A reader here sent me this excellent letter, which definitely deserves to be shared, and widely. Enjoy! – Jo
A Guest Post by the Clipped-Wing Warrior
Hi, there. I’m a Global Warming sceptic. By that I mean that I am sceptical of all but the first of the Ten Tenets of the Church of Global Warming, which are;
- The globe warmed over the course of the 20th century.
- The globe is warming right now.
- The global warming is going to continue in the future.
- This warming is unusual, unnatural, and unprecedented.
- This warming is an overall bad thing.
- This warming is caused mainly by increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
- Human CO2 emissions are responsible for most of the warming.
- Humans are capable of reducing their global CO2 emissions.
- A significant amount of warming could be avoided if humans reduced their CO2 emissions.
- The amount of CO2 emissions reductions that would be achieved by bringing in a CO2 tax will reduce the amount of global warming by a large enough amount as to be worth the economic pain that would come with the application of a CO2 tax.
Apparently, to be a true Warmist you must confirm your belief in every one of the Ten Tenets. Declare your scepticism in just one of these and you risk being banished from the Church as a heretic.
I concede the globe warmed approximately 1 degree Celsius over the course of the 20th century, but I have my doubts about the other nine Tenets. But if you are a devout believer in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) and want to convert me to your religion then I’m going to tell you how you can do it.
The fourteen easy steps
- Step 1 – Stop making predictions that don’t come true.
- Step 2 – When you make a prediction, don’t just say something “might” happen.
- Step 3 – Don’t live your life like you don’t believe a word you’re saying.
- Step 4 – Stop the hate.
- Step 5 – Stop avoiding debate.
- Step 6 – Answer questions.
- Step 7 – Stop enjoying catastrophes.
- Step 8 – Don’t use invalid arguments.
- Step 9 – When you are wrong, admit it and apologise.
- Step 10 – Stop claiming that 97% of scientists agree that humans are warming the globe significantly.
- Step 11 – Stop lying. If you think it is okay to lie if it’s for a good cause, you are wrong.
- Step 12 – Rebuke your fellow Warmists if they act in an unscientific way.
- Step 13 – Stop blaming everything on Global Warming.
- Step 14 – Why are the only solutions always big-government “progressive” policies?
Step 1 – Stop making predictions that don’t come true
Like in 2006 when Kenneth Davidson said “Within a decade, most of us on spaceship Earth will face the prospect of choking, freezing, burning or drowning, and all of us are likely to be extremely uncomfortable unless measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gases now.” Well it is now 2014, 8 years into Kenneth’s 10-year prediction, and we didn’t reduce greenhouse gases, we actually increased them, and are most people on Earth choking, freezing, burning or drowning? Hardly. Conditions today are little different to 2006. There are thousands of similarly exaggerated ludicrous predictions that can be found on the internet if you bother to look. When you make a prediction and it doesn’t come true, it makes me sceptical of your position. So stop it.
Step 2 – When you make a prediction, don’t just say something “might” happen
The word “might” in that context just means a chance of more than 0% and less than 100%. Not very helpful. It is plainly transparent what you are doing when you say something “might” happen. If it happens, you will triumphantly declare that you were right, and if it doesn’t happen, you will defensively declare that you only said it “might” happen, not that it definitely “would”. If you say something “might” happen, you need to follow that up with something more specific, like “very likely” or “a slim chance” or “50/50″, otherwise I will write you off as a flake.
Step 3 – Don’t live your life like you don’t believe a word you’re saying
Don’t say that the oceans will rise 10 metres this century, and then buy a house beside the beach. Don’t say that we need to reduce emissions, and then fly around in a private jet. If you say we should all live like the Amish, then you should live like the Amish. Don’t complain that the Earth is overpopulated, and then father 6 children. Yes, I’m looking at you, Sting. Practice what you preach and you will gain my respect.
Step 4 – Stop the hate
A. A. Gill once said “What is stopping vast numbers of perfectly decent concerned folk getting with the programme is the eye-rolling, dismissive loathing of the people yelling at them to get with the programme.” Heed his words. Assume I’m a good person. Call me a bad person because I haven’t yet converted to your religion and you will all but guarantee I never will.
Step 5 – Stop avoiding debate
On any issue, if I see that one side is willing to debate but the other side isn’t, I instinctively gravitate to the side that wants to debate. It seems logical that the side that wants to debate believes they have a strong position with supporting arguments that will convince most listeners. The side that refuses to debate does so because they know their position is weak and they can’t tolerate the thought of losing the debate. So stop trying to think up reasons to not debate. There are no good reasons to not debate. Any time you start a sentence with “I’m not going to debate because…” I guarantee you the rest of that sentence is going to make you sound like a half-wit and a coward. So debate. Fairly. Give your opponent equal time and respect. And if, at the end of the debate, most listeners side with your opponent, don’t throw a tantrum. Just go away and work on your arguments and be better prepared for the next debate. Then you’ll have my respect. Try to violate your opponent’s right to free speech and you become my enemy.
Step 6 – Answer questions.
Any time I see a politician or commentator refuse to answer a question I reasonably conclude it is because the answer would be embarrassing and/or damaging. So I assume the worst. I think of the worst possible answer and assume it’s the case. So just answer the question, even if the answer damages your case. You can’t do any more damage than by not answering. At least you’ll gain my respect for being honest. So when somebody asks you “How much cooler do you think the globe will be on 1 January 2100 as a result of the introduction of Australia’s carbon dioxide tax?” give the honest answer which is “By an imperceptibly small amount.” Everybody knows that is the truth so just say it. And then when they ask “So what’s the point?” you can explain to them how it is a symbolic gesture, and symbolic gestures are important, they raise awareness and understanding and can alter behaviour, and hopefully it will cause us to use less coal and oil, and it shows the world we care, and maybe the rest of the world will get on board and do the same and then the effect on global temperatures will be more substantial. See, it’s not that hard. It’s better than hissing and spitting at the questioner and generally acting like a petulant child. And by the way, trying to justify your refusal to answer on the grounds that the questioner is not a qualified climate scientist doesn’t work. Just answer the bloody question, whatever it is (unless it is something inappropriately personal, like “what colour undies are you wearing?”).
Step 7 – Stop enjoying catastrophes
When you hear evidence that the globe may not be warming as much as we thought, don’t react like this is terrible news. Take Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, who said “If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences.” Kudos to Phil for having the courage to admit what I’ve long suspected about many Warmists, that they actually want the globe to warm. Catastrophically. It follows they would feel tremendously disappointed if millions of people aren’t killed as they predicted. If I predicted some catastrophe I would follow that up with “…but I really hope I’m wrong.” When you tell a Warmist that since 1998 it appears that global warming is slowing down or maybe even stalled entirely, they could say “Yeah, that’s great. Maybe things won’t be so bad after all. I really hope I was wrong and maybe those millions of deaths I predicted won’t happen.” Instead, mostly they become angry, defensive, abusive, and insist that global warming is going to kick into gear any time now. Can’t you see that when you give people the impression that you want millions of people to die just so that you can gloat and say “Ha, ha, I told you so” — it’s a bit of a turn off?
Step 8 – Don’t use invalid arguments.
Some examples;
- Argumentum ad baculum – “arguing by making threats, either implicitly or explicitly”
- Argumentum ad hominem – “arguing against the man”
- Argumentum ad populum -“arguing that the majority must be right”
- Argumentum ex silentio – “arguing that silence is necessarily proof of ignorance.”
- Argumentum ad verecundiam – “an argument that appeals to authority”
- Straw man argument – “arguing by attacking a less defensible position than the one your opponent has actually put forth.”
When I see someone using one or more of these arguments in any debate it really puts me off their position. There is only one valid argument when debating how to solve a problem; that when the positive and negative aspects of your proposed solution are compared to your opponent’s, yours is overall preferable. So calmly, politely, and rationally, discuss the positive and negative aspects of all of the proposals on the table. And don’t misrepresent your opponent’s position or arguments. If you have to totally misrepresent what someone says in order to refute them, you can’t refute them. And don’t hurl abuse or get personal.
Step 9 – When you are wrong, admit it and apologise
If you make a prediction and it fails to come true, admit it and say you’re sorry. Just say “Yeah, I got that wrong. What I thought would happen didn’t. Sorry about that.” The need to apologise is especially strong when politicians made multi-billion dollar decisions based on your dud prediction. Australia wasted billions of dollars on desalination plants, all of which are now suspended or mothballed, on the advice of a few scientists who said that global warming would mean little rain. I’m not aware of even one of those scientists ever apologising. They just flip the bird at anyone who raises the subject. You have no idea how much damage was done to your religion by the arrogant unrepentance of your false prophets.
Step 10 – Stop claiming that 97% of scientists agree that humans are warming the globe significantly
This claim has been conclusively debunked. The 97% figure comes from a survey of 77 scientists who were hand-picked because of their likeliness to agree. Scientists who it was felt were not very likely to agree were specifically excluded. Of the 77 hand-picked scientists, 75 agreed. That’s where the 97% figure comes from. On that basis you could take any belief, no matter how ludicrous, and say that 97% of people believe in it. There are millions of people like me who groan whenever they hear that bullcrap claim and conclude that the person repeating it is an anti-science propagandist.
[Jo notes that the other “97% survey” was a different fallacious study involving keywords in abstracts, and 97% was really 0.3% which actually endorsed the hypothesis as defined in the paper.]
Step 11 – Stop lying. If you think it is okay to lie if it’s for a good cause, you are wrong
When you are caught lying it destroys not just your credibility but that of your whole religion. People are going to think that if you have to lie to get them to believe in global warming it’s because the globe isn’t warming. I once heard a newsreader at the end of 2011 say that it was Australia’s warmest year ever. Thinking back on the year it didn’t seem particularly warm to me so I decided to look into that claim. Turns out, the study they were quoting from said that 2011 was not Australia’s warmest year on record, it was actually Australia’s warmest La Nina year on record. Big difference. La Nina years tend to be rather cool, while El Nino years tend to be unusually warm. But 2011 was the warmest La Nina year by only a tiny fraction of a degree over a La Nina year in the 1950s. So the claim that 2011 was our warmest year ever was a complete lie. The truth is that if you only look at La Nina years it would appear that Australia hasn’t warmed much at all in 60 years. But I guess the newsreader thought the righteousness of her cause justified the lie. She was wrong.
Step 12 – Rebuke your fellow Warmists if they act in an unscientific way
The American Physical Society says that scientists should “Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others. This requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials.” But when Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, was asked to submit his research for scrutiny he replied “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” Of course they are going to try to find something wrong with it, that’s what good scientists do! If Phil Jones was any kind of a good scientist he would want people to dig into his theories and try to disprove them. Anti-science attitudes like his make your religion look bad. Tell him to stop.
Step 13 – Stop blaming everything on Global Warming
Look at these quotes;
“Since the late 1960s, much of the North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty, in part due to increases in fresh water runoff induced by global warming…”
Michael Schirber, LiveScience, 29 June 2005
“The surface waters of the North Atlantic are getting saltier, suggests a new study of records spanning over 50 years. They found that during this time, the layer of water that makes up the top 400 metres has gradually become saltier. The seawater is probably becoming saltier due to global warming…”
Catherine Brahic, New Scientist, 23 August 2007
Do you have any idea how stupid this makes you Warmists look? I just heard somebody say that the much greater than usual amount of ice around Antarctica is because of global warming. Not long after Warmists told us the less than usual amount of ice in the Arctic is because of global warming. You do this all the time. You blame every little change of anything on global warming and say it’s a bad thing, as if you really believe that before the 20th century nothing ever changed. That before 1900 there was never any unusual weather and every year was the same and things like ice levels and salt levels and rainfall and tropical storms never varied from decade to decade. You’ve cried wolf so many times that now whenever you blame something on Global Warming people just tune out and ignore you. If you only blame Global Warming on rare occasions when something has changed in a clearly bad way that can be convincingly explained by global warming then people might start to listen to you.
