…
Turn on your lights from 8.30pm-9.30!
Remember all the fuss? What happened to Earth Hour 2013?
It’s that time-of-year for the hour of Green Darkness. But how times have changed. On Their-ABC, the only mention I can find is this: “Is Earth Hour dead?” The Age and The SMH pay lip-service to Earth Hour with an article in today. But there is nothing like the hype of previous years. The Guardian puts on the best spin, but concede Lomborg might be right. Even the Huff Po is telling us it’s a waste of time.
It appears Lomborg took the fun out of it by pointing out that Earth Hour was a waste-of-time token that produced more emissions than it saved.
Earth Hour teaches us that tackling global warming is easy,” Lomborg writes at Slate. “Yet, by switching off the lights, all we are doing is making it harder to see.”
How so? Well, for starters, Lomborg argues that more than a billion impoverished people around the world have no switch to flip, lacking the electricity that we take for granted. Earth Hour, he implies, demonizes a technology that has lifted great swaths of humanity from lives of great burden and toil — and which the globe’s poorest still so desperately want and need.
The Australian home of “Earth Hour” is still pretending it’s a big deal, but they’ve shifted the emphasis from one hour of darkness to pledges of support for renewable energy. (Hey, out of 22 million Australians apparently 6,012 have promised to “support” renewables! Since we all “support” renewables with our taxes and electricity bills, that means only 0.03% of Australians do it voluntarily.)
They’ve signed up John Hewson to support it, and he’s enthused, and thinks a few hot weeks has got something to do with you leaving the lights on. But this exchange tells you all you need to know about our priorities.
[SMH] Mr Hewson, meanwhile, said his decision last December to become a director of Larus Energy, a gas developer in Papua New Guinea, did not detract from his renewables push.
“Gas is better than coal,” he said.“Take a place like PNG, I’d rather be burning LNG than burning diesel.”
Barely 12 per cent of the country has access to electricity, Mr Hewson said, and even the capital Port Moresby is routinely cloaked in smog after regular black-outs force residents to use diesel generators. “Everything’s an improvement on that.”
I’ll be celebrating the Power Hour
From my Power Hour post last year:
Some of those fossil fuels have been waiting for 100 million years to return to the sky.
Things you can do at 8.30 on Saturday:
- Turn on all the lights you can find (bonus points for incandescents from the stash.)
- Put on the party lights, the patio light, the pool light, the mozzie zappers, unpack those Christmas decorations. Get out your torches. Switch the movement detector spotlights to continuous operation. (Involve the kids — they love to help).
- Light your backyard with the landcruiser headlights! (Don’t flatten the battery, make sure you keep that engine running.)
- Don’t forget those bar radiators — revel in that infra red! (Light the kitchen with the ones in the oven and grill.)
- Eat Argentinian Lamb steak, Danish butter, Argentinian Cheese, Belgian Chocolate, and Californian Oranges.
- Drink German Beer and or French Champagne. Drink toasts to coal miners, oil rig workers, and power station staff.
In the hundred thousand years since homo sapiens came to be, people have fled bondage, wars, small-pox, dysentery, died from minor scratches, starved to death, been ravaged by lions, stricken by cholera, and survived ninety thousand year stretches of abysmal ice age. We lived in the darkness for 99,900 years, cowering in corners, listening to drips, waiting for the sun.
There is only one type of Freedom – and all else is servitude, slavery or tyranny.
It’s your chance to show your commitment to fighting the forces of darkness.
I am helping, just checked the shed to make sure my vehicles do not have any lights on.
70
What about the light in your fridge?
100
I will keep the door closed, I want to save electricity, too bad about the grid load
21
We should all open our fridges for an hour to cool the planet
182
I’m good with that!
40
Earth Day is one day that I enjoy especially when exercising my super-powers to mock the stupid.
I found a photo shared by a mob called “AXA People Protectors” on Facebook asking
Too easy. I shared the photo on my own FB apge and commented
On the People Protectors’ FB page, I spotted a comment by the owner… my response on their page, copied here:
Mine wasn’t the only comment making a wake-up call.
260
Bernd
They should try North Korea. Every day is Earth Day over there. Perhaps we could organise holidays (one way of course) to pander to the whims of the Earth Hour enthusiasts? I’ll go you halves on the carbon offsets for the air miles…
Cheers,
Speedy
60
Did you mean to “panda” to…..?
30
I’m in. I always have believed that people who want to save the planet should be allowed to live where their ideals are supported. However, since most of these people are anti-nuke, we probably should offer to send them to Haiti instead. Poverty, no energy and no nukes.
70
“Most of this army of workers in what Münzenberg called ‘Innocents’ Clubs’ had no idea they were working for Stalin. They were led to believe that they were advancing the cause of a sort of socialist humanism. The descendents of the ‘Innocents’ Clubs’ are still hard at work in our universities and colleges. Every year a new cohort of impressionable students join groups like the Anti-Nazi League believing them to be benign opponents of oppression, rather than the Trotskyite fronts they really are. The old tricks certainly are the best!”
http://www.sunray22b.net/innocents_clubs.htm
The earth hour is an other useless feel good for useful idiots?
No one ask the question what is the real aim and what will the consequences be if we go along on this?
20
Its practice for when the real blackouts begin…. you know, you should feel good about it and all that…. “Yay! We are helping the planet again”.
20
Marxism useful idiots hour?
20
Thanks for the headsup.
Now I just need to find a tyre to burn.
160
Every year since the first “Earth hour” I have turned on every light I own. Today I put all my Xmas lights out again, just for tonight.
262
Every hour in North Korea is earth hour, it’s the only country that’s not seen by satellites at night
140
I haven’t turned off anything since the last hour of power, more CO2 please, it’s better for all of us.
192
[…] More joining in, What happened to “Earth Hour”? Celebrate: It’s the “Power Hour” tonight! Share this:ShareDiggEmailRedditPrintStumbleUponTwitterFacebookLike this:Like […]
30
Aww!
I’m sorry that the huge monetary savings from your power bill are not being accentuated by those who follow Earth Hour, and believe me, they can in fact be quite substantial. (Hey do I really need to add /sarc)
The average Power Bill is around $450 per quarter, and that’s for 90 days.
That works out at $5 per day.
Lighting makes up 8% of the average residential power bill, so there’s 40 cents per day.
On average, your residential lighting is on for 6 hours, so by switching off ALL your household lights there’s a humungous saving of 7 cents, and rounded, 5 cents.
Notice they tell you only to turn off your lights, never to go outside and turn your household power off at the Mains circuit breaker. Even if they did that, the theoretical saving would be 20 cents, but then take into account that the fridge is off for an hour, and when turned back on, the compressor would come back on and run for as long as it takes to lower the temperature back to the low point, so in effect, it would be running for longer than the normal cycle, negating any saving, and in fact, probably costing you more.
Yeah, look, I know, it’s only symbolic, but what a useless gesture.
There might be the ever so slight reduction in actual power consumption, but grid controllers know it’s only for one hour, so not one power plant operating will shut down, so there’s not even any reduction in CO2 emissions.
It’s just Green brainwashing for the clueless.
Tony.
321
Yes! People have bought into the “turning off lights” will reduce your energy, just like the curly bulbs. However, I have had people at the power company admit this is not true except for a few cents or maybe a dollar or two. The curly bulbs are rated to last 10 years if you only use them 3 hours per day. I work at home and don’t like typing in the dark, so my lights are on substantially longer. The bulbs are good for the power outages we get–they don’t draw down my backup battery as fast. I really have no objection to people using whatever bulbs they want, but they are not going to save a huge amount on their power bill.
Side-note: All this talk of conservation and saving money is not true. I used less electricity in some months, but the cost went up do to additional fees and taxes. Yes, I did “have less of an increase” by a few cents but bottom line, if the monthly fees and taxes and other assorted costs go up, conservation really is not going to help in reducing your costs. If the power company wants to push conservation, raising your bill is not a good way to do it.
30
I’m with you, Sheri, but it’s not the power company that’s raising the bills, it’s the government raising their taxes on electricity which is tacked onto the bills.
60
Tony, I would be interested in your comments on Anthony Watts’ home solar Installation which has been detailed here.
10
Upon reading Anthony’s Post, the one single thing I would draw your attention to is the very first large diagram which shows Anthony’s Power Bill from PG&E.
On that bill at the bottom right, Anthony has circled in red the hourly cost per KWH (KiloWattHour) and note the two upper costs there 88/89 cents and 92/93 cents per KWH. These costs are for Residential consumers as Commerce and Industry work on separate charge scales, as they consume more per consumer than at that Residential level, and Commerce is cheaper than Residential and Industry even cheaper again, and usually Industry pays around half the (normal non Smart Metered rate) Residential rate.
Note how directly under that image his text mentions he has PG&E’s Smart Meter system.
The installation of smart meters allows the provider (in this case PG&E) to exactly monitor hourly consumption, and by extrapolation to charge accordingly.
Those extreme costs will be charged for Peaking Power periods of time, and this is not some arbitrary four or five days a year. Peaking Power is on a daily basis, the time when extra power plants are brought on line to top up the grids with the extra power needed for those times. Peaking Power is from 4PM until around 10PM to Midnight. Those extra power plants are in the main, those more costly OCGT plants, and they cost more to run, hence the provider has to pay a higher price to purchase that power wholesale to then onsell to consumers, and at even higher demand, even more costly power plants.
Notice something about that time frame.
It’s when the children arrive home after school, Dad or/and Mum arrive home from work. The house is hot, or cold, and aircon or heating is turned on. Mum does the washing for the day, and because it’s dark, she’ll even use the dryer after the washing cycle. Dinner is cooked, lights are turned on, and family entertainment comes into play.
That is the Peaking Power period, every day, and with Smart Meters they can now monitor your consumption and charge accordingly.
The period of lowest charge is between Midnight and 6/7AM, and medium charge from 9AM until 4PM.
With Smart Meters, it’s not a matter of regulating usage. It’s a matter of gouging the clients, and note that this only applies to the Residential sector, as Commerce and Industry work to contracted prices.
Also, I would like to mention that while this Post is about Anthony’s situation only, his average daily consumption is up around 45 to 50KWH, while the average daily household consumption is in the 20KWH range.
Also, just on a quick and cursory reading I note that Anthony has not mentioned the Feed In Tariff rate he is being paid.
While his consumption has changed because now he is paying attention to it, he would be using that (higher rate per KWH supplied back to the grid) FIT to offset his non solar consumption.
Now, as to the power provided from (generic) rooftop solar power, I want to draw your attention to this image shown at the following link.
Rooftop Solar Power Price Scale For Grid Connected Systems
I mentioned that the average daily residential power consumption is around 20KWH, so go down that chart to the system that delivers closest to that total, and that’s the one shown along the line with an Installed Size of 4950W, delivering 19.8KWH.
That 4950 equates to 22 Panels each rated at 225Watts for a total of 4.95KW.
As it delivers 19.8KWH, then the multiplying factor is hours in a day.
Kilowatts X Hours = KiloWattHours (KWH)
So to find out the hours in the day this equates you simply divide the KWH by the KW.
19.8 divided by 4.95 = 4 ….. so that’s 4 hours.
So, here we have the rated delivery for this system, and this is the standard multiplier for all rooftop systems.
Now while the system delivers power across most hours of daylight, this is the equivalent of all those panels providing their full rated power for just four hours a day on average. In Summer, that would be around 5 to 6 hours and in Winter two to three hours.
