Of course it is really great that Jo has some leisure time! Jo has mentioned us “unsung moderators” before but she also left us with keys to the shop. So maybe we can have some fun while she is away. Pick your topic. Post anything you want (within reason*) and see what happens!
When Jo gets back she can decide if this stays or is erased forever.
From all of us moderators, have a HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Many thanks FROM the unsung moderators TO all of you for the comments and great thinking that makes this possible.
P.S. It might be time to upsize your chocolate commitment 🙂
* Ad hominems are still likely to disappear from the thread.
LATE NOTE from Jo: Yes, Happy New Year to you all! Thanks to the volunteers behind the scenes, and thanks to all the people who have put links to this site in an email or on a discussion board. It may seem futile but editors of newspapers notice when the comments don’t flow the way they expected.
Please post notes here about the kind of stories you are most interested in, or projects you’d most like to see. The comments counter for the most popular articles is not always the best way to measure the popularity or success of an article. If it helps, the Archives or the Index are not far away… — Jo
Yes happy NY to Jo and may your NY be full of chocolate and happy NY to all who visit here
As to the floods in Qld
Please leave a supportive comment on Dr Stockwell’s blog
http://landshape.org/enm/emerald-floods/
he’s in Emerald
He made a post yesterday critizing the BOM so read it at his site
I’m miffed about the flood victims appeal; at the time of the Black Sat fires Red Cross and other charities were accepting donations and currently the only appeal I’ve seen is the Premiers Appeal (okay I know the Red Cross is admin’ing it but I’d rather donate to the Red Cross rather than to a Premier for whom I don’t have much admiration.) I’ve e mailed the Red Cross; there was good coverage on the ch 7 news tonight and the victims are stiff lipped but don’t know what the ABC will show; my gripe is that the charities should be launching appeals not the State Govt and I am appalled at the miserliness of the amt offered by the State and Fed Govts; I’ve passed that on to the Red Cross; I recall at the time of the Black Sat fires I donated through the Red Cross and Qld was also suffering flood damage at that time but the Black Sat victims got the majority of the appeal funds and now I think it’s Qld’s turn – hopefully the Red Cross will come to the party; I think they are much more photogenic than the PM and State Premier
Anyway please offer verbal support to the people of Emerald through Dr Stockwell’s blog
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Happy New Year to Jo and all the contributers here. 2010 was a year when we pragmatists and rememberers of history started to gain some traction in the AGW fiasco. Without Jo and Anthony and Jeff and Delingpole and Steve and Gosselin and a few others the scammers at Global Warming Central would now be in complete control. Thanks to all of them for giving those with doubts and questions a forum where discussion was encouraged not stifled; quite a difference from the warming websites.
2011 will still bring challenges such as the Gillards carbon tax and Obamas EPA. I’ve given up hope for the Brits. All I see there is more windmills, more snow and more blackouts with associated hardships for the poorer members of that country. However in the gloom I see glimpses of realism. Nuclear energy is once more being discussed and some are questioning the promises of green power. The pragmatic approach of China, India and Brazil as well as the rejection of the religion in the US Congress, the Canadian Senate and now in Japan all augers well for the future.
Nature itself may well be driving the nails into the coffin that is AGW despite the ridiculous claims of the faithful: hottest ever and warming causes cooling. The acolytes are becoming desperate as they see the gravy train leaving the station and them standing forlornly on the platform. Our next challenge will be to nip the next big scare, whatever it is, in the bud before it starts to bloom. Acidification of the oceans springs to mind.
What Jo and her ilk have done is alert many to the manipulation of science and government that can occur when no one watches. Now that we know we will be watching from now on. The scammers will not get the head start they had with AGW and hopefully the MSM will be more careful of what they back. They have egg on their face now and have lost a lot of readers to blogs like this and Andrew Bolt’s.
So thanks and we should all sent chocolate to a lady who helped save us from a disaster.
10
Jo, if you’re reading this, enjoy your time off. You’ve earned it. The mice will no doubt keep things lively until you get back.
Happy New Year to all who read joannenova!
10
A happy new year to all the bloggers at Jo’s site.
My request is for anyone who has any info on the raw numbers for MDBasin rainfall and runoff for the last 100+ years to please provide a link on the blog.
I’ve seen the graphs for rainfall on the BOM site ( and raw numbers for rainfall) for 1900 to 2009 but they don’t provide runoff for that period.
The best I can find is a paper from the csiro showing 2 small graphs on page 2 for rainfall, runoff 1895 to 2006 but alas no raw numbers for either.