Step 14 – Why are the only solutions always big-government “progressive” policies?
Stop saying that the only way to solve the problem of global warming is for the whole world to implement the A to Z of your Progressive Left-wing Agenda. You utterly destroy your credibility when you do that. And don’t bail me up with the pretense that you want a “Free market in Carbon” — it’s a fake market, fixed by bureaucrats, and it’s got almost no resemblance to a real free market. Just think about it. What if I said to you that the Earth is facing some catastrophe and the only way to prevent it is to make me your ruler and give me total control over your life and you have to do whatever I say? Oh, and stuff wads and wads of cash in my trousers while you’re at it? You would be justifiably suspicious that the whole thing is just a con-job to trick you into giving me wealth and power. As long as your claims of global warming are intertwined with your claims that we must destroy democracy and free speech, and convert to a socialist gnostocracy with you at the lucrative helm, which is what you’ve been advocating since before anyone ever mentioned global warming, then I will doubt whether you really believe, or even care if, the globe is warming at all.
So there you have it. Follow those steps and I will start to think that you Warmists are a bunch of great people that I’d like to hang out and be associated with. That would help your cause immensely. Oh, that and we get the actual warming you predicted.
* Edited point 10: 78/76 corrected to 77/75.
Sorry to be Off Topic but this new article in Forbes magazine is compelling reading. We’ve heard it all before but Forbes readers have never seen it brought together as well as this.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/02/05/in-their-own-words-climate-alarmists-debunk-their-science/
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Thanks for this, Janama. Compelling indeed. 🙂
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How can it be “new” with that date?
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Brilliant distillation of the arguments we’ve been having over the last few years in the sceptic blogosphere. What is there to add? Only trivia, I fear. A seminal post.
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I would like to add that I think, in some respects, this post is in the wrong place. Let me explain before everyone from Jo Nova down sharpen their knives. I think the “14 steps” is a brilliant distillation of how Warmists should approach their religion. Unfortunately, judging from the tone of most comments, Warmists are unlikely to read Jo Nova’s blog. I wonder if Skeptical Science would publish the “14 steps”.? Any here who read that oh so precious and oh so one eyed and oh so intolerant blog would know that any stance other than one of total obeisance to the “god of warming” would never see the light of day. Similar treatment would be meted out by the egregious Grant Foster (aka Tamino) on his blog that is so ludicrously mis-titled “Open Mind”. Can any who post here think of how the “14 steps” can be drawn to the attention of the MSM and the warmist blogs? Most sceptical blogs and those who post to them don’t adopt inflexible stances but are prepared to rationally discuss a wide range of topics. This is not the case with the warmists which the “14 steps” so eloquently illustrates. I hope this satisfactorily explains my opening comment.
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Should be circulated to Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth, IPCC (personal copy to Mr Pachauri), Michael Mann, EU.
But will they listen or care? Doubt it.
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….Oh, and the BBC.
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Don’t be surprised if the Bolter picke this up in tomorrow’s Herald Sun.
I think Andrew reads Jo’s blog as soon as he gets up in the morning.
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don’t we all?
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ABSOLUTELY THE BEST AND MOST CONVINCING ARGUMENTS I HAVE YET READ, EXPOSING THE PR FAILURE OF THE CULT OF CAGW.
MAGNIFICENT! THIS SHOULD BE COMPULSORY READING BY ANYBODY WHO HAS EVER ARGUED FOR “ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE”!
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Brilliant!
However, you might consider adding another point: ‘Learn from the lessons of history.’
In other words, look in the geological record where there is absolutely no evidence of CAGW caused by rising CO2 levels.
And he/she says, “What about the folks living 10,000 years ago, they saw their sea levels rise rapidly by around 80 metres – CO2 levels also rose at that time?”
To which your response is, “Yes, but the temperature rise, which caused the glaciers to melt, was followed several hundred years later by an increase in CO2 levels – in nature, it is temperature first, CO2 follows.”
You do not have to be a rocket scientist to realise CAGW theory is a complete crock, you just have to be someone with a little common sense and an ability to analyse the facts. Also, it helps if you are not a blinkered green activist or work in government, or a quasi-government organisation.
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It is a sad commentary on society, that even “a little common sense”, has become a rare commodity, let alone people having, “an ability to analyse the facts”, or even recognise that the facts are there.
What has happened, over the past several decades, is the total dumbing down of the education curriculum within the “first-world” countries*.
Young people need some sort of degree in order to get any sort of job with prospects, and probably a higher degree if they want to get a really decent job. Kids have to pass exams, in order to get into tertiary education. The exams are based on the curriculum, and the teachers are forced to teach the material in the curriculum, if their charges are to pass the exams. The examinations, of course are set by the bureaucrats, who are “informed by the specialists in the field”. That is the process.
The “specialists in the field”, are well recompensed for what they have achieved, but in reality, they have nowhere else to go – that is the downside of being highly specialised. Their continuing financial survival depends on their speciality remaining near the top of the Government priorities list. While most Western Governments continue to have a “Minister of Climate Change”, they are safe.
We also have the opportunist hangers-on, like Al Gore, who is well placed enough to see the emerging trends, and shrewd enough, and rich enough, to capitalise on every passing fad. They are not really material to this edifice, except in helping to bed it into the collective public culture, for their own purposes.
And finally, we have the fellow-travellers who manifest as trolls on sites like this. The are really the victims, who display their hurt as anger.
This is the edifice of Climate Change.
The weak point in this edifice, are the political strategists in each political party. They are the people who need to be identified, and informed that all future policy statements from any politician, or party candidate, will be assessed, and formally ranked, against the Ten Tenants. That should excite a few people.
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Forgot the footnote:
* First-World countries refers to the (now outdated) group of countries, aligned with the U.S., that were generally opposed to those countries aligned with the Soviet Union (Second-World countries).
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That is the Guardian (UK) to a T. Anger greets good news. When you ask difficult questions they say things like “I can’t be fussed” or “if you don’t know the answer then it’s obvious you are a denier” etc.
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Nice one, Clipped Wing Warrior. Got a gut feeling who you are but won’t elaborate.
Looking forward to the responses from our resident warmists. Popcorn? Check.
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I think I recognise the writing style as well, scaper.
An old acquaintance who frequented these pages regularly but whom we haven’t seen for nigh on ten months?
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‘A. Reader’ is on the ball. An excellent piece of writing. A veritable javelin.
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Funny. I actually know a real ‘A. Reader’.
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I knew a [snip. Turn it up Yonnie. Primary school stuff. mod oggi]
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I agree tenets 2 to 10 are bunkum. However don’t be too quick to agree to tenet one as this claim is based on sparse raw data with a lot of post hoc adjustments, limited access provided to data sets for corroboration, selective use of conforming data and in the end, synthetic or derived data taken from tree rings, archeological digs and ice cores. A lot of room for error and contradiction here.
If you want to be a good skeptic, my advice is go for broke and refute everything.
I know, I know it is an important issue as vast sums of money are being wasted by governments, but you must also acknowledge, much of what governments do is a waste. In fact there is nothing so frightening as a Prime Minister or a Portfolio Minister with a good ‘idea’.
Unfortunately this particular ‘idea’ has never passed any credibility tests, so it is a bigger waste than most.
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BeWitch,
Not so fast, mate.
First the BIAS. I always was a sceptic, for reasons to many to list.
However, the foremost are basic maths and basic history, that being no more than the last thousand years, for both, as a starting point.
Should you expand beyond that point, then the concept of AGW is shown to be pure nonsense.
However, the first point is correct, the Planet has warmed over the last thousand years.
Although to take that into it’s full measure, you need to consider the periods when it did not warm.
As an ex. military man, Military History is a most important subject for promotion.
As is the tactical and logistical elements surrounding it.
Like not invading Russia in the winter, in any century.
Also, like Washington, crossing the Delaware, while his Hussars kicked ice flows out of the way of his passage.
I would point out a few things about this crossing.
Firstly, the Delaware has never been as frozen, until this year, since then.
Secondly, as has been shown, even in spite of the climate conditions of the time, Washington succeeded.
Thirdly, that the period in question (1770) was part of a Minor Ice age, which commenced around (1350 and ended around 1850) also known as a Global Cooling or Little Ice Age.
Aside from the crappy lifestyle, rampant disease, regional wars, crop failures and general starvation, the odd plague and other mishaps, the period of the Little Ice Age wasn’t such a fun time.
Things have improved since then, including the Little Ice Age becoming smaller and less icy.
So, warm is good.
As per my previous reply to another well known lurker who seems to think that the Earth is best served by not having Carbon Dioxide in abundance and enjoying the benefits of a much cooler planet, I would point out that when Earth has Carbon Dioxide in abundance and is warmer, then all prosper.
Including I might add, civilisation itself.
Well, except for Socialists and Gaian worshippers and other such individuals who are seeming bereft of common-sense.
So, yes mate, it has got warmer since 1770. Although if you check the official record, (raw unsampled, unadjusted data) it’s also been colder since then, Like This Past Year, for example.
So, yes give them this bone, then get them to explain why the Hockey Stick tries to rewrite the period from (1350 to 1850) out of the official historical record.
Also get them to explain how it was during the Roman Medial Warm period, (250 BC to 400 AD) when the Romans were growing Wine, via vines, in the Hills of Yorkshire, (far North UK.) which has never been done since. This despite the Medial Warm period that followed.
(To cold, even today, to grow any grape, or vine fruit, even in the far South below London, I hear.)
I would also point out that Roman Sea Ports and Naval Fortress were some three to five Kilometres further inland.
This also suggests that the Mean Sea Level has actually dropped over the last two thousand years. Considerably.
While many are worried about rampant Global Warming, which I can but earnestly pray for, including a return to the tidal levels of the Roman Medial Warm period, I sadly must agree with the Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch.
Milutin’s mathematical assessment of the factors that cause the opposite of Global Warming have not been disproved, just dismissed. I would point out that is not science, but arrogance.
Furthermore, Milutin’s mathematical assessment is that we are overdue for a Global planetary correction.
Sadly, I think we are about to enjoy the ancient expression about living in interesting times.
I would point out that previous “interesting times” were also rather ugly, brutal and short, not to mention somewhat cold, for all concerned.
Including, I might add, civilisation itself.
Fact and History, the natural enemy of the Propagandist.
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Nicely put.
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Well put.
H.H. Lamb noted that one of the roman vineyards in Yorkshire was in what was then (1975) a frost hollow, further evidence of warmth in Roman times.
There has been quite a big move north of grape growing in Europe in the last 30 years. There are vineyards now in Belgium, Holland, England and even Latvia. The latter claim merely to have restarted production after a 400 year break. It will be interesting to see what happens to these vineyards in the next 20 years of cooling.
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Well, according to the warmist, your vines will burn in the sun! Mangoe and Guava might be a more suitable crop?
Must run, Ita is coming to visit!