That’s about what you can expect with these.
Note also, Anthony mentions he didn’t do this for environmental reasons, and his only reason was a financial one, in other words, using the FIT to offset the huge hourly rate for power consumption now enabled with Smart Meters.
And also of note here is that this system is grid connected. In other words, even with a rooftop system in use, the residence is still consuming power from the grid for all non Sunlight hours, and that power still comes from traditional sources.
Also, and it’s a nice thought. It locks the owner of a rooftop installation to staying in that home for the life of the system, anything up to 25 years, keeping in mind actual power delivery drops off markedly after 10 years.
The main thing to take from all this is that humungous charge for electricity at times people are locked absolutely into using it, all possible because of the introduction of Smart Meters ….. coming soon, and watch the spin from providers drooling at the ability to be able to gouge people who, since power was connected to homes, have always used their most power at those particular times.
Imagine saving money.
Honey, they charge a fortune for power in the early evening. Can you put off doing the clothes washing until, say, 1AM to 2 AM.
No kids, sorry, you’ll just have to sweat I’m afraid.
No kids, just wrap up in some warmer clothes.
Rack up the evening meal at 2 AM.
Yeah! Right!
Tony.
90
Last time I calculated it, 65 c/kWh was the price point at which electricity becomes chepaer to generate using a “small” diesel generator; based on Australian diesel fuel prices – including the full excise. 88/89 c/kWh is simply NUTS.
Grid-connected PV is simply NUTS because the only more-expensive way to generate electricity may be to hire lawyers to pedal exercise bikes. It is 100 times more expensive than conventional sources to achieve the same degree of availability. The grid was designed for power to flow in one direction; from the big power stations to the consumers. Grid infrastructure was optimised for that direction of energy flow. Adding thousands of generators at the consumer side results in many of them being “throttled” as their substation becomes saturated and the allowable peak voltage is exceeded. So just when the domestic PV has the highest capacity, it’s limited because the grid is incapable of letting the electrical energy flow past the local sub-station – or even pole-top transformer.
Once the density of local PV generation exceeds a threshold, the grid has to be “udgraded” at non-trivial costs to allow the PV generators to rake in their in-feed. The cost for the upgrades is carried by all those connected to the grid; not restricted to those who necessitated the upgrade.
Switch on an appliance in a metropolitan household in Australia and roughly 99.9% of the time there will be enough electricity available to run the appliance because of generation by conventional sources.
Trying to achieve that using “renewables” like wind and solar costs huge amounts of money in dimensioning at between 5 to 7 times the nominal “capacity” and to provide means of energy storage from which to draw when there is insufficient generation happening. The only proven means of storing the amount of energy required during those “lulls” is pumped-storage; requiring high mountains, lots of water and large areas. The real environmental impact of such proposals is unacceptable to all but the insane.
30
When I was mining I would burn three 44 gallon drums of diesel per week running one of these:
Its like a giant vacuum cleaner and will suck dirt from 10 meters down and 25 meters along the mine through a nine inch pipe. When the hopper is full a micro switch drops the revs and empties in the back of the truck. Would love to rev one of these up again!
I also drove one of these, sowing wheat out west:
600 horses of sheer grunt!
80
Well dang, so much for the “Image” button…..
Here are the links:
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4014/4678593104_ecc3dbd980.jpg
http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/tractor/Case9380/side.jpg
—————————————
Backslider: Sorry the image button sometimes works if you write “please” and wait three hours. See? – Jo 😉 PS: Nice machinery there.
40
Backslider, great stuff there, I drove and operated a mobile super vac for a bit and it could empty an average swimming pool in half an hour, I wonder if people know how physically hard it is to do the work machines can? maybe some of these backwards greens can try it and show us the new way.
Imagine what technology we will have if the current acceleration continues, can’t wait.
100
Well I most certainly do. When I was a boy I started with a hand pick and windlass:
http://www.walgett.org.au/wp-content/uploads//opal-miner-lightning-ridge-date-unknown-no-641-small.jpg
Then with an air hammer on my shoulder, rickshaw and hoist:
http://www.walgett.org.au/wp-content/uploads//opal-miner-lightning-ridge-date-unknown-no-641-small.jpg
I was happy to trade the air hammer for a hydraulic digger to complement the blower:
http://www.walgett.org.au/wp-content/uploads//opal-miner-lightning-ridge-date-unknown-no-641-small.jpg
Still a bit of work raking that last of the mullock into the blower pipe with a pelican pick. We would truck to an agitator (puddler) to break down the mullock (clay/sandstone):
http://aussiesapphire.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/agitators.jpg
70
Oops screwed up the links again….
Hoist:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8304/7890084936_5187ec546b_z.jpg
Hydraulic digger:
http://www.walgett.org.au/wp-content/uploads//opal-miner-lightning-ridge-date-unknown-no-641-small.jpg
Agitators:
http://aussiesapphire.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/agitators.jpg
70
Its haunted….
A hydraulic digger:
http://aussiesapphire.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/digging.jpg
70
Anyone who ever pushed a hand mower across the lawn will know how much better the power mower is!
Oh, sorry! Were not supposed to grow grass anymore, are we? At least not in California where all the water is reserved for a damned 3 inch fish.
See my comment to MattB below. They’re all over the place. 🙁
60
With a miner’s pick, shovel buckets and windlass, it would take around a month to fill a truck – there is no processing, so you need to spot your gems as you dig, slowing things down.
With an air hammer, shovel, rickshaw, hoist and aggie you can do a truck per day.
With a digger, blower (that blue machine above) and aggie you can do eight trucks per day and not be totally exhausted at the end of it…. Just how many times did I fall asleep at the bar when I was swinging an air hammer?
20
Roy, true about lawn mowing but more to the point of people not having to physically damage themselves for the rest of their lives, now not wanting to insult anyone here at all, most people have no idea what real hard labor is and I would not want them to know as I have seen others including myself physically wear out before their time and this alone makes it difficult for many to work to or past retirement.
Most people would like to not only enjoy old age but also not be a burden on anyone else, I cannot for the life of me comprehend why someone would like to retard progress and put that hardship on people again, with a combination of technology and a healthy lifestyle there is no reason to drag us backwards unless there’s an ulterior motive.
50
I think that’s the key point right there.
30
Well Backslider, it gives a much more practical twist to Earth (Moving) Hour .
40
Here is a couple of rebel scientists fighting against the forces of global warming evil & darkness…
※
AUSTRALIAN ALARMIST ACADEMIC CHALLENGED TO JUSTIFY HIS DAGW CLAIMS
Posted 22 March 2013
❝ Two Australian scientists, Drs Judy Ryan and Marjorie Curtis are challenging Professor David Karoly, of the School of Earth Sciences at University of Melbourne, to provide scientifically justifIed evidence for his claims that humans are causing dangerous global warming.
Drs Ryan and Curtis have agreed to our website posting the exchange of emails betweem themselves and Prof Karoly. ❞
※
*Start from email @ foot of page for context.
331
I can see Karoly’s adams apple juggling up and down furiously as it’s clear these two academic ladies want science based and backed answers, not the twaddle he regularly gets away with spouting to the media. And if he continues to refuse to give credible answers, its off to Court……
Feisty ladies taking on the role laid out by our self proclaimed fiesty Prime Minister, wait for the misogynist attempted put downs by the ABC, the Cook and dana circus, and Lewandowky’s cry of “conspiracy” if they head for court…..
110
SOCK IT TO ‘EM!
40
I can imagine the work, Karoly, is putting in behind closed doors at the moment, recruiting fellow conspirators to discredit these two fine ladies.
50
Jaw dropping.
Waiting for doctors Ryan and Curtis to waltz up to UniMel and stand on the street corner across from his office with a megaphone:
“The jig is up, Karoly. Come out with your hands up.”
His tactic of saying “I do not expect you to change your opinions on anthropogenic climate change, no matter how much evidence or how many peer-reviewed journal publications that I provide you with” is just classic bluster and puffery. I’ve seen this tactic employed in this very forum on some occasions by commentators. The expert is so sure of themselves and their logical infallibility that they convince themselves the only way anyone could hold a contrary view is through ignorance. Implicitly they know everything and they imply the contrarian is just an idiot. There is no stone unturned, no counterexample left unexplained, not in their world. It’s as though they are getting huffy and declaring “if you don’t already know what you’ve done wrong then there’s no point in me explaining it to you!” (Now where have I heard that kind of speech before?)
They use their qualifications and long success in their field as some proof that they could not have gotten where they are today by operating on a falsehood. But this does not logically follow.
Two theories, one true, one false, may both be good enough to make enormous progress in prediction and practical application. How many times a week does some electrical or process engineer somewhere in the world model a nonlinear system as though it were a linear system because the linearity is close enough in the domain of interest? Practical devices are built based on such false theories because they are good enough for the task.
Well CAGW is good enough for the task of extracting wealth from the developed world’s industries – until somebody dares to ask if it is really true.
(Good enough for the task …dare I speculate… until the non-linearity becomes apparent.)
King CAGW has no clothes and its many tailors are now being asked to show the threads.
And now the best irony of this news.
Dr Karoly has advanced the hypothesis that Dr Ryan and Dr Curtis would not be convinced “no matter how much evidence” he presents.
Time to apply the scientific method to that hypothesis, Dr K, if you can remember how it goes.
Présenter!
“I do not intend to reply to any further correspondence from you.”
*crickets*
Not interested in testing hypotheses ==> not a real scientist.
40
lol. Earth Hour may well be a dead duck but you’d have to be a right tw*t to go around turning all the lihgts on for the sake of it!
Reminds me of Dennis Leary.
“I use public toilets and I piss on the seats
I go around in the summertime saying “how about this heat”
I celebrate earth hour by turing on all my lights
Driving a big car and and eating big slabs of meat
I’m an asshole I’m an asshole I’m an asshole I’m an asshole
I’m an asshole I’m an asshole I’m an asshole I’m an asshole
A
SS
HO
LE
every body
A
S S
H O
L E
436
Massive self projection right there, you talentless twat.
272
He seems unaware of the main point;
the irony of it all; turning all of the lights on makes no difference,
just like turning all the lights OFF makes no difference.
KK 🙂
220
Except to the health and safety of your shins.
90
I just realized- mattie actually told the truth about himself, in the last few sentences.
110
Its’ all about balance matt,
As Denis Leary said there matt – “life sucks, get a hardhat”
btw – that song is my anthem,
“You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, hot pink, with whale skin hubcaps an all leather cow interior and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights.
Yeah!
And I’m gonna drive around in that baby at 115 miles an hour, getting 1 mile per gallon, sucking down quarter pounder cheeseburgers from McDonald’s in the old-fashioned non- biodegradable Styrofoam containers! ”
C’mon baby light my tyre!
231
It’s odd- while I have nothing but contempt for brooksie, I only seem to have pity for you.
Not sure why- you aren’t worth the effort.
121
you probably just want to give me a cuddle. Admit it.
02
You said it, Matt, not me. And it looks like the shoe fits perfectly.
Does your mother know what a fool her son is? For her sake I hope not.
81
He’s adopted, Roy.
50
One of those that ju-LIAR apologised to in this week’s other stunt.
30
While not wanting to minimise the damage and unpleasantness suffered by many of those to whom formal
apologies have been made, I am nevertheless starting to get ticked off about all this.
I have worked hard, suffered some horrible crap from a society that I have done my best to contribute
to and I get nothing,
No Apology or anything to soothe my angry breast.
