The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of its ‘famous’ Doomsday Clock one minute closer to Midnight, and it now sits at 5 minutes to Midnight, the time it was in 2007, and in 2010 moved back to 6 Minutes to Midnight.
They have said, and this is part of the release:
As we see it, the major challenge at the heart of humanity’s survival in the 21stcentury is how to meet energy needs for economic growth in developing and industrial countries without further damaging the climate, exposing people to loss of health and community….
and then this classic:
The global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth’s atmosphere. The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations, and increasing ocean acidification. Since fossil-fuel burning power plants and infrastructure built in 2012-2020 will produce energy—and emissions—for 40 to 50 years, the actions taken in the next few years will set us on a path that will be impossible to redirect. Even if policy leaders decide in the future to reduce reliance on carbon-emitting technologies, it will be too late.
Note the mention to rising sea levels and ocean acidification, current here in Joanne’s two recent Posts.
These are Nuclear Scientists, so, was there mention of replacing those CO2 emitting power plants with Nuclear Power Plants?
No, not one mention.
In fact, the only mention about Nuclear Power was a backhanded reference to what may be happening in Japan with reference to what happened there recently.
Yes Tony that pretty well sums up what “they” really want. No coal, no petrol, no nuclear. Translated that means a severe reduction in global population.
Ironic because we all thought the “doomsday” was something else. It turns out it’s caused by the devil inside.
I think I’ve stumbled across an answer to how to get this clock to go backwards.
Elect a Democrat as President of the US.
It seems that under Democrat Leadership, the clock reverses, and as soon as those nasty warmongering Republicans get in, the clock moves closer to Midnight.
There is some background to this that is interesting.
Firstly I have it on authority, that the IAEA had concerns about the state of the Fukushima plant long before the Tsunami hit.
The reason for their concern was that the Daiichi installation (which was the original plant) was well past its design life, and needed replacement. The other installation at Fukushima (Danii) was built to a later design, and withstood the earthquake and tsunami.
The reason it was not replaced was because of ongoing legal challenges from various environmental groups in Japan that got the whole process bogged down in the courts.
Similarly, spent fuel rods had to be stored at the reactor site (in “temporary arrangements”) because of legal challenges against their transportation, again from environmental groups.
Neither of these facts have been reported in the MSM (of course), but in all fairness, TEPCO didn’t take the initiative to force either matter into court on safety grounds.
Of course, the environmental groups are now pointing to Fukushima as evidence of why no more nuclear plants should be built, and they are doing that on an international scale. That is one of the reasons why Germany has imposed a moratorium on new plants.
The key phrase in the material you quote is “The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years …”.
We know, and the public are starting to realise that wind, tide and solar are not viable alternatives to “carbon-emitting energy technologies”. So if the IAEA come out and say something must be done to save the planet, the argument naturally leads to nuclear by default.
Yes, it is a propaganda trick. But you have to admit it was well done – after all it fooled you, and you are in the energy business 🙂
Also, with respect to Fukushima, it again shows how misinformed the public in general are, aided and abetted by a media that ‘craves’ something like this that they can beat up, without bothering to find out anything about the background.
This complex at Fukushima had six Generation 1 and 2 BWR’s designed from technology from the early days of Nuclear power plants.
People don’t think of this process in a manner similar to the way they might think about cars, which are updated every so often, so a 2011 Commodore is not the same as a 1968 to 1973 Kingswood, and I’m not saying this to trivialise it, but all six reactors are from that same era as those Kingswoods.
The average thinking is one Nuclear reactor is the same as the next.
Early Gen 2 design meant that at refuelling, the spent rods are stored on site, in cooling ponds, and after a period of time, they cool further and are back at an enrichment level a tad lower than the original Uranium ore existing in the ground. Once at this level, and cooled, they can then be removed safely to dry storage, or in some cases, for reprocessing.
One reactor that did have a problem had just undergone the refuel process, and the original explosion breached the wall near where these removed rods had just been placed, releasing the cooling water from them and exposing them to the air, now without cooling, hence the problem in that reactor.
All reactors not already shut down at the time of the original quake were successfully scrammed, and the problem was not that but that the immense wall of water shut down the alternative power supplies for the pumps to circulate the cooling water.
Now, having just gone over that process, the latest reactors are a quantum level different from these initial reactors.
At refuelling in those recent reactors, the now expired rods can be stored inside the reactor for cooling, and then safely dry stored inside the reactor concrete bunker for the life of the whole Plant.
People automatically associate that modern storage method back to what happened here at Fukushima, a plant that was not designed for storage of expired rods.
No amount of correct explanation (from anybody, least of all me) will change people’s attitudes to expired rod storage, especially since people will always believe what uninformed journalists tell them, especially when every time, they will mention ‘Fukushima’ for emphasis, Fukushima now becoming the new Chernobyl, which was the new TMI, which was after all, a real ‘China Syndrome’, albeit minus Jane Fonda!
In fact, when the ‘Nets’ got the first news about TMI, they actually asked who had seen the movie, and those guys were then sent to cover the ‘story’.
In fact, when the ‘Nets’ got the first news about TMI, they actually asked who had seen the movie, and those guys were then sent to cover the ‘story’.
It’s the same with anything. The most ignorant on the subject seem to be the ones reporting on it. Aviation comes to mind.
But that’s not my point. When I was a young man I was opposed to nuclear. Then a little maturity began to set in and I’ve reversed my position.
I was never afraid to fly single engine anywhere I wanted to go, over water, over mountains, on top of a cloud layer, nothing phased me because I knew I had done my “homework” for the flight. I always knew that my careful planning and decision making could go wrong. But at least I was in charge. I had control over what I did.
One of our favorite getaway spots includes a visit to the pier at Port San Luis, California, where there are some good seafood restaurants. The main gate to the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is also right there. I never go by that gate without realizing that someone else is in control of that thing and I have to trust them to get it right. I haven’t ever been able to escape that, “better look over your shoulder for trouble,” feeling when we go by that gate.
I get that same feeling flying commercial or driving near a big 18-wheeler on the freeway. I’m not afraid of it because I learned to think with my head instead of my emotions. But I understand the basic fear that comes with nuclear. Like all things as they say, its past is prolog and I don’t think it will be so easy to overcome.
PS:
The really scary thing about TMI is not the hysteria over the initial problem but the abject failure of everyone involved to believe what they had clear evidence of…that there had been a core meltdown. The lessons are several but the important one is that human failure is the biggest problem of all. And we’re no better today than we were when GE built Fukushima.
it wasn’t meant to have a ‘go’ at you, but to add a little more to ‘informed’ debate.
I liked the comment about flying a single engine.
Coming from the RAAF, and being associated with the Mirage at Fighter Squadrons (both 76 and 77) for almost 9 years, when we away from ‘home base’ on ‘exercises’ there was a closer knit bond between aircrew and ground crew, and that was always one of the topics for discussion. The pilots (sort of) hated the fact that the ‘Miracle’ only had the one engine, and once that ‘went out’ then you were in fact sitting inside a flying brick as the delta configuration was not, er, really conducive to gliding. When the ‘fire went out’, the only control considered operable from that point on was the ejection handle
It was always the major point when discussions about the TFR replacement that saw us getting the FA-18.
The choice was between that and the F-16, with perhaps a thought (forlorn wish actually) that the SAAB Viggen may also be in the mix, but the actuality saw just those 2 American aircraft as the main consideration.
The pilots would discuss it while we on those exercises, mainly along the lines that ‘We (meaning the pilots here) are the last people they would ask when a decision was being contemplated. That surprised us somewhat, because we, as ground crew, always looked upon pilots as being ‘akin to God’ with respect to a decision like this.
That’s why they all ‘plumped’ for the twin.
Also, with respect to the Diablo Canyon plant, I was contacted a few years by one of the guys who works there, and has been there now for 20 years. he has his own site, and if you go to that site, the images are good, but the text is so much better, so read it all.
Speaking of F-16s, I have a very good picture of one refueling in mid air taken from the refueling boom operator’s position. It’s quite large, jpeg so it scales easily within reason and is suitable for wallpaper. If you want it have Jo or a moderator let me know by email and I’ll send it back to you.
PS: It’s a real combat patrol over Afghanistan so I hope that doesn’t tread on any sensibilities. I have it for the love of flying, not the war.
I appreciate the car year analogy. In the 70s my mother’s life came to an end in a Morris 1100 but the 2010 Mercedes S Class is a radically different machine. Similarly, Gen 3 reactors are vastly different from the early designs but most people do not appreciate this. It’s all “nuclear” to them.
My father (& his team at UKAEA) designed the AGR fuel-rods and when I told him about the Fukushima incident he said “… but the Japs are smart engineers and wouldn’t be so stupid as to be still operating Boiling Water Reactors.” He was clearly dis-stressed that such dangerous and inefficient power stations still existed.
Here-in lies a basic problem, -it’s not the engineers who make the decisions about these reactors but politicians who don’t know what they are on about.
“…What can we say at this point about the failure to design for an earthquake-tsunami one-two punch?
1. The safety systems detected the earthquake and, as designed or subsequently modified, shut down the chain reaction to below criticality.
2. The earthquake might have damaged some systems, e.g., might have drained some of the 10m-deep pool at Number 4 holding removed fuel rods.
3. The tsunami overtopped the sea walls built to protect the installation. That constitutes an obvious siting and design insufficiency, given Fukushima was near a subduction zone that generates tsunamis. These were errors made forty years ago by Tokyo Electric Power and the Japanese regulators.
4. Because basement electrical control rooms were flooded by the tsunami, backup power failed and batteries were only good for four hours. Some sensor data and control functions were lost. Another obvious design insufficiency, easily avoided by locating this room on a higher floor.
5. The Fukushima boiling-water reactors were designed by G.E. in the 1960s to be cheaper than the dominant design, the pressurized water reactor. But its slimmed-down containment was heavily criticized in the early 1970s for safety reasons that are likely to be relevant to the Fukushima disasters.
6. About one-fourth of the U.S. reactors in operation today are of this cheaper G.E. Mark I design. The Chernobyl reactor that melted down in 1986 was a much cheaper Soviet design; not only did it not have a containment but the reactor was surrounded by very flammable graphite, what caused the building to burn for a month while lofting radioactive particles up to 30,000 feet to create fallout over a far wider area than anything likely from the multiple Daiichi disasters.
7. As Matt Wald notes, “One simple improvement, in use now in most plants, is to keep some spent fuel in “dry casks” — steel cylinders filled with inert gas, sitting in small concrete silos. These have no moving parts and are unlikely to be bothered by earthquakes or tsunamis.” It sounds as if Tokyo Electric Power and the Japanese regulators failed to update their fuel-handling.
8. Most of the four hundred reactors operating in the world today are of the more robust pressurized water design and most are not threatened by tsunamis, so many of the lessons of Fukushima may not prove relevant to them.
9. Most of the reactors currently being constructed have forty additional years of operating experience and safety research to guide them. (The G.E. Mark I represented only ten years of commercial nuclear power experience.)….”
But the Iraq war was really about oil, according to Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others.
Former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. (The government apparently planned the Afghanistan war, and most of our current military and intelligence policy, before 9/11 as well. See this, this and this).
So the government’s stated reasons for war may not hold much water.
And Ellen Brown argues in the Asia Times that middle eastern wars in Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere stem from those countries’ leaders challenged the supremacy of the dollar and the Western banks:
Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland.
The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.”
According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar”, Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency.
But the Iraq war was really about oil, according to Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others.
Then a question, Kevin: If Iraq was all about oil, how is it than none of that oil is flowing directly to the U.S.A.? The only way we get any of it is by competing for it on the open market like anyone else.
The facts would seem to make what you say into a pile of after the fact grandstanding. As we say in these parts, show me the evidence, not hearsay and rumor.
You didn’t connect up any links to anything. Do you have something worth looking at?
Its not about stealing the oil its about controlling it, Saddam was a puppet (do some research) but after many years the puppet defied the master so he had to go.
Why did we invade Iraq Roy? Do you remember?
1) Saddam did 911
2) Saddam and Bin Laden were good mates
3) Saddam tried to buy yellow cake from Niger
4) Saddam had weapons of mass destruction
None of the above is true of course but tards like yourself believe this shit, you are no different to an AGW believer.
If you own the puppets in charge of these countries you can turn off the oil taps whenever you want, look at what we are trying to do to Iran for proof.
Of course the central bank story also has some credence if a central bank is in your country then you will soon become a slave to debt and therefore under control.
Once the American forces gained control of Iraq its 83 oil fields were divvied up between the four major Western oil companies. Iraq was left with 17 oil fields to sustain its existence.
The Oil-for-Food Programme (OFF), established by the United Nations in 1995 (under UN Security Council Resolution 986)[1] was established with the stated intent to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military capabilities.
The programme was introduced by United States President Bill Clinton’s administration in 1995,[2] as a response to arguments that ordinary Iraqi citizens were inordinately affected by the international economic sanctions aimed at the demilitarisation of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, imposed in the wake of the first Gulf War. The sanctions were discontinued on November 21, 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the humanitarian functions turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority.[3]
Crakar24,
I just know that this is going to lump me in with those conspiracy theorists, but that’s just a label that I guess I’ll have to bear.
You say:
4) Saddam had weapons of mass destruction
I am still of the opinion that Iraq did have, or was in the process of attaining WMD, and allow me a few lines to explain why.
Uranium is enriched at different levels for different purposes.
For the electrical power process, it undergoes 5 separate processes to convert the ore to the pellets for the rods. It is enriched to around 3 to 5%, most typically 3%, considering that the ore in the ground is already at around 1% enrichment.
The processes involved in enriching Uranium to weapons grade takes it to around 98%. Now it’s not just a matter of holding down the enrichment button during the same process for the power plant rods. They are completely different processes altogether.
To enrich uranium to that weapons grade percentage level requires specialised equipment. That equipment and components of that equipment can only be used for one thing, enriching Uranium to weapons grade.
At the very start of the (Bush43) invasion of Iraq, the Media ran with the WMD meme, and the media, and all the people observing all forms of that media were specifically looking for a big bomb with the label on it reading ‘Here I am’.
In actuality, the searchers weren’t looking for that patently obvious in your face evidence. They were looking for the specialised equipment that they knew was coming into Iraq, evidence of the processes involved in manufacturing those WMD, equipment that had only the one purpose, so if Iraq was actually getting that equipment, then, ergo, they must be secretly on the way to implementing a WMD program.
Again, at the very start of the invasion, there was the usual footage of people fleeing, from a media looking for something to show the World.
You know, bland footage of all those people escaping Iraq, and all escaping to the North, across the border of Iraq.
I saw the footage as truck after truck ran North fleeing the Country as the invasion mounted from the South.
I watched the footage, shown for days on every media outlet, and I took no real notice. It was just people running away from what was happening.
At about day three of this, my good lady wife made a really pertinent observation I hadn’t even bothered to think about.
Watching the footage on the News, she said, “I wonder what’s in all those trucks.”
It was something I hadn’t noticed at all. Just trucks getting out, but every two out of every three vehicles fleeing were large trucks.
She added that she wondered if that equipment used during those enrichment processes was in a few of those innocuous trucks fleeing from Iraq.
They never did find what they were looking for, you know the Here I Am bomb, but gee, I’ll bet that really wasn’t what they were looking for.
That specialised equipment IS the evidence they were looking for, and it may well have been on those trucks.
I mean, everybody knew what they were looking for. However, those who really knew what they were looking for just trucked that real evidence out of the Country.
A clueless media, informing an uninformed public of an incorrect search parameter.
It worked for everyone.
I still am of the opinion that Iraq was in the process of attaining or attempting to manufacture WMD.
September 19, 2007
From Greenspan to Kissinger
Oil Warriors
By ROBERT WEISSMAN
Alan Greenspan had acknowledged what is blindingly obvious to those who live in the reality-based world: The Iraq War was largely about oil.
Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger says in an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post that control over oil is the key issue that should determine whether the U.S. undertakes military action against Iran.
These statements would not be remarkable, but for the effort of a broad swath of the U.S. political establishment to deny the central role of oil in U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Greenspan’s remarks, appearing first in his just-published memoirs, are eyebrow-raising for their directness:
“Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in the area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
His follow-up remarks have been even more direct. “I thought the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point,” he told the Guardian.
Greenspan also tells the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that he actively lobbied the White House to remove Saddam Hussein for the express purpose of protecting Western control over global oil supplies.
“I’m saying taking Saddam out was essential,” Greenspan said. But, writes Woodward, Greenspan “added that he was not implying that the war was an oil grab.”
“No, no, no,” he said. Getting rid of Hussein achieved the purpose of “making certain that the existing system [of oil markets] continues to work, frankly, until we find other [energy supplies], which ultimately we will.”
There’s every reason to credit this view. U.S. oil companies surely have designs on Iraqi oil, and were concerned about inroads by French and other firms under Saddam. But the top U.S. geopolitical concern is making sure the oil remains in the hands of those who will cooperate with Western economies.
Henry Kissinger echoes this view in his op-ed. “Iran has legitimate aspirations that need to be respected,” he writes — but those legitimate aspirations do not include control over the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need.
“An Iran that practices subversion and seeks regional hegemony — which appears to be the current trend — must be faced with lines it will not be permitted to cross. The industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran is incompatible with international security.”
Note that Kissinger prioritizes Iranian (or “radical”) control over regional oil supplies over concern about the country acquiring nuclear weapons.
One might reasonably suggest that Greenspan and Kissinger are only pointing out the obvious. (Kissinger himself refers to his concerns about Iran as “truisms.”)
But these claims have not been accepted as obvious in U.S. political life.
The Iraq was “is not about oil” became a mantra among the pro-war crowd in the run-up to the commencement of hostilities and in the following months. A small sampling —
Said President Bush: The idea that the United States covets Iraqi oil fields is a “wrong impression.” “I have a deep desire for peace. That’s what I have a desire for. And freedom for the Iraqi people. See, I don’t like a system where people are repressed through torture and murder in order to keep a dictator in place. It troubles me deeply. And so the Iraqi people must hear this loud and clear, that this country never has any intention to conquer anybody.”
Condoleeza Rice, in response to the proposition, “if Saddam’s primary export or natural resource was olive oil rather than oil, we would not be going through this situation,” said: “This cannot be further from the truth. He is a threat to his neighbors. He’s a threat to American security interest. That is what the president has in mind.” She continued: “This is not about oil.”
Colin Powell: “This is not about oil; this is about a tyrant, a dictator, who is developing weapons of mass destruction to use against the Arab populations.”
Donald Rumsfeld: “It’s not about oil and it’s not about religion.”
White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer on the U.S. desire to access Iraqi oil fields: “there’s just nothing to it.”
Coalition Provisional Authority Paul Bremer: “I have heard that allegation and I simply reject it.”
General John Abizaid, Combatant Commander, Central Command, “It’s not about oil.”
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham: “It was not about oil.”
“It’s not about the oil,” the Financial Times reported Richard Perle shouting at a parking attendant in frustration.
Australian Treasurer Peter Costello: “This is not about oil.”
Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger: “The only thing I can tell you is this war is not about oil.”
Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary: “This is not about oil. This is about international peace and security.”
Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett: “This is not about oil. That was very clear. This is about America, and America’s position in the world, as the upholder of liberty for the oppressed.”
And Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen joined war-monger Richard Perle in calling Representative Dennis Kucinich a “liar” (or at very least a “fool”), because Kucinich suggested the war might be motivated in part by a U.S. interest in Iraqi oil.
What lessons are to be drawn from the Greenspan-Kissinger revelations, other than that political leaders routinely lie or engage in mass self-delusion?
Controlling the U.S. war machine will require ending the U.S. addiction to oil — not just foreign oil, but oil. There are of course other reasons that ending reliance on fossil fuels is imperative and of the greatest urgency.
More and more people are making the connections — but there’s no outpouring in the streets to overcome the entrenched economic interests that seek to maintain the petro-military nexus. A good place to start: The No War, No Warming actions http://www.nowarnowarming.org planned for October 21-23 in Washington, D.C. and around the United States.
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action.
Thanks for your response i too watched the videos of the trucks moving north, i saw innocent civilians being carpet bombed by an invading force but i did not see any trucks marked with “secret Saddam nuke stuff in here”.
By your logic we should bomb Iran because they bought a box of hammers coz afterall you need hammers to build a bomb.
I watched Colin Powell live stand on the floor of the UN with his PPPPP (piss poor power point presentation) showing me sat photos of the milk trucks that were actually mobile chemical factories, the mobile scud missile launches prepped and ready to go oh and of course the detailed description (complete with complex diagrams) showing Saddams under ground bunkers where all the nasty bomb making was going on.
Here is a quote from the dodgy dossier
We can also agree that Saddam Hussein most certainly has chemical and biological weapons and is working towards a nuclear capability. The dossier contains confirmation of information that we either knew or most certainly should have been willing to assume.
In their scramble to win the hearts and minds of us morons they even concocted a story that Saddam was buying yellow cake from Niger, of course this was not true and for the interested google Valarie Plame.
Quote from Prezdint Boooosch in his state of the union speech
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Bullshit every word of it of course but you Tony still believe he had it hidden in trucks heading north and when the trucks were blown up so was the evidence.
But Tony we were told Saddam could launch WMD in 45 minutes
Jesus fucking wept……………..
The US and its partners in crime could not get UN approval so they went in anyway (an act of war) and most certainly a war crime was committed against the peoples of Iraq (google Faluja for impressive photos of deformed babies etc).
But no he had it all hidden in trucks heading North, north to where Tony?
Remember Hans Blix? Remember what he said just before the war? There was no WMD this was a war of conquest nothing more nothing less and you still cling to the idea that Saddam had them somewhere…..anywhere…..why so you can sleep at night?
Lots of talk and nothing with more than hearsay value or someone’s opinion. The best intelligence at the time said Iraq had WMD. I would have gone in there myself had I been President.
Now I suppose I’ll hear another round of, “Bush lied!” God help us if the present opinion set is what the world has to look forward to for leadership.
It works like this. If I find a man with a gun inside my house in the middle of the night I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later (literally). If it later turns out to be a toy gun that’s just plain too bad!
I’ve said this before — war came to us, we didn’t start it. I’ve also said this before — the only unforgivable thing in a war is to lose it. To not lose it you must be the unequivocal winner. Anything else is a defeat and leaves an enemy in place to bother you again.
As for Ron Paul, he did more stuffing his feet in his mouth last night on Fox News. He may sound real good to some of you now but I remember the Ron Paul who was nothing but a redneck from the south with a personal ax to grind. If you don’t know the term redneck I recommend Merriam Webster Online.
I don’t regard any of you as anything but friends. But I think some of what you believe is wrong and not at all in the interest of the very thing we all want…real peace. Holding high unrealistic principles can get you killed.
What i find interesting is that people that dont accept AGW refer to those that do as believers and often refer to themselves as skeptics but nothing could be further from the truth.
Some people believe in agw and some people dont based on this most of the people that dont beleive in agw say they are skeptics but i would be suprised they even knew how to spell the word.
For example a sceptic is someone who examines the facts and then and only then forms an opinion and this philosophy should/is employed across the board no matter what the subject or issue may be.
What i find here is that if one does beleive/accept the theory of AGW they are considered a beleiver so those that dont beleive automatically consider themselves to be a sceptic however when you engage these so called sceptics in conversation about other topics you find they are not sceptics at all because they simply have different beliefs.
For example some people dont believe in AGW but they believe in many other things even though the evidence shows to the contrary.
Roy in the post above claims that he would have gone in to Iraq based on the evidence…my question is WHAT evidence…you see he simply beleives, he is no better than JB et al. He like most people here are not sceptics, JB et al beleive in AGW and Roy et al do not believe, there is very little difference between the two groups of people.
I find Roys attitude towards war somewhat disturbing but i will stop there, in regards to Paul let me simply say this if you want things to stay the same….that is continued acts of aggression all over the world, a continuation of a failed monetary and economic system and a corrupt government then dont vote for him.
When it comes to real peace he is the only one that might actually get you there….but once again Roy simply believes what he is told….sceptic my ass.
George W Bush says Iraq intelligence failure is his biggest regret
As if I did not wish things had gone differently? But they didn’t. And Bush, though wishing intelligence had been better, still does not regret the action he took.
Wishing things had been different doesn’t change them. And when faced with the need to make a choice you go with the best information you have.
Crakar24,
Roy in the post above claims that he would have gone in to Iraq based on the evidence…my question is WHAT evidence…you see he simply beleives, he is no better than JB et al.
What will you call it then when not only your own intelligence services but the British as well are telling you there’s credible evidence of WMD in Iraq? I await your answer.
“….Though Iran had previously announced in 2008 that it had stopped trading its oil for US Dollars (Ahmadinejad called the depreciating US Dollar a “worthless piece of paper”) India, Japan and China were made exempt due to their large holdings of American currency and fears of wreaking further chaos on the global economic collapse that had just begun.
Important to note, this report reminds us, is that a similar move by Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein in not accepting US Dollars for oil in 2000 brought about the invasion of his country by the Americans and their European allies resulting in his eventual execution and causing the vast wealth of Iraqi oil and gas fields to be turned over to the Western oil giants.
Likewise, this report says, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi earned the same fate as Hussein after he, in the months leading up to the US-NATO military attack on his country, called on African and Muslim nations to join together to create a new currency that would rival the US Dollar and Euro and saying that Libya would only sell oil and other resources around the world only for gold dinars….”
You’ve outed yourself as complete moonbats. So far to the left that you think you’re on the right.
But we’re not having any of this….
Foreigners, almost entirely Jewish, control the United States Money supply. They literally own exclusive rights to the dollar and simply enter dollars into their banks books to make money which they then lend back to us at a profit. For them money does not grow on trees, it is simply a data entry into their account. Clearly the private ownership of the U.S. Dollar is by far The Greatest Crime of the Century.
What will you call it then when not only your own intelligence services but the British as well are telling you there’s credible evidence of WMD in Iraq? I await your answer.
A lie Roy its called a lie.
Your problem is that you honestly believe (there is that word again) that they had intelligence to justify the illegal invasion but the truth is there was no evidence as there is no evidence now. They lied to you Roy its as simple as that but you still beleive what they tell you.
Let me try and educate you, when the brits claimed Saddam could launch a chemical and or biological strike within 45 minutes but in reality they niether had the capacity to launch such a strike with conventional weapons let alone chemical or biological weapons then that is not a failure of intelligence THAT IS A LIE.
But yet you will still believe the bullshit you are fed just like JB et al believe the bullshit they are fed. Like i said Roy….sceptic my ass.
I could not care less who you vote for, if you are American and can be bothered to vote and are happy with your current situation of being a debt slave to wealthy bankers, having your cherished constitution stained with the shit of your current and former president and if you are also comfortable with the knowledge that your country is viewed as the largest terrorist state on the planet in the eyes of the majority then i would not vote for Paul either.
The way I’ve read most of this is that those who have hated George Bush do so because he would not kiss their asses. It’s all a lie is too simple an explanation.
But believe what you will. In the meantime good luck getting along when, as seems only too likely at the moment, Obama is reelected and China reigns supreme.
Oh, and have a happy Arab Spring when they turn on you right after Israel.
There might be another game in play. I suspect that we have an alternative energy source that is abundant and low cost but can’t be implemented because of the catastrophic economic effect it would have on the existing economic infrastructure.
Imagine this new energy source is abundant and cheap to access – and it is manufactured, so what would happen to the existing energy sources? The price for oil and gas would collapse, as would prices for coal and other hydrocarbons. N o one would bother extracting these hydrocarbons from the earth, since there’s no money in them anymore. Economic activity would collapse, infrastructure would grind to halt since the older energy sources are now uneconomic. Transportation would grind to a halt, especially the freighting companies.
So if I knew about this new source of energy and realised what its introduction would do economically, I would instead embark on a policy weaning people off the existing hydrocarbon based energy sources into the renewables until enough have made the transition so that disruption by the new unlimited source can be introduced.
Of course whether such a source of energy exists is another matter, but it’s a plausible scenario.
Plausible? I can think of other words, like “far-fetched”, and “fruit loop”.
This conspiracy to keep the new source of energy under wraps would have been going since the late 80’s, and we’d need a group of people (lets call them the illuminati” who knew the truth and kept the cover up going.
Is your middle name Moron? Because it should be your First name.
If I ever had any respect for your opinion (and I never have), I lost it all when you decided to side with michael mann over destroying the life of a 79-year-old man.
Leave it to my old pal and mentor Louis to come up with such an outrageous idea that I actually find myself onside with the pusillanimous, Mr. Brookes.
I loathe conspiracy theories. Why? Because they say more about the theorists than reality. Human nature — designed by a million years of life in small extended family groups where gossip skills were naturally selected for — simply does not allow for really big secrets to be kept for long by any sizeable group of people no matter how well a mysterious Dr. Evil controls their minds.
Want a secret revolutionary energy breakthrough??…
We have recently invented stunning new game-changing technologies in the hydrocarbon extraction industries which might well liberate the world from dependence upon Middle Eastern oil supplies starting later this decade. It will alter the geopolitical global balance of power by allowing for widely scattered, but former inaccessible, hydrocarbon fuel resources to be exploited all over the planet thus ushering in a new golden age of cheap power, while creating new employment opportunities for some of the older, more mature economies that have been suffering of late. Already, the US is a net exporter of LPG because of new extractions technologies.
Already, the US equity markets are getting tingles up their legs anticipating a new extended bull market, which speculators imagine will ride the rest of this decade on the back of a new energy boom.
And it’s only a secret if you only peruse the Fairly Lacking media and the ABC, which, as usually, are behind the 8-ball on any matter which doesn’t confirmed their black-arm band narrative.
It must be a day for it as I find myself siding with Louis over my buddy Brooksie. Even something as relatively “simple” as 4th Gen nuclear power IFR/Thorium/Whatever fits the bill, so it is not like we have to dream up mythical energy sources. (Louis could well be looking a bit more out there than 4th gen nuclear however).
This is for existing technology, in this case, a PWR. (Pressurised Water Reactor)
The Containment vessel is the orange one, and the Steam Generator yellow. The steam is then pumped to the turbine generator complexes, one separate from the other.
This is feasible right now, even without proposing what is still basically at the theoretical stage, Pebble Beds, Thorium etc and even Fusion.
As an elected public official your constituency should be aware that you’re a conspiracy nutter who believes secret diagrams for a cold fusion perpetual motion machine are being held in the basement vault of Exxon in Houston, Texas guarded Halliburton death squads under the direct command of Dick Cheney….all a conspiracy to keep the oil flowing to support their addiction to pink Cadillac convertibles and snake-skin boots. I’m sure this must be in your election material.
Right?
Btw, you never did post a link to your election campaign material?
So we cant simply introduce a new power source because of logistics so we wean them off oil onto a energy pipe dream se we can then transition to this new super secret power source.
If i had access to a power source that ticked all the boxes in regards to the AGW dream and i could even tick the box marked “24/7/365” i would tell the world and then sell it to the world. I would laugh at governments falling over themselves as they threw gazillion dollar notes in my direction.
And the cost….oh the cost….planet saving energy does no come cheap nowadays, no, no, no it is very expensive afterall its abig planet and a lot of saving to be done.
I suspect that we have an alternative energy source that is abundant and low cost but can’t be implemented because of the catastrophic economic effect it would have on the existing economic infrastructure.
The problem with this kind of reasoning is that is utterly ass backwards.
If a cheaper form of energy that could replace hydrocarbon combustion in transport and electricity production was to become available overnight it would lead to a great economic boom, not catastrophe. Nor could it be opposed by the energy block because no one would ask their permission, but it would be opposed by the Greens, who are the sworn enemy of cheap energy. We already know how the Greens built their political identity by opposing perhaps the cheapest, cleanest energy power on the planet, hydro-electrics.
The oil and gas extraction, refining and distribution industry aren’t a significant proportion of the global economy or workforce. A generous total value-added impact of the industry on US economy in 2007 was it contributed 7.5% to the total economy.
Even if a new energy technology was discovered which ended the use of petroleum as fuel there are still a thousand uses for hydrocarbons which would require some large fraction of the industry to remain in production. But the economic outcome would be all positive as products made from hydrocarbons, such as poly rain water tanks, would fall in price. Moreover, a cheaper new energy technology isn’t going to be a perpetual motion machine, it will require capital investment, a workforce, pay taxes, build infrastructure, support whole secondary supply chains, industries and communities just like convention energy industry does today.
There simply is no imaginable down side to cheaper cleaner energy.
Furthermore, whoever owned the patents on this new energy technology would exploit it regardless of its affect on the global status quo. Even if an oil business, like Exxon, discovered a revolutionary breakthrough they couldn’t suppress but would exploit it to its fullest before someone else stumbled upon the same idea and beat them to the market. Other energy businesses would attempt to transition to the new paradigm as rapidly and seamlessly as possible and continue to turn profits because of the transition. There would be a shake out. Some would go the way of typewriter and sowing machine businesses. But more would manage the transition like IBM, Oracle and Fuji Xerox did the PC paradigm shift in computing. Btw, Fuji is (was?) a colour film business, wonder how that’s working out?
Imagine if Intel discovered a product to make all semiconductors including its own obsolete overnight. Would rush it to market as fast as possible for fear of some competitor coming across the same breakthrough, regardless of the devastating effect it might have upon the semiconductor industry status quo? Or would they conspire with a cabal of industry leaders to make sure the innovation never sees the light of day?
I added this comment at the bottom of the last Unthreaded Post here at Joanne’s site, but with 5 Posts more recent than that, not many people go back and look at ‘time expired’ Posts, but it’s worth mentioning it again, for the vast bulk of people who didn’t see it.
That wonderful Australian bastion of deep and intense Scientific Research, the CSIRO, have finally categorised a new fly, Scaptia (Plinthina), a large Horse Fly found in Far North Queensland.
Because of the gold patch on its abdomen, they say that this new fly is ‘The all time Diva of flies’, so they named it, and wait for this, after the singer Beyonce, naming the fly the Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Scientific Research’.
I suppose it’s a little like naming a fossilised triphibian trilobite(*) after members of the punk band ‘The Ramones’.
There is a small beetle in New Zealand that has the official name, Alexander Beetle (in latin, of course). Alexander Beetle was the “hero” in a popular childrens’ book of the time.
I think it is a game played by the researchers against those in authority who have the final say on naming things. I am pleased to hear that at least one person at the CSIRO has a sense of humour.
Great! A chance for me to sound off on one of my grumbles.
I think that a point needs to be made regarding who is ‘qualified’ to do and say what. The standard reply from an AGW alarmist to any scepticism is “But you are not a climate scientist” (and therefore cannot question those who are).
I would like to see this dealt with more forcefully in debate because my take on the whole matter is this:
To PROPOSE a theory of AGW you (or your team) need to be expert in a whole range of sciences from oceanography, meterology, sunspotology (sorry), statistical analysis etc. You have to then cobble together all the various parts to form one coherent idea.
So when I hear that 97% of scientists “believe in AGW” my immediate response is to express my surprise that 97% of scientists were even involved with climatology. (Never mind the fact that the survey was totally bogus at this stage)
The fact is that there are very few scientists around who are even in a position to comment in favour of the AGW theory. That is a simple fact and an inevitable consequence of the scientific method.
On the other anyone with basic comprehension skills is in a position to comment sceptically on the theory. If a D grade high school student notices that data for the models is being gathered from weather stations sited in jumbo jet taxi ways or wedged in between a banks of airconditioners then he is able to make a perfectly valid sceptical attack on the theory.
AGW proponents seem to think that they can get by by saying that they get the majority of stuff right. OK, the data may be rubbish but the models are great!
(A better word would be ‘fantastic’. Literally)
They will then ignore the kerosine smelling weather station problem by banging on about their latest dead polar bear or some other matter as if the volume of ‘the vast majority‘ of ‘rock solid science‘ somehow solves the problem that it is all based upon mush.
That might be fine for a character witness statement “he did do the odd burglary but on the other hand he has, as of last week, helped 271,828.18 little old ladies across the road…” , but it does not work in science. One broken link breaks a chain.
Since people can dismiss the bogus “97%” survey claim as just sour grapes by sceptics I like to tackle the matter at a more fundamental level.
That, the issue of Qualifications, is one of my pet grumbles too.
The second is the distortion of argument way from the core problem that Human Origin CO2 is being blamed for Global Warming.
The scientific facts are that human origin CO2 is such a small part of the “Greenhouse” effect that it is totally and conclusively and absolutely IRRELEVANT.
To overcome this problem Warmers have been forced to invent Science Fiction solutions to confuse the public and hold the line.
1. The effect of CO2 is always quoted. ie Total CO2. The human origin component is NEVER isolated, it would be too small.
2. Water is left out of GHG estimates so that all CO2 become the boogeyman.
3. Heat transfer mechanisms such as LHV and convection are “disparu” from analyses.
4. Human generated CO2 is said to behave differently to “natural” CO2 and to be effectively immune from natural sequestration. You only have to have some basic chemistry and be able to watch your lawn and tress grow to twig that human CO2 will probably be assimilated inside a couple of years.
The IPCC crap is ongoing, but definitely NOT science, just politics.
I am a Green Witch, and I have been asked “What is a Green Witch?” Alot!
Here are a few other questions I have also been asked.
“Is Green Witchcraft a pagan or wiccan religion?”
“Do you cast spells?”
“Do you curse people?”
“Do you worship the devil?”
I hope as you read thru my web pages these questions and any other questions you might have will be answered.
A Green Witch is normally someone who practices Natural Witchcraft. Someone who works with the Earth and the Universe around them.
A Green Witch also works with the energies of natural objects like stones,gems,herbs,animals,and the elements.
Some folks say that Green Witchcraft is not a religion at all. Just a practice of magick, and then some people believes it is a very religious craft, a way of living their life.
Now,I believe it is as religious as the person who is practicing it. What I mean by this , is that if you want it to be a way of life and you want it to be your religion, then by all means live the way of the Green Witch.
Green witches may worship many different Goddesses and Gods at any given time. Some only worship one or two. Which is fine, your way is the right way. There is no right or wrong way with how many Gods/Goddesses, you worship, or pray to.
The Green Path is close the the Native Americans religious path.What I mean by this , is that we say thank you to the spirits of whatever plant or animal we use. Whether it is for food, or for healing prospects. We also believe that the plants,animals,gems,and other natural elements have a spirit or soul.
We were also Green Witches ,before the word Green became so popular with recycling and saving the planet. We have always been around ( in secret mostly) trying to save Our Beautiful Mother Earth…..”
I was married to a black witch who openly admitted it, frightened the crap out of my young daughter at the time, had to put her in a safe house until I got rid of the bitch, sorry witch.
When i worked in the RAAF (after Tony) there was a guy who worked at a secret squirrel facility and was caught practising witch craft so he lost his security clearance and could no longer work there as he failed to tell them of his fetish.
Not long after all the military (well the workers) got kicked out and replaced with “civvies”. This guy got a job there after he told them up front that he liked to sacrifice chickens in the grave yard at midnight.
Accounting for the Rothschild Wealth and Influence
Morton (1962) noted that the Rothschild wealth was estimated at over $6 billion US in 1850. Not a significant amount in today’s dollars; however, consider the potential future value compounded over 147 years!
Taking $6 billion (and assuming no erosion of the wealth base) and compounding that figure at various returns on investment (a conservative range of 4% to 8%) would suggest the following net worth of the Rothschild family enterprise:
$1.9 trillion US (@ 4%)
$7.8 trillion US (@ 5%)
$31.5 trillion US (@ 6%)
$125,189.1 trillion US (@ 7%)
$491,409.0 trillion US (@ 8%)
To give these figures some perspective consider these benchmarks:
A little of $300 billion US buys every ounce of gold in every central bank in the world (see John Kutyn’s estimate (http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/kutyn111597.html).
U.S. M3 money supply August 1997 was $5.2 trillion
U.S. debt is currently $5.4 trillion.
U.S. GDP (1997; 2nd Q.) is $8.03 trillion.
George Soros’ empire is worth an estimated $20 billion.
We shall never have a full accounting of their wealth. All we can go on is Morton’s (1962) comment that their wealth is “ineffable as always.” Even our conservative estimates suggest a family with staggering wealth and thus influence. In a world awash in debt and unsustainable fiat currencies subject to implosion, the power of gold and the preference of the Rothschilds to gold cannot be easily ignored.
I’ve been hesitant to point that out. But it’s a big factor that makes Ron Paul and his wish to get rid of the Federal Reserve Bank and return to some fixed value standard (probably gold) look foolish.
In any case, the value of a dollar is always what the buyer and the seller agree that it is. For instance: If you’re selling a Widget I want for $10 and I buy it from you we have just agreed that a dollar in my hand is worth 1/10 of the Widget. Now if I discover that you have a competitor down the block selling the same Widget for $5 I’m going to go there because he’ll agree with me that a dollar in my hand is worth twice what you’ll agree that it’s worth. This is true no matter what standard of value backs up the dollar.
Wisdom from an elderly lady:
While chatting to my mother’s cousin (96 years) yesterday, there was mention of the weather. She said that she did not believe that there was any problem with ‘global warming’ — it warms and cools, droughts followed by rainy years. She had spent a few years in Canada where it was known the snow and ice grew and receded. Its all cyclical.
Some have written off the views of retired sceptics as ‘not with it’ or ‘behind the times’ but when one has experienced a big slice of life and history the claims of the CAGW people is too hard to swallow.
I’ve always made it a point to sit down with old farmers and other people of the land for a few cuppas and really listen closely to their local stories whenever I get a chance. I always inquire about the weather conditions of their youth and what the local ecology was like. I also just allowing them to tell me their best stories of the old times, which, of course, mostly focus on social and cultural events rather than natural history. I’ve practiced this not only in Australia, but also in Asia and the the Americas and I rarely have heard any talk about how the climate is different today than in the past. Even in Indonesia, a nation of island fishermen, I’ve never met one who has noticed the seas are rising. The changes are too small to be noticed in even the longest human life span.
Interestingly, although they never complain about climate change, old folks almost always report about how different the local ecology is from when they were young. How certain game are now rare or gone. How the fish they ate as kids or the geese they hunted aren’t available any more. In some places its over-farming, clearing and weed invasion, in other areas its the opposite. The land has been depopulated and forest is reclaiming unused farm or grazing land. In others, farmland has been commercialised and consolidated so that there are no more small farms. Human changes in land usage is a major theme.
Meanwhile, life’s a bit tougher in under-developed economies of this world which continue to have much denser rural populations with people doing local farming or fishing, supplementing their low protein diets by hunting local fauna. Worse, they tend to use firewood as cooking and heating fuel further pressuring their woodlands often even after they have tenuous access to electrics, all the while continuing to clear what primary forests remain for new land.
There are really environmental issues on this planet and they mostly have to do with poverty and lack of access to modern technologies not “carbon pollution.”
In general you could say that developed areas like Australia and North America have experienced a depopulation of the countryside and with it a boom for the local ecologies with native species, both flora and fauna, generally flourishing often in numbers as large as before settlement.
In places like Canada, the US and Australia there is so little popular interest in our rural landscapes that they are safer today than in any time in our history! Ironically, all the Greenies are packed cheek to jowl like sardines in our inner-cities and get their nature fix vicariously watching Attenborough slog through paradise for them.
For our urban culture, nature has been so mawkishly sentimentalised that our grasp of it has become pure kitsch combined with an obliviousness of how insulated we really are from the connection to nature our grandparents had.
On a lighter note, has every one noticed that weekly and some times daily studies are being released from all over the world that refute AGW. It seems that the death by a thousand cuts is in avalanche mode and 2012 will see a seismic shift in what is and what is not real.
How could it be that so many studies appear to refute AGW, and yet it won’t die?
There’s a couple of answers to that, John:
1) There is a great deal of money (why Enron was an AGW supporter) and political power riding on selling CAGW to populations who might otherwise be cautious about handing over their wealth and freedoms. Those who stand to gain won’t give up easily.