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There are some vineyards, mostly in Southern England I think. But how well they grow compared to Roman times is probably an open question. I expect many things have changed in viticulture, not just climate. Retired stockbrokers and lawyers probably don’t have to worry too much about yields.
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Comprehensive and beautifully put.
It’s clear to me that this was written by someone very intelligent … because it coincides with my position exactly! (Chuckle)
What a pity that so many people in the world – mainly those convinced by CAGW propaganda – will never read it or will be unable to understand it if they do.
Let’s face it, if someone is convinced by the puerile logic of CAGW, concentrating long enough to absorb the message in this excellent post will be beyond their attention span.
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I’m saving this one it’s a ripper of an overview, you get a big Yonnie cuddle and noggin rub for this one. 🙂
A lot of these points were covered in the Lord Monckton address I attended but you deliver them just as well, can’t do much better than that.
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Unwarranted concession IMO.
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I suspect the twentieth century global surface temperature should look like this (red), almost one half degree C lower than the now — 1920 roughly level with 1975.
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Pre-CAGW Hansen graphs would have 1940 at about the same as 1998.
1978 spike was about 0.15C below 1940.
So I suspect your red line should be even lower than you have places it.
Maybe more like this ? (I used the info above, and Steve Goddard’s “Giss adjustments” to try to “unadjust”)
http://imageshack.com/a/img89/6431/cc8t.jpg
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Stefan the Denier (His name ,not mine) would agree with you .Zero Global Warming.
https://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/q-a/
I have read most of the content on that site ,it is invaluable and often very funny.Well worth a read.
Be careful though , he does not like luke warmers.
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I love this! I hope it reaches far and wide. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. This is exactly how I am made to feel by the warmists and alarmists claims, words, actions, reactions and lies.
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Bookmarked and will be forwarded to others. Still have one criticism which is that the lack of appreciation that those passionate about CAGW were hooked because they were excused from following such sage advice.
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I’ve shared it.
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Unlike every other similar in content commentary there is almost no mention of any of the most contentious and disputed climate science subjects, a very rare and to be complimented exclusion in this commentary on the great global warming debate / debacle
And a really excellent commentary on the well known personal attitudes and open animosity of most dedicated warmists towards any who do not agree with their own personal warmist creed.
And also applicable to the skeptics who should themselves take all those points on board when debating, if ever, with warmists.
To do a bit of a Lewendowsky in reverse.
A post such as this does make one think and wonder about the collective and seemingly warped and twisted psychological profiles of the warmists who are so fixated in their creed and beliefs that they seem incapable of seeing the hypocrisy so many of them practice in their real lives compared to their wild eyed, openly proclaimed beliefs of a catastrophic future climate for the planet and their proposed draconian and despotic solutions.
And in addition they are also quite prepared to stoop to the utterly abysmal levels of a complete and openly expressed intolerance for another’s understandings and beliefs along with an advocating of severe pitiless penalties for those who do not believe as they believe.
A complete intolerance and a contemptuousness for non believer’s opinions and understandings that are so clearly highlighted by the author of this post.
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AHHA! Belief! That’s a religious term. Why not ask if you trust the science?
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+1
Perfectly reasonable request
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‘Can’t you see that when you give people the impression that you want millions of people to die just so that you can gloat and say “Ha, ha, I told you so” ‘
Oh, come on. The satisfaction of a good “told you so” is well worth a bit of mass death and disaster.
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Step 14 is off-putting. Has too much flavour of swivel-eyed right wing loonies about it. Condemn government and bureaucrats by all means, but also condemn the right wingers and big money boys who have made a fortune from the scams.
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Name one true free-market advocate or competitor who makes a fortune from the scam? The big wall St money guys want the government control, they want the subsidies, the last thing they would like is a true free market.
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FYI and others about the situation in the EU.
Most aggressive in the EU about CC is Denmark and Sweden.
Denmark wants to sell Vestas Wind turbines.
Sweden wants new nuclear power plants on the agenda.
So does the UK. The costs of new nuclear are so high that it can’t be built without some kind of support from government.
In UK EDF (France)will get 92.5 £/MWh (2023) for the plant planned at Hinkley Point
If you look at the different EU members they all have their own agenda, and free market people is doing absolutely nothing to get the CC hype of the agenda. Read the Financial Times and The Economist.
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It’s much worse than that. It’s 92.50 £/MWh indexed up by RPI starting last year, which is running at 3%+ – for the life of the contract.
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Joanne Nova’s comment April 8, 2014 at 7:55 pm, offers an opportunity to comment on this link found @theconversation today from a post titled, “How carbon dioxide will make food less nutritious.”
In the comments (before it is deleted) is Russ George, and a his website.
Though his science & theory is another discussion, it is his story that is relevant to Ms. Jo’s (& RoHa’s) comment.
(and ROM @#13)-
SURE FIRE WAY TO GET THE WORLD OF CLIMATE CHANGE KNICKERS IN A TWIST (DANDER UP)
“The means to manage the largest amount of our climate changing, global warming, life smothering CO2 was at hand and proven.
And the cost was so cheap that big governments and massive carbon taxes would not be needed.
Ocean pastures are just like pastures on land, if there is good grass lots of animals thrive there, if there is little grass, or in our case little plankton, few animals, few fish can survive. If we became good stewards of our ocean pasture we believed we could bring the fish back.
From our one fishing boat we took mineral micronutrients to replenish the ocean pasture.
What worked so wonderfully was simple iron ore rock dust.
It worked well, beyond our wildest dreams, it worked like it was magic.
Rather than this being heralded as good news for the planet a great protest has arisen.
Hundreds of reports have used the propaganda rule book to smear the village work and the names of those involved.
The most unflattering photos that could be found are used.
Every trick in the political, NGO, and media dirty tricks books is used. Why?
A tiny village science office with seven scientists is subjected to the largest SWAT raid in Canadian environmental history, and an unlawful raid at that!”
. . .
Read on for his science/chemistry.
11
handjive
April 9, 2014 at 8:05 am @ #17.1.2
I have actually known about the ocean fertilizing iron dust experiments of which there have been quite a lot by various national research organisations [there was lots of money to find ways to “stop” global warming ] for quite a few years and it was one of those experimental CO2 reducing [ in theory ] items discussed at length in the now shut down Weather Zone climate threads some two or three years ago.
It would give more credibility to the likes of “we know how to save the planet but the government stopped us” greenies as Russ George appears to be if they did even a modicum of homework before sounding off on a blog somewhere about how they personally can “save the planet” with their ideas.
Nature has been seeding a large part of the North Atlantic Ocean with massive dust storms since the Sahara dried out starting possibly some 6000 to 8000 years ago and became the desert it is today.
How Earth’s Orbit Shaped the SaharaHow Earth’s Orbit Shaped the Sahara
With the onset of the satellite era back in the 1960’s it became clear that the immense Sahara dust storms were having a very significant biological effect on the North Atlantic.
The size and scope of these immense long duration dust storms out across the Atlantic ocean makes Russ Georges self promoted efforts to seed oceans with iron dust look at very best almost invisible and totally ineffective in both effect and area.
As to the effectiveness of seeding the ocean with iron dust on a large scale [ iron is an essential element for life and which exists at only low levels through out the World’s oceans ] to create increased open cean biological activity so as to fix more of the beloved nasty “Carbon” of the alarmists otherwise more correctly known as CO2, is almost totally ineffective and only at best very short term as in days of effectiveness as a number of open ocean experiments have shown.
For the locations of these past open ocean iron seeding experiments and an outline of the outcomes;
Will Ocean Iron Fertilization Work?
Getting carbon into the ocean is one thing. Keeping it there is another.
In one such ocean iron seeding experiment in the Southern Ocean there were some quite spectacular results over some many square kilometres with a massive increase within days in ocean flora and fauna as the iron dust seeded area spread out over tens of square kilometres .
That in turn attracted all the very small ocean animals that fed off such ocean flora and fauna which in turn attracted the larger predators which in turn attracted the next tier of ocean predators and so on up the predator chain which arrived from hundreds of kilometres around which led to a days long feeding frenzy and the complete failure of the experiment as the whole system was cleaned out.
And so every body went home again.
All these oh so clever ideas to save the planet inevitably run into Nature which does it’s own thing in it’s own totally opportunistic way and which comes under the heading of “unintended consequences” and “unexpected effects”, both more often put as S**t! We didn’t think of that!
00
“Name one true free-market advocate …”
Along with a True Scotsman?
But I didn’t mention free market advocates. I was referring to right-wingers and big money boys. Not necessarily the same thing.
00
Off- putting, but not unfair. I’m an Old Labour pinko Brit, and even I find the Green’s Maoist steamroller scary!
60
Jo,
I’d add a fifteenth.
“Show us your Data”
This has never been done in an open and honest way.
Cheers,
320
In the raw?
60
Well…. You can keep your hat on.
60
A really great piece. Thank you Clipped-Wing Warrior.
Pointman
170
Totally agree.
10
You are absolutely right, logically and well enunciated. Well done. This reasonably addresses all of the arguments and makes perfect sense. Written like a good scientist and much appreciated.
However it is not about logic and scientific method. The extraordinary aspect of this absurd position is that it is not even about science.
It is about politics, fear, religion, beliefs, money, manipulation, obstinacy and life and most of all, money.
Not too long ago, we were cave dwellers, sheltering from the rain, snow and large animals. Then villages. Life was short and terrible with only moments of happiness.
Toothaches could not be fixed. Everything killed you. Only religion explained the terrible mess and the endless loss.
Then the world of 19th century science. Most people do not understand science. In fact most lawyers are innumerate even when most disputes are about money.
So we have primitive people trying to talk about the temperature of a planet? How much more esoteric and unconnected could you be?
However with 7 billion people who can all give you a dollar, it is worth the effort for some. Global Warming is nothing more than the first of the scams to come
and while it has made Al Gore a billionaire and provided a living for so many, it is not the end. There is no way you can explain science to most of the population,
except as a religion. So prepare for the next big scare, especially from the United Nations, a concept so foreign to the villager that it is on another planet.
So you are right. The warmists make no sense, revel in disaster and wish for Armageddon, just so they can be proven right. It will always be like this.
When we have the magic of nuclear energy at our fingertips, even fusion energy which powers the universe, I do not see why we are not chasing our potential. Instead we want to withdraw to the caves in fear.
It is wonderful in Australia not to have a destructive anti progressive Green government, a government by self appointed druids who know nothing. We can only look forward to a future where the real potential of this country is able to be realised without retreating to the caves or to a failed and utterly inadequate 19th century communist dream. Still we have to educate, to teach science and to stop the promulgation of half truths, faux science as religion.
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And we know that how?
Satellites don’t measure the areas of the globe we live on, they measure miles up in the atmosphere.
Thermometres are distributed unevenly. The oceans that cover over 70% of the globe are barely measured.
The raw thermometre data are so heavily massaged and fudged that I’d doubt anybody has solid evidence of this planet warming, cooling or otherwise.
Strike 10 out of 10 for me. It’s all bullchit.
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How dare you suggest the GISS pre-satellite data has been fudged.
I am sure the good people at NASA have very good reasons for constantly reducing global temperatures in the pre-satellite era. To think they might have an ulterior motive of trying to exaggerate the last 100-150 years of warming, is just not fair. You know very well you can rely on government scientists to be honourable, objective and not to bow to the whims of their political masters.
Sarc off/
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Apologies Peter that should have been a thumbs up – fat finger.