I want my Apology, and I want it Now!
KK
50
KK
Hear hear! The missus and I were only saying that last night (with all the lights on) about the very same thing, it’s become a running joke about the next “day of..” or “celebration of..” what ever happened to just get on with it?.
I was approached in the street by someone promoting a “sustainable building expo” or some crap and you should have seen the look on their faces when I politely pointed out the flaws in their ideal, they argued that sustainability is a worldwide accepted science “not to me” I said and asked them how would they feel if I walked up to them trying to promote “The final solution” well I wish I had a picture of their faces, needless to say they moved on.
So KK I don’t want anyone to apologise to you as not doing so has made you the man you are today, and that’s good enough for me 😉
30
Yonnie,
Being no more affected by the difficulties of life than most people, my main point was that some groups are being “used” by politicians to give the appearance of Compassion when their Grievance is addressed.
We both, I think, know that there are so many inequities in a communal life that to address all starts to become ridiculous and that the only security we have is to know that we are all being treated the same and that nobody gets to rort the system.
Poor government has always been around and will never be eradicated, that’s understood.
What is unacceptable, however, is to see a potentially great country like Australian broken and mismanaged by people whose only ambition is to clean out the treasury and retire.
The last forty years have seen changes to our way of life that are appalling.
Just in a few small areas of public life, we have alcohol consumption out of control amongst young people, violence is unchecked, burglary and theft are out of control, theft of government funds, by “mismanagement” is out of control etc. As an indicator of lack of direction we have one of the highest rates of youth suicide in the world; nothing to be proud of as a nation but something which Government spin merchants will find a way to hide.
There is little incentive to work when your taxes are misapplied to a society that is designed to do one thing only: To support the provision of “support services” to an ever increasing “social security” clientele who will be inclined to vote for the party which provides the largest Parcel of goodies.
This is not the way to run a society, unless the intention is to run it into the ground.
Work CAN be found for every body but it requires Government to get off it’s Ar$$ and define
those jobs and remove the “free money” syndrome forever.
The paradox is that those people now receiving unemployment benefits would be better off in the long run.
Make-work programs in the Depression of the 1930s saw many great pieces of infrastructure added to Newcastle and the feeling that existed in the community from then until the late sixties was one of “community”: everyone had contributed.
So, I would rather the Government actually Govern, than receive an Apology.
Unfortunately the focus is on getting elected, and will probably stay that way, so I don’t expect too much change ahead.
KK
50
I remember it well. “It’s Time”…. thank you Gough, yes, you definitely changed Australia. Yes, I remember. At 17 I travelled to the NT to muster cattle, doing a man’s work… because I certainly wasn’t going to get work (or an education) where I grew up…. thanks to you.
20
Hi BS
My “gap year” was two weeks, before I went to work after completing the LC.
KK
10
What is an LC? Which decade?
20
Hi BS
The LC was the Leaving Certificate that was replaced by the HSC.
KK
10
Right. Well, the 70’s were a whole different ball game… the beginning of this “lets vote Labor for a change” BS.
20
I’m happy to sit aside for now but will demand my apology from the ex-feral government, specifically ju-LIAR, when they get the public boot in the derriere !
30
Here’s something from Viv Forbes – not sure its on his website yet so I’ll post it here:
Quote >>
Please Spread this around.
For Immediate Release
23rd March 2013
Energy Roulette Week
(The antithesis of Earth Hour)
A Reality Game for those Concerned about the Future for their Families
Media Statement by Viv Forbes
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.
Any quotes taken directly from this statement may be attributed to Mr Forbes
The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on electricity consumers to boycott
Earth Hour grandstanding by pampered people too silly to recognise the
realities and benefits of reliable electricity.
The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, is supporting an alternative
proposal that “Earth Hour” be replaced by “Energy Roulette Week”.
Quote:
The Earth Hour people turn off a few lights on a balmy night for a romantic
hour in candle-light (incidentally generating twice as much CO2 as light
bulbs for the same amount of light.) This is unrealistic green tokenism.
The tokenism of Earth Hour is further illustrated by holding it on the
autumn equinox, a day half-way between the temperature extremes of
mid-summer and mid-winter. This is the day least likely to be uncomfortable
for the beautiful people who give up their electric lights, TV and
air-conditioners for just one hour, while they have a pleasant hour sipping
champagne (and releasing its carbon dioxide) on candle-lit balconies.
“Energy Roulette Week” is a reality game designed to illustrate what the
future holds if green governments continue to undermine 24/7 power
(generated by coal, gas, hydro or nuclear), by increasing our dependence on
fickle winds, the peek-a-boo-sun or smart-meter rationing.
“Energy Roulette Week” will give all players a real insight into what life
without reliable electricity would be like. The lack of power can be due to
insufficient generating capacity or merely the inability to pay the power
bill. The result is the same.
Everyone will be encouraged to play this game. It is only a game, but
because of its realism, most players will chicken out after the first “black
day”.
To maximise the learning potential of the game, “Energy Roulette Week” is
best started on the summer solstice (21st December) or the winter solstice
(21st June). Or if you are too weak for a real test, join the greens on a
balmy equinox.
To prepare for the game, take a well shuffled pack of cards and deal out 7
cards, face down, and place them in seven separate identical envelopes.
These are the rules for playing:
On the start day at 5:00 pm select one envelope and take out the card.
If it is a red card, just continue living as normal.
If it contains a black card (soon renamed by the kids as a “black-out
card”), go out to your power box and turn off all power and continue living
your life to the best of your ability. At 8:00 am next morning turn your
power back on.
If the card is the Joker, leave the power off until 12 noon the next day.
At 5:00 pm that evening take out another card, and continue this process
until all seven envelopes have been opened.
Because black-outs are usually unexpected, the rules do not permit premature
preparation of the evening meal, early showering or taping favourite TV
shows. And because those trying to cripple carbon energy oppose the
production of carbon dioxide, the rules also prohibit the use of kerosene,
bottled gas, candles, petrol generators or motor cars.
Hopefully you won’t get seven black cards!
If you had a real-life “black-card” day, it would be due to local load
shedding, or widespread problems with the generation network.
If you have real-life load-shedding, so does everybody else in the
neighbourhood; so the rules prohibit slipping next door for a cuppa on your
black-day!
And if in real life it was due to insufficient generating capacity across
the whole city, the blackout would probably last for days, not hours, and
your experience would be magnified 100 fold. (So no visits to shops, no
food, no refrigeration, no petrol pumps or traffic lights, no public
transport, schools or hospitals, no security, no TV, no recharging iPods and
iPhones! Even worse would be to live at the bottom of a hill and there is no
power to pump the sewerage away, it may come gushing up out of your toilet.)
You may appeal: “But I can’t play – I have a family member on a life-support
device.” All the more reason for you to play, to ensure you always have a
charged battery back-up to keep your loved one alive. If not, they could end
up dead in the real energy roulette being imposed on us.
Of course this will never be a popular game because it is not pleasant being
without reliable electricity.
But there are thousands of people who are already playing the game in real
life, every day. They can no longer afford the cost of both green power and
food so they turn the power off; or the power companies turn it off for
them; or the wind drops or a cloud covers the sun, and green energy fails;
or its rapid fluctuations cause a collapse in the electricity grid. For them
it’s not just a few hours of inconvenience – it’s Perpetual Power Purgatory.
If this is what you want for your children and grand-children that’s OK. If
you don’t, start waving placards that say “Stop the War on Carbon – 24/7
reliable, economical power forever”.
The idea of Energy Roulette Week was inspired by a proposal from John
Ibbotson from Gulmarrad, Northern NSW and published in “The Daily Examiner”.
<<End of quotable quote
171
Martin, thanks for this timely Comment, and you say here:
Or in China, hundreds of millions of people playing the game every day, as barely one home in five to seven has electrical power connected to it, with any power, let alone a constant and regulated supply. In the major cities, well yes, some do have power, but elsewhere, nothing.
There’s where that crock, per capita emissions falls down. In China, barely 9% of all generated power goes to the Residential sector, Australia 20/21%.
That residential power comparison sees China power (to residential) only 9.1 times Australia’s, while China’s population is 61 times Australia’s.
It’s not that they use less power. It’s because most of them have no electrical power.
The green solution is to stop them having that access to power, and then, on top of that, to send us back to living without it also.
The same also applies in India as well.
Tony.
130
@TonyfromOz
Yep – the one omission from Viv’s piece are those who have Earth Hour 24/7/365. Read somewhere recently that they number 1.3 billion. My initial reaction was “progress”, then “uh – hang on … can’t be right.” Massive underestimate, given your figure for China alone. I suppose some accounting adjustments could be made for traditional settlements where one building eg meeting place/paramedic facility has power some of the time, and “private” space isn’t that private.
20
Now at http://carbon-sense.com/2013/03/23/energy-roulette-week/ with added cartoon by Josh.
20
Thanks! Reposting!
10
Power capture = grid maintenance = power available = human comfort and productivity = security = GDP growth and prosperity for all = security.
Renewable energy = human discomfort = productivity at risk = energy at risk = GDP decline = prosperity in decline as cost of living rises = insecurity
130
Can anybody confirm that at least one electricity capture plant in the NSW Snowy Mountains Hydro system has been shut down?
Reason renewable, so called, energy introduction.
20
Speaking of the Snowy Hydro project, I’ll bet renewables wish they could last half as long.
The first hydro electric plant to open up on the Snowy was Guthega, in 1955, and it still delivers power now, 58 years later.
Even the last of the originals, Tumut 3 has been in operation since 1973, forty years.
Snowy Hydro, almost 4000MW. Thank God for Sir William Hudson. It wouldn’t get past thought bubble stage today.
Tony.
170
I was a happy little vegemite in those years and we were taken by our school for a tour of the Snowy Mountains Scheme by bus. What an adventure that was.
20
Jo
Sounds like a pretty fair description of the life I live now Jo, so although I would love to join in on the Festival of Lights and Power Party, I’m afraid the hangover could involve waking up bruised and pummelled in debtors’ prison, but enjoy, I’m with yuz in spirit.
50
I am not feeling to wealthy either mc but I have saved up a big load of extra dirty washing for this moment. It also seems like a good time to test out the new spotlight over the washing line.
70
Siliggy
New spotlight over the washing line!
I dream about that kind of extravagance! Well look I’ll tell you what, maybe I will join the party after all, there just may be a half litre of old mower fuel laying around in the shed, so I’ll douse myself with that, strike a match and run around the neighbourhood hugging the local hippies. They like hugs you know, oh and they like people who can perform tricks with fire too.
80
For the sort of “splurge on energy consumption because I can” activity the CEI has in mind, I think Power Hour is a much better name for it.
If they really want to call it “Human Achievement Hour” then they’d have to also recommend indulging in achievements contributed to humanity from outside the technology category.
Read some classic poetry (eg Wordsworth), learn some geometry (triangle Apollonians are cool), read some economics (eg Mises), see a classic opera (eg Barber of Seville), watch a classic movie, read your favourite fiction author, look at photos of great world architecture (eg Haigia Sophia) and great sculptures (eg Gustav Vigeland), and drink a toast to the luminaries of the modern scientific method (such as Aristotle, Hume, and Popper).
~ ~ ~
As for the “Argentinian Lamb steak, Danish butter, Argentinian Cheese, Belgian Chocolate, and Californian Oranges” well that seems a tad gratuitous when we have pretty darn good equivalents made locally. (Do you think the Swiss have never been copied or Belgians have never immigrated here?)