AND
2) They don’t give up because there are enough dopes like you who continue to slavishly “believe” in the CAGW fantasy despite the total lack of supporting evidence and, indeed, despite the mounting evidence that the catastrophic claims are bogus.
What do you plan to tell your grandchildren, if you are successful? That you did your bit to lock the world into perpetual poverty and servitude?
Do yourself and the world a favor and raise your game a bit.
There another explanation, Bob. The CAGW theory was never alive to start with. You can’t kill the dead.
By this I mean that CAGW theory was never premised soundly on a proper scientific foundation of hypothesis formation and testing. The theory is so good that its not refutable!
CAGW makes no predictions which its true believers will allow to be fairly tested and every climate event from cooling to warming, drought to flood, cyclone to dolldrums, from PETM to the ice ages are framed as confirmation of the theory.
Karl Popper has an excellent essay about this phenomena of theories so good that they can not be refuted. A must read:
Popper’s rules for testing whether a theory is useful or not:
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every “good” scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of “corroborating evidence.”)
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a “conventionalist twist” or a “conventionalist stratagem.”)
I hope this explains to Johnny why the CAGW theory will never be dispatched by science alone. It’s simply not a scientific theory by the above standard.
Or, to go back to Johnny’s coffin nail analogy, by any measure of science CAGW is the dead walking.
How could it be that so many studies appear to refute AGW, and yet it won’t die?
It’s in the memes. All religions develop protection against inconvenient evidence:
Religions as Co-Adapted Meme-Complexes
Dawkins (1976) introduced the term co-adapted meme-complex. By this he meant a group of memes that thrive in each others’ company. Just as genes group together for mutual protection, leading ultimately to the creation of organisms, so we might expect memes to group together. As Dawkins (1993) puts it “there will be a ganging up of ideas that flourish in one another’s presence”.
On a lighter note, has every one noticed that weekly and some times daily studies are being released from all over the world that refute AGW.
Not according to this dumb letter in this morning’s SMH:
Too much CO2
It always amazes me when people cannot hold two things in their head at the same time. Water is an “essential component” of life but too much in the wrong place can be devastating, as witnessed in the Brisbane floods.
Jon Stuart-Masters (Letters, January 14-15) is correct that carbon dioxide is an “essential component” in our life cycle, but too much in the wrong place can be a bad thing.
It is a well-established fact that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere. The debate, if there is still to be one, is the degree to which unleashing millions of years of stored carbon in the form of fossil fuels will impact on our climate. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists are convinced by their mathematical models that it will, and the factual evidence for rapid climate change is mounting. (emphasis added).
All the talk about carbon dioxide being invisible, odourless, and an “essential component” of life, while true, is irrelevant to the question at hand.
Dr Neil Ormerod Kingsgrove
Dr Ormerod is Professor of Theology at the Australian Catholic University. ‘Nuff said!
John Brookes
January 16, 2012 at 4:54 pm · Reply
Dr Ormerod puts his point very well.
Yes indeed he does — and he makes wes george’s and Sean McHugh’s points while he does it.
The Professor of Theology defends CAGW as a religion, but has no concept of what questions he should ask if he considered CAGW a scientific theory. (Perhaps he should read Karl Popper — he might learn something. You too, JB)
For example he says:
It is a well-established fact that carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere.
Well no, it isn’t. Laboratory tests confirm that CO2 absorbs and emits radiation in several narrow IR bands. The hypothesis that it therefore heats up the atmosphere (the infamous “Hot Spot”) has been falsified by thousands of measurements that have failed to find it. The theory’s supporters have followed Popper’s outline exactly, making up ad hoc reasons why this doesn’t count as a falsification (Poppers “Conventionalist Stratagem”, point #7 ).
The good Dr continues his recitation of the Canon:
The debate, if there is still to be one, is the degree to which unleashing millions of years of stored carbon in the form of fossil fuels will impact on our climate.
Well, it doesn’t take a great deal of intelligence to realize that the efficacy of CO2 for causing the climate to heat up (the “sensitivity” of the climate to a doubling of CO2) is a crucial parameter as well as the “millions of years” of stored carbon. Despite the Professor’s blatant claim, the debate over Climate Sensitivity continues unabated.
Additionally, “millions of years” of stored carbon is rather imprecise (that is, if we’re talking science and not religion). According to the “Deacon of AGW”, James Hansen, we wouldn’t be able to double CO2 even if we burned all the available oil and gas (due to the “peak oil” effect). Perhaps some knowledge of this quantity is also important.
Of course, this is only if CAGW is considered a scientific theory — since it clearly is a religion, and Dr. Kingsgrove treats it as such, the good Professor can blithly skip by the scientific niceties and just make blatant statments of faith.
Why John Brookes and the other warmists here think we care about their religious beliefs is the real puzzle here.
Sonny Bob Carter’s book Climate: the Counter Consensus is extremely good and I would recommend it totally. He explains very much why the theory of AGW has been disproven what I can’t understand why there are so many that follow and still maintain that there is a problem. He does dabble in a bit of the politics too which is good.
The best bit i liked was when he used old low resolution ice core data to dupe the viewers into thinking the temps followed changes in CO2. Unbeknowns to the viewers there was much more detailed data at Al’s disposal but he chose not to use it as it showed the exact opposite.
What a conman………….and JB you are just a loser of the highest order.
By the way i found aircon to be a great read, plimers first book was good but at times hard to follow. The weather makers was a major disappointment so if you want to read it get it from the library dont waste your hard earned on it.
Tristan
January 16, 2012 at 12:29 am · Reply
Storms of my grandchildren has its share of interesting bits. I skipped most of the science
Just as well, as the science was eminently skippable.
For example, on page 34 he claims that:
paleoclimate information provides precise knowledge of how sensitive climate is to changes of climate forcings.
I’ve read a number of Hansen’s papers where he expands on this, and this is his idea of “precise knowledge”:
1) He simply assumes that the forcings that we don’t have good paleodata for, such as cosmic ray fluxes, solar activity, albedo changes, etc, etc, are simply irrelevant and thus only the temperature and CO2 matter.
2) He ignores or hand-waves away the inconvenient fact that the paleodata shows CO2 lagging temperatures by ~800 years — thus providing more evidence that temperature controls CO2 concentrations than the other way around.
So, Hansen’s idea of “precise knowledge” is: What you don’t know can’t matter, and argue away any data that contradicts your desired conclusion.
Ah yes BobC. So you didn’t go with Jim when he said that the time periods were short enough to assume that most things stayed the same.
You are repeating the new “skeptic” mantra, “Its sooo complicated”.
As for temperature controlling CO2, and not the other way round, could it be that each can effect the other? Of is this a case where you don’t see complexity?
John Brookes
January 16, 2012 at 11:49 am · Reply
Ah yes BobC. So you didn’t go with Jim when he said that the time periods were short enough to assume that most things stayed the same.
Assumptions need to be verified, JB. Hansen (and you) just make whatever assumptions needed to achieve your pre-determined conclusions.
You are repeating the new “skeptic” mantra, “Its sooo complicated”.
It’s up to those who claim that climate can be predicted to prove their claim. They have, so far, failed miserably.
As for temperature controlling CO2, and not the other way round, could it be that each can effect the other? Of is this a case where you don’t see complexity?
I see the complexity, John. I have even described, in layman’s terms, how a mutual feedback effect between temperature and CO2 could happen (and why it doesn’t imply CAGW). You, on the other hand, apparently see just enough complexity to justify your religious beliefs.
Read that Popper article yet? You might start to see the difference between science and belief.
Denialism, by Michael Specter, looks at how people develop a hypothesis or theory, put time and effort into investigating and working with it, and then find it extremely hard to move away from that position, even if they realise they are ‘mistaken’ and on a hiding to nothing. Not specifically about climate issues, but good for understanding the psychological backdrop of the players.
I guess when you are at the exalted level of Professor, it is hard to throw away all your life’s work, and start again.
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
Specter is right, Rereke. I find the whole thing very troublesome.
I’m reminded of Feynman’s sojourn in Brazil. He taught there, but the students wouldn’t do his assignments. “Too easy”, they said, so he made them harder, and they still wouldn’t do them. He also found that even those students who “could” do physics seemed to have only a superficial understanding.
He made a speech to the faculty on his departure, saying that it seemed that physics education in Brazil was totally useless, but he realised that it couldn’t be totally useless, because a couple of physicists had managed to get through. At which point one of the two physicists which had been produced in Brazil spoke up and said that he had done his degree during the war, when classes were cancelled, and so he was largely self taught.
So there you have the process of teaching and learning physics in Brazil being total crap. Surely they could see this. Surely they would fix this? How do people faced with such an obvious failure convince themselves that “more of the same” is they way to go?
Having said that, I wouldn’t have wanted to be taught by Feynman. It would be like being shown an obstacle course by someone who sees a 3 m wall and says, “Now just jump over that…”.
So John, since you are (obviously) comparing yourself to Feynman and us (skeptics) to the ignorant physics students in Brazil, perhaps you could extend your Feynman fantasy just a bit further and explain, logically and with facts to back you up, just where we are going wrong?
Or, perhaps not. Don’t want to take these fantasies too seriously.
If you want to get deep into the science of Climatology, then Chill by Peter Taylor. But beware, it is heavy going – not because he doesn’t write clearly, but because it goes into subjects in detail.
An interesting author; an ex-Greenpeace activist, an adviser to the UN on (or rather against) marine pollution, and a consultant to the British Government on the protection and regeneration of wild places. And a believer for 20 years in Global Warming.
It was the latter 3-4 years occupation which changed his mind. He realised that the “solutions” to the claimed problems would wipe out 90% of the natural areas in the UK, so decided to check the science – sorry “The Science”. He is scathing on the IPCC and its statements, and came down firmly (in early 2008) in support of the climate cooling, hence the book’s title.
My suggestion is “The Climate Caper” by Garth Paltridge, an ex-CSIRO scientist. One section deals with the question of why there is an apparent scientific consensus – CSIRO bigwigs make it clear that they are there to deliver the results the govenment wants or else their funding gets put in doubt.
Over at The Daily Bayonet, Julia Gillard, MP, has been voted “Hippie of the Year” for her efforts in turning Australia into the world’s largest commune.
I have been reading more of the juicy Climate-gate emails, and there is something I find odd.
These emails were sent and received in what was assumed to be strict confidence.
These are highly intelligent people who feel safe enough to discuss the credible questions and evidence that shoot down the whole CO2/AGW theory. They are comfortable enough with each other to ask for favours, and compare notes on how to get more cash/academic awards, and from what sources. How to corrupt the science, the media, peer review. How to have dissenters dealt with. They chat away about how to mangle an inconvenient result into something that fits the theory etc.
This is what I find odd: That this group of academics who lie, cheat and steal for their own benefit, and boast about it in their emails. Who admit they sometimes pedal junk-science never suggest, in private, that maybe they were wrong about the underlying theory that man causes warming? In all the emails I have read they always accept, without question, that the theory is solid and all else must be made to fit.
That this bunch of brainy scallywags do not dare mention their private doubts, I find odd. Although there is a whole swag of emails waiting to be released!
That is actually not unusual. People need to have some touchstones in their lives. Something that, for them, never changes. For some, it is their church of choice. For others it is their chosen career or vocation. And for yet others it is their clan or tribe or extended family.
For the scientists at the centre of the scam it is probably their academic standing that provides the touchstone, and while they keep on supporting each other, that touchstone will remain, and they will feel secure. They are members of the same clan, and they cannot willingly give that up.
We’ve explained to Johnny at least a dozen times over the years where the burden of proof lies when proposing a scientific theory, but he refuses to incorporate even the most self-evident axioms of rational inquiry into his gestalt.
As result, he’s pretty much a personification of all the most egregious cognitive characteristics of an eco-apocalypsist — he’s a true believer dogmatically incapable of learning new tricks, irrational, unable to grasp causality, epistemological daft, reasons using emotive imagery rather than logic-based linguistic construction, AND ultimately, self-rigtheously believes that the moral superiority of his cause justifies any means, however vile, to achieve its admittedly uncertain end.
This is why we cherish him so much. As a bottomless font of abominable logical error he’s a constant source of amusement, usefully provisioning us with specimen after specimen of woeful reasoning, which says more about the particular cultural morbidities John suffers than anything about the weather.
What makes you think that the underlying theory is right?
IMO, the real issue has nothing to do with AGW or any part of that theory. Weaning the world off carbon based fuels in itself is not a bad suggestion, depending on what you believe and the real origins of carbon based fuels we must take it as a given that eventually we will run out of this source. No problem with looking for alternatives.
A scare story sells much better then trying to get people to do something about a ” we are running out of fuel” story, followed by yet the latest discovery of more oil or gas, which, in reality, may only add a year or two to the supply chain but the public will read ” 2 billion barrel oil find”, which sounds enormous but will last us 4 weeks based on current consumption. a lot of people would not see it that way.
We can moan and groan about carbon taxes, the UN control and all that but that is not going to change the fact that without a viable alternative, energy will become much more expensive. Depending on what you want to believe take your pick, 50 years or 100 years from now there will be very little oil pumped at anything close to current prices.
The Alberta oil sands, for example, hold reportedly around 2 trillion barrels of oil, the catch is that only 10 percent can be recovered economically (profitably) at todays prices.
So the rest will have to wait until the price goes up to the point where it can be viable.
And so the cost story continues.
The problem with AGW theory is that arguably the aim is in the right direction, reduction of fossil based fuel use and the forced development of alternatives, but it is based on nothing more then circumstantial evidence of increasing temps with increasing CO2. Even if there is some truth to that part, minimal as it is, it should be clear for all to see that all the other results of the theory, rising sea levels, more hurricanes etc, are bogus and only serve to scare the population.
If you want the population to really buy into this it is absolutely necessary that the truth is stated, and really the truth is far scarier then AGW theory and it’s supposed consequences, it is just not sexy and sellable to the masses at the moment. But that is in financial terms, not environmental. There are no real, long term, environmental issues. Sure burning less coal will lead to cleaner air but once the coal is finished the air will clean up and we can already clean the the emissions from coal burning quite well, other then that life giving gas CO2.
Having the skyline littered with millions of windmills is environmental destruction on an almost permanent basis. Better alternatives need to be found.
I guess Al Gore summed it up pretty well: The theory may not be right ( he can not admit to say: is not right) but it is the goal that counts.
In the meantime the Goebbels theory of indoctrination continues.
But doing nothing on the energy front will mean that the lights go out for most people and our sacred cows will remain parked on the roadside.
Perhaps that is the real underlying AGW theory. Which would then be correct.
I agree with your main point and have written similar in the past.
Where I disagree is in the idea that we can say AGW has at least alerted us to the problem.
I’m not sure that has happened.
All I see is huge waste, monetary theft, dislocation and damage to real science, disgusting self interest on the part of politicians, greenies, “academics” and other freeloaders.
WE have been led down a dead end in terms of progress.
Any engineer knows that thousands of windmills and home based solar power units is economic vandalism but good green politics.
We need PROPER research into renewables based on engineering common sense.
We need large solar generators with storage mechanisms (still to be developed), perhaps in some areas , tidal generation and storage, but above all we need research based progress not politically based “moving forward” rubbish.
Keith
I don’t mean to say that AGW has alerted us to the energy issue. The problem was there and the AGW theory was wrapped around it to sell it to the public. I do not believe that back in the early 80’s when this first started to rear its head in the public arena, earlier for policy makers, anyone would have taken one iota notice if the message was that we were going to run out of carbon fuels. Something scary needed to be used as the packaging and the AGW theory was used as the ribbon to make it attractive.
Personally I do not believe that there are too many who subscribe to the AGW idea really stand still and think about it as an energy supply problem, for most of them it is a reduce CO2 to stop warming issue. Get rid of black coal, brown coal does not sound so bad but pollutes more.
Really that tsunami came at the wrong time at the wrong place for the energy security issue.
What we would all like is for politicians to get The Public Service to do Forward Planning.
Unfortunately the public service at all levels has been run down because bureaucrats find they can channel more money to their mates faster through the medium of “External Advisers”.
The public service is not being used properly and since politicians can’t think for themselves we are left with no national or state plans to move forward with energy supply into the future.
The most recent talk here has been of planned , rotating blackouts to overcome the poor planning. Back to the days of Edison and Stephenson.
I would like to offer two thoughts for consideration:
1> That the ozone hole has appeared over whichever pole is the coldest at the time. It seems to me, that it is yet another climate mechanism for regulating the Earth’s overall temperature, as it would allow a range of temperature frequencies a more direct route out of the atmosphere?
2> In all of my reading, one of the things I have noticed is that volcanic activity dropped, to some extent, just about the time we began rising out of the Little Ice Age. At that point in time, if I am not mistaken, the sun was being somewhat quiet, though not as quiet as it has become now.
And now that it has become quiet, volcanic and seismic activity seem to be ramping up?
When I see this, I think of Io, in orbit around Jupiter. Io is massively affected by Jupiter’s magnetic field… could there be a similar effect between the Earth and the sun?
John Brookes seems to be right here (it has to happen every now and again) about rising solar activity being correlated with the emergence from the LIA.
———————————————————————
About the ozone hole, however:
There is evidence that it is a recurring natural phenomena. Ozone depletion was detected, for example during the first International Geophysical Year (1957-1958), but the instrumentation was too primitive to map it well.
Additionally, it is ultraviolet radiation from the Sun that creates ozone (from oxygen, of which there is an inexhaustable supply). The ozone hole exists over the Antarctic during the winter, when there is an extremely low amount of UV available. The hole can grow large as the ice clouds in the upper atmosphere at that time and place catalyze the decay of the ozone (the mechanism proposed by Susan Soloman in 1986) and the Antarctic Circumpolar wind flow keeps the depleted atmosphere isolated. However, the isolation from global circulation and low UV would result in reduced ozone in any case, as ozone is unstable and decays by other mechanisms.
We should expect the hole to get larger as Solar activity continues to decrease. What this will do the Green’s claims of “fixing” the hole by the world-wide CFC ban, is an interesting question.
In the spring, when the airflow begins to break up and let the ozone depleted air escape, it can theoretically increase the ground-level UV. Calculations suggest this decrease is equilivant to moving 100 miles closer to the equator — but an actual decrease has not yet been experimentally detected (scroll down to the Increased UV paragraph).
Since UV creates its own shield by converting the inexhaustable supply of O2 into O3 as needed, there is exactly no chance that the ozone hole could be dangerous, since the ozone would be replaced as the air drifted north where UV levels were higher.
If you could remove all the ozone from an area of the upper atmosphere at low latitudes (and prevent any more from blowing or diffusing in), UV ground exposure would rise considerable. UV from the Sun, however, would replace 1/2 of the ozone in the first 3 days, 3/4 in 6 days, etc, until after 2 weeks, there would be no detectable difference. This is why the ozone hole dissapears as it drifts north from the S. pole in the spring. It is completely gone before the UV at ground level even reaches the levels of summer at any one place.
There is no chemical mechanism known or proposed (even by Soloman) whereby man-made chemicals can deplete ozone at moderate latitudes, where it provides an important shield against solar UV.
The ozone hole scare was, in some respects, a dry run for CAGW. However, there were industrial replacements for Freon and there are no viable replacements for carbon fuels, thus the cost of following the dicy science is much higher.
In the shower this morning I was trying to think of a good, simple analogy to explain to warmists about climate models (and their lack of understanding and education).
I came up with this. . .
We all know a brick cant fly.
But if I write a program where I told the computer a brick can fly, then I could input various data such as altitude, wind speed, air pressure, etc etc. . . the program could then tell me how well a brick can fly under various circumstances.
I could accumulate thousands of scenarios in which bricks can fly.
But we all know that bricks cant fly, regardless of what my data says.
Same with these CO2/climate models.
Sure, they spit out numerous scenarios and graphs showing that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in temperature, but thats only because the computer has been programmed to say that.
This was the case with the first Jumbo, the Boeing 747.
Evidently, modelling proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that an aircraft of that size and weight just could not fly, in fact could not even lift off the ground, no matter what size engine they used.
Thank heavens models were looked at with some skepticism in those days.
I recall a film where Hitler was telling his cohorts that Professor Messerschmidt (or Dr. Fokker or somebody) had proved conclusively that bumblebees couldn’t fly.
“And yet they do fly” says Hitler. I guess, in an effort to get his boys to attempt to do the impossible.
Presumably, by now, somebody has overturned that (obviously incorrect) theory.
Yeah, but you won’t get very far like that. The bloody warmists will just come back with some rubbish about CO2 being a greenhouse gas, and increasing water vapour being a positive feedback. They have the gall to pretend to understand this stuff.
Yeah, Trenberth keeps telling these knuckle dragging deniers that the missing heat in the cold deep oceans will come back “ta git us” if we don’t start mitigating actions NOW! Such a brilliant man! Such a great knowledge of the second law of thermodynamics! The fate of humanity lies in the rest of us following the advice such learned men as he (and you too of course, John).
Actually, bricks could fly, with an adequate power source. You can even model that on X-Plane, a great flight simulator that actually models the aerodynamics of planes (or bricks!) you can design yourself. (SpaceShipOne was designed on this software, for example.)
A number of flying machines, including the Space Shuttle, have had their flight characteristics described as “like a brick”. Having flown one on a simulator, I can’t argue that that description is entirely inaccurate.
I can’t find an actual example, but since modeler’s have built things as weird as flying lawnmowers, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a flying brick some day.
Just reading a piece by Frank Furedi at Spiked and came across this:
Deliberative polling stage-manages an allegedly open discussion on a controversial issue in order subliminally to alter people’s views and convictions. According to one account of its use, the beauty of this exercise is that ‘many participants changed their voting intentions as a result of the dialogue’. The author, Carne Ross, offers a scenario where, prior to an exercise in deliberative polling, 40 per cent of people surveyed said they would vote for mainstream centrist parties, 22 per cent for socialists, nine per cent for centrist liberals and eight per cent for greens. However, by carefully finessing the wording of the choices available to the participants, the deliberative manipulators successfully increased the number of participants who wanted to ‘emphasise the fight against climate change’ from 49 to 61 per cent (5).
(5) See Carne Ross (2011) The Leaderless Revolution, Simon and Schuster ; London,p.106.
“There might be another game in play. I suspect that we have an alternative energy source that is abundant and low cost but can’t be implemented because of the catastrophic economic effect it would have on the existing economic infrastructure.
“Imagine this new energy source is abundant and cheap to access – and it is manufactured, so what would happen to the existing energy sources? The price for oil and gas would collapse, as would prices for coal and other hydrocarbons. N o one would bother extracting these hydrocarbons from the earth, since there’s no money in them anymore. Economic activity would collapse, infrastructure would grind to halt since the older energy sources are now uneconomic. Transportation would grind to a halt, especially the freighting companies.
“So if I knew about this new source of energy and realised what its introduction would do economically, I would instead embark on a policy weaning people off the existing hydrocarbon based energy sources into the renewables until enough have made the transition so that disruption by the new unlimited source can be introduced.
“Of course whether such a source of energy exists is another matter, but it’s a plausible scenario.”
———-
This is what I’ve wondered about for a very long time. Who else but our own governments could keep the scaremongering going on this long with no empirical evidence to justify it, and much to refute it? And why would U.S. federal employees such as Hansen be allowed to falsify numbers over and over, engage in partisan politics, and everything else unless the U.S. Government wanted them to? Hansen has boasted that he has friends in high places and can’t be fired. What does that mean?
There is a simpler explanation.
Western governments were faced with rising costs of the welfare state, and ever increasing “entitlements”, and with the reluctance of the populace to pay more taxes. See California for the mess that this causes, even though they’re just at the start of their collapse.
Along come some people with a “great scare” idea to extract lots of money from the public, which will keep the whole system going for long enough for the pollies to collect their pensions. Why wouldn’t the government (and public service) welcome and support the idea.
But look at the “sceptics” Russia, China, India (no welfare state) etc. Now, with the financial crisis, western governments are starting to back off. South Korea, Japan, Canada want out of Kyoto. The Germans and Spanish (and Dutch) have cut subsidies to “renewable” energy. Even the Danes are wondering what went wrong with those optimistic predictions.
There are, of course, some who are very slow to wake up (and quite close).
I’m more inclined to believe that our Government is doing this for what it believes is our own good. Weaning us off of oil before allowing access to another (now secret) energy source would, theoretically, prevent economic collapse from the collapse of Big Oil. I don’t think our Government would invent a crisis just to extract more taxes.
The problem with this scenario is that the scare isn’t working. No matter the governments of the world claim, the people can see with their own eyes that the seas are not rising, that the poles are not disappearing, and that zombies are not invading our cities. Nobody I know, with one exception, believes in the warming scare, and this includes my most liberal friends. So who does believe in it? Political fanatics? Hippies? Druggies? Religious crazies? No matter what the Press says, the Democratic Party says, or the President says, educated people that I know seem completely worn out on the doomsday theme.
Curt @ 19. Have a look at the green agenda and UN Agenda 21. There is no secrecy about their aims and methods but the AGW believers simply refuse to see it.
Junk science is not limited to CO2, Hardly news, but we can “fix” anything.
An international team of scientists says it’s figured out how to slow global warming in the short run and prevent millions of deaths from dirty air: Stop focusing so much on carbon dioxide.
They say the key is to reduce emissions of two powerful and fast-acting causes of global warming — methane and soot.
Carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas and the one world leaders have spent the most time talking about controlling. Scientists say carbon dioxide from fossil fuels like coal and oil is a bigger overall cause of globalwarming, but reducing methane and soot offers quicker fixes.
Soot also is a big health problem, so dramatically cutting it with existing technology would save between 700,000 and 4.7 million lives each year, according to the team’s research published online Thursday in the journal Science. Since soot causes rainfall patterns to shift, reducing it would cut down on droughts in southern Europe and parts of Africa and ease monsoon problems in Asia, the study says.
I recently had lunch with an employee of the BOM, who after I inquired about his profession showed me a plot on his iPhone showing how CO2 had increased over the past x years, as measured across a number of Australian stations.
I then asked him what proportion of that CO2 increase was attributable to the actions of mankind as distinct from the actions of everything else. His answer was that IT WAS NOT IMPORTANT – THAT WHAT WAS IMPORTANT WAS FOR US TO REDUCE OUR FOOTPRINT.
I disagreed. I said something like “our potential to stop the harm caused by a rise in CO2 is directly proportional to our percentage contribution to it’s rate of increase.”
The question I want answered is “What is the human contribution on a percentage bases of ppm to the observed rise in CO2 and how is this calculated”?
I’ve heard that we account for only 3%? Is this correct? If it is something as low as 3% is CAGW bust on this fact alone?
Natural yearly CO2 releases roughly equal the amount of natural CO2 yearly sequestration. Even though we only add a little CO2 compared to nature’s carbon cycle, that CO2 doesn’t have anywhere to go, so it builds up. CO2 rose from 344ppm in 1984 to 392ppm in 2010. It is generally accepted that avoiding 450ppm is socially and economically important as the costs of adaptation will far outweigh the costs of mitigation. Once the CO2 is up there, it’s very hard to get it back down.
I wonder if there is a plausible alternative explanation of the increasing levels of CO2. The accepted explanation is that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing because we burn a lot of fossil fuels, and because of changes to land use.
Accurate CO2 measurements started in the late 50’s in Mauna Loa, and have shown a steady rise overlayed by a seasonal cycle. The rate at which CO2 has been increasing could not have been happening for too long. We know this because if you extrapolate backwards at 1ppm per year (just over half the current rate), then there would have been no CO2 in the atmosphere in 1600. As we all know, plants require ~190 ppm to survive, and it appears that plants did grow in 1600, so there could not have been zero CO2 in the atmosphere at that time. Indeed, if you go back to 1800 at 1 ppm/year you would have 200ppm, so the current increase had to start some time after 1800.
Could it be that a chain of undersea volcanoes came into being in the 1800’s? Or could it be that some time between 1800 and now our human footprint in the form of changes to land use and the burning of fossil fuels started adding CO2 to the atmosphere? CO2 from organic sources (fossil fuels and vegetation) has an increased amount of carbon 13 over carbon 12. And a similar increase in carbon 13 has been observed since CO2 levels started to rise. This suggests that it is more likely the increased CO2 came from the burning of fossil fuels and vegetation, rather than some inorganic source.
So it looks pretty likely that we are indeed responsible for the increase of atmospheric CO2.
But as a “skeptic”, your job is to disbelieve anything that might suggest that AGW is happening, that we are causing it, and that if it is happening it is at all bad. So I strongly recommend that you roll your eyes knowingly if anyone is silly enough to suggest that we are putting that extra CO2 up there.
You mention only as far back as 1800, and then suggest that the current rise perhaps started from that point.
This suggests that it is more likely the increased CO2 came from the burning of fossil fuels …..
Might you perhaps explain this then:
1. During the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today.
2. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm — about 18 times higher than today.
3. The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today– 4400 ppm.
if you go back to 1800 at 1 ppm/year you would have 200ppm, so the current increase had to start some time after 1800.
We know that plants don’t thrive at 200ppm but require more like 240ppm at minimum, so your maths are wrong. Beside, even the IPPC says that there was 280ppm CO2 in the air before the Industrial Revolution. Also, it’s been shown the anthropogenic increases couldn’t have begun until at the earliest the 1840’s, which would tie not only into the early days of the industrial revolution in England but also a string of major volcanic eruptions which might have contributed a significant injection of CO2 into the atmosphere in the early 19th century.
Plants grow even better above 300 ppm.
It would be interesting to know what fraction of the massive increase in farm productivity is due to the fertilising effects of CO2 as opposed to the evolution of agronomy and related technologies. Surely, this fertilising effect of CO2 would form an even larger fraction of farm productivity increases in under-developed rural nations which, at least until very recently lacked access to modern farming techniques, while accounting for the most marginal of the world’s poor.
We normally hear how climate change is a great catastrophe, but increasing the fecundity of the world’s poorest peoples’ crops might well be one of the positive legacies of the 20th century’s remarkable industrial growth.
If we step back to get even a bigger view, it’s possible to imagine a time — say several hundred years in the future — when the events which transpired largely as a direct results of the Scottish Enlightenment, the industrialisation of Britain and Belgium based on coal and scientific experimentation, spreading to Germany, then America, then the world….the resulting terraforming of the whole planet as gardens, mines, farms or parks, banishing wilderness to a mere percentage of wastelands at the poles…all this might well be the natural evolutionary course of a living sentient planet once cognition arises within a particularly aggressive species. To understand it you have to know that we are in our most rapid phase of human evolution in our history as a species.
The vast hydrocarbon reserves stowed under the earth’s crust seemed destined to be exploited (almost as if they were put there for the very purpose!) to project human evolution through a transitional state from an agriculturally-based society to one primary engaged in the manipulation of information to create endlessly divergent virtual domains. We’re evolving rapidly away from a society where the basic tools not so long ago were the plough, sword and the hammer to one where the ability to turn exaFLOPS of information into useful knowledge is our most fundamental cultural characteristic.
Maybe what we are living through isn’t the destruction of the planet but the creation of a whole new world we can barely imagine outside the pages of a science fiction novel.
But as a “skeptic”, your job is to disbelieve anything that might suggest that AGW is happening, that we are causing it, and that if it is happening it is at all bad. So I strongly recommend that you roll your eyes knowingly if anyone is silly enough to suggest that we are putting that extra CO2 up there.
But as a skeptic, your job is to question dogmatic and religious statements and to seek out the truth.
For example the MWP ranged from about 950 to 1250 AD, the ice core data clearly shows there is at least an 800 year lag between the rise in temps and the rise in CO2.
If you wish to seek the truth then add 800 to 950 & 1250 and suddenly you have an alternative theory as to why co2 levels have been methodically rising.
Of course the religious ones will respond with “oh but the MWP did not exist” and so begins the greatest wild goose chase on the history of man.
Beca, Tristan is right btw. Whatever your reasons for being skeptical are, please don’t add the “only 3% of emissions” to the list. In fact this one simple skeptical argument is an excellent determinant of skeptics who have a clue and are looking for real reasons that AGW is baloney, versus those who are just clinging on to every skeptical argument then can find in blind faith. Key there are plenty on my side of the fence who cling to every pro-AGW argument too and many of those are rubbish.
Also helpful is to note that our present atmospheric co2 concentration is closer to the low limit for plants to do well.
PS feel free to ignore Tristan, he/she has lost all ability to view the subject objectively. He/she will disseminate propaganda to attempt to make His/her point.
Water vapor is the elephant in the room not co2. Warmists won’t tell you this because they can’t blame humans for water vapor.
Well, actually they would tell you about it. They would explain that water vapour is not a forcing, but a feedback. You can pump all the water vapour you like into the atmosphere and within a short time there’ll be no trace of it. But if you pump CO2 into the atmosphere, it stays there quite a while, warming up the atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere can and will hold more water vapour – so by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere we end up adding water, a potent greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere. Thus the original warming of the CO2 is amplified by the water.
Now if I can find this stuff Mark D, why can’t you?
Oh I’ve found that stuff and John, it is one of the glaring amateurish flaws and typical in Warmists understanding of physics.
Explain: If water vapor is able to do what you have said, and knowing that it is profoundly more effective as a greenhouse gas than c02: (from Wiki)
GH Gas Formula Contribution to the greenhouse effect(%)
Water vapor H2O 36 – 72 %
Carbon dioxide CO2 9 – 26 %
Methane CH4 4 – 9 %
Ozone O3 3 – 7 %
and as you further say:
A warmer atmosphere can and will hold more water vapour – so by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere we end up adding water, a potent greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere. Thus the original warming of the CO2 is amplified by the water.
What stops a runaway situation even without co2 (that I deleted)?
Then you say:
You can pump all the water vapour you like into the atmosphere and within a short time there’ll be no trace of it
A completely incorrect statement! Water vapor ~0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1–4% at surface. There is always water vapor in the Earths atmosphere. Always in motion, always moving heat and in quantities that you nor any other climate scientist are able to measure on a global scale.
It is precisely this movement of heat, happening on a grand scale in both the oceans and the atmosphere, that controls the temperature of the earth. co2 is a bit player at best (.039% of the atmosphere) with a puny effect initially and diminishing ability at higher concentrations the highest of which will still only be measured in parts per MILLION. No matter what GW powers you ascribe to co2, water vapor will always trump. Unlike co2, Water goes through all phase changes while in the atmosphere. Each phase change another opportunity to move heat a truly astounding amount of heat. This should be glaringly simple to you and the entire AGW crowd. Intuitively everyone should know this to be correct because WE ARE A WATER PLANET. The unique properties of water are EVERYTHING.
Lastly, in your first sentence “water vapor is a feedback” and the last sentence where you say “water vapor is an amplifier” is a glowing ember of understanding for you. Add to that; water in all forms is a transport mechanism for heat. Water in all forms changes the Earths albedo at every point. Water makes up 90-95% of plants and about 65% of animal bodies. It comprises 71% of the Earths surface. Look at water, understand water and you’ll start to understand climate. co2 has very little if anything to do with climate.
“Making some allowance (+/-5%) for the crudeness of my calculation, the maximum supportable number for the importance of water vapour alone is about 60-70% and for water plus clouds 80-90% of the present day greenhouse effect. (Of course, using the same approach, the maximum supportable number for CO2 is 20-30%, and since that adds up to more than 100%, there is a slight problem with such estimates!)”. (My emphasis).
The Wiki values add up to 114%, G.Schmidt makes it to 120% without any other gases!
This is settled science?
No, I change that question to, this is science?
Funny how they never spoke of a “feedback” mechanism until after it was discovered that CO2 lags temperature. Ad hoc rescue come to mind?
I hadn’t seen that particular Gavin but it is typical of what I have read of him and in his usual dismissive tone. He, Like John B. misses the point (on purpose?) that water is more than vapor in the atmosphere. In the atmosphere it is present as solid, liquid AND gas. The phases changing while moving horizontally and vertically. They change within clouds, they change at air mass boundaries all of which cannot be measured accurately.
The big T is at work again and Knows No Chemistry.
Human origin CO2 does not accumulate in the atmosphere forever or even a thousand years as the IPCC goons say.
Look at the trees and the grass.
If human CO2, small as it is was stopped right now, in two or three years time the atmosphere would be in perfect balance with exactly the same proportion sequestered in both Human an Natural CO2.
Global Natural and Anthropogenic Sources and Absorption of Greenhouse Gases in the 1990s
Carbon Dioxide
(Million Metric Tons of Gas)
Natural = 770,000
Human-Made = 23,100
Total = 793,100
“Each year, we send over 20 billion tonnes of CO into the atmosphere. Natural emissions come from plants breathing out CO and outgassing from the ocean. Natural emissions add up to 776 billion tonnes per year.”
Oops, trouble with cut’n’paste.
Last quote should read:
“Each year, we send over 20 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Natural emissions come from plants breathing out CO2 and outgassing from the ocean. Natural emissions add up to 776 billion tonnes per year.”
Beca the carbon cycle is like a diet. If the energy you eat is balanced by the energy you use then you’ll stay more or less the same weight. If you eat 5% more than you use then you’ll get fatter. If the 5% energy is equivalent to the mars bar you eat every day, then cutting out the mars bar will mean you stop putting on weight.
In context of the atmosphere, what this translates to is that each year there are natural emissions TO the atmosphere, and natural sinks that take C02 OUT of the atmosphere. We humans result in additional contributions TO the atmosphere, and as such CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere.
Back to the diet… it is clear to me that the Mars Bars, even though they only make up 5% of your energy intake, are responsible for 100% of the weight gain. Ok in the diet you could actually cut back on any other 5%, but in the atmosphere we can only have any control over the human emissions.
That is why it is misleading to present anthopogenic CO2 as only being 3% of emissions, as the other 97% are more or less in balance with natural sinks.
MattB, you may consider your analogy is great, but it’s still a false analogy.
By equating Mars bars to CO2 and weight gain to temperature rise, you then need to demonstrate that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in temperature.
Temperature increases before CO2 increases. So with your analogy, one would gain weight before one consumed the Mars bar.
If we throw in positive feedback (an ad hoc rescue), then one would gain weight before consuming the Mars bar and after consuming it one would gain weight again, thus causing one to think about eating another Mars bar, then gaining more weight and so on ad infinitum.
Actually, MattB, it’s nothing like a diet, or the human body, or any other false analogy, even remotely! People often use inane analogies to hide their ignorance, or to talk down to others from a false sense of superiority. Btw, it’s not like sheep’s testicles, inflatable rubber dingies or Swedish porno movies either.
CO2 is not, repeat not, in a “harmonious” balance within it’s cycle on our planet, period. Our planet is a complex, constantly evolving and self-adjusting system of inter-related phenomena which is self regulating, provided the amounts of any input in the system are small (as CO2’s effect undoubtedly is), and not so immediate (like an asteroid strike) that the system has no time to adjust. Other factors which can catastrophically effect our planetary well-being are on planetary, solar or galactic scales which are far in excess of anything puny humanity could do to the planet.
actually people use analogies to explain complex things that simpletons can understand. I guess I needed a simpler analogy for a dunderhead like yourself Winnie.
Yes Beca, Tristan does not consider humans to be natural. Tristan thinks that humans are bad and must be punished. The punishment will be by a special tax. Because co2 is emitted more by wealthy white people, they need to be punished more. In order to be sure the punishment is “fairly” administered, international agencies need to be involved.
Notice for every (Panic! The sky is falling! Run for your lives!) alarm, the fix is always submitting to an unaccountable international political elite who will decide what is best for all. We are to have no individual or national sovereignty. No power of individual choice free of threat of forceful denial is to be permitted. All thoughts, words, and actions are to be subject to the prior permission of that self same international political elite.
Elected or not, the only possible outcome will be the collapse of the global economy caused by the collapse of all national economizes caused by the establishment of free thought, free speech, and free action. Ultimately, it will cause the collapse of technological civilization upon which 98% depend on for our very lives – even and especially the international political elite. For a current living example, see the unfolding of the European Economic Union.
I trust a poisonous scorpion to be a scorpion no matter what words it uses to the contrary. The UN is a nest of poisonous and lying scorpions who will always act that way until the UN ceases to exit.
Its ceasing to exist couldn’t happen too soon for me. The world would be much better off for the event. The life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of any individual on earth must not be subject to the vote of a largely despotic collection of heads of state. Nor, for that matter, Republicans, Democrats, or whatever mix of political parties of record.
“caused by the establishment” should read “caused by the prohibition”.
I may not know how to spell and can often make typing mistakes, but the built in spell checker has no concept of meaning. It simply substitutes a random correctly spelled word for the word that is not in its dictionary. The consequence is that the statement in process has its meaning subverted and/or inverted. The spell checker must be an ultra left progressive. Thus never meaning what it says nor never saying what it means. The only good thing is that it never claims to be “misquoted” or “quoted out of context”.
wonder if it has the usual legal disclaimer that CSIRO and others including the Govt are using for climate change related papers these days
BTW does anyone know when CSIRO started to use those legal disclaimers
is general information provided as part of CSIRO’s statutory role in the dissemination of information relating to scientific and technical matters
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is subject to change without notice
should never be relied on as the basis for doing or failing to do something.
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Madjak, yes so I guess if we move from Sydney to Brisbane (2C cooler), the CSIRO says we live 1 minute longer. They obviously don’t expect anyone will actually THINK about what they say! I guess when you have a compliant MSM that is understandable.
That all sounds very unscientific to me. So, the natural (earth without man) carbon cycle is at perfect equilibrium unable to process any additional carbon dioxide because somehow it knows what is caused by humans rather than by non humans. How then has the earth recovered from 5-25 times the CO2 concentration we have now?
Your answer demonstrates that you have assimilated a political agenda into your understanding of the science through your discussion of the cost of mitigation vs adaptation as a function of CO2 concentration. Im assuming this is a computer model output / UN fabrication? Much like the treasury modeling showing Australians how many cents per week they will be better off under a carbon tax. Crap in = crap out.
Gee Sonny, what is so incredibly difficult about actually understanding stuff?
Since the CO2 level before ~1800 had been pretty stable for some time, it would be entirely reasonable to assume that the carbon cycle was balanced, with emission and absorption being finely balanced. If the emissions are increased, then they will exceed the absorption rate, and CO2 will accumulate in the atmosphere. Generally, one would expect the absorption rate to increase if there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, so that somewhere down the track the level of atmospheric CO2 would stop increasing and be in equilibrium again. Unless the actual warming reduced the absorption rate.
As for higher CO2 concentrations in the past, in the long term weathering removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and that probably caused CO2 concentrations to drop. Our atmosphere once had no oxygen in it. Does that say anything about today?
When you understand something, John, you can preach to others, not before. The Carbon cycle is not fixed, as a booming biosphere proves. Your sense of proportion is as skewed as her world view.
“As for higher CO2 concentrations in the past, in the long term weathering removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and that probably caused CO2 concentrations to drop. Our atmosphere once had no oxygen in it. Does that say anything about today?”
Actually, that a very good point because it says a lot about today.
BTW, the atmosphere did have oxygen, it just wasn’t free oxygen.
Carbon dioxide + water + light –> carbohydrate + oxygen.
You might recognize this process as photosynthesis. O2 comes from algae and plants.
So CO2 + H2O + light eventually (after billions of years) produced John Brookes.
Now, you want to reduce plants ability to produce the life giving O2 that we breathe, by reducing the CO2 that they need.
“… in the long term weathering removes CO2 from the atmosphere…”.
Well, don’t forget plants John, after all they absorbed the CO2 and produced the O2.
Try to keep the horse in front of the cart John, otherwise you’ll just go backwards.
So, the natural (earth without man) carbon cycle is at perfect equilibrium unable to process any additional carbon dioxide because somehow it knows what is caused by humans rather than by non humans.
No of course not. There is neither a perfect equilibrium nor does nature distinguish between carbon sources. Humans emit ~26 gt/yr while atmospheric C02 levels are only rising by 15 gt/yr. Unfortunately that change of CO2 concentration is too fast for comfort.