I’ve tried for months to get the MDBA to send me the info but they don’t seem to want to, anyhow here is that csiro paper.
http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim09/G6/potter.pdf
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Lawrie and Roy I completely agree!
Neville so far as I know runoff is calculated from computer modelling based on raw data for the relevant catchment area; but I’m no scientist; the CSIRO paper explains its methodology but I understand the methodology itself is open to question
for example on Dr Stockwell’s blog http://landshape.org/enm/?s=run+off+in+the+MDB&x=20&y=18 there’s a critique of a critique Dr Stockwell had written Some comments on the Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report (DECR) and on Dr David Stockwell’s critique of it
That critique is written by 2 statisticians
So you might pose your question to Dr Stockwell
10
Hi all, and happy
wintersummerwhatever solstice to you all.I had some fun at about five minutes past midnight, New Zealand summer time last night, telling some friends in the US what a lovely mild evening it was here in the future, and how much they were going to enjoy it when it was finally their turn.
Some Californians have a real problem getting their heads around somebody talking to them from 21 or 22 hours in “their future”.
Mind you, the people in question were at Woodstock, so they probably don’t actually know where their heads are some of the time.
And then I though that might be the lead-in to a potential topic for discussion.
You see most people involved in Climate science [small “s” intentional] seem to be in the western part of the northern hemisphere, with a couple of little outposts here in the antipodes. They tend to live in heavily urbanised areas, surrounded by industry, freeways, et cetera, and I was wondering how much influence their immediate environment had on their attitude to climate variations.
Brussels, Zurich, and Geneva are all beautiful cities, but they are still made of concrete and stone, and don’t really get you close to nature. Similarly, folks who work at UN Headquarters may get to walk in Central Park in their lunch times; and perhaps they think that that is what nature is all about – they have squirrels in Central Park, or so I am told.
So my suggestion for a discussion is around the psychology of the true believers [with a small “p”] – the folks who will never accept that nature just is, and that it constantly adapts itself to find a natural state of balance that is far too sublime for us mere mortals to understand.
Waddya think?
10
Rereke brilliant idea
I’m no psychologist. However I keep in touch with NZ through Climate Conversation and in response to this article there yesterday http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2010/12/an-impressive-level-of-scintillating-repartee/
I visited the blog Hot Topic and read the article linked in the above article
I was a bit horrified at the aggressiveness shown there at those who asked questions or displayed disagreeement with the questioning – you can see references in Climate Conversation’s article and in the comments to it. CC has another article up today http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2011/01/rotted-minds-at-hot-topic/
Rotted minds at Hot Topic
in which Richard Treadgold sets out his experience of a venture of the Hot Topic World
By contrast I think we are on Jo’s blog reasonably courteous to ‘trolls’; what do you think?
Now as to your discussion point I suppose we could speculate about the psychology of the true believers but not much use without a bio; I’ve checked for one for Tim Flannery but says nothing about his background where he grew up etc and at the moment don’t have time to check any others; anyway look forward to a scinillating discussion
10
Rereke Whakaaro:
January 1st, 2011 at 9:15 am wrote:
My daughter lived for some years in the USA (Ma) and often read the Sydney Morning Herald (NSW) on the internet, being “to-morrow’s” newspaper. On a visit there, I did find it strange to do so.
In wishing Jo and her readers “All the best for the New Year,” may I put the question as to what should be the tactics for the New Year? Would it be possible to put before the politicians and their scientific advisors, regularly and forcibly, the fallacies and contradictions of the AGW arguments?
10
happy new year one and all.
here’s a piece full of so much misinfo/disinfo, u could pick it apart from now til next new year.
1 Jan: SMH: Believe it or not, climate debate heats up
Climate scientists want us to understand the world is burning, writes Adam Morton..
http://www.smh.com.au/national/believe-it-or-not-climate-debate-heats-up-20101231-19c0d.html
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Level-Delusion-Fact-checking-Everything/dp/0956226515/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293456037&sr=1-1
Delingpoles already calling it the most important book of 2010 – the Spirit Level delusion – a comprehensive rebuttal of the Spirit Level – the ecotards new playbook.
10
I think someone should start a class action legal battle for compensation for the damages caused by the lies and misinformation from the alarmist community. Starting maybe with Flannery.. and the chief scientist in Canberra..
10
Happy New year, Jo and all here!
Probably one of the most telling statements by a scientist in 2010 was Phil Jones’ “there has been no statistical warming since 1995”.
10
Pat #9
I’ll say things are heating up – I was at friends yesterday and watched Professor David Karoly being interviewed on ABC TV (that 24 hour news digital station). The ABC news reader had no problem calling us “deniers” as well. (I watched and listened while silently fuming).