But the problem is not the distance. The trap there is thinking it is possible to plan the economy and create some kind of Low Food Miles Utopia which is optimal according to some biased criteria. If everyone from the artichoke aficionados in Australia to the artichoke farmers of Peru all get what they want, then the only remaining reason for objecting to how the supply happens is whether there are long term pollution and habitat destruction side-effects of those activities.
Globalisation has led to a more stable food supply, since crop failure in one country can be offset by produce from another. Globalisation has also in theory offered more consumer choice of sources for food, but monopolisation and economic rationalisation in retail have together paradoxically made it increasingly difficult to vote with your dollars because there are very few candidates actually offered on store shelves. (Just try buying preserved artichoke hearts in Coles from anywhere other than Peru, let me know if you find any.) But this isn’t necessarily a problem.
As long as we’re assuming everyone is looking out for their own best interests, then with foreign sourced food you have to also assume the people local to area of actual supply are able to look out for their own best interests by using sustainable cropping, avoiding being wedded to Monsanto if they can at all help it, sustainable fishing quotas, and limiting pollution. To the extent that people value their immediate environment and are permitted to profit from its long term maintenance, globalisation does not imply environmental destruction because every natural resource has somebody minding it.
In some developing countries, particularly with fascist state enterprises run by corrupt governments, long term thinking may be a luxury few can afford so the ability to balance sustainability and short term profit is not quite so easy to achieve. Whatever your opinion might be on the matter, by sourcing food locally you have some democratic jurisdictional influence over how these supply activities are conducted in making the food you eat. That is about the only argument left in the Food Miles movement that has any merit as far as I can tell, but am certainly open to new perspectives on that.
10
> very few candidates actually offered
Just to clarify this pre-emptively, I was writing in the context of voting with dollars for an origin and production technique. The bewildering array of brands on the shelves do not imply they are all owned ultimately by separate companies, and it does not always imply they come from different regions and have different production techniques. So you may be faced with three different brands of the same commodity, seemingly spoiled for choice, but it may be that buying any of them is a vote for the Indonesian Slash-and-Burn candidate.
10
I live in the UK where it is still, just about, ‘earth hour’. I have to say that I just enjoyed a pleasant glass of Aussie Red! It went well with French Brie and watching ‘The Good Life’.
20
France is practically next door to you, just a 2hr train ride away, so it’s not much of a distance-based counter-argument. True enough that you do not have any democratic say in what rules Brussels will foist upon you next, but the methods of production are going to be similar to local produce due to the EU pushing the same rules across all the member states. So the the Brie cheese example is not really incompatible with the food miles argument at least as I understood it.
The Aussie red wine on the other hand…. Well you may have a point there, but only if you consider Australia to be a “developing country” “with fascist state enterprises run by corrupt governments”.
Erm, yes, well… *cough*…
We are quite happy to ship our red wine 19600km from Adelaide to Plymouth, as should you be, since nothing destructive happens in the production and transport of said drop.
That’s assuming your red wine was from the Barossa Valley in S.A. I’ll have none of that Hunter Valley dross, thanks. 🙂
10
Andrew,
Ahem, I umm, beg to differ.
And, as an example, some of that finest Chateaux de Card Board Ben Ean Moselle!
Ahh! Nectar of the Gods!
Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Tony.
20
Oh! I see! No wonder the trolls keep coming back here. Seems the only way to get a response out of you people is to troll.
I apologise, I was totally trolling. I figured trash-talking the Hunter would get a rise out of someone.
Actually I have rarely (if ever) tasted any wine from the Hunter due to a quasi-religious commitment to the Barossa.
For reds specifically I would really have to taste them side by side because I will never remember the taste accurately enough from one sitting to the next.
A lot of reds taste like dishwashing detergent to me, so have generally preferred white over the years.
Perhaps I’m just cursed with red-unfriendly tastebuds. Sort of… capitalist tastebuds, if you catch the drift.
20
Get yourself a bottle of triple five and then tell me its not good (after you’ve imbibed of course).
20
“I’ll have none of that Hunter Valley dross, thanks.”
I guess when you are used to the red cordial from the Barossa, a good solid Hunter red would be a bit much for you. 😉
10
First sorry, I accidentally clicked on two stars out of 10 for this article.
Anyway, I wrote to 12 friends today as follows:-
Earth Hour Hoax is Tonight
It’s gone rather quiet on the topic of Earth Hour, compared with a few years ago when anti-warmists wrote heaps about how pointless it all was.
But the Clarence Valley, like many NSW councils are eager to save the planet:-
===========================================================
22 March 2013
Earth Hour challenge from the Mayor
On Saturday 23 March from 8.30pm to 9.30pm, hundreds of millions of people around the world will again unite for one hour – Earth Hour – as a symbolic expression of concern for the environment and the future of our planet.
“The Clarence Valley area is already a leader at the forefront of the renewables revolution. This Earth Hour, the goal is to bring renewable energy to the top of our minds with the ‘Switch to Renewables’ campaign” Mayor Richie Williamson said.
Via the Earth Hour website, Australians are being asked to ‘pledge to switch’ or register as ‘already switched’ to renewable energy.
“In 2013 we’d like to see a 12% or greater reduction in energy consumption during Earth Hour in the Clarence! All households, communities and businesses are urged to switch off their non-essential lighting and appliances during Earth Hour, and consider adopting these practices from now on” Mayor Richie Williamson said. “Earth Hour illustrates how simple it is for each of us to take action against global warming.
We look forward to another successful Earth Hour, making a big difference in just one hour”.
Release ends.
Authorised by: Richie Williamson Mayor 02 6643 0245
For further information contact:
Des Schroder Deputy General Manager (Environment & Economic) 6643 0203
=============================================================
Earth Hour is part-owned by Fairfax Media. This year the angle is getting people to pledge to switch to renewable energy, story in the SMH today, page 7. The SMH article notes the recent hot weather and confuses the maximum capacity of solar cells (on the nameplate) with the actual amount of electricity generated (especially when it’s dark).
Here is a blog from Canada. It looks like our very own Fairfax Media owns a paper in Toronto, and they are flogging Earth Hour just like here. The blog writers do not agree with the idea.
http://thebiggreenlie.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/attention-students-dont-get-all-revved-up-over-phoney-earth-hour/
Let’s get serious : Tonight, let’s turn off the fridge for an hour, the TV too, unplug the chargers for your phones and cameras, unplug your home computer, don’t use the electric jug, the air conditioner, the electric stove, and turn off the electric hot water for an hour. No home appliances to be used such as blenders and vacuum cleaners. Light some candles and sit there, just for one hour pretending it’s 1699, like it was before the industrial revolution began.
Sitting in the flickering light, not,
Brian
PS: For more info try Earth Hour Lies or Earth Hour Hoax in Google, but there is not much recently.
41
I am going to turn on ALL 4 of my computers and the printer.Mums got the idiot box on and dads left the bedroom light on bless him.Cheers everyone.
91
Is it possible to mark a point in a diary to see the power spike for this point in time?
30
My contribution to the “Hour of Power”
2 views of 2000w+ of stage lights in the back yard 🙂
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2469/2000wstage2.jpg
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/4955/2000wstage.jpg
71
and for poor little Mattb..
I’m using them next week at a gig, and I need to make sure that they will not burn out the new gels.
What better time to test them.. a good hour of heat and light 🙂
ENJOY !!!
71
ps, I also have the old 50″ plasm on, and the 1000w home theetre system cranked,
as well as 2 computers that never get turned off.
Plus the shed lights on, 30 x 40watt bulbs..
I feel I am compensating for a fair number of mindless drones that are currently polluting the air they are breathing by using candles.
111
Hey Andy, I can’t quite match your 50″ plasma, only got a 42″. Can we meet at a station on the way to the reeducation gulag?
Was gonna go around the house and turn everything possible on but dozed off instead. Too much excitement. Do good intentions still count?
80
My 500W (RMS, 1000W peak) 5.1ch Dolby THX-certified system has not seen much use in the last 3 years since the two rear channels began to crackle randomly occasionally whenever powered on.
By connecting the rear cables to the front channels I found the cables and connections were not the source of the crackle. That also showed it wasn’t coming from the audio source either.
So it’s something in the amp. 🙁 🙁
At that point I put it in the too-hard basket. But I was wondering if there is some “classic” or “common” cause of such crackle in amp circuits? Such as a capacitor getting too long in the tooth?
If it turned out to be one easily replaceable discrete analogue component then I could perhaps fix it myself (after a bit of soldering practice).
As I have basically no electronics experience it could do more harm than good to go digging around inside the cage, and debugging the circuit could be tricky.
The system lasted only about 4 years before it got this crackle, seems a shame for an otherwise decent system. For the few times I use it I can’t justify buying a whole new one yet.
10
Its more than likely just dust. Go to your nearest electronics store and get a couple of cans of dust spray, open her up and give it all a good going over.
If its still bad, look for a damaged cable or loose wire. Its not very likely to be a bad component.
20
Rightio, Dr Backslider, one can of Uncle Jaycar’s Dust Remover Spray coming up.
Probably a week before I will be able to try it out.
Thanks.
00
what brand amp?
20
You’re going to laugh.
I’m not an audiophile. Even if my ears had been golden at age 21, nightclubbing soon ruined that.
It’s a Logitech Z680 from 2005. I got it mainly for first-person shooter gaming. They had two similar models on offer, one with analog pot volume knob and one with digital volume knob. I knew the tradeoffs, but decided that avoiding the problem of analog pots corroding and becoming a source of scratchy noise in the long term was more important.
Logitech don’t make it any more. Their nearest new equivalent is the Z906 which seems identical in all specs but has a flat stackable DSP instead of an upright shape, but they don’t say whether the volume knob is digital or analog.
00
Dry joints is my first guess as to the cause.
While you’re looking for them, inspect the electrolytic caps on the boards. Any bulging capacitor cases indicate a sub-spec capacitor that needs replacing. Replace with suitable parts … amplifiers and power supplies tend to run quite hot so make sure that you replace them with parts rated to at least 85⁰C.
20
>> Dry joints is my first guess as to the cause.
I was talking about an amplifier, not my grandma’s knees! 😀
But google tells me “Dry joints” is an electronics term too. Would not have thought insufficient flux is a problem with all the robots they use for PCBs these days, but in China who can really tell.
Okay so I will check for caps that are too big for their old suit.
Thanks.
00
Flux isn’t the problem as much as solder flow and how it’s allowed to cool. It the component moves as the solder solidifies, you have a high probability of failure after some time.
Whatever the cause, a corollary to Murphy’s Law says that the product will pass any functional quality controls. High-end manufacturers have somebody spend a couple of minutes doing a visual scan of areas vulnerable to dry joints.
Most production soldering is done by wave soldering the board, with most components mounted, over a lake of molten solder which is agitated to form waves that lick the board side to be soldered. Larger and awkwardly-shaped components are still “hand soldered”.
DIY assembler tend to use things like toaster ovens for reflow soldering; the only method viable for soldering some types of packages like BGA (Ball Grid Array). Once you’ve baked a board in an oven, it’s not a good idea to use the same oven to prepare food. Circuit boards aren’t edible.
P.S. While you’re checking out the capacitors, make sure that you short them using a resistor of about 1k to 10k to dissipate any residual charge (which could be 200V in an amplifier). While it is unlikely to kill you directly, injuries often result as a consequence of the surprise and involuntary muscular contraction.
