The Marrakech, Morocco Climate Summit COP 22 (Howard Cork Hayden)

Recommendation: Subscribe to The Energy Advocate, a monthly letter on energy and climate science.

Publisher: Vales Lake Publishing, LLC. Editor Howard Hayden, Ph.D., (for identification only) Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut. The Energy Advocate, PO Box 7609, Pueblo West, CO 81007. ISSN: 1091-9732.

Fax: (719) 547-7819, e-mail: corkhayden@comcast.net.

Website: http://www.EnergyAdvocate.com.

Subscription $40 for 12 monthly issues.

-

A Primer on CO 2 and Climate 2 nd Ed. $11.00, A Primer on Renewable Energy $16.00 for subscribers Bass Ackwards: How Climate Alarmists Confuse Cause with Effect $18 Energy: A Textbook, $25

(Add $5.00 for Priority Mail) Checks must be drawn on a US bank. VISA, MasterCard, Discover/NOVUS accepted.

Excerpts from, The Energy Advocate, December 2016 (Vol. 21, No. 5):

The Marrakech, Morocco “Climate Summit”: COP-22 The sundial picture nearby may look a little strange to most readers of TEA. The gnomon (the slanted part that casts the shadow) looks as if it is not slanted enough. The sundial is correctly made, but for the low latitude of Morocco. On the equator, the gnomon would be horizontal, and at the North Pole, it would be vertical. In other words, the angle of the gnomon is equal to the latitude. Most TEA (The Energy Advocates) readers live in temperate climates, with latitudes between 30º and 48º, or between the same values of south latitude.

I did not travel to Morocco to join the throngs who went to the 22nd Conference of Parties [1] and bring back a souvenir sundial. Actually, I took the picture at a gem and mineral show featuring a lot of fossils, a great number from Morocco.

The attendance at COP22 was evidently about 25,000, including, perhaps, a few scientists. Of course, the representatives of the world’s governments and (of course) lavishly funded “environmental” groups flew in to COP-22 in jet planes fueled by fossil fuels to complain about other people’s use of fossil fuels.

Page 1

The “Climate Summit” was most assuredly not about climate. Basically, its plan was “to hammer out details of the landmark global climate change accord reached in Paris (COP21, “The Paris Agreement”) almost a year ago” [3]. There is no chance whatsoever that the United States Senate will agree to the terms, none of which have any benefit whatsoever to the US or to the climate, President Obama’s signature notwithstanding.

Neither China, the United States, nor any other nation can get enough energy from sunbeams, breezes, and chicken manure, the energy sources favored by the delegates to any of the COP gatherings.

Nobody at COP-22 was discussing atmospheric energy transport, nobody gave talks about computer modeling, nobody talked about measurements, nobody talked about instrumentation, nobody talked about atmospheric dynamics. Make no mistake about it: COP-22 was about money and (political) power. None of this is news, as the same thing has happened 21 times before.

COP-22 is a useless venture in several ways. For one, even if you believed the climate models, and even if COP-22 succeeded in cementing the agreements made at the Paris meeting, the effect on climate would be nil. Of course, no serious scientist ever thought that small reductions in CO2 would have any effect on climate, but it’s nice to see that the New York Times is catching on [3]: “The era of fossil fuels is far from being over, even if the Paris pledges are fully implemented,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the [International Energy Agency]. Today, he said, the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix is about 81 percent; if Paris goals are met, the share will drop only to 74 percent by 2040.

This is in part because even though renewable energy sources are finding their way into electricity generation, oil is still an important source of power for transportation and petrochemical production.

It would be nicer yet if the New York Times recognized that “renewable energy sources” basically consist of direct solar energy (which is available only a few hours a day) and wind (which is highly variable). I seriously doubt that it would be fun to be on an elevator with Mr. Schwartz in a New York skyscraper that is powered by wind turbines.

Alas, Mr. Schwartz unquestioningly promotes more taxpayer-funded Pixie Dust [3]: Tim Buckley, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a progressive research organization based in Cleveland, said that the decline of coal and the explosion in low-cost renewable energy provided a simple lesson: “Those who exit fossil fuels and embrace solar and wind will reap financial rewards and avoid stranded assets.”

Page 2

[1] http://unfccc.int/meetings/marrakech_nov_2016 /meeting/9567.php, 17-18 November 2016.

[2] “Kerry Blasts Climate Change Deniers at COP 22,” http://www.voanews.com/a/kerry-blasts-climate-change-deniersatcop22/3598452.html, 11/16/2016 [3] John Schwartz, “Paris Climate Deal Is Too Weak to Meet Goals, Report Finds,” New York Times, 11/16/16.

Marrakech, Morocco

Page 3