20
To a scientist like myself this post is daft.
A valid scientific theory cannot be falsified, Unlike CAGW!
A falsified theory can never be valid!
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If it can’t be falsified it isn’t science.
If there is always another excuse that covers the failure, it can’t be falsified, CAGW can’t be falsified so it isn’t science. eg- when the models fail, the oceans ate the warming. When the drought breaks and there are floods, – oh but we always predicted heavy rainfall etc. Hot weather proves CAGW, cold weather proves CAGW, wet weather proves CAGW and so does dry weather, and so does calm weather and stormy weather. Whatever comes up, the models can be adjusted to prove it was CAGW all along. That’s why it’s not science it’s a religion.
If you are a scientist you should know that. If you don’t know that, ask a scientist colleague trained at a respectable university who was forced to do HPS, to explain it to you.
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“A valid scientific theory cannot be falsified”
I think it would be better to say that a valid scientific theory is one that has not been falsified. All scientific theories can (in principle) be falsified; if it’s not falsifiable, it’s not scientific.
Also, this neglects other requirements of a valid scientific theory — such as testability. I could offer the theory that Neptune is inhabited by extraterrestrial invaders; that theory has not been falsified. Nor is it scientific.
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Superb & succinct post CWW – thank you.
Indeed, the more sophisticated the hypothesis the more opportunity it should offer for falsification, in one sense the ‘easier’ it may be to falsify.
The blossomed edifice of confabulated politics, social manipulation, financial gain, of overt green power and control, the stinking melange that sustains (C)AGW, is sophisticated and complex, and in the nature of, ‘You Will be Assimilated. Resistance is Futile’. It inevitably shields the basic tenets from falsification.
But not here.
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How many times do we have to ask these questions?
@jimalkhalili hosts a programme on BBC’s Radio4 called A Life Scientific (not sure if you can get IPlayer in OZ) and today he had Slingo from the UK Met Office.
I only caught the last 5 minutes but the waffle about how she’s been vilified and still works to defend the ‘science’ was so excruciating as to be embarrassing.
A proper scientific journalist might, might, just have asked exactly how the scientific method applied to Global Warming/Climate Change.
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Here is the link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zr00k
Synopsis: “the ocean swallowed it”.
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We are doomed when its regurgitated.
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Great post; add ipse dixit to section 8.
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=> Their whole basis is to exaggerate to scare you into doing what they want. Their key weapon is FEAR.
=> They have to say this because they themselves don’t know…Its all based on models that they know are NOT facts!
=> Standard Left-wing behaviour: Hypocrisy. The Left NEVER practice what they preach.
=> They need to bully, intimidate, and assassinate the character of their opposition. The objective is to silence them…Just look how some suggest their opposition should be jailed for not listening to their lies!
=> They have to avoid debate, because the foundations of their belief are flawed. They know it. To debate means to explore. To explore will mean the truth! They cannot let the truth come out!
=> They are NOT going to answer questions because questions will reveal that they are lying.
=> “End of the World” propaganda is part of the FEAR campaign.
=> They have to do everything they can to avoid being found out or exposed.
=> They don’t have morals or humility. They are NOT going to apologise for anything.
=> Left-wingers don’t respect mathematics, science, or engineering. There is no honesty, let alone Intellectual Honesty with how they conduct themselves. Remember, this is an ideological agenda that is backed by a movement with no moral compass.
=> Standard Left-wing behaviour…The ends justifies the means. Do you expect anything less from an ideology without humility and morals in its bones?
=> Warmists don’t see this situation as a scientific or engineering problem. They see it as a Social Problem. Because that’s the way they see the world. Everything must be a social issue! That’s all they understand! To discuss science with them is to speak Chinese to a dog…The dog won’t understand and continue chasing its tail.
=> It doesn’t have to be true. People just have to believe it…The strategy is simple. They have nothing to lose and are desperate to regain lost support. So they’re throwing crap against the wall, hoping something, anything sticks!
=> Because Warmers ARE Left-wingers. And the current modern Lefty’s trend is for EQUALITY. In terms of Climate Change its about redistribution of wealth. They do NOT see Developed nations as deserving of wealth. They see it as stolen or denied from the Developing countries. And what’s the solution to problems? GOVERNMENT FORCE! This is EXACTLY like Socialism. Using the Govt to force others to their utopia. To punish. ie: Carbon Tax…By the way, their progressive policies are REGRESSIVE in practice. To put it more simply, they really bought into the Robin Hood paradigm: Steal from the Rich, to Give to the Poor. The flaw with that paradigm is that the Rich aren’t the same as those in the past. In the 21st century, no one in the Western world is being denied of prosperity. As long as they have a plan, work hard at it, and never give up. People can climb upward. What of the Developed Nations? Either they tried the wrong policies in the past, they’re ruled by corruption, ruled by a dictator, or haven’t aggressively evolved yet due to culture.
Side note
Global Warming, Climate Change, etc is Left-wing policy. The point is to install a GLOBAL Government. The goal is EQUALITY for ALL. This is nothing more than a Socialist/Communist agenda on a Global scale. Since they don’t have a religion, they must create one. The thing is, they belittle religions and don’t understand its a form of guidance that instils values to a human being. It is not a blind devotion to some mystical hocus-pocus. Just because they have “spooky language” doesn’t mean there aren’t practical values that are helpful to anyone. (That’s the biggest point missed by Left-wingers).
The 3 Standards of Left-wing ideology…
(1) The Standard of the Double Standard.
=> One rule for them. Another rule for everyone else. ie: “Some are more equal than others”.
(2) The Standard of Mediocrity.
=> Drag everyone down to the lowest level…So everyone is equally miserable and under-performing together. Individual achievement and merit must be stunted in the name of “equality for all”.
(3) The Standard of Tolerance.
=> Free speech is only allowed as long as its the approved, ‘correct’ speech. Else, all dissidents must be purged by denying their livelihood and public smear campaigns like bullying and intimidation.
Side note 2
Take note of how all the Left leaning radical groups behave (environmentalists, feminists, gay activists, etc). They all behave eerily similar. Some even sing off the same script! Just observe and you’ll see it the very moment they open their mouths or the way they behave when faced with opposing view.
…Some display serious mental issues. Sociopathic and Narcissistic tendencies. No honest, decent person will follow a nut-job! The more Warmists keep exaggerating, the more crazy they look to everyone else. The less likely anyone would support or follow them!
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Side note 2 (“Take note of how all the Left leaning radical groups behave…”)
I think many display angry tendencies because they belong to minority, marginalised groups and therefore envy and despise the ‘normal’ social order that so marginalises them. Activism against the status quo is possibly a payback, whether it is CAGW or saving the Hairy Assed Bunyip from loggers.
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Tim, I thought the ‘hairy arsed bunyip’ was the left wing Eco-loon….. But to me, sat here in the UK the real battle, and I can describe it no other way, is the battle to keep Democracy, for that is what the UN and political elites want to take from us.
The EU is already set and acting without democratic accountability and the democracies of ‘Member States’ (subject states) are meaningless now that laws are dictated from the unelected in Brussels. That is the model the UN wants to achieve globally. Climate wars are the current battleground, but when that is lost by the UN and IPCC as it seems it must they will return with another scheme to frighten the people into submission to the unelected.
20
CORRECTION:
That should be DEVELOPING Nations. Essentially, when you run a country on wrong principles, values, ethics, and policies; you end up screwing the nation and holding it back. ie: Regression…While other countries move up as they have follow principles and values that have worked.
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A very enjoyable article, but warmist/sceptic opinions are strongly polarised. I don’t think that in most cases a pleasant exchange of views is possible. It all rapidly becomes an argument, and in an argument everyone wants to hear their own voice and be RIGHT. I’ve found that there’s nothing like ‘man-made global warming’ to cause hostility instantly in any discussion. Otherwise pleasant people begin to talk about ‘deniers’ and so forth. They truly believe that the Earth is in danger from mankind’s activities, and that people who don’t agree are dangerous, stupid or both. It’s the endless media bombardment over the years which is undoubtedly to blame for this. Some people I’ve met or know are simply won’t look at official temperature records and other relevant real-world figures, data or graphs – yet here’s where the true evidence lies. There’s also a tendency to take the view that the scientists must be right – ‘so who are you to question this?’
I sometimes wonder why I take up the cudgel with some warmists in the letter pages of newspapers. I think it’s because of the debasement of science by some who should know better, and the sheer self-assured rude arrogance of those individuals.
Arguing with real temperature and other data works well – rather like holding a cross to Dracula, Hammer movie style!
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“I don’t think that in most cases a pleasant exchange of views is possible. It all rapidly becomes an argument, and in an argument everyone wants to hear their own voice and be RIGHT.”
All the more reason why it is important for we skeptics to remain calm and rational in such a situation. Remember that there are almost always three parties to an argument: you, your opponent, and the observers. You may not be able to convince your opponent, but the fact that you are calm and your opponent is angry will have an impact on others.
On this subject I highly recommend the essay “Arguing in the absence of good will,” http://www.wendymcelroy.com/print.php?news.1845 an excerpt from Wendy McElroy’s book The Reasonable Woman.
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A fascinating link Brad R. Who would have thought that so much could be said about how to present an argument? I think I’ll read the book – a change from global warming!
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I’m glad you enjoyed it, Carbon500. You can also read on-line the counterpart, “Arguing in an Atmosphere of Good Will” http://www.wendymcelroy.com/print.php?news.1880 , and you might also enjoy “An Intellectual Bill of Rights” http://www.wendymcelroy.com/print.php?news.1605 .
Obligatory disclaimer: I’m married to the author. 🙂
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Jo, love your quoting of The rAge’s Kenneth Davidson who jumped on the CAGW bandwagon too easily for someone with a reputation for being astute.
I think I’ve noticed a pattern where middle aged men with a public intellectual profile got so sucked in by CAGW.
The pattern is that they have essentially been “horizontally recruited” by wanting to be in with the hip young trendy left crowd a la ABC panel shows or Anna Rose’s Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
If you have ever seen Anna Rose’s Australian Youth Climate Coalition in action you will not consider my contention far-fetched. I encountered them once at Federation Square, Melbourne. There was about a dozen teenage nymphettes dressed in the most provocative little uniforms (ultra short mini’s and tight mid riff baring T shirts) handing out flyers and talking to passers by.
It is not surprising in light of this that late middle-aged intellectuals like Kenneth Davidson who are beset with feelings of age impotency throw their reputations in so easily with the young set that CAGW promoters so cleverly exploit. They get so much love for doing thus.
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“There was about a dozen teenage nymphettes dressed in the most provocative little uniforms (ultra short mini’s and tight mid riff baring T shirts) handing out flyers and talking to passers by.”
Please notify me of the next gathering 🙂
Perhaps one of them could persuade me to join this new religion.
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1…..A common problem with the predictions industry throughout history….(They need to be harder to understand.)
2…It might.
3…That defeats the object. This message is for you.
4…What the world needs now is love, love, love.
5…That’s debatable.
6…
7…Works for the film industry.
8…This is about politics.
9…No.
10…98%?
11…Politics again, sorry.
12…That one is going to be tricky.
13…Everything can be solved with propellers on big sticks, either way.
14…The only solution is big government. Don’t be selfish.
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‘The fourteen easy steps’
Step 1 – Stop making predictions that don’t come true.
A. They do come true and have!
Step 2 – When you make a prediction, don’t just say
something “might” happen.
