gradient and subsequent ice cover expansion (Hall et al., 2023).
And with the modern sea surface temperatures cooling and southern hemisphere sea ice expansion in recent decades, even the subantarctic islands in the South Pacific that SES are limited to occupying today may not be sufficiently warm and ice-free to accommodate remaining populations. Today’s southern elephant seals are thus threatened by modern cooling.
“[P]ack-ice expansion (both duration and extent) in the Ross Sea over the last several decades has been linked to reduced female foraging in this region, consequent low weaning weights and survival of pups, and ultimately the decline of the Macquarie Island population.” – Hall et al., 2023
Perhaps if these mammals were polar bears the existential threat of polar cooling might receive some media attention.
Interestingly, Hall et al. also report that not only have the last few centuries (including the present) been “the coldest, iciest conditions in the post-glacial period” (see the blue sea ice and red temperature trend lines on the Holocene timeline), but even the last glacial period had periods (~50,000 to 25,000 years ago) with less sea ice than today, allowing SES to occupy the VLC coast.
The last glacial period had CO2 levels under 200 ppm.
Feel helpless when trying to assess the veracity of “climate doom is looming” claims? Don’t give up trying to understand the relevant basics because you don’t need to be a scientist to do so.
There is a rather simple way to get an idea about what this is all about. Even without a scientific background, most people have at least a good common sense. And that’s all it takes to get a grasp of how energy flows back and forth between earth’s surface and the skies.
Today in Part 5, we look at the linkage between the allegedly CO2-driven rise of air and sea surface temperatures on the one side and the disconnect between these increases and their strangely weak to insignificant impact on rainfall and hurricane intensity”.
Variability of cloud effects vs “greenhouse gas” effects
In the last chapter, we have seen that there are some discrepancies between the global warming trend as claimed by the official climate science and the local evolution of rainfall, which should be a direct consequence of higher temperatures since this causes more evaporation. This seems not to be the case e.g. for Germany, see Fig. 1:
Fig. 1. Germany’s national rainfall statistic for the years 1881 – 2022 with a 5-year moving average trend line, based on data compiled by the German Weatherservice DWD 5)
As already stated in the previous chapter, the 5-year running mean of the German rainfall timeline shows a marked negative trend setting in with the year 2003. That’s contrasting remarkably to the evolution of global temperatures as reported by NASA/GISS, see Fig. 2. Comparable trends (more sun, rising temperatures and less rain) can also be observed in other northern European countries, hinting at a broader regional pattern.
Fig. 2. Graph of the evolution of earth’s near-surface air temperatures from 1880 to 2022 using data from NASA/GISS 6), combined with a screenshot from the same source for the year 2022 showing the arctic and parts of Europe in fiery red.
The text coming with the NASA graph states that compared to the reference period defined as the time between 1951 and 1980, the year 2022 saw an increase of the worldwide temperature level of 0.89 °C. Included in Fig. 2. is also the last (2022) frame of a short animated film highlighting the corresponding regional temperature changes. It shows the arctic, northern Asia and Europe in fiery red suggesting that in these regions, temperatures have actually risen to alarming levels. It is interesting to note that white shades associated with no or only moderate temperature rise are mainly to be found in the northern Atlantic and in the eastern Pacific as well as in the southern oceans all around Antarctica.
Evapotranspiration and rain
The bulk of the world’s evaporation takes place over the surface of the oceans, see Fig 3.
It is interesting to note that while only 23% of global precipitation falls on land, only 35% of the 113,000 cubic km/yr of precipitation that comes down on land originates from the oceans while 65% stems from land-based evapotranspiration sources.
Fig. 3. merits a side note that in order to fight drought, the best levers are to trap as much downpour as possible by preventing it to be prematurely discharged into rivers by drainage systems and to renature wetland systems such as swamps or moors. Further measures should encompass reducing the flow speeds of rivers and streams and sufficient floodplains where water may stay longer even after highwater situations have subsided. Water that evaporates here will contribute to our downpour.
Another important aspect is to enhance plant cover wherever possible. Concrete, stones, gravel, paved surfaces and asphalt cannot evaporate water, and naked earth and sand are hardly better. The galloping urbanization 8) we are currently witnessing is a point of concern. Meadows are good and better still if they are allowed to grow long, and bushes and trees are best. With these facts in mind, the devastation of tropical rainforests as currently happening in many tropical countries around the world and especially in the Amazon region should be urgently stopped, or better still: reversed wherever possible.