Your answer demonstrates that you have assimilated a political agenda into your understanding of the science through your discussion of the cost of mitigation vs adaptation as a function of CO2 concentration.
With such an attitude towards those of different opinions to your own, you’ll have a hard time learning new things.
Im assuming this is a computer model output / UN fabrication? Much like the treasury modeling showing Australians how many cents per week they will be better off under a carbon tax. Crap in = crap out.
Your sentiment is just as pertinent when it comes to your brain, which contains innumerable models.
Moral of the story, Tristan, is that political interference and pressure has become so endemic and pervasive, that it can make both scientific understanding and economic planning so far removed from objectivity that they become meaningless and incapable of informing, even partly, our future decision making in a trustworthy fashion.
So, what to do when those upon whom you rely have become so tainted by your own political influence? Who can you turn to then? Catch 22 I would suggest. The only way out is for a thorough purge of the bureaucracy that has entrenched itself within these bodies, and make them truly independent again.
But that wouldn’t really suit people like your good self, Tristan, now would it? You are seemingly more interested in meddling with the science or the economic parameters to achieve your desired agenda. You are apparently not interested in objectivity or challenging your own world view. You have a cause to fight and that’s all that matters.
Sad, really, that it all has to come crashing down, all ending in tears. I fear for the ramifications of the folly of people such as yourself, whether you succeed, or whether you fail, because the damage that will be wrought will be a legacy of which I don’t believe you will be proud.
You are seemingly more interested in meddling with the science or the economic parameters to achieve your desired agenda. You are apparently not interested in objectivity or challenging your own world view. You have a cause to fight and that’s all that matters.
What do you think my agenda/cause/worldview is, fella?
From your many posts on this site, it would appear Tristan that you support, correct me by all means if I am wrong-
1. redistribution of wealth from the productive members to the non-productive members in 1st world economies. The Carbon tax, which you promote so heartily will do nothing to mitigate against CO2 on any meaningful level, but will hurt small businesses and those working families (Howard’s aspirational middle class) earning between $80,000 and $200,000 pa, sending them off the debt precipice that many in the mortgage belt find themselves balanced upon in a falling housing market, while the true elite (who have no mortgages etc) can continue to consume, travel, rape, pillage,etc with barely a blip to their lifestyle- in fact, relatively, they will be wealthier in comparison to their erstwhile peers, who will soon have fallen further rungs down the social ladder – I’m sure they’re glad to be rid of their nouveau riche competitors who thought they could have aspirations to rise above their station! That showed ’em, hey Tristan, me old mate!
2. redistribution of wealth from 1st world countries/developed economies (which are debt ridden and on the verge of collapse, but who cares, right) to the UN (a rapacious self-serving conglomeration of narcissists and siccophants, whose only interest is in perpetuating itself and fostering its own status, power and wealth), in the forlorn hope that some of it will trickled down to the poor in 3rd world countries (but of course it won’t- it will go to the UN itself, it’s massive bureaucratic machinery, and the political elite in poor nations in the form of graft and palm greasing, otherwise referred to as “administrative costs”, and perhaps, if it is so inclined to a world government, which would be a catastrophe jeopardising the viability of the entire human species, IMO).
PS.I will say at this point that I actually support socialised medicine as an exception, even though Medicare is poorly structured, ill-conceived and has the usual perverse incentives attached to any government sponsored program, and while it personally has cost me financially a considerable amount over the years, I believe the health of the population to be paramount to any of these considerations- I do believe it could be reformed considerably for the benefit of all, but governments are blind and stupid by nature, so that can never happen, more is the pity.
3. believe in increasing the overall size of government (you stated your desire to be a politician, if you remember, and no doubt champion many of it’s useless (???well-meaning) social engineering attempts), ostensibly to promote “social welfare” programs to assist the wellbeing of it’s people, but in fact this is rarely the case in Western societies, where bloated bureaucracies and microregulation strangle the life blood out of perfectly viable industries and occupations, and promote an ever enlarging underclass of the unskilled, unmotivated and non-contributing.
4. Believe government regulations and taxation structures and incentives can overcome market forces and their basic inherent physical limitations to make non-viable renewable energy projects anything other than useless money pits and rank wastes of public money.
5. And I believe that you think that the science behind climate change does not have to subject itself to the rigours normally ascribed to other domains of science, because such issues are not important relative to the potential opportunity to scapegoat modern developed world societies. You hope to redress perceived imbalances between Western society and the developing world, and overturn what you see as an evil fossil fuel industry simultaneously, even though this has been the main factor responsible for elevating the status of working people above the level of serf/slave since the industrial revolution.
1. redistribution of wealth from the productive members to the non-productive members in 1st world economies.
Everyone has some sort of preference when it comes to distribution of wealth vs individual earning capacity. There’s no guarantee that any given economic system will result in the ‘optimal’ wealth distribution. I’m in favour of wealth redistribution when it represents a profitable investment for society. What defines profitable investment differs from person to person.
The Carbon tax, which you promote so heartily will do nothing to mitigate against CO2 on any meaningful level, but will hurt small businesses and those working families
I think it’s important that Australia can demonstrate that the cost of cleaning up after yourself (wrt ghg emissions) isn’t particularly onerous. For now I more or less accept treasury estimates, in a couple years we’ll have actual data.
2. redistribution of wealth from 1st world countries/developed economies
See my answer to 1. Note that this isn’t an implicit endorsement of the way individual welfare and foreign aid bodies operate.
3. believe in increasing the overall size of government
There are areas I’d downsize and areas I’d upsize. My error bars are too large to say whether this would represent an increase or decrease 🙂
4. Believe government regulations and taxation structures and incentives can overcome market forces
Governments have a number of mechanisms via which they can change the cost of supply. Whether this allows new products to compete is completely scenario dependent.
renewable energy projects [are] useless money pits and rank wastes of public money.
They seem destined to play a role in our energy grid.
5. the science behind climate change does not have to subject itself to the rigours normally ascribed to other domains of science
I think climate science is held to account more than most disciplines, given the intense scrutiny that it faces. I’m more concerned with certain areas of medical and agricultural science.
You hope to redress perceived imbalances between Western society and the developing world
Impossible. I’d change certain terms of trade though.
overturn what you see as an evil fossil fuel industry
Not evil and I don’t want it ‘overturned’, just priced such that people pay now instead of later.
How’s that for starters?
Thank you for your comprehensive response, I hope my answers make some of my positions clearer.
The Carbon tax, which you promote so heartily will do nothing to mitigate against CO2 on any meaningful level, but will hurt small businesses and those working families
I think it’s important that Australia can demonstrate that the cost of cleaning up after yourself (wrt ghg emissions) isn’t particularly onerous. For now I more or less accept treasury estimates, in a couple years we’ll have actual data.
renewable energy projects [are] useless money pits and rank wastes of public money.
They seem destined to play a role in our energy grid.
Tristan
January 17, 2012 at 10:01 pm
No clue whatsoever. Should my opinions be vindicated it’ll be blind luck!
Winston, Tony:
This is a persistent claim by Tristan, as well as the claim that he only posts to annoy. I think we should take him at his word — he contributes nothing valuable to the conversation.
I think it’s important that Australia can demonstrate that the cost of cleaning up after yourself (wrt ghg emissions) isn’t particularly onerous.
Only not “onerous” if you think that premium energy prices and widespread blackouts equals economic prosperity! Our atmopsphere is among the “cleanest” in the world, yet your tax will encourage businesses to move to China where environmental regulation is less stringent and particulate and aerosol pollution is exceptionally poorly controlled. Own goal there.
For now I more or less accept treasury estimates, in a couple years we’ll have actual data.
Trusting soul! Treasury is only as good at estimating as their political masters will allow- witness NBN estimates which are already much more expensive than modelling suggests, witness costings of any major project with over-runs by factor of 2 or 3.
They seem destined to play a role in our energy grid.
As a bit player, on premium salary no less- like Marlon Brando in the first Superman movie- $1 million per minute of screen time- bargain!
I think climate science is held to account more than most disciplines, given the intense scrutiny that it faces.
Only as a result of blogs like Jo’s and WUWT and Roy Spencer’s. A compliant MSM has let the Piltdown climate paradigm reign supreme with unquestioning subservience! Viva, la internet!
Looking at these snapshots from last October (the last month where most of them were available) something just doesn’t add up in the CO2 as causal thesis.”
Gillard/Brown & Co have nearly succeeded in taxing the air we exhale, carbon dioxide. Is water vapour next?
This was put forward in 2006. Note the last line threat!
“EPA Director of the Department of Pollutant Decrees, Ray Donaldson, said, “Back before carbon dioxide was dangerous, we simply assumed that water vapor was also benign. But all reputable scientists now agree that the increased water vapor content of the atmosphere from such sources as burning of fuels and power plant cooling towers will also enhance the greenhouse effect, leading to potentially catastrophic warming.”
If successful, the push to classify water vapor as a dangerous pollutant would impact virtually everyone.
“Right now, we are not so concerned about the water vapor exhaled by people. That is low on our list of priorities”, said Mr. Donaldson. “We’ll tackle that manmade source at a later time.”
Tonyfromoz. I’m trying to get a request to you but for some reason unknown the particular post is not being accepted here. Is there any other way I can contact you?
This requires some explanation, so I hope Joanne doesn’t mind.
Most of the millions of Blog sites in the U.S. are not like Joanne’s that have basically ‘open commenting’, and that includes even the ‘Majors’. They send all comments to moderation prior to posting them at their sites.
The blog where I am the editor is the same, and the site’s owner prefers to keep it that way.
Any comments that are left at any of the Posts at our site have to be approved prior to appearing. As with all comments the person leaving the comment also has to include a ‘valid’ email address, which in every case is never shown openly at the site, as in the case of every comment here. You all have to supply that email address.
So, if you wish to contact me, then leave a comment at our site, and within a short time, I will moderate it.
The comment need only be bland or innocuous, because either way, your email address is attached, and I can then email you if you wish, or just reply to the comment.
Perhaps the best place to do that would be at my ‘Bio’ at the link I have included here.
At the bottom of that Bio is a ‘Leave a Reply’ box.
Write your text in there, and then press the ‘Post Comment’ button below that.
Thanks Tony. I don’t know whether I’m having a particularly bad “senior moments” day, but I’ve tried all that at your site and it keeps telling me I have to “log in” to post a comment, but I don’t know where or how.
In light of the fact all my other posts are appearing here, I’m also at a loss as to why the particular post I’ve tried to get through to you on this blog is not appearing, even though each time I’m told it’s “done”.
Any thoughts Jo? My apologies to all for being such a pain.
I just love sites like Joanne’s because there’s so many of these things cropping up, it’s difficult to keep track of them all, and this site gives me many extra eyes.
I’ll have something in a day or so to link to.
I just love ‘tearing down’ the double talk at these renewable power sites that no one understands.
Nameplate Capacity 168MW which will be 56 Towers, each with a 3MW Generator in the Nacelle.
Estimated total power output is 420GigaWattHours (GWH)
This gives the plant a (projected theoretical) Capacity Factor of 28.5%, which means that on average, it will be supplying power for 6 hours and 45 minutes each day.
So, place wind towers in what is arguably the windiest place in Australia with the ‘Roaring 40’s’ blowing straight at them, and you still only average power for just over one quarter of the day, from 56 towers.
Tony, that 6 hours and 45 minutes would be based on full output for 6 hours 45 minutes. Surely the actual grid engineers (other than pulling their hair out) would at least be expecting a lower output over a longer period of time. Is there such a thing as an effective power output, say for example the hours per day where a wind farm is expected to produce at at least say 50%?
The link at the bottom of this Comment is quite helpful.
That period of time I quoted is the averaged daily time figure extrapolated from the theoretical yearly total power delivery.
True, the Plants deliver part power for most hours in the day, and some days the power is above, or even below that time figure.
What it does highlight, in conjunction with what is shown at the link is the extreme variability of Wind Power, and how it cannot be relied upon by grid controllers to supply a known demand.
A Base Load requirement is for 60 to 65% of every watt being generated from every source to be available 24/7/365.
On top of that, a Peaking Power demand adds extra on top of that Base, and these Peaking Power periods are also an absolute physical requirement at known times, those being 5AM to 9AM and 4PM until late.
Those are absolutes, and the variability of Wind Power means that the Grid Controllers cannot trust Wind Power to make up the total that is then drawn down by ALL consumers in every sector.
Sometimes charts like these can be difficult to decipher, so for just one example on the 19th January 2011, look at the maximum output from every Wind Plant in Australia, and here for that day, the total is 900MW, at 1900 (7PM).
Now, scroll down and see the total actual power consumption for all Australia at that same time. That total is 27,000MW.
So at 7PM on Thursday 19Jan2011 when Wind Power provided its maximum power for the day, it was providing 3.3% of all the power being generated in Australia.
No go to where Wind is providing the least amount of power, 11AM, and the figures are:
Wind = 300MW
Australian Consumption = 28,000MW
So, at this time Wind is supplying only 1% of all requirements in Australia.
Wind Power is so variable that it cannot be used as part of the total for an absolute requirement, and pity help the grid controller who uses Wind to make up the mix, and pity help the Government on watch at the time that might happen.
Wonder why the IPCC and other climate scientists took Svante Arrhenius’s relationship between increasing atmospheric CO2, thought by them to be all or mostly produced by human activities, in his words, namely a doubling of CO2 produces….. Arrhenius was using this example merely to show that he had discovered a logarithmic relationship between the two and gave one example of the general relationship as he stated it: “if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression”.
or symbolically: Tb-Ta = k Ln (CO2b/CO2a)
Is that relationship valid only for a doubling? Of course it was not meant to have that restriction. Therefore we should be able to use that relationship to see what today’s or next years etc increase in temperature should be, in relation to any earlier CO2 concentration. That is given we know the past concentrations and can estimate approximately what the atmospheric CO2 concentration would be at any given future time.
In other words why don’t the alarmists give us a running description of average global temperature changes, past present and future from the only science they have? Just to check that they do indeed have science on their side.
Have a guess? Mine is it wouldn’t be scary enough and would probably show that our CO2 wasn’t doing much at all. Much more scary to not check it out and hold over us the threat of what the equation tells us what will happen about 70 to 100 years down the track.
(Don’t think Svante was onto the CO2/water vapor feedback scam. Think it was latter day scammers like Hansen who put this idea into the minds of the adoring simple. It has largely been demolished by scientific observation).
Keith I think as most of us do that CAGW as a result of our CO2 emissions is on pretty shaky ground. It should be obvious to those even on only a nodding acquaintance with the science that its poor predictive abilities are its real problem.
Arrhenius along with Fourier and Tyndall et al brought a little science to bear on the role of CO2 as a GHG but it seems Svante was not up with chaotic nature of climate and its many drivers and probably attached too much importance to the role of CO2 as do their consensus followers of the contemporary alarmist brigade.
The following history of the “science” gives some idea why crackpots like Flannery and the earnest little disciples who frequent this site take themselves so seriously. Silly little buggers everyone of them but in a noble line of equally mad little buggers and all, in the story below, well before the Industrial Revolution so it’s probably a genetic disease that needs no exposure to extra CO2 for its manifestation:
Climate Change – the Early Days
Discussion of climate and climate change is no new discipline. In ancient times, climate was believed to be a function of latitude. Aristotle believed it related to the character of a nation, Hippocrates related it to health.
During the Enlightenment, Abe Du Boss, writing in his ‘Critical reflections’ believed that the rise and fall of cultures was linked to changes in climate, and that climate change since ancient times had led to the artistic, moral and scientific decline of certain nations. Du Boss believed climate change was brought about by emanations of vapors from the earth.
Baron Montesquieu, perhaps the most influential environmental determinist of the Enlightenment, also speculated on the role of climate on cultures, though for him latitude was of greater significance, and he allowed a greater role for the moral climate. Both cautioned that moving to new climates, such as the colonization of America, was potentially bad for people. David Hume, following Du Bos and in turn influencing Montesquieu, believed that the advances in European culture were due to climate change, and that cultivation of the land was the determining factor in causing it to warm up. He believed the same was happening in America, only faster.
So it is to the Americas we turn for the first great climate…….
am reading the most amazing book, “Extreme Money” by Satyajit Das – get it from your library if possible. Das knows CAGW is supposed to be the next financial bubble, but to date the carbon cowboys have failed to get it up. let’s do everything in our power to – for once – stop a Bubble before it gets started. it’s the boomers’ pension/super funds they’re after.
13 Jan: Guardian: Damian Carrington: How to tackle the climate, health and food crises, all at the same time
Reducing the soot pumped out by cars and cooking fires and the methane from coal mines and oil wells would rapidly curb global warming, prevent air pollution deaths and boost crop yields…
Drew Shindell, at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who led the research is clear that this is not an either/or situation: “It is not at all a substitution. It would be a big mistake to focus on dealing with the near-term problems of methane and black carbon without also focusing on the
problem of carbon dioxide as well.”
Nonetheless, his team’s work shows action on methane and black carbon is hugely worthwhile and, for the first time, the study shows reveals the regional benefits, from a more stable monsoon in India to better growing plants in Mexico… http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/jan/13/methane-black-carbon-emission-climate-change-warming?newsfeed=true
the environmental groups used to know the “remedies” were a scam. then they were no doubt paid off!
13 Jan: Guardian: George Monbiot: The green deal is a useless, middle-class subsidy
This deal is in no way green – it’s just one of the means by which money is being taken from the poor and given to the rich
On his blog last week, Chris Goodall exposed a series of remarkable and shocking features of the government’s new energy policies.
The government’s own projections show that its green deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO) schemes starting later this year, which are supposed to improve the energy efficiency of our homes and help people to cut their energy payments, will lead to higher bills for the poor, but almost no change to the bills of the rich. They will also greatly reduce the amount spent on insulation and energy efficiency while doing almost nothing to address fuel poverty. In sharp contrast to the claims the government has made about these schemes, Goodall shows that most of the poorest 10% of the population will end up “spending a greater fraction of their cash on energy than if the green deal and ECO did not exist.”…
Two years ago, I warned that the feed-in tariff, a tax on energy bills which pays for people to produce their own low-carbon electricity, would be deeply regressive. To install solar electricity, for example, you would need your own roof plus £10,000 or more in cash. If you were lucky enough to possess both these assets, you would be making, at other people’s expense, one of the most lucrative of all possible investments. It would give you a state-guaranteed return of 5-8%, fixed for 25 years, which was both
index-linked (making a nominal return of 7-10%) and tax free…
The feed-in tariff is just what Andrew Pendleton (Friends of the Earth) says it isn’t: “a middle-class subsidy”. No amount of cherry-picking by Friends of the Earth, which throws around figures without providing comparisons, will change that. This group, which is usually a force for good, needs to
look long and hard at the social impact of the policies it supports.
The transfer of money from the poor to the middle classes and the rich engineered by the feed-in tariff will do almost nothing to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. The government’s 2050 carbon pathways calculator allows you to choose the most extreme of all possible solar options: using
“all suitable roof and façade space” in the UK: a remarkable 9.5 square metres of solar panels per person.
Were we to fund a programme on this scale, it would be likely to bankrupt the United Kingdom, yet, by 2050, it would reduce the amount of energy provided by fossil fuels by a grand total of just 9%… http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/jan/13/green-deal
13 Jan: Reuters: NYMEX-Crude stays below $100 after Iran embargo delay
U.S. crude futures were steady below $100 per barrel on Friday, after a sell-off in the previous session on a report that a proposed European Union embargo on imports of Iranian crude would be phased in over six months…
U.S. allies in Asia and Europe voiced support on Thursday for Washington’s drive to cut Iran’s oil exports, though fear of self-inflicted economic pain is curbing enthusiasm for an embargo that a defiant Iran says will not halt its nuclear programme… http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL3E8CD01R20120113
this DELAY is the reason for the above DELAY and look at who is involved:
9 Jan: Reuters: UPDATE 2-UAE delays oil pipeline to bypass Hormuz
Pipeline seen operational by May, June, delayed from April
The United Arab Emirates has delayed the launch of a crucial oil pipeline to bypass the Straits of Hormuz to mid-2012, which analysts said would add to supply worries at a time when Iran threatens to block the strait for all the Gulf’s oil….
Flows through the strait are estimated at around 15-17 million barrels per day (bpd), or just under a fifth of global supplies, and a new pipeline would bypass it to carry most of the UAE’s oil, 1.5 million bpd, to global markets…
Abu Dhabi government-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) is undertaking the project, and China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor (EPC). http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/09/uae-pipeline-idUSL6E8C91EF20120109
21 Nov 2011: Reuters: UAE pipeline to flow first oil in December -sources
Abu Dhabi government-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) is undertaking the project while China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor (EPC)…
The pipeline will carry Murban crude, another source said, therefore the initial operation of the pipeline will be undertaken by Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO)…
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) holds a 60 percent stake in ADCO. Its other shareholders are BP, Royal Dutch Shell , Total, ExxonMobil and Partex Oil and Gas (Portugal). http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/21/uae-pipeline-hormuz-idUSL5E7ML08220111121
enough of the war-mongering. how easy it would be to blow up that pipeline.
14 Jan: Real-Science: Steven Goddard: Climate Sensitivity – Zero
Satellites have been monitoring the Earth’s temperature for 30 years. For the first fifteen years, temperatures were rising. For the last 15 years, temperatures have been steady, while CO2 emissions have gone through the roof.
(GRAPH)
COMMENT by Gator:
At the very least, the models have been thoroughly trashed…
“According to the NOAA State of the Climate 2008 report, climate computer model simulations show that if observations find that the globe has not warmed for periods of 15 years or more, the climate models predicting man-made warming from CO2 will be falsified at a confidence level of 95%:”…ETC http://www.real-science.com/climate-sensitivity
13 Jan: Euractiv: US Republicans stir transatlantic tensions over climate change
Concerns are growing in Brussels that persistent denial of human-caused global warming among Republican presidential hopefuls could damage EU-US relations and even spark a trade conflict.
All the leading challengers for the White House have staked out positions on global warming that defy the international scientific consensus, causing what Thomas Legge, a climate officer for the German Marshall Fund, called “exasperation” in Brussels.
Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in September she was “shocked that the political debate in the US is so far away from the scientific facts.”…
If a Republican president disrupted the EU’s inclusion of aviation in the EU’s Emissions Trading System, or its default values ascribed to oil from tar sands, Jo Leinen, the chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee, called for “a reaction that would affect transatlantic trade.”
“In order to have a fair competition between our industries and theirs, we could talk about broader measures against materials from the US with high energy intensity or output of climate gases like steel, metals, and chemical products,” he told EurActiv.
This could take the form of “a CO2 levy or tax on the border to compensate for the [low carbon] investments in products made in Europe,” he said.
Rather than continue with current EU-US relations, Leinen proposed a move by the EU to “orient itself towards a coalition with China.”
But Sarah Ludford, the Liberal vice-chair of the EU’s delegation for relations with the United States, disagreed with trade sanctions, while conceding that Republican positions were “a long way from the mainstream of European thinking”….
***Republican brainchild
Ironically, the ‘cap and trade’ idea that underwrites the global carbon market was originally the brainchild of US Republicans. But this changed because of what one senior US climate negotiator at Kyoto described as a collection of “toxic” ingredients.
“There are three issues – constraining industry, sending money abroad, and strengthening the UN – that are inflammatory on their own right,” Nigel Purvis, a State Department official under the Clinton and Bush administrations, said on the phone from Washington.
More than that, the climate change issue had become a symbol of ‘big government’ for Republicans, Purvis argued, and this had been amplified by “an enormous amount of campaign finance contributions and political advertising” paid for by the fossil fuel industry, and some trades-unions****… http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/us-republicans-stir-transatlantic-tensions-climate-change-news-510124
****and why aren’t our trade unions fighting all this job-destroying CO2 regulation???
I see that the Pine Island glacier in Antarctica has thinned by 230 feet and increased speed by more than 70% since 1974. According to the British Antarctic Survey, the massive glacier is being undermined from warm deep ocean water and has a net ice loss balance of 46 gigatonnes per year. That’s a lot of ice and a worrying consequence of climate change. Yet another reason to wonder how falling global temperature can accelerate ice loss from the poles.
Well KK if that amount of melt equates to 0.13 mm per year global sea level rise from one glacier alone then you’d have to be concerned if global temperatures starts to rise again. Multiply that by the number of large glaciers around Antarctica and Greenland then surely that would be a worrying amount of sea level rise on top of the already 3mm/year we have now. Maybe big Al G was right after all?
Hey Tony I’ve been thinking about your airconditioner argument (I think they are yours) about how the most efficient way to run aircon is to keep it on all day, as then it only has to do regular small amounts of work, versus turning it on when it is hot, leaving the aircon to do massive amounts of work.
It doesn’t sit well with me (I hope it was you who said it). I agree it would assist a network cope at peak periods as the cooling task is spread across off peak hours not just at the peak, however on balance it still takes more energy over the day, as the cool room in the day would recieve more heat due to temp gradients, leaving the aircon to do more total work. Wheras a room would otherwise reach equilibrium with outside and recieve no more heat, until you turn the aircon on of course. It seems to me that a cool room would at all hours of the day maximise the flow of heat in to the room for the aircon to remove.
fair question, and again, you’re coming at the situation from a thought process that not many people consider.
People think of air conditioning as cooling per se, because they think of it mainly from the personal household level, and that the room is being cooled.
That is the impression but what is really happening is that heat is being removed, and people will read that and think ‘semantics’, but it is in fact what the process actually is.
Thinking of it also at that personal residential level also gives a false impression on what is happening inside huge structures, every high rise, shopping centres hospitals etc. In that application, air conditioning is not cooling per se, or even heating. It just feels that way because the outside is either hot or cold, so the inside fells the opposite. In those larger applications, those ‘units’ on the roof are supplying conditioned breathing air into the structure as its only air supply. It is just constantly set at the one temperature.
Now in the residential application, people invariably use the units incorrectly on a number of fronts.
The unit must be specifically selected to ‘handle’ the volume of air it is to ‘condition’, and people buy units only wrt their wallet capability, and not the volume of the space to have the heat removed from, and invariable purchase units that are (sometimes way) too small for the volume they have to handle, hence the compressor must work flat out if the unit is of the incorrect (small) size.
It also helps to have your house insulated as well.
Then we have the case of people turning them on only when the heat becomes almost unbearable, and because of that, the largest consumer of electricity, the large electric motor that drives the compressor is working flat out trying to get the temperature down to the level you set, and depending upon the volume/unit size then that compressor might be running for hours, if it ever gets the temperature down to your setting.
Once that setting is reached, then the unit cycles around your temp (the low setting) and the automatically set upper temp. (set by a number of degrees higher than your setting, no matter what that is)
So wait till it’s too hot, and the compressor may have to work for hours and hours.
Turn the unit on in the cool of morning when the ambient is almost closer to your setting and the compressor runs in small increments throughout the day, and this is (substantially) less time than waiting until its too hot.
Have the louvres set high so the air blows out at almost roof level. It sinks, displacing the warmer air upwards and the fan in the unit sucks this outside.
You also need to close all doors and all windows. Anything open, and your unit is effectively trying to air condition Australia as a whole.
You should also close all blinds and curtains, and keep the room closed off to the outside heat which will always try to heat up the inside, hence making the unit’s compressor also work more often.
So, in fact, the ‘correct’ use of air conditioning entails an education process that nine out of ten people assume that they just know already.
Now, the real problem lies in the average residence has family members working, and when they get home from work to a hot house, (too late by then) they all turn on their conditioners, hence the spike in ‘Peak Power’ consumption.
However, the main consideration above all is the initial one, the volume to have the heat removed from it.
This is why perhaps the most efficient of all air conditioning is ducted air conditioning, and again, here, cost becomes the most important factor.
While the initial cost may be high, it eventually works out cheaper, because it has been specifically designed for the volume it is conditioning.
Get an incorrect unit, and while it is considerably cheaper, the resultant increase in your (household) electricity account will be considerably greater over lifetime usage.
As with everything, you need to be informed about something you might ‘assume’ you understand.
Tony, I once swam past the cooling water discharge from a ship’s refrigeration condenser, and I can assure you it was a hell of a lot hotter than the water I was swimming in. Ever since then I have thought of air conditioning as literally ‘pumping the heat over the side’.
Another point wrt your comments about taking hours to bring the temperature down to an acceptable level; depending on the materials used to build your hacienda, there is an awful lot of heat stored there. In Fiji, for example, many houses are constructed with concrete blocks and their floors are also made of concrete, thus all of that stored heat has to radiate into the air inside the house and thence be ‘pumped over the side’. If the house is kept cool, the cool concrete acts as a governor – smoothing out the spikes when someone leaves a door open, for example, and reducing the load on the compressor motor.
Just my two cent’s worth. I wish I had your ability to communicate things technical.
There are a number of difficulties presented when sizing (and operating) heating or cooling equipment. Depending also on how much your local temperature swings. Most operate at maximum efficiency at near full output. If you live where the warm season holds at 85F (as in Hawaii) then it is easier to design AC. If you live in interior Alaska you need a heating plant that can supply say 200,000 BTU to keep from freezing when it is -40F which means in the spring when it is 32F that same plant will be running far from full output and therefore substantially less efficient.
AC units also have efficiency issues so you could size the unit to hold your comfort temperature while running nearly all the time, during the hottest days. Of course lots of people don’t run them that way. To (try to) conserve energy, they shut them off when they are at work. This means that they will have to be over sized to begin with and therefore run inefficiently once the space is cool. No salesman will sell an undersized unit because the customer will complain. Installers often use size guide sheets based on square footage of the space only. This means the manufacturer has probably “rounded up” the sizes too. Air cooled units are usually rated for (and designed around) a 95F outside air temp. Anything above that in actual temp. when you run the system, will result in lower efficiency. AC on average is considered to be 60% efficient by electric utilities.
I totally agree with Tony. My wife, for instance, has a mental block about the AC in the car. She can’t grok the idea is to try to maintain a temperature equilibrium. Not too hot, not too cool, but just riiiiight. You know, just like parliament’s plan to control the Earth’s climate, only not totally insane. As result, she turns the AC on full blast and then when she get cold turns it off. Then when the car gets hot again, she turns the AC on high until she’s cold. Then off.
She thinks this saves energy.
Reminds me of a driver I once had in Pakistan. The moon was full so he didn’t want to use his headlights on a dangerously winding mountain road because he wanted to save his battery.
Cold fusion is very, very interesting especially in light of the climate debate for which it has so many relationships with, including the fact that thus far it appears the science is NOT being conducted in a transparent manner subject to testing by third parties but instead with a propaganda campaign.
Where have we seen this kind of thing before?
Of course, in the case of Cold Fusion there are unbelievable commercial stakes in the game, so you might expect the science to be conducted secretly.
If only half the claims for Cold Fusion are true then the results for our economy are mind-boggling. But not catastrophic. On the contrary, it means that every one on planet Earth can enjoy an even higher standard of living then we in the richest nations take for granted today. It will mean, once again, the Greens and the Club of Rome are wrong in their grim Malthusian forecasts. There is enough of everything to go around. The ecology and economy of planet Earth is not a zero-sum game.
Perhaps, cold fusion debate will be one of those issues which will help identify those in the climate skeptic camp whose sense of reality isn’t informed as much by the rules of rational inquiry as some pretend?
For now, pencil me as very skeptical of claims for Cold Fusion. But ever hopeful.
Oh, sorry, Janama. Two minutes more on google and we find the NASA video you linked to has already been debunked by the very scientist who appeared in the video. WTF?
Bjorn Lomborg reminds us today why climate talkfests like Durban and Copenhagen fail despite all the spin (linked story). The crux of the article is “We will never reduce emissions significantly until we manage to make green energy cheaper than fossil fuels”. The alarmists’ true socialist intentions are betrayed by their failure to be honest with the public regarding the true cost of renewables once all the subsidies are stripped away.
Dr. Clark’s prepared statement, including slides shown, before the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, The Environment, and Natural Resources. Uploaded by International Climate Science Coalition, http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/ .
Excellent resume of Earth’s climate and how it has operated in different epochs and how CO2 has never, never acted as a significant driver of climate in all that Earth history.
Pity our Ian Clark’s haven’t got the ear of this scientifically illiterate federal government as well as those equally ignorant of how the climate functions on the opposition benches. Like Turnbull and Hunt.
What I find most encouraging is Canada announced they were pulling out of Kyoto two days before the hearing. The Senate Hearing justified their wise decision.
My mission this year is to lobby the Libs to also pull out of Kyoto as it was never their policy to sign up to the madness.
Llew, Turnbull is a lost cause but the other person you mention? Interesting developments behind the closed door over the last six months. I’ll leave it at that.
Only 165 days until Obama’s carbon trading scheme is activated in Australia, exactly on the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit in which Maurice Strong openly declared carbon taxes would be needed for the environment and development goals of the UNFCCC.
And who can forget our old pal Anthony Albanese last year doing a mock trial of the all-new “modest” full body scanner at the airport. Word is, he was only too happy to breeze through the full body scanner after being assured that the new version would not reveal any embarrassing pre-election promises. 🙂
Anyone who thinks this device doesn’t internally record exactly the same see-through-clothes video that previous Rapiscan backscatter devices recorded is just naive. But hey. don’t worry, on the public facing display now one politician’s BS smells the same as any other politician’s BS.
Texas Mandates Climate Denial in School, by barathFollow .
Just when you thought climate denial hadn’t already pervaded every arena of public and private life…
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position.
.
The LA Times story has more:
Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.
…
NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum.
The controversy around “climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago,” said Eugenie Scott, executive director of NCSE.
At that time, evolution — the long-tested scientific theory that varieties of life forms emerged through biological processes like natural selection and mutation — was patchily taught. Teaching standards have been developed since then, but it’s unclear how widely evolution is taught, given teachers’ fear of controversy.
Studies show that teachers often set aside evolution for fear of a backlash. Scott worries this could happen with climate science too.
“The question is self-censorship and intimidation. What you have to watch for is the ‘hecklers’ veto,’ ” she said. “If a teacher ignores a particular topic, it will likely go unnoticed.”
One thing I’ve noticed is that a small minority of voices, when well positioned, can stymie the voices of reason. Conservative ideologues have been filling the school boards, city councils, etc. for too long—it’s a stealth campaign that’s been going on for years now, and it’s working. They’re changing the curriculum in schools, funding priorities in cities away from public institutions and public services (say, public transit), etc.
There’s two direct responses (and many more indirect responses) to this sort of action:
1. Run for elected office. Yeah, it’s crazy, but why not? I’m talking about starting small: school board, city committees, city council, maybe even mayor.
2. Talk about climate change. Talk about energy problems. They’re counting on the silence of the 63% of Americans who know the planet is warming.
This latter point bears some repeating. Denialists of basic, established science like evolution and climate change are counting on us to not speak up. They’re looking to muddy the waters, to make the issue seem taboo, without consensus or merit. Everyone knows the old argument—we don’t “teach both sides” of the theory of gravity.
There was a good piece at Climate Pirate making the case that speaking up is the most important step:
Let’s circle back to Climate Change. Many are worried about it, as well we should be. But we’re also too quiet. Nearly all of the non-experts I know who care about Climate Change avoid it for fear of feather-ruffling. Even many experts keep quiet.
A key point is that those who want action on Climate Change outnumber those who don’t, and it has been so for years. This means the pro-action side can dominate if we choose. We have only to raise our voices.
So the most important thing each of us, as individuals, can do is speak up and convince others to as well. This goes especially for everyday folks who aren’t already considered partisans. Everyone expects Al Gore to talk Climate Change, so that’s nothing new, but if someone who’s never spoken up before suddenly starts, ears will perk.
Beware: others will try to discourage you, often with good intentions. I recently listened to a marketing pro tell a sustainability group to avoid mentioning Climate Change because it’s too divisive. It’s common marketing advice and it’s wrong. Creating change isn’t like selling widgets. The obstacles to success are different. Pepsi lovers don’t feel pressure to avoid talking about or drinking Pepsi in the presence of Coke drinkers, for example. Marketing pros aren’t aware of the silence problem so they give bad advice.
The silence problem can only be fixed through exposure. Every time I speak plainly, a listener feels freer to follow suit. Our silence allows deniers to advertise their beliefs and implies to the undecided that there’s no problem.”
Kevin, wake up and engage you brain and think for your self.
“The LA Times story has more:
Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.”
I’m a science teacher, that’s what I teach, be skeptical, ask questions, new discoveries often prove that the majority are wrong. As for CO2 driving climate the science is in it only has a minor effect and follows warming. CO2 is not pollution its plant food within reason more is better.
Perhaps I should not have pasted the whole article – I had a feeling it would be misconstrued that I am sympathetic to the article as a whole.
Anyhow –
You miss the point. I posted the article as a matter of interest.Could you imagine Julia allowing the teaching of climate change denial in her revolutionary curriculum?
In schools the problem comes from the non core areas such as geography where much environmental propaganda and false information is been pushed in emotionally manipulative ways to young trusting minds. Many teachers in this field have a poor understanding of the science and use the “Appeal to Authority” fallacious argument to justify there stance.
Long live Death!
a.n.ditchfield
On the eve of the Spanish Civil War, “Viva la muerte!” was the paradox shouted by fascist thugs who disrupted an appeal for peace at the University of Salamanca. They also chanted “Muera la inteligencia!”, a confession of the state of their minds. In spite of the unsavory origin, the death-wish of Viva la Muerte! has crept in as policy and behavior of Western societies.
Perpetuation of the species is the primordial urge that drives all living beings. Existence is a theme central to religious beliefs that hold that the purpose of adult men and women is to bring to life and rear the next generation. A countervailing force set in the 1970s. The liberalization of Western economies unleashed market forces which encouraged women to work, at a time when contraception and abortion gave them control over their own fertility. Given the erosion of religious values among secularized city dwellers, the average Western couple began to have fewer than 2 children; by 1999 the figure was 1.3. This far from what existed in 1900: buoyed by the Industrial Revolution, populations of European Union countries accounted for 14% of world population even while sending a large flow of immigrants to populate the New World. It is now 6% and trends to 4%. Europeans are bound to extinction by their own hands; fewer mouths to feed, but also fewer hands and brains to produce and breed. The median age of Greeks, Italians and Spaniards is projected to exceed 50 years by 2050 – this means that one in three people in these countries will be 65 years old or older. A tax burden of 75% on the income of adults in working years would then be needed, mainly for entitlements of the elderly. Retirement and subsidized health services will come to an end, be it for lack of people. Greece, Italy and Spain are now at the center of a Eurozone crisis because a Viva la muerte! culture is closing a full [ circle. Worse lies in store for the Chinese, with their one child per couple policy.
The vilification of mankind saw its beginnings more than two centuries ago, after Benjamin Franklin, resident in England, spoke about the American population growing at a rate of 3% a year. The number captured the mind of a Cambridge student, Thomas Malthus, a divinity student and also a mathematician. With compound interest arithmetic, he reckoned that population would double every 23.5 years; hence population size in successive periods would be proportional to the series: 1;2;4;8,16,32,64,128…. After seven generations, 128 persons would demand the food available for one person; unsustainable, since the land available for food production is fixed. Malthus concluded that universal penury would be the lot of future generations. Nature would restore the balance catastrophically, with famine, war and disease, unless public policy checked the trend to overcrowding. The Malthus book, An Essay on the Principle of Population attracted attention in the first decades of the 19th century, but interest waned when its predictions were discredited. Initially in Europe and North America, the Industrial Revolution brought growing prosperity to sustain an unprecedented population expansion, with healthy and well nourished people. The book underestimated the role of technology in expanding farm productivity and in shipping farm produce.
Contradicted by facts, Malthusian thought remained dormant until the 1960’s. At that time, the huge advances in medical science, the advent of antibiotics and the control of disease with better sanitation, combined to bring about a worldwide drop in mortality rates while birth rates remained the customary ones, needed to offset the early deaths of previous times. The unusual surge in world population growth in the middle of the 20th century ushered in a spate of alarmist books that made Malthusianism fashionable again. Population Bomb, of Paul Erlich, carried predictions of hundreds of million deaths by famine in Asia, and even the rise of mortality rates in America, in the 1980s, as the result of undernourishment. The pessimistic outlook was magnified by predictions of another influential book, Limits to Growth, of which 12 million copies were distributed. Its message is that a limited planet cannot support unlimited growth. It introduced the concept of a fixed stock of non-renewable resources depleted at an alarming rate, in an analogy with Malthus’ concept of limited availability of land.
The pessimists have three assumptions they accept with an act of faith:
• • We are running out of space. The world population is already excessive for a limited planet, and grows at exponential rates, with effects that will be disastrous.
• • We are running out of resources. Non-renewable resources of the planet are being depleted by ever increasing consumption, at a rate that renders further expansion of a global economy unsustainable.
• • We are running out of time, as tipping points are reached making vicious climate change irreversible. The carbon dioxide emitted by human activity brings global warming that will soon render the planet uninhabitable.
Many accept the three assumptions because Prince Charles believes, the Main Stream Media journalists believe, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes, the scientists believe it is so. The daisy chain of acts of faith is too long to hold. Belief has no place in dealing with measurable physical phenomena. When issues are quantified, the contrast between true and false stands out clearly.
THERE IS PLENTY OF SPACE
Is overpopulation a serious problem? So it may seem to the city dweller of a congested metropolis living under local discomfort, but it is not something that can be generalized for the planet. The sum of U.S. urban areas amounts to 2% of the area of the country, and to 6% in densely populated countries like England or Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas. It is arguable that 7 billion people could live a comfortable urban life on 100 thousand square miles, the area of Wyoming, or less than 0.2% of a total terrestrial area of 148 million square kilometers. With about 99.8% of free space, the idea that the planet is overpopulated is an exaggeration. Demographic forecasts are uncertain, but the most accepted ones of the UN foresee stability of the global population to be reached in the 21st century. According to some, the world population will start to decrease at the end of this century; aging population is what emerges as the issue of concern. With so much available space it is untenable that the world population is excessive or has the possibility of becoming so.
RESOURCES ARE ADEQUATE
Although little is known of the content of the crust of the planet, the axiom is that, ultimately, a limited planet will not allow unlimited growth. It can also be counter-argued that, ultimately, that there are no non-renewable natural resources on a planet governed by the Law of Conservation of Mass, stated by Lavoisier in the 18th century. In popular form, it holds that “nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes.” Human consumption never subtracted one gram from the mass of the planet and, in theory, all material used can be recycled. The feasibility of doing so depends on the availability of low cost energy. When fusion energy becomes operational it will be available in virtually unlimited quantities. The source is deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen found in water in a proportion of 0.03%. A cubic kilometer of seawater contains more energy than would be obtained from combustion of all known oil reserves in the world. Since the oceans contain 1400 million cubic kilometers of water is safe to assume that energy will last longer than the human species. Potable water need not be a limitation, as is sometimes said; innovative nanotube membranes hold the promise of reducing energy costs of desalination to a tenth of current costs, which would make feasible the use of desalinated water for irrigation along the coast continents (750,000 km).
There is no growing shortage of resources signaled by rising prices. Since the mid-19th century, The Economist periodical, has kept consistent records of prices of commodities in real terms; they fell over a century and a half, with technological progress. The decline has been benign. The cost of feeding a human being was eight times higher in 1850 than it is today. Even in 1950, less than half of the world population of 2 billion had a proper diet of more than 2000 calories per day; today, 80% and have it, while the world’s population tripled.
No historical precedent backs the notion that human ingenuity is exhausted and that technology will henceforth remain stagnant at current levels. Two centuries ago, this idea led to the pessimistic Malthus prediction about the exhaustion of resources to feed a population thought to grow at exponential rates.
MANMADE GLOBAL WARMING IS UNCERTAIN
A scientific consensus is alleged on climate change issues, but the notion is unfounded. What is fair to say is that there is wide acceptance by European governments of ideas of a faction of climate researchers who believe that there is worrisome global warming, from carbon dioxide generated by human activity. Such researchers have downplayed uncertainties in a field rife with them, ultimately to their discredit.