A. That is just semantics!
Step 3 – Don’t live your life like you don’t believe a word
you’re saying.
A. And who is doing that?
Step 4 – Stop the hate.
A. What is this ‘hate’ thing?
Step 5 – Stop avoiding debate.
A. And who is doing that?
Step 6 – Answer questions.
A. Yes and they are answering valid questions.
Step 7 – Stop enjoying catastrophes.
A. And who is doing tis like?
Step 8 – Don’t use invalid arguments.
A. Yet again who is doing this?
Step 9 – When you are wrong, admit it and apologise.
A. Well you can’t have it both ways, when predictions
are made it is with the proviso ‘might’, ‘could’ or
‘best evidence’.
Step 10 – Stop claiming that 97% of scientists agree that
humans are warming the globe significantly.
A. 97%, maybe but whatever it is ITS HIGH!
Step 11 – Stop lying. If you think it is okay to lie if
it’s for a good cause, you are wrong.
A. Who is doing this?
Step 12 – Rebuke your fellow Warmists if they act in an
unscientific way.
A. Define Warmists and unscientific?
Step 13 – Stop blaming everything on Global Warming.
A. And who is doing this?
Step 14 – Why are the only solutions always big-government
A. Well the free market will not do it!
And here’s BA. Here to show I’m happy to publish anything from the other point of view, even though, as usual, there is not one single fact or example to substantiate any of those answers. (Just the declarations of the anonymous youtube fan). At least he wrote sentences this time. Bravo BA. – Jo
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‘ there is not one single fact or example to substantiate any of those answers’ because I’m not going to waste time and have the post go AWOL into cyber-space, ask away and I’m sure you’ll receive an answer! That’s if you dare of course.
[use your own words and links other than youtube and you’ll get posted. I dare you.] ED
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‘[use your own words and links other than youtube and you’ll get posted. I dare you.] ED’ what’s this thing with youtube? As I have said before it is only a tool and this tool is only as good as what’s in it! And seen as the vast majority I post are full valid scientific details, from such sources as the AGU, Potholer and others, valid science transmissions, etc, etc. I suspect you find the information they hold too difficult to digest! Because they do not react well with your anti AGW DNA!
—————–
BA. You use the source “potholer”? Are you trying to impress us, or is this your first attempt at satire? As for the tool called youtube. Here’s a novel idea. We use a tool called writing. Try it. – Jo
[Science is actually an ongoing debate between people with different interpretations of the observations. A YouTube video is just a statement of opinion, that cannot be debated, it is therefore not science, and is a waste of everybody’s time. Could it be, that the maker of the video’s is afraid of being challenged in their beliefs? -Fly]
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Sorry, I rebooted this ‘bot, can’t think of anything else I can do, it just jumps straight back into a ‘Step 5’ response, it’s like it’s hard-drive are corrupted or something – maybe needs de-programming – anyone know how to contact Dr Susan Calvin how to rescue religious fanatics from that church/cult thing, the IPCC, you know the group trying to infect the world with Jonestown Syndrome.
10
Yep, I’ve had a look at the problem – it’s a ‘Step 5’ allrighty – for some reason this robot just can’t give anything other than a ‘Step 5’ response.
Just give it a minute while I try to reboot the darn thing…
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And Fatbladder further helps the cause of reality. ie (CAGW is a farce)
Not one shred of knowledge in that moronic response. Well done again, Fatbladder.
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OK BA, here’s a challenge.
“Step 1 – Stop making predictions that don’t come true.
A. They do come true and have!”
Could you please detail a prediction that has come true as a result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Please use peer-reviewed references, not Youtube.
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The weather this year will be different to last year.
20
And there it is … the most critical step in the scientific method is merely semantics
Well, a committee is merely a regression to the mean, and the mean is mediocre
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This post was triggered by blackadderthe4th’s reply to example 3 above.
_____________________________
Step 3 – Don’t live your life like you don’t believe a word you’re saying.
[ blackadderthe4th ] A. And who is doing that?
________________________________
As blackadderthe4th seems to be totally convinced and totally dedicated to stopping CAGW perhaps I could ask him / her how and what they have done on their part to prevent and stop that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
1 / As the production of energy for mankind’s use is the greatest man made source of CO2, has he / she ie; blackadderthe4th given up all sources of fossil fueled energy such as electricity, gas, petroleum, wood and anything else that is burn’t to produce energy?
Obviously the answer to this question is that blackadderthe4th hasn’t given fossil fueled energy sources up otherwise he / she would not be able to post here off their computer using that fossil fuel produced electricity.
Solar does not count as the production of solar cells produces more CO2 than a solar cell saves in it’s operating lifetime let alone the extra CO2 produced when the need for back up power is factored in when the Sun don’t shine.
Global warming caused by solar panels
2 / Does blackadderthe4th eat solely and only of food he / she produces in their own gardens?
Every item of food other than that grown exclusively by oneself in one’s own garden without any fertilizers except dung nor any chemicals of any sort, has used fossil fuels to grow, harvest, process, transport, refrigerate and sell through check outs and then transported home to the power using fridge and finally cooked by electricity, gas or wood
3 / Did or does blackadderthe4th ever have or had a job which in every case would entail the heavy use of fossil fuels used to produce both energy and products
If he /she didn’t or don’t have then they are just another obvious green leaning parasite preying on the real worker’s tax payer funded largesse
4 / Does blackadderthe4th drive, walk, crawl or grovel on any roads other than pure ungraded dirt tracks, where fossil fueled and therefore CO2 emmitting machinery has been used to grade, gravel, consolidate and seal those roads with the products from the remaining residues of the fossil fuel refining process, the bitumen seal.
5 / Does blackadderthe4th use piped water and sewerage systems or does he/ she drink like animals straight from a pool without plastic or ceramic cups or pipes or any containers which all made using fossil fuels that emit copious quantities of CO2 in the manufacturing, transport and installing process.
I won’t enquire about his / her toilet habits and if he / she uses paper made using vast amounts of fossil fuels and therefore emmitting copious quantities of CO2 to cut, and transport and chip and treat and press and roll all that wood fibre to make toilet paper let alone the energy used in making the sewerage pipes, digging the trenches, pumping the effluent, driving the treatment works and etc.
Now there are many more such questions I could ask of blackadderthe4th to check on whether he / she is living a life that isn’t filled with complete and blatant outright hypocrisy in that they are just continuing to enjoy the good life using all the CO2 producing facilities of modern life all the while preaching their corrupt fear inducing ideology without making any attempt whatsoever themselves to actually practice what they preach while still demanding that everybody else should make heavy sacrifices to supposedly save the planet.
So blackadderthe4th if you haven’t given up every one of those items I have posted above plus many other items I haven’t got space to mention to reduce your own personal CO2 output and in view of your constant reiteration here of the need to reduce CO2, stop catastrophic limate change and thereby apparently save the planet, is there any good reasons why you should not be branded as a fake and a hypocrite like so many of your fellow warmist believers?
92
Very good ROM.
How about clothing, cloth, fabric, shoes, furniture bedding and housing. Are all made from home grown, home spun, home woven natural materials? Does he eschew all synthetic fabric and plastic material?
If he wears shoes or other leather goods, are they worked at home from leather grown locally and by hand only? Sewn with gut or hand spun thread, pegged not nailed.
Can’t own or use anything made from iron or aluminum. Copper maybe, but only if raw copper “float” is available within walking distance (this would be exceedingly unlikely).
No nails bolts or screws when doing construction, timber and wood must be hand cut with copper or stone tools or formed with fire.
He better hone up on his skills flaking flint or chert tools and have plenty of game within his ability to walk.
No drugs or medicine except maybe alcohol herbs and aspirin if he’s lucky to have them available. He should also expect his lifetime to be shortened substantially.
Lastly, he should also give up his computer.
21
Al Gore
Michael Mann
Pretty much every “climatologist” that flies CO2-belching airplanes to FTF meetings instead of video conferencing.
40
I would not require 2. Uncertainty will exist in any scientific endeavor. perhaps instead of “might”, there is levels of probability. But nothing about the future is certain except eventually we will all be dead. (Oh and we will be taxed in that endeavor as well).
The rest are spot on.
60
Excellent post. Now if only it could be made into law so that anyone who does not comply can be given some sort of civil and/or criminal charge, with heavy financial penalty and/or prison sentence, similar to what already has happened with fraudsters like Bernard Madoff.
40
Back in the USSR, people who didn’t accept the beliefs of the Communist Party surprisingly developed a brand new type of schizophrenia. They suffered from the delusion of believing communism was wrong. They were isolated, forcefully medicated, and put through repressive “therapy” to bring them back to sanity.
Watch this space.
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Been watching, and have noted that “They” are already talking about something called “Oppositional Defiance Disorder”. You better think that’s a great idea …
20
Steve, there is another disorder: “Insensible Compliance Disorder” which most warmists seem to suffer.
40
Yes the old USSR was very corrupt but most of the people knew that, hence the fall of communism. It appears we in the West are more gullible or lazy and have let scams like AGW stay around far too long. Such a scam would not last 1 day in countries like Russia. If fact the Russian Academy Of Sciences warn of an imminent cold period and that AGW is marketing trick. Us more intelligent readers would have to agree with that.
41
Very good. Simple, reasonable, rational.
In order to have the required effect on warmists it should be 12 steps however.
50
The 97% is wrong mostly because of the questions, not because of selection. I am a sceptic, yet I would answer the two questions the same way as the 97%. Yes, the planet has warmed. Yes man probably has had a significant impact, depending on what is meant by “significant”, which was not specified.
31
I prefer to say that man has had significant impact on the calculated value of the global average mean temperature. 😉
41
I would like to recommend cross-posting (with “janama’s” link to the article) on WUWT, and any place else that might get it more exposure. Icecap comes to mind as well.
Regards,
Mark H.
20
BoltA might be able to get it into his newspaper column or something ?
20
Smashingly brilliant post, Jo! Neatest summary about the whole “issue” (meaning a non-issue, of course! LOL) that I’ve seen.
Well done!
70
Along very similar lines is the e-book “How to Cure a Climate Change Denier”, which is a good read.
The problem with all such initiatives is that it will change no minds among the Alarmists, who process information in a totally different way — emotion and what “should be” first, with reasoning power only brought in second to rationalise their emotionally held position.
60
2 x Desal plants in Perth still in operation and making a major contribution to Perth’s potable water supply.
13
It all sounds good doesn’t it? Replace existing water supplies with expensive desal plants and tell everybody how wonderful they are supplying x-percentage of Perth’s drinking water.
Are you a dill?
31
Actually BackSlider, Perth does have major issues with their potable water supply.
No big dams, a naturally dry climate that has been going through a dry phase for a number of decades.
The use of aquifers is being studies to see if they can be used more efficiently..
….but in reality, Perth does need the water from the desal plants.
The ONLY place in Australia where they make sense.
They are not “replacing” existing water supplies, the desals plants, for Perth, are a sensible augmentation.
41
So, you are saying that prior to 2006 Perth did not have enough potable water.
I have lived in such a place (much drier than Perth), no desal plants either. Its surprising how little water you can use if you just try. I bet you brush your teeth with the tap running and spend 20 minutes in the shower…..
18
Hi Backslider.
If you look at Perth’s historic rainfall, there is definite drop in the amount of rainfall over the last couple of decade (no reason to assume this is not due to totally natural cycles)
This has lead too decreased run-off and therefore issues with storage levels in both dams and aquifers
Also Perth has been growing. In 2002, the combined storage dropped to 17.5% of capacity. The possibility of running out of water was a real issue.
