No, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Climate Sceptics Are Not in For a “Nasty Surprise”
Over at the Telegraph, the paper’s longstanding solar power evangelist, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard-Thunberg, is worried. Of course, constant worry, and trying to draw as many people into it as they can, is every George Monbiot tribute act’s privilege. Accordingly, this week’s AEP special treat opens with the line: “If you have stopped paying attention to global warming, you may soon be in for a nasty surprise.” Citing “a paper by Columbia University”, the self-styled member of “an endangered species: a green conservative” warns that “we will have our first taste of a 1.7°C world as soon as next year”.
AEP believes that once this 1.7°C temperature has been hit, the centre Right will reject the planet-destroying politics of Trump, and British Conservatives will again “be the responsible party of nature and free market”, drawing back “the hard-working silent middle”.
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Meanwhile, back in the real world:
‘Heavy ice throughout the Baltic Sea has strained regional fleets. Finland has deployed all eight icebreakers operated by state-owned Arctia, with the last two joining operations on Feb. 3. Sweden has committed all six of its icebreakers, and Estonia has deployed three vessels.
Russia has dispatched two powerful icebreakers, including a nuclear-powered vessel, from Arctic waters to the Baltic Sea to help keep shipping lanes open as one of the harshest ice seasons in more than a decade disrupts maritime traffic across northern Europe.
This winter’s ice conditions across the Baltic Sea have been unusually persistent in several coastal regions, particularly in gulfs and shallow bays. Authorities in Finland, Sweden, and Estonia have all reported high demand for icebreaker support as shipping lanes narrowed. In some ports, older reserve icebreakers have been reactivated or extended into service…’
https://gcaptain.com/russia-sends-nuclear-icebreaker-from-arctic-to-baltic-sea-as-severe-ice-chokes-shipping/
Monro, you have missed out the puchline. With Germany’s gas storage virtually exhausted to the critical 20%, LNG tanker ships are unable to reach the terminal on the island of Ruegen due to the sea ice in the Baltic. And…even better…the ice breaker the Germans have deployed has suffered a technical failure so there is still no emergency LNG supply. Hard not to cry laughing at just how stupid they are in Germany these days.
The Neuwerk is a multipupose diesel-electric ship nearly 30 yrs old with some icebreaking capability. She is due to be replaced by the 2nd in a series under construction in NW Germany. The newer ship’s generators are fuelled by cryogenic LNG alone without diesel power back-up – ideology replaces engineering. Mukran LNG terminal ran out on Feb 2nd. The Russians, incidentally, have a series of large LNG tankers designed to operate in the Arctic.
I don’t know about you, fellow readers of the Daily Sceptic, but I’m getting bored of these “impending climate crisis” stories.
Even if they were true, what are we going to about it? Install more solar panels? Look outside – it’s grey and rainy today. And I have the good fortune to live in the warmest part of Britain. Yet – zero Watts today.
Just bored of these “the end is nigh” guys.
I have solar panels fitted with a back-up battery for to cope with what I see are the inevitable power cuts of Millibands stupidity.
What has surprised me is that my panels produce 2kWh of power even on overcast grey winter days, so most of the time they support my base level of household usage during daylight hours..
Solar and wind turbines on a domestic dwelling are a great idea (budget dependant of course) problem is, it doesn’t scale up well! Terrible for trying to power a whole country with it
If I had the disposable income (which ERNIE seems reluctant to provide), I’d be doing exactly the same as you, to protect myself against the net zero induced power blackouts.
Buy a diesel generator instead.
‘As well as’ I’d suggest – recharge batteries via generator as last resort… the battery is the key component now vs years ago.
agreed main need is to counter mad ed…
Wow! That’s impressive.
How much total surface area do your panels have?
I have 10 panels. Couldn’t fit any more on the roof.
Thanks. Are they the “standard” 1 m x 2 m size?
Excuse my ignorance, but apparently there are panels of different sizes.
Homeowners are restricted to 4MWh worth of panels. I could have more but this is not possible.
My house (which was built in 1973) and my neighbour opposite already had panels installed and that means that nobody else in our part of the road can install and export to the grid. The reason? “The grid cannot take it” was the surveyor’s response to that exact question. He also added “it (the grid) was designed to give power, not to take it”. Move Gubment BS in other words.
The restriction is on the subsidised feed-in tarrif. You can have as many panels as you wish (or your roof can support).
Mikael, homeowners are restricted to 4kWh (I wrongly used MWh above) as you need MCS (Microgeneration Certification) before being able to export. It is this that restricts exporting to the grid.
But you can put as much as you like to your own storage – tbh given the way export rates will plummet, it’s hardly worth the hassle.
I have a total of 9kWp of solar panels and an export limit of 8.5kW.
It was great to read your comment. I too set up solar panels linked to batteries as backup, we’re up to 11kWh of storage now, which can charge completely throughout a bright morning; it cut the electricity bill by about 50% but as you say, it’s also there to cope with the inevitable consequences of Milliband’s malign intentions towards the UK power-grid (and the UK in general).
