Peter C. Glover

Greenism’s Threat to Democracy

Sydney Herald columnist Richard Glover believes the time has come for all "climate-change deniers" to have "their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies". Ah yes, Nazi-style totalitarianism, officially-sanctioned and enforced beliefs with the physical marking of dissidents. That's the spirit, Richard. Overlooking the stark fact of misrepresentation--no one denies that climate change is a reality, that is what climate does, change or vary over cyclical periods--what we, and quite a few others including countless scientists, do deny is that the recent warming period which flat-lined around 12 years ago, is entirely within normal, historic, temperature parameters.

The Blackpool Quakes and UK Shale: Injecting Perspective

"Small earthquake, not many dead" is the well-known winner of a poll among journalists to identify the world's dullest headline. "Small earthquake in Blackpool" could rival it, except for the suspicion that it may have been caused by nearby hydraulic fracture drilling or 'fracking', on the site of the UK's first shale gas prospect.

Scottish Wind Farms Paid to Shut Down Generation

In April, six Scottish wind farm companies were paid £300,000 (US$485,000) to shut down generation. The problem? Over a two-day period they were producing too much electricity. UK wind power groups were cock-a-hoop. At last, a good news wind energy story not built on the quicksand of fanciful claims to "free" energy, for once based on the hard math of actual production. Unfortunately, the apparent "success" story turns out instead merely to reinforce serious concerns over the volatility of base load supply to power grids from highly variable generation sources; not to mention highlighting yet another 'hidden' public subsidy necessary to cope with the problem.

Shale Gas Wars: A Tale of Two Studies

"A lie gets halfway around the world before truth has a chance to get is pants on". It seems Winston Churchill's dictum could be applied to "comprehensive" studies into the global shale gas phenomenon too.

Ten Fracking Things Everyone Should Know

As dull headlines go it’s on a par with the (almost certainly apocryphal) classic “Small earthquake in Chile. Not many dead”. But “Hundreds rally against fracking” – the hydraulic fracturing procedure used in shale gas extraction – must be up there with the dullest.

Shale Gas: And the Hits Just Keep On Coming

It needs to be broadcast loud and clear: energy crises are the result of 'above the ground geopolitics' not a lack of global resources. When it comes to supply, as the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report assessing recoverable shale deposits in 14 regions/32 countries outside North America makes clear, we need to ditch the alarmism of the doom and gloom-mongers once and for all. While talk of energy crises sell books and make eye catching headlines, the fact is that current circulating maps of global energy reserves have been rendered meaningless.

Warmageddon Deferred, says Joe Public

“The global warming hysteria is well and truly over. How do we know? Because all the relevant factors – polls, news coverage, government u-turns and a manifest lack of interest among policy makers – show a steep decline in public concern about climate change.” Dr Benny Peiser, director of the UK’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, was speaking for the motion ‘The Global Warming Concern is Over, Time for a Return to Sanity’ at a public debate hosted by the UK’s Spectator magazine at The Royal Geographic Society in March. The London audience having heard an evening of hard facts openly debated, duly voted 428 in favor of the motion, 214 against, 31 undecided.

Wind Power Causes Gridlock

'Hamish' lives in a remote, relatively windy, farmhouse location in Scotland. Being an unreconstructed liberal with cash to splash, Hamish decided eighteen months ago to invest in his 'free' wind power dream. Disgusted that his power company would not buy any excess electricity a 'home' turbine would produce, Hamish switched to the one Scottish power company that was prepared to buy it. By February 2011, having bought his £55,000 ($88,000) turbine and completed the infrastructure and after the power company laid the cables, Hamish received a bombshell. Having tested the system the power company refused to allow Hamish to turn it all on because variable wind surges would trip out the power grid.

The Great British Solar Scam

Every year millions of Britons join the birds flying south for a vacation. The reason for the annual exodus is simple enough: guaranteed sun, guaranteed heat. I have yet to hear of a foreign tourist giving the same reasons for visiting British shores. So why, you might wonder, does the British Government want we Brits to invest heavily in solar panels?

