March 27, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Ontario Demand and Market Prices

Note: As of March 27, 2010, at 1:00 PM EDT,  the price was 3.01¢/kWh
Average Weighted Price for March was 2.81¢/kWh
Average Weighted Price since Jan 1, 2010 was 3.30¢/kWh

That low price has not been seen in Alberta for more than ten years now.  The price per kWh in Alberta has been more than twice the price in Ontario ever since Albertans were saddled with deregulated electric energy prices.

Alberta TMR Reference Prices (per MWh; divide by 1,000 to derive price per kWh)

A contract price will help to provide a steady, non-fluctuating rate for electric energy bills.  However, there is not a single energy provider in Alberta who will provide electric energy at close to the low price paid by Ontarians.

For residential users, farmers and small businesses in Alberta, deregulation of the electric energy market was a false promise that, instead of “putting more money back into the pockets of Albertans” (Ed Stelmach *) more than doubled the price of electric energy, beginning Jan. 1, 2000.

* We will continue to monitor energy supplies and pricing and take appropriate action when necessary in the best interest of all Albertans.
The Alberta Government is committed to putting more money back into the pockets of Albertans.

Ed Stelmach (PC), Alberta Minister of Transportation,
MLA Vegreville-Viking, 2002 04 19,
in his response to an open letter on utility pricing policies.
(Source)

Since then, the deregulation of Alberta’s electric energy industry cost Albertans far in excess of $10 billion dollars, much of which added to the windfall revenues gathered by the Alberta Government.

By the way,

Tracking Earth Hour in the Greenest State

27 03 2010 Earth Hour comes to every time zone at 8:30 PM today. Will it make a difference?

Their website says:

On Earth Hour hundreds of millions of people around the world will come together to call for action on climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations. Learn more about how Earth Hour began, what we’ve accomplished, and what is in store for 2010.

As Anthony Watts properly identifies at his blog, “…last year, according to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), Earth Hour made zero difference to the California power consumption. Zero, zip, nada. ” (read more)

Effective propaganda always makes attractive claims, but you can bet your life on one major aspect of it.  The more wide-spread a propaganda campaign ranges, and the more intensive it is, the more money it will cost.  In the end, those costs are always paid by the end consumers.

Posted in Electric Energy Prices, Energy Issues, Energy Purchases | Print | No Comments »

March 23, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Canada Free Press

History and science of El Niño, Severe Limitations of IPCC Science

El Niño Alone Illustrates Why IPCC Science Is Wrong

By Dr. Tim Ball  Monday, March 22, 2010

IPCC Reports claim with certainty that increases in global temperature since the 19th century are due to human addition of CO2. There are a multitude of problems with the claim not least the omission or lack of understanding of major temperature altering mechanisms. We are in the middle of an El Niño event, more commonly called El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) that is modifying temperatures beyond human effect (Figure 1).

As Happ notes, “The gorilla in the climate change closet is ENSO. Until the mechanism responsible for the fluctuation in tropical temperatures that feeds into global temperatures is described and the resulting contribution to global temperature is quantified we have no hope of quantifying the temperature change that is due to ‘anthropogenic’ causes.”….(Full Story)

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The article by Dr. Tim Ball refers to the explanation of the cause of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) that had been provided by Dr. Theodore Landscheidt.  A link to that explanation is contained in the article.  Here are excerpts from a more detailed report by Dr. Landscheidt on the long-term predictability of the variations of the Sun’s influence on Earth’s weather.

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March 22, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Now and then someone observes that, wherever the observer is located, “uncontrolled breeding” (or out-of-control immigration) makes things getting to be intolerably crowded.

In most cases, such observations are subjective.  They need to be looked at in terms of “compared to what?”

The vast majority of concerns that things are becoming crowded is overrated.