AEP is a fool: arrogant, pompous, sanctimonious; he may be educated at Eton etc… but intelligence tied to delusion is just foolishness (see Phrenology, Astrology, Numerology etc.). He’s part of the reason I dumped my Telegraph subscription in 2019, along with Janet Daley’s acute TDS, the other wet liberal anti-Brexit lefties (Nelson, Warner etc) their Global Health Security team pushing vaccines and jumping on the WHO bandwagon, and their appalling globalist-leftist editor, Chris Evans (not least for his cowardly sacking of “Bob” Moran).
Only Heath and Clarke were worth reading.
Bring back Conrad Black!
North facing ones can add a useful contribution as well, contrary to established beliefs… given panels are now so cheap it makes sense to overpanel, most cost is in scaffold / labour
Shortest winter day would be around the solstice – a bit under 8 hours in a mid point in the UK. 2kWh over 8 hours is around 250W average over those hours.
Our home consumes a bit over 8kWh electricity per day. We cook on electricity (morning and evening) and run the washing machine and tumble dryer pretty much every day. Our hot water and heating is gas.
It’s good that you store the energy you get from the panels in a battery for when you need it. That 250W won’t go very far if you’re using it as its generated.
I’m sure you get a lot more in Summer months.
I acknowledge you said your panels (Edit: and battery) are there to cope with power cuts, but do you have any approximation of the return on investment period? I’m guessing a long time or greater than the anticipated lifetime of the installation.
I’d guess also you don’t charge an electric car or have a heat-pump – but that is just a guess.
You’re lucky in a way, but given the radio frequency interference that many solar panel inverters generate this radio amateur is glad that I don’t live next to you.
If I ever fit such devices I will have to add massive suppression of this electrical noise or my weak signal reception is likely to become Impossible. I’m already coping with a noisy EV charger 4 houses away, it’s bad enough when idle but when charging it’s dreadful.
Sounds miraculous!
My panels, down here near the Spanish border, mostly produce only a few hundred watts, for a few hours around midday, in the darkest months.
The “end is nigh” serves a purpose though, but ofcourse it has nothing to do with the climate. Climate change isn’t and never was about the climate. The climate is simply the excuse for the POLITICS. ——SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND NET ZERO.
Wait till AEP discovers that the term ‘average temperature’ is itself scientific and mathematical woo-woo. Take a glass of water at 5C and mix it with another glass at 5C. Do you get 10C? No. Why not? Because temperature is an intensive property. Add those cups of water to a lake at 1C. What’s the average? See?
Temperatures is a by product of energy and entropy. All it measures is the immediate state of its immediate surroundings. Hence an airfield with 3 jets lands sets the UK record for 30 seconds one summer.
If you take a temperature in Brisbane and another in Iceland and make an average of the two you will get a number. But that number is not the temperature of anything. It is just a statistic, a mathematical construct. —-But then you know that already.
It’s a shame, I once enjoyed reading his opinion on economics but gave up on the Telegraph when they stopped reporting certain subjects objectively.
But it does make me wonder why these people are so intent on making the environment we live in so ugly and inhospitable and at the same time making life so bloody miserable. Perhaps they get a perverse pleasure from spreading misery whilst they engage in selfish virtue signalling. I do believe it’s a front to make people believe that they care about others, but destroying the planet to save it does seem a bit silly, to say the least.
It is human nature to ‘forget’ past bad events and to pay too much attention to possibilities of present and future bad events. Hence ‘doom scrolling’ – which some journalists and activists exploit.
The question I would ask AEP is what data would convince him that he was wrong? If he could provide no reasonable answer then he is in the grip of a cultish belief.
Marxists want to undermine society.
A-E-P-T is a B-E-R-K.
AEP is a laughing stock. He’s yet to publish an article where he gets things right. By far the great majority of comments on his articles in the DT regarding matters financial or climate-related are highly castigatory. More fool DT for paying his wages.
His articles are funnier than the DT cartoons.
Matt often produces a belly laugh, other cartoonists less so.
They can’t even tell me what the weather is going to be in a couple of weeks.
Oh but wait, “as soon as next year” There’s that get out clause.again. Another non-prediction prediction.
Is that the time when there will not be enough snow to sustain skiing in the Alps?
They’ve got so much it’s killing extra people due to avalanches.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is a lone voice of Eco Lunacy at the DT.
It would be a blessing if he moved to The Guardian, where he really belongs.
Unlikely to happen – AEP generates clicks and comments for the DT – mainly because he writes such drivel. They would never let him go. I suspect that the Telegraph has always had an uneasy relationship with the truth but now online it seems happy to publish all sorts of rubbish to keep the punters clicking. It’s like TikTok for the over 50s!
Despite the Daily Sceptic’s obsession with the Telegraph (just check the daily digest), the DTs promotion of the climate scam is a reason I won’t subscribe.
Add to this the DTs promotion of transgenderism, it’s complete dismissal of the stolen 2020 POTUS election, its snout in the Covid gravy train and the misrepresentation of Israel.