BTW: I understand that along with aerospace and military applications, that electronics for “renewable” applications are exempt from the ban on lead in solder. It’s so much harder to make reliable devices without lead and the desire to provide e.g. MPPT for PV applications to last for more than 5 years (thereby saving the planet from frying for another 0.8 femto-seconds) outweighs the risk of a child eating the device.
10
Either dust or poor soldering … or good soldering gone bad thanks to the eco-fascists meddling with how solder is made. Solder made since the introduction of greenazi meddling is prone to growing tendrils which short out solder points with other solder points, thereby rendering gear that should have lasted decades into gear that can fail in a year or two.
Just another example of how the “solutions” thought up by eco-loons tend to turn out bad for the environment, what with their idea of “less lead” in electronic gear actually causing more electronic gear to end up in land fill sooner.
It ain’t for nothing that The Military and makers of hospital type stuff have excemptions from having to use new-age/gaia worship solder.
BTW, XBOX360s and various computer video cards often suffer from the “solder tendril” problems.
Quick fixes typically involve putting the failing computer part or board into a convection oven for 10 minutes to melt the tendrils back into the parent solder point or cause the parent solder blob to properly re-adhere to the component again.
See various examples on youtube. If anti-dust or sound engineers friend type spray doesn’t fix it, I wouldn’t be surprised if putting the circuit board on suitable supports in a convection oven does.
As for me, I’m still using the same roll of solder I first got over 30 years ago.
Deem “the old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost” included.
In short “make mine leaded, please” 🙂 😉
30
When I first bought some solder 4 years ago they had the lead-free Roslin solder and the traditional planet killer stuff side by side on the shelf. I can still remember thinking, “well I guess I should do the right thing and buy the Pb-free stuff, and hey they wouldn’t sell it if it didn’t work just as well.”
Hah.
I swear you have to jam the iron against the metal for a month before that stuff will even soften.
To make matters worse, I had only bought a 25W soldering station because I was just starting out with this stuff.
Noob errors all the way. Ya live and ya learn, eh?
So I need some earth killer solder.
No… make it a double, Sam.
A real Extinction Level Event. 😀
And really? People put PCBs in the oven to repair them??
Is this one of those “hey intern, go get me some checquered paint and a left-handed screwdriver” pranks?
Thanks for the tip.
00
Visible from Space!
KK 🙂
10
With the naked eye from Alpha Centauri in about 4 years. 🙂
20
Hi Bernd
I suspect you mean from a planet orbiting Alpha cent?
KK 🙂
00
Just somewhere in that solar system.
10
And for the thumbs down person……. the fuse in the shed can only handle 2400w !
I have another 7000+ watts worth of lights I use in places that have decent 3 phase coal powered grunt.
40
Even better.. I count FOUR coal trains go past, heading for Port Waratah, between 8:30 – 9:30
Keep up the good work lads ! 🙂
40
Doing my bit to defend science and above all send the message that vilifying and bullying citizens into silence about this insane pseudo scientific fraud will no longer work.
http://i45.tinypic.com/2h5kz1c.jpg
http://i48.tinypic.com/23mo2yu.jpg
Remember, radiative gases are critical for continued convective circulation below the tropopause. Without this our atmosphere would heat dramatically. Adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will not reduce the atmospheres radiative cooling ability. Anthropogenic global warming due to CO2 emissions is a physical impossibility.
90
Fantastic stuff. Little article on Bolt: new UK curriculum is suggesting not teaching climate change or sustainability until 14 . Hmmmm. Keep the lights burning!
60
When the Orwellian ‘Smart Meters’ become mandatory, your Earth Hour or Earth Day will be exactly when they tell you it is.
Electricity suppliers will use the meters’ built-in switching to remotely turn the power on or off to a premises. Off – particularly at times of heavy usage (Like a 40 degree day!)
60
Forgot the link.
http://www.naturalnews.com/038966_smart_meters_homeowners_police.html
30
Just my thoughts kim, if the Commissars got their way. they have the ideal tool to teach us serfs to dance like puppets. That is why it is doubly important to have free speech and a strong free from influence media.
Support these scientists in the clash with Karoly
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=918&Itemid=1
20
Say to your local Green: “You do not have the right to tell me to live my life based on your values.”
Appropriate gestures optional.
140
If those of us in the UK turn everything on, we might cause a major grid shutdown, thanks to virtually no reserves of gas…
Maybe a “North Korea” style satellite picture of the UK in near total darkness would shake our government out of their complacency.
60
UK has just 36 Hours of Gas Left according to a leading UK Daily
So it’s not just generating capacity that will start running out , when existing Coal plants reach their artificial lifetime quota limits in April , imposed by the EU and have to shut down.
Britain is already running out of Fuel.
With a Downing Street spokesman saying : ‘It is absolutely clear that supplies are not running out’
and a large Energy supplier SSE warning of ‘very real risk’ of lights going out”,
who would you believe ?
While prices have been pushed up regularly over the past few years, that doesn’t reduce demand when it’s cold outside.
Glad I’m not living in a town, on mains Gas, or have Solar Cells wired into the Grid.
I’m piling Coal for the fire and Diesel for the Genny.
50
Something has to give. It would be madness to shut down these perfectly serviceable coal plants providing crucial base load power when their ‘EU quotas’ run out . Surely any sensible Government must be positioning to abandon that crazy nonsense ?
Now the last Energy Minister is behind bars (albeit only for a motoring offense) they should set about systematically defunding the windmills and keep burning all that cheap American Coal.
61
I’ve hears of sensible government but always thought it was a mythical entity.
70
Somewhere today I read that the Didcot and Fawley power stations were closed down yesterday (22nd Mar). All thanks to the EU. I have yet to verify these closures however.
40
Hi Tim.
Smart meters? Come on, let’s call them what they really are, SMART-ARSE METERS. Too clever by halve meters eh?
70
An’ I thought they were only for counting smart arses, as in how many would boast of having them fitted.
50
Maybe they are Smug Meters?
Why not build Smug meters into your new 21st Century Smug Home?
>> At peak periods of energy consumption, (for example, when everyone switches their air conditioners on in a heat wave), smart meters are able to limit certain devices to reduce the amount of energy they use. For the time being this feature is very limited, and would only work with devices that have demand response systems built into them anyway.
Oh really? Which devices?
LG is ready.
>> It offers three savings options: late night saving, preferable time saving, and smart grid-ready that takes advantage of time-of-use pricing. … and Smart Adapt that keeps the refrigerator software up-to-date with the latest upgrades, features and options.
Samsung have done their homework and they are ready.
>> We show that a system of multiple homes and utility company has the lowest overall cost if the energy usage is flat over time, … and accordingly propose algorithms for Demand Response at each home.
Panasonic is ready.
>> Panasonic is now offering customers the advantage of a complete range of air conditioners that allow energy suppliers to remotely lower device energy consumption when the community is experiencing peak electrical loads.
SA Power is getting ready.
>> The demand management trials being proposed by ETSA Utilities in this Section are the precursor to the wide scale roll out of integrated technologies comprising: smart meters, DREDs, transformer monitors, distributed intelligence, communications systems and backoffice operations. Roll out of these technologies will lead to demand side management being enacted in a smarter grid setting. This will curtail the cost of augmenting infrastructure and help to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector by having different sources of supply (e.g. renewables and distributed energy) and different patterns of demand (e.g. customer choice and Direct Load Control ).
Powercor Victoria is nearly ready.
>> If we can measure it we can manage it.
Are you ready to turn the smug smile upside down?
>> These kinds of power demand management challenges are hard for traditional demand response to manage. But they’re a perfect fit for the next generation of demand response technology, which promises to speed up, automate and integrate power-reduction technologies with the smart grid at large.
It is a rather large act of faith to presume that such technology will never be abused, or that reducing electricity infrastructure costs can only be achieved by creating this extensive power rationing system.
30
Hi Andrew McRae
They certainly are!
Yes, it’s the prawn throwing itself on the barby eh?
thanks for the links.
10
I know this is really radical but I think we can do it if we start slowly.
How about a common sense hour?
Then if we can stand common sense for an hour we can try longer, say a day. Then if we still like commons sense, make it a whole week. If at the end of a week we’re still OK we can make it a month. If we’re still OK after a month, make it a year. Then maybe we can make it permanent.
There, do you see how easy that is? We just take it one small step at a time and if at any point we don’t like common sense we can stop. We’ll get used to it gradually; no big deal all at once. There’s really nothing to be afraid of when you go slowly. 🙂
Snore… …falls of his chair — again… …picks himself up off the floor, again — wake up Roy, wake up! Need still more coffee…it’s just too hard to deal with all this so early in the morning without more coffee.
Nice dream while it lasted though. 😉
100
I would love to put on a blaze of light.
I cannot afford the electricity to do so.
If the opportunity arises maybe Ill douseaGreen in petrol and light up the nightwith that.
THAT is how I feel about these scum.
42
Tata Motors is sponsoring an Earth Hour Rock Concert in Gujarat.
That’s the same huge Indian Tata Group as Tata Steel.
Tata supports Earth Hour.
When your industries are crippled by Carbon taxes, quotas & penalties Tata can step in to save them.
Then you can say Tata to your jobs, as they are gradually moved to India where Carbon use isn’t penalised.
The same Tata whose Energy Research Institute (TERI) employs Railroad Engineer Pachauri of IPCC fame.
100
Oh, won’t the eco-loons have a field day with some of the things in this thread.
That’s because:
1. They do not have a sense of humor
2. They take things too seriously, particularly themselves
3. Because they are unable to accept the fact that the World is greening very nicely due to human activity
4. They don’t realise that their own ideals would (and are) leading to incredible poverty and suffering
That’s a start.
82
In the 1800’s John D. Rockefeller brought light to the masses in the US via kerosene. Petroleum brought the US out of the darkness and continues to serve us well today. We need to stop electing idiots that are against the use of this miraculous material. We still have plenty of it, more is found to be economically recoverable every day, and it is sheer stupidity not to use it to our every advantage.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/rockefellers-john/
50
Exactly. Fossil fuel saved the whale, and the automobile saved the horse. Greens will never be happy – an agenda is a must for them.
40
Their hour of symbolic darkness, matches the willful blindness of their ideology.
They have given me “cause” to plan retribution.
When the real darkness falls I will be ready.
30
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21909619
On BBC TV looked like Sidney lights were going out block by block rather than house by house. Anybody have their lights switched off against their wishes?
30
Nobody lives there.
Lights were probably left on deliberately for theatrical effect.
Remember: Whatever it takes.
10
Brits turned off a power station because it got too cold.
Just when it’s most-efficient as a heat engine.
10
45 minutes until earth hour in London. Temperatures are hovering around 1 degree Celsius. Turning off the light and heat could be tricky. They’re having a beautiful spring.
30
For me all the lights were on in celebration of human ingenuity and endeavour , the car was running just in case I need to go to the shops, BBQ will was fired up, I ran a hot bath, the music was cranked and all the TV’s were be on, I put some warm things in the fridge to make them cold!
20
Well, it’s earth Hour here atm (GMT). We watched an episode of ‘The Good Life’ and we are lit by our Christmas lights. Very nice. We are fortunate to have power to run our central heating; sorely needed here in the UK as it’s perishing cold. We are also fortunate to have less snow than a lot of the country has at present. Some are suffering power blackouts thanks to the snow and gales…wonderful weather for the Spring Equinox.
I believe two of our power stations have been closed down, Didcot and Fawley, not by the weather but by EU bossiness re. ‘tackling climate change’. It infuriates me.