Impact of temperature on evaporation
As Fig. 3. shows, 85% of all evaporation takes place over the oceans. This largely exceeds their 71% share of the total surface of the earth. The reason is that land surfaces often reflect a noticeable double-digit share of the sunlight they receive back into space, thus reducing the amount of energy they can trap and transform to warming, transpiration from plant growth or evaporation from open water surfaces. But even in warm and sunny southern Florida at the height of the summer, evapotranspiration rates do not exceed around 80 mm/month (~1000 mm/yr), see Fig. 4:
Fig. 4. Monthly evaporation rates for the contiguous US in June 22. Graphic: NOAA 9)
In stark contrast, ocean water swallows around 94% of the radiative energy reaching its surface. The resulting warming is then feeding evaporation, which is a highly energy-intensive process.
Due to their high absorption rate (=low albedo), the oceans absorb the highest rates of this evaporation are taking place in tropic latitudes because temperature is its predominant parameter. Really high evaporation rates are to be found over waters with a surface skin temperature above ~ 28°C. This the case e.g. in the Red Sea, which sees max evaporation rates of 2,000 to 2,500 mm/yr 10) in the hot season.
Now let’s combine the information presented in Fig. 2 – 4. with the rise of the sea surface temperature of the world’s oceans, see Fig. 5:
Fig. 5. From 1980 to 2020, the global SST of the oceans has risen by around 0.5 °C (0.9 °F). Graphic: NOAA 11)
At current temperature levels, it is expected that a temperature rise of 1°C would result in an increase of water vapor content in the air of about 7% 12). Where does this additional water end up? The usual path is ascension within warm air packages into higher levels of the troposphere (this is the lowest layer of the atmosphere with a thickness of about 8 km at the poles and 18 km over the equator).
Since the temperature of the troposphere falls by about 6.5°C with every km, the dew point of the water vapor is eventually transgressed. At this point, the water vapor condensates to droplets that form clouds. These clouds drift with the winds until the droplets grow to a weight that prevents them from staying in abeyance any longer, starting their journey down to earth as rain. The condensation frees the evaporation energy which is transferred to the air in which the cloud is hovering in, and the rest of the cloud continues its journey.
But there is an additional scenario that may develop as soon as a certain quantitative evaporation limit is overstepped. This threshold is reached when sea surface temperatures climb above a threshold of ~28°C 13). This is the “hurricane ready” limit when the amount of evaporation energy freed up in the ascending clouds starts to initiate a circular upwind turbulence that can lead to the formation of a tropical storm or even a hurricane.
No linkage between SST, rainfall and hurricane energy
Although most of the water evaporated over the oceans will rain down over the oceans again, the 35% share that ocean evaporation has on downpour on land should result in a marked increase of the related figures.
Fig. 6. The worldwide rainfall anomaly from 1901 to 2021 shows only a very weak upward trend of about 1 mm per year. Data: EPA 14) (Note that this graph shows only anomalies, not the full quantities as would be preferable. Given that the source is not the same as for the previous global rainfall graph shown as Fig. 6. in Part 4 of this article, it has not been possible to credibly merge the related datasets). But alas, this outcome does not show up in European countries such as Germany (see Fig. 2.), where rainfall has been downtrending for the past ~20 years. As already stated above, comparable trends (more sun, rising temperatures and less rain) have also be observed in other northern European countries, hinting at a broader regional pattern.
Fig. 7. The precipitation anomaly for the last 120 years for the contiguous US Data: EPA 14)
Fig. 7. shows that the US has clearly fared better than Germany. Starting around 1970, there has been an increase in downpour, although the long-term increase since 1901 is only ~0.5 mm/yr, which is only half of the worldwide trend documented in Fig. 6. Considering the marked upswing in sea surface temperatures, one might wonder whether the other possible outlet – the incidence and severity of hurricanes – might have served as a vent for the excess energy the sun has pumped into our oceans.
