.

Bjorn Lomborg: "Hurricanes in 2021 were unprecedented — as in unprecedentedly few. Globally, 2021 had the fewest hurricanes ever in the satellite era (1980-2021). Globally, 2021 had some of the fewest strong hurricanes in the satellite era (1980-2021). With 16 strong (Cat 3+) hurricanes, 2021 was the second-lowest strong hurricane year since 1980. Globally, 2021 was a weak hurricane year. When measured by total energy (Accumulated Cyclone Energy), 2021 was the 9th weakest year. Did you see that reported anywhere?

Hurricanes in 2021 were weak and exceptionally few. But we heard lots about North Atlantic hurricanes. Conveniently, North Atlantic is the only basin where hurricanes are stronger. Does this leave us well-informed?. But we hear lots about names storms (hurricanes + weaker storms). Ever-easier to detect, so numbers keep climbing (4 of 2020s 30 named storms wouldn't have been named in 2000!). Not as relevant, but hey, scary numbers."

MARK HODGSON:  "I think this is what is called spin. 2021 must have been a disappointment for climate worriers keen to ratchet up panic and demands for ever-more urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." The headline “Europe experiences average temperatures during the winter and spring and a year of temperatures outside the ten warmest years” didn’t fit the bill.

Jo Nova: Magical seven-year record wins the Hottest-ever Bingo of 2021. Why does “seven years” suddenly matter? "The last 500 years has been the coldest of the last 5,000." -"Two can play Climate Bingo. In the history of human civilization, we’ve never lived through six centuries that were colder than the last six. Maybe that’s more important than a 7-year hot record in the “blip” at the end?" 

TOM CHIVERS: "The world’s population has exploded: in 1800, there were about 1 billion humans. In 1950, there were 2.5 billion. Now there are 7.7 billion. In my parents’ lifetime, the number of humans alive has trebled. But amazingly, the amount of material available to each of them has increased even more, and that is in large part because of our use of fossil fuels. In 1800, almost all the energy used globally was in the form of human and animal muscles, for mechanical work, or plant matter, burned for heat and light. Coal, the first widely used fossil fuel, was just starting to be used in steam engines in the UK, but it was negligible overall. By 1900, fossil fuels were the source for half our energy. By 2000, they were the source of 87%. ... 

And as a result, our lives have been transformed. The amount of energy available to the world has increased 1,500-fold. That is only part of the story, though: increased energy efficiency means that the gain in useful energy is more like 3,500 times. And even though the world’s population has gone up many times, “an average inhabitant of the Earth nowadays has at their disposal nearly 700 times more useful energy than their ancestors had at the beginning of the 19th century”.

Laurence D. Fink, the founder and chief executive of the investment giant BlackRock, has become one of the most influential voices in business over the past decade in pushing corporate leaders to think beyond profits, to their social purpose...Within weeks of his telling leaders in 2020 that climate change would become a “defining factor” in how BlackRock assessed their companies, many blue-chip businesses announced plans to become carbon-neutral or carbon-negative. ... 

He suggested that E.S.G. was not a fad but a permanent feature of the corporate world. Business leaders who do not adapt to the new reality, he suggested, risk being overtaken by younger and more innovative rivals in step with the times. “Capital markets have allowed companies and countries to flourish. But access to capital is not a right,” he wrote. “It is a privilege. And the duty to attract that capital in a responsible and sustainable way lies with you.”

"The lockdowns served as a 'test run' for necessary measures to realise their preferred climate-change policies.'

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class: "For the middle and working classes, however, the Great Reset may prove somewhat less promising — if not disastrous. For most people, notes Eric Heymann, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Research, the rapid 'green' transition will mean 'a noticeable loss of welfare and jobs.' The conscious policy of degrowth as a means of forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require getting most people out of their cars, and forcing them to travel far less and to live in tiny apartments. Enforcement will be necessarily intrusive as well. Planners in the UK and elsewhere are pushing for family 'carbon budgets.' Add surveillance technology and we end up with something akin to China’s 'social credit' system, in which your right to free movement is subject to government approval. ... 

"The [COVID] emergency allowed governments to grant them unprecedented executive and administrative powers not just in centralised France but even in usually semi-sensible Great Britain and Australia. For some, the lockdowns served as a 'test run' for necessary measures to realise their preferred climate-change policies. In the new schema, the real class enemy is not the excesses of the ultra-rich, or even wasteful spending by government: it’s the consumption patterns of the masses. ... The early-twentieth-century Italian sociologist Robert Michels noted that complex issues — climate, for instance — reinforce what he called the 'iron law of oligarchy': the more dependent on expertise a society becomes, the greater the need for elite-driven solutions that bypass popular input — and the greater the force the elite will apply to attain its goals."