Karoly’s was simply a political diatribe vented nationally using taxpayer funds – our ABC – but the overarching impression I get is both Karoly and his ABC interviewer/talking head seem to be convinced that it’s happening, AGW that is, and are starting to become stressed out that the rest of us haven’t yet realised the urgency of the situation.
So the SMH article you linked is part of the campaign to goad us into “doing something” before it’s too late.
I’ve also noticed that the OS&H mindset has well and truly entrenched itself in all aspects of government and commerical activities with the emphasis on “avoiding” high risk activities by writing up risk assessments before anything is done. It is therefore likely that CO2 emissions will be part of the OS&H regime in the short term and that the AGW propoganda barrage we are receiving may well be part of a larger attempt to regulate our activities. (The US EPA move to take control of Texas’ responsibilities seems part of this growing intrusion of government in our lives).
We seem to be living during interesting times.
10
Paul @79
Great idea to think about tactics now; what I do is send as many letters to politicians, comments to articles in newspapers and comment on the ABC The Drum and The Drum Unleashed as I have time for and keep a copy of all my published comments and letters sent to politicians on my computer; the more letters sent in this way by individuals the better; it does assist in spreading the word as it were and it’s important to try to get published in left wing papers and sites like the SMH and the ABC
It would be good to be able to keep an archive by readers of this blog of published comments and letters to politicians but I can’t think of any simple way of doing this; maybe somebody could come up with an idea
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A challenge to the Climate Conversation Group, Climate Science Coalition, Hot Topic, Open Parachute and NIWA.
1) Plot a 15 year moving average of the 7SS NZTR composite actual temperatures 1909-2009
http://www.niwa.co.nz/__data/assets/excel_doc/0011/99965/NZT7_Data_FINAL.xls
Excel: Copy the 7SS composite actuals to A1
Tools – Add Ins – Data Analysis – Moving average – A1:A100 to B1
Insert Chart B15:B100
What do you see?
2) De-trend the 7SS actuals for the normal warming since 1850 that the latest science shows to be 0.5 C/100 yr that is accounted for by solar variation and climatological causes or use the IPCC figure of 0.45 C if living in the past is your preference.
Excel:
Create a column 1850 to 2009 (A1) [Start the series 1850 1851 1852 then extend using the bold + bottom right corner of the last entry]
Create a column 0 to 159 (B1) [Use the bold + as before]
Create a column (C1) =0.005*(B1)+13.6 [Use the bold + again to extend to row 160]
Now copy in the 7SS composite actuals from row 59 to 159 (D60)
Calculate the anomaly (E60) =(C60-D60)*-1 and extend to row 160
Plot a 15 yr moving average using the technique in 1).
What do you see?
3) Perform a linear regression on the 15 year moving average de-trended anomaly data.
Excel: Tools – Data Analysis – Regression
For 1923 (E74) to 1953 (E104)
What do you see?
For 1953 (E104) to 1963 (E114)
What do you see?
For 1963 (E114) to 2009 (E160)
What do you see?
—————————————————————————————————————————-
Note: the column:row addresses have not been checked on an actual spreadsheet so you’ll have to check for yourself.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
Happy New Year to everyone at JoNova
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Darren Parker @ #10
Thanks for the link Darren, I’ve ordered it and also read Delingpole’s post on it. It supports my previous post here in which I allude to a wider agenda in play.
For those who want to gain an understanding of the mindset behind the AGW and related policies, read PM Gillard’s address to the Fabian Society in 2007 – her comments are most interesting, especially about Howard and Costello, something I’ve noticed in other Australians I know and occasionally socialise with. Their visceral hatred of the “Tories” is deep and drives their politics.
When all is said and done, we are really dealing with the Marxists in all their colours and hues, not deluded global warmers but Marxists.
10
Thanks for that info Val, I think I will ask Dr. Stockwell about his understanding of the MDB rainfall runoff, but I can’t understand why the raw numbers are such a closed shop.
Of course if some strange modeling is involved it perhaps is much easier to understand.
10
The dangers of an out of control bloated Government and bureaucracy…. Watch this Documentary… “Britain’s Trillion Dollar Horror Story”
It’s in 5 parts on Youtube. It’s very sobering stuff.
10
Re 15
Should add to 3)
For 2000 (E151) to 2009 (E160)
What do you see?
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J. Hansford @ #18
Michael Durking strikes again! But I start to wonder what Australia’s national debt is, and perhaps this is the reason why they are trying to impose a carbon tax on us.