In the tabloids, there is indeed a constant background noise about more and higher intensity hurricanes resulting from “global warming” that’s swelling to panic-level volume each time a higher category hurricane is making landfall in the US. The already cited Wikipedia article 12) adorns a graph purporting to show that the number of the highest categories of Atlantic hurricanes has doubled over the last 20 years, see Fig. 8:
Fig. 8. This graphic seems to underscore allegations that the number of Atlantic hurricanes of the highest Saffir-Simpson categories (4 and 5) has noticeably increased in the past 20 years. Graphic: RCraig09 15), CC 4.0
Fig. 8. once again underscores the sad truth that Wikipedia is clearly biased towards the IPCC global warming narrative instead of delivering the scientific facts. The trick here has been to use a willfully shortened timeline and in the selection of just two categories of hurricanes. Other sources provide ample evidence that these settings convey an impression that is not giving the full picture.
Firstly, there is a nice compilation performed by five NOAA staffers 16) who have been looking at Atlantic hurricanes having hit the US territory as far back as 1851. They conclude that over the past 140 years, both the total number of such hurricanes as well as the ones belonging to the highest categories 3 to 5 have diminished, save of a marked peak in the 1940s. Unfortunately, their work was wrapped up and discontinued after 2004.
Secondly, there is a compilation of lecture documents established by the University of Arizona’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences 17) explaining how the frequency and severity of North Atlantic cyclones is influenced by the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), a climatic swing phenomenon influencing the SST of the northern Atlantic. A full AMO period is 60 – 80 years. The current cycle is in its warm phase since the beginning of the nineties and has triggered an increase in hurricane activity with respect to incidence as well as to severity.
The main trick used with Fig. 8. was to set the start of the hurricane chart to the year 1980, which is in close vicinity to the lowest point of the low phase of the AMO. This is a sure way of producing an alarming message with the onlookers seeing this graph, which happened to be the (probably less than overinformed) readers of the NY Times.
And thirdly, there are scientists such as Dr. Ryan N. Maue who classify cyclones by their ACI (Accumulated Cyclone Energy). In his research covering the years 1970-2022, he identified and classified tropical cyclones on both the northern and the southern hemisphere of the globe, see Fig. 9.
Fig. 9. Survey of global ACI for northern (black circles) and global (blue circles) cyclones categorised by their respective accumulated energy content. Graphic: Dr. Ryan N. Maue18)
Fig. 9. shows that in stark contrast to the impression conveyed by Fig. 8, there has been no long-term increase of the energy released by hurricanes over the past fifty+ years. Looking at the graph of the northern hemisphere, we see a marked lull period stretching from 1973 through to 1990, followed by a rapid rise until 1994. Since then, there is a chaotic up and down around a mean level that is higher than that of the 70ies and 80ies, in line with the evolution of the AMO. The graph does not show any proof of recently increased storm energy levels as claimed by “global warming” protagonists. At this point, it should be emphasized that classifying cyclones by their energy content is certainly a more scientific approach than using the simpler Saffir-Simpson scheme.
The storm energy content provides a direct link to the evaporation energy of the ocean water that is fueling the phenomenon.
We thus have a clear disconnect between the marked rise of earth’s atmospheric and SST temperatures, Fig. 2, 3. and 5., which should have resulted in increased water vapor content in the atmosphere, and the graphs of global rainfall and global tropical cyclone energy (Fig 5. and 8.), which both show no clear upwards trends, if any.
This is not quite in line with the IPCC narrative of water vapor (and hence clouds, rain and hurricanes) mainly act as simple short-lived amplifier or booster following the directives coming from the carbon dioxide “congtrol knob” of rising temperatures. In the next chapter, we will look into this mystery a bit further.
Moreover, 45 percent of 30 to 39-year-olds had experienced severe side effects, German INSA survey of 1700 people found. 192 million shots have been administered in Germany so far.
Julian Reichholt’s Pleiteticker here reports on a new German survey that found 1/3 of all youth have had a serious vaccine adverse affects and that “young people in particular frequently report having severe vaccination side effects.”
Once claimed to be 99% effective and practically free of side effects, data and studies are now showing quite the opposite. The mRNA vaccines are in fact unsafe and ineffective in preventing the transmission of the COVID virus. Yet, authroities refuse to follow the science and to withdraw the controversial medicine.