There is no climate science with forecasting power comparable to that of astronomy and such power may never come into existence. Until recent times, no university offered a B.Sc. degree in climate science. Climate studies rely on a hundred fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, botany, zoology, paleontology, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics etc…Climate has a chaotic behavior, in the mathematical sense, and is thus subject to a high degree of uncertainty, which will not be diminished by advances in scientific knowledge.
In fields where science is uncertain, different hypotheses contend to explain relationships of cause and effect. If a hypothesis is hijacked by a commercial interest to support its claims, the debate slides from the academic to the political plane, in which all gimmicks of propaganda and public relations are fair. Debate becomes polarized in two political camps, each with its own agenda. In climate forecasts over a century, one camp appeals to the authority of climate research professionals in support of an anti-industrial policy, admitted as painful but necessary, the other camp claims lack of scientific basis for such a policy, qualified as suicidal. At each pole there are interests that have turned the alleged manmade global warming into a political and a journalistic phenomenon, not a scientific one.
Suspect from the start is the haste with which restrictive measures are promoted to curtail fuel use on the grounds that we are reaching tipping points. There are political circles that use this unverifiable hypothesis in support of a grab for power of bureaucrats, or as a pretext to tax fuels to give governments colossal revenues, or to favor one form of energy generation over others. They put in the dock an Industrial Revolution, which has over the last two centuries redeemed much of humanity from extreme want. However, one quarter of humanity still has no access to electricity and suffers from all the evils arising from it.
It is fair to apply to the matter a maxim of Roman law, In dubio pro reu, which states that where there is doubt, justice should benefit the accused: an Industrial Revolution, propelled by growing and cheaper energy. The stance expresses the rigor of true science, skeptical of unproven links of cause and effect.
There are valid arguments to question the existence of a link between increased manmade carbon dioxide and global warming. Contrary to the expectation raised by computer models, there has been constancy or decline in temperature since 1995, after the temperature rise for the two previous decades that triggered environmental alarm. This shows that there are natural forces shaping the climate, of magnitude greater than the effect of carbon dioxide, whatever its origin. These include cyclical swings in ocean currents and temperatures, sunspot activity and the effect on cosmic rays of the sun’s magnetic activity. These natural cycles are still partially understood, and their weight compared to the effect of manmade carbon dioxide is debatable. However, mankind can do nothing for or against natural forces of this magnitude. Sensible public measures are welcome to mitigate effects of climate change, if and when they occur and whatever the cause.
The allegation of misconduct in what became known as Climategate led to questioning the veracity of UN-IPCC studies contributed by professionals clearly wedded to political agendas. The claim of consensus of professionals is wrong. The refrain of propagandists of doom has been: The debate is over; the science is settled. This runs counter to science. In the scientific mind there is no place for Magister dixit, a Byzantine reference to Aristotle as final authority, because the master says so. This argument merits retort with the Royal Society’s motto, Nullius in verba, according to which science rejects the word of authority above proof backed by verifiable experimental evidence and logical reasoning.
Lacking support in solid theory and empirical evidence, the mathematical models underpinning the UN-IPCC predictions are speculative thought that reflects assumptions fed into models to support interests of sponsors. These computer simulations provide no rational basis for public policies that inhibit economic activity “to save the planet.” And carbon dioxide is not toxic or a pollutant. It is a plant nutrient in the photosynthesis that sustains the food chain of all living beings on the planet.
RECKLESS ALLEGATIONS OF ZEALOTS
In support of the manmade global warming speculation the stories of coming disaster are reported in strident tones, typical of the propaganda of totalitarian regimes that once incited masses duped by demagogues. Their tactics were described by H. L. Mencken:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Anything that happens on earth is quickly attributed to global warming: influenza pandemics; an earthquake in the Himalayas; the volcanic eruption in Iceland; the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean; tribal wars in Africa; heat wave in Paris; plague of snails on the tiny Isle of Wight. In Australia: wildfires, dust storms in the dry season and floods in rainy season. In North America: recent severe winters, the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota, the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico; Evo Morales blames Americans for summer floods in Bolivia. Hugo Chaves speculated that capitalism may have killed an advanced civilization on Mars. Fidel Castro says earthquakes are induced by the current US boom in gas production. With friends like these do Green causes need enemies?
THE GREEN POLITICAL AGENDA
In the view of Professor Aaron Wildavsky global warming is the mother of all environmental scares. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.” The fantasy of ageing hippies come true.
Thank you so much, Mr Ditchfield, for your eloquent and succinct precis of the CAGW meme and it’s broader historical context, where dozens of my own rambling dissertations have possibly failed. As you have summarised above, the advent of this psychopathology has threatened the very viability of our species with misguided and regressive dogma aimed to detract from the progress of civilisation, seeking to drag us back to a society of superstition, fear-mongering and social conformity where ingenuity and invention are thwarted at every turn. I believe fear of technology (and therefore the unknown, limitless capacities of man) and a self-abnegating, pathological hatred of mankind are the prime motivators of this philosophy, and should be fought tooth and claw to the death if necessary as a result.
Nice optimism. But your quasi-religious argument ignores the limits of arable land and mainly hinges on technology. It’s nice that sometimes wishes come true, but it doesn’t change the fact your optimism is based on wishful thinking.
No doubt technology will not stand still, but hope is not a plan and technology doesn’t imply life will be good.
Africa physically has access to the same technology we do, but there a Malthusian catastrophe happens nearly every year. Occasional corruption and exploitation are less of an issue than insufficient rainfall for their population.
You would have to show how developments of the last fifty years have been anything more than a delaying tactic. You would also have to explain why Malthus and Erlich were wrong when the UN member nations believed in Mathusianism so strongly they spent trillions on development programmes trying to prevent a Malthusian correction – and have failed to prevent it in Africa.
If you somehow get past those two hurdles, the third one will still be impossible. You’d have to argue how a majority of the problems we face in society, democracy, economics, morality, or technology, would be easier to solve if there were 2 billion more people added to the problem.
Rubbish, Andrew
Africa as a continent is every bit as naturally gifted and rich in raw materials as Australia, if not more so. The only reason it remains a Malthusian nightmare is geopolitical, not resource based. Given a democratic system of government across the continent and an elimination of warfare, proper medical care and disease prevention and land management, Africa has enough resources to feed not only every one of it’s members, but the rest of the world as well. Interference rather than mentoring by the west, including the UN, has prevented these people from attaining the self sufficiency they would otherwise have if they had the knowledge and management skills to take advantage of it. Australia is an example of what can be done in an arid continent with the right political landscape, knowledge and stability. Despotism and the vestiges of colonialism are to blame, not the climate. The fact that you believe what you state above shows exactly why the proteges of Malthus will only lead humanity down the road to ruin.
Winston, that is a cluster of well-intentioned motherhood statements but not an argument.
First you feel the need to point out Africa’s bountiful resources, as though a bar of gold for everybody will put food on the table. Then in stating that it’s mainly politics and foreign meddling that is holding them back you don’t explain how 66 million Ethiopians will buy food from countries that have surplus using money from an Ethiopian economy they don’t have, or why any Ethiopians starve in the first place if they are surrounded by bountiful resources and have survived in that environment for millennia (hint, they never had as many people as today). Then you advocate communism by implying that only strong government can solve the problem, ignoring the microloans and western technology already available to the better-educated Africans who are certainly not short of entrepreneurial spirit. It was all a mishmash of emotive responses that don’t address the fundamental point that I was trying to make.
I am not saying that improvements towards prosperity aren’t occuring, nor that politics is never the issue, as can be seen by comparing the statistics of Ethiopia and South Africa. South Africa on paper was going fine in life expectancy until a major (and good) domestic political restructuring in 1989..1993 ejected a large portion of the incumbent capitalists and set life expectancy plummeting despite no change in national average income and no change in natural resources. One can always cherry pick situations in which politics can be blamed. Not hitting the resource limit doesn’t prove there’s no resource limit and no population problem. An equilibrium solution ought to be a holistic approach.
The propositions in question are the first two bullet points that Ditchfield wrote. I attempted to advance an argument, based on the existence of a Malthusian catastrophe in Africa and the non-existence of the unlimited cheap power source required by Ditchfield’s argument, that the argument he presented is flawed and that maybe Malthus was right about something regardless of his predictions not occurring on schedule. So back on track then:
How have developments of the last fifty years been anything more than a delaying tactic, or in other words, is there any sustainable society anywhere in the world other than uncontacted Amazon tribes?
(For the purposes of this discussion “sustainable” means “likely to continue unchanged for 8000 years”.)
How are we making anything, in any dimension or philosophy, any better by having 9 billion consumers instead of 7? Considering that Armstrong’s moonwalk was achieved in a world population of 3,700 million and world energy consumption per capita peaked in the mid 1970s, can we not give some countenance to the idea that less is more?
Where is there today a commercially viable and operational fusion reactor? Should public policy be based on wishful thinking?
How does “Perpetuation of the species” justify population growth in a species not under threat?
How can an argument that tries to explain the reduction in Western birth rates as being due to “erosion of religious values” have any credibility whatsoever, especially when you already know that energy supply, technology level, politics, and the resulting shift away from manual labour and a reduction of child mortality together provide the real explanation?
Is a two-child policy permissible in your view as a fallback solution if an economic development solution has been tried first for 30 years and fails? (Not that it’s likely to fail since it’s succeeded everywhere else.)
How does an ability to apply simple arithmetic and identify a growing problem qualify one as being a protégé of Malthus particularly? If you can point to current news stories of a Malthusian catastrophe, does that make you a protégé of Malthus? How exactly will avoiding the awful consequences of demand exceeding supply ever “lead humanity down the road to ruin”? They sound like opposites.
You’ve already agreed Malthus was essentially correct because his eponymous catastrophe happened in Africa. You also prefer, as did Malthus, that better government policy (of some kind) could have prevented it. So who is talking nonsense here?
“Ethiopia, which has Africa’s second biggest hydropower potential,[17] is the source of over 85% of the total Nile water flow and contains rich soils, but it nevertheless underwent a series of famines in the 1980s, exacerbated by adverse geopolitics and civil wars, resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands.[18] Slowly, however, the country has begun to recover, and today Ethiopia has the biggest economy by GDP in East Africa and Central Africa. [19][20][21] as the Ethiopian economy is also one of the fastest growing in the world. It is a regional powerhouse in the Horn and east Africa.[22][23][24][25][26] Recently, human rights abuses have been reported in Ethiopia, however under Premier Meles Zenawi the country has become a leading economic, diplomatic and political force in Africa”
Read “Poor Story” by Giles Bolton to find out more info re the political failings of the West in entrenching poverty in Africa (and the failings of globalisation, in particular), as well as the difficulties warfare and despotism have caused then tell me it’s all about climate.
Ethiopia is a cherry pick anyway as you well know- in the horn of Africa on the fringes of the Sahara- for better example, look at Uganda- when it was under colonial rule, it was the richest country in Africa- while not defending the colonialist powers, the systems and infrastructure they put in place made this a thriving economy, only lacking in the political will to distribute that wealth more evenly- the advent of Amin- same country, same resources- became one of Africa’s poorest -overnight as it were. Zimbabwe- ditto, The Congo- ditto.
These countries can be made to be much more functional if mentored by the West rather than exploited- population control will occur through education and better infrastructure. The Chinese are doing this know in West Africa and I suspect their influence will spread country by country- If their economy remains strong it will be a boon to Africa- it is a pity that the West doesn’t follow their example.
As to the climate in the horn of Africa – so, tell me it’s CO2 increase and global warming- http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/africa-drought.html- Mmmm, seems to have been alot drier at many times in the past, including the “non-existent” MWP which was, as we all “know”, a purely “localised” northern European issue and not global. yea, right!
I never claimed that. It is an imbalance between population and *available* natural resources. You can’t change the climate.
> “As to the climate in the horn of Africa – so, tell me it’s CO2 increase and global warming”
I never claimed that. I didn’t even imply the merest shadow of that. Resorting to strawman arguments is a sign of delusion. You’ve decided you want to be angry at me and will use any excuse (real or imagined).
Having all the water concentrated in one place (mountain source of the Nile) does not make the rest of the land arable. Take away all the civil war and corruption and what happens next? Only technology and labour can bring that water to the rest of Ethiopia, and if they do that they have every other downstream nation to contend with. The water cannot be considered entirely theirs to do with as they please, and a water trading scheme is just institutionalised spite that makes other countries pay for something they always had for free. It is still lack of regional rainfall that makes the rest of Ethiopia’s harvest fail. If the warlords kiss and make up, the rain still won’t fall mainly on the plain!
> look at Uganda… Zimbabwe- ditto, The Congo- ditto.
I’ll confess to complete ignorance there. I’ll have to read about them. As a cautionary parting shot, I would still highlight that both population growth and a regime change happened there, so depending on how far apart the two causes are relative to the economic breakdown, it may be that politics alone does or does not mostly explain the poor outcome.
> These countries can be made to be much more functional if mentored by the West rather than exploited- population control will occur through education and better infrastructure.
Could recent changes in the breeding habits of the Tufted Titmouse be linked to climate change? A recent study conducted by the science faculty at the University of Melbourne shows that a number of animals are adapting to changes in the global climate. The Tufted Titmouse in the study have greatly reduces the average length of it’s courtship dance. Scientists arent certain what the reason is but the leading hypothesis is that it is a survival mechanism to conserve energy in a warmer climate. In the past month scientists have found that lizards could become smarter and sharks are crossbreeding all as a result of carbon pollution. However scientists speculate that this is just the beginning. Over the next 50 or so years, as the temperature raises by up to 5 degrees celcius, scientists calculate that animals could become more aggressive and that even beloved tamed animals like dogs and cats may become hostile toward our children and our childrens children. There is also at least a 50% probability that we could see an increase in cross species copulation as animals evolve to the climate disruption…
– Being surrounded by mess forces people to ‘simplify’ thoughts
– People make clear, simple choices at messy desks
– Effect works less on liberals, who are less worried about mess
What can I say other than this particular scientist fits the study on all counts.
The CRITICAL flaw in the “Greenhouse Gas” hypothesis….
Lots of attention has been given to the alleged “Greenhouse Effect” over the last few decades. It seems an elegant hypothesis that can explain almost every weather effect that occurs (i.e. droughts, floods, blizzards, warm spells, cold spells, more arctic ice, less arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, etc.)
However this hypothesis has a CRITICAL flaw.
Please allow me to me explain…
In any proper analysis of energy flow through a complex system it is necessary to stop occasionally to perform a “sanity check”, this indispensable tool is applied by engineering professionals to ascertain if our predictions/calculations still make sense in regard to the system we are analyzing/designing.
So let’s do a simple sanity check on the “Greenhouse Effect” (moving forward this will be abbreviated as the “GHE” for simplicity).
To quickly summarize the GHE;
1) Visible light (aka EMR radiation) is absorbed by the surface of the Earth
2) The warmed surface of the Earth emits Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) light
3) This LWIR is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere
4) These “warmed” gases emit energy back towards the surface of the Earth
5) And THEREFORE the “GHGs” cause the surface of the Earth to acquire a higher “equilibrium” temperature
I hope I have captured the essential essence of the GHE with this short summary. Of course, I fully expect some folks to disagree and inform me that I have misunderstood the GHE. So be it, we will deal with that at a future time.
To describe the flaw in the GHE we first need to conceptualize a convenient bundle of energy that we can follow through the Sun/Earth/Atmosphere/Universe system. This bundle of energy needs to be large enough so we can (largely) ignore effects that happen at the atomic level. Also the bundle needs to be small enough so we can track it in a “real time” fashion and determine what happens to the energy.
For the purposes of this discussion I propose we use 1 milliJoule of energy. This is 1 one-thousandth of a Joule. This should be just the right size for my purpose of demonstrating the flaw in the GHE hypothesis.
So let’s get to it, here is the sequence of events involved in the GHE;
1) A bundle (1 mJ) of energy in the form of mostly visible light arrives at a specific location on the Earth’s surface, courtesy of our friendly neighbor the Sun.
2) Some portion of the bundle is immediately reflected and departs at the speed of light in an opposing direction. I won’t bother to get into an interminable discussion of what the Albedo is since this proof does not require this knowledge. In fact it could be any number above zero and less than or equal to 1 without making any difference.
3) The remaining portion of the bundle is absorbed by the surface and converted to heat, this is the FIRST warming event (Warming Event #1) caused by our little bundle of energy. And if we know what material (sea water, soil, etc.) absorbs the bundle we can make a pretty good estimate of the temperature increase, but that calculation is not necessary.
4) Now, several things will happen to this bundle of thermal energy;
a) It can be conducted to locations below (or adjacent to) the surface which are
colder.
b) It can be conducted to a stationary gas molecule in contact with the surface.
c) It can be convected away by a moving gas molecule that happens to contact the
surface while travelling past.
d) It can be radiated as Infrared Radiation away from the surface.
It is important to note that in most cases all four of these events will happen in parallel (i.e. at the same time), so the actual Portion Radiated can vary from 0% to 100%.
5) No matter what happens in step 4, the surface cools (Cooling Event #1) by an amount which corresponds to the loss of of energy at that location. The amount radiated is somewhere between 0% and 100% (Albedo * Portion Radiated) leaving our radiated bundle at somewhere between 0 and 1 mJ. Again, if we wanted to calculate the temperature drop associated with the cooling we could use the thermal capacity of the material to make an estimate. It is important to note at this time that this absorption/remission process IS NOT instantaneous; it requires a finite amount of time (Time Delay #1) that is greater than zero.
6) The radiated energy (something between 0 and 1 mJ) now travels away from the surface at something close to the speed of light. Note that there are a few “flavors” of the speed of light depending on the material our little bundle is travelling through. The fastest flavor is when the light is travelling through a vacuum. When moving through the lower atmosphere the speed is slightly slower.
7) Our little bundle, speeding happily along and accelerating as the atmosphere gets less dense MAY be absorbed by a GHG. Whoops, that’s inopportune; it was hoping to get to Alpha Centuri before next Tuesday to watch the REAL Miss Universe show (ok a lame joke). The important thing to note is that a finite amount of time (Time Delay #2) has elapsed before the absorption occurs.
8- Once our bundle of energy is absorbed by the GHG it ceases to exist as IR light and is converted to heat (Warming Event #2). This is our little bundle’s second warming event within a few milliseconds, boy am I proud. Note that with any flavor of the speed of light our bundle can make it to the top of the atmosphere (TOA) in a few milliseconds at most.
9) Now, of course the same possibilities shown in step #4 may happen at the GHG molecule. Again all four of the possibilities can occur. To speed up this discussion we will assume that 100% of the energy is emitted as IR radiation. So the best case (or worst case if you still believe in the GHE) is that all of our 1 mJ has arrived at the GHG molecule and is going to be radiated away. A couple of important points need to be made here, first something less than 50% of our bundle can hope to head back towards the surface (as fixed by the geometry of a sphere). And secondly there is some finite time delay involved in the absorption/remission event (Time Delay #3).
10) Once the bundle of energy has been radiated by the GHG molecule the molecule will cool (Cooling Event #2) by an amount commensurate with the energy reradiated. And we could, if we wished, estimate the temperature drop, but it is immaterial.
11) Once again our little bundle is happily speeding along at the speed of light, but
slowing down this time as the atmosphere gets denser. Oh well, zipping along at any flavor of the speed of light still beats a Lamborghini. And of course our little bundle is now no more than half of the man (or woman) that it used to be.
12) Damn, we flew our bundle right down into the ground (after Time Delay #4); I hate it when that happens. But the good news is we now have GHE induced warming (Warming Event #3). We could again have the Albedo argument (in the IR portion of the spectrum this time), but it does not matter. The IR radiation has ceased to exist and is now heat. So this takes us full circle and we are back at step #3, EXCEPT, AND THIS IS A REALLY BIG EXCEPT STATEMENT, two subsequent warming and two subsequent cooling events with four time delays interspersed have also taken place in the meantime. TO SUM THE FIRST WARMING EVENT WITH THE THIRD WARMING EVENT (both of which happen at the Earth’s surface) CLEARLY VIOLATES THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. THE GHE DOES NOT AND CANNOT CAUSE ANY “HIGHER EQUILIBRIUM” TEMPERATURE TO EXIST AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH (or anyplace else for that matter).
13) You are free to expand this time series to describe the third, fourth, fifth, etc, etc. sequential warming/cooling events if you wish, but I am extremely proud of my little bundle at this point and do not see the need. It should be noted that as one bundle of energy is absorbed/reemitted multiple times the amount reaching the surface declines as follows, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125%, 1.5625%, 0.78125%, 0.390625%, 0.1953125%, 0.09765625%. So after as few as ten bounces (taking at maximum perhaps 40 milliseconds if the energy makes it all the way to the TOA) the energy is already less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the initial amount.
I know lots of folks will disparage this discussion. So I will suggest a few FAQs in advance;
1) Q: But, but, but… all the other proud energy bundle parents are sending theirs out to do the same thing, so surely the volume of little bundles will make the GHE occur.
A: NO, all of the little bundles are travelling in parallel and do not sum. If we cannot demonstrate how one bundle of energy can make the GHE real, then we cannot claim that the GHE exists when discussing a “higher equilibrium” temperature
2) Q: But, but, but… the time delays you suggest are so long that energy is left over at the end of each day, and this is really what the GHE is about.
A: NO, at the speed of light each bundle could make 10 round trips to TOA and back to the surface in less than about 40 milliseconds. For reference, each day contains about 86 million milliseconds. So no energy is left over at the end of each day. Besides if energy was left over the Earth would slowly heat up 1 little notch at the end of each day and would have melted a long time ago (ignoring for a moment the fact that as the surface warms the emission spectrum shifts to lower (i.e. more transparent) wavelengths).
3) Q: But, but, but… you assumed the wrong value for the Albedo, Lapse Rate, Amount of GHGs present, etc. etc. etc.
A: NO, this discussion is about the fact that sequential warming and cooling events occur with finite time delays (more than zero, but otherwise undefined) between each event and the events have finite (greater than zero and less than or equal to one) probabilities of occurrence and therefore CANNOT be summed to yield a “higher equilibrium” temperature.
4) Q: But, but, but… you have not presented any explanation about how the surface of the Earth reaches its average temperature without the GHE.
A: Agreed, I have not yet presented any theories about why the temperature of the Earth is what it is. So here I will;
First, I believe that the application of the S B equation (no dash, just first then last name) in conjunction with the Kickoff radiation equation have been performed incorrectly. Yes, I realize that’s a big deal because it’s written in all the climate science textbooks, so IT MUST BE SO. Well, if we never revised textbooks we would be in a bunch of hurt. Just because it is written down in a 20 year old book does not necessarily make it so. And a computer model that implements the assumptions of a hypothesis IS NOT a proof of the hypothesis, regardless of how fast the computer can collide numbers together.
Second, I suggest that the average temperature of the Earth is determined by the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans and the amount of energy already deposited there (by some undefined prior event(s)). Clearly, the Oceans do not respond to changes in the energy arriving at the surface on a time period of days, or even hundreds of years. A good analogy (as an electrical engineer I must mention this) would be the battery that you (likely) use to start your internal combustion car each day. It has a bunch of energy stored inside (provided by the manufacturer). Each day when you start your car you suck a whole bunch of energy out of it. Then you slowly recharge it (with the alternator) while you drive. So it always has a bunch of energy present, we are missing the fact that the manufacturer filled it up before you bought it. Just like the Ocean was already “charged up” before we invented the GHE.
5) Q: But, but, but… you are ignoring all the “evidence” of climate change, the shrinking glaciers, the floods, the droughts, the heat waves, etc. etc….
A: Two Words; CONFIRMATION BIAS. And unlike our current Vice President, I can in fact perform a simple task like counting the number of words in my statements.
6) Q: But, but, but… you are not a climate scientist that has peer reviewed publications, so we should not listen to you.
A: Yes, I am not a climate scientist with peer reviewed publications. This is in fact a situation I take some pride in. This discussion relies on a simple flow of logic. Read it at your own risk. Find the flaws. Point them out. Be skeptical.
In summary, the critical flaw in the GHE hypothesis is that the warming from GHGs happens sequentially AFTER a previous cooling event WITH an intervening time delay, THUS it cannot be added to the initial warming event. And therefore the GHE does not create “extra energy” or “net energy gains”.
Further these warming and subsequent cooling events happen so quickly that the GHE has nothing to do with the “equilibrium” temperature present at the surface of the Earth.
Further, the warming from the GHE dissipates so quickly that it cannot be reasonably expected to influence the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans in any way.
Whoops, that should be the KIRCHOFF radiation transfer equation, and the Stephan Boltzmann (S.B.) Equation, sorry, been spending too many hours arguing with the computer at work.
Also, everybody please share as widely as you want.
Dear Baa, some folks have made a BIG deal about calling the Stephan Boltzmann equation the S-B equation which implies that two people i.e. “S” and “B” came up with the equation. In fact it was proposed by one individual.
Born: 20 Feb 1844 in Vienna, Austria
Died: 5 Oct 1906 in Duino (near Trieste), Austria (now Italy)
Josef Stefan: (Note spelling)
Born: 24 March 1835 in St Peter (near Klagenfurt), Austria
Died: 7 Jan 1893 in Vienna, Austria
Stefan was Boltzmanns teacher. Stefan came up with the theoretical, then experimental theory that total radiation from a blackbody is proportional to the 4th power of its absolute temperature.
After Stefan died, Boltzman vindicated Stefan by being able to show the above via a mathematical equation.
Dear Baa Humbug, thanks for the correction. It was late at night here when I responded. Of course you are correct.
Lest you think my little gaffe disqualifies the rest of my post you may want to read it again.
I do have master’s degrees in both Electronics (study of Maxwell’s equations) and Optical engineering where I do use the S-B equation all the time in radiometric calculations.
I have also prepared and reviewed energy flow budgets for Earth Imaging satellites were all of the operating energy comes from the Sun.
I stand by my energy flow analysis.
The GHE only causes some energy to bounce back and forth between the surface and the gases while quickly dissapating. No extra energy is present and the “warming” effect dissapates so quickly that it has NO effect on the average temperature of the Earth.
After decades of observations that are not matching the predictions perhaps wse should question the hypothesis ?
Here is a revised version with spelling corrections regarding past scientist’s names. My apologies to Boltzmann and Kirchhoff;
The CRITICAL flaw in the “Greenhouse Gas” hypothesis….
Lots of attention has been given to the alleged “Greenhouse Effect” over the last few decades. It seems an elegant hypothesis that can explain almost every weather effect that occurs (i.e. droughts, floods, blizzards, warm spells, cold spells, more arctic ice, less arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, etc.)
However this hypothesis has a CRITICAL flaw.
Please allow me to me explain…
In any proper analysis of energy flow through a complex system it is necessary to stop occasionally to perform a “sanity check”, this indispensable tool is applied by engineering professionals to ascertain if our predictions/calculations still make sense in regard to the system we are analyzing/designing.
So let’s do a simple sanity check on the “Greenhouse Effect” (moving forward this will be abbreviated as the “GHE” for simplicity).
To quickly summarize the GHE;
1) Visible light (aka EMR radiation) is absorbed by the surface of the Earth
2) The warmed surface of the Earth emits Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) light
3) This LWIR is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere
4) These “warmed” gases emit energy back towards the surface of the Earth
5) And THEREFORE the “GHGs” cause the surface of the Earth to acquire a higher “equilibrium” temperature
I hope I have captured the essential essence of the GHE with this short summary. Of course, I fully expect some folks to disagree and inform me that I have misunderstood the GHE. So be it, we will deal with that at a future time.
To describe the flaw in the GHE we first need to conceptualize a convenient bundle of energy that we can follow through the Sun/Earth/Atmosphere/Universe system. This bundle of energy needs to be large enough so we can (largely) ignore effects that happen at the atomic level. Also the bundle needs to be small enough so we can track it in a “real time” fashion and determine what happens to the energy.
For the purposes of this discussion I propose we use 1 milliJoule of energy. This is 1 one-thousandth of a Joule. This should be just the right size for my purpose of demonstrating the flaw in the GHE hypothesis.
So let’s get to it, here is the sequence of events involved in the GHE;
1) A bundle (1 mJ) of energy in the form of mostly visible light arrives at a specific location on the Earth’s surface, courtesy of our friendly neighbor the Sun.
2) Some portion of the bundle is immediately reflected and departs at the speed of light in an opposing direction. I won’t bother to get into an interminable discussion of what the Albedo is since this proof does not require this knowledge. In fact it could be any number above zero and less than or equal to 1 without making any difference.
3) The remaining portion of the bundle is absorbed by the surface and converted to heat, this is the FIRST warming event (Warming Event #1) caused by our little bundle of energy. And if we know what material (sea water, soil, etc.) absorbs the bundle we can make a pretty good estimate of the temperature increase, but that calculation is not necessary.
4) Now, several things will happen to this bundle of thermal energy;
a) It can be conducted to locations below (or adjacent to) the surface which are colder.
b) It can be conducted to a stationary gas molecule in contact with the surface.
c) It can be convected away by a moving gas molecule that happens to contact the surface while travelling past.
d) It can be radiated as Infrared Radiation away from the surface.
It is important to note that in most cases all four of these events will happen in
parallel (i.e. at the same time), so the actual Portion Radiated can vary from 0% to 100%.
5) No matter what happens in step 4, the surface cools (Cooling Event #1) by an amount which corresponds to the loss of of energy at that location. The amount radiated is somewhere between 0% and 100% (Albedo * Portion Radiated) leaving our radiated bundle at somewhere between 0 and 1 mJ. Again, if we wanted to calculate the temperature drop associated with the cooling we could use the thermal capacity of the material to make an estimate. It is important to note at this time that this absorption/remission process IS NOT instantaneous; it requires a finite amount of time (Time Delay #1) that is greater than zero.
6) The radiated energy (something between 0 and 1 mJ) now travels away from the surface at something close to the speed of light. Note that there are a few “flavors” of the speed of light depending on the material our little bundle is travelling through. The fastest flavor is when the light is travelling through a vacuum. When moving through the lower atmosphere the speed is slightly slower.
7) Our little bundle, speeding happily along and accelerating as the atmosphere gets less dense MAY be absorbed by a GHG. Whoops, that’s inopportune; it was hoping to get to Alpha Centuri before next Tuesday to watch the REAL Miss Universe show (ok a lame joke). The important thing to note is that a finite amount of time (Time Delay #2) has elapsed before the absorption occurs.
8- Once our bundle of energy is absorbed by the GHG it ceases to exist as IR light and is converted to heat (Warming Event #2). This is our little bundle’s second warming event within a few milliseconds, boy am I proud. Note that with any flavor of the speed of light our bundle can make it to the top of the atmosphere (TOA) in a few milliseconds at most.
9) Now, of course the same possibilities shown in step #4 may happen at the GHG molecule. Again all four of the possibilities can occur. To speed up this discussion we will assume that 100% of the energy is emitted as IR radiation. So the best case (or worst case if you still believe in the GHE) is that all of our 1 mJ has arrived at the GHG molecule and is going to be radiated away. A couple of important points need to be made here, first something less than 50% of our bundle can hope to head back towards the surface (as fixed by the geometry of a sphere). And secondly there is some finite time delay involved in the absorption/remission event (Time Delay #3).
10) Once the bundle of energy has been radiated by the GHG molecule the molecule will cool (Cooling Event #2) by an amount commensurate with the energy reradiated. And we could, if we wished, estimate the temperature drop, but it is immaterial.
11) Once again our little bundle is happily speeding along at the speed of light, but slowing down this time as the atmosphere gets denser. Oh well, zipping along at any flavor of the speed of light still beats a Lamborghini. And of course our little bundle is now no more than half of the man (or woman) that it used to be.
12) Damn, we flew our bundle right down into the ground (after Time Delay #4); I hate it when that happens. But the good news is we now have GHE induced warming (Warming Event #3). We could again have the Albedo argument (in the IR portion of the spectrum this time), but it does not matter. The IR radiation has ceased to exist and is now heat. So this takes us full circle and we are back at step #3, EXCEPT, AND THIS IS A REALLY BIG EXCEPT STATEMENT, two subsequent warming and two subsequent cooling events with four time delays interspersed have also taken place in the meantime. TO SUM THE FIRST WARMING EVENT WITH THE THIRD WARMING EVENT (both of which happen at the Earth’s surface) CLEARLY VIOLATES THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. THE GHE DOES NOT AND CANNOT CAUSE ANY “HIGHER EQUILIBRIUM” TEMPERATURE TO EXIST AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH (or anyplace else for that matter).
13) You are free to expand this time series to describe the third, fourth, fifth, etc, etc. sequential warming/cooling events if you wish, but I am extremely proud of my little bundle at this point and do not see the need. It should be noted that as one bundle of energy is absorbed/reemitted multiple times the amount reaching the surface declines as follows, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125%, 1.5625%, 0.78125%, 0.390625%, 0.1953125%, 0.09765625%. So after as few as ten bounces (taking at maximum perhaps 40 milliseconds if the energy makes it all the way to the TOA) the energy is already less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the initial amount.
I know lots of folks will disparage this discussion. So I will suggest a few FAQs in advance;
1) Q: But, but, but… all the other proud energy bundle parents are sending theirs out to do the same thing, so surely the volume of little bundles will make the GHE occur.
A: NO, all of the little bundles are travelling in parallel and do not sum. If we cannot demonstrate how one bundle of energy can make the GHE real, then we cannot claim that the GHE exists when discussing a “higher equilibrium” temperature
2) Q: But, but, but… the time delays you suggest are so long that energy is left over at the end of each day, and this is really what the GHE is about.
A: NO, at the speed of light each bundle could make 10 round trips to TOA and back to the surface in less than about 40 milliseconds. For reference, each day contains about 86 million milliseconds. So no energy is left over at the end of each day. Besides if energy was left over the Earth would slowly heat up 1 little notch at the end of each day and would have melted a long time ago (ignoring for a moment the fact that as the surface warms the emission spectrum shifts to lower (i.e. more transparent) wavelengths).
3) Q: But, but, but… you assumed the wrong value for the Albedo, Lapse Rate, Amount of GHGs present, etc. etc. etc.
A: NO, this discussion is about the fact that sequential warming and cooling events occur with finite time delays (more than zero, but otherwise undefined) between each event and the events have finite (greater than zero and less than or equal to one) probabilities of occurrence and therefore CANNOT be summed to yield a “higher equilibrium” temperature.
4) Q: But, but, but… you have not presented any explanation about how the surface of the Earth reaches its average temperature without the GHE.
A: Agreed, I have not yet presented any theories about why the temperature of the Earth is what it is. So here I will;
First, I believe that the application of the Stephan Boltzmann equation (S B, no dash, just first then last name) in conjunction with the Kirchhoff radiative equilibrium equation have been performed incorrectly. Yes, I realize that’s a big deal because it’s written in all the climate science textbooks, so IT MUST BE SO. Well, if we never revised textbooks we would be in a bunch of hurt. Just because it is written down in a 20 year old book does not necessarily make it so. And a computer model that implements the assumptions of a hypothesis IS NOT a proof of the hypothesis, regardless of how fast the computer can collide numbers together.
Second, I suggest that the average temperature of the Earth is determined by the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans and the amount of energy already deposited there (by some undefined prior event(s)). Clearly, the Oceans do not respond to changes in the energy arriving at the surface on a time period of days, or even hundreds of years. A good analogy (as an electrical engineer I must mention this) would be the battery that you (likely) use to start your internal combustion car each day. It has a bunch of energy stored inside (provided by the manufacturer). Each day when you start your car you suck a whole bunch of energy out of it. Then you slowly recharge it (with the alternator) while you drive. So it always has a bunch of energy present, we are missing the fact that the manufacturer filled it up before you bought it. Just like the Ocean was already “charged up” before we invented the GHE.
5) Q: But, but, but… you are ignoring all the “evidence” of climate change, the shrinking glaciers, the floods, the droughts, the heat waves, etc. etc….
A: Two Words; CONFIRMATION BIAS. And unlike our current Vice President, I can in fact perform a simple task like counting the number of words in my statements.
6) Q: But, but, but… you are not a climate scientist that has peer reviewed publications, so we should not listen to you.
A: Yes, I am not a climate scientist with peer reviewed publications. This is in fact a situation I take some pride in. This discussion relies on a simple flow of logic. Read it at your own risk. Find the flaws. Point them out. Be skeptical.
In summary, the critical flaw in the GHE hypothesis is that the warming from GHGs happens sequentially AFTER a previous cooling event WITH an intervening time delay, THUS it cannot be added to the initial warming event. And therefore the GHE does not create “extra energy” or “net energy gains”.
Further, these warming and subsequent cooling events happen so quickly that the GHE has nothing to do with the “equilibrium” temperature present at the surface of the Earth.
Further, the warming from the GHE dissipates so quickly that it cannot be reasonably expected to influence the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans in any way.
Firstly, and fundamentally, for your hypothesis to be scientific it cannot just be a statement of logic (no matter how ironclad) it must be connected to the real world by making a testable prediction about the result of an observation.
Step 7 may be the best place to make the hypothesis testable. You need to use your theory to predict whether CERN will discover that photons are heterosexual males XOR homosexual females.
But seriously, it seems bizarre that the world’s scientists have not noticed a deficiency in GHE as fundamental as a double-counting of energy (or a creation of energy). I think you have misunderstood the GHE (or else I have).
By intercepting the outgoing LWIR radiation very early in proceedings a small portion of your millijoule (maybe 50% of 70%) is being sent back to earth for more punishment, whereas with no GHGs it would have escaped to freedom. You did not address that point. The GHE shifts the concentration of energy slightly lower in the atmosphere, and if there is a generally higher energy density there must be a generally higher temperature. We’re just lowering the altitude of the Kirchoff equilibrium surface. A LoTD violation is not needed by GHE.
For what it’s worth, there has been decent evidence from Earthshine observations that the albedo of the earth decreased slightly in the late 20th century and, combined with the Svensmark theory, PDO, and Misckoski theory, there are plenty of effects that could explain the majority of late 20th century warming (and early 20th century warming and 21st century cooling!) without a greatly aggravated GHE.
for some crazy reason the computer changes one of my bullets “8)” into a happy face, don’t know why, can’t seem to change it, so I just go with the flow. Maybe Jo can fix it ?
Yes this flow of logic doesseem way too simple, but I’ve thought it through several times, and I think it is solid.
This was too outrageous to pass up.
The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of its ‘famous’ Doomsday Clock one minute closer to Midnight, and it now sits at 5 minutes to Midnight, the time it was in 2007, and in 2010 moved back to 6 Minutes to Midnight.
They have said, and this is part of the release:
and then this classic:
Note the mention to rising sea levels and ocean acidification, current here in Joanne’s two recent Posts.
These are Nuclear Scientists, so, was there mention of replacing those CO2 emitting power plants with Nuclear Power Plants?
No, not one mention.
In fact, the only mention about Nuclear Power was a backhanded reference to what may be happening in Japan with reference to what happened there recently.
Here’s the link to the full article:
Doomsday Clock Moves 1 minute closer to midnight
Tony.
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Yes Tony that pretty well sums up what “they” really want. No coal, no petrol, no nuclear. Translated that means a severe reduction in global population.
Ironic because we all thought the “doomsday” was something else. It turns out it’s caused by the devil inside.
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Amen!
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Gee! Who would have thought?
I think I’ve stumbled across an answer to how to get this clock to go backwards.
Elect a Democrat as President of the US.
It seems that under Democrat Leadership, the clock reverses, and as soon as those nasty warmongering Republicans get in, the clock moves closer to Midnight.
Hmm! I guess they don’t like Obama either.
Doomsday Clock Time Changes
Tony.
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There is some background to this that is interesting.
Firstly I have it on authority, that the IAEA had concerns about the state of the Fukushima plant long before the Tsunami hit.
The reason for their concern was that the Daiichi installation (which was the original plant) was well past its design life, and needed replacement. The other installation at Fukushima (Danii) was built to a later design, and withstood the earthquake and tsunami.
The reason it was not replaced was because of ongoing legal challenges from various environmental groups in Japan that got the whole process bogged down in the courts.
Similarly, spent fuel rods had to be stored at the reactor site (in “temporary arrangements”) because of legal challenges against their transportation, again from environmental groups.
Neither of these facts have been reported in the MSM (of course), but in all fairness, TEPCO didn’t take the initiative to force either matter into court on safety grounds.
Of course, the environmental groups are now pointing to Fukushima as evidence of why no more nuclear plants should be built, and they are doing that on an international scale. That is one of the reasons why Germany has imposed a moratorium on new plants.
The key phrase in the material you quote is “The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years …”.
We know, and the public are starting to realise that wind, tide and solar are not viable alternatives to “carbon-emitting energy technologies”. So if the IAEA come out and say something must be done to save the planet, the argument naturally leads to nuclear by default.
Yes, it is a propaganda trick. But you have to admit it was well done – after all it fooled you, and you are in the energy business 🙂
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Also, with respect to Fukushima, it again shows how misinformed the public in general are, aided and abetted by a media that ‘craves’ something like this that they can beat up, without bothering to find out anything about the background.
This complex at Fukushima had six Generation 1 and 2 BWR’s designed from technology from the early days of Nuclear power plants.
People don’t think of this process in a manner similar to the way they might think about cars, which are updated every so often, so a 2011 Commodore is not the same as a 1968 to 1973 Kingswood, and I’m not saying this to trivialise it, but all six reactors are from that same era as those Kingswoods.
The average thinking is one Nuclear reactor is the same as the next.
Early Gen 2 design meant that at refuelling, the spent rods are stored on site, in cooling ponds, and after a period of time, they cool further and are back at an enrichment level a tad lower than the original Uranium ore existing in the ground. Once at this level, and cooled, they can then be removed safely to dry storage, or in some cases, for reprocessing.
One reactor that did have a problem had just undergone the refuel process, and the original explosion breached the wall near where these removed rods had just been placed, releasing the cooling water from them and exposing them to the air, now without cooling, hence the problem in that reactor.
All reactors not already shut down at the time of the original quake were successfully scrammed, and the problem was not that but that the immense wall of water shut down the alternative power supplies for the pumps to circulate the cooling water.
Now, having just gone over that process, the latest reactors are a quantum level different from these initial reactors.
At refuelling in those recent reactors, the now expired rods can be stored inside the reactor for cooling, and then safely dry stored inside the reactor concrete bunker for the life of the whole Plant.
People automatically associate that modern storage method back to what happened here at Fukushima, a plant that was not designed for storage of expired rods.
No amount of correct explanation (from anybody, least of all me) will change people’s attitudes to expired rod storage, especially since people will always believe what uninformed journalists tell them, especially when every time, they will mention ‘Fukushima’ for emphasis, Fukushima now becoming the new Chernobyl, which was the new TMI, which was after all, a real ‘China Syndrome’, albeit minus Jane Fonda!
In fact, when the ‘Nets’ got the first news about TMI, they actually asked who had seen the movie, and those guys were then sent to cover the ‘story’.
Tony.
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Who designed the Fukushima plants? General Electric.
Who is a major driving force behind the climate scam and the shutting down of coal fire plants? General Electric.
Who will be our savior when all the coal fire plants are shut down and alternative power sources just dont cut it? General Electric.
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Which power stations was the stuxnet virus designed to cripple? General electric
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Just for information: The company I work for was doing some odd jobs for the IAEA when the earthquake and tsunami hit. We got real busy real quick.
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It’s the same with anything. The most ignorant on the subject seem to be the ones reporting on it. Aviation comes to mind.
But that’s not my point. When I was a young man I was opposed to nuclear. Then a little maturity began to set in and I’ve reversed my position.
I was never afraid to fly single engine anywhere I wanted to go, over water, over mountains, on top of a cloud layer, nothing phased me because I knew I had done my “homework” for the flight. I always knew that my careful planning and decision making could go wrong. But at least I was in charge. I had control over what I did.