40
FYI
Centre for Industrial Progress
Power Hour: Catastrophic Global Warming with Joanne Nova
March 22, 2013
This week’s Power Hour features Joanne Nova, a prominent commentator from Australia, known for her criticisms of catastrophic global warming claims. Alex and Joanne discuss the media portrayal of science, how to process the information we get about global warming, and the “skepticism” related to it.
11
QED!
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/cloud/polls/popup/01e58f9a-3233-3081-abc8-7d481e2c4939/
20
Dairy farmers in Godzone are using an extra hour of lighting every day because some idiot in Internal Affairs doesn’t know that daylight saving needs to end before the beginning of Autumn (by day-length ie early February)
10
watched the cricket, while surfing for gems such as the following. Amy Huva has Aussie connections!
23 March: Vancouver Observer: Amy Huva: Climate changes before I retire
There’s not a lot about climate change and its effects that horrifies me anymore. I guess you could say that I’m desensitised to it – melting permafrost? Yeah, I’ve read about it. Losing the Great Barrier Reef in Australia? Going to visit it before it’s all gone, but yeah, we’ll lose that too. A friend is buying a house? I’m cracking the jokes about how high above sea level it is and whether we’ll need to fortify it for the ‘end of the world’.
Most of the research that is coming out now looking at climate models and the potential feedbacks we may get from complex climate systems are thinking we may have underestimated how fast climate change is going to kick us in the ass…
Climate change is going to affect everything. Climate related drought and crop losses could wipe out all the gains we’ve made towards ending world hunger. It is likely to make hundreds of millions of people homeless from increased weather extremes everywhere from South East Asia to Manhattan. The supercharged summer heatwaves will kill many more people who are not used to dealing with extreme heat and live in cities not used to coping with extreme heat. All before I retire.
This is no longer about the pollution and climate you’re leaving your children. This is about the choices we face today and the consequences those choices will have on the trajectory of our planet’s liveability before I retire.
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/earthmatters/climate-changes-i-retire
read all:
Linkedin: Amy Huva
External Projects:
WWF blog
– Policy advisor with the World Wildlife Fund’s Freshwater project
– Public speaking …
Previously, I lived in Canberra working for the Australian Federal Government…
– Ozone and Synthetic Gas Section, Environment Quality Division
Australia Day Award January 2011
– International briefing and research for Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer
http://au.linkedin.com/in/amyhuva
reality – sounds familiar!
20 March: Vancouver Observer: Carrie Saxifrage: British Columbia set to export mega amounts of carbon dioxide. Is that a plan?
We plan to export 19 times as much carbon by 2020
Under the current climate plan, B.C. committed to reduce carbon emissions by 21 million tonnes between 2007 and 2020. Yet if current proposals for fossil fuel infrastructure are approved, B.C. will increase its export emissions by 640 million tonnes. In other words, the overall emissions tied to the B.C. economy would nearly quadruple…
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/earthmatters/british-columbia-set-export-mega-amounts-carbon-dioxide-plan
10
Good post Jo and good common sense from Lomborg as usual.
BTW Ian McNamara on ABC “OZ All Over” suggested playing this song by Trace Adkins to celibrate earth hour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72AVXpeo_ZI
He loves this song and played it just before the 7.45am news this morning. Just thinking of all the warmists burning all those candles etc to save the planet.
Good on you MACCA
21
I had heard as usual about ‘Earth Hour’, but there was so little hype on the media that I didn’t realise it was actually on yesterday. If I had known, I would have switched on all my outside lights as I usually have. But my guess is that the idea is simply dead, but hasn’t woken up to that yet.
91
Best of all, we did not even notice, at all, that yesterday was Earth Hour and just carried on regardless. There was little press coverage here, as people have tired of that gimmick and passed on to the new curiosities. I would say that Earth Hour is now stone dead as it shows no sign of life. Not even mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by the Greenies will revive it
61
And we can do it all again! Yippee!!
50
Google: ancient gold mines in africa and read about human civilisation spanning some 250,000 years, about ancient gold mines still evident and structures including what is believed to have been collectors of electricity. I became aware of ancient gold mines and wanted to learn more about them.
20
Off topic but of interest to angry voters here who have wondered why so called independent conservative MPs are backing the circus alliance Union Labor minority government. In the Saturday Daily Telegraph there is a story about a NSW state MP claimed to be independent who was appointed speaker during the Labor government term who is now accused of being a player in a scandal under investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in that the MP was a maate of one of the accused.
And that this MP is the organiser of NSW independents who are effectively supported by Union Labor to be candidates and then represent electorates in which Green Labor receive a minority of votes at the best of times, seats that have been in National Party hands. In other words a so called independent campaigns as a conservative and even former National safe pair of independent hands and is actually a sleeper for Union Labor.
I hope the voters in Lyne and New England NSW read the article. I cannot however understand how the Nationals selected the MP as their candidate for New England, but he is no longer since the revelations about his background.
50
My wife and I celebrated ‘Earth-hour” by going to watch the Rugby Union here in Brisbane last night under those great big bright stadium lights … Queensland Reds 23 RSA Bulls 18 … a good feast of rugby union under lights.
50
Forget to mention that the “Bulls” are from jb’s hometown 😉
40
Off topic as I’m a big polluder it looks like they’re going to sneak in the bank levy in Cyprus if this story is correct. According to this ABC reporter people have no right to complain about the levy as they accepted large returns in the past. I had to listen to him say that a few times before I could believe it.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-24/cyprus-agrees-to-levy-on-large-bank-deposits-official/4590768
80
The ALPBC
40
Isn’t it nice how the EU sets the precedent with a small country like Cyprus, where civil unrest will be relatively easy to control.
Coming to a bank near you!
50
Now woldn’t be interesting if quite a lot of Russian Mafia money was held in Cyprian accounts.
Some people with a lot of money may not be very happy..
30
.
Nice to see Adelaide didn’t participate in Earth Hour.
MattyB’s Town of Vincent – signed up with eager willingness. Yet MattyB above says:
But he still voted to be part of it – make sense of that one. Plus the two new electric car recharging stations were still operating with lights ablaze in his little hamlet! Have you got a free EV MattyB from UWA?
I think he’s full of Bullshlt.
40
Earth hour is a load of wank.
60
Chuckled at this over at Quadrant On-line:
Earth Hour’s Dim Bulbs
30
Please tell me that’s a joke.
30
I think that it is a joke, Roy … but not as far fetched as one might imagine 😉
30
Aside from the obvious counterproductivity of “Earth Week”, for those with local knowledge the extra tip off it’s all satire is that Lee Rhiannon was a Greens party Senator in the NSW State Parliament for many years and her father is Bob Brown, the leader of the Greens and former Federal Senator for Tasmania.
The way Christian and Israeli organisations get special punishment in the story is also meant to be a generalisation of Australian Greens policy.
One wonders why, in reality, they would concern themselves much with foreign policy if they are truly and purely an environmentally-conservative party. Presumably if they were to ever capture enough votes to rule in their own right they would not defer matters of foreign policy to other MPs with more experience in such matters.
20
I think the reference to the “Holy Souls in Purgatory Catholic School”, is a bit of a give-away.
But it made me chuckle …
20
Rolling Stones – Far Away Eyes
10
Yes, indeed, it’s really like that.
In 1990 I was driving along near Bakersfield in California, listening to the gospel radio station (there is not much else on AM in the US, it wasn’t my car, old AM only radio) and on came the news that a plane had just crashed into a house. They rang the housewife up and she was on-air; the plane had crashed into the kitchen, but she had just stepped into the lounge room and was uninjured.
The announcer said “Hallelujah, praise the Lord, it’s a miracle” over and over.
The song had come true, like a prophesy. I was gob smacked, and I still recount the story quite often.
00
That’s why I couldn’t resist asking. 😉
10
.
And Mr. Hewson says:
He’s didn’t explain that Larus Energy, a gas developer in Papua New Guinea has:
1. Only got exploration permits – they haven’t got or developed any gas as yet.
2. Mr. Hewson is negotiating with banks & PNG government to build a 500Mw gas power plant in Port Moresby.
3. Port Moresby has Rouna Power Station of 62.2MW and Moitaka thermalof 30MW.
4. It also has Kanudi Power Station (diesel) of 24 MW (base load runs continually)
5. The power outages are 90% from network problems (lines & transformer breakdown)
6. All manufacturering business run their own generators for reliable supply.
7. Mr. Hewson’s new 500Mw plant will not stop the blackouts and is over the top in size.
8. Mr. Hewson is on the gravy train of GREEN parasites abusing our northern neighbours.
9. Mr. Hewson loved Tim Flannerys geothermal plan until it collapsed.
Mr. Hewson didn’t even know the GST content of a birthday cake. He’s a Bloody Dill.
40
by Baldrick at ACM
The Australian Energy Market Operator provides a wealth of information on electricity demand. After checking the figures, for the 3 most populous states of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, here are the results:
AVERAGE ELECTRICITY DEMAND (for the 3 previous Saturdays 2/3, 9/3 & 16/3 taken at 9pm): 18,964
ELECTRICITY DEMAND (Earth Hour 9pm Saturday 23 March): 18,949
In effect, electricity demand during Earth Hour dropped by a massive 0.08%, however taking into account statistical anomalies, Earth Hour was a complete failure!
30
Nova, you troglodyte moron. Earth Hour was bigger and more symbolic than ever. Crawl back into your cave and stop annoying the adults:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/earth-hour/opera-house-glows-green-for-earth-hour-20130323-2gn87.html
014
Dearest Mr Chicken, thanks for popping in with your erudite wisdom. If your definition of “bigger” was that the Opera house used Green lights instead of white ones, then bravo and congratulations. Those of us who can count past ten look at the electricity useage. Bad luck eh? -Jo
130
Doesn’t it take more energy to illuminate with green light than with a “full” spectrum?
Can one even see green light through rose-tinted glasses?
40
.
Bernd,
Good question, I would have thought that green light bulbs to illuminate to the same degree would take more energy (electricity) than white. I know that coloured bulbs are a lot dearer price wise than white. Green colours or pigments are normally extremely expensive compared to white. Just look at paint and the green tint prices.
Why are plants green? The chloroplasts in plants reflect the green light spectrum (hence leaves are green) as it is the highest light intensity in that spectrum, and so the plant is protected from over heating. But to produce green only light is not cheap, eliminate all the deep blue and red etc – to give the green colour (reflected) which if you have visited your garden recently, it is a fairly cool and dull colour on its own. I think the above is nearly right in scientific terms but have always considered this as the case.
The extra cost of energy, price of conversion, and manpower to turn the Opera House GREEN for 1 HOUR would have been huge. It’s unbelievable they even did this.
Plus the people that had to organise the change over – I bet they have added all the green lighting systems just for this single event.
It wasn’t just turning off existing bulbs.
Absolute GREEN madness. It’s sort of like your partner taking the car to the coffee shop so you can ride you bike and you both come home together. And you get home during Earth hour to watch your favourite team (The Bulls) getting trashed by the QLD Reds on the 50″ plasma TV.
JB – do you feel like a Dlck in your tight bike outfit with the curtains drawn getting beaten?
I won’t tell anyone you watched the match if you don’t.
20
Symbolic of what exactly Mr Chicken? Have you thought about that?… tic tic tic
Yes! That’s right! Its symbolic of how things will be for everybody if the eco-loons have their way!