One interesting point Durkin makes is the distinction between the public sector and the private. I mentioned to a lefty that the public sector cannot pay tax as they are tax consumers. This point was challenged and suggests the mess the UK is in derives more from economic illiteracy (ie Keynesianism) than anything else.
Mind it is interesting England, the home of Marxian thought has finally shown how economically inane Marx’s theories were.
10
Happy New Year to all from the past here in USA.
10
Happy New Year, One & All:
10
Some enlightening articles about RED gillard and the Fabians!!!!
New Zeal: Julia Gillard Tells Fabians of Labor’s Plans (2007)……
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2007/11/julia-gillard-tells-fabians-of-labors.html
Gillard is an old guard Fabian socialist on education…….
http://australianconservative.com/2010/08/gillard-is-an-old-guard-fabian-socialist-on-education/
AustraliaMatters.com :: Buy gold, you get gold – Vote Labor, you get Fabianism…….
http://www.australiamatters.com/fabian.html
List of Fabian Socialists….
http://noelozzy.50webs.com/lostlink/austfab.htm
Fabian Socialist Contribution to the Communist Advance….
http://www.alor.org/Library/FabianSocialistContributiontotheCommunistAdvance.htm
Julia Gillard – New Aussie P.M.’s Red Roots (ADMITS TO BEING A FABIAN!)….
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2010/06/red-julia-new-aussie-pms-socialist.html
Picture of the Fabian Window (a picture tells all!!!)……
http://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/fabians/images/FabianWindow_Large.jpg
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Happy New Year to all and a big thanks to Jo and the moderators.
10
NEUROSCIENTISTS may have helped us understand why conservative voters have more common sense than left-wingers.
Why Labor is a no-brainer!!
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/why_labor_is_a_no_brainer/
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“While the research inspired by Firth’s flippant remark may point the way to understanding the neurology behind political choice, there is no guarantee that those who have a diminished sense of self-preservation will respond differently in the future.
Rats learn how to avoid electrical shocks but there is a core of Labor voters incapable of learning new behaviour when exposed to the same threat stimuli.
The commonsense gene favours conservatives.”
Very profound. My independent research led to the understanding that members of the Left are very susceptible to the overtures of authority figures because they, unlike conservatives, are not interested in finding out, for themselves, how things work. If, as suggested by Wendy’s post on that brilliant piece of research, there is a marked genetic difference giving conservatives the edge when it comes to learning new tricks, can it be that Leftists are for all intents and purposes trusting quasi religionists simply because they are not genetically equipped to find out for themselves how things work?
10
Funny thing I’ve been saying for years that leftwing idiots fail to consider the consequences of their ideas and actions.
Now it look likes there could be a problem or deficiency in parts of the poor darlings brains.
Certainly explains a lot but the trouble is we all have to suffer the consequences.
What a pity we can’t have two govts, one for leftwing loonies and another for conservatives who have common sense and intellectual self respect.
Trouble is it would require a type of physical partition, but after a few months the lefty idiots would be broke and beating on our doors begging us to save them from some new stupid fantasy or dreamed up superstition.
10
Val @ 7. In regards to young Tim, I have been told his actual basic degree was in English. After that he went into the paleo what ever. The people dealing out the grant money for Tim’s post graduate study said that being a English graduate, he specialises in Bull$hit.
10
Great comment in the UK’s Daily mail today.
A …”Green person” on the subject of the floods down in the aussie land said something like…”Get used to it, it’s global warming…these people should move of the flood plains and get to higher ground.
and the answers were?
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Happy New Year everybody.
Well, it’s a great start to the race to find the most stooopid, dumba$$ed alarmist comment for the year.
Check it out here How Global Warming Denial Aids Terrorists
Then come back and have fun tearing it apart.
10
Oh lookey here, the alarmists really do their homework. What’s there to not believe?
Maybe the poly berras hitched a ride on the back of a whale?
The penguins are really gunna be pi$$ed.
Both this and my post at #30 via hauntingthelibrary
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Neville: #27
January 1st, 2011 at 8:38 pm
We did that Nifty, it was called the Iron Curtain.
10
I’m sorry Baa but I think you’ve got your wires crossed, that curtain was pulled down to keep people in not out and was inspired by a totalitarian communist regime. Definitely not we BTW.
Don’t forget they also built the Berlin wall to keep East Germans from escaping to freedom in the west and yet many still tried.
Some were successful but many were shot trying.
Angela Merkel grew up in East Germany but still managed to become the president of the now combined country.