One of our favorite getaway spots includes a visit to the pier at Port San Luis, California, where there are some good seafood restaurants. The main gate to the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is also right there. I never go by that gate without realizing that someone else is in control of that thing and I have to trust them to get it right. I haven’t ever been able to escape that, “better look over your shoulder for trouble,” feeling when we go by that gate.
I get that same feeling flying commercial or driving near a big 18-wheeler on the freeway. I’m not afraid of it because I learned to think with my head instead of my emotions. But I understand the basic fear that comes with nuclear. Like all things as they say, its past is prolog and I don’t think it will be so easy to overcome.
PS:
The really scary thing about TMI is not the hysteria over the initial problem but the abject failure of everyone involved to believe what they had clear evidence of…that there had been a core meltdown. The lessons are several but the important one is that human failure is the biggest problem of all. And we’re no better today than we were when GE built Fukushima.
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This is a relatively short comparison detailing what occurred at TMI and Chernobyl, and it’s from April 2009.
Three Mile Island and Chernobyl: What Went Wrong And Why Today’s Reactors Are Safe
Tony.
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Tony,
I’ve studied both and I agree. But I still stand by what I said.
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Roy,
it wasn’t meant to have a ‘go’ at you, but to add a little more to ‘informed’ debate.
I liked the comment about flying a single engine.
Coming from the RAAF, and being associated with the Mirage at Fighter Squadrons (both 76 and 77) for almost 9 years, when we away from ‘home base’ on ‘exercises’ there was a closer knit bond between aircrew and ground crew, and that was always one of the topics for discussion. The pilots (sort of) hated the fact that the ‘Miracle’ only had the one engine, and once that ‘went out’ then you were in fact sitting inside a flying brick as the delta configuration was not, er, really conducive to gliding. When the ‘fire went out’, the only control considered operable from that point on was the ejection handle
It was always the major point when discussions about the TFR replacement that saw us getting the FA-18.
The choice was between that and the F-16, with perhaps a thought (forlorn wish actually) that the SAAB Viggen may also be in the mix, but the actuality saw just those 2 American aircraft as the main consideration.
The pilots would discuss it while we on those exercises, mainly along the lines that ‘We (meaning the pilots here) are the last people they would ask when a decision was being contemplated. That surprised us somewhat, because we, as ground crew, always looked upon pilots as being ‘akin to God’ with respect to a decision like this.
That’s why they all ‘plumped’ for the twin.
Also, with respect to the Diablo Canyon plant, I was contacted a few years by one of the guys who works there, and has been there now for 20 years. he has his own site, and if you go to that site, the images are good, but the text is so much better, so read it all.
Diablo Canyon Power Plant
Tony.
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Tony,
I’m in your debt for the link. Thanks.
Speaking of F-16s, I have a very good picture of one refueling in mid air taken from the refueling boom operator’s position. It’s quite large, jpeg so it scales easily within reason and is suitable for wallpaper. If you want it have Jo or a moderator let me know by email and I’ll send it back to you.
PS: It’s a real combat patrol over Afghanistan so I hope that doesn’t tread on any sensibilities. I have it for the love of flying, not the war.
Roy
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Not just Roy, but for all of you.
Watch this video and then imagine how difficult this is:
(a) flying the F-16, and
(b) flying the refuelling boom on the KC-10, (the Military version of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10)
Link to F-16 refuelling over Balad Air Base in Iraq
Tony.
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Tony
I saw one of those bricks fall south of Canberra in the late sixties.
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I appreciate the car year analogy. In the 70s my mother’s life came to an end in a Morris 1100 but the 2010 Mercedes S Class is a radically different machine. Similarly, Gen 3 reactors are vastly different from the early designs but most people do not appreciate this. It’s all “nuclear” to them.
My father (& his team at UKAEA) designed the AGR fuel-rods and when I told him about the Fukushima incident he said “… but the Japs are smart engineers and wouldn’t be so stupid as to be still operating Boiling Water Reactors.” He was clearly dis-stressed that such dangerous and inefficient power stations still existed.
Here-in lies a basic problem, -it’s not the engineers who make the decisions about these reactors but politicians who don’t know what they are on about.
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This may be of interest –
http://wcalvin.dailykos.com/
“…What can we say at this point about the failure to design for an earthquake-tsunami one-two punch?
1. The safety systems detected the earthquake and, as designed or subsequently modified, shut down the chain reaction to below criticality.
2. The earthquake might have damaged some systems, e.g., might have drained some of the 10m-deep pool at Number 4 holding removed fuel rods.
3. The tsunami overtopped the sea walls built to protect the installation. That constitutes an obvious siting and design insufficiency, given Fukushima was near a subduction zone that generates tsunamis. These were errors made forty years ago by Tokyo Electric Power and the Japanese regulators.
4. Because basement electrical control rooms were flooded by the tsunami, backup power failed and batteries were only good for four hours. Some sensor data and control functions were lost. Another obvious design insufficiency, easily avoided by locating this room on a higher floor.
5. The Fukushima boiling-water reactors were designed by G.E. in the 1960s to be cheaper than the dominant design, the pressurized water reactor. But its slimmed-down containment was heavily criticized in the early 1970s for safety reasons that are likely to be relevant to the Fukushima disasters.
6. About one-fourth of the U.S. reactors in operation today are of this cheaper G.E. Mark I design. The Chernobyl reactor that melted down in 1986 was a much cheaper Soviet design; not only did it not have a containment but the reactor was surrounded by very flammable graphite, what caused the building to burn for a month while lofting radioactive particles up to 30,000 feet to create fallout over a far wider area than anything likely from the multiple Daiichi disasters.
7. As Matt Wald notes, “One simple improvement, in use now in most plants, is to keep some spent fuel in “dry casks” — steel cylinders filled with inert gas, sitting in small concrete silos. These have no moving parts and are unlikely to be bothered by earthquakes or tsunamis.” It sounds as if Tokyo Electric Power and the Japanese regulators failed to update their fuel-handling.
8. Most of the four hundred reactors operating in the world today are of the more robust pressurized water design and most are not threatened by tsunamis, so many of the lessons of Fukushima may not prove relevant to them.
9. Most of the reactors currently being constructed have forty additional years of operating experience and safety research to guide them. (The G.E. Mark I represented only ten years of commercial nuclear power experience.)….”
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Re warmongering. Smoking guns which can form mushroom clouds may be the big worry in 2012.
George W. Bush said –
“We cannot wait for the final proof,the smoking gun which may come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
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George W. Bush had two faults (among others). 1) He didn’t know when to stay silent, 2) He didn’t know when to speak.
I would still take him back in replacement of Obama in an instant if I could.
🙂
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Obama is carrying on from where Bush left off –
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/09/does-the-american-government-consider-economic-rivalry-to-be-a-justification-for-war.html
But the Iraq war was really about oil, according to Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others.
Former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. (The government apparently planned the Afghanistan war, and most of our current military and intelligence policy, before 9/11 as well. See this, this and this).
So the government’s stated reasons for war may not hold much water.
And Ellen Brown argues in the Asia Times that middle eastern wars in Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere stem from those countries’ leaders challenged the supremacy of the dollar and the Western banks:
Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland.
The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.”
According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar”, Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency.
***
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Then a question, Kevin: If Iraq was all about oil, how is it than none of that oil is flowing directly to the U.S.A.? The only way we get any of it is by competing for it on the open market like anyone else.
The facts would seem to make what you say into a pile of after the fact grandstanding. As we say in these parts, show me the evidence, not hearsay and rumor.
You didn’t connect up any links to anything. Do you have something worth looking at?
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Roy,
Its not about stealing the oil its about controlling it, Saddam was a puppet (do some research) but after many years the puppet defied the master so he had to go.
Why did we invade Iraq Roy? Do you remember?
1) Saddam did 911
2) Saddam and Bin Laden were good mates
3) Saddam tried to buy yellow cake from Niger
4) Saddam had weapons of mass destruction
None of the above is true of course but tards like yourself believe this shit, you are no different to an AGW believer.
If you own the puppets in charge of these countries you can turn off the oil taps whenever you want, look at what we are trying to do to Iran for proof.
Of course the central bank story also has some credence if a central bank is in your country then you will soon become a slave to debt and therefore under control.
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Once the American forces gained control of Iraq its 83 oil fields were divvied up between the four major Western oil companies. Iraq was left with 17 oil fields to sustain its existence.
Just a reminder –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme
The Oil-for-Food Programme (OFF), established by the United Nations in 1995 (under UN Security Council Resolution 986)[1] was established with the stated intent to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military capabilities.
The programme was introduced by United States President Bill Clinton’s administration in 1995,[2] as a response to arguments that ordinary Iraqi citizens were inordinately affected by the international economic sanctions aimed at the demilitarisation of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, imposed in the wake of the first Gulf War. The sanctions were discontinued on November 21, 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the humanitarian functions turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority.[3]
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/secret-memos-expose-link-between-oil-firms-and-invasion-of-iraq-2269610.html
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Crakar24,
I just know that this is going to lump me in with those conspiracy theorists, but that’s just a label that I guess I’ll have to bear.
You say:
I am still of the opinion that Iraq did have, or was in the process of attaining WMD, and allow me a few lines to explain why.
Uranium is enriched at different levels for different purposes.
For the electrical power process, it undergoes 5 separate processes to convert the ore to the pellets for the rods. It is enriched to around 3 to 5%, most typically 3%, considering that the ore in the ground is already at around 1% enrichment.
The processes involved in enriching Uranium to weapons grade takes it to around 98%. Now it’s not just a matter of holding down the enrichment button during the same process for the power plant rods. They are completely different processes altogether.
To enrich uranium to that weapons grade percentage level requires specialised equipment. That equipment and components of that equipment can only be used for one thing, enriching Uranium to weapons grade.
At the very start of the (Bush43) invasion of Iraq, the Media ran with the WMD meme, and the media, and all the people observing all forms of that media were specifically looking for a big bomb with the label on it reading ‘Here I am’.
In actuality, the searchers weren’t looking for that patently obvious in your face evidence. They were looking for the specialised equipment that they knew was coming into Iraq, evidence of the processes involved in manufacturing those WMD, equipment that had only the one purpose, so if Iraq was actually getting that equipment, then, ergo, they must be secretly on the way to implementing a WMD program.
Again, at the very start of the invasion, there was the usual footage of people fleeing, from a media looking for something to show the World.
You know, bland footage of all those people escaping Iraq, and all escaping to the North, across the border of Iraq.
I saw the footage as truck after truck ran North fleeing the Country as the invasion mounted from the South.
I watched the footage, shown for days on every media outlet, and I took no real notice. It was just people running away from what was happening.
At about day three of this, my good lady wife made a really pertinent observation I hadn’t even bothered to think about.
Watching the footage on the News, she said, “I wonder what’s in all those trucks.”
It was something I hadn’t noticed at all. Just trucks getting out, but every two out of every three vehicles fleeing were large trucks.
She added that she wondered if that equipment used during those enrichment processes was in a few of those innocuous trucks fleeing from Iraq.
They never did find what they were looking for, you know the Here I Am bomb, but gee, I’ll bet that really wasn’t what they were looking for.
That specialised equipment IS the evidence they were looking for, and it may well have been on those trucks.
I mean, everybody knew what they were looking for. However, those who really knew what they were looking for just trucked that real evidence out of the Country.
A clueless media, informing an uninformed public of an incorrect search parameter.
It worked for everyone.
I still am of the opinion that Iraq was in the process of attaining or attempting to manufacture WMD.
That is most definitely not a conspiracy theory.
Tony.
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September 19, 2007
From Greenspan to Kissinger
Oil Warriors
By ROBERT WEISSMAN
Alan Greenspan had acknowledged what is blindingly obvious to those who live in the reality-based world: The Iraq War was largely about oil.
Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger says in an op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post that control over oil is the key issue that should determine whether the U.S. undertakes military action against Iran.
These statements would not be remarkable, but for the effort of a broad swath of the U.S. political establishment to deny the central role of oil in U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Greenspan’s remarks, appearing first in his just-published memoirs, are eyebrow-raising for their directness:
“Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in the area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
His follow-up remarks have been even more direct. “I thought the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point,” he told the Guardian.
Greenspan also tells the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that he actively lobbied the White House to remove Saddam Hussein for the express purpose of protecting Western control over global oil supplies.
“I’m saying taking Saddam out was essential,” Greenspan said. But, writes Woodward, Greenspan “added that he was not implying that the war was an oil grab.”
“No, no, no,” he said. Getting rid of Hussein achieved the purpose of “making certain that the existing system [of oil markets] continues to work, frankly, until we find other [energy supplies], which ultimately we will.”
There’s every reason to credit this view. U.S. oil companies surely have designs on Iraqi oil, and were concerned about inroads by French and other firms under Saddam. But the top U.S. geopolitical concern is making sure the oil remains in the hands of those who will cooperate with Western economies.
Henry Kissinger echoes this view in his op-ed. “Iran has legitimate aspirations that need to be respected,” he writes — but those legitimate aspirations do not include control over the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need.
“An Iran that practices subversion and seeks regional hegemony — which appears to be the current trend — must be faced with lines it will not be permitted to cross. The industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran is incompatible with international security.”
Note that Kissinger prioritizes Iranian (or “radical”) control over regional oil supplies over concern about the country acquiring nuclear weapons.
One might reasonably suggest that Greenspan and Kissinger are only pointing out the obvious. (Kissinger himself refers to his concerns about Iran as “truisms.”)
But these claims have not been accepted as obvious in U.S. political life.
The Iraq was “is not about oil” became a mantra among the pro-war crowd in the run-up to the commencement of hostilities and in the following months. A small sampling —
Said President Bush: The idea that the United States covets Iraqi oil fields is a “wrong impression.” “I have a deep desire for peace. That’s what I have a desire for. And freedom for the Iraqi people. See, I don’t like a system where people are repressed through torture and murder in order to keep a dictator in place. It troubles me deeply. And so the Iraqi people must hear this loud and clear, that this country never has any intention to conquer anybody.”
Condoleeza Rice, in response to the proposition, “if Saddam’s primary export or natural resource was olive oil rather than oil, we would not be going through this situation,” said: “This cannot be further from the truth. He is a threat to his neighbors. He’s a threat to American security interest. That is what the president has in mind.” She continued: “This is not about oil.”
Colin Powell: “This is not about oil; this is about a tyrant, a dictator, who is developing weapons of mass destruction to use against the Arab populations.”
Donald Rumsfeld: “It’s not about oil and it’s not about religion.”
White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer on the U.S. desire to access Iraqi oil fields: “there’s just nothing to it.”
Coalition Provisional Authority Paul Bremer: “I have heard that allegation and I simply reject it.”
General John Abizaid, Combatant Commander, Central Command, “It’s not about oil.”
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham: “It was not about oil.”
“It’s not about the oil,” the Financial Times reported Richard Perle shouting at a parking attendant in frustration.
Australian Treasurer Peter Costello: “This is not about oil.”
Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger: “The only thing I can tell you is this war is not about oil.”
Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary: “This is not about oil. This is about international peace and security.”
Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett: “This is not about oil. That was very clear. This is about America, and America’s position in the world, as the upholder of liberty for the oppressed.”
And Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen joined war-monger Richard Perle in calling Representative Dennis Kucinich a “liar” (or at very least a “fool”), because Kucinich suggested the war might be motivated in part by a U.S. interest in Iraqi oil.
What lessons are to be drawn from the Greenspan-Kissinger revelations, other than that political leaders routinely lie or engage in mass self-delusion?
Controlling the U.S. war machine will require ending the U.S. addiction to oil — not just foreign oil, but oil. There are of course other reasons that ending reliance on fossil fuels is imperative and of the greatest urgency.
More and more people are making the connections — but there’s no outpouring in the streets to overcome the entrenched economic interests that seek to maintain the petro-military nexus. A good place to start: The No War, No Warming actions http://www.nowarnowarming.org planned for October 21-23 in Washington, D.C. and around the United States.
Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action.
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http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/09/19/oil-warriors/
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Tony,
Thanks for your response i too watched the videos of the trucks moving north, i saw innocent civilians being carpet bombed by an invading force but i did not see any trucks marked with “secret Saddam nuke stuff in here”.
By your logic we should bomb Iran because they bought a box of hammers coz afterall you need hammers to build a bomb.
I watched Colin Powell live stand on the floor of the UN with his PPPPP (piss poor power point presentation) showing me sat photos of the milk trucks that were actually mobile chemical factories, the mobile scud missile launches prepped and ready to go oh and of course the detailed description (complete with complex diagrams) showing Saddams under ground bunkers where all the nasty bomb making was going on.
Here is a quote from the dodgy dossier
In their scramble to win the hearts and minds of us morons they even concocted a story that Saddam was buying yellow cake from Niger, of course this was not true and for the interested google Valarie Plame.
Quote from Prezdint Boooosch in his state of the union speech
Bullshit every word of it of course but you Tony still believe he had it hidden in trucks heading north and when the trucks were blown up so was the evidence.
But Tony we were told Saddam could launch WMD in 45 minutes
Jesus fucking wept……………..
The US and its partners in crime could not get UN approval so they went in anyway (an act of war) and most certainly a war crime was committed against the peoples of Iraq (google Faluja for impressive photos of deformed babies etc).
But no he had it all hidden in trucks heading North, north to where Tony?
Remember Hans Blix? Remember what he said just before the war? There was no WMD this was a war of conquest nothing more nothing less and you still cling to the idea that Saddam had them somewhere…..anywhere…..why so you can sleep at night?
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Lots of talk and nothing with more than hearsay value or someone’s opinion. The best intelligence at the time said Iraq had WMD. I would have gone in there myself had I been President.
Now I suppose I’ll hear another round of, “Bush lied!” God help us if the present opinion set is what the world has to look forward to for leadership.
It works like this. If I find a man with a gun inside my house in the middle of the night I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later (literally). If it later turns out to be a toy gun that’s just plain too bad!
I’ve said this before — war came to us, we didn’t start it. I’ve also said this before — the only unforgivable thing in a war is to lose it. To not lose it you must be the unequivocal winner. Anything else is a defeat and leaves an enemy in place to bother you again.
As for Ron Paul, he did more stuffing his feet in his mouth last night on Fox News. He may sound real good to some of you now but I remember the Ron Paul who was nothing but a redneck from the south with a personal ax to grind. If you don’t know the term redneck I recommend Merriam Webster Online.
I don’t regard any of you as anything but friends. But I think some of what you believe is wrong and not at all in the interest of the very thing we all want…real peace. Holding high unrealistic principles can get you killed.
I could go on but I’ll stop here.
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You know what i find interesting?
What i find interesting is that people that dont accept AGW refer to those that do as believers and often refer to themselves as skeptics but nothing could be further from the truth.
Some people believe in agw and some people dont based on this most of the people that dont beleive in agw say they are skeptics but i would be suprised they even knew how to spell the word.
For example a sceptic is someone who examines the facts and then and only then forms an opinion and this philosophy should/is employed across the board no matter what the subject or issue may be.
What i find here is that if one does beleive/accept the theory of AGW they are considered a beleiver so those that dont beleive automatically consider themselves to be a sceptic however when you engage these so called sceptics in conversation about other topics you find they are not sceptics at all because they simply have different beliefs.
For example some people dont believe in AGW but they believe in many other things even though the evidence shows to the contrary.
Roy in the post above claims that he would have gone in to Iraq based on the evidence…my question is WHAT evidence…you see he simply beleives, he is no better than JB et al. He like most people here are not sceptics, JB et al beleive in AGW and Roy et al do not believe, there is very little difference between the two groups of people.
I find Roys attitude towards war somewhat disturbing but i will stop there, in regards to Paul let me simply say this if you want things to stay the same….that is continued acts of aggression all over the world, a continuation of a failed monetary and economic system and a corrupt government then dont vote for him.
When it comes to real peace he is the only one that might actually get you there….but once again Roy simply believes what he is told….sceptic my ass.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3540733/George-W-Bush-says-Iraq-intelligence-failure-is-his-biggest-regret.html
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Kevin Moore,
As if I did not wish things had gone differently? But they didn’t. And Bush, though wishing intelligence had been better, still does not regret the action he took.
Wishing things had been different doesn’t change them. And when faced with the need to make a choice you go with the best information you have.
Crakar24,
What will you call it then when not only your own intelligence services but the British as well are telling you there’s credible evidence of WMD in Iraq? I await your answer.
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PS: I’ll not be voting for Ron Paul.
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If the planes were flown by Saudi’s why did Bush invade and slaughter Iraqi’s?
http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/09/22/saudi-royal-ties-to-911-hijackers-via-florida-saudi-family-0/
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“7June1981 Israel Bombs Baghdad Nuclear Reactor”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/7/newsid_3014000/3014623.stm
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http://www.pakalertpress.com/2012/01/11/russian-move-against-us-called-first-shot-of-world-war-iii/
“….Though Iran had previously announced in 2008 that it had stopped trading its oil for US Dollars (Ahmadinejad called the depreciating US Dollar a “worthless piece of paper”) India, Japan and China were made exempt due to their large holdings of American currency and fears of wreaking further chaos on the global economic collapse that had just begun.
Important to note, this report reminds us, is that a similar move by Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein in not accepting US Dollars for oil in 2000 brought about the invasion of his country by the Americans and their European allies resulting in his eventual execution and causing the vast wealth of Iraqi oil and gas fields to be turned over to the Western oil giants.
Likewise, this report says, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi earned the same fate as Hussein after he, in the months leading up to the US-NATO military attack on his country, called on African and Muslim nations to join together to create a new currency that would rival the US Dollar and Euro and saying that Libya would only sell oil and other resources around the world only for gold dinars….”
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Crakar24 and Kevin Moore,
The gig is up on you two.
You’ve outed yourself as complete moonbats. So far to the left that you think you’re on the right.
But we’re not having any of this….
Kevin Moore said that here.
Crakar24 also believes an evil Jewish cabal controls the world and they assassinated 4 American presidents too.
Compared to Crakar24 and Kevin Moore, John Brookes and Councillor MattB are paragons of moderation and reason.
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A lie Roy its called a lie.
Your problem is that you honestly believe (there is that word again) that they had intelligence to justify the illegal invasion but the truth is there was no evidence as there is no evidence now. They lied to you Roy its as simple as that but you still beleive what they tell you.
Let me try and educate you, when the brits claimed Saddam could launch a chemical and or biological strike within 45 minutes but in reality they niether had the capacity to launch such a strike with conventional weapons let alone chemical or biological weapons then that is not a failure of intelligence THAT IS A LIE.
But yet you will still believe the bullshit you are fed just like JB et al believe the bullshit they are fed. Like i said Roy….sceptic my ass.
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I could not care less who you vote for, if you are American and can be bothered to vote and are happy with your current situation of being a debt slave to wealthy bankers, having your cherished constitution stained with the shit of your current and former president and if you are also comfortable with the knowledge that your country is viewed as the largest terrorist state on the planet in the eyes of the majority then i would not vote for Paul either.
Each to their own i say.
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“US mainstream media:Beating war drums?”
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2012/01/17/us-mainstream-media-beating-war-drums/
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Nah, conspiracy theorists usually have something to back up their arguments. These two are just here to test y’all
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The way I’ve read most of this is that those who have hated George Bush do so because he would not kiss their asses. It’s all a lie is too simple an explanation.
But believe what you will. In the meantime good luck getting along when, as seems only too likely at the moment, Obama is reelected and China reigns supreme.
Oh, and have a happy Arab Spring when they turn on you right after Israel.
I wash my hands of this debate.
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Roy,
A lie is too simple an explanation?
Governments do not lie
Governments do not lie
Governments do not lie
Governments do not lie
Governments do not lie
I do not understand the rest of your comment so no further response, go wash your hands as they are filthy.
Cheers
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Wes George,
Thanks for calling attention to their own credibility problems at 1.4.1.1.17. But they are not moved from their positions by any argument.
Kevin Moore sees conspiracy behind every tree and can’t be taken seriously.
Crakar24 is someone I’ve never given much attention. I see that maybe I should have.
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Roy,
Blinded by faith i see, Wes claims i stated the Jews killed all the presidents which of course is false, you are such a good little lapog.
Give me all the attention you want Roy….in fact i look forward to it.
Cheers
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Tony,
There might be another game in play. I suspect that we have an alternative energy source that is abundant and low cost but can’t be implemented because of the catastrophic economic effect it would have on the existing economic infrastructure.
Imagine this new energy source is abundant and cheap to access – and it is manufactured, so what would happen to the existing energy sources? The price for oil and gas would collapse, as would prices for coal and other hydrocarbons. N o one would bother extracting these hydrocarbons from the earth, since there’s no money in them anymore. Economic activity would collapse, infrastructure would grind to halt since the older energy sources are now uneconomic. Transportation would grind to a halt, especially the freighting companies.
So if I knew about this new source of energy and realised what its introduction would do economically, I would instead embark on a policy weaning people off the existing hydrocarbon based energy sources into the renewables until enough have made the transition so that disruption by the new unlimited source can be introduced.
Of course whether such a source of energy exists is another matter, but it’s a plausible scenario.
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It is indeed a plausible scenario.
Nuclear Fusion, anyone?
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Plausible? I can think of other words, like “far-fetched”, and “fruit loop”.
This conspiracy to keep the new source of energy under wraps would have been going since the late 80’s, and we’d need a group of people (lets call them the illuminati” who knew the truth and kept the cover up going.
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Is your middle name Moron? Because it should be your First name.
If I ever had any respect for your opinion (and I never have), I lost it all when you decided to side with michael mann over destroying the life of a 79-year-old man.
You are a God-Damned jackass.
(You are getting too personal) CTS
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Leave it to my old pal and mentor Louis to come up with such an outrageous idea that I actually find myself onside with the pusillanimous, Mr. Brookes.
I loathe conspiracy theories. Why? Because they say more about the theorists than reality. Human nature — designed by a million years of life in small extended family groups where gossip skills were naturally selected for — simply does not allow for really big secrets to be kept for long by any sizeable group of people no matter how well a mysterious Dr. Evil controls their minds.
Want a secret revolutionary energy breakthrough??…
We have recently invented stunning new game-changing technologies in the hydrocarbon extraction industries which might well liberate the world from dependence upon Middle Eastern oil supplies starting later this decade. It will alter the geopolitical global balance of power by allowing for widely scattered, but former inaccessible, hydrocarbon fuel resources to be exploited all over the planet thus ushering in a new golden age of cheap power, while creating new employment opportunities for some of the older, more mature economies that have been suffering of late. Already, the US is a net exporter of LPG because of new extractions technologies.
Already, the US equity markets are getting tingles up their legs anticipating a new extended bull market, which speculators imagine will ride the rest of this decade on the back of a new energy boom.
And it’s only a secret if you only peruse the Fairly Lacking media and the ABC, which, as usually, are behind the 8-ball on any matter which doesn’t confirmed their black-arm band narrative.
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It must be a day for it as I find myself siding with Louis over my buddy Brooksie. Even something as relatively “simple” as 4th Gen nuclear power IFR/Thorium/Whatever fits the bill, so it is not like we have to dream up mythical energy sources. (Louis could well be looking a bit more out there than 4th gen nuclear however).
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Perhaps like the plant shown at the following image:
Next Generation Nuclear Power Plant
This is for existing technology, in this case, a PWR. (Pressurised Water Reactor)
The Containment vessel is the orange one, and the Steam Generator yellow. The steam is then pumped to the turbine generator complexes, one separate from the other.
This is feasible right now, even without proposing what is still basically at the theoretical stage, Pebble Beds, Thorium etc and even Fusion.
Tony.
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Councillor Matt,
As an elected public official your constituency should be aware that you’re a conspiracy nutter who believes secret diagrams for a cold fusion perpetual motion machine are being held in the basement vault of Exxon in Houston, Texas guarded Halliburton death squads under the direct command of Dick Cheney….all a conspiracy to keep the oil flowing to support their addiction to pink Cadillac convertibles and snake-skin boots. I’m sure this must be in your election material.
Right?
Btw, you never did post a link to your election campaign material?
Still waiting. Thanks in advance.
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Just to note I’m not talking about fusion. Just this kind of stuff: http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/29/ifr-fad-1/ so no conspiracy nutter stuff.
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Thats silly louis,
So we cant simply introduce a new power source because of logistics so we wean them off oil onto a energy pipe dream se we can then transition to this new super secret power source.
If i had access to a power source that ticked all the boxes in regards to the AGW dream and i could even tick the box marked “24/7/365” i would tell the world and then sell it to the world. I would laugh at governments falling over themselves as they threw gazillion dollar notes in my direction.
And the cost….oh the cost….planet saving energy does no come cheap nowadays, no, no, no it is very expensive afterall its abig planet and a lot of saving to be done.
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The problem with this kind of reasoning is that is utterly ass backwards.
If a cheaper form of energy that could replace hydrocarbon combustion in transport and electricity production was to become available overnight it would lead to a great economic boom, not catastrophe. Nor could it be opposed by the energy block because no one would ask their permission, but it would be opposed by the Greens, who are the sworn enemy of cheap energy. We already know how the Greens built their political identity by opposing perhaps the cheapest, cleanest energy power on the planet, hydro-electrics.
The oil and gas extraction, refining and distribution industry aren’t a significant proportion of the global economy or workforce. A generous total value-added impact of the industry on US economy in 2007 was it contributed 7.5% to the total economy.
Even if a new energy technology was discovered which ended the use of petroleum as fuel there are still a thousand uses for hydrocarbons which would require some large fraction of the industry to remain in production. But the economic outcome would be all positive as products made from hydrocarbons, such as poly rain water tanks, would fall in price. Moreover, a cheaper new energy technology isn’t going to be a perpetual motion machine, it will require capital investment, a workforce, pay taxes, build infrastructure, support whole secondary supply chains, industries and communities just like convention energy industry does today.
There simply is no imaginable down side to cheaper cleaner energy.
Furthermore, whoever owned the patents on this new energy technology would exploit it regardless of its affect on the global status quo. Even if an oil business, like Exxon, discovered a revolutionary breakthrough they couldn’t suppress but would exploit it to its fullest before someone else stumbled upon the same idea and beat them to the market. Other energy businesses would attempt to transition to the new paradigm as rapidly and seamlessly as possible and continue to turn profits because of the transition. There would be a shake out. Some would go the way of typewriter and sowing machine businesses. But more would manage the transition like IBM, Oracle and Fuji Xerox did the PC paradigm shift in computing. Btw, Fuji is (was?) a colour film business, wonder how that’s working out?
Imagine if Intel discovered a product to make all semiconductors including its own obsolete overnight. Would rush it to market as fast as possible for fear of some competitor coming across the same breakthrough, regardless of the devastating effect it might have upon the semiconductor industry status quo? Or would they conspire with a cabal of industry leaders to make sure the innovation never sees the light of day?
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Hello Jo,
Just stumbled across this intriguing article at the Pyjamas Site: . I think it applies to contexts other than the American one…
Regards, John
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Sorry mods, I may have messed up the tags (?). Hope not.
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The doomsday cult has a doomsday clock? How cute.
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Sonny
Yep, those of us in Oz and who are old enough will find the Doomsday Clock bears a stunning resemblence to the Playschool clock of the ABC.
Although the Doomsday Clock is much much more objective in its logic, naturally…
/sarc off.
Cheers,
Speedy
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I added this comment at the bottom of the last Unthreaded Post here at Joanne’s site, but with 5 Posts more recent than that, not many people go back and look at ‘time expired’ Posts, but it’s worth mentioning it again, for the vast bulk of people who didn’t see it.
That wonderful Australian bastion of deep and intense Scientific Research, the CSIRO, have finally categorised a new fly, Scaptia (Plinthina), a large Horse Fly found in Far North Queensland.
Because of the gold patch on its abdomen, they say that this new fly is ‘The all time Diva of flies’, so they named it, and wait for this, after the singer Beyonce, naming the fly the Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Scientific Research’.
I suppose it’s a little like naming a fossilised triphibian trilobite(*) after members of the punk band ‘The Ramones’.
CSIRO unveils bootylicious Beyonce fly
Tony.
(*) Old Air Force joke.
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There is a small beetle in New Zealand that has the official name, Alexander Beetle (in latin, of course). Alexander Beetle was the “hero” in a popular childrens’ book of the time.
I think it is a game played by the researchers against those in authority who have the final say on naming things. I am pleased to hear that at least one person at the CSIRO has a sense of humour.
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The undisputed champion of Alexander Beetles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWflJDaIpAc
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Thanks for that.
I sure brought back a whole lot of memories – and she is still going strong.
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Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
The last one is a real doozie!
Organisms named after celebrities
Tony.
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Plenty of parasites in that lot.
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Tony, I first read that as “Orgasms named after celebrities” … Freudian Dyslexia perhaps?
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Great! A chance for me to sound off on one of my grumbles.
I think that a point needs to be made regarding who is ‘qualified’ to do and say what. The standard reply from an AGW alarmist to any scepticism is “But you are not a climate scientist” (and therefore cannot question those who are).
I would like to see this dealt with more forcefully in debate because my take on the whole matter is this:
To PROPOSE a theory of AGW you (or your team) need to be expert in a whole range of sciences from oceanography, meterology, sunspotology (sorry), statistical analysis etc. You have to then cobble together all the various parts to form one coherent idea.
So when I hear that 97% of scientists “believe in AGW” my immediate response is to express my surprise that 97% of scientists were even involved with climatology. (Never mind the fact that the survey was totally bogus at this stage)
The fact is that there are very few scientists around who are even in a position to comment in favour of the AGW theory. That is a simple fact and an inevitable consequence of the scientific method.
On the other anyone with basic comprehension skills is in a position to comment sceptically on the theory. If a D grade high school student notices that data for the models is being gathered from weather stations sited in jumbo jet taxi ways or wedged in between a banks of airconditioners then he is able to make a perfectly valid sceptical attack on the theory.
AGW proponents seem to think that they can get by by saying that they get the majority of stuff right. OK, the data may be rubbish but the models are great!
(A better word would be ‘fantastic’. Literally)
They will then ignore the kerosine smelling weather station problem by banging on about their latest dead polar bear or some other matter as if the volume of ‘the vast majority‘ of ‘rock solid science‘ somehow solves the problem that it is all based upon mush.
That might be fine for a character witness statement “he did do the odd burglary but on the other hand he has, as of last week, helped 271,828.18 little old ladies across the road…” , but it does not work in science. One broken link breaks a chain.
Since people can dismiss the bogus “97%” survey claim as just sour grapes by sceptics I like to tackle the matter at a more fundamental level.
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Hi Keith
That, the issue of Qualifications, is one of my pet grumbles too.
The second is the distortion of argument way from the core problem that Human Origin CO2 is being blamed for Global Warming.
The scientific facts are that human origin CO2 is such a small part of the “Greenhouse” effect that it is totally and conclusively and absolutely IRRELEVANT.
To overcome this problem Warmers have been forced to invent Science Fiction solutions to confuse the public and hold the line.
1. The effect of CO2 is always quoted. ie Total CO2. The human origin component is NEVER isolated, it would be too small.
2. Water is left out of GHG estimates so that all CO2 become the boogeyman.
3. Heat transfer mechanisms such as LHV and convection are “disparu” from analyses.
4. Human generated CO2 is said to behave differently to “natural” CO2 and to be effectively immune from natural sequestration. You only have to have some basic chemistry and be able to watch your lawn and tress grow to twig that human CO2 will probably be assimilated inside a couple of years.
The IPCC crap is ongoing, but definitely NOT science, just politics.
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I wondered why the wicked witch of the west in the Wizard of Oz had a green face and found this –
“The Green Witch –
http://greenwitchery.tripod.com/
I am a Green Witch, and I have been asked “What is a Green Witch?” Alot!
Here are a few other questions I have also been asked.
“Is Green Witchcraft a pagan or wiccan religion?”
“Do you cast spells?”
“Do you curse people?”
“Do you worship the devil?”
I hope as you read thru my web pages these questions and any other questions you might have will be answered.
A Green Witch is normally someone who practices Natural Witchcraft. Someone who works with the Earth and the Universe around them.
A Green Witch also works with the energies of natural objects like stones,gems,herbs,animals,and the elements.
Some folks say that Green Witchcraft is not a religion at all. Just a practice of magick, and then some people believes it is a very religious craft, a way of living their life.
Now,I believe it is as religious as the person who is practicing it. What I mean by this , is that if you want it to be a way of life and you want it to be your religion, then by all means live the way of the Green Witch.
Green witches may worship many different Goddesses and Gods at any given time. Some only worship one or two. Which is fine, your way is the right way. There is no right or wrong way with how many Gods/Goddesses, you worship, or pray to.
The Green Path is close the the Native Americans religious path.What I mean by this , is that we say thank you to the spirits of whatever plant or animal we use. Whether it is for food, or for healing prospects. We also believe that the plants,animals,gems,and other natural elements have a spirit or soul.
We were also Green Witches ,before the word Green became so popular with recycling and saving the planet. We have always been around ( in secret mostly) trying to save Our Beautiful Mother Earth…..”
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I was married to a black witch who openly admitted it, frightened the crap out of my young daughter at the time, had to put her in a safe house until I got rid of the bitch, sorry witch.
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When i worked in the RAAF (after Tony) there was a guy who worked at a secret squirrel facility and was caught practising witch craft so he lost his security clearance and could no longer work there as he failed to tell them of his fetish.
Not long after all the military (well the workers) got kicked out and replaced with “civvies”. This guy got a job there after he told them up front that he liked to sacrifice chickens in the grave yard at midnight.
Cheers
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Oh, yeah.
One of them… I-Know-A-Guy-Who…. stories.
Uh Huh.
Tell us about this, uh, guy you knew…
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I thought it interesting also that to get to the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City, Dorothy etc had to follow the yellow brick road [gold ingots].
Who owns all the worlds gold today?
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Mostly China
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I would think that most of the worlds gold is still in the ground.
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Thumbs up but let’s not go too far here.
🙂
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Accounting for the Rothschild Wealth and Influence
Morton (1962) noted that the Rothschild wealth was estimated at over $6 billion US in 1850. Not a significant amount in today’s dollars; however, consider the potential future value compounded over 147 years!
Taking $6 billion (and assuming no erosion of the wealth base) and compounding that figure at various returns on investment (a conservative range of 4% to 8%) would suggest the following net worth of the Rothschild family enterprise:
$1.9 trillion US (@ 4%)
$7.8 trillion US (@ 5%)
$31.5 trillion US (@ 6%)
$125,189.1 trillion US (@ 7%)
$491,409.0 trillion US (@ 8%)
To give these figures some perspective consider these benchmarks:
A little of $300 billion US buys every ounce of gold in every central bank in the world (see John Kutyn’s estimate (http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/kutyn111597.html).
U.S. M3 money supply August 1997 was $5.2 trillion
U.S. debt is currently $5.4 trillion.
U.S. GDP (1997; 2nd Q.) is $8.03 trillion.
George Soros’ empire is worth an estimated $20 billion.
We shall never have a full accounting of their wealth. All we can go on is Morton’s (1962) comment that their wealth is “ineffable as always.” Even our conservative estimates suggest a family with staggering wealth and thus influence. In a world awash in debt and unsustainable fiat currencies subject to implosion, the power of gold and the preference of the Rothschilds to gold cannot be easily ignored.
http://www.mega.nu/ampp/rothschild2.htm
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http://visual.ly/all-worlds-gold-still-wouldnt-cover-us-national-debt
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Kevin,
I’ve been hesitant to point that out. But it’s a big factor that makes Ron Paul and his wish to get rid of the Federal Reserve Bank and return to some fixed value standard (probably gold) look foolish.
In any case, the value of a dollar is always what the buyer and the seller agree that it is. For instance: If you’re selling a Widget I want for $10 and I buy it from you we have just agreed that a dollar in my hand is worth 1/10 of the Widget. Now if I discover that you have a competitor down the block selling the same Widget for $5 I’m going to go there because he’ll agree with me that a dollar in my hand is worth twice what you’ll agree that it’s worth. This is true no matter what standard of value backs up the dollar.
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Perhaps my detractor didn’t realize that the value is in the Widget, not the money?
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Goldinmysacks?
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Wisdom from an elderly lady:
While chatting to my mother’s cousin (96 years) yesterday, there was mention of the weather. She said that she did not believe that there was any problem with ‘global warming’ — it warms and cools, droughts followed by rainy years. She had spent a few years in Canada where it was known the snow and ice grew and receded. Its all cyclical.
Some have written off the views of retired sceptics as ‘not with it’ or ‘behind the times’ but when one has experienced a big slice of life and history the claims of the CAGW people is too hard to swallow.
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Paul,
I’ve always made it a point to sit down with old farmers and other people of the land for a few cuppas and really listen closely to their local stories whenever I get a chance. I always inquire about the weather conditions of their youth and what the local ecology was like. I also just allowing them to tell me their best stories of the old times, which, of course, mostly focus on social and cultural events rather than natural history. I’ve practiced this not only in Australia, but also in Asia and the the Americas and I rarely have heard any talk about how the climate is different today than in the past. Even in Indonesia, a nation of island fishermen, I’ve never met one who has noticed the seas are rising. The changes are too small to be noticed in even the longest human life span.
Interestingly, although they never complain about climate change, old folks almost always report about how different the local ecology is from when they were young. How certain game are now rare or gone. How the fish they ate as kids or the geese they hunted aren’t available any more. In some places its over-farming, clearing and weed invasion, in other areas its the opposite. The land has been depopulated and forest is reclaiming unused farm or grazing land. In others, farmland has been commercialised and consolidated so that there are no more small farms. Human changes in land usage is a major theme.
Meanwhile, life’s a bit tougher in under-developed economies of this world which continue to have much denser rural populations with people doing local farming or fishing, supplementing their low protein diets by hunting local fauna. Worse, they tend to use firewood as cooking and heating fuel further pressuring their woodlands often even after they have tenuous access to electrics, all the while continuing to clear what primary forests remain for new land.
There are really environmental issues on this planet and they mostly have to do with poverty and lack of access to modern technologies not “carbon pollution.”
In general you could say that developed areas like Australia and North America have experienced a depopulation of the countryside and with it a boom for the local ecologies with native species, both flora and fauna, generally flourishing often in numbers as large as before settlement.
In places like Canada, the US and Australia there is so little popular interest in our rural landscapes that they are safer today than in any time in our history! Ironically, all the Greenies are packed cheek to jowl like sardines in our inner-cities and get their nature fix vicariously watching Attenborough slog through paradise for them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOLAGYmUQV0
For our urban culture, nature has been so mawkishly sentimentalised that our grasp of it has become pure kitsch combined with an obliviousness of how insulated we really are from the connection to nature our grandparents had.
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On a lighter note, has every one noticed that weekly and some times daily studies are being released from all over the world that refute AGW. It seems that the death by a thousand cuts is in avalanche mode and 2012 will see a seismic shift in what is and what is not real.
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Yep, and every single one of them is the “final nail in the coffin”. How could it be that so many studies appear to refute AGW, and yet it won’t die?
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It doesn’t die because it’s gone commercial. There’s gold in them thar
hillssuckers.00
There’s a couple of answers to that, John:
1) There is a great deal of money (why Enron was an AGW supporter) and political power riding on selling CAGW to populations who might otherwise be cautious about handing over their wealth and freedoms. Those who stand to gain won’t give up easily.
AND
2) They don’t give up because there are enough dopes like you who continue to slavishly “believe” in the CAGW fantasy despite the total lack of supporting evidence and, indeed, despite the mounting evidence that the catastrophic claims are bogus.
What do you plan to tell your grandchildren, if you are successful? That you did your bit to lock the world into perpetual poverty and servitude?
Do yourself and the world a favor and raise your game a bit.
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BobC,
There another explanation, Bob. The CAGW theory was never alive to start with. You can’t kill the dead.
By this I mean that CAGW theory was never premised soundly on a proper scientific foundation of hypothesis formation and testing. The theory is so good that its not refutable!
CAGW makes no predictions which its true believers will allow to be fairly tested and every climate event from cooling to warming, drought to flood, cyclone to dolldrums, from PETM to the ice ages are framed as confirmation of the theory.