Take a look at the UK right now Mr Chicken. On the verge of running out of gas, yet they are still shutting down two perfectly good, biosphere friendly coal fired power stations. That sir is “green” policy for you!
80
Bob Chicken
The self appointed Labour activist – almost like our own John McTerd.
Here’s a beautiful photo of the Opera house lit up in green. Need heaps of 220W incandescent bulbs for this.
Here’s the globe at earth hour – what a great job – keep on switching on. /sarc
Bob, you’re really on some sort of EARTH DRUG of GAIA called shlt. 🙂
30
Oh! Its the incandescent lightbulb that’s warming the planet! Do the math – how much HEAT is that???
20
Mr Chicken,
How apprpriate is your name btw, good choice. I assume from your comment that you are one of the headless variety.
In a world where we are in an economic death spiral as we speak, where bankers are stealing the deposits of savers in a test case first phase for the inevitable debt enslavement of the mass of humanity (Cyprus), where the smaller economies of the EU devolve into anarchy and likely civil war (Italy, Spain, Greece), where the Korean peninsula threatens to be the worlds first bilateral thermonuclear conflagration, where Japan faces the triple threat of hitting 500% debt to GDP ratio plus demographic disaster of an aging population plus saber rattling from China, not even mentioning the US engaged in a slow motion WW4 through covert interventions in Syria/Libya/Iran plus its own 16 trillion dollar debt which sees cities like Detroit and Cleveland degenerate into impoverished war zones……and you are standing here suggesting that Earth Hour, a vacuous pseudo symbolic gesture of feel good futility that achieves nothing of substance to even reduce energy consumption at all as some kind of victory for the human spirit. How pathetic, a bit like “successfully” mopping the floor on a ship that is actually sinking under the waves. This exercise in sham social consciousness does nothing except confirm for eltists jetting the globe and consuming resources hand over fist that the majority of us are completely clueless and would happily accept serfdom provided someone told them to accept it.
Yours is definitely a case of “the lights are on, but nobody’s home”.
120
I am perilously close to hanging up my now spittle-strewn keyboard and retiring from the JoNovian Regular Pundit Crew as I am almost certain that, even on a good day, my HTML hellfire shall never even roughly approximate, much less eclipse, the superlative social summary and excellent evisceration carefully crafted by Winston above.
Winston is sooo NOT on Big Brother’s christmas card list.
50
I have to agree Andrew McRae, evisceration and more, there’s a distinct hint of the aroma of chicken pate around here at the moment.
20
Yeah the biggest problem we face is another 0.5c over the next 100 years. Wouldnt that be a great world to live in. Shame we have to leave that world to the rainbow dreamers who occupy it.
Very well said. I applaud you.
00
You missed a few words, derrr-brain
Earth Hour was bigger farce and more symbolically meaningless than ever
50
I read today that AAP is a 47% shareholder in the Earth Hour company … it’s a corporation owne by the media to make “news”.
Also that WWF owns about 25% of the same company. The top 2% of WWF income goes to paying the 3 top executives of the WWF. Ask the volunteer can shakers at the shopping centres if they know that.
30
A couple of WWF people came to our front door a couple of days ago. I said I was not interested and that I don’t give funds to ‘charities’ that take political action on AGW or who pay large salaries to their executives. Later on I saw the two people concerned, sans WWF tabards, waiting for a lift home and standing around in the freezing cold Easterly wind. I couldn’t resist commenting ‘We could do with a bit of global warming around here’ to them as I walked past (muffled up to the eyeballs myself, as I have been for the last 2 and 1/2 months since returning from Australia).
30
Homo sapiens
21
GA
.- – …. .- – | .- -… – – – ..- – | …. – – – – – – – – | … .- .- -. .. . -. … ?
00
I give up?
20
Yeah, I gave up too.
Dave neglected to account for WordPress’ interesting habit of turning any sequence of 3 dots into a single ellipsis character ( … ).
Maybe it was meant to be ASCII art, maybe it was meant to be Morse code.
Either way, it just wasn’t meant to be. 🙂
30
KK,
Morse code – but “typepad” sort ruined it with spacing!
“What about Homo sapiens? To GA.
Just going back in time to The Greenies desired GAIA. 🙂
Almost like the UK at the moment
10
Funny
My first thought ass Morse code but all I knew was SOS
KK
10
easy guys Homo sapiens in italics or underlined to indicate genus and species. Genus has capital letter as first letter.
It was sub editing for the lead article not content editing and therefore not worthy of your amazing debating skills..
anyone with a biology degree would have noted the same or not made the mistake in the first place.. Now move on to a topic of debate please.
01
GA
Are you a moderator now?
10
Where did the ‘sapiens’ bit go?
10
Earth Hour in earnest:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9949571/Its-payback-time-for-our-insane-energy-policy.html
20
Of course the good citizens in the UK fear that it might be earth month of darkness when the power grid shuts down during the freeze. Now the Rhiannons of the world will really celebrate that. Involuntary forcing the minions to comply with BIG GREEN! Mission accomplished according to their little red songbook!!
30
But, what if you’re unable to realise that you are acutally subject to corporate slavery and servitude to such an extent that you can’t see it will do severe damage to your treasured civilisation? I see lemmings.
And as for power, your mate Watts seems to be trying to cash in on solar power.
Not a good look given his history but of course he has an excuse. They always have excuses.
Have you noticed that all the AGW contrarians seem to be selling something or else seeking attention for flagging careers?
07
What if I am unable to see corporate slavery? Please explain how that works.
I buy things voluntarily from companies, but if I don’t pay The Government I’ll end up in jail.
What if all skeptics lived off government grants… would that change the climate?
90
Corporate slavery – e.g. when you’re forced to buy a power source that is detrimental to the planet.
The reason Watts has a choice is because governments are sensibly trying to facilitate alternatives – naturally the power corporations that have been granted a license to sell fossil fuels cheaply under a near monopoly don’t like it.
And they’re happy to have people like you and Watts doing their dirty work for them – you get your notoriety and $ through the dog-whistling you do to the conspiracy theorists – they get to damage the atmosphere and make their money for longer. Win-win. Planet loses.
Live off government grants? So, you really do believe that climate scientist are perpetrating a massive swindle to get grant money, do you? And yet you’re writing blogs posts heckling and pillorying Cook and Co. for calling you out on the conspiracy theorist behaviour you just exhibited.
Too funny.
110
Oh, you mean when we are forced to by high priced electricity from wind and solar installations?
30
Scientifically CAGW is a Non Event.
There is NO testable hypothesis put up so there is NO science of Man Made Global Warming.
All we have is Lots and Lots of Public Commentary.
That is NOT science.
As to the rest of it:
I feel Dirty.
I feel ashamed aat running my air conditioner.
KK 🙂
Woe is me!
40
Its even better than that. If you want a nice head scratcher for people arguing about opinions being bought and paid for. Try and find a person on the dole with a good word to say about the Government lol. Sure some people skew arguments in favour of their benefactors but in the main we all say what we think.
10
Dear Inquirer, welcome to the catastrophically anthropogenically skeptical corner of the climatic Internet.
You’re probably aware that skeptical detractors frequently accuse warmists such yourself of being far too gullible and prone to believing in received opinion as though it were a substitute for fact. Now the stereotype may not be true of your good self, of course.
But you aren’t exactly setting a good first impression with your lemmings analogy because the entire “suicidal lemmings jump over cliffs” story is an urban legend, it is a myth, lemmings don’t behave that way.
It seems your mental model of lemmings is flawed. You can now see what happens when you take action based on flawed models. At the very least it’s embarrassing. Sometimes it costs you 176 billion dollars a year.
Speaking of flawed models, did you have any observational evidence of the climate to contribute, or just more flawed model worshipping?
Sea level rise decelerated after 1999 despite record emissions of industrial CO2.
During the last 50Ma CO2 levels were over 1000ppm for millions of years at a time, and corals originally evolved during a time of much higher CO2.
Various proxy analyses show that ~50Ma B.P. the CO2 more than doubled from about 600ppm to 1500ppm while at the same time sea level fell a metre and temperature showed no consistent correlation with CO2 at all ( see diagram ).
1. Will you admit the IPCC’s allegation of “a stable pre-industrial level of 280ppm CO2” is a total myth?
2. How does all the above observational evidence support the idea that a CO2 level of 560ppm will damage our civilisation, or anything else on earth, when neither sea level nor temperature show any consistent effect from CO2 changes?
70
Well said. But it doesnt stop there.
In an attempt to shut me up, a mate recently sent me this.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
Specifically linking this one
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause
As I pointed out to him, thats a very bad example of your otherwise poorly constructed argument. Since it is proveably false that there are less pirates today than in the past. Indeed while there may easily be more physical pirates around the world, if you throw in the notion of internet piracy, then basically everyone in the world is a pirate and I dont think youd get any arguments from Sony.
People just blurt things out without thinking about the logic, then once painted into a corner they acuse the clear thinkers of being “in denial”
The irony is breathtaking.
20
> blurt things out without thinking about the logic
This is so easy to do. To err is human. You only have to look at some of the beliefs that the great minds of science held about non-scientific matters to see that people focus and apply their intelligence very selectively.
The problem is not that we do this to begin with. The problem is basically just as you said. I reckon the problem is in being insufficiently parsimonious in our criteria for belief, as well as the all too human foible of hubris and being too proud to admit one’s own error – even after it has been repeatedly pointed out.
Humans operate in defined processes as part of an organisation or system in order to reliably gain large and complex results out of small fallible components (people). It’s when these successful processes are not applied, or applied in a corrupt fashion, that human foibles that we correctly expect to occur do not get detected, filtered, and corrected.
And let’s face it… who has both the time and inclination to be logical about everything? 🙂
20
Im not selling anything. My career is stable, though its my position on this topic that provides a threat if any to my income. I work for a world leading supplier and erector of wind turbines.
Oh my but your theory has been blown to bits. I am happy to prove everything I just told you, send me an email at peterjm66@gmail.com I will reply with the proof, you can ring my work and talk to my manager. My work has even tried to gag me from talking on forums and I have been threatened with disiplinary action for my AGW position. I have everything to lose and nothing to gain by questioning the AGW myths. I do it because I am not a sheeple.
Mate, your just plain wrong.
30
No need to worry CT – it’s just a bit of population reduction.
10
Is there no end to the mindless panic stricken doom saying ?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-25/climate-change-a-threat-multiplier-for-defence/4591676
“It says climate change has the potential to generate and exacerbate destabilising conditions that could reshape the regional security environment.”
Because lets face it the region has been so stable up till now, I mean some of these countries even have elections FFS.
10
Extreme Greens should be shipped out to a place where they can practise what they preach in privacy and without assistance from their human enemies.
20
All this talk of the dangers of burning fossil fuels and how we are all going to fry in hell seems some what premature. The world seems to be in a cooling phase and egg on face of many would appear to be on the horizon.
It would also seem that the fuels we are burning are not fossils but a natural byproduct of processes on a planet. Look what science is finding on the moon Titan, complex hydrocarbons being manufactured by natural processes. Chemical soup and sunlight.
That oil is found so deep and every year found deeper is a mystery that can only be explained by natural processes. Thus dinosaurs, tribolites and assorted creatures are not powering our vehicles, it is the sun, so petroleum is more green than Bob Brown.
21
Yes, nothing else says “Innovation” like “Turning on your lights!” – which year did we get electricity?
Next you’ll be asking us to get “innovative” and stoke the kitchen stove using coal.