Extra dams are nearly always the best option, but I don’t know that Perth has the terrain to provide any more large scale dams and the rainfall amount drops off rapidly as you head inland
So yes, they do have a water supply and storage issue. They are also trying to reduce domestic water usage and have a couple of large treatment plants that treat domestic waste water for use on fields, golf courses etc and in industry.
The main issue with nearly all city water supplies is that we haven’t build any major dams for something like 40-50 years or maybe more. I personally find that almost akin to criminal negligence in terms of infrastructure planning.
btw. I don’t live in Perth. I’m on the eastern seaboard.
21
Hi Andy, a good holiday?
I drove across to Perth at the beginning of last year to perform a three month contract and I will relate some observations.
Perth is basically coffee sand with some limestone outcrops, reminded me of the Nullarbor actually. Most of Perth is built on top of an aquifer.
I did not see one water tank hooked up to catch roof water which is the norm in Brisbane. Every downpipe has its own soak pit to recharge the aquifer. All street gutters discharge into fenced excavated holes rather than creeks that flow into rivers and out to sea.
The quality of tap water sucks! The aquifer water has a high iron content, evidenced by walls and paths that have rust stains due to irrigation. They call it reticulation over there.
The planning for population growth of Perth is at best, ad hoc with no long term strategy to handle the influx of people settling there. I foresee grief in the not too distant future concerning water supply.
10
Yo scraper,
Just busy at work is all.
IIRC there are rules against rainwater tanks in Perth, for the very reason that they need to feed as much water into the aquifer as they can.
IIRC there is also talk of treating effluent to A+ standard to recharge the aquifer. ok….. so long as the treatment is 100% effective.
And yes, iron can be difficult/expensive to fully remove from water but fortunately iron is essential for human life so small amounts are tolerable. Can cause fouling of pipes etc though.
(treatments like activated carbon, oxidation, filtration etc all cost money)
Terrain and rainfall in the same place is needed for dams, and Perth seems to lack this.
The desal plants seem to be a cheaper option than a very long pipe from up north, but they are still going to have to re-think the whole water supply vs population situation unless rainfall picks back up to pre-1975 levels
10
Must have been extremely busy not to comment here. Wish I was extremely busy but things are slowly picking up.
I’ve been hearing talk of a submarine pipeline but suspect (excuse the pun) it is a pipe-dream.
00
I only really get a short time in the morning and evening..
Just reading the 3 or 4 blogs I watch is time consuming, and nowadays I don’t really feel like like wasting my time arguing with people who obviously have no intent on listening or attempting to learn.
As for Perth, iirc, there was a plan once for a canal from the top end, but there would have been so much evaporation, no water would have made it to Perth 🙂
(even though its downhill all the way 😉 )
00
I would add…
a. Don’t pretend that Catastrophic Warming is the only threat humanity faces. War, Famine, Disease, and individual premature Death remain serious concerns. Nuclear War and WMD-armed terrorism, and the over-reaction of certain powers to such terror, are also existential threats to our civilization.
b. Don’t pretend that you can prove CAGW is the greatest risk or first priority of all such existential threats. The risks and the potential damage of any threat are uncertain. But addressing ONLY warming while short-changing attention and funding to other threats is as foolish as individually buying “Cancer” insurance while doing nothing to either prevent, or insure against, death in an auto accident, or by heart attack, or from natural disaster like mudslide, wildfire, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, etc.
c. Don’t allow governments to decide. “Business as Usual” will have some people doing somethings to address some threats, (while neglecting others); while other people prioritize other threats (while, perhaps, neglecting the first group of risks.) A government will choose on behalf of all of us one or a few priorities and fail at all else. A great wrong guess by a big government, however wise, will have greater consequences and costs of error than the wrong guesses of small free traders each, as usual, doing what they see fit for themselves.
40
There seems to be a pretty hysterical and intense campaign of sustained and coordinated climate screaming going on right now. But they are not getting much traction and nobody really seems to be listening. That must be very frustrating for them. I think we may have at last reached a turning point. They’ve clearly jumped the shark.
70
They can see where the climate is really heading, into a cooling period.
They are trying to get as much of their agenda in place, and funds in their pockets before the cooling becomes blatantly obvious and absolutely destroys the warmist hoax.
41
Jo- is there a way to get permission to rework this? I would like to use Canadian examples and expand some sections. Long quotes, however, generally are turnoffs for readers (and newspaper editors). I also don’t like plagiarism. It is hard to acknowledge a blog user name with credibility intact. Any chance the author will come forward.
———–
I’ll ask, though we did discuss “the name thing” during the preparation. Sigh. – Jo
50
R2Dtoo – make sure you use Weaver and Michael Byers in your exposition and examples. They should appear in several categories.
10
Very well written.
Conceding the first item is reasonable, even though we really do not know.
The claimed warming is less than the noise inherent in our measurement methods.
Could be warmer, the same or cooler, insufficient data to be sure.
especially using that imaginary metric, the average global temperature.
The contempt that the cult members seem to hold the general public in, shines through all of their messaging.
The current crescendo of rabid hysterics is highly entertaining, this northern winter has cost citizens plenty, lousy forecasts , surprise shortage of heating fuels= high costs, electricity rates spiking thro roof. The non involved are getting sucked into the CAGW discussion, by their utility bills.
Now the real public discussion will be held.
God help the IPCC and our fools and bandits who have orchestrated this massive waste of public treasure.
Buy popcorn.
50
“God help the IPCC and our fools and bandits who have orchestrated this massive waste of public treasure.” ???
The whole thing was always predicated on one idea – that it would see their time out. And it will. They’ll retire rich and with the respect of the only people they really care about, their own kind.
30
I don’t know why “a reader” is shy about supplying his name (sounds like a man to me because he mentioned his trousers). If it were me, I’d be proud to put my name to it. It’s an absolute classic–well done that man! 🙂
50
amazing to think that one of the safest things to do is be in an area of an extreme weather event.
Cause of death No. of deaths Percent of total deaths
Extreme weather events 19,868 0.03%
I. Communicable Diseases 18,324,000 32.13%
Tuberculosis 1,566,000 2.75%
HIV/AIDS 2,777,000 4.87%
Diarrhoeal diseases 1,798,000 3.15%
Malaria 1,272,000 2.23%
Other tropical diseases 129,000 0.23%
Other infectious & parasitic diseases 3,362000 5.90%
Subtotal – Infectious and parasitic diseases 10,904,000 19.12%
Respiratory infections 3,963,000 6.95%
Nutritional deficiencies 485,000 0.85%
Maternal and perinatal conditions 2,972,000 5.21%
II. Non-communicable Conditions 33,537,000 58.81%
Malignant neoplasms 7,121,000 12.49%
Cardiovascular diseases 16,733,000 29.34%
Respiratory diseases 3,702,000 6.49%
Other non-communicable conditions 5,981,000 10.49%
III. Injuries 5,168,000 9.06%
Road traffic accidents 1,192,000 2.09%
Violence 559,000 0.98%
War 172,000 0.30%
All other injuries 3,225,600 5.66%
Sources: WHO (2004), EM-DAT (2007)
60
This is a masterpiece Jo. Truly a masterpiece.
Every climate skeptic and alarmist in the world should read this.
90
Re 10, they don’t acknowledge economic pain. The corrupt treasury modelling had effectively nil change in GDP and CPI from CEF policy. And green jobs.
Despite the fact that we got no technology and performed no abatement – we simply GIFTED $1tr in carbon credit money for nothing.
50
11 acknowledge that CO2 (renewable biomass, over a long period) is clean, green plant food and that without modern CO2 levels almost 1bn people would face starvation.
12 if your schemes result in unintended consequences like paying Drax to cut down trees, admit it’s a stupid defective design and fix it.
50
Sorry – 15 and 16
10
Excellent post (except I’d chuck the first tenet too!).
As a suggestion re. anonymity, perhaps CWW could just authorise its quotation as “originally posted under a pseudonym on Jo Nova’s blog”, or something similar. I agree with others, I’d be pleased enough to “own” it if it were mine, but I’d be pretty darn pleased just to see it out there and doing good anyhow, even if I preferred to keep my head down. It is, after all, what is being said that’s important here – not who exactly the author may be. (Of course, if copyright is going to be claimed, or whatever, you’d probably have to “uncloak” sometime anyhow.)
30
Let’s all get on the gravy train!
20
Excellent. If I knew the email address of every UK MP I would send the idiots a copy. (Nearly all voted in favour of the destroy the UK economy carbon act).
50
A couple of points
I get annoyed when anything is promoted as 99% fat free or 97% sugar free or 99% of dentists etc.as if when manipulating data if one was to say 100% that somehow this is less credible than saying 99 or 98 or 97 % . I always ask what happened to the other 1-3%? It’s as if we don’t say it’s 100% people will think its a scientifically validated figure.
All I think of is how dumb do you think I am ? It staggers me to think that mainstream media promote this figure as scientifically factual rather than scientifically manipulated marketing spin.
Second point. Step 15. Stop taking the moral high ground on funding. In fact if your funding is coming from your fellow citizens via the taxation system there should be even greater scrutiny on the bone fides of that expenditure. In theory it is sceptics who are 97% funded privately should be less accountable for their expenditure as their opinion is funded voluntarily by themselves or private contribution.
10
Stop giving advice to the climate obsessed.
10
Only 14 steps? You could convert me with just one step — show credible evidence that there is a link between CO2 and anything happening to weather or climate on this Earth. Anything!
PS:
And off topic too. Thank you Australia for apparently taking the brunt of the effort to locate flight 370. Even though by international treaty the country of aircraft registration is responsible for the investigation, Malaysia appears to be quite incompetent. There are apparently banana republics in more places than Central America. Sorry but they don’t look good at this point.
Hopefully we will soon hear no more wild theories and the nonstop blathering about it will end.
40
#15 – Lead from the front. If you insist that everyone must give up using fossil fuels then you must give them up to show us that you are sincere in your convictions to save the planet.
20
Step 14 is the reason for steps 1 to 13. 😉
60
Sorry, but I think there are 12 superfluous steps here.
I agree with some others about data transparency, but I’ll go one step further and delete 12 steps altogether.
My list is simply:
1. Make all Climate research data public and unaltered.
The rest should fall into place.
60
Unfortunately this is an uphill battle. Showtime is coming out with a series titled “YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY” dedicated to “change how you view climate change”.
The first one can be viewed online- http://www.edf.org/blog/2014/04/08/years-living-dangerously-two-producers-coffee-and-vision-climate-action?autologin=true&utm_source=EDF%20action%20network&utm_medium=email-35541&utm_campaign=culitvation&link=body_text1
The logical fallacies will be glaring to readers here but swallowed whole by the faithful.
On the plus side they did a segment with Harrison Ford on deforestation which is something we could actually take action on to reduce the destruction of local environments.
11
How to convert a Global Warming Cult Member to a rational, thinking, CAGW skeptic in 1 easy step:
Refer to owners manual, Chapter 1, Step 1: Installing the Optional Brain in your new Human…
80
Great article, but it’s “may”, not “might”. I’ll get called pedantic, but we actually shall lose one or other (possibly both) of those rather important words, if we don’t use them properly. The meanings of words seem pretty crucial, in this context.