Karl Popper has an excellent essay about this phenomena of theories so good that they can not be refuted. A must read:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html
Popper’s rules for testing whether a theory is useful or not:
I hope this explains to Johnny why the CAGW theory will never be dispatched by science alone. It’s simply not a scientific theory by the above standard.
Or, to go back to Johnny’s coffin nail analogy, by any measure of science CAGW is the dead walking.
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John Brookes asks:
It’s in the memes. All religions develop protection against inconvenient evidence:
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Not according to this dumb letter in this morning’s SMH:
Dr Ormerod is Professor of Theology at the Australian Catholic University. ‘Nuff said!
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Dr Ormerod puts his point very well.
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Yes indeed he does — and he makes wes george’s and Sean McHugh’s points while he does it.
The Professor of Theology defends CAGW as a religion, but has no concept of what questions he should ask if he considered CAGW a scientific theory. (Perhaps he should read Karl Popper — he might learn something. You too, JB)
For example he says:
Well no, it isn’t. Laboratory tests confirm that CO2 absorbs and emits radiation in several narrow IR bands. The hypothesis that it therefore heats up the atmosphere (the infamous “Hot Spot”) has been falsified by thousands of measurements that have failed to find it. The theory’s supporters have followed Popper’s outline exactly, making up ad hoc reasons why this doesn’t count as a falsification (Poppers “Conventionalist Stratagem”, point #7 ).
The good Dr continues his recitation of the Canon:
Well, it doesn’t take a great deal of intelligence to realize that the efficacy of CO2 for causing the climate to heat up (the “sensitivity” of the climate to a doubling of CO2) is a crucial parameter as well as the “millions of years” of stored carbon. Despite the Professor’s blatant claim, the debate over Climate Sensitivity continues unabated.
Additionally, “millions of years” of stored carbon is rather imprecise (that is, if we’re talking science and not religion). According to the “Deacon of AGW”, James Hansen, we wouldn’t be able to double CO2 even if we burned all the available oil and gas (due to the “peak oil” effect). Perhaps some knowledge of this quantity is also important.
Of course, this is only if CAGW is considered a scientific theory — since it clearly is a religion, and Dr. Kingsgrove treats it as such, the good Professor can blithly skip by the scientific niceties and just make blatant statments of faith.
Why John Brookes and the other warmists here think we care about their religious beliefs is the real puzzle here.
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As a layman (engineer) I was hoping to have a discussion about some good texts discussing climate change.
So far I have read watermelons by davinpole and the delinquent.. By Donna laframbois. Any other recommendation?
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Sonny Bob Carter’s book Climate: the Counter Consensus is extremely good and I would recommend it totally. He explains very much why the theory of AGW has been disproven what I can’t understand why there are so many that follow and still maintain that there is a problem. He does dabble in a bit of the politics too which is good.
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Agree – Bob Carter’s book gets to the heart of the matter and doesn’t try to impress – it is clearly written with the reader in mind.
Cheers,
Speedy
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“Manufacturing Doubt” is good. So is “Storms of my Grandchildren”. “An Inconvenient Truth” is also pretty compelling.
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So at last we know the truth — you find fantasy more compelling than reality.
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Hi JB
For once I must agree.
The movie: “An Inconvenient Truth” is a great comedy.
Last year I took it out of the video rental and sat down with a bottle of beer.
Hilarious watching the Algorism going through his production like some American Tele-evangelist.
If you want a few light moments, look up AlGores academic record.
At least Combie fell over the line with a real degree, not that you can tell from his on screen rants about “saving” the world.
Are voters dumb or what?
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The best bit i liked was when he used old low resolution ice core data to dupe the viewers into thinking the temps followed changes in CO2. Unbeknowns to the viewers there was much more detailed data at Al’s disposal but he chose not to use it as it showed the exact opposite.
What a conman………….and JB you are just a loser of the highest order.
By the way i found aircon to be a great read, plimers first book was good but at times hard to follow. The weather makers was a major disappointment so if you want to read it get it from the library dont waste your hard earned on it.
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John Brookes said:
So is Sunday school. Which verses did you have in mind, John?
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Storms of my grandchildren has its share of interesting bits. I skipped most of the science, was more interested in Hansen’s experiences.
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Just as well, as the science was eminently skippable.
For example, on page 34 he claims that:
I’ve read a number of Hansen’s papers where he expands on this, and this is his idea of “precise knowledge”:
1) He simply assumes that the forcings that we don’t have good paleodata for, such as cosmic ray fluxes, solar activity, albedo changes, etc, etc, are simply irrelevant and thus only the temperature and CO2 matter.
2) He ignores or hand-waves away the inconvenient fact that the paleodata shows CO2 lagging temperatures by ~800 years — thus providing more evidence that temperature controls CO2 concentrations than the other way around.
So, Hansen’s idea of “precise knowledge” is: What you don’t know can’t matter, and argue away any data that contradicts your desired conclusion.
“Science”, it’s not.
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Ah yes BobC. So you didn’t go with Jim when he said that the time periods were short enough to assume that most things stayed the same.
You are repeating the new “skeptic” mantra, “Its sooo complicated”.
As for temperature controlling CO2, and not the other way round, could it be that each can effect the other? Of is this a case where you don’t see complexity?
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Assumptions need to be verified, JB. Hansen (and you) just make whatever assumptions needed to achieve your pre-determined conclusions.
What’s “new” about it? The observation that the climate is a non-predictable chaotic system originated with the very first scientist who tried to model it, Edward Lorenz.
It’s up to those who claim that climate can be predicted to prove their claim. They have, so far, failed miserably.
I see the complexity, John. I have even described, in layman’s terms, how a mutual feedback effect between temperature and CO2 could happen (and why it doesn’t imply CAGW). You, on the other hand, apparently see just enough complexity to justify your religious beliefs.
Read that Popper article yet? You might start to see the difference between science and belief.
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Denialism, by Michael Specter, looks at how people develop a hypothesis or theory, put time and effort into investigating and working with it, and then find it extremely hard to move away from that position, even if they realise they are ‘mistaken’ and on a hiding to nothing. Not specifically about climate issues, but good for understanding the psychological backdrop of the players.
I guess when you are at the exalted level of Professor, it is hard to throw away all your life’s work, and start again.
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“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
–Leo Tolstoy
As lifted from Frank Lansner’s website Hide The Decline.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=x0hALyh40xg&feature=endscreen
Dangerous Knowledge [Philosophy, Physics, Mathematics] BBC
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Specter is right, Rereke. I find the whole thing very troublesome.
I’m reminded of Feynman’s sojourn in Brazil. He taught there, but the students wouldn’t do his assignments. “Too easy”, they said, so he made them harder, and they still wouldn’t do them. He also found that even those students who “could” do physics seemed to have only a superficial understanding.
He made a speech to the faculty on his departure, saying that it seemed that physics education in Brazil was totally useless, but he realised that it couldn’t be totally useless, because a couple of physicists had managed to get through. At which point one of the two physicists which had been produced in Brazil spoke up and said that he had done his degree during the war, when classes were cancelled, and so he was largely self taught.
So there you have the process of teaching and learning physics in Brazil being total crap. Surely they could see this. Surely they would fix this? How do people faced with such an obvious failure convince themselves that “more of the same” is they way to go?
Having said that, I wouldn’t have wanted to be taught by Feynman. It would be like being shown an obstacle course by someone who sees a 3 m wall and says, “Now just jump over that…”.
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So John, since you are (obviously) comparing yourself to Feynman and us (skeptics) to the ignorant physics students in Brazil, perhaps you could extend your Feynman fantasy just a bit further and explain, logically and with facts to back you up, just where we are going wrong?
Or, perhaps not. Don’t want to take these fantasies too seriously.
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I agree with Bob Massey re Carter’s book.
If you want to get deep into the science of Climatology, then Chill by Peter Taylor. But beware, it is heavy going – not because he doesn’t write clearly, but because it goes into subjects in detail.
An interesting author; an ex-Greenpeace activist, an adviser to the UN on (or rather against) marine pollution, and a consultant to the British Government on the protection and regeneration of wild places. And a believer for 20 years in Global Warming.
It was the latter 3-4 years occupation which changed his mind. He realised that the “solutions” to the claimed problems would wipe out 90% of the natural areas in the UK, so decided to check the science – sorry “The Science”. He is scathing on the IPCC and its statements, and came down firmly (in early 2008) in support of the climate cooling, hence the book’s title.
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My suggestion is “The Climate Caper” by Garth Paltridge, an ex-CSIRO scientist. One section deals with the question of why there is an apparent scientific consensus – CSIRO bigwigs make it clear that they are there to deliver the results the govenment wants or else their funding gets put in doubt.
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Well it seems that a warmer climate might, just might improve our intelligence.
If warmer means more clever lizards it could do the human race a great deal.
See http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/warm-climate-helps-lizards-scale-new-heights-of-intelligence-20120113-1pzeb.html
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Sonny at 5.30pm:
I would thoroughly recommend The Hockeystick Illusion by Andrew Montford who runs http://bishophill.squarespace.com/ website
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Sonny I also would recommend Bob Carter’s book. And if you get a copy of Svensmark’s ‘The Chilling Stars’, you won’t be able to put it down.
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Evening all
Over at The Daily Bayonet, Julia Gillard, MP, has been voted “Hippie of the Year” for her efforts in turning Australia into the world’s largest commune.
Herbal cigarettes, anyone?
Cheers,
Speedy
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With a bunch of aging hippies nostalgic for the ways of their youth in charge, what would you expect but $800,000 gardens in the desert going to the dogs.
It’s not as if they didn’t have the lowdown way back.
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I suppose it wouldn’t be appropriate to make a comment on the dangers of being dependent on government to get along. So I won’t. /sarc off
😉
Actually I don’t want to appear cynical but there’s just no other way to view this kind of thing.
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As long as they come in plain packaging.
Tony
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I have been reading more of the juicy Climate-gate emails, and there is something I find odd.
These emails were sent and received in what was assumed to be strict confidence.
These are highly intelligent people who feel safe enough to discuss the credible questions and evidence that shoot down the whole CO2/AGW theory. They are comfortable enough with each other to ask for favours, and compare notes on how to get more cash/academic awards, and from what sources. How to corrupt the science, the media, peer review. How to have dissenters dealt with. They chat away about how to mangle an inconvenient result into something that fits the theory etc.
This is what I find odd: That this group of academics who lie, cheat and steal for their own benefit, and boast about it in their emails. Who admit they sometimes pedal junk-science never suggest, in private, that maybe they were wrong about the underlying theory that man causes warming? In all the emails I have read they always accept, without question, that the theory is solid and all else must be made to fit.
That this bunch of brainy scallywags do not dare mention their private doubts, I find odd. Although there is a whole swag of emails waiting to be released!
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That is actually not unusual. People need to have some touchstones in their lives. Something that, for them, never changes. For some, it is their church of choice. For others it is their chosen career or vocation. And for yet others it is their clan or tribe or extended family.
For the scientists at the centre of the scam it is probably their academic standing that provides the touchstone, and while they keep on supporting each other, that touchstone will remain, and they will feel secure. They are members of the same clan, and they cannot willingly give that up.
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What makes you think the underlying theory of AGW is wrong?
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The evidence, John. What makes you think it’s right?
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BobC,
We’ve explained to Johnny at least a dozen times over the years where the burden of proof lies when proposing a scientific theory, but he refuses to incorporate even the most self-evident axioms of rational inquiry into his gestalt.
As result, he’s pretty much a personification of all the most egregious cognitive characteristics of an eco-apocalypsist — he’s a true believer dogmatically incapable of learning new tricks, irrational, unable to grasp causality, epistemological daft, reasons using emotive imagery rather than logic-based linguistic construction, AND ultimately, self-rigtheously believes that the moral superiority of his cause justifies any means, however vile, to achieve its admittedly uncertain end.
This is why we cherish him so much. As a bottomless font of abominable logical error he’s a constant source of amusement, usefully provisioning us with specimen after specimen of woeful reasoning, which says more about the particular cultural morbidities John suffers than anything about the weather.
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What makes you think that the underlying theory is right?
IMO, the real issue has nothing to do with AGW or any part of that theory. Weaning the world off carbon based fuels in itself is not a bad suggestion, depending on what you believe and the real origins of carbon based fuels we must take it as a given that eventually we will run out of this source. No problem with looking for alternatives.
A scare story sells much better then trying to get people to do something about a ” we are running out of fuel” story, followed by yet the latest discovery of more oil or gas, which, in reality, may only add a year or two to the supply chain but the public will read ” 2 billion barrel oil find”, which sounds enormous but will last us 4 weeks based on current consumption. a lot of people would not see it that way.
We can moan and groan about carbon taxes, the UN control and all that but that is not going to change the fact that without a viable alternative, energy will become much more expensive. Depending on what you want to believe take your pick, 50 years or 100 years from now there will be very little oil pumped at anything close to current prices.
The Alberta oil sands, for example, hold reportedly around 2 trillion barrels of oil, the catch is that only 10 percent can be recovered economically (profitably) at todays prices.
So the rest will have to wait until the price goes up to the point where it can be viable.
And so the cost story continues.
The problem with AGW theory is that arguably the aim is in the right direction, reduction of fossil based fuel use and the forced development of alternatives, but it is based on nothing more then circumstantial evidence of increasing temps with increasing CO2. Even if there is some truth to that part, minimal as it is, it should be clear for all to see that all the other results of the theory, rising sea levels, more hurricanes etc, are bogus and only serve to scare the population.
If you want the population to really buy into this it is absolutely necessary that the truth is stated, and really the truth is far scarier then AGW theory and it’s supposed consequences, it is just not sexy and sellable to the masses at the moment. But that is in financial terms, not environmental. There are no real, long term, environmental issues. Sure burning less coal will lead to cleaner air but once the coal is finished the air will clean up and we can already clean the the emissions from coal burning quite well, other then that life giving gas CO2.
Having the skyline littered with millions of windmills is environmental destruction on an almost permanent basis. Better alternatives need to be found.
I guess Al Gore summed it up pretty well: The theory may not be right ( he can not admit to say: is not right) but it is the goal that counts.
In the meantime the Goebbels theory of indoctrination continues.
But doing nothing on the energy front will mean that the lights go out for most people and our sacred cows will remain parked on the roadside.
Perhaps that is the real underlying AGW theory. Which would then be correct.
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Hi Jake,
I agree with your main point and have written similar in the past.
Where I disagree is in the idea that we can say AGW has at least alerted us to the problem.
I’m not sure that has happened.
All I see is huge waste, monetary theft, dislocation and damage to real science, disgusting self interest on the part of politicians, greenies, “academics” and other freeloaders.
WE have been led down a dead end in terms of progress.
Any engineer knows that thousands of windmills and home based solar power units is economic vandalism but good green politics.
We need PROPER research into renewables based on engineering common sense.
We need large solar generators with storage mechanisms (still to be developed), perhaps in some areas , tidal generation and storage, but above all we need research based progress not politically based “moving forward” rubbish.
Salomon Brothers wins either way.
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Keith
I don’t mean to say that AGW has alerted us to the energy issue. The problem was there and the AGW theory was wrapped around it to sell it to the public. I do not believe that back in the early 80’s when this first started to rear its head in the public arena, earlier for policy makers, anyone would have taken one iota notice if the message was that we were going to run out of carbon fuels. Something scary needed to be used as the packaging and the AGW theory was used as the ribbon to make it attractive.
Personally I do not believe that there are too many who subscribe to the AGW idea really stand still and think about it as an energy supply problem, for most of them it is a reduce CO2 to stop warming issue. Get rid of black coal, brown coal does not sound so bad but pollutes more.
Really that tsunami came at the wrong time at the wrong place for the energy security issue.
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Hi Jake
I think my first reply was a bit strong.
What we would all like is for politicians to get The Public Service to do Forward Planning.
Unfortunately the public service at all levels has been run down because bureaucrats find they can channel more money to their mates faster through the medium of “External Advisers”.
The public service is not being used properly and since politicians can’t think for themselves we are left with no national or state plans to move forward with energy supply into the future.
The most recent talk here has been of planned , rotating blackouts to overcome the poor planning. Back to the days of Edison and Stephenson.
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I would like to offer two thoughts for consideration:
1> That the ozone hole has appeared over whichever pole is the coldest at the time. It seems to me, that it is yet another climate mechanism for regulating the Earth’s overall temperature, as it would allow a range of temperature frequencies a more direct route out of the atmosphere?
2> In all of my reading, one of the things I have noticed is that volcanic activity dropped, to some extent, just about the time we began rising out of the Little Ice Age. At that point in time, if I am not mistaken, the sun was being somewhat quiet, though not as quiet as it has become now.
And now that it has become quiet, volcanic and seismic activity seem to be ramping up?
When I see this, I think of Io, in orbit around Jupiter. Io is massively affected by Jupiter’s magnetic field… could there be a similar effect between the Earth and the sun?
All speculation, but I have to wonder.
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You seem to be mistaken. Here is a graph which shows this is wrong.
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Doubtful.
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John Brookes seems to be right here (it has to happen every now and again) about rising solar activity being correlated with the emergence from the LIA.
———————————————————————
About the ozone hole, however:
There is evidence that it is a recurring natural phenomena. Ozone depletion was detected, for example during the first International Geophysical Year (1957-1958), but the instrumentation was too primitive to map it well.
Additionally, it is ultraviolet radiation from the Sun that creates ozone (from oxygen, of which there is an inexhaustable supply). The ozone hole exists over the Antarctic during the winter, when there is an extremely low amount of UV available. The hole can grow large as the ice clouds in the upper atmosphere at that time and place catalyze the decay of the ozone (the mechanism proposed by Susan Soloman in 1986) and the Antarctic Circumpolar wind flow keeps the depleted atmosphere isolated. However, the isolation from global circulation and low UV would result in reduced ozone in any case, as ozone is unstable and decays by other mechanisms.
We should expect the hole to get larger as Solar activity continues to decrease. What this will do the Green’s claims of “fixing” the hole by the world-wide CFC ban, is an interesting question.
In the spring, when the airflow begins to break up and let the ozone depleted air escape, it can theoretically increase the ground-level UV. Calculations suggest this decrease is equilivant to moving 100 miles closer to the equator — but an actual decrease has not yet been experimentally detected (scroll down to the Increased UV paragraph).
Since UV creates its own shield by converting the inexhaustable supply of O2 into O3 as needed, there is exactly no chance that the ozone hole could be dangerous, since the ozone would be replaced as the air drifted north where UV levels were higher.
If you could remove all the ozone from an area of the upper atmosphere at low latitudes (and prevent any more from blowing or diffusing in), UV ground exposure would rise considerable. UV from the Sun, however, would replace 1/2 of the ozone in the first 3 days, 3/4 in 6 days, etc, until after 2 weeks, there would be no detectable difference. This is why the ozone hole dissapears as it drifts north from the S. pole in the spring. It is completely gone before the UV at ground level even reaches the levels of summer at any one place.
There is no chemical mechanism known or proposed (even by Soloman) whereby man-made chemicals can deplete ozone at moderate latitudes, where it provides an important shield against solar UV.
The ozone hole scare was, in some respects, a dry run for CAGW. However, there were industrial replacements for Freon and there are no viable replacements for carbon fuels, thus the cost of following the dicy science is much higher.
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In the shower this morning I was trying to think of a good, simple analogy to explain to warmists about climate models (and their lack of understanding and education).
I came up with this. . .
We all know a brick cant fly.
But if I write a program where I told the computer a brick can fly, then I could input various data such as altitude, wind speed, air pressure, etc etc. . . the program could then tell me how well a brick can fly under various circumstances.
I could accumulate thousands of scenarios in which bricks can fly.
But we all know that bricks cant fly, regardless of what my data says.
Same with these CO2/climate models.
Sure, they spit out numerous scenarios and graphs showing that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in temperature, but thats only because the computer has been programmed to say that.
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This was the case with the first Jumbo, the Boeing 747.
Evidently, modelling proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that an aircraft of that size and weight just could not fly, in fact could not even lift off the ground, no matter what size engine they used.
Thank heavens models were looked at with some skepticism in those days.
Tony.
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Bumblebees
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Bumblebees indeed Rereke.
I recall a film where Hitler was telling his cohorts that Professor Messerschmidt (or Dr. Fokker or somebody) had proved conclusively that bumblebees couldn’t fly.
“And yet they do fly” says Hitler. I guess, in an effort to get his boys to attempt to do the impossible.
Presumably, by now, somebody has overturned that (obviously incorrect) theory.
My money’s on Al Gore!
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First flying brick I experienced was the Bristol Brabazon, flying north from Filton. Scared the s**t out of me & the other kids.
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Actually bricks can fly.
They generally do it in one direction – downwards. 🙂
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If I remember correctly it was said of the F-110 Fighter jet that it proved even a brick could fly if you gave it a big enough engine.
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Yeah, but you won’t get very far like that. The bloody warmists will just come back with some rubbish about CO2 being a greenhouse gas, and increasing water vapour being a positive feedback. They have the gall to pretend to understand this stuff.
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Yeah, Trenberth keeps telling these knuckle dragging deniers that the missing heat in the cold deep oceans will come back “ta git us” if we don’t start mitigating actions NOW! Such a brilliant man! Such a great knowledge of the second law of thermodynamics! The fate of humanity lies in the rest of us following the advice such learned men as he (and you too of course, John).
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Actually, bricks could fly, with an adequate power source. You can even model that on X-Plane, a great flight simulator that actually models the aerodynamics of planes (or bricks!) you can design yourself. (SpaceShipOne was designed on this software, for example.)
A number of flying machines, including the Space Shuttle, have had their flight characteristics described as “like a brick”. Having flown one on a simulator, I can’t argue that that description is entirely inaccurate.
I can’t find an actual example, but since modeler’s have built things as weird as flying lawnmowers, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a flying brick some day.
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Speaking of Flight characteristics.
The Boeing 707 was the jet turbine aircraft that revolutionised passenger air travel.
Its prototype was the ‘Dash 80’ (Boeing 367-80) first rolled out in 1954.
Here’s a short video (less than 2 minutes) on, er, one of those flight characteristics, ‘The Shondelle’.
Alvin ‘Tex’ Johnston
Tony.
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Just reading a piece by Frank Furedi at Spiked and came across this:
(5) See Carne Ross (2011) The Leaderless Revolution, Simon and Schuster ; London,p.106.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/11960/
Ah, the dirty tricks to stack the numbers!
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They are the enemy.
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Louis Hissink says…
“There might be another game in play. I suspect that we have an alternative energy source that is abundant and low cost but can’t be implemented because of the catastrophic economic effect it would have on the existing economic infrastructure.
“Imagine this new energy source is abundant and cheap to access – and it is manufactured, so what would happen to the existing energy sources? The price for oil and gas would collapse, as would prices for coal and other hydrocarbons. N o one would bother extracting these hydrocarbons from the earth, since there’s no money in them anymore. Economic activity would collapse, infrastructure would grind to halt since the older energy sources are now uneconomic. Transportation would grind to a halt, especially the freighting companies.
“So if I knew about this new source of energy and realised what its introduction would do economically, I would instead embark on a policy weaning people off the existing hydrocarbon based energy sources into the renewables until enough have made the transition so that disruption by the new unlimited source can be introduced.
“Of course whether such a source of energy exists is another matter, but it’s a plausible scenario.”
———-
This is what I’ve wondered about for a very long time. Who else but our own governments could keep the scaremongering going on this long with no empirical evidence to justify it, and much to refute it? And why would U.S. federal employees such as Hansen be allowed to falsify numbers over and over, engage in partisan politics, and everything else unless the U.S. Government wanted them to? Hansen has boasted that he has friends in high places and can’t be fired. What does that mean?
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Hmm!
Maybe it’s, er, Rearden Metal!
Tony.
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There is a simpler explanation.
Western governments were faced with rising costs of the welfare state, and ever increasing “entitlements”, and with the reluctance of the populace to pay more taxes. See California for the mess that this causes, even though they’re just at the start of their collapse.
Along come some people with a “great scare” idea to extract lots of money from the public, which will keep the whole system going for long enough for the pollies to collect their pensions. Why wouldn’t the government (and public service) welcome and support the idea.
But look at the “sceptics” Russia, China, India (no welfare state) etc. Now, with the financial crisis, western governments are starting to back off. South Korea, Japan, Canada want out of Kyoto. The Germans and Spanish (and Dutch) have cut subsidies to “renewable” energy. Even the Danes are wondering what went wrong with those optimistic predictions.
There are, of course, some who are very slow to wake up (and quite close).
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I’m more inclined to believe that our Government is doing this for what it believes is our own good. Weaning us off of oil before allowing access to another (now secret) energy source would, theoretically, prevent economic collapse from the collapse of Big Oil. I don’t think our Government would invent a crisis just to extract more taxes.
The problem with this scenario is that the scare isn’t working. No matter the governments of the world claim, the people can see with their own eyes that the seas are not rising, that the poles are not disappearing, and that zombies are not invading our cities. Nobody I know, with one exception, believes in the warming scare, and this includes my most liberal friends. So who does believe in it? Political fanatics? Hippies? Druggies? Religious crazies? No matter what the Press says, the Democratic Party says, or the President says, educated people that I know seem completely worn out on the doomsday theme.
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Curt @ 19. Have a look at the green agenda and UN Agenda 21. There is no secrecy about their aims and methods but the AGW believers simply refuse to see it.
http://green-agenda.com/agenda21.html
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Junk science is not limited to CO2, Hardly news, but we can “fix” anything.
An international team of scientists says it’s figured out how to slow global warming in the short run and prevent millions of deaths from dirty air: Stop focusing so much on carbon dioxide.
They say the key is to reduce emissions of two powerful and fast-acting causes of global warming — methane and soot.
Carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas and the one world leaders have spent the most time talking about controlling. Scientists say carbon dioxide from fossil fuels like coal and oil is a bigger overall cause of globalwarming, but reducing methane and soot offers quicker fixes.
Soot also is a big health problem, so dramatically cutting it with existing technology would save between 700,000 and 4.7 million lives each year, according to the team’s research published online Thursday in the journal Science. Since soot causes rainfall patterns to shift, reducing it would cut down on droughts in southern Europe and parts of Africa and ease monsoon problems in Asia, the study says.
http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2012/01/scientists-worry-about-soot-and-methane-not-co2?et_cid=2423081&et_rid=45603233&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.manufacturing.net%2fnews%2f2012%2f01%2fscientists-worry-about-soot-and-methane-not-co2
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I recently had lunch with an employee of the BOM, who after I inquired about his profession showed me a plot on his iPhone showing how CO2 had increased over the past x years, as measured across a number of Australian stations.
I then asked him what proportion of that CO2 increase was attributable to the actions of mankind as distinct from the actions of everything else. His answer was that IT WAS NOT IMPORTANT – THAT WHAT WAS IMPORTANT WAS FOR US TO REDUCE OUR FOOTPRINT.
I disagreed. I said something like “our potential to stop the harm caused by a rise in CO2 is directly proportional to our percentage contribution to it’s rate of increase.”
The question I want answered is “What is the human contribution on a percentage bases of ppm to the observed rise in CO2 and how is this calculated”?
I’ve heard that we account for only 3%? Is this correct? If it is something as low as 3% is CAGW bust on this fact alone?
Any help? Thanks!
Beca
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Hi Beca
Natural yearly CO2 releases roughly equal the amount of natural CO2 yearly sequestration. Even though we only add a little CO2 compared to nature’s carbon cycle, that CO2 doesn’t have anywhere to go, so it builds up. CO2 rose from 344ppm in 1984 to 392ppm in 2010. It is generally accepted that avoiding 450ppm is socially and economically important as the costs of adaptation will far outweigh the costs of mitigation. Once the CO2 is up there, it’s very hard to get it back down.
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I wonder if there is a plausible alternative explanation of the increasing levels of CO2. The accepted explanation is that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing because we burn a lot of fossil fuels, and because of changes to land use.
Accurate CO2 measurements started in the late 50’s in Mauna Loa, and have shown a steady rise overlayed by a seasonal cycle. The rate at which CO2 has been increasing could not have been happening for too long. We know this because if you extrapolate backwards at 1ppm per year (just over half the current rate), then there would have been no CO2 in the atmosphere in 1600. As we all know, plants require ~190 ppm to survive, and it appears that plants did grow in 1600, so there could not have been zero CO2 in the atmosphere at that time. Indeed, if you go back to 1800 at 1 ppm/year you would have 200ppm, so the current increase had to start some time after 1800.
Could it be that a chain of undersea volcanoes came into being in the 1800’s? Or could it be that some time between 1800 and now our human footprint in the form of changes to land use and the burning of fossil fuels started adding CO2 to the atmosphere? CO2 from organic sources (fossil fuels and vegetation) has an increased amount of carbon 13 over carbon 12. And a similar increase in carbon 13 has been observed since CO2 levels started to rise. This suggests that it is more likely the increased CO2 came from the burning of fossil fuels and vegetation, rather than some inorganic source.
So it looks pretty likely that we are indeed responsible for the increase of atmospheric CO2.
But as a “skeptic”, your job is to disbelieve anything that might suggest that AGW is happening, that we are causing it, and that if it is happening it is at all bad. So I strongly recommend that you roll your eyes knowingly if anyone is silly enough to suggest that we are putting that extra CO2 up there.
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Er, John,
You mention only as far back as 1800, and then suggest that the current rise perhaps started from that point.
Might you perhaps explain this then:
Tony.
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Tony, the past was different. The sun has been gradually increasing its output. The continents have moved around. The earth’s orbit has varied.
This is not news to anyone involved in climate science.
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I knew I ‘would be wrong’
I somehow always am.
Tony.
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We know that plants don’t thrive at 200ppm but require more like 240ppm at minimum, so your maths are wrong. Beside, even the IPPC says that there was 280ppm CO2 in the air before the Industrial Revolution. Also, it’s been shown the anthropogenic increases couldn’t have begun until at the earliest the 1840’s, which would tie not only into the early days of the industrial revolution in England but also a string of major volcanic eruptions which might have contributed a significant injection of CO2 into the atmosphere in the early 19th century.
Plants grow even better above 300 ppm.
It would be interesting to know what fraction of the massive increase in farm productivity is due to the fertilising effects of CO2 as opposed to the evolution of agronomy and related technologies. Surely, this fertilising effect of CO2 would form an even larger fraction of farm productivity increases in under-developed rural nations which, at least until very recently lacked access to modern farming techniques, while accounting for the most marginal of the world’s poor.
We normally hear how climate change is a great catastrophe, but increasing the fecundity of the world’s poorest peoples’ crops might well be one of the positive legacies of the 20th century’s remarkable industrial growth.
If we step back to get even a bigger view, it’s possible to imagine a time — say several hundred years in the future — when the events which transpired largely as a direct results of the Scottish Enlightenment, the industrialisation of Britain and Belgium based on coal and scientific experimentation, spreading to Germany, then America, then the world….the resulting terraforming of the whole planet as gardens, mines, farms or parks, banishing wilderness to a mere percentage of wastelands at the poles…all this might well be the natural evolutionary course of a living sentient planet once cognition arises within a particularly aggressive species. To understand it you have to know that we are in our most rapid phase of human evolution in our history as a species.
The vast hydrocarbon reserves stowed under the earth’s crust seemed destined to be exploited (almost as if they were put there for the very purpose!) to project human evolution through a transitional state from an agriculturally-based society to one primary engaged in the manipulation of information to create endlessly divergent virtual domains. We’re evolving rapidly away from a society where the basic tools not so long ago were the plough, sword and the hammer to one where the ability to turn exaFLOPS of information into useful knowledge is our most fundamental cultural characteristic.
Maybe what we are living through isn’t the destruction of the planet but the creation of a whole new world we can barely imagine outside the pages of a science fiction novel.
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Johns alternative reality
——————————————————————————–
Everyone else’s reality
But as a skeptic, your job is to question dogmatic and religious statements and to seek out the truth.
For example the MWP ranged from about 950 to 1250 AD, the ice core data clearly shows there is at least an 800 year lag between the rise in temps and the rise in CO2.
If you wish to seek the truth then add 800 to 950 & 1250 and suddenly you have an alternative theory as to why co2 levels have been methodically rising.
Of course the religious ones will respond with “oh but the MWP did not exist” and so begins the greatest wild goose chase on the history of man.
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Beca, Tristan is right btw. Whatever your reasons for being skeptical are, please don’t add the “only 3% of emissions” to the list. In fact this one simple skeptical argument is an excellent determinant of skeptics who have a clue and are looking for real reasons that AGW is baloney, versus those who are just clinging on to every skeptical argument then can find in blind faith. Key there are plenty on my side of the fence who cling to every pro-AGW argument too and many of those are rubbish.
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Beca, you’ll find a nice discussion here:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Water vapor is the elephant in the room not co2. Warmists won’t tell you this because they can’t blame humans for water vapor.
also see these links:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2008/11/carbon-dioxide-co2-is-not-pollution.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
http://www.plantsneedco2.org/default.aspx?MenuItemID=96
http://www.co2science.org/
Don’t forget to read Jo’s stuff here:
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming
Also helpful is to note that our present atmospheric co2 concentration is closer to the low limit for plants to do well.
PS feel free to ignore Tristan, he/she has lost all ability to view the subject objectively. He/she will disseminate propaganda to attempt to make His/her point.
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I just wish that he/she was better at it (sigh).
00
Well, actually they would tell you about it. They would explain that water vapour is not a forcing, but a feedback. You can pump all the water vapour you like into the atmosphere and within a short time there’ll be no trace of it. But if you pump CO2 into the atmosphere, it stays there quite a while, warming up the atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere can and will hold more water vapour – so by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere we end up adding water, a potent greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere. Thus the original warming of the CO2 is amplified by the water.
Now if I can find this stuff Mark D, why can’t you?
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Oh I’ve found that stuff and John, it is one of the glaring amateurish flaws and typical in Warmists understanding of physics.
Explain: If water vapor is able to do what you have said, and knowing that it is profoundly more effective as a greenhouse gas than c02: (from Wiki)
GH Gas Formula Contribution to the greenhouse effect(%)
Water vapor H2O 36 – 72 %
Carbon dioxide CO2 9 – 26 %
Methane CH4 4 – 9 %
Ozone O3 3 – 7 %
and as you further say:
What stops a runaway situation even without co2 (that I deleted)?
Then you say:
A completely incorrect statement! Water vapor ~0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1–4% at surface. There is always water vapor in the Earths atmosphere. Always in motion, always moving heat and in quantities that you nor any other climate scientist are able to measure on a global scale.
It is precisely this movement of heat, happening on a grand scale in both the oceans and the atmosphere, that controls the temperature of the earth. co2 is a bit player at best (.039% of the atmosphere) with a puny effect initially and diminishing ability at higher concentrations the highest of which will still only be measured in parts per MILLION. No matter what GW powers you ascribe to co2, water vapor will always trump. Unlike co2, Water goes through all phase changes while in the atmosphere. Each phase change another opportunity to move heat a truly astounding amount of heat. This should be glaringly simple to you and the entire AGW crowd. Intuitively everyone should know this to be correct because WE ARE A WATER PLANET. The unique properties of water are EVERYTHING.
Lastly, in your first sentence “water vapor is a feedback” and the last sentence where you say “water vapor is an amplifier” is a glowing ember of understanding for you. Add to that; water in all forms is a transport mechanism for heat. Water in all forms changes the Earths albedo at every point. Water makes up 90-95% of plants and about 65% of animal bodies. It comprises 71% of the Earths surface. Look at water, understand water and you’ll start to understand climate. co2 has very little if anything to do with climate.
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Hi Mark D, well said!
Have you seen this attempt from none other than Gavin Schmidt? http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142
“Making some allowance (+/-5%) for the crudeness of my calculation, the maximum supportable number for the importance of water vapour alone is about 60-70% and for water plus clouds 80-90% of the present day greenhouse effect. (Of course, using the same approach, the maximum supportable number for CO2 is 20-30%, and since that adds up to more than 100%, there is a slight problem with such estimates!)”. (My emphasis).
The Wiki values add up to 114%, G.Schmidt makes it to 120% without any other gases!
This is settled science?
No, I change that question to, this is science?
Funny how they never spoke of a “feedback” mechanism until after it was discovered that CO2 lags temperature. Ad hoc rescue come to mind?
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“Settled maths”!
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MaxL thank you.
I hadn’t seen that particular Gavin but it is typical of what I have read of him and in his usual dismissive tone. He, Like John B. misses the point (on purpose?) that water is more than vapor in the atmosphere. In the atmosphere it is present as solid, liquid AND gas. The phases changing while moving horizontally and vertically. They change within clouds, they change at air mass boundaries all of which cannot be measured accurately.
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Sonny
The big T is at work again and Knows No Chemistry.
Human origin CO2 does not accumulate in the atmosphere forever or even a thousand years as the IPCC goons say.
Look at the trees and the grass.
If human CO2, small as it is was stopped right now, in two or three years time the atmosphere would be in perfect balance with exactly the same proportion sequestered in both Human an Natural CO2.
Stay cool.
🙂
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Sonny/Beca
If you get your figures from warmist sites, you will avoid the charge of “Yeah, but that’s not what the IPCC say!”
http://www.eia.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304.pdf
Page 6, Table 3
Global Natural and Anthropogenic Sources and Absorption of Greenhouse Gases in the 1990s
Carbon Dioxide
(Million Metric Tons of Gas)
Natural = 770,000
Human-Made = 23,100
Total = 793,100
http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-Scientific-Guide-to-Global-Warming-Skepticism.html
Page 2
“Each year, we send over 20 billion tonnes of CO into the atmosphere. Natural emissions come from plants breathing out CO and outgassing from the ocean. Natural emissions add up to 776 billion tonnes per year.”
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Oops, trouble with cut’n’paste.
Last quote should read:
“Each year, we send over 20 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Natural emissions come from plants breathing out CO2 and outgassing from the ocean. Natural emissions add up to 776 billion tonnes per year.”
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Beca the carbon cycle is like a diet. If the energy you eat is balanced by the energy you use then you’ll stay more or less the same weight. If you eat 5% more than you use then you’ll get fatter. If the 5% energy is equivalent to the mars bar you eat every day, then cutting out the mars bar will mean you stop putting on weight.
In context of the atmosphere, what this translates to is that each year there are natural emissions TO the atmosphere, and natural sinks that take C02 OUT of the atmosphere. We humans result in additional contributions TO the atmosphere, and as such CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere.
Back to the diet… it is clear to me that the Mars Bars, even though they only make up 5% of your energy intake, are responsible for 100% of the weight gain. Ok in the diet you could actually cut back on any other 5%, but in the atmosphere we can only have any control over the human emissions.
That is why it is misleading to present anthopogenic CO2 as only being 3% of emissions, as the other 97% are more or less in balance with natural sinks.
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That should be “misleading to present anthopogenic CO2 as only
beingcontributing 3% ofemissionsgrowth in atmospheric CO2″00
No MattB,
The only thing that is misleading is your false analogy with Mars bars.
Humans contribute less than 3% to atmospheric CO2. That is a fact, accepted by both sides.
For your side it is an inconvenient truth.
00
it’s a great analogy, as the Mars Bars only contribute 5% of the calories.
00
MattB, you may consider your analogy is great, but it’s still a false analogy.
By equating Mars bars to CO2 and weight gain to temperature rise, you then need to demonstrate that an increase in CO2 causes an increase in temperature.
Temperature increases before CO2 increases. So with your analogy, one would gain weight before one consumed the Mars bar.
If we throw in positive feedback (an ad hoc rescue), then one would gain weight before consuming the Mars bar and after consuming it one would gain weight again, thus causing one to think about eating another Mars bar, then gaining more weight and so on ad infinitum.
So as an example of a false analogy, it’s great.
00
Actually, MattB, it’s nothing like a diet, or the human body, or any other false analogy, even remotely! People often use inane analogies to hide their ignorance, or to talk down to others from a false sense of superiority. Btw, it’s not like sheep’s testicles, inflatable rubber dingies or Swedish porno movies either.
CO2 is not, repeat not, in a “harmonious” balance within it’s cycle on our planet, period. Our planet is a complex, constantly evolving and self-adjusting system of inter-related phenomena which is self regulating, provided the amounts of any input in the system are small (as CO2’s effect undoubtedly is), and not so immediate (like an asteroid strike) that the system has no time to adjust. Other factors which can catastrophically effect our planetary well-being are on planetary, solar or galactic scales which are far in excess of anything puny humanity could do to the planet.
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actually people use analogies to explain complex things that simpletons can understand. I guess I needed a simpler analogy for a dunderhead like yourself Winnie.
00
That is a sensational analogy Matt.
Have you tried telling it to a kid from Somalia or Ethiopia?
THE PLANET IS STARVING MATT. IT NEEDS MORE CO2
00
The kid in somalia isn’t overweight. I’m happy to redistribute Mars bars from wealthy nations to Somalia.
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Yes Beca, Tristan does not consider humans to be natural. Tristan thinks that humans are bad and must be punished. The punishment will be by a special tax. Because co2 is emitted more by wealthy white people, they need to be punished more. In order to be sure the punishment is “fairly” administered, international agencies need to be involved.
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Keep tryin’, sugah.
00
Notice for every (Panic! The sky is falling! Run for your lives!) alarm, the fix is always submitting to an unaccountable international political elite who will decide what is best for all. We are to have no individual or national sovereignty. No power of individual choice free of threat of forceful denial is to be permitted. All thoughts, words, and actions are to be subject to the prior permission of that self same international political elite.
Elected or not, the only possible outcome will be the collapse of the global economy caused by the collapse of all national economizes caused by the establishment of free thought, free speech, and free action. Ultimately, it will cause the collapse of technological civilization upon which 98% depend on for our very lives – even and especially the international political elite. For a current living example, see the unfolding of the European Economic Union.
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Really! With the UN’s record you don’t trust them?
00
I trust a poisonous scorpion to be a scorpion no matter what words it uses to the contrary. The UN is a nest of poisonous and lying scorpions who will always act that way until the UN ceases to exit.
Its ceasing to exist couldn’t happen too soon for me. The world would be much better off for the event. The life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of any individual on earth must not be subject to the vote of a largely despotic collection of heads of state. Nor, for that matter, Republicans, Democrats, or whatever mix of political parties of record.
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Add the EU to that inglorious bunch!
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Lionel…Well said my thought s exactly.
Whoever thought that this ideological construct of glorified Bureaucrats could formulate any solution to man’s problems have completely lost it.
As stated before time to dismantle the whole tragic story and get rid of the UN.
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OOPS.
“caused by the establishment” should read “caused by the prohibition”.
I may not know how to spell and can often make typing mistakes, but the built in spell checker has no concept of meaning. It simply substitutes a random correctly spelled word for the word that is not in its dictionary. The consequence is that the statement in process has its meaning subverted and/or inverted. The spell checker must be an ultra left progressive. Thus never meaning what it says nor never saying what it means. The only good thing is that it never claims to be “misquoted” or “quoted out of context”.
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What a load of crap – QUT and CSIR-Oh have just done another boondoggle on brisbane to say that a 2 degree increase in temps will result in “381 years of life lost” – yep thats about a minute per person.
Why are we paying these morons to come up with this uncorroborated crap?
Seriously, their arguments are becoming that of a primary school kid now.
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wonder if it has the usual legal disclaimer that CSIRO and others including the Govt are using for climate change related papers these days
BTW does anyone know when CSIRO started to use those legal disclaimers
http://www.csiro.au/en/Legal-Notice-and-Disclaimer.aspx
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from The Critical Decade
http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/4108-CC-Science-WEB_3-June.pdf
IMPORTANT NOTICE – PLEASE READ
This document is produced for general information only
and does not represent a statement of the policy of the
Commonwealth of Australia. While reasonable efforts
have been made to ensure the accuracy, completeness
and reliability of the material contained in this document,
the Commonwealth of Australia and all persons acting
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liability for the accuracy of or inferences from the material
contained in this publication, or for any action as a result
of any person’s or group’s interpretations, deductions,
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FROM http://www.environment.gov.au/about/disclaimer.html
However, the Commonwealth does not guarantee, and accepts no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the use of or reliance on any material contained on this web site or on any linked site.