The Carbon Prayer

It’s not been a good year for the followers of ‘man-made carbon dioxide as key driver of global temperature’ theory. Not least because the seemingly inexorable upward trend of global CO2 emissions (courtesy of the fast-industrializing nations) shows no signs of abating while global temperatures persist in flat-lining, even falling. But hey, let’s not let scientific fact interfere with a good computer-generated, speculative global scare story.

Why De-Nuking Iran WON’T Mean WW3

The leaked memo revealing US defense secretary Robert Gates' concern at the lack of a 'Plan B' to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions implied two things. That the Obama administration had no coherent strategy to prevent Iran realizing its nuclear ambitions; worse, that the White House may already have changed policy, from 'prevention' to 'containment'.

Britain’s Power Conundrum

David Cameron may have succeeded in bridging Britain's political power gap, but another looms that could very quickly 'short-circuit' his grip on national power, unless his coalition government gets real -- and quickly -- over energy and environment. For one thing, the sale of two-thirds of the nation's power utilities to European competitors has effectively led to Brits subsidizing their EU neighbors' energy costs; for another, just as the next election season rolls around in five years time, he is likely to find his autocue a little difficult to read as the nation's lights start going out.

Johann Hari: Writer, Climate Claptrap

Johann Hari. Remember the name. Especially, if you live in America, because British journalist Hari wants to warn you that a "startling amount" of " "climate claptrap" is -- unlike British planes currently -- traversing the Atlantic.

Drilling Down in Obama’s Oil Play

Horse trading in bygone eras, the proverbial standard of shady deals, cannot match the politics of the day in the United States. Barack Obama – a president as hostage to liberal rhetoric as one could ever envision and who ran a presidential campaign on the most virulent of anti-oil, pro renewables tickets – has unexpectedly reversed the long-standing US ban on offshore oil drilling.

Geologic Carbon Storage Can NEVER Work, says new US study

If world leaders – still reeling from the fiasco of the Copenhagen Summit in the global war against carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – were hoping to find technological ‘solace’ on their return, the news could not be worse. Central to hopes for the future management of carbon dioxide emissions are theories associated with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). That is, collecting and storing the carbon emitted from burning fossil fuels underground, mainly beneath the ocean floor. However, a new US study just published exposes the concept of subsea CO2 management as “overwhelming in both physical needs and costs” and the entire strategy for geological sequestration per se as “profoundly non-feasible”.

Climate-Gate: Anti-science, Fraud & Reputations

This week in Copenhagen, world leaders will meet for a two-week global warming alarmist-fest in a bid to change the entire direction of the global economy. They will do so, not on the basis of empirical scientific facts about global warming, but on alarmist computer-modelled predictions rooted in the raw temperature data fed in. Oh yes, and the scientific integrity of those doing the feeding and interpreting the results.

The IEA’s “Whistleblower” Is Irrelevant

The 1999 Michael Mann movie The Insider remains one of my favorites. The story of Jeffrey Wigand’s “outing” of Big Tobacco’s lying to Congress over the real science behind cigarette addiction is inspiring. But it seems to me, we may be in danger of running away with a romantic notion of the modern phenomena of “whistle-blowing,” especially in light of the claims by an un-named insider at the International Energy Agency that the agency deliberately overstated available oil reserves.

The Climate Money Scandal: $79 Billion and Counting

Peter C Glover & Michael Economides By the end of 2009, the US taxpayer will have subsidized the American climate industry to the tune of $79 billion – with trillions more to come. According to a new report, the figures reveal that the US Government has established a near-monopsony that is hugely distorting climate science in favour of “self-serving alarmism”.

Copenhagen’s Carbon Neverland

The world's war on carbon emissions isn't going well. In just six months, the UN sponsored Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change will seek to begat 'Kyoto II', a worldwide anti-carbon strategy with teeth. Billed by alarmists as 'the last chance to save our planet', all the signs are that Michael Jackson has more chance of recording new material than Copenhagen has of delivering a meaningful international accord.

Israel-Palestine: The Myth of a Two-State Solution

The world and his brother perceive a "two-state solution" for Israel and Palestine as the key to achieving Middle East peace. President Obama and the US House (both sides) buy it. So too do Western leaders in Brussels. And with US leftist Jews and ex-diplomats and even 58 percent of Israelis 'on board', one wonders why Israel's PM Netanyahu did not simply turn up at the recent White House talks pen poised to sign up too.