Anyhow I thought you’d understand that I wasn’t exactly serious when I posed that O/T solution.
10
this link takes you to A DISASTER IN SLOW MOTION.
Major Floods In Queensland Australia
written by a Rockhampton resident with photos
there’s also a link to an earlier article of his
http://papundits.wordpress.com…/
it truly is a disaster; read the earlier article too it shows a flood marker with marks for historic floods but there will be those of course who will blame this event on global warming
thanks Len for the info on Tim shake boots Flannery
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THANKS MODERATORS – (A survey of one.)
I am in awe of the unsung moderators on Jo’s site. Thanks to you all. I get a sense of the responsibilities you face with your job, and I think of the big money and power behind professional shills paid to infiltrate decent sites like this one. Congratulations, and thanks for your ‘final filter’ on the site. Your efforts are not going unnoticed by me, for one.
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Baa @ 31…..
By the gods they are right! those Ant-poley baars are extinct already! What have we done?!??!?!?!?!
Darn my sarc button is stuck
HAPPY NEW YEAR! to all
10
Loius,
We are entering a period where those with the midset that no one is allowed to lose, or feel that they’ve lost, is being used by those with power to control the power.
What goes hand in hand with this mindset is, for someone not to lose, you also cannot have any winners. This is how you acheive equality.
The problem is… our entire societal system is built on competition. Competition breeds winners and far more losers. Guess what? The losers are sick of it, losing that is. Losers are in the moajority. All competition will find ONE winner. The other participants are losers. Anyone pandering to those losers gets the votes.
Our culture of progress through competiton has been eroded to todays point for at least the last 35 years. I’d suggest since interest in mans greatest technological acheivement, manned space flight, has deminished, and lead to the cancelling of moon missions.
Society, I believe, is headed for a fall. Sooner or later, the uncoordinated kid, who struggles to judge the landing area of a ball in flight, and subsequently gets it in the nose (OH&S right there) 🙂 is going to find out he/she is no good at it. Conversley the kid that is no damn good at algebra, concepts they can’t see or feel, better get used to swinging a hammer or working out how a series of cogs works. Both have wasted valuable time.
Participation is being held up as the bastion rather than victory or by setting oneself appart through excellence.
Being told you are valuable is your families job. Being told your ability is valuable is society’s job. Society will reward you accordingly, we hope. This has been lost.
Rules to retard the winners. Rules to promote incompetence. Rules to distribute the spoils of the capable amongst the incapable. Rules to improve the abilities of incapable is how we lift productivity. Constant failure to do so will lead society into a big shock with no one capable of sorting out the mess.
10
Neville @27,
There you have your thumb on the very first thing that must be thrown down the toilet in order to believe in the left’s philosophy (if that’s the right word). Self-respect must go and in its place we now must have self-esteem. It’s, “poor baby,” if you don’t feel good about yourself. And just how do you feel good about yourself? You guessed it, save the planet; save the Polar Bears; save the shellfish (save the whole ocean actually); save the poor in Africa; save the…endless list.
We have even tried here in the U.S. to teach self-esteem in our schools. Obama’s push at our schools is to graduate and do public service. Yea! Go team Obama! I wonder who will be left to produce anything to pay for it all. Oh yes, what do they call it? Credit, yes, that’s how we’ll do it. Just print funny money to go along with the funny philosophy.
The pity in all this is that some day you’re going to screw up, maybe badly. Or bad stuff will happen to you. And you just plain won’t feel good about yourself. I wonder how those who don’t know they should have a healthy self-respect will get through those times. We see them going off on shooting sprees all too often.
Self-esteem will let you down. Self-respect will teach you that it’s normal to make mistakes, even big ones; that it’s normal for bad things to happen. It will teach you that you can forgive yourself, learn from the experience and move on, hopefully wiser than before. It will let you seek help when in trouble rather than going off the deep end. And above all it will teach you the value of standing on your own two feet wherever possible.
But no, we must just feel good about ourselves with no other option. So let the government usher you into everlasting-fat-dumb-and-happy-land. Whoopee! All is well.
The moral in this is to never invite me to an open thread where almost anything goes. 😉
May this New Year turn out much better than we fear for all of us!
10
Piers Corbyn and others like him are refining a method that seems to have been greatly advanced by an early Australian scientist meteorologist/Astronomer Inigo Jones. Found a few bits about his “planetary orbit -solar magnetism-solar energy cyclic methodology” and his war with the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology.