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In otherwords, don’t trust a word we say because we don’t believe this shit either. We’re just doing what the people with the money want us to do…
Got it. Loud and clear
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Madjak, yes so I guess if we move from Sydney to Brisbane (2C cooler), the CSIRO says we live 1 minute longer. They obviously don’t expect anyone will actually THINK about what they say! I guess when you have a compliant MSM that is understandable.
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Hi Tristan,
That all sounds very unscientific to me. So, the natural (earth without man) carbon cycle is at perfect equilibrium unable to process any additional carbon dioxide because somehow it knows what is caused by humans rather than by non humans. How then has the earth recovered from 5-25 times the CO2 concentration we have now?
Your answer demonstrates that you have assimilated a political agenda into your understanding of the science through your discussion of the cost of mitigation vs adaptation as a function of CO2 concentration. Im assuming this is a computer model output / UN fabrication? Much like the treasury modeling showing Australians how many cents per week they will be better off under a carbon tax. Crap in = crap out.
“just stop writing crap, it’s not that hard”
Julia Gillard
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Gee Sonny, what is so incredibly difficult about actually understanding stuff?
Since the CO2 level before ~1800 had been pretty stable for some time, it would be entirely reasonable to assume that the carbon cycle was balanced, with emission and absorption being finely balanced. If the emissions are increased, then they will exceed the absorption rate, and CO2 will accumulate in the atmosphere. Generally, one would expect the absorption rate to increase if there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, so that somewhere down the track the level of atmospheric CO2 would stop increasing and be in equilibrium again. Unless the actual warming reduced the absorption rate.
As for higher CO2 concentrations in the past, in the long term weathering removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and that probably caused CO2 concentrations to drop. Our atmosphere once had no oxygen in it. Does that say anything about today?
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When you understand something, John, you can preach to others, not before. The Carbon cycle is not fixed, as a booming biosphere proves. Your sense of proportion is as skewed as her world view.
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“As for higher CO2 concentrations in the past, in the long term weathering removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and that probably caused CO2 concentrations to drop. Our atmosphere once had no oxygen in it. Does that say anything about today?”
Actually, that a very good point because it says a lot about today.
BTW, the atmosphere did have oxygen, it just wasn’t free oxygen.
Carbon dioxide + water + light –> carbohydrate + oxygen.
You might recognize this process as photosynthesis. O2 comes from algae and plants.
So CO2 + H2O + light eventually (after billions of years) produced John Brookes.
Now, you want to reduce plants ability to produce the life giving O2 that we breathe, by reducing the CO2 that they need.
“… in the long term weathering removes CO2 from the atmosphere…”.
Well, don’t forget plants John, after all they absorbed the CO2 and produced the O2.
Try to keep the horse in front of the cart John, otherwise you’ll just go backwards.
Maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen#Allotropes will help.
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No of course not. There is neither a perfect equilibrium nor does nature distinguish between carbon sources. Humans emit ~26 gt/yr while atmospheric C02 levels are only rising by 15 gt/yr. Unfortunately that change of CO2 concentration is too fast for comfort.
With such an attitude towards those of different opinions to your own, you’ll have a hard time learning new things.
Your sentiment is just as pertinent when it comes to your brain, which contains innumerable models.
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Moral of the story, Tristan, is that political interference and pressure has become so endemic and pervasive, that it can make both scientific understanding and economic planning so far removed from objectivity that they become meaningless and incapable of informing, even partly, our future decision making in a trustworthy fashion.
So, what to do when those upon whom you rely have become so tainted by your own political influence? Who can you turn to then? Catch 22 I would suggest. The only way out is for a thorough purge of the bureaucracy that has entrenched itself within these bodies, and make them truly independent again.
But that wouldn’t really suit people like your good self, Tristan, now would it? You are seemingly more interested in meddling with the science or the economic parameters to achieve your desired agenda. You are apparently not interested in objectivity or challenging your own world view. You have a cause to fight and that’s all that matters.
Sad, really, that it all has to come crashing down, all ending in tears. I fear for the ramifications of the folly of people such as yourself, whether you succeed, or whether you fail, because the damage that will be wrought will be a legacy of which I don’t believe you will be proud.
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What do you think my agenda/cause/worldview is, fella?
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From your many posts on this site, it would appear Tristan that you support, correct me by all means if I am wrong-
1. redistribution of wealth from the productive members to the non-productive members in 1st world economies. The Carbon tax, which you promote so heartily will do nothing to mitigate against CO2 on any meaningful level, but will hurt small businesses and those working families (Howard’s aspirational middle class) earning between $80,000 and $200,000 pa, sending them off the debt precipice that many in the mortgage belt find themselves balanced upon in a falling housing market, while the true elite (who have no mortgages etc) can continue to consume, travel, rape, pillage,etc with barely a blip to their lifestyle- in fact, relatively, they will be wealthier in comparison to their erstwhile peers, who will soon have fallen further rungs down the social ladder – I’m sure they’re glad to be rid of their nouveau riche competitors who thought they could have aspirations to rise above their station! That showed ’em, hey Tristan, me old mate!
2. redistribution of wealth from 1st world countries/developed economies (which are debt ridden and on the verge of collapse, but who cares, right) to the UN (a rapacious self-serving conglomeration of narcissists and siccophants, whose only interest is in perpetuating itself and fostering its own status, power and wealth), in the forlorn hope that some of it will trickled down to the poor in 3rd world countries (but of course it won’t- it will go to the UN itself, it’s massive bureaucratic machinery, and the political elite in poor nations in the form of graft and palm greasing, otherwise referred to as “administrative costs”, and perhaps, if it is so inclined to a world government, which would be a catastrophe jeopardising the viability of the entire human species, IMO).
PS.I will say at this point that I actually support socialised medicine as an exception, even though Medicare is poorly structured, ill-conceived and has the usual perverse incentives attached to any government sponsored program, and while it personally has cost me financially a considerable amount over the years, I believe the health of the population to be paramount to any of these considerations- I do believe it could be reformed considerably for the benefit of all, but governments are blind and stupid by nature, so that can never happen, more is the pity.
3. believe in increasing the overall size of government (you stated your desire to be a politician, if you remember, and no doubt champion many of it’s useless (???well-meaning) social engineering attempts), ostensibly to promote “social welfare” programs to assist the wellbeing of it’s people, but in fact this is rarely the case in Western societies, where bloated bureaucracies and microregulation strangle the life blood out of perfectly viable industries and occupations, and promote an ever enlarging underclass of the unskilled, unmotivated and non-contributing.
4. Believe government regulations and taxation structures and incentives can overcome market forces and their basic inherent physical limitations to make non-viable renewable energy projects anything other than useless money pits and rank wastes of public money.
5. And I believe that you think that the science behind climate change does not have to subject itself to the rigours normally ascribed to other domains of science, because such issues are not important relative to the potential opportunity to scapegoat modern developed world societies. You hope to redress perceived imbalances between Western society and the developing world, and overturn what you see as an evil fossil fuel industry simultaneously, even though this has been the main factor responsible for elevating the status of working people above the level of serf/slave since the industrial revolution.
How’s that for starters?
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My PS. above at point 2 was meant for point 3, sorry Tristan.
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1. redistribution of wealth from the productive members to the non-productive members in 1st world economies.
Everyone has some sort of preference when it comes to distribution of wealth vs individual earning capacity. There’s no guarantee that any given economic system will result in the ‘optimal’ wealth distribution. I’m in favour of wealth redistribution when it represents a profitable investment for society. What defines profitable investment differs from person to person.
I think it’s important that Australia can demonstrate that the cost of cleaning up after yourself (wrt ghg emissions) isn’t particularly onerous. For now I more or less accept treasury estimates, in a couple years we’ll have actual data.
See my answer to 1. Note that this isn’t an implicit endorsement of the way individual welfare and foreign aid bodies operate.
There are areas I’d downsize and areas I’d upsize. My error bars are too large to say whether this would represent an increase or decrease 🙂
Governments have a number of mechanisms via which they can change the cost of supply. Whether this allows new products to compete is completely scenario dependent.
They seem destined to play a role in our energy grid.
I think climate science is held to account more than most disciplines, given the intense scrutiny that it faces. I’m more concerned with certain areas of medical and agricultural science.
Impossible. I’d change certain terms of trade though.
Not evil and I don’t want it ‘overturned’, just priced such that people pay now instead of later.
Thank you for your comprehensive response, I hope my answers make some of my positions clearer.
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Tristan,
You haven’t got a clue, have you?
Tony.
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No clue whatsoever. Should my opinions be vindicated it’ll be blind luck!
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Winston, Tony:
This is a persistent claim by Tristan, as well as the claim that he only posts to annoy. I think we should take him at his word — he contributes nothing valuable to the conversation.
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Only not “onerous” if you think that premium energy prices and widespread blackouts equals economic prosperity! Our atmopsphere is among the “cleanest” in the world, yet your tax will encourage businesses to move to China where environmental regulation is less stringent and particulate and aerosol pollution is exceptionally poorly controlled. Own goal there.
Trusting soul! Treasury is only as good at estimating as their political masters will allow- witness NBN estimates which are already much more expensive than modelling suggests, witness costings of any major project with over-runs by factor of 2 or 3.
As a bit player, on premium salary no less- like Marlon Brando in the first Superman movie- $1 million per minute of screen time- bargain!
Only as a result of blogs like Jo’s and WUWT and Roy Spencer’s. A compliant MSM has let the Piltdown climate paradigm reign supreme with unquestioning subservience! Viva, la internet!
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Jo,
Food for thought here
“Outgoing vs Land vs Water Vapor
15 01 2012
Looking at these snapshots from last October (the last month where most of them were available) something just doesn’t add up in the CO2 as causal thesis.”
More at
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/outgoing-vs-land-vs-water-vapor/#comments
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Gillard/Brown & Co have nearly succeeded in taxing the air we exhale, carbon dioxide. Is water vapour next?
This was put forward in 2006. Note the last line threat!
“EPA Director of the Department of Pollutant Decrees, Ray Donaldson, said, “Back before carbon dioxide was dangerous, we simply assumed that water vapor was also benign. But all reputable scientists now agree that the increased water vapor content of the atmosphere from such sources as burning of fuels and power plant cooling towers will also enhance the greenhouse effect, leading to potentially catastrophic warming.”
If successful, the push to classify water vapor as a dangerous pollutant would impact virtually everyone.
“Right now, we are not so concerned about the water vapor exhaled by people. That is low on our list of priorities”, said Mr. Donaldson. “We’ll tackle that manmade source at a later time.”
http://www.ecoenquirer.com/EPA-water-vapor.htm
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And a few words from Jeff Id on published articles and peer review at
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/boo/
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Tonyfromoz. I’m trying to get a request to you but for some reason unknown the particular post is not being accepted here. Is there any other way I can contact you?
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KeithH
This requires some explanation, so I hope Joanne doesn’t mind.
Most of the millions of Blog sites in the U.S. are not like Joanne’s that have basically ‘open commenting’, and that includes even the ‘Majors’. They send all comments to moderation prior to posting them at their sites.
The blog where I am the editor is the same, and the site’s owner prefers to keep it that way.
Any comments that are left at any of the Posts at our site have to be approved prior to appearing. As with all comments the person leaving the comment also has to include a ‘valid’ email address, which in every case is never shown openly at the site, as in the case of every comment here. You all have to supply that email address.
So, if you wish to contact me, then leave a comment at our site, and within a short time, I will moderate it.
The comment need only be bland or innocuous, because either way, your email address is attached, and I can then email you if you wish, or just reply to the comment.
Perhaps the best place to do that would be at my ‘Bio’ at the link I have included here.
At the bottom of that Bio is a ‘Leave a Reply’ box.
Write your text in there, and then press the ‘Post Comment’ button below that.
TonyfromOz Bio
Tony.
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Thanks Tony. I don’t know whether I’m having a particularly bad “senior moments” day, but I’ve tried all that at your site and it keeps telling me I have to “log in” to post a comment, but I don’t know where or how.
In light of the fact all my other posts are appearing here, I’m also at a loss as to why the particular post I’ve tried to get through to you on this blog is not appearing, even though each time I’m told it’s “done”.
Any thoughts Jo? My apologies to all for being such a pain.
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Tony. I’ll try this one more time here without my extra comments or the Hydro website.
Musselroe wind farm. Any chance of one of your excellent assessments?
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Thanks Keith.
Leave it with me.
I just love sites like Joanne’s because there’s so many of these things cropping up, it’s difficult to keep track of them all, and this site gives me many extra eyes.
I’ll have something in a day or so to link to.
I just love ‘tearing down’ the double talk at these renewable power sites that no one understands.
Tony.
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Just some quick info.
Nameplate Capacity 168MW which will be 56 Towers, each with a 3MW Generator in the Nacelle.
Estimated total power output is 420GigaWattHours (GWH)
This gives the plant a (projected theoretical) Capacity Factor of 28.5%, which means that on average, it will be supplying power for 6 hours and 45 minutes each day.
So, place wind towers in what is arguably the windiest place in Australia with the ‘Roaring 40’s’ blowing straight at them, and you still only average power for just over one quarter of the day, from 56 towers.
Tony.
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Tony, that 6 hours and 45 minutes would be based on full output for 6 hours 45 minutes. Surely the actual grid engineers (other than pulling their hair out) would at least be expecting a lower output over a longer period of time. Is there such a thing as an effective power output, say for example the hours per day where a wind farm is expected to produce at at least say 50%?
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MattB
The link at the bottom of this Comment is quite helpful.
That period of time I quoted is the averaged daily time figure extrapolated from the theoretical yearly total power delivery.
True, the Plants deliver part power for most hours in the day, and some days the power is above, or even below that time figure.
What it does highlight, in conjunction with what is shown at the link is the extreme variability of Wind Power, and how it cannot be relied upon by grid controllers to supply a known demand.
A Base Load requirement is for 60 to 65% of every watt being generated from every source to be available 24/7/365.
On top of that, a Peaking Power demand adds extra on top of that Base, and these Peaking Power periods are also an absolute physical requirement at known times, those being 5AM to 9AM and 4PM until late.
Those are absolutes, and the variability of Wind Power means that the Grid Controllers cannot trust Wind Power to make up the total that is then drawn down by ALL consumers in every sector.
Wind Energy In Australia – Wind Farm Performance
Sometimes charts like these can be difficult to decipher, so for just one example on the 19th January 2011, look at the maximum output from every Wind Plant in Australia, and here for that day, the total is 900MW, at 1900 (7PM).
Now, scroll down and see the total actual power consumption for all Australia at that same time. That total is 27,000MW.
So at 7PM on Thursday 19Jan2011 when Wind Power provided its maximum power for the day, it was providing 3.3% of all the power being generated in Australia.
No go to where Wind is providing the least amount of power, 11AM, and the figures are:
Wind = 300MW
Australian Consumption = 28,000MW
So, at this time Wind is supplying only 1% of all requirements in Australia.
Wind Power is so variable that it cannot be used as part of the total for an absolute requirement, and pity help the grid controller who uses Wind to make up the mix, and pity help the Government on watch at the time that might happen.
Tony.
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Wonder why the IPCC and other climate scientists took Svante Arrhenius’s relationship between increasing atmospheric CO2, thought by them to be all or mostly produced by human activities, in his words, namely a doubling of CO2 produces….. Arrhenius was using this example merely to show that he had discovered a logarithmic relationship between the two and gave one example of the general relationship as he stated it: “if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression”.
or symbolically: Tb-Ta = k Ln (CO2b/CO2a)
Is that relationship valid only for a doubling? Of course it was not meant to have that restriction. Therefore we should be able to use that relationship to see what today’s or next years etc increase in temperature should be, in relation to any earlier CO2 concentration. That is given we know the past concentrations and can estimate approximately what the atmospheric CO2 concentration would be at any given future time.
In other words why don’t the alarmists give us a running description of average global temperature changes, past present and future from the only science they have? Just to check that they do indeed have science on their side.
Have a guess? Mine is it wouldn’t be scary enough and would probably show that our CO2 wasn’t doing much at all. Much more scary to not check it out and hold over us the threat of what the equation tells us what will happen about 70 to 100 years down the track.
(Don’t think Svante was onto the CO2/water vapor feedback scam. Think it was latter day scammers like Hansen who put this idea into the minds of the adoring simple. It has largely been demolished by scientific observation).
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Hi Llew,
Isn’t it amazing that these people, warmers, think that there has been no progress in science since Arrhenius put pen to paper.
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Keith I think as most of us do that CAGW as a result of our CO2 emissions is on pretty shaky ground. It should be obvious to those even on only a nodding acquaintance with the science that its poor predictive abilities are its real problem.
Arrhenius along with Fourier and Tyndall et al brought a little science to bear on the role of CO2 as a GHG but it seems Svante was not up with chaotic nature of climate and its many drivers and probably attached too much importance to the role of CO2 as do their consensus followers of the contemporary alarmist brigade.
The following history of the “science” gives some idea why crackpots like Flannery and the earnest little disciples who frequent this site take themselves so seriously. Silly little buggers everyone of them but in a noble line of equally mad little buggers and all, in the story below, well before the Industrial Revolution so it’s probably a genetic disease that needs no exposure to extra CO2 for its manifestation:
Climate Change – the Early Days
Discussion of climate and climate change is no new discipline. In ancient times, climate was believed to be a function of latitude. Aristotle believed it related to the character of a nation, Hippocrates related it to health.
During the Enlightenment, Abe Du Boss, writing in his ‘Critical reflections’ believed that the rise and fall of cultures was linked to changes in climate, and that climate change since ancient times had led to the artistic, moral and scientific decline of certain nations. Du Boss believed climate change was brought about by emanations of vapors from the earth.
Baron Montesquieu, perhaps the most influential environmental determinist of the Enlightenment, also speculated on the role of climate on cultures, though for him latitude was of greater significance, and he allowed a greater role for the moral climate. Both cautioned that moving to new climates, such as the colonization of America, was potentially bad for people. David Hume, following Du Bos and in turn influencing Montesquieu, believed that the advances in European culture were due to climate change, and that cultivation of the land was the determining factor in causing it to warm up. He believed the same was happening in America, only faster.
So it is to the Americas we turn for the first great climate…….
More at: http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Climate_change_talk.pdf
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am reading the most amazing book, “Extreme Money” by Satyajit Das – get it from your library if possible. Das knows CAGW is supposed to be the next financial bubble, but to date the carbon cowboys have failed to get it up. let’s do everything in our power to – for once – stop a Bubble before it gets started. it’s the boomers’ pension/super funds they’re after.
13 Jan: Guardian: Damian Carrington: How to tackle the climate, health and food crises, all at the same time
Reducing the soot pumped out by cars and cooking fires and the methane from coal mines and oil wells would rapidly curb global warming, prevent air pollution deaths and boost crop yields…
Drew Shindell, at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who led the research is clear that this is not an either/or situation: “It is not at all a substitution. It would be a big mistake to focus on dealing with the near-term problems of methane and black carbon without also focusing on the
problem of carbon dioxide as well.”
Nonetheless, his team’s work shows action on methane and black carbon is hugely worthwhile and, for the first time, the study shows reveals the regional benefits, from a more stable monsoon in India to better growing plants in Mexico…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/jan/13/methane-black-carbon-emission-climate-change-warming?newsfeed=true
the environmental groups used to know the “remedies” were a scam. then they were no doubt paid off!
13 Jan: Guardian: George Monbiot: The green deal is a useless, middle-class subsidy
This deal is in no way green – it’s just one of the means by which money is being taken from the poor and given to the rich
On his blog last week, Chris Goodall exposed a series of remarkable and shocking features of the government’s new energy policies.
The government’s own projections show that its green deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO) schemes starting later this year, which are supposed to improve the energy efficiency of our homes and help people to cut their energy payments, will lead to higher bills for the poor, but almost no change to the bills of the rich. They will also greatly reduce the amount spent on insulation and energy efficiency while doing almost nothing to address fuel poverty. In sharp contrast to the claims the government has made about these schemes, Goodall shows that most of the poorest 10% of the population will end up “spending a greater fraction of their cash on energy than if the green deal and ECO did not exist.”…
Two years ago, I warned that the feed-in tariff, a tax on energy bills which pays for people to produce their own low-carbon electricity, would be deeply regressive. To install solar electricity, for example, you would need your own roof plus £10,000 or more in cash. If you were lucky enough to possess both these assets, you would be making, at other people’s expense, one of the most lucrative of all possible investments. It would give you a state-guaranteed return of 5-8%, fixed for 25 years, which was both
index-linked (making a nominal return of 7-10%) and tax free…
The feed-in tariff is just what Andrew Pendleton (Friends of the Earth) says it isn’t: “a middle-class subsidy”. No amount of cherry-picking by Friends of the Earth, which throws around figures without providing comparisons, will change that. This group, which is usually a force for good, needs to
look long and hard at the social impact of the policies it supports.
The transfer of money from the poor to the middle classes and the rich engineered by the feed-in tariff will do almost nothing to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. The government’s 2050 carbon pathways calculator allows you to choose the most extreme of all possible solar options: using
“all suitable roof and façade space” in the UK: a remarkable 9.5 square metres of solar panels per person.
Were we to fund a programme on this scale, it would be likely to bankrupt the United Kingdom, yet, by 2050, it would reduce the amount of energy provided by fossil fuels by a grand total of just 9%…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/jan/13/green-deal
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13 Jan: Reuters: NYMEX-Crude stays below $100 after Iran embargo delay
U.S. crude futures were steady below $100 per barrel on Friday, after a sell-off in the previous session on a report that a proposed European Union embargo on imports of Iranian crude would be phased in over six months…
U.S. allies in Asia and Europe voiced support on Thursday for Washington’s drive to cut Iran’s oil exports, though fear of self-inflicted economic pain is curbing enthusiasm for an embargo that a defiant Iran says will not halt its nuclear programme…
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL3E8CD01R20120113
this DELAY is the reason for the above DELAY and look at who is involved:
9 Jan: Reuters: UPDATE 2-UAE delays oil pipeline to bypass Hormuz
Pipeline seen operational by May, June, delayed from April
The United Arab Emirates has delayed the launch of a crucial oil pipeline to bypass the Straits of Hormuz to mid-2012, which analysts said would add to supply worries at a time when Iran threatens to block the strait for all the Gulf’s oil….
Flows through the strait are estimated at around 15-17 million barrels per day (bpd), or just under a fifth of global supplies, and a new pipeline would bypass it to carry most of the UAE’s oil, 1.5 million bpd, to global markets…
Abu Dhabi government-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) is undertaking the project, and China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor (EPC).
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/09/uae-pipeline-idUSL6E8C91EF20120109
21 Nov 2011: Reuters: UAE pipeline to flow first oil in December -sources
Abu Dhabi government-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) is undertaking the project while China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor (EPC)…
The pipeline will carry Murban crude, another source said, therefore the initial operation of the pipeline will be undertaken by Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO)…
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) holds a 60 percent stake in ADCO. Its other shareholders are BP, Royal Dutch Shell , Total, ExxonMobil and Partex Oil and Gas (Portugal).
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/21/uae-pipeline-hormuz-idUSL5E7ML08220111121
enough of the war-mongering. how easy it would be to blow up that pipeline.
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14 Jan: Real-Science: Steven Goddard: Climate Sensitivity – Zero
Satellites have been monitoring the Earth’s temperature for 30 years. For the first fifteen years, temperatures were rising. For the last 15 years, temperatures have been steady, while CO2 emissions have gone through the roof.
(GRAPH)
COMMENT by Gator:
At the very least, the models have been thoroughly trashed…
“According to the NOAA State of the Climate 2008 report, climate computer model simulations show that if observations find that the globe has not warmed for periods of 15 years or more, the climate models predicting man-made warming from CO2 will be falsified at a confidence level of 95%:”…ETC
http://www.real-science.com/climate-sensitivity
NOAA: State of the Climate in 2008
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2008.php
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13 Jan: Euractiv: US Republicans stir transatlantic tensions over climate change
Concerns are growing in Brussels that persistent denial of human-caused global warming among Republican presidential hopefuls could damage EU-US relations and even spark a trade conflict.
All the leading challengers for the White House have staked out positions on global warming that defy the international scientific consensus, causing what Thomas Legge, a climate officer for the German Marshall Fund, called “exasperation” in Brussels.
Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said in September she was “shocked that the political debate in the US is so far away from the scientific facts.”…
If a Republican president disrupted the EU’s inclusion of aviation in the EU’s Emissions Trading System, or its default values ascribed to oil from tar sands, Jo Leinen, the chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee, called for “a reaction that would affect transatlantic trade.”
“In order to have a fair competition between our industries and theirs, we could talk about broader measures against materials from the US with high energy intensity or output of climate gases like steel, metals, and chemical products,” he told EurActiv.
This could take the form of “a CO2 levy or tax on the border to compensate for the [low carbon] investments in products made in Europe,” he said.
Rather than continue with current EU-US relations, Leinen proposed a move by the EU to “orient itself towards a coalition with China.”
But Sarah Ludford, the Liberal vice-chair of the EU’s delegation for relations with the United States, disagreed with trade sanctions, while conceding that Republican positions were “a long way from the mainstream of European thinking”….
***Republican brainchild
Ironically, the ‘cap and trade’ idea that underwrites the global carbon market was originally the brainchild of US Republicans. But this changed because of what one senior US climate negotiator at Kyoto described as a collection of “toxic” ingredients.
“There are three issues – constraining industry, sending money abroad, and strengthening the UN – that are inflammatory on their own right,” Nigel Purvis, a State Department official under the Clinton and Bush administrations, said on the phone from Washington.
More than that, the climate change issue had become a symbol of ‘big government’ for Republicans, Purvis argued, and this had been amplified by “an enormous amount of campaign finance contributions and political advertising” paid for by the fossil fuel industry, and some trades-unions****…
http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/us-republicans-stir-transatlantic-tensions-climate-change-news-510124
****and why aren’t our trade unions fighting all this job-destroying CO2 regulation???
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I see that the Pine Island glacier in Antarctica has thinned by 230 feet and increased speed by more than 70% since 1974. According to the British Antarctic Survey, the massive glacier is being undermined from warm deep ocean water and has a net ice loss balance of 46 gigatonnes per year. That’s a lot of ice and a worrying consequence of climate change. Yet another reason to wonder how falling global temperature can accelerate ice loss from the poles.
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Not really.
Put it in perspective.
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Well KK if that amount of melt equates to 0.13 mm per year global sea level rise from one glacier alone then you’d have to be concerned if global temperatures starts to rise again. Multiply that by the number of large glaciers around Antarctica and Greenland then surely that would be a worrying amount of sea level rise on top of the already 3mm/year we have now. Maybe big Al G was right after all?
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Ha Ha
Get a degree.
There is a 2 metres rate of EVAPORATION from oceans.
A lot of that finds its way to the poles.
Some of it amazingly, is precipitated as ice/ snow/ rain on the caps.
If this didn’t happen, the weight of ice at the cap would be insufficient to push the ice off the end of the run and you would be SO disappointed.
Stick to AlGore and believe.
If you start looking for the truth you may become disturbed and unable to cope.
It’s easier just to believe. We will understand.
It’s not easy being a scientist.
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Hey Tony I’ve been thinking about your airconditioner argument (I think they are yours) about how the most efficient way to run aircon is to keep it on all day, as then it only has to do regular small amounts of work, versus turning it on when it is hot, leaving the aircon to do massive amounts of work.
It doesn’t sit well with me (I hope it was you who said it). I agree it would assist a network cope at peak periods as the cooling task is spread across off peak hours not just at the peak, however on balance it still takes more energy over the day, as the cool room in the day would recieve more heat due to temp gradients, leaving the aircon to do more total work. Wheras a room would otherwise reach equilibrium with outside and recieve no more heat, until you turn the aircon on of course. It seems to me that a cool room would at all hours of the day maximise the flow of heat in to the room for the aircon to remove.
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MattB,
fair question, and again, you’re coming at the situation from a thought process that not many people consider.
People think of air conditioning as cooling per se, because they think of it mainly from the personal household level, and that the room is being cooled.
That is the impression but what is really happening is that heat is being removed, and people will read that and think ‘semantics’, but it is in fact what the process actually is.
Thinking of it also at that personal residential level also gives a false impression on what is happening inside huge structures, every high rise, shopping centres hospitals etc. In that application, air conditioning is not cooling per se, or even heating. It just feels that way because the outside is either hot or cold, so the inside fells the opposite. In those larger applications, those ‘units’ on the roof are supplying conditioned breathing air into the structure as its only air supply. It is just constantly set at the one temperature.
Now in the residential application, people invariably use the units incorrectly on a number of fronts.
The unit must be specifically selected to ‘handle’ the volume of air it is to ‘condition’, and people buy units only wrt their wallet capability, and not the volume of the space to have the heat removed from, and invariable purchase units that are (sometimes way) too small for the volume they have to handle, hence the compressor must work flat out if the unit is of the incorrect (small) size.
It also helps to have your house insulated as well.
Then we have the case of people turning them on only when the heat becomes almost unbearable, and because of that, the largest consumer of electricity, the large electric motor that drives the compressor is working flat out trying to get the temperature down to the level you set, and depending upon the volume/unit size then that compressor might be running for hours, if it ever gets the temperature down to your setting.
Once that setting is reached, then the unit cycles around your temp (the low setting) and the automatically set upper temp. (set by a number of degrees higher than your setting, no matter what that is)
So wait till it’s too hot, and the compressor may have to work for hours and hours.
Turn the unit on in the cool of morning when the ambient is almost closer to your setting and the compressor runs in small increments throughout the day, and this is (substantially) less time than waiting until its too hot.
Have the louvres set high so the air blows out at almost roof level. It sinks, displacing the warmer air upwards and the fan in the unit sucks this outside.
You also need to close all doors and all windows. Anything open, and your unit is effectively trying to air condition Australia as a whole.
You should also close all blinds and curtains, and keep the room closed off to the outside heat which will always try to heat up the inside, hence making the unit’s compressor also work more often.
So, in fact, the ‘correct’ use of air conditioning entails an education process that nine out of ten people assume that they just know already.
Now, the real problem lies in the average residence has family members working, and when they get home from work to a hot house, (too late by then) they all turn on their conditioners, hence the spike in ‘Peak Power’ consumption.
However, the main consideration above all is the initial one, the volume to have the heat removed from it.
This is why perhaps the most efficient of all air conditioning is ducted air conditioning, and again, here, cost becomes the most important factor.
While the initial cost may be high, it eventually works out cheaper, because it has been specifically designed for the volume it is conditioning.
Get an incorrect unit, and while it is considerably cheaper, the resultant increase in your (household) electricity account will be considerably greater over lifetime usage.
As with everything, you need to be informed about something you might ‘assume’ you understand.
Tony.
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Tony, I once swam past the cooling water discharge from a ship’s refrigeration condenser, and I can assure you it was a hell of a lot hotter than the water I was swimming in. Ever since then I have thought of air conditioning as literally ‘pumping the heat over the side’.
Another point wrt your comments about taking hours to bring the temperature down to an acceptable level; depending on the materials used to build your hacienda, there is an awful lot of heat stored there. In Fiji, for example, many houses are constructed with concrete blocks and their floors are also made of concrete, thus all of that stored heat has to radiate into the air inside the house and thence be ‘pumped over the side’. If the house is kept cool, the cool concrete acts as a governor – smoothing out the spikes when someone leaves a door open, for example, and reducing the load on the compressor motor.
Just my two cent’s worth. I wish I had your ability to communicate things technical.
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There are a number of difficulties presented when sizing (and operating) heating or cooling equipment. Depending also on how much your local temperature swings. Most operate at maximum efficiency at near full output. If you live where the warm season holds at 85F (as in Hawaii) then it is easier to design AC. If you live in interior Alaska you need a heating plant that can supply say 200,000 BTU to keep from freezing when it is -40F which means in the spring when it is 32F that same plant will be running far from full output and therefore substantially less efficient.
AC units also have efficiency issues so you could size the unit to hold your comfort temperature while running nearly all the time, during the hottest days. Of course lots of people don’t run them that way. To (try to) conserve energy, they shut them off when they are at work. This means that they will have to be over sized to begin with and therefore run inefficiently once the space is cool. No salesman will sell an undersized unit because the customer will complain. Installers often use size guide sheets based on square footage of the space only. This means the manufacturer has probably “rounded up” the sizes too. Air cooled units are usually rated for (and designed around) a 95F outside air temp. Anything above that in actual temp. when you run the system, will result in lower efficiency. AC on average is considered to be 60% efficient by electric utilities.
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I totally agree with Tony. My wife, for instance, has a mental block about the AC in the car. She can’t grok the idea is to try to maintain a temperature equilibrium. Not too hot, not too cool, but just riiiiight. You know, just like parliament’s plan to control the Earth’s climate, only not totally insane. As result, she turns the AC on full blast and then when she get cold turns it off. Then when the car gets hot again, she turns the AC on high until she’s cold. Then off.
She thinks this saves energy.
Reminds me of a driver I once had in Pakistan. The moon was full so he didn’t want to use his headlights on a dangerously winding mountain road because he wanted to save his battery.
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Is this possibly the energy system Louis was referring to earlier in this thread?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxeKeuh_2Bw&feature=player_embedded
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Thanks for the link, Janama! This might well be one of the big debate of 2012. Jo will have to do some homework on it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2011/12/31/2012-the-year-of-cold-fusion/
Cold fusion is very, very interesting especially in light of the climate debate for which it has so many relationships with, including the fact that thus far it appears the science is NOT being conducted in a transparent manner subject to testing by third parties but instead with a propaganda campaign.
Where have we seen this kind of thing before?
Of course, in the case of Cold Fusion there are unbelievable commercial stakes in the game, so you might expect the science to be conducted secretly.
If only half the claims for Cold Fusion are true then the results for our economy are mind-boggling. But not catastrophic. On the contrary, it means that every one on planet Earth can enjoy an even higher standard of living then we in the richest nations take for granted today. It will mean, once again, the Greens and the Club of Rome are wrong in their grim Malthusian forecasts. There is enough of everything to go around. The ecology and economy of planet Earth is not a zero-sum game.
Perhaps, cold fusion debate will be one of those issues which will help identify those in the climate skeptic camp whose sense of reality isn’t informed as much by the rules of rational inquiry as some pretend?
For now, pencil me as very skeptical of claims for Cold Fusion. But ever hopeful.
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Oh, sorry, Janama. Two minutes more on google and we find the NASA video you linked to has already been debunked by the very scientist who appeared in the video. WTF?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2012/01/16/cold-fusion-nasa-says-nothing-useful/
Note the remarkable parallels between the cold fusion and climate debates.
I guess it’s not so surprising that the same organisation which sells CAGW fear hawks LENR near beer.
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Bjorn Lomborg reminds us today why climate talkfests like Durban and Copenhagen fail despite all the spin (linked story). The crux of the article is “We will never reduce emissions significantly until we manage to make green energy cheaper than fossil fuels”. The alarmists’ true socialist intentions are betrayed by their failure to be honest with the public regarding the true cost of renewables once all the subsidies are stripped away.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/durban-victory-rings-hollow/story-e6frgd0x-1226244844260
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDKSkBrI-TM have you seen this?
Professor Ian Clark testifies at the Canadian Senate Hearing – December 15, 2011.
Dr. Clark’s prepared statement, including slides shown, before the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, The Environment, and Natural Resources. Uploaded by International Climate Science Coalition, http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/ .
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Excellent resume of Earth’s climate and how it has operated in different epochs and how CO2 has never, never acted as a significant driver of climate in all that Earth history.
Pity our Ian Clark’s haven’t got the ear of this scientifically illiterate federal government as well as those equally ignorant of how the climate functions on the opposition benches. Like Turnbull and Hunt.
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Yeah, put it up here a couple of weeks ago.
What I find most encouraging is Canada announced they were pulling out of Kyoto two days before the hearing. The Senate Hearing justified their wise decision.
My mission this year is to lobby the Libs to also pull out of Kyoto as it was never their policy to sign up to the madness.
Llew, Turnbull is a lost cause but the other person you mention? Interesting developments behind the closed door over the last six months. I’ll leave it at that.
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Only 165 days until Obama’s carbon trading scheme is activated in Australia, exactly on the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit in which Maurice Strong openly declared carbon taxes would be needed for the environment and development goals of the UNFCCC.
And who can forget our old pal Anthony Albanese last year doing a mock trial of the all-new “modest” full body scanner at the airport. Word is, he was only too happy to breeze through the full body scanner after being assured that the new version would not reveal any embarrassing pre-election promises. 🙂
Anyone who thinks this device doesn’t internally record exactly the same see-through-clothes video that previous Rapiscan backscatter devices recorded is just naive. But hey. don’t worry, on the public facing display now one politician’s BS smells the same as any other politician’s BS.
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This pro man made climate change site has an interesting article –
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/16/1055316/-Texas-Mandates-Climate-Denial-in-School?via=tag
Mon Jan 16, 2012 at 01:12 PM PST.
Texas Mandates Climate Denial in School, by barathFollow .
Just when you thought climate denial hadn’t already pervaded every arena of public and private life…
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position.
.
The LA Times story has more:
Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.
…
NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum.
The controversy around “climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago,” said Eugenie Scott, executive director of NCSE.
At that time, evolution — the long-tested scientific theory that varieties of life forms emerged through biological processes like natural selection and mutation — was patchily taught. Teaching standards have been developed since then, but it’s unclear how widely evolution is taught, given teachers’ fear of controversy.
Studies show that teachers often set aside evolution for fear of a backlash. Scott worries this could happen with climate science too.
“The question is self-censorship and intimidation. What you have to watch for is the ‘hecklers’ veto,’ ” she said. “If a teacher ignores a particular topic, it will likely go unnoticed.”
One thing I’ve noticed is that a small minority of voices, when well positioned, can stymie the voices of reason. Conservative ideologues have been filling the school boards, city councils, etc. for too long—it’s a stealth campaign that’s been going on for years now, and it’s working. They’re changing the curriculum in schools, funding priorities in cities away from public institutions and public services (say, public transit), etc.
There’s two direct responses (and many more indirect responses) to this sort of action:
1. Run for elected office. Yeah, it’s crazy, but why not? I’m talking about starting small: school board, city committees, city council, maybe even mayor.
2. Talk about climate change. Talk about energy problems. They’re counting on the silence of the 63% of Americans who know the planet is warming.
This latter point bears some repeating. Denialists of basic, established science like evolution and climate change are counting on us to not speak up. They’re looking to muddy the waters, to make the issue seem taboo, without consensus or merit. Everyone knows the old argument—we don’t “teach both sides” of the theory of gravity.
There was a good piece at Climate Pirate making the case that speaking up is the most important step:
Let’s circle back to Climate Change. Many are worried about it, as well we should be. But we’re also too quiet. Nearly all of the non-experts I know who care about Climate Change avoid it for fear of feather-ruffling. Even many experts keep quiet.
A key point is that those who want action on Climate Change outnumber those who don’t, and it has been so for years. This means the pro-action side can dominate if we choose. We have only to raise our voices.
So the most important thing each of us, as individuals, can do is speak up and convince others to as well. This goes especially for everyday folks who aren’t already considered partisans. Everyone expects Al Gore to talk Climate Change, so that’s nothing new, but if someone who’s never spoken up before suddenly starts, ears will perk.
Beware: others will try to discourage you, often with good intentions. I recently listened to a marketing pro tell a sustainability group to avoid mentioning Climate Change because it’s too divisive. It’s common marketing advice and it’s wrong. Creating change isn’t like selling widgets. The obstacles to success are different. Pepsi lovers don’t feel pressure to avoid talking about or drinking Pepsi in the presence of Coke drinkers, for example. Marketing pros aren’t aware of the silence problem so they give bad advice.
The silence problem can only be fixed through exposure. Every time I speak plainly, a listener feels freer to follow suit. Our silence allows deniers to advertise their beliefs and implies to the undecided that there’s no problem.”
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Kevin, wake up and engage you brain and think for your self.
“The LA Times story has more:
Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.
Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.”
I’m a science teacher, that’s what I teach, be skeptical, ask questions, new discoveries often prove that the majority are wrong. As for CO2 driving climate the science is in it only has a minor effect and follows warming. CO2 is not pollution its plant food within reason more is better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDKSkBrI-TM Professor Ian Clark testifies at the Canadian Senate Hearing – December 15, 2011 explains the current understanding of CO2.
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Perhaps I should not have pasted the whole article – I had a feeling it would be misconstrued that I am sympathetic to the article as a whole.
Anyhow –
You miss the point. I posted the article as a matter of interest.Could you imagine Julia allowing the teaching of climate change denial in her revolutionary curriculum?
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COlin you don’t really teach that about climate change do you? I guess the old saying is true… those that can do, those that can’t…
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Has anybody had a close look at their latest electricity bill?
No, not the bill itself, but the actual envelope that the bill comes in.
Mine is from Ergon, and there, proudly written under the address window is the following, in green no less.
I’m happy now. At least all the bases are covered.
Tony.
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I don’t get electricity bills, only invoices for whale oil which primes my mining truck tyre fire pit generator.
Oh wait, they are printed on whale skin so no tree was killed. I can sleep well tonight knowing that I’m doing my bit for the environment.
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“Julia allowing the teaching of climate change denial in her revolutionary curriculum?”
The http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Science/Rationale allows and encourages correct science and being skeptical. It depends on how it it taught.
In schools the problem comes from the non core areas such as geography where much environmental propaganda and false information is been pushed in emotionally manipulative ways to young trusting minds. Many teachers in this field have a poor understanding of the science and use the “Appeal to Authority” fallacious argument to justify there stance.
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Long live Death!
a.n.ditchfield
On the eve of the Spanish Civil War, “Viva la muerte!” was the paradox shouted by fascist thugs who disrupted an appeal for peace at the University of Salamanca. They also chanted “Muera la inteligencia!”, a confession of the state of their minds. In spite of the unsavory origin, the death-wish of Viva la Muerte! has crept in as policy and behavior of Western societies.
Perpetuation of the species is the primordial urge that drives all living beings. Existence is a theme central to religious beliefs that hold that the purpose of adult men and women is to bring to life and rear the next generation. A countervailing force set in the 1970s. The liberalization of Western economies unleashed market forces which encouraged women to work, at a time when contraception and abortion gave them control over their own fertility. Given the erosion of religious values among secularized city dwellers, the average Western couple began to have fewer than 2 children; by 1999 the figure was 1.3. This far from what existed in 1900: buoyed by the Industrial Revolution, populations of European Union countries accounted for 14% of world population even while sending a large flow of immigrants to populate the New World. It is now 6% and trends to 4%. Europeans are bound to extinction by their own hands; fewer mouths to feed, but also fewer hands and brains to produce and breed. The median age of Greeks, Italians and Spaniards is projected to exceed 50 years by 2050 – this means that one in three people in these countries will be 65 years old or older. A tax burden of 75% on the income of adults in working years would then be needed, mainly for entitlements of the elderly. Retirement and subsidized health services will come to an end, be it for lack of people. Greece, Italy and Spain are now at the center of a Eurozone crisis because a Viva la muerte! culture is closing a full [ circle. Worse lies in store for the Chinese, with their one child per couple policy.
The vilification of mankind saw its beginnings more than two centuries ago, after Benjamin Franklin, resident in England, spoke about the American population growing at a rate of 3% a year. The number captured the mind of a Cambridge student, Thomas Malthus, a divinity student and also a mathematician. With compound interest arithmetic, he reckoned that population would double every 23.5 years; hence population size in successive periods would be proportional to the series: 1;2;4;8,16,32,64,128…. After seven generations, 128 persons would demand the food available for one person; unsustainable, since the land available for food production is fixed. Malthus concluded that universal penury would be the lot of future generations. Nature would restore the balance catastrophically, with famine, war and disease, unless public policy checked the trend to overcrowding. The Malthus book, An Essay on the Principle of Population attracted attention in the first decades of the 19th century, but interest waned when its predictions were discredited. Initially in Europe and North America, the Industrial Revolution brought growing prosperity to sustain an unprecedented population expansion, with healthy and well nourished people. The book underestimated the role of technology in expanding farm productivity and in shipping farm produce.
