COP29 Preview: Hot Talk vs. Reality

“What to expect from COP 29 in Baku come November? In the words of the great American philosopher Lawrence “Yogi” Berra: ‘It’s like déjà vu all over again’.”

Remember COP28? Forget about it. Most everybody else has. This is COP29, Nov. 11-24, 2024, the 29th annual international greenwashing gabfest about the world’s promised actions to deal with a climate being changed by man-made global warming. Most of those meetings have had little real impact, generating more heat, rancor, posturing, and light — and sometimes state-sponsored repression —  than measurable movement toward significant reductions in emissions of greenhouse gasses, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2).

The formal title of these highly-hyped, frequently ignored, sometimes entertaining gatherings is the “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” with the inevitable acronym of UNFCC. The selection of Azerbaijan to host the meeting is significant.…

Naturally Hot, Exaggeration Not

“What has come to be known as ‘weather attribution,’ research assigning causation to observed weather events, is fraught with methodological problems. Veteran climate scientist Roger A. Pielke Jr. in his Substack publication The Honest Broker calls it ‘weather attribution alchemy’.”

Last year was hot, unusually so. The global temperature was almost 0.3°C above 2022 levels, so much higher that even conventional analyses of global warming didn’t appear to explain it. As a recent article in Science magazine notes, iconic climate scientist James Hansen was suggesting that a new, air-pollution-driven warming mechanism might be at work. NASA’s Gavin Schmidt posited that a novel, unknown force could be involved.

Wrong, says a team of six climate scientists led by Shiv Priyam Raghuraman (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana). The culprit is more likely the familiar climate confounder, El Niño (technically, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation or ENSO).…

U.S. Offshore Wind: GE Vernova’s Big Problems

“European energy companies Orsted, Equinor and BP have taken a combined $5 billion of writedowns on U.S. offshore wind projects that are mostly in development, in part because their existing power sales contracts would not cover the cost of building and financing the projects.” (- Reuters, below)

Facing a series of costly physical problems and a becalmed market, GE Vernova, the largest offshore wind turbine developer in the U.S., has informed European authorities that it plans to lay off up to 900 workers around the world as it scales back its offshore business. The Maritime Executive reported that the General Electric wind development spinoff notified the European Works Council for France of its planned downsizing.

Under EU law, member states have established councils to “facilitate the information and consultation of employees with a focus on transnational issues….”…

The Department of Interior (Project 2025)

U.S. Offshore Wind: The Struggle Continues

Nuclear Fusion: More Government Fail

Nuclear Subsidies Galore …

Nuclear News …. Little Good

‘Zero Emission’ Truck Fraud: Candid Camera Meets Nikola (Trevon Milton to the Slammer?)

More SMR Woes: Oklo/Air-Force Cancellation