Posted links here: http://joannenova.com.au/2010/12/another-test-of-the-bom-vs-corbyn/comment-page-2/#comment-166765
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Siliggy @ 39,
My father was a follower of Inigo Jones as were most farmers for the simple reason he got the big calls right. While he had errors as do any forecasters he did predict with accuracy major events such as droughts. Dad talked about the drought of the thirties when he and his farming family struggled. Inigo said then that while the current drought was terrible there would be a worse one in the eighties but the big one would be at the start of the next millenium. He was right on both counts.
Chiefio had a piece some weeks ago on a correlation he observed between hot and cold. When the earth is hot it is dry but when the earth cools it gets wet. Is it El Nino or La Nina? or does it have something to do with solar irradience? or is the PDO or any other of a thousand cycles? The one thing we know for sure is that long before CO2 was a problem we had droughts and floods. We also know that when men forget or ignore history they are doomed to make mistakes. We further know that men are never quite as smart as they think they are. Lately we have seen how climate scientists have ignored climate history and are so full of their own importance that they fail to see the big picture, the one clearly seen by Inigo Jones when he obsrved the natural cycles.
10
Siliggy thanks for those links; my mother recalls that Indigo Jones trialled some cloud seeding experiments at Charleville in Qld; the experiments were unsuccessful but the cloud seeding gun is still located at Charleville
10
further to my previous comment I think my mother must be wrong (not that I’d be game to tell her so); here’s a link to an article that attributes that experiment to Clement Wragge, described as Queensland’s energetic, but irascible meteorologist.
http://discontents.com.au/words/articles/the-weather-prophets
10
Noted that Inigo (sometimes Indigo but he was named after the famous Inigo Jones of architectural fame for his designs in the early Stuart Court) Jones passed on his body of weather knowledge to Lennox Walker who in turn passed the mantle to his son Haydon. This from him:
“The late Indigo Jones and Lennox Walker considered that the positions of the planets in relation to the sun caused a waxing or waning of the sunspot cycle. Normally when any of the major planets are in the vicinity of the 18th hour R.A., Australia experiences dry or drought years. In years of high sunspot activity Australia experiences wet or flood years. Conversely, in years of low sunspot activity Australia experiences dry or drought years.
Until a means for forecasting sunspot activity is devised, Mr. Walker believes that we must continue to utilise the planetary theory as a guide to sunspot activity.”
http://swampnews.squarespace.com/expert-opinion/2006/11/4/indigo-jones-and-lennox-walker-on-weather-forecasting.html
Inigo’s ideas were “discredited” in 1939 by the Aus-NZ “BOM” of the day. Which may indicate that meteorologists never learn from their mistakes.
10
Oh boy when this gets out the proverbial will really hit the fan in the UK. I wouldn’t be surprised if it causes riots.
via hauntingthelibrary Germany Talks Solar, But Goes Coal.
Well well, I can see lots of references as to “who won the war” and all sorts of other unsavories when the poms find out their astronomical electricity bills are subsidising German coal power plants.
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Llew Jones @ #43
Inigo Jone’s ideas of planetary alignment, and rejected by the then BOM, were inexplicable in terms of gravity at the time but using plasma physics etc, electrodynamics, other solutions become available.
The solar system dynamics, from an electrical POV, are much like the behaviour of a Faraday, or homopolar, motor and thus given the electric current flow from the solar axis via the flat-like rotating disk to the outer edge of the solar system, the basics of the homopolar motor, then planetary alignments might suggest enhanced current flow when the plasma and magnetospheres of the planets are aligned, and reduced flow when at right angles etc.
Inigo Jone’s ideas make sense when interpreted this way, the electrical one, but nonsense when gravity alone is used.
This is an example of science in action – when later discoveries, experimentally verified, enable us to now explain the previously inexplicable.
However it would be a mistake to then assume that a simple Faraday motor model is sufficient to explain solar-system dynamics – it isn’t but that’s because there isn’t much research directed to this area of science at present.
Given the rampant PC in our universities it’s unlikely that the application of electrical engineering to astrophysics etc will receive much funding for the present either.
There is, however, a solid scientific basis for Inigo Jone’s ideas – based on the physics of the plasma universe.
10
Louis Hissink @ 45
Thank you for giving the context in which Inigo’s ideas are scientifically reasonable. Will have to do a bit of googling to get some appreciation of the science.
10
I read with fascination and pride here, and on many quality blogs, not just comments from graduates with PHD’s et al., but those with minimal learnings on the subject matter getting the science right. The only qualifications I have after some 15,523 days of life is as a house painter, paratrooper and soldier, confined space entry permit and a few driver licences. Yep, I get by somehow in this land of drought and flooding rains.