52% if Germans suffered side effects
According to an INSA survey with 1,700 participants “more than 52 percent of respondents said they had suffered side effects. More than 23 percent even reported having suffered severe side effects.”
So far about 192.2 million vaccine doses have been administered in Germany
Young hit hardest
“According to the survey, in particular young people under the age of 40 frequently suffered from vaccination side effects. According to the survey, 36.6 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds and 45 percent of 30 to 39-year-olds had experienced severe side effects from vaccinations, reports Pleiteticker. “With increasing age, the proportion of vaccination side effects decreases drastically. In people over 70, not even 30 percent had mild or severe side effects.”
Strangely the rate of side effects depended somewhat on religion, 79.8 percent of Muslim respondents reported being affected by side effects of the Corona vaccine, while only 55.2% of Catholics and 51.7% of Protestant Christians reported side effects.
1,700 people were interviewed between March 10 and 13, 84.9 percent said they had been vaccinated at least once against the Corona virus.
“Chironomid‐based temperature reconstructions in the central eastern Alps showed…between ca. 10 000 and 8600 cal a BP…a thermal maximum of up to 4.5°C higher temperatures than present” – Caf et al., 2023
With the exception of a century or two during the Little Ice Age (~1500-1900 CE), the European Alps have had a much higher concentration of beech (Fagus) and spruce (Picea) forest presence than today for nearly all of the last 10,000 years (Caf et al., 2023).
The much more heavily vegetated and forested area – which coincides with a warmer climate – can be clearly observed in the reconstructions of Holocene tree and shrub presence.
In the images below, notice how much greater the Alpine forest coverage was during the Medieval Warm Period (~600 to 1000 CE) and the 8 to 10 millennia preceding it.
Even during the last 400-500 years, encompassing the Little Ice Age, there were as-warm or warmer periods than today.
So, once again, we have another study affirming the modern climate is not only not unusually warm, but actually we are currently living in one the coldest climatic periods since the end of the last glacial.
The European Parliament has just given the green light for the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) on Tuesday (14 March).
The law would lead to massive renovation costs for millions of homeowners who are already saddled by inflation and falling incomes as green energies and supply woes plague the continent. Where will the money come from?
First introduced in 2002, the directive has since been revised multiple times, and aims at improving the energy performance of the national building stocks through energy efficiency. The objective is to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions.
The latest directive means updating building laws and forcing higher rates of renovation. It passed on March 14, with 343 votes in favor, 216 against and 78 abstentions. The latest version of the directive is part of the “Fit for 55” climate package.
The Parliament also wants to increase the number of households installing solar panels and to get rid of fossil fuel heating systems. European member states must adopt plans to phase out fossil fuel use in buildings by 2035.
35 million buildings affected
“An estimated 35 million buildings across Europe will be affected by the planned new regulations,” Spiegel reports here. It is estimated it would cost Germany 254 billion euros alone.
Supporters say citizens will benefit from lower energy bills and more jobs. It will also reduce Europe’s dependency on fuel imports from Russia, they claim.
The European Commission has a building energy performance scale for buildings that ranges from A (best) to G (worst) efficiency.
The EU’s target is to get every building to be carbon neutral.
Already there’s broad opposition
However,, with the vote in the EU Parliament, the plans have not yet been decided. The EU member states and the European Parliament still have to approve the targets before they can come into force.
“That’s pie-in-the-sky policymaking from cuckoo land. It’s neither affordable nor feasible,” said head of the Haus&Grund association Kai Warnecke to Bild newspaper.
“There are differences between countries,” said Finnish centrist Marui Pekkarinen. “In some countries, the proposal goes too high”, citing Finland as an example, where heating is largely decarbonized.
Critics warn of government red-tape and an administrative burden that would be caused. Others are questioning how all of it would be funded. Renovating older homes to be highly energy efficient means substantial investments in new windows, rooves, insulation, heating systems, which altogether can run well into the tens of thousands of euros per living unit. This would make many buildings and homes “worthless”.
“A lot of European money available”
Green MEP Bas Eickhout, however, pointed out: “There is a lot of European money available and it will deliver on climate, lower energy bills, jobs and less dependency on Russia. You should be in favor of that,” he said.
The costs will be on addition to those to be incurred through the EU’s plans to force people to buy electric cars and to eliminate all fossil fuel heating systems.
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