Contradicted by facts, Malthusian thought remained dormant until the 1960’s. At that time, the huge advances in medical science, the advent of antibiotics and the control of disease with better sanitation, combined to bring about a worldwide drop in mortality rates while birth rates remained the customary ones, needed to offset the early deaths of previous times. The unusual surge in world population growth in the middle of the 20th century ushered in a spate of alarmist books that made Malthusianism fashionable again. Population Bomb, of Paul Erlich, carried predictions of hundreds of million deaths by famine in Asia, and even the rise of mortality rates in America, in the 1980s, as the result of undernourishment. The pessimistic outlook was magnified by predictions of another influential book, Limits to Growth, of which 12 million copies were distributed. Its message is that a limited planet cannot support unlimited growth. It introduced the concept of a fixed stock of non-renewable resources depleted at an alarming rate, in an analogy with Malthus’ concept of limited availability of land.
The pessimists have three assumptions they accept with an act of faith:
• • We are running out of space. The world population is already excessive for a limited planet, and grows at exponential rates, with effects that will be disastrous.
• • We are running out of resources. Non-renewable resources of the planet are being depleted by ever increasing consumption, at a rate that renders further expansion of a global economy unsustainable.
• • We are running out of time, as tipping points are reached making vicious climate change irreversible. The carbon dioxide emitted by human activity brings global warming that will soon render the planet uninhabitable.
Many accept the three assumptions because Prince Charles believes, the Main Stream Media journalists believe, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes, the scientists believe it is so. The daisy chain of acts of faith is too long to hold. Belief has no place in dealing with measurable physical phenomena. When issues are quantified, the contrast between true and false stands out clearly.
THERE IS PLENTY OF SPACE
Is overpopulation a serious problem? So it may seem to the city dweller of a congested metropolis living under local discomfort, but it is not something that can be generalized for the planet. The sum of U.S. urban areas amounts to 2% of the area of the country, and to 6% in densely populated countries like England or Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas. It is arguable that 7 billion people could live a comfortable urban life on 100 thousand square miles, the area of Wyoming, or less than 0.2% of a total terrestrial area of 148 million square kilometers. With about 99.8% of free space, the idea that the planet is overpopulated is an exaggeration. Demographic forecasts are uncertain, but the most accepted ones of the UN foresee stability of the global population to be reached in the 21st century. According to some, the world population will start to decrease at the end of this century; aging population is what emerges as the issue of concern. With so much available space it is untenable that the world population is excessive or has the possibility of becoming so.
RESOURCES ARE ADEQUATE
Although little is known of the content of the crust of the planet, the axiom is that, ultimately, a limited planet will not allow unlimited growth. It can also be counter-argued that, ultimately, that there are no non-renewable natural resources on a planet governed by the Law of Conservation of Mass, stated by Lavoisier in the 18th century. In popular form, it holds that “nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes.” Human consumption never subtracted one gram from the mass of the planet and, in theory, all material used can be recycled. The feasibility of doing so depends on the availability of low cost energy. When fusion energy becomes operational it will be available in virtually unlimited quantities. The source is deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen found in water in a proportion of 0.03%. A cubic kilometer of seawater contains more energy than would be obtained from combustion of all known oil reserves in the world. Since the oceans contain 1400 million cubic kilometers of water is safe to assume that energy will last longer than the human species. Potable water need not be a limitation, as is sometimes said; innovative nanotube membranes hold the promise of reducing energy costs of desalination to a tenth of current costs, which would make feasible the use of desalinated water for irrigation along the coast continents (750,000 km).
There is no growing shortage of resources signaled by rising prices. Since the mid-19th century, The Economist periodical, has kept consistent records of prices of commodities in real terms; they fell over a century and a half, with technological progress. The decline has been benign. The cost of feeding a human being was eight times higher in 1850 than it is today. Even in 1950, less than half of the world population of 2 billion had a proper diet of more than 2000 calories per day; today, 80% and have it, while the world’s population tripled.
No historical precedent backs the notion that human ingenuity is exhausted and that technology will henceforth remain stagnant at current levels. Two centuries ago, this idea led to the pessimistic Malthus prediction about the exhaustion of resources to feed a population thought to grow at exponential rates.
MANMADE GLOBAL WARMING IS UNCERTAIN
A scientific consensus is alleged on climate change issues, but the notion is unfounded. What is fair to say is that there is wide acceptance by European governments of ideas of a faction of climate researchers who believe that there is worrisome global warming, from carbon dioxide generated by human activity. Such researchers have downplayed uncertainties in a field rife with them, ultimately to their discredit.
There is no climate science with forecasting power comparable to that of astronomy and such power may never come into existence. Until recent times, no university offered a B.Sc. degree in climate science. Climate studies rely on a hundred fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, botany, zoology, paleontology, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics etc…Climate has a chaotic behavior, in the mathematical sense, and is thus subject to a high degree of uncertainty, which will not be diminished by advances in scientific knowledge.
In fields where science is uncertain, different hypotheses contend to explain relationships of cause and effect. If a hypothesis is hijacked by a commercial interest to support its claims, the debate slides from the academic to the political plane, in which all gimmicks of propaganda and public relations are fair. Debate becomes polarized in two political camps, each with its own agenda. In climate forecasts over a century, one camp appeals to the authority of climate research professionals in support of an anti-industrial policy, admitted as painful but necessary, the other camp claims lack of scientific basis for such a policy, qualified as suicidal. At each pole there are interests that have turned the alleged manmade global warming into a political and a journalistic phenomenon, not a scientific one.
Suspect from the start is the haste with which restrictive measures are promoted to curtail fuel use on the grounds that we are reaching tipping points. There are political circles that use this unverifiable hypothesis in support of a grab for power of bureaucrats, or as a pretext to tax fuels to give governments colossal revenues, or to favor one form of energy generation over others. They put in the dock an Industrial Revolution, which has over the last two centuries redeemed much of humanity from extreme want. However, one quarter of humanity still has no access to electricity and suffers from all the evils arising from it.
It is fair to apply to the matter a maxim of Roman law, In dubio pro reu, which states that where there is doubt, justice should benefit the accused: an Industrial Revolution, propelled by growing and cheaper energy. The stance expresses the rigor of true science, skeptical of unproven links of cause and effect.
There are valid arguments to question the existence of a link between increased manmade carbon dioxide and global warming. Contrary to the expectation raised by computer models, there has been constancy or decline in temperature since 1995, after the temperature rise for the two previous decades that triggered environmental alarm. This shows that there are natural forces shaping the climate, of magnitude greater than the effect of carbon dioxide, whatever its origin. These include cyclical swings in ocean currents and temperatures, sunspot activity and the effect on cosmic rays of the sun’s magnetic activity. These natural cycles are still partially understood, and their weight compared to the effect of manmade carbon dioxide is debatable. However, mankind can do nothing for or against natural forces of this magnitude. Sensible public measures are welcome to mitigate effects of climate change, if and when they occur and whatever the cause.
The allegation of misconduct in what became known as Climategate led to questioning the veracity of UN-IPCC studies contributed by professionals clearly wedded to political agendas. The claim of consensus of professionals is wrong. The refrain of propagandists of doom has been: The debate is over; the science is settled. This runs counter to science. In the scientific mind there is no place for Magister dixit, a Byzantine reference to Aristotle as final authority, because the master says so. This argument merits retort with the Royal Society’s motto, Nullius in verba, according to which science rejects the word of authority above proof backed by verifiable experimental evidence and logical reasoning.
Lacking support in solid theory and empirical evidence, the mathematical models underpinning the UN-IPCC predictions are speculative thought that reflects assumptions fed into models to support interests of sponsors. These computer simulations provide no rational basis for public policies that inhibit economic activity “to save the planet.” And carbon dioxide is not toxic or a pollutant. It is a plant nutrient in the photosynthesis that sustains the food chain of all living beings on the planet.
RECKLESS ALLEGATIONS OF ZEALOTS
In support of the manmade global warming speculation the stories of coming disaster are reported in strident tones, typical of the propaganda of totalitarian regimes that once incited masses duped by demagogues. Their tactics were described by H. L. Mencken:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Anything that happens on earth is quickly attributed to global warming: influenza pandemics; an earthquake in the Himalayas; the volcanic eruption in Iceland; the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean; tribal wars in Africa; heat wave in Paris; plague of snails on the tiny Isle of Wight. In Australia: wildfires, dust storms in the dry season and floods in rainy season. In North America: recent severe winters, the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota, the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico; Evo Morales blames Americans for summer floods in Bolivia. Hugo Chaves speculated that capitalism may have killed an advanced civilization on Mars. Fidel Castro says earthquakes are induced by the current US boom in gas production. With friends like these do Green causes need enemies?
THE GREEN POLITICAL AGENDA
In the view of Professor Aaron Wildavsky global warming is the mother of all environmental scares. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.” The fantasy of ageing hippies come true.
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Thank you so much, Mr Ditchfield, for your eloquent and succinct precis of the CAGW meme and it’s broader historical context, where dozens of my own rambling dissertations have possibly failed. As you have summarised above, the advent of this psychopathology has threatened the very viability of our species with misguided and regressive dogma aimed to detract from the progress of civilisation, seeking to drag us back to a society of superstition, fear-mongering and social conformity where ingenuity and invention are thwarted at every turn. I believe fear of technology (and therefore the unknown, limitless capacities of man) and a self-abnegating, pathological hatred of mankind are the prime motivators of this philosophy, and should be fought tooth and claw to the death if necessary as a result.
Kindest regards,
Winston
00
Nice optimism. But your quasi-religious argument ignores the limits of arable land and mainly hinges on technology. It’s nice that sometimes wishes come true, but it doesn’t change the fact your optimism is based on wishful thinking.
No doubt technology will not stand still, but hope is not a plan and technology doesn’t imply life will be good.
Africa physically has access to the same technology we do, but there a Malthusian catastrophe happens nearly every year. Occasional corruption and exploitation are less of an issue than insufficient rainfall for their population.
You would have to show how developments of the last fifty years have been anything more than a delaying tactic. You would also have to explain why Malthus and Erlich were wrong when the UN member nations believed in Mathusianism so strongly they spent trillions on development programmes trying to prevent a Malthusian correction – and have failed to prevent it in Africa.
If you somehow get past those two hurdles, the third one will still be impossible. You’d have to argue how a majority of the problems we face in society, democracy, economics, morality, or technology, would be easier to solve if there were 2 billion more people added to the problem.
00
Rubbish, Andrew
Africa as a continent is every bit as naturally gifted and rich in raw materials as Australia, if not more so. The only reason it remains a Malthusian nightmare is geopolitical, not resource based. Given a democratic system of government across the continent and an elimination of warfare, proper medical care and disease prevention and land management, Africa has enough resources to feed not only every one of it’s members, but the rest of the world as well. Interference rather than mentoring by the west, including the UN, has prevented these people from attaining the self sufficiency they would otherwise have if they had the knowledge and management skills to take advantage of it. Australia is an example of what can be done in an arid continent with the right political landscape, knowledge and stability. Despotism and the vestiges of colonialism are to blame, not the climate. The fact that you believe what you state above shows exactly why the proteges of Malthus will only lead humanity down the road to ruin.
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Winston, that is a cluster of well-intentioned motherhood statements but not an argument.
First you feel the need to point out Africa’s bountiful resources, as though a bar of gold for everybody will put food on the table. Then in stating that it’s mainly politics and foreign meddling that is holding them back you don’t explain how 66 million Ethiopians will buy food from countries that have surplus using money from an Ethiopian economy they don’t have, or why any Ethiopians starve in the first place if they are surrounded by bountiful resources and have survived in that environment for millennia (hint, they never had as many people as today). Then you advocate communism by implying that only strong government can solve the problem, ignoring the microloans and western technology already available to the better-educated Africans who are certainly not short of entrepreneurial spirit. It was all a mishmash of emotive responses that don’t address the fundamental point that I was trying to make.
I am not saying that improvements towards prosperity aren’t occuring, nor that politics is never the issue, as can be seen by comparing the statistics of Ethiopia and South Africa. South Africa on paper was going fine in life expectancy until a major (and good) domestic political restructuring in 1989..1993 ejected a large portion of the incumbent capitalists and set life expectancy plummeting despite no change in national average income and no change in natural resources. One can always cherry pick situations in which politics can be blamed. Not hitting the resource limit doesn’t prove there’s no resource limit and no population problem. An equilibrium solution ought to be a holistic approach.
The propositions in question are the first two bullet points that Ditchfield wrote. I attempted to advance an argument, based on the existence of a Malthusian catastrophe in Africa and the non-existence of the unlimited cheap power source required by Ditchfield’s argument, that the argument he presented is flawed and that maybe Malthus was right about something regardless of his predictions not occurring on schedule. So back on track then:
How have developments of the last fifty years been anything more than a delaying tactic, or in other words, is there any sustainable society anywhere in the world other than uncontacted Amazon tribes?
(For the purposes of this discussion “sustainable” means “likely to continue unchanged for 8000 years”.)
How are we making anything, in any dimension or philosophy, any better by having 9 billion consumers instead of 7? Considering that Armstrong’s moonwalk was achieved in a world population of 3,700 million and world energy consumption per capita peaked in the mid 1970s, can we not give some countenance to the idea that less is more?
Where is there today a commercially viable and operational fusion reactor? Should public policy be based on wishful thinking?
How does “Perpetuation of the species” justify population growth in a species not under threat?
How can an argument that tries to explain the reduction in Western birth rates as being due to “erosion of religious values” have any credibility whatsoever, especially when you already know that energy supply, technology level, politics, and the resulting shift away from manual labour and a reduction of child mortality together provide the real explanation?
Is a two-child policy permissible in your view as a fallback solution if an economic development solution has been tried first for 30 years and fails? (Not that it’s likely to fail since it’s succeeded everywhere else.)
How does an ability to apply simple arithmetic and identify a growing problem qualify one as being a protégé of Malthus particularly? If you can point to current news stories of a Malthusian catastrophe, does that make you a protégé of Malthus? How exactly will avoiding the awful consequences of demand exceeding supply ever “lead humanity down the road to ruin”? They sound like opposites.
You’ve already agreed Malthus was essentially correct because his eponymous catastrophe happened in Africa. You also prefer, as did Malthus, that better government policy (of some kind) could have prevented it. So who is talking nonsense here?
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From Wikipedia
Read “Poor Story” by Giles Bolton to find out more info re the political failings of the West in entrenching poverty in Africa (and the failings of globalisation, in particular), as well as the difficulties warfare and despotism have caused then tell me it’s all about climate.
Ethiopia is a cherry pick anyway as you well know- in the horn of Africa on the fringes of the Sahara- for better example, look at Uganda- when it was under colonial rule, it was the richest country in Africa- while not defending the colonialist powers, the systems and infrastructure they put in place made this a thriving economy, only lacking in the political will to distribute that wealth more evenly- the advent of Amin- same country, same resources- became one of Africa’s poorest -overnight as it were. Zimbabwe- ditto, The Congo- ditto.
These countries can be made to be much more functional if mentored by the West rather than exploited- population control will occur through education and better infrastructure. The Chinese are doing this know in West Africa and I suspect their influence will spread country by country- If their economy remains strong it will be a boon to Africa- it is a pity that the West doesn’t follow their example.
As to the climate in the horn of Africa – so, tell me it’s CO2 increase and global warming- http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/africa-drought.html- Mmmm, seems to have been alot drier at many times in the past, including the “non-existent” MWP which was, as we all “know”, a purely “localised” northern European issue and not global. yea, right!
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> “then tell me it’s all about climate.”
I never claimed that. It is an imbalance between population and *available* natural resources. You can’t change the climate.
> “As to the climate in the horn of Africa – so, tell me it’s CO2 increase and global warming”
I never claimed that. I didn’t even imply the merest shadow of that. Resorting to strawman arguments is a sign of delusion. You’ve decided you want to be angry at me and will use any excuse (real or imagined).
Having all the water concentrated in one place (mountain source of the Nile) does not make the rest of the land arable. Take away all the civil war and corruption and what happens next? Only technology and labour can bring that water to the rest of Ethiopia, and if they do that they have every other downstream nation to contend with. The water cannot be considered entirely theirs to do with as they please, and a water trading scheme is just institutionalised spite that makes other countries pay for something they always had for free. It is still lack of regional rainfall that makes the rest of Ethiopia’s harvest fail. If the warlords kiss and make up, the rain still won’t fall mainly on the plain!
> look at Uganda… Zimbabwe- ditto, The Congo- ditto.
I’ll confess to complete ignorance there. I’ll have to read about them. As a cautionary parting shot, I would still highlight that both population growth and a regime change happened there, so depending on how far apart the two causes are relative to the economic breakdown, it may be that politics alone does or does not mostly explain the poor outcome.
> These countries can be made to be much more functional if mentored by the West rather than exploited- population control will occur through education and better infrastructure.
So we have agreed generally on the solution.
00
House Kills SOPA
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/204167-sopa-shelved-…
http://www.slashgear.com/sopa-shelved-after-obama-announcement-16209449/
Among others.
(Cut many dead links) CTS
00
Killed? Ha! Then expect a Zombie.
SOPA is baaaack.
And it won’t end there.
00
Oh the latest peice of trash to hit the airwaves is that the omni potent force of CO2 can now make clown fish drunk.
Does the increase of CO2 from 0.0275% to 0.0390% have no bounds?
See Watts for more detail.
00
Could recent changes in the breeding habits of the Tufted Titmouse be linked to climate change? A recent study conducted by the science faculty at the University of Melbourne shows that a number of animals are adapting to changes in the global climate. The Tufted Titmouse in the study have greatly reduces the average length of it’s courtship dance. Scientists arent certain what the reason is but the leading hypothesis is that it is a survival mechanism to conserve energy in a warmer climate. In the past month scientists have found that lizards could become smarter and sharks are crossbreeding all as a result of carbon pollution. However scientists speculate that this is just the beginning. Over the next 50 or so years, as the temperature raises by up to 5 degrees celcius, scientists calculate that animals could become more aggressive and that even beloved tamed animals like dogs and cats may become hostile toward our children and our childrens children. There is also at least a 50% probability that we could see an increase in cross species copulation as animals evolve to the climate disruption…
00
What can I say other than this particular scientist fits the study on all counts.
00
The CRITICAL flaw in the “Greenhouse Gas” hypothesis….
Lots of attention has been given to the alleged “Greenhouse Effect” over the last few decades. It seems an elegant hypothesis that can explain almost every weather effect that occurs (i.e. droughts, floods, blizzards, warm spells, cold spells, more arctic ice, less arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, etc.)
However this hypothesis has a CRITICAL flaw.
Please allow me to me explain…
In any proper analysis of energy flow through a complex system it is necessary to stop occasionally to perform a “sanity check”, this indispensable tool is applied by engineering professionals to ascertain if our predictions/calculations still make sense in regard to the system we are analyzing/designing.
So let’s do a simple sanity check on the “Greenhouse Effect” (moving forward this will be abbreviated as the “GHE” for simplicity).
To quickly summarize the GHE;
1) Visible light (aka EMR radiation) is absorbed by the surface of the Earth
2) The warmed surface of the Earth emits Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) light
3) This LWIR is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere
4) These “warmed” gases emit energy back towards the surface of the Earth
5) And THEREFORE the “GHGs” cause the surface of the Earth to acquire a higher “equilibrium” temperature
I hope I have captured the essential essence of the GHE with this short summary. Of course, I fully expect some folks to disagree and inform me that I have misunderstood the GHE. So be it, we will deal with that at a future time.
To describe the flaw in the GHE we first need to conceptualize a convenient bundle of energy that we can follow through the Sun/Earth/Atmosphere/Universe system. This bundle of energy needs to be large enough so we can (largely) ignore effects that happen at the atomic level. Also the bundle needs to be small enough so we can track it in a “real time” fashion and determine what happens to the energy.
For the purposes of this discussion I propose we use 1 milliJoule of energy. This is 1 one-thousandth of a Joule. This should be just the right size for my purpose of demonstrating the flaw in the GHE hypothesis.
So let’s get to it, here is the sequence of events involved in the GHE;
1) A bundle (1 mJ) of energy in the form of mostly visible light arrives at a specific location on the Earth’s surface, courtesy of our friendly neighbor the Sun.
2) Some portion of the bundle is immediately reflected and departs at the speed of light in an opposing direction. I won’t bother to get into an interminable discussion of what the Albedo is since this proof does not require this knowledge. In fact it could be any number above zero and less than or equal to 1 without making any difference.
3) The remaining portion of the bundle is absorbed by the surface and converted to heat, this is the FIRST warming event (Warming Event #1) caused by our little bundle of energy. And if we know what material (sea water, soil, etc.) absorbs the bundle we can make a pretty good estimate of the temperature increase, but that calculation is not necessary.
4) Now, several things will happen to this bundle of thermal energy;
a) It can be conducted to locations below (or adjacent to) the surface which are
colder.
b) It can be conducted to a stationary gas molecule in contact with the surface.
c) It can be convected away by a moving gas molecule that happens to contact the
surface while travelling past.
d) It can be radiated as Infrared Radiation away from the surface.
It is important to note that in most cases all four of these events will happen in parallel (i.e. at the same time), so the actual Portion Radiated can vary from 0% to 100%.
5) No matter what happens in step 4, the surface cools (Cooling Event #1) by an amount which corresponds to the loss of of energy at that location. The amount radiated is somewhere between 0% and 100% (Albedo * Portion Radiated) leaving our radiated bundle at somewhere between 0 and 1 mJ. Again, if we wanted to calculate the temperature drop associated with the cooling we could use the thermal capacity of the material to make an estimate. It is important to note at this time that this absorption/remission process IS NOT instantaneous; it requires a finite amount of time (Time Delay #1) that is greater than zero.
6) The radiated energy (something between 0 and 1 mJ) now travels away from the surface at something close to the speed of light. Note that there are a few “flavors” of the speed of light depending on the material our little bundle is travelling through. The fastest flavor is when the light is travelling through a vacuum. When moving through the lower atmosphere the speed is slightly slower.
7) Our little bundle, speeding happily along and accelerating as the atmosphere gets less dense MAY be absorbed by a GHG. Whoops, that’s inopportune; it was hoping to get to Alpha Centuri before next Tuesday to watch the REAL Miss Universe show (ok a lame joke). The important thing to note is that a finite amount of time (Time Delay #2) has elapsed before the absorption occurs.
8- Once our bundle of energy is absorbed by the GHG it ceases to exist as IR light and is converted to heat (Warming Event #2). This is our little bundle’s second warming event within a few milliseconds, boy am I proud. Note that with any flavor of the speed of light our bundle can make it to the top of the atmosphere (TOA) in a few milliseconds at most.
9) Now, of course the same possibilities shown in step #4 may happen at the GHG molecule. Again all four of the possibilities can occur. To speed up this discussion we will assume that 100% of the energy is emitted as IR radiation. So the best case (or worst case if you still believe in the GHE) is that all of our 1 mJ has arrived at the GHG molecule and is going to be radiated away. A couple of important points need to be made here, first something less than 50% of our bundle can hope to head back towards the surface (as fixed by the geometry of a sphere). And secondly there is some finite time delay involved in the absorption/remission event (Time Delay #3).
10) Once the bundle of energy has been radiated by the GHG molecule the molecule will cool (Cooling Event #2) by an amount commensurate with the energy reradiated. And we could, if we wished, estimate the temperature drop, but it is immaterial.
11) Once again our little bundle is happily speeding along at the speed of light, but
slowing down this time as the atmosphere gets denser. Oh well, zipping along at any flavor of the speed of light still beats a Lamborghini. And of course our little bundle is now no more than half of the man (or woman) that it used to be.
12) Damn, we flew our bundle right down into the ground (after Time Delay #4); I hate it when that happens. But the good news is we now have GHE induced warming (Warming Event #3). We could again have the Albedo argument (in the IR portion of the spectrum this time), but it does not matter. The IR radiation has ceased to exist and is now heat. So this takes us full circle and we are back at step #3, EXCEPT, AND THIS IS A REALLY BIG EXCEPT STATEMENT, two subsequent warming and two subsequent cooling events with four time delays interspersed have also taken place in the meantime. TO SUM THE FIRST WARMING EVENT WITH THE THIRD WARMING EVENT (both of which happen at the Earth’s surface) CLEARLY VIOLATES THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. THE GHE DOES NOT AND CANNOT CAUSE ANY “HIGHER EQUILIBRIUM” TEMPERATURE TO EXIST AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH (or anyplace else for that matter).
13) You are free to expand this time series to describe the third, fourth, fifth, etc, etc. sequential warming/cooling events if you wish, but I am extremely proud of my little bundle at this point and do not see the need. It should be noted that as one bundle of energy is absorbed/reemitted multiple times the amount reaching the surface declines as follows, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125%, 1.5625%, 0.78125%, 0.390625%, 0.1953125%, 0.09765625%. So after as few as ten bounces (taking at maximum perhaps 40 milliseconds if the energy makes it all the way to the TOA) the energy is already less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the initial amount.
I know lots of folks will disparage this discussion. So I will suggest a few FAQs in advance;
1) Q: But, but, but… all the other proud energy bundle parents are sending theirs out to do the same thing, so surely the volume of little bundles will make the GHE occur.
A: NO, all of the little bundles are travelling in parallel and do not sum. If we cannot demonstrate how one bundle of energy can make the GHE real, then we cannot claim that the GHE exists when discussing a “higher equilibrium” temperature
2) Q: But, but, but… the time delays you suggest are so long that energy is left over at the end of each day, and this is really what the GHE is about.
A: NO, at the speed of light each bundle could make 10 round trips to TOA and back to the surface in less than about 40 milliseconds. For reference, each day contains about 86 million milliseconds. So no energy is left over at the end of each day. Besides if energy was left over the Earth would slowly heat up 1 little notch at the end of each day and would have melted a long time ago (ignoring for a moment the fact that as the surface warms the emission spectrum shifts to lower (i.e. more transparent) wavelengths).
3) Q: But, but, but… you assumed the wrong value for the Albedo, Lapse Rate, Amount of GHGs present, etc. etc. etc.
A: NO, this discussion is about the fact that sequential warming and cooling events occur with finite time delays (more than zero, but otherwise undefined) between each event and the events have finite (greater than zero and less than or equal to one) probabilities of occurrence and therefore CANNOT be summed to yield a “higher equilibrium” temperature.
4) Q: But, but, but… you have not presented any explanation about how the surface of the Earth reaches its average temperature without the GHE.
A: Agreed, I have not yet presented any theories about why the temperature of the Earth is what it is. So here I will;
First, I believe that the application of the S B equation (no dash, just first then last name) in conjunction with the Kickoff radiation equation have been performed incorrectly. Yes, I realize that’s a big deal because it’s written in all the climate science textbooks, so IT MUST BE SO. Well, if we never revised textbooks we would be in a bunch of hurt. Just because it is written down in a 20 year old book does not necessarily make it so. And a computer model that implements the assumptions of a hypothesis IS NOT a proof of the hypothesis, regardless of how fast the computer can collide numbers together.
Second, I suggest that the average temperature of the Earth is determined by the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans and the amount of energy already deposited there (by some undefined prior event(s)). Clearly, the Oceans do not respond to changes in the energy arriving at the surface on a time period of days, or even hundreds of years. A good analogy (as an electrical engineer I must mention this) would be the battery that you (likely) use to start your internal combustion car each day. It has a bunch of energy stored inside (provided by the manufacturer). Each day when you start your car you suck a whole bunch of energy out of it. Then you slowly recharge it (with the alternator) while you drive. So it always has a bunch of energy present, we are missing the fact that the manufacturer filled it up before you bought it. Just like the Ocean was already “charged up” before we invented the GHE.
5) Q: But, but, but… you are ignoring all the “evidence” of climate change, the shrinking glaciers, the floods, the droughts, the heat waves, etc. etc….
A: Two Words; CONFIRMATION BIAS. And unlike our current Vice President, I can in fact perform a simple task like counting the number of words in my statements.
6) Q: But, but, but… you are not a climate scientist that has peer reviewed publications, so we should not listen to you.
A: Yes, I am not a climate scientist with peer reviewed publications. This is in fact a situation I take some pride in. This discussion relies on a simple flow of logic. Read it at your own risk. Find the flaws. Point them out. Be skeptical.
In summary, the critical flaw in the GHE hypothesis is that the warming from GHGs happens sequentially AFTER a previous cooling event WITH an intervening time delay, THUS it cannot be added to the initial warming event. And therefore the GHE does not create “extra energy” or “net energy gains”.
Further these warming and subsequent cooling events happen so quickly that the GHE has nothing to do with the “equilibrium” temperature present at the surface of the Earth.
Further, the warming from the GHE dissipates so quickly that it cannot be reasonably expected to influence the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans in any way.
Cheers, Kevin.
00
KevinK,
Several questions:
1. htf many Kevins do we have here?
2. Can I copy this (with credit)?
3. Comments KR?
4. It is so simple it must be a trap?……
Nice line of reasoning kevin, thanks.
00
You’ll need to run that by me again, only slowly. (The bit about S B not “Kickoff”)
00
Whoops, that should be the KIRCHOFF radiation transfer equation, and the Stephan Boltzmann (S.B.) Equation, sorry, been spending too many hours arguing with the computer at work.
Also, everybody please share as widely as you want.
Cheers, Kevin (K), back here in the good old USA.
00
You still didn’t explain the “just first and last name” statement.
00
Dear Baa, some folks have made a BIG deal about calling the Stephan Boltzmann equation the S-B equation which implies that two people i.e. “S” and “B” came up with the equation. In fact it was proposed by one individual.
Cheers, Kevin.
00
Who was that individual?
00
Stephan Boltzmann
00
Oh brother
Ludwig Boltzmann:
Born: 20 Feb 1844 in Vienna, Austria
Died: 5 Oct 1906 in Duino (near Trieste), Austria (now Italy)
Josef Stefan: (Note spelling)
Born: 24 March 1835 in St Peter (near Klagenfurt), Austria
Died: 7 Jan 1893 in Vienna, Austria
Stefan was Boltzmanns teacher. Stefan came up with the theoretical, then experimental theory that total radiation from a blackbody is proportional to the 4th power of its absolute temperature.
After Stefan died, Boltzman vindicated Stefan by being able to show the above via a mathematical equation.
Hence….Stefan – Boltzmann or S-B Equation.
00
Dear Baa Humbug, thanks for the correction. It was late at night here when I responded. Of course you are correct.
Lest you think my little gaffe disqualifies the rest of my post you may want to read it again.
I do have master’s degrees in both Electronics (study of Maxwell’s equations) and Optical engineering where I do use the S-B equation all the time in radiometric calculations.
I have also prepared and reviewed energy flow budgets for Earth Imaging satellites were all of the operating energy comes from the Sun.
I stand by my energy flow analysis.
The GHE only causes some energy to bounce back and forth between the surface and the gases while quickly dissapating. No extra energy is present and the “warming” effect dissapates so quickly that it has NO effect on the average temperature of the Earth.
After decades of observations that are not matching the predictions perhaps wse should question the hypothesis ?
Cheers, Kevin.
10
Here is a revised version with spelling corrections regarding past scientist’s names. My apologies to Boltzmann and Kirchhoff;
The CRITICAL flaw in the “Greenhouse Gas” hypothesis….
Lots of attention has been given to the alleged “Greenhouse Effect” over the last few decades. It seems an elegant hypothesis that can explain almost every weather effect that occurs (i.e. droughts, floods, blizzards, warm spells, cold spells, more arctic ice, less arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, etc.)
However this hypothesis has a CRITICAL flaw.
Please allow me to me explain…
In any proper analysis of energy flow through a complex system it is necessary to stop occasionally to perform a “sanity check”, this indispensable tool is applied by engineering professionals to ascertain if our predictions/calculations still make sense in regard to the system we are analyzing/designing.
So let’s do a simple sanity check on the “Greenhouse Effect” (moving forward this will be abbreviated as the “GHE” for simplicity).
To quickly summarize the GHE;
1) Visible light (aka EMR radiation) is absorbed by the surface of the Earth
2) The warmed surface of the Earth emits Long Wave Infrared (LWIR) light
3) This LWIR is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere
4) These “warmed” gases emit energy back towards the surface of the Earth
5) And THEREFORE the “GHGs” cause the surface of the Earth to acquire a higher “equilibrium” temperature
I hope I have captured the essential essence of the GHE with this short summary. Of course, I fully expect some folks to disagree and inform me that I have misunderstood the GHE. So be it, we will deal with that at a future time.
To describe the flaw in the GHE we first need to conceptualize a convenient bundle of energy that we can follow through the Sun/Earth/Atmosphere/Universe system. This bundle of energy needs to be large enough so we can (largely) ignore effects that happen at the atomic level. Also the bundle needs to be small enough so we can track it in a “real time” fashion and determine what happens to the energy.
For the purposes of this discussion I propose we use 1 milliJoule of energy. This is 1 one-thousandth of a Joule. This should be just the right size for my purpose of demonstrating the flaw in the GHE hypothesis.
So let’s get to it, here is the sequence of events involved in the GHE;
1) A bundle (1 mJ) of energy in the form of mostly visible light arrives at a specific location on the Earth’s surface, courtesy of our friendly neighbor the Sun.
2) Some portion of the bundle is immediately reflected and departs at the speed of light in an opposing direction. I won’t bother to get into an interminable discussion of what the Albedo is since this proof does not require this knowledge. In fact it could be any number above zero and less than or equal to 1 without making any difference.
3) The remaining portion of the bundle is absorbed by the surface and converted to heat, this is the FIRST warming event (Warming Event #1) caused by our little bundle of energy. And if we know what material (sea water, soil, etc.) absorbs the bundle we can make a pretty good estimate of the temperature increase, but that calculation is not necessary.
4) Now, several things will happen to this bundle of thermal energy;
a) It can be conducted to locations below (or adjacent to) the surface which are colder.
b) It can be conducted to a stationary gas molecule in contact with the surface.
c) It can be convected away by a moving gas molecule that happens to contact the surface while travelling past.
d) It can be radiated as Infrared Radiation away from the surface.
It is important to note that in most cases all four of these events will happen in
parallel (i.e. at the same time), so the actual Portion Radiated can vary from 0% to 100%.
5) No matter what happens in step 4, the surface cools (Cooling Event #1) by an amount which corresponds to the loss of of energy at that location. The amount radiated is somewhere between 0% and 100% (Albedo * Portion Radiated) leaving our radiated bundle at somewhere between 0 and 1 mJ. Again, if we wanted to calculate the temperature drop associated with the cooling we could use the thermal capacity of the material to make an estimate. It is important to note at this time that this absorption/remission process IS NOT instantaneous; it requires a finite amount of time (Time Delay #1) that is greater than zero.
6) The radiated energy (something between 0 and 1 mJ) now travels away from the surface at something close to the speed of light. Note that there are a few “flavors” of the speed of light depending on the material our little bundle is travelling through. The fastest flavor is when the light is travelling through a vacuum. When moving through the lower atmosphere the speed is slightly slower.
7) Our little bundle, speeding happily along and accelerating as the atmosphere gets less dense MAY be absorbed by a GHG. Whoops, that’s inopportune; it was hoping to get to Alpha Centuri before next Tuesday to watch the REAL Miss Universe show (ok a lame joke). The important thing to note is that a finite amount of time (Time Delay #2) has elapsed before the absorption occurs.
8- Once our bundle of energy is absorbed by the GHG it ceases to exist as IR light and is converted to heat (Warming Event #2). This is our little bundle’s second warming event within a few milliseconds, boy am I proud. Note that with any flavor of the speed of light our bundle can make it to the top of the atmosphere (TOA) in a few milliseconds at most.
9) Now, of course the same possibilities shown in step #4 may happen at the GHG molecule. Again all four of the possibilities can occur. To speed up this discussion we will assume that 100% of the energy is emitted as IR radiation. So the best case (or worst case if you still believe in the GHE) is that all of our 1 mJ has arrived at the GHG molecule and is going to be radiated away. A couple of important points need to be made here, first something less than 50% of our bundle can hope to head back towards the surface (as fixed by the geometry of a sphere). And secondly there is some finite time delay involved in the absorption/remission event (Time Delay #3).
10) Once the bundle of energy has been radiated by the GHG molecule the molecule will cool (Cooling Event #2) by an amount commensurate with the energy reradiated. And we could, if we wished, estimate the temperature drop, but it is immaterial.
11) Once again our little bundle is happily speeding along at the speed of light, but slowing down this time as the atmosphere gets denser. Oh well, zipping along at any flavor of the speed of light still beats a Lamborghini. And of course our little bundle is now no more than half of the man (or woman) that it used to be.
12) Damn, we flew our bundle right down into the ground (after Time Delay #4); I hate it when that happens. But the good news is we now have GHE induced warming (Warming Event #3). We could again have the Albedo argument (in the IR portion of the spectrum this time), but it does not matter. The IR radiation has ceased to exist and is now heat. So this takes us full circle and we are back at step #3, EXCEPT, AND THIS IS A REALLY BIG EXCEPT STATEMENT, two subsequent warming and two subsequent cooling events with four time delays interspersed have also taken place in the meantime. TO SUM THE FIRST WARMING EVENT WITH THE THIRD WARMING EVENT (both of which happen at the Earth’s surface) CLEARLY VIOLATES THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. THE GHE DOES NOT AND CANNOT CAUSE ANY “HIGHER EQUILIBRIUM” TEMPERATURE TO EXIST AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH (or anyplace else for that matter).
13) You are free to expand this time series to describe the third, fourth, fifth, etc, etc. sequential warming/cooling events if you wish, but I am extremely proud of my little bundle at this point and do not see the need. It should be noted that as one bundle of energy is absorbed/reemitted multiple times the amount reaching the surface declines as follows, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125%, 1.5625%, 0.78125%, 0.390625%, 0.1953125%, 0.09765625%. So after as few as ten bounces (taking at maximum perhaps 40 milliseconds if the energy makes it all the way to the TOA) the energy is already less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the initial amount.
I know lots of folks will disparage this discussion. So I will suggest a few FAQs in advance;
1) Q: But, but, but… all the other proud energy bundle parents are sending theirs out to do the same thing, so surely the volume of little bundles will make the GHE occur.
A: NO, all of the little bundles are travelling in parallel and do not sum. If we cannot demonstrate how one bundle of energy can make the GHE real, then we cannot claim that the GHE exists when discussing a “higher equilibrium” temperature
2) Q: But, but, but… the time delays you suggest are so long that energy is left over at the end of each day, and this is really what the GHE is about.
A: NO, at the speed of light each bundle could make 10 round trips to TOA and back to the surface in less than about 40 milliseconds. For reference, each day contains about 86 million milliseconds. So no energy is left over at the end of each day. Besides if energy was left over the Earth would slowly heat up 1 little notch at the end of each day and would have melted a long time ago (ignoring for a moment the fact that as the surface warms the emission spectrum shifts to lower (i.e. more transparent) wavelengths).
3) Q: But, but, but… you assumed the wrong value for the Albedo, Lapse Rate, Amount of GHGs present, etc. etc. etc.
A: NO, this discussion is about the fact that sequential warming and cooling events occur with finite time delays (more than zero, but otherwise undefined) between each event and the events have finite (greater than zero and less than or equal to one) probabilities of occurrence and therefore CANNOT be summed to yield a “higher equilibrium” temperature.
4) Q: But, but, but… you have not presented any explanation about how the surface of the Earth reaches its average temperature without the GHE.
A: Agreed, I have not yet presented any theories about why the temperature of the Earth is what it is. So here I will;
First, I believe that the application of the Stephan Boltzmann equation (S B, no dash, just first then last name) in conjunction with the Kirchhoff radiative equilibrium equation have been performed incorrectly. Yes, I realize that’s a big deal because it’s written in all the climate science textbooks, so IT MUST BE SO. Well, if we never revised textbooks we would be in a bunch of hurt. Just because it is written down in a 20 year old book does not necessarily make it so. And a computer model that implements the assumptions of a hypothesis IS NOT a proof of the hypothesis, regardless of how fast the computer can collide numbers together.
Second, I suggest that the average temperature of the Earth is determined by the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans and the amount of energy already deposited there (by some undefined prior event(s)). Clearly, the Oceans do not respond to changes in the energy arriving at the surface on a time period of days, or even hundreds of years. A good analogy (as an electrical engineer I must mention this) would be the battery that you (likely) use to start your internal combustion car each day. It has a bunch of energy stored inside (provided by the manufacturer). Each day when you start your car you suck a whole bunch of energy out of it. Then you slowly recharge it (with the alternator) while you drive. So it always has a bunch of energy present, we are missing the fact that the manufacturer filled it up before you bought it. Just like the Ocean was already “charged up” before we invented the GHE.
5) Q: But, but, but… you are ignoring all the “evidence” of climate change, the shrinking glaciers, the floods, the droughts, the heat waves, etc. etc….
A: Two Words; CONFIRMATION BIAS. And unlike our current Vice President, I can in fact perform a simple task like counting the number of words in my statements.
6) Q: But, but, but… you are not a climate scientist that has peer reviewed publications, so we should not listen to you.
A: Yes, I am not a climate scientist with peer reviewed publications. This is in fact a situation I take some pride in. This discussion relies on a simple flow of logic. Read it at your own risk. Find the flaws. Point them out. Be skeptical.
In summary, the critical flaw in the GHE hypothesis is that the warming from GHGs happens sequentially AFTER a previous cooling event WITH an intervening time delay, THUS it cannot be added to the initial warming event. And therefore the GHE does not create “extra energy” or “net energy gains”.
Further, these warming and subsequent cooling events happen so quickly that the GHE has nothing to do with the “equilibrium” temperature present at the surface of the Earth.
Further, the warming from the GHE dissipates so quickly that it cannot be reasonably expected to influence the massive thermal capacity of the Oceans in any way.
Cheers, Kevin.
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Dear KevinK,
Firstly, and fundamentally, for your hypothesis to be scientific it cannot just be a statement of logic (no matter how ironclad) it must be connected to the real world by making a testable prediction about the result of an observation.
Step 7 may be the best place to make the hypothesis testable. You need to use your theory to predict whether CERN will discover that photons are heterosexual males XOR homosexual females.
But seriously, it seems bizarre that the world’s scientists have not noticed a deficiency in GHE as fundamental as a double-counting of energy (or a creation of energy). I think you have misunderstood the GHE (or else I have).
By intercepting the outgoing LWIR radiation very early in proceedings a small portion of your millijoule (maybe 50% of 70%) is being sent back to earth for more punishment, whereas with no GHGs it would have escaped to freedom. You did not address that point. The GHE shifts the concentration of energy slightly lower in the atmosphere, and if there is a generally higher energy density there must be a generally higher temperature. We’re just lowering the altitude of the Kirchoff equilibrium surface. A LoTD violation is not needed by GHE.
For what it’s worth, there has been decent evidence from Earthshine observations that the albedo of the earth decreased slightly in the late 20th century and, combined with the Svensmark theory, PDO, and Misckoski theory, there are plenty of effects that could explain the majority of late 20th century warming (and early 20th century warming and 21st century cooling!) without a greatly aggravated GHE.
Kind regards,
– Andrew.
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for some crazy reason the computer changes one of my bullets “8)” into a happy face, don’t know why, can’t seem to change it, so I just go with the flow. Maybe Jo can fix it ?
Yes this flow of logic doesseem way too simple, but I’ve thought it through several times, and I think it is solid.
Cheers, KevinK
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What about an apology to the other scientist?
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See post # 50.1.1
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Can this thread be used as a suggested first stop for anyone wanting to read this blog. Pure gold.
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