Born in ’68 (if I’m to believe my birth certificate), from an early age I was full of scientific bent, questions and subsequent observation. Much of what I queried about this planet and the solar system was taught to me by my own mother in the early ’70’s, some years before ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change – in any direction) took hold of the public’s imagination in any real sense and biased funding for such research.
She never explained to me anything as an absolute conclusion. Her answers always began with “From what we know right now..” and “We think it’s because..”. Instead of blind faith or indoctrination, this attitude led me looking deeper into everything. School lost its value and interest the moment I’d learned to read and, even way back in the early grades of primary school (elementary to our dear US alliances – G’Day Mates..), I would most often be found (deemed missing or otherwise) in the sparse library of that tiny country school building reading encyclopedias and books about space. I was never interested in “novels” or non-fiction, apart from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
By the time Voyager 1 almost bumped into Saturn, I could rattle off all the numbers and facts even before the teacher pinned the black and white newspaper cutting of this Hydrogenous giant’s image on the notice board. I was thrilled that my fellow compatriots were taking such an interest in space and science for a change, compared to their usual religious fervour regarding ball sports – but it was, naturally, short lived.
In any case, the “class project” about Voyager and Saturn was to be the only such paper I would ever submit in my entire schooling life.
As a child playing with fire for the first time, you learn many things – including the unique type of pain that fire can inflict when dealt with inappropriately. Later, you learn that fire had absolutely nothing to do with the release of an invisible element called “Phlogiston” (I’m not kidding!). It’s simply another visible form of chemical reaction interconnecting 3 sources, but try to explain that to WishfulClimateDotORG without getting banned.
Later, as a semi-spotty and rebellious teenager in a slightly larger school complex some 8Km (5Mi) away, the Encyclopedia Brittannica began to overwhelm my education, notably in the art of chemistry, where I found that by combining simple and readily available compounds of as little as two differing types could make the combined ingredients burn at a rate exceeding 8000 metres per second (26,247Ft). This I much preferred to Haiku poetry, girlie-book essays and algebra – to the complete annoyance of my instructors, educators and pedagogues.
Chemistry became a complete bore within a year, since from the age of 8 I’d already committed to memory the entire table of elements, thanks to mother’s stoic and relentless search for an advertised (and ultimately expensive) series of books called Nature and Science. Somehow, a friend of mine who wasn’t interested at all in science and preferred to chase spherical objects on a daily basis had the entire collection. Hell yeah I was jealous! It took some years to acquire all 20 books from miles around. I relished their information at every turn of the page from Computer to Wankel.
Interestingly, computers at that age were the size of a small room and the hard drive was a platter of magnetically-coated aluminium some 15 inches wide. The entire drive unit being the size of a washing machine, where the head floated aerodynamically just a few microns from the surface (at a relative speed of 100Km/hr) until it crashed into an also relatively mountainous surface fingerprint in a shower of sparks to oblivion. Regardless, at just 8 years old I was hooked – I wanted one, albeit that expensive opportunity never arose until the advent of the 1987 Commodore Amiga 500, with its incredibly efficient OS and inevitably practical applications that allowed me to learn assembler programming.
During my later spotty years, I felt an itch that couldn’t be scratched by occasional (truancy) schooling, being chased by the cops on my teeny dirt bike through the bush for some arbitrary and heinous “crime”, namely unlicensed and unregistered. I had to get out and find work. This led me to house painting with my father, where even watching paint dry had a cause and effect fascination that taught me yet more about the chemistry, physics and science that’s needed in such a seemingly simple process required to adequately cover a wall.
In all my years, extensive observation and experimentation, committing to memory even small pieces of information and, being able to interconnect these seemingly innocuous pieces of proven subject matter to form a robust conclusion of the cause and effect of new observations, has served me well. Not only in the field of orthography (which thoroughly annoyed all my English teachers due to their own failings), but in all areas of computing and programming (which automatically taught me algebra where instructors failed), mechanics, biology, physics, sociology etc., etc.
The only thing restraining me from a PHD in anything is the cost. If there were a PHD in autodidactism I would suggest everybody strive to undertake and graduate this course, which is something that CAGWists and WishfulClimateDotORG appear to have avoided entirely, including the evidence, such as every time there’s an El Nino or La Nina, the climate shifts. 60-year oceanic cycles and solar activity dominate or climate, facts that for some reason have been lost or completely ignored by the CAGWist crowd.