12
I have lived the Green Dream to the full and found a couple of minor flaws.
Several years ago this happened in a real megacity where expansion outstripped electricity generating capacity – but nobody stopped the developers. I had been in the city for ten days and was due to leave Dubai on a 02.00am flight for London that night. I had a lazy day to kill.
I woke up at about 9.00am (I know, I know, but I have a peculiar sleeping skill so I like to use it when I can). I woke up, not because it was time to get up but because my room was so hot. Reception told me that the air conditioner was off due to an electrical fault, but should be OK in an hour or so. I had a shower, or at least I began a shower, because 3-minutes into it the water stopped. I considered using the water from the toilet bowl to get the soap off, but just used a towel instead. The toilet bowl as I found out a few hours later was clearly the better option.
It was not yet 10.00am and the room was stifling, but I sat down to check my emails. There were plenty, but I found none were leaving my outbox as the server was down. About 30-minutes later the battery died, so that was that.
Although I had plenty of time before I was due to check out, I packed and decided to leave my bags with the Concierge and go to a cool restaurant in a cool Mall. I then found out that the lifts were out, but as the telephone was still working (don’t ask me why) I asked Reception for help. They declined as all staff were allocated to other tasks. I dragged my bags down 10-flights to the ground floor (the stairwells were never air conditioned so I suspect the temperature in that trapped space was always 46°C – 50°C). It turned out that the Ground Floor door was electronically alarmed and when the power failed it sealed! Surely a serious safety design flaw? Going back up 10-floors, or even a few was not an option as the floors were not accessible from the stairwells without a pass key as they were for escape, not inter-floor travel. Anyway, I was not alone as approximately 60 – 80 people were jammed into the lower stairs in the same position. It was not a option to leave my valuables as that would have been a worse disaster than the alternative of dying of heatstroke. The people at the front were now banging very stridently on a steel door. Eventually it opened as a tradesman of sorts had smashed the lock. We staggered into a cool 42°C Lobby and were each given a bottle of cold water. They were finished in seconds.
I had a late checkout arranged for 8.00pm, but decided that this was no place to be, so I tried to check out now. When I got to the counter after another hour’s wait I discovered they had a problem. No electricity, no bill, no checkout, no Visa – and no ATM to get more cash. I was luckier than most as I had several thousand USD$, so could pay cash. But how much cash? Now I found out what the staff were doing – (THEY had pass keys for all but the Ground Floor!) so they were climbing the stairs for up to 30 floors checking minibars, laundry, restaurant hard copies, etc. I was asked to take a seat, but there were none as the whole hotel was now in the Lobby. Again I was lucky as after only another hour they called my name and presented me with the handwritten bill a (now warm) bottle of water and some sushi they were giving away before it spoiled. We agreed on the bill, I checked out and went to find a taxi. It was just after 3.00pm
Again I was among the more fortunate as I had a taxi within 15-minutes. There were actually very few taxis around and not the usual swarm, but I presumed this was because the power outage had made them busier than normal. Not so, as I found out.
I thought of rejecting the cab driver’s demand for 5x the usual fare, but as no other taxi was in sight and as more people checked out the queue would only grow, so I accepted. I have driven the journey to the megacity Airport dozens of times so I knew it would only be a 20 – 30 minute journey at most. Nearly 2-hours later it came into sight in the distance …
The drive was like a scene from a B-Grade mega disaster movie. When the power and air conditioning failed the whole megacity population piled their families into their SUV’s turned on the car air conditioning and aimlessly drove around – until they got low on fuel. Only then did they find out that petrol pumps need electricity … Most cars were driven until they simply stopped – usually in the middle of the road. The family then piled out and sat under the shade of a nearby tree, or their car. We chased some people out of their shade as the cabbie mounted the kerb, or green verge, or squeezed between abandoned cars. No traffic lights were working so each junction was clogged – and they were by far the most favourite place to abandon the car. We finally made it to the departure ramp more than 2.5 hours after leaving the hotel.
It was still 8-hours until my flight, but at this point things deteriorated
This world renowned mega airport had no power either! No fight details, no check-in terminals, no baggage conveyors and, apparently no radar. Fortunately they could still talk to the pilots and were able to divert 90% of air traffic to other airports. Again I was fortunate as they had a hard copy of the manifest for my flight. As the plane was on the ground they would be able to take my bags and manually load them. However, as no intercom was working I had to stay within a designated area from midnight waiting for my flight to be called. Nothing worked. No coffee, tea or cooked meals were available and all transactions were cash. At midnight, right on the dot (as Emirates had told us) my flight was called – but it was delayed until sometime the next day as they could not take off in the dark as the Air Traffic Controllers were only able to control traffic on the emergency backup system as the main system did not gave its own generator (something they have since fixed).
As a Business Class passenger I grabbed a piece of carpet for a bed, rather than the polished floor. One has to maintain standards. I did not go to the BC Lounge as it was on the upper floors, had no working air conditioning and sealed windows. I felt that 12 hours later the concern would be a lack of O2 and a surfeit of CO2 and heat. It was also a long way from the rallying point.
One of the further considerations I had in not making my way to the Business Class Lounge was that as soon as it got dark, well, it got dark, really, really dark. There was no lighting to find my way to the BCL in the bowels of the building so (literally) thousands of people crowded near the entrances either just inside or just outside. Having been told to be in a location at midnight I had to be sure that I could find that location, so I had to stay where I was. All water from taps stopped quite quickly and bottled water ran out about 02.00am – in 40°C heat. Surprisingly, there was no riot, no robberies and no violence, (as in New Orleans after Katrina) just a subdued resignation, though the possibility of some people dying of dehydration was real. Airline staff with torches did distribute bottled water to women and children, but I did not see any men demanding their place in the Titanic’s lifeboat. One of the advantages of travelling Business Class … you sometimes get a little class.
At sometime between 04.00am and 08.00am power was restored to about 60% of megacity (including the airport) and life began again. However, they had to manage the load, so the airport was set at 28°C, which is still uncomfortable. Also, recovery meant getting the toilets and facilities working again. No sooner was this done than they went down again as a backlog filled them up faster than the sewage pump system could cope. At noon the conveyors and terminals sprang to life and civilisation returned. I am sure FoE’s (I think it stands for “Foes of Everyhuman”) and the Greens cursed, as less than a dozen CO2 producing humans were reported as having expired in the heat, thus returning their carbon to the Earth. A poor result from their perspective.
Suffice to say that at 2.00pm we were bussed to the plane where I found the smell of my fellow passengers somewhat unpleasant. I had been in the same clothes in 40°C heat for over 30-hours. I had now had time to reconsider the toilet bowl option as I discovered what happens when your skin has traces of soap mixed with sweat over a long time. Something to do with PH differences and itching and redness. Our departure then had another 2-hour delay as two of the toilets were blocked to overflowing while we sat on the tarmac … Some people just cannot wait.
It was only after we took off that the pilot made an interesting comment (but I cannot know how true it was) that the Control Tower was supplementing radio with binoculars in addition to the emergency back up radar. He said it was the first time in ten years he had made a ‘visual take off’, but as only 10% of planes were taking off and landing it was not an issue and their was no danger. Oh, good
It was at that point I decided to reread Orwell’s “1984” to see what would happen to Australia if the Fabian Socialist Dark Green Left, gained power and implemented their dream.
We are living it now so the option of moving to megacity has appeal as they now have excess generating capacity. I will be there after Easter
I had now experienced the nightmare of the Green Dream and it had taken me 42-hours ‘bed-bed’ and 54-hours ‘shower to shower’ in constant 40C+ heat. Roll on the future if energy rich Australia chooses to deliberately revert to the uncivilised ‘Age of Unreason’ while singing blowing in the wind.
Jo, You might want to post this as a post
71
In Passing (En Passant),
Please send this story to every editor of every newspaper you can reach (both within and outside of Australia). It needs to be made public on a far greater scale than just this blog. I doubt that many will give it enough time to even read it but if just one editor will publish this story it will be worth it.
Your experience points out not only our vulnerability to failure of the generators but how little attention has been given to coping with it if it happens. Magnify those 30 hours to a week or two and imagine the problem.
40
Here in Vancouver we were more optimistic about this year’s Earth Hour since the city has been named the Earth Hour capital for 2013. It’s a certain satisfaction for all our efforts made in various areas described in more detail in the so-called Greenest City 2020 Action Plan whose aim is to eliminate the negative impact that our actions often have on the environment. The project contains many progressive ideas and proposals which, if fully supported and put into practice, may produce the desired effect even in the short term. I’m so glad to be one of the active participants of that project. 🙂
10
Another effing bloody news article lie from SBS. Large snow falls in NH are due to shrinking ice in arctic. WRONG my dear Watson. 1. Ice in Arctic is not shrinking. 2. And the dam cold non seasonal EXTRA snow build in the NH is due to jet stream shift due to LACK OF SOLAR ACTIVITY. i.e. a new LIA now called the MIA. Mini Ice age. due NOW! FACT.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2295716/UK-weather-travel-Satellite-maps-Britain-shivering-basked-24C-March.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-03/24/c_132257694.htm
etc etc.. it goes on
10
John Hewson mentions diesel and speaks of smog.
If he were really serious about something being done right now about the aspect of climate change that warmists like Flannery, Steffen et al most like to alarm us all about—-the Arctic ice melt, and melting of glaciers and permafrost—he might use his profile and very regular appearances and interviews on SKYNEWS to really push for action on the black carbon [ soot] problem that comprises up to half of the cause of the warming and melt.
Some black carbon is from the use of diesel fuel , but the greatest source is from the burning of wood fires for cooking, and burning of forests [ Asian brown cloud]and other biomass in China, India, Indonesia and the rest of Asia and Brazil.
NASA scientist Drew Shindell speaking at least five years ago…
“We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we’re just looking at carbon dioxide,” Shindell said. “If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we’re much better off looking at aerosols and ozone.”
Prominent warmist blogger, Joe Romm claims…
‘ the ice is in the last throes of the death spiral.’,
….yet he [ like all of the warmists] obsesses year after year, blog after blog, about the devil gas CO2 and never even mentions the much more easily mitigated black carbon—- when half of the warming and Arctic melt has been found[ by peer reviewed research] to be caused not by CO2, but by black carbon[ soot]—an aerosol that can be relatively easily and quickly mitigated .
With the imperative to avoid the catastrophic feedbacks that are expected to accompany the Arctic melt—– it seems inconceivable that warmists don’t push for BC mitigation up front, so we’ll know about it and can lobby our governments and call for that mitigation to be done asap as Shindell and other scientists called for in testimony to Congress some years ago.
As far as I’ve seen, no Australian climate scientist or climate commissioner has discussed black carbon’s role in the Arctic melting—they would rather just pull stunts like ‘earth hour’ —or maybe they don’t want to stop the melting, because then CO2 might seem a lesser threat.
John Hewson has personal vested interests in the demonization and killing off of coal—as have many prominent Australians who spruik CAGW.
If ever an issue required disclosure of personal and/or family vested interests by those promoting it, it’s CAGW.
We saw in the sham inquiries into the climategate emails, what happens when the people investigating or promoting the issue have a personal vested interest in coming to a pre-ordained bogus groupthink conclusion.
00
I apologize for not participating, my wife yells at me just for forgetting to turn off the 40W over-the-stove light when I leave the kitchen for more than 5 minutes.
00
Everyone around here unplugs the microwave to save power… I wonder just what massive amount that digital clock uses :-/
00