It’s really simple:
“Henry VIII may have had seven wives” = X UNTRUE
“Henry VIII might have had seven wives” = Y TRUE .
40
Did he marry all of the wives he had?
20
Henry VIII had 6 wives, not seven.
They were:
Catherine of Aragon:- 11 June 1509 – 23 May 1533 (23 years, 11 months, 19 days); marriage annulled.
Anne Boleyn:- 28 May 1533 – 17 May 1536 (2 years, 11 months, 19 days); annulled, then beheaded
Jane Seymour:- 30 May 1536 – 24 October 1537 (1 year, 4 months, 24 days); death from complications of childbirth.
Anne of Cleves:- 6 January 1540 – 9 July 1540 (6 months, 3 days); annulled.
Catherine Howard:- 28 July 1540 – 23 November 1541 (1 year, 3 months, 26 days); beheaded.
Catherine Parr:- 12 July 1543 – 28 January 1547 (3 years, 6 months, 16 days); widowed at his death at the age of 55.
00
[…] No, we can expect no revisitation of the fakery behind smoking science other than all the work Professor Junican has done. In other areas though, the Cancerous Controllers are experiencing some resistance. Viewed from Cullingworth, here is an excellent breakdown of why the Church of Climatology is failing at an ever-increasing rate. […]
10
Here’s a new way to waste a billion on another sustainable??????? green delusion.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_car_crash_of_another_green_dream/
31
14 easy steps ignored …
… In 4 minutes by the winner of this year’s prestigious Wollaston from the Geological Society of London, (a prize once given to Charles Darwin) Maureen Raymo, Columbia University and Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory geologist and climate scientist, in the current Yale Forum: Climate Change & Media video –
“Neither Earth’s distance from the Sun as a result of our planet’s elliptical orbit nor changes in solar output “can explain the climate changes that are happening now,” says Raymo.
She points out that the 400 ppm concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere matches that in the Pleistocene Era about three million years ago.”
. . .
Oh dear.
Obviously proto-neanderthals driving Fords or Holdens, and burning coal for heating, can explain the changing climate that happened 3 million years ago.
#17. Stop treating people like idiots.
41
This is brilliant but just a correction to No.9. Over here in the West our desalination plant has not been mothballed and according to the WATERCORPORATION.com.au website is supplied 27% of our water.
00
You have to love the way that the climate has basically no regard for the predictions and prognostications of those trying to “save it”.
This from 2011
http://takvera.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/scientist-less-rain-across-southern.html
This today
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/rain-spike-signals-a-brollybusting-autumn/story-e6frg8y6-1226877167147
Its pretty amazing how spectacularly they keep getting it wrong. Its almost as if they know exactly what to predict in order to get the polar opposite.
Love your work alarmists, keep em coming.
It probably explains why the latest bleating is about moving away from facts in the debate, lets face it, the “facts” not only do not support the models, they basically contradict them at every turn.
10
We Got Trouble …
08 Apr 2014
We should give up trying to save the world from climate change, says James Lovelock
James Lovelock, who first detected CFCs in the atmosphere and proposed the Gaia hypotheses, claims society should retreat to ‘climate-controlled cities’ and give up on large expanses of land which will become inhabitable.
. . .
Maybe these types of cities for Lovelock et al:
Nigeria’s Eko Atlantic augurs how the super-rich will exploit the crisis of climate change to increase inequality and seal themselves off from its impacts
10
James seems to be having trouble working out what he actually believes lately. I guess when you postulate something like a living intelligent planet, you have a lot of wriggle room to shift positions.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134092/Gaia-scientist-James-Lovelock-I-alarmist-climate-change.html
“We’re reaching an age in history where you can no longer predict the future with any hope of success.”
No that’s always been true, its just denial that made you think otherwise James.
20
Quote Safetyguy:
“James seems to be having trouble working out what he actually believes lately.”
Quote From my link above:
“Lovelock, who has just published his latest book … ”
Pretty sure what sorta ‘green’ Lovelock believes in.
40
Deeeeeep Greeeen!
10
preferably the folding kind!
20
Quote by Lovelock: Five years ago, he had claimed: ‘Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.’
Actually he did get the first part of the prediction correct, because by the end of this century I would think at least a couple of billion people or more will die from old age, accidents, starvation, wars, etc.
10
PS.
Green Religious Lunatic Heads are gonna be exploding everywhere with the Red Moons (just before Easter):
Mars, Earth, and the Sun will all align tonight, a rare ‘opposition of the planets’ that only happens once every 778 days.
But what makes this so remarkable is that it comes precisely a week before everyone on earth will see the first of FOUR dark red ‘blood moons’, an extraordinary event some Christians believe represents the End of Days and the second coming of Christ.
The King James Bible predicts: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD comes,” [Joel 2:31].
The incredible alignment has only happened a handful of times in the last two thousand years but, remarkably, on each of the last three occasions it has coincided with a globally significant religious event.
The Muslims think it is the end:
Apocalyptic prophecies drive both sides to Syrian battle for end of time
From the first outbreak of the crisis in the southern city of Deraa to apocalyptic forecasts of a Middle East soaked in blood, many combatants on both sides of the conflict say its path was set 1,400 years ago in the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad and his followers.
And the Green Religion think 2014 is the end:
October 2009
World must shift to low-carbon economy by 2014 or face dangerous climate change, says WWF
The Vikings:
Sounding of ancient trumpet in York warns of Viking apocalypse on 22 February 2014
Religions Speak With One Voice On Climate Change
. . .
handjive says: Worst Apocalypse Ever.
00
Clipped-Wing Warrior has provided a nice opportunity to send a link to jo’s blog to friends & acquaintance.
it seems there’s quite a fight-back at the Berlin talks:
8 April: Reuters: Alister Doyle: Many nations wary of extracting carbon from air to fix climate
Many nations want a draft U.N. report to tone down prospects for sucking greenhouse gases from the air to help fix global warming, reckoning the technologies are risky, documents seen by Reuters show…
China, the European Union, Japan and Russia were among nations saying the draft, to be published on Sunday, should do more to stress uncertainties about technologies that the report says could be used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and bury it below ground to limit warming.
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) “technologies are currently not available and would be associated with high risks and adverse side-effects,” the German government said in a comment on the draft by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“There are no CDR technologies by now,” Russia said…
Several nations were especially sceptical about the draft’s mention of stripping greenhouse gases from electricity-generating facilities burning biomass – wood or other plants – to bury them underground as a way to extract carbon from nature…
Many nations said that the draft should do more to mention drawbacks of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), such as the amount of land needed to grow plants and risks that it would compete with food production.
Internal IPCC documents show that China said BECCS “bears great uncertainties”. Japan said that “considerations of trade-offs with water, land and biodiversity are crucial to avoid adverse effects” with CDR technologies…
Other methods for extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere include simply planting trees or fertilising the oceans to promote the growth of algae, hoping that the tiny carbon-rich plants would fall to the seabed when they die.
Among other debates in Berlin on Tuesday, delegates said that Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, objected to a line in the report pointing out that fossil fuels were the overwhelming cause of rising emissions in the past decade.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/04/08/climate-un-idINDEEA370BU20140408
00
8 April: Bloomberg: Isaac Arnsdorf: Age of Gas Seen as Sideshow to U.S. Producers Prizing Oil
The “golden age of gas” that the International Energy Agency foresees as a result of the U.S. energy boom is hardly the future being embraced by industry executives.
At least based on comments from company officials presenting at the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s conference in New York yesterday. For them, oil is still the prize. Gas is almost an afterthought…
PDC Energy (PDCE) Inc. said it’s sitting on huge leases in gas fields that aren’t worth drilling. Whiting Petroleum Corp. (WLL) Chairman and CEO James Volker explained why: oil sells for three times as much as the equivalent amount of natural gas…
That’s no knock against the producers for chasing oil – the commodity that makes the best return for their shareholders. Still, at a time when President Barack Obama is saying natural gas will be a bridge for the U.S. economy from fossil fuels to clean energy, the industry’s views put some realism into the discussion about what energy resources get unlocked by fracking shale rocks…
The U.S. is still very much addicted to oil. Consumption will inch up to 19 million barrels a day this year, more than Europe and China combined, the IEA estimates…
While politicians and industry may pay lip service to natural gas as the clean fuel of the future, the companies out exploiting America’s oil fields leave no doubt that they’re interested in the same fuel as 100 years ago.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/age-of-gas-seen-as-sideshow-to-u-s-producers-prizing-oil.html
00
tortured figures. those interested should check the full chart:
9 April: Bloomberg: Eric Roston: New Dominance in Renewable Energy Rises in the East
Global renewable energy investment dropped 14 percent last year from 2012, to $214 billion, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). That’s 23 percent off the peak, reached in 2011, according to a new report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2014. The good news is the drop in investment comes largely as a result of lower prices, according to Michael Liebreich, BNEF’s founder…
Germany tends to lead Europe’s fortunes, such as they are. And Germany has spent itself into a renewable hangover, putting in $9.9 billion last year — “a far cry from its peak figure of $33.7 billion in 2010,” according to the report, which was produced by BNEF and the UN Environment Program. Excessive clean-energy subsidies have pushed up the price of electricity and “have become the biggest problem by straining our economy and industry,” Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said this week. “We urgently need this fresh start to the energy switch.”
The freshest start is coming in Japan. Renewable financing leaped 80 percent there last year, to $28.6 billion — a function of its changing energy picture in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster…
***If you’re looking for a bastion of stability, keep an eye on Australia, which in a year of good news and bad news managed to play the middle, finishing within a tenth of a percent of its 2012 numbers.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/new-dominance-in-renewable-energy-rises-in-the-east.html
00
8 April: Reuters: Ukraine races to spend carbon cash after Japan sets deadline
Ukraine, battling political crisis, is having to find ways to finish spending $800 million it earned through Kyoto Protocol emissions rights sales, after Japanese officials warned Kiev it had a year before Tokyo would demand its money back.
Andriy Mokhnyk, Ukraine’s incoming environment minister, said the country was in a “difficult situation” as it had not yet spent all the money earned through selling Kyoto carbon credits called Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) to buyers including Japan, Spain and the World Bank.
Under several AAU deals agreed with buyers, Ukraine was to have funded more than 500 clean energy and energy efficiency projects by the end of 2012, but the country missed the deadline and Mokhnyk said spending had ground to a halt in late 2013…
“Japan has stated that they are ready to break the agreement and cease cooperation. If that happens, Ukraine … would have to return all funds that the country received,” Mokhnyk told reporters in Kiev on Monday…
A diplomatic source at the Japan’s embassy in Kiev, who asked not to be named, said a delegation from Japanese government agency New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) visited Ukraine in March.
“They urged Ukraine to implement the projects without delay, by the end of March 2015,” he said, adding that Japan had provided a “huge amount of money” and that it has a right to end the agreement if Ukraine fails to fulfil its obligations.
The source declined to say how much had been invested so far because the information was confidential under the deal…
Many eastern European countries were left with large surpluses of AAUs after industry withered in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
***Ukraine sold Japan’s government some 30 million AAUs in 2009, promising to use the revenue to buy low-carbon technology from Japanese companies, for example hybrid cars, energy efficient domestic heating systems and electric metro carriages.
Kiev later that year signed smaller deals with Spain and the World Bank…
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was later accused by Yanukovich of misappropriating at least 200 million euros in AAU sale proceeds that went missing in 2010.