Interestingly, some of the population appear to have completely forgotten (intentionally?) everything regarding photosynthesis and the US EPA in its infinitely misguided (by the $ sign) “wisdom” have declared CO2 a pollutant. Should plants ever have the vote and declare O2 a hazardous gas thanks to its capability to enhance the effects of phlogiston vapourisation, I would invite those people to share the same room for a few weeks, noting the increased plant growth due to their own human outgassing, which is why farmers use CO2 in greenhouses to greatly accelerate plant growth.
They have also systematically forgotten or erased all records from their impish minds of the some 10x higher levels of CO2 in the Jurassic, where life clearly thrived and delicate aragonite coral evolved in non-acid oceans. The proof of which are those pesky un-dissolved fossils of coral and shellfish overloading our museums. Those same CAGWists then erroneously chime “but.. the sun was weaker back then”, failing to understand that their linear, rather than the proven logarithmic scale CO2 effect will always lead to runaway greenhouse, no matter the temperature scale.
Many CAGWists have heard all the arguments, but rely on sites with lists of “how to” avoid the facts, how to avoid seeking truth and independent thought, however, how to avoid questioning why these sites such as WishfulClimateDotORG don’t give accurate or complete information, including how to avoid being banned for having the nerve to ask such questions, is suspiciously omitted.
Sounds like a lot of Chicken Little jumping to conclusions, running down friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their own luck. I consider this kind of exercise vulgar. It makes people smell.
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Olaf, I suspect you’ll have lots of thumbs up on that.
Thanks
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Olaf,
What a marvelous journey. If only more people could somehow catch your ravenous hunger for knowledge from early age this might be a different world. Unfortunately those who seek power don’t want knowledge in the hands of the people. If you can think for yourself you can’t be lead around by a ring through your nose.
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I’ve just finished “Power Hungry” by Robert Bryce. I recommend it to all who would like a view on energy and, more importantly, power for the years ahead. The way of the future is for more power, not less, and that means nuclear. The enviros don’t want nuclear in the debate but they have effectively painted themselves into a corner. They have convinced a large minority to believe CO2 is dangerous, including many of the younger generation. However few will willingly give up the freedoms that cars and travel give us. Indeed many in the world hunger for such freedoms and I believe that desire will trump the restraint imposed by green thinking. I also see reliable power as being fundamental to protecting our environment. I shudder when I see vast forests in Indonesia flattened to grow palm oil, at best an inferior fuel to petrol and diesel let alone natural gas. The growing of crops to turn into ethanol not only denies the food to those who need it but by removing the whole crop including the stover; the ground is left more impoverished and hence more reliant on artificial fertilizers. Green fuels are not green, they are dangerous.
Mr.Bryce makes an excellent point at the end of his book. We need more scientists, engineers and chemists in parliament and a lot less lawyers and trade unionists. While the latter like to dream the former have to work with realities.
Olaf. My history is surprisingly similar to yours except I am a farmer. Most farmers are practical and keen observers of nature. I also love books. Having a school teacher for a mum and a farmer for a dad was a great way to start life.
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Lawrie @ 50
Farmers built the world.
Keen observers of not only nature but how things work, how to keep them working. Not to mention keeping things alive and well in easy times and more importantly in very hard times. How to raise hard working, smart talented children.
I worry about many things but among the greatest worries is that we have mostly lost how to farm, how to be a farmer, how to observe, how to keep things alive in hard times, and how to raise smart talented hard working children.
Thank you for keeping that going!
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Ival majkus @ 1
’m miffed about the flood victims appeal; at the time of the Black Sat fires Red Cross and other charities were accepting donations and currently the only appeal I’ve seen is the Premiers Appeal (okay I know the Red Cross is admin’ing it but I’d rather donate to the Red Cross rather than to a Premier for whom I don’t have much admiration.)
Yes. After the Black Saturday thing, the donations (physical, not monetary) were sitting around in warehouses, for many months, and perhaps still are. I simply don’t trust Governments enough to donate money to State appeals. The Red Cross and the Salvos should be the ones running appeals of this kind.
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Jaytee; I totally agree with you; I e mailed the Red Cross a couple of days ago but haven’t heard from them
So the only appeal in Qld is the Premiers Appeal
I’m not keen on donating to a State Govt who I don’t respect but I understand that the Red Cross is administering the fund
Hmmmm….the only ads I’ve seen are the Qld Premiers Appeal ads on early morning tv when I’m at the gym
That being said; I’m going to donate money; and I congratulate the emergency services esp the SES and the people of the flood ravaged towns who are so far keeping a stiff upper lip but it can’t be easy
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the ABC Science show supports the Gaia hypothesis.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/07/3108365.htm?site=thedrum
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