These are deep rooted, deliberate policies of many years standing.
100%
I wonder who these “British Conservatives” are to whom he refers. Does he mean members of/supporters of/MPs of the Fake Conservative Party?
I couldn’t agree more. Plus Janet Daley likening Farage to Hitler and Charles Moore’s condescending comments. All through the lockdowns they featured a sexchange character who was entitled to many kinds of special treatment while we experienced the end of GPs. After sixty years as a reader I cancelled and don’t miss it one bit. So many of us had the scales fall from our eyes regarding the msm; all trust is gone.
I don’t have a problem with the Telegraph employing some columnists I disagree with, AEP being one. Unlike the Guardian it seems to me that at present it makes room for the expression of a range of differing viewpoints. That’s desirable I think.
The Biden election and the Covid nonsense are now several years ago and I’m sure that over the decades before the Telegraph had also taken positions I disagreed with. How can a policy on a controversial matter be deep rooted when the matter has passed into history? Also it seems to me that most of the opinions expressed in the Telegraph are now sceptical about the Government’s dreadful performance during Covid.
You don’t say how the Telegraph misrepresents Israel and I don’t know what your standpoint is.
“ next years global temperature”——The globe does not have a temperature. All temperature is local. Temperature is a field. ——The idea of a global average for temperature is folly. Some things lose their meaning when you average them and temperature is one of those things. Mainly because it is not an amount of anything, it is just a condition.
Then further down the page we see this—“knows perfectly well that climate change is happening and poses an intolerable threat to their children” but the IPCC itself only a few months ago said “Worst case scenario’s from our models are very unlikely to occur”—-So this “intolerable threat is actually “very unlikely”.
I wonder what he thinks is a tolerable threat to our children?
There are already proven intolerable threats to our children in Britain, pretty much all of them need to be imprisoned and deported to Pakistan.
Would our children complain if UK temperatures rise to match those of southern France? Would our farmers complain if their crops were more plentiful?
The man is a complete arse, I don’t know why the Telegraph use him, I can only think its for click bait.
I never read his articles further than the subheading (unless I need a good laugh), which is more often these days.
I didn’t bother reading this one.
If you have stopped paying attention to global warming, you may soon be in for a nasty surprise.
May soon be. Vague conditional.
I’ve been getting nasty surprises about The Climate™ since Al Gore’s A Convenient Lie
Ambrose is prone to believe anybody who inflicts a heavy lunch on him without question. If there was ever a one-ended stick Ambrose would have a firm grasp on the other end.
I wore shorts for a good six months last year and enjoyed the weather – should I be feeling miserable instead?
The guy lacks intellectual rigour and is dangerously short of scepticism. Third-rate in all respects. Just ignore him and his ignorant ramblings.
Someone is about to make a calculation the word has never seen before and the consequences will be unimaginable!
… oh my …
Better:
Climate sceptics are in for a nasty surprise! We will boldly calculate something no man has ever calculated before!
How many of you spotted the link to securty risk? I’d already downloaded this ridiculous document How anybody in government could treat this as a serious srudy I’ve no idea. Apparently, it had to be watered down because it was even more ridiculous first time round:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-assessment-on-global-biodiversity-loss-ecosystem-collapse-and-national-security/national-security-assessment-on-global-ecosystems-accessible-version?utm_source=chatgpt.com
And when the 1.7C World comes and goes without note, what then?
Like all the other prophesies of “nasty surprises”, disappearing Arctic Ice, long hot Summers with droughts, snow being unknown to children born after 2000AD, ski-resorts finished fir lack,of snow, outbreaks of malaria, famines due to crop failures, etc they all fail to materialise.
And that is why I compare the Telegraph’s eco-warrior to George Monbiot. For as much as he tries to put distance between himself and his counterpart at the more (seemingly, at least) Left-wing rag, what both eco-boomers have in common is a total absence of anything resembling a sense of proportion. And that, I claim, is a symptom of environmentalism.
I think what they both have an absence of is a functioning brain cell.
“because the Columbia team is led by Jim Hansen, the veteran Nasa scientist, whom I interviewed in 1987 after his watershed testimony to Congress on the greenhouse threat.”
Hmm now let me think, was this the Congress session held in high summer where the evening before Hansen and his chums sneaked into the room and opened all the windows to nullify the lovely aircon and make it hot and sweaty, such was their conviction in the veracity of their claims of global warming?
As Douglas Adams said in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the one thing you can’t afford to have is a sense of proportion.
AEP was lampooned in the comments after his article. He isn’t persuading anyone!
If you subscribe to Cap’s missives at Electroverse it’s not warming you’ll be worrying about, it’ll be concern over being frozen near solid. The latest northern hemisphere winter data is quite scary, everyone has been suffering with the exception of the UK because we’re balanced, as ever, between the freezing east and the damp and rainy Atlantic and this year the latter is mostly winning.
AEP is a clickbait troll. His articles in the DT are utter drivel.