Paul Homewood: "It is those computer models that dictated UN climate policies, based on ludicrous projections of rapid warming. In reality, the amount of warming since 1979 has been tiny. Indeed, when you factor in margins of error, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1998. 

You might also note that the satellite data begins in 1979, which just so happens to be the coldest period of the 20thC. At the time it was acknowledged that global temperatures had decline by 0.5C since 1940, which offsets most of the increase since 1979. This decline in temperatures coincides with the cold phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which has been in warm phase since the 1990s and is soon due to revert to cold."

Foreign Policy mag's deputy editor Cameron Abadi: "Democracy works by compromise, but climate change is precisely the type of problem that seems not to allow for it...That the world’s democracies are witnessing a growing spectrum of climate radicalism, both from the bottom up and the top-down, is not to suggest that authoritarian systems would do any better in solving the relevant political and economic issues involved in moving beyond the carbon economy. But it is a sign that democracy, in its current form, is not necessarily the path to a solution. It might, instead, be part of the problem."

Ovo Energy last week emailed customers a list of 10 “simple and cost-effective ways to keep warm this winter”. As well as cuddling pets for warmth, other tips included “challenging the kids to a hula hoop competition”, “doing star jumps”, and “cleaning the house”.  It came as Britain’s cost-of-living crisis is expected to worsen. ... Ovo has since apologised for the tips, telling the FT: “We understand how difficult the situation will be for many of our customers this year. “We are working hard to find meaningful solutions as we approach this energy crisis, and we recognise that the content of this blog was poorly judged and unhelpful. We are embarrassed and sincerely apologise.”

Climate Lockdown: Less Driving, Flying, and Eating Meat: "Americans are going to have to deal with less," warns Marc Morano, author of Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think. "We're gonna drive less, fly less, eat less meat. They're already talking about sustainable housing and shutting down the suburbs." "This is the progressive vision of how you make people do with less in a climate emergency," Morano says.

A recent article in the influential magazine Foreign Policy suggested Democracy may not be compatible with reaching climate goals.

"The lockdowns served as a 'test run' for necessary measures to realise their preferred climate-change policies.'

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class: "For the middle and working classes, however, the Great Reset may prove somewhat less promising — if not disastrous. For most people, notes Eric Heymann, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Research, the rapid 'green' transition will mean 'a noticeable loss of welfare and jobs.' The conscious policy of degrowth as a means of forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions will require getting most people out of their cars, and forcing them to travel far less and to live in tiny apartments. Enforcement will be necessarily intrusive as well. Planners in the UK and elsewhere are pushing for family 'carbon budgets.' Add surveillance technology and we end up with something akin to China’s 'social credit' system, in which your right to free movement is subject to government approval. ... 

"The [COVID] emergency allowed governments to grant them unprecedented executive and administrative powers not just in centralised France but even in usually semi-sensible Great Britain and Australia. For some, the lockdowns served as a 'test run' for necessary measures to realise their preferred climate-change policies. In the new schema, the real class enemy is not the excesses of the ultra-rich, or even wasteful spending by government: it’s the consumption patterns of the masses. ... The early-twentieth-century Italian sociologist Robert Michels noted that complex issues — climate, for instance — reinforce what he called the 'iron law of oligarchy': the more dependent on expertise a society becomes, the greater the need for elite-driven solutions that bypass popular input — and the greater the force the elite will apply to attain its goals."

Build Back Blacker: Both coal and CO2 emissions hit record levels in 2021 - The Australian, 14 January 2022 - Coal generated more power in 2021 than at any other time in history as the energy crisis in Europe and China pushed up power prices and forced a switch back to coal generators, according to the International Energy Agency.

"The annual average anomaly for 2021 was +0.134 deg. C above the 30-year mean (1991-2020), which places it as the 8th warmest year in the 43 year satellite record, behind 2016, 2020, 1998, 2019, 2017,2010, and 2015."

Biden after touring wildfire damage in Colorado that destroyed more than 1,000 homes: “We’re gonna have windmills, you’re gonna see that have 100-yard wingspans, each, each propeller on that on that windmill, 100 yards long. So there’s so much that’s going to be able to be done.”

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Ben Pile: "Climate scientists are the worst people to listen to about floods. They are overwrought with emotion, self-importance and ideology. The best people to speak to are engineers. The engineer's solution to flooding is to build and maintain waterways and drainage, properly zone development, and to raise land levels or barriers where appropriate... And so on...The climate scientist's solution to the possibility -- or even inevitability -- of flooding is to completely transform society, to regulate lifestyles and to enforce austerity. But it will still flood."