Guns and Tractors Threaten Biodiversity More Than Global Warming

Finally … and so blindingly obvious to those not blinded by the AGW propaganda.

The main driver of wildlife extinction is not climate change, but humanity’s harvesting of species and our ever-expanding agricultural footprint.

This is according to a new study of nearly 9,000 ‘threatened’ or ‘near-threatened’ species.

While scientists acknowledge climate change is a threat, they found that three-quarters are being over-exploited for commerce, recreation or subsistence.

Demand for meat and body parts, for example, have driven the Western gorilla and Chinese pangolin to near extinction, and pushed the Sumatran rhinoceros – prized in China for bogus medicines made from its horn – over the edge.

And more than half of the 8,688 species of animals and plants evaluated are suffering due to the conversion of their natural habitats into industrial farms and plantations, mainly to raise livestock and grow commodity crops for fuel or food.

By comparison, only 19 per cent of these species are currently affected by climate change, they reported in a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Conservation budgets, the researchers argued, must reflect this reality.

And then some of the usual BS

‘There is no need to see tradeoffs among different conservation priorities – we need them all,’ Peter MacIntyre, an expert on the ecology of fresh-water systems at the University of Wisconsin, told AFP.

Translation: The AGW cult wants all the money.

UK Fracking Options

The UK policy on fracking is really, really stupid!

“They are taking ethane, turning it into a liquid, transporting it across the sea in a container, turning it back into a gas and then pumping it into Grangemouth.

“Just beneath Grangemouth are deposits of shale gas the Scottish Government is saying you can’t touch.”

Capture

 

Ontario’s Electricity Policy Disaster

Massive revenue guarantees for a handful of lucky wind power generators, but no appreciable environmental benefit from Ontario’s energy policies says economics professor Ross McKitrick

You may be surprised to learn that electricity is now cheaper to generate in Ontario than it has been for decades. The wholesale price, called the Hourly Ontario Electricity Price or HOEP, used to bounce around between five and eight cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), but over the last decade, thanks in large part to the shale gas revolution, it has trended down to below three cents, and on a typical day is now as low as two cents per kWh. Good news, right?

It would be, except that this is Ontario. A hidden tax on Ontario’s electricity has pushed the actual purchase price in the opposite direction, to the highest it’s ever been. The tax, called the Global Adjustment (GA), is levied on electricity purchases to cover a massive provincial slush fund for green energy, conservation programs, nuclear plant repairs and other central planning boondoggles. As these spending commitments soar, so does the GA.

In the latter part of the last decade when the HOEP was around five cents per kWh and the government had not yet begun tinkering, the GA was negligible, so it hardly affected the price. In 2009, when the Green Energy Act kicked in with massive revenue guarantees for wind and solar generators, the GA jumped to about 3.5 cents per kWh, and has been trending up since — now it is regularly above 9.5 cents.

In April it even topped 11 cents, triple the average HOEP.

So while the marginal production cost for generation is the lowest in decades, electricity bills have never been higher. And the way the system is structured, costs will keep rising.

Read more here

 

Sea Ice Extent (Global Antarctic and Arctic) – Day 222 – 2016

The arctic is currently 820,000 sq km above where it was on the same day in 2012.

2016 day 222 arctic is higher than 2007 and 2011 (as well as 2012)

Global_Sea_Ice_Extent_Zoomed_2016_Day_222_1981-2010 Antarctic_Sea_Ice_Extent_Zoomed_2016_Day_222_1981-2010 Arctic_Sea_Ice_Extent_Zoomed_2016_Day_222_1981-2010

South / North

Sea Ice Extent (Global Antarctic and Arctic) – Day 221 – 2016

The arctic is currently 650,000 sq km above where it was on the same day in 2012.

I doubt if any Arctic records will be set.

Global_Sea_Ice_Extent_Zoomed_2016_Day_221_1981-2010 Antarctic_Sea_Ice_Extent_Zoomed_2016_Day_221_1981-2010 Arctic_Sea_Ice_Extent_Zoomed_2016_Day_221_1981-2010

South / North

Electrical Madness in Green Ontario

Go to Ron Clutz’s Page and follow the links. Horrible things are happening in Ontario!

The energy mix in Ontario’s electrical sector is dominated by hydro and nuclear, so getting off coal seemed doable.  But in the provincial government’s drive to reduce CO2 emissions and join the California Emissions Trading Scheme, they have hardwired costly energy contracts that Ontarians will pay for through their noses for decades. Meet the Global Adjustment Fee (covering a multitude of sins and mismanagement).