Posted in Propaganda debunked, Pollution: Health Issues | Print | No Comments »

March 21, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

National Post

March 17, 2010
Ross McKitrick, Air pollution, University of Guelph

Models that predict thousands of smog-related hospitalizations in Toronto don’t hold up

By Ross McKitrick

For many years we have heard that air pollution in Canada is responsible for thousands of annual deaths and hospitalizations. In 2004 Toronto Public Health claimed that 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospitalizations occur each year in Toronto alone, due to air pollution. The Ontario Medical Association, provincial and federal governments, lung associations and other groups regularly cite these kinds of figures in support of calls for new regulatory initiatives. These death and hospitalization rates are astonishing. It is like suffering a 9/11-sized terrorist attack every 10 months.

But is it really true?….(Full Story)

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Note: At the end of the National Post Article is a link to a file that is supposed to contain the full study report on which Dr. McKitrick’s article is based.  The link does not function and returns a 404 error.  Here is a functioning link to the study report at Dr. McKitricks web page.

Posted in Community & Industry, Pollution: Health Issues, Nitrogen-Oxides, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

March 20, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Telegraph

WWF hopes to find $60 billion growing on trees

The carbon credits scheme would make WWF and its partners much richer, but with no lowering of overall CO2 emissions

By Christopher Booker
Published: 4:53PM GMT 20 Mar 2010

(Full Story)

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

March 20, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Wall Street Pit

By Duncan Davidson

March 19, 2010

Those of you who still believe that the ClimateGate scandal was just a bunch of emails in England should read this article. James Hansen of GISS appears to have systematically adjusted the historical temperature record to remove a cold patch in the ’70s in order to exaggerate the rise since. The amount of change of 0.6 degrees is for one decade is close to the measured change for the whole century. This is vividly seen in these three snapshots of his data being modified:….(Full Story)

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

March 20, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Canada Free Press

By Dr. Tim Ball  Friday, March 19, 2010

Aesop (620-564 BC) the Greek writer famous for his fables told of the boy who falsely cried wolf. Environmentalists have falsely cried wolf and effectively undermine environmentalism the need to live within the confines of a finite planet. They misled, exaggerated and made a multitude of false predictions to the detriment of the environment and people’s willingness to be aware and concerned. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was a major starting point that blamed DDT for many things including thinner eggshells none of which proved correct….(Full Story)

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

March 12, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Prospect Magazine

The case against the hockey stick

By Matt Ridley

10th March 2010 — Issue 168 Free entry

The “hockey stick” temperature graph is a mainstay of global warming science. A new book tells of one man’s efforts to dismantle it—and deserves to win prizes (Link to Book Review)

It is a fascinating review of a book, a book that anyone concerned about the methods and costs — running in the trillions of dollars — of alleviating climate change should have on his shelf.

Posted in Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

March 11, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Thanks to http://www.climatedepot.com/ :

Pajamas Media

March 11, 2010 - by Christopher Horner

Climategate: Three of the Four Temperature Datasets Now Irrevocably Tainted

With today’s revelation on Pajamas Media, only the Japan Meteorological Agency is left to save the warmists. Don’t bet on it. (Click here to see Horner discuss this article on PJTV.)

The warmist response to Climategate — the discovery of the thoroughly corrupt practices of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) — was that the tainted CRU dataset was just one of four independent data sets. You know. So really there’s no big deal.

Thanks to a FOIA request, the document production of which I am presently plowing through — and before that, thanks to the great work of Steve McIntyre, and particularly in their recent, comprehensive work, Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts — we know that NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) passed no one’s test for credibility. Not even NASA’s….(Full Story)

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March 10, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Crisis of Faith

Faith-Based Climate Astrology: Women hit by global warming head to Capitol Hill: ‘We have freezing temps when we shouldn’t have freezing temps’

‘We didn’t know what was happening…We blamed God’ — But then they ‘learned that human activities are one cause of climate change’

Tuesday, March 09, 2010
By Marc Morano  –  Climate Depot (Full Story)

Can the deservedly and seriously damaged credibility of the IPCC be salvaged? Attempts will be made, but it is doubtful that the damage can be undone.

From The Times
March 10, 2010
UN to review errors made by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Ben Webster, Environment Editor

The United Nations is to announce an independent review of errors made by its climate change advisory body in an attempt to restore its credibility….(Full Story)

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