sunshine hours

This is not surprise to me, but I like to see it in print. (Thanks to NoTricksZone)

A commentary at flagship German online daily FAZ looked at a recent study by the German Umweltbundesamt – UBA – (Federal Environment Agency) which examined the per capita consumption of natural resources by different population groups.

Not surprisingly, high income groups were found to own a large number of cars and live in large homes with energy-guzzling appliances – thus making this group of people large consumers of energy.

Frequent flier climate activists

Also the study found that the “urban, academic young classes who tend towards voting for the Greens have far above-average CO2 emissions per capita” and these emissions “are not offset by them buying vegetables from the local region in the organic shop”.

The FAZ writes that the study found that this particular class — who are worried about the CO2 emissions and the climate — have “an above-average number of frequent flyers” and like to take long-haul flights to distant places like “New Zealand or Canada to admire nature”.

The UBA study also found that traditional working classes (whose lifestyles the Greens often complain about) in fact are energy modest and fly less frequently.

Here the FAZ concludes:

The bottom line of the study was that those with a ‘positive environmental attitude’ had the highest actual energy consumption and CO2 emissions.”

Peter Ridd is suing James Cook University for daring to challenge “settled science” about the Great Barrier Reef. Court case is coming up later in March.

Just letting you know that my court case is scheduled for 26-28th March in Brisbane. The main arguments of both sides have been submitted to the court and the James Cook University arguments will certainly make interesting reading when they become public during the hearing. My legal people have been excellent and I am confident that if this can be won, then they will do it.

On a philosophical note, in my opinion JCU will lose the ethical argument even if they manage to win on some narrow legal definition. If they win, it will mean that a judge has decided that a university has set up legally binding contracts that give them the power to effectively take away the right to intellectual freedom of an academic and silence him/her. That would be something of a pyrrhic victory. The university hierarchy may feel vindicated but the general public, especially those in North Queensland who are most affected by the questionable Great Barrier Reef science, will take a different view.

But without getting over-confident, I reckon the chances of us winning are considerably above average, so we will see.

It has been warmer in the Arctic.

Air temperature in 1899–1914 during three expeditions was 1.8–4.6 °C lower than the modern period in winter (Oct–Apr). However, during the 1930/31 expedition it was 4.6 °C warmer than the years 1981–2010. Our results relate to what has been called the ‘1930s warming’, referred to by various authors in the literature as the ETCW or the ETCAW.

Thanks to NoTricksZone

And I look forward to this:

This article is one of the first in the literature to present an analysis of biometeorological conditions in the Arctic in historical periods. The Department of Meteorology and Climatology of Nicolaus Copernicus University has a sizeable database of early instrumental data for the Arctic region, the Historical Arctic Database (HARD 2.0, http://www.hardv2.prac.umk.pl/), and work on climate reconstructions of the region is ongoing. This line of application of the data, i.e. the historical bioclimatology of the Arctic, will continue to be developed in the near future.