Tymoshenko’s spokesperson denied the charge, calling it “an unsubstantiated smear campaign”.
State prosecutors in December 2010 said the funds had been spent on pensions.
Green groups have criticised the AAU sales, which were subject to little oversight, saying they will result in annual savings of only 117,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This is below government estimates of 250,000 tonnes per year – equivalent to the emissions of one small gas-fired power station.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Michael Szabo in London and Stian Reklev in Beijing, writing by Michael Szabo; Editing by Anthony Barker)
http://www.trust.org/item/20140408173525-az1zd
10
a FAUSTian bargain, but the devil is in the detail:
9 April: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Carbon divestment activists claim victory as Harvard adopts green code
Managers of university’s $33bn endowment adopt UN-backed responsible investment rules
Six months after explicitly rejecting calls to divest from fossil fuels, managers of Harvard’s $33bn endowment will now be guided by a set of investment principles taking into account environmental and social factors such as water and human rights, the university announced on Monday.
The new guidelines, set by the Principles of Responsible Investment organisation, do not commit Harvard to selling existing holdings in fossil fuels.
But campaigners still claimed the step as a victory for a divestment movement that has now spread to more than 500 university campuses and other institutions across America and Europe…
“A year ago Harvard was no way no how. But science is pushing everyone in the direction of action; students should be proud they’ve breached the dam of resistance,” said Bill McKibben, a Harvard graduate and founder of 350.org, which has led the campus divestment movement.
Campaigning organisation Divest Harvard in its statement noted that the university still had millions invested in fossil fuels…
***Under the new initiatives announced by Harvard president, Drew Gilpin Faust, the university will ask alumni and donors to help raise $20 million for climate research…
The university will also join the Carbon Disclosure Project, requiring Harvard to report on its carbon footprint.
“Harvard has a vital leadership role to play in this work,” Faust wrote in a letter. “As a university, it has a special obligation and accountability to the future, to the long view needed to anticipate and alter the trajectory and impact of climate change.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/08/harvard-university-investment-rules-carbon-divestment-campaign
00
worth reading all, including the comments:
8 April: NJ Star-Ledger: Paul Mulshine: Climate ‘consensus’: Is carbon dioxide the new cholesterol?
Last month, the prior consensus was turned on its head by a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. A meta-analysis of 76 studies and clinical trials showed no link between fat, even saturated fat, and increased heart-disease risk.
I discussed this yesterday with Meir Stampfer, who is a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. Stampfer said the move to low-fat diets might have actually increased obesity and heart-disease risk. That’s because people tended to substitute refined carbohydrates for fat in their diets, Stampfer said…
So is there a new consensus that “Butter is back” as one op-ed piece in the Times recently stated?
Nope, said Stampfer. He and his Harvard colleagues disagree with those who are promoting saturated fats from dairy and red meat. The Harvard crowd argues that people would be better off consuming more olive oil and seafood.
But that’s a healthy disagreement. As for that prior consensus, the consensus is that it did not hold up.
“This is complicated and the policymakers tried to make it simple,” Stampfer concluded.
“But it’s better to be complicated and right than simplified and wrong.”
It is indeed, and I would encourage my fellow journalists to keep that in mind in light of the highly touted “consensus” on the role of carbon dioxide in promoting global warming.
Climate science is infinitely more complicated than human physiology…
Perhaps you disagree. Fine, but you’re disagreeing with a guy who calculated the number of atoms in the sun when he was 5 years old and who’s been at the institute since Einstein was walking the grounds.
Science requires taking the long view, said Dyson when I called him the other day.
“Science of course is always correcting mistakes,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
It is indeed. What it’s not about is consensus.
That’s for editorial writers.
COMMENTS: If you’re going to comment here, please make particular points about actual scientific studies, as I have above. Do not merely parrot the consensus…
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/04/climate_consensus_is_carbon_dioxide_the_new_cholesterol_mulshine.html
00
Big non-coal Corps with the CAGW program! LOL.
8 April: Guardian: BT, Shell and corporates call for trillion tonnes of carbon to stay in the ground
Trillion tonne communiqué signed by 70 companies calls for rapid response to rising emissions, reports BusinessGreen
Unilever, Shell, BT, and EDF Energy are among 70 leading companies today calling on governments across the globe to step up efforts to tackle climate change.
The companies, which have a combined turnover of $90bn, say the world needs a “rapid and focused response” to the threat of rising global carbon emissions and the “disruptive climate impacts” associated with their growth.
In a communiqué coordinated by The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group, the signatories demand governments put in place policies to prevent the cumulative emission of more than a trillion tonnes of carbon, arguing that passing that threshold would lead to unacceptable levels of climate-related risk.
The statement urges political leaders to set a timeline for achieving net zero emissions before the end of the century, design a credible strategy to transform the energy system, and create a plan to tackle the global economy’s reliance on fossil fuels, especially unabated coal power…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/08/bt-shell-corporates-trillion-tonnes-carbon
00
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00
given the coordinating role of “The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group” in the Guardian’s BT, Shell and corporates story, this is more than ironic:
1 April: UK Daily Mail: James Chapman: Trespass law overhauled to make it easier for frackers: Firms will be able to access underground gas without asking landowners for permission
Scientists say UK is sitting on enough shale gas for 40 years’ supply
But critics warn fracking can pollute water and could cause earthquakes
New rules will make it easier to fracking firms to ignore objections
Fracking firms will be allowed to access vast reserves of underground gas without the permission of landowners under controversial laws being drawn up by the Government…
One source said the reform, which will infuriate anti-fracking campaigners, was likely to be included in the Queen’s Speech setting out the Government’s plans for its final year…
Chancellor George Osborne is offering generous tax breaks to kickstart the technology…
Under current law, firms need permission from owners of land over fracking tunnels. If the owners object, a developer has to take them to court to overturn their objections and agree compensation…
***Compensation of around £100 is likely to be offered to landowners.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2594644/Trespass-law-overhauled-make-easier-frackers-Firms-able-access-underground-gas-without-asking-landowners-permission.html
00
This is of topic but hilarious (unintenionally I presume):
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/im-the-best-chairman-i-know-bob-carrs-diary-reveals-former-foreign-ministers-diva-demands-20140409-zqspi.html
And there I was thinking Palmer had been the most bizarre personality in Oz politics. Boy was I wrong.
00
Funny to see SMH readers (normally a bit left-of-centre) tearing strips off Carr.
00
Superb post Jo. Sums it all up nicely. TQ
10
As a non-climate scientist and a “warmist” I agree with the importance of most items on your your list of requests – for public debate, even if not all steps are valid for scientific debate. For an example of the difference, I agree that “step 12” is important for a public debate, but it’s irrelevant for a scientific debate, since if person A puts forward a bad argument for a theory, then that shouldn’t discredit person B’s *valid* argument for the same theory, regardless of whether person B failed to speak out against person A.
However I think that the assertion you make in step 10 is wrong. Yes, there is a 79 “top climatologists” study you refer to (which I agree has the potential to be cherrypicked, i haven’t looked into it to see whether it actually was or not). But there is also a study of the publications of 1372 active climate change researchers, which finds between 97-98% support for AGW:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1003187107
11
Felix: Who cares if you have 97-98% support. Where’s the paper that shows 100% correlation that CO2 drives temperature.
11
I was pointing out a mistake in the list, merely saying ‘hey I think you’re wrong about this part, I hope in the spirit of step 9 you might admit it or clarify what you meant’. I was involved in a meta-argument, I wasn’t arguing AGW in that post.
I would be extremely suspicious of any paper that showed a 100% correlation, because as far as I know, that sort of correlation only occurs in maths, and in no other sciences.
Outside of maths there is no *dead certainty*, but in most other fields of science “certainty” means almost certainty. For example, it’s not a mathematical certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow.
The question should not be “Is it 100%”, instead the first question is “what is good enough correlation re: AGW?” (and this must be asked carefully and in good faith), and the second question that follows it is “has good enough correlation been shown?”.
If you require 100% correlation or 100% certainty to make a decision then you can never make any decision (unless you delude yourself)
11
Ah, the famous Anderegg et.al. study. That was fairly thoroughly debunked, as I recall. It was a student paper with a dubious methodology. I commented briefly on it at the time: http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.3371
00
It would be nice if there were anchors for the 14 steps, so we can post links to them… and you could have the list of steps linked to each individual step.
00
The Guardian, just lost the plot there so here’s my last comment , which will not get published .
I would love to have a serious debate ,but unfortunately I,m now trying to hold my breath for as long as possible because the c**ts who are the moderators simply refuse to publish 50 % of my replies even when they are neither rude , nor personal, nor even contentious given the gravity of the subject and the expense to every individual.
Well apart obviously ,from my comments about the moderators who are quite obviously left wing tree hugging c**ts, if their IQ ever reaches 100 , they should sell immediately.
***k you!
It is not like anything I was saying was even rude! There just appears to be an agenda to disrupt conversation to ensure their pet bloggers have the last word.
Please feel free to censor !
[*******] by ED
00
Don’t hold back, Roquefort! Say what you mean!
10
Jo,
Just as you dislike the “D” as being a barrier to discussion the “R” word is equally unhelpful.
As far as I am concerned the aim of all of this discussion is about mapping a fail safe path to the future. This is not a one thread need, it is multiple with at least 2 main themes and many subthemes.
The two main themes are, one, resource consumption and, two, consumption consequences.
Theme two tends to dominate over all else at present but by far the largest threat is resouce consumption, or gross overconsumption, as it puts a very finite limit to the future of our technological civilusation, and to our ability to cope with the consequences of that over consumption.
The reality is that in controlling theme one theme 2 becomes far less of a problem, and the so doing extends the prospects for our life style from just decades to centuries. I think for one that if that argument holds up it is well worth persuing.
My recent visualisation (and realisation I hasten to add as I had never thought of it that way before) that maintaining my family’s life style required the annual consumption of 60 cubic metres of fossil fuels came as a bit of a confronting shock. But equally confronting is the realisation the deployment of just a half cubic metre of silicon sand and Aluminium will eliminate the need for most of that carbon consumption permanently, and why have I done nothing about deploying those materials to date. This is my Oso moment. Do I ignore everything that I know about the consequences of my resource consumption and carry on until I am engulfed by those consequences, or do I reoganise my finances, just a little bit, and do something to protect myself.
As it turns out when I apply the calculator to deploying my share of silicon solar PV thermal panels and the aluminium support structure, this turns out to be very prifitable, purely from the energg that I do not have to buy from others, and a very worth while proposition. And that is precisely what I am organising.
This not a matter of religion, this is a matter of balanced common sense. Having read David Koch’s letter I know that he would agree.
Having said all of that and in respinse to your request fir evidence I put forward this compilation that I came across this morning while following some comments by Sean Carrol
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-08/
The “D” word is used a number of times through this and for that I appologise, but it is the content that is imporrant. Many of your oft referred to “Hot Buttons” topics are covered here and there is a possible gap between interpretations which should be resolved.
22
Bilb,,
1. R word? Are you trying to write “reality” or “resources” or “republican”…
2. There is no universe where the cubic meters of your personal resource consumption has any bearing, even remotely, on a question about CO2’s influence on the climate. These are two entirely separate questions. Studying solar PV will likewise tell us nothing about whether CO2 is important.
3. If solar PV is a winner, then get rid of all the subsidies, which means all the green taxes on coal as well as the RET etc. Your calculation completely ignores that the rest of us are paying for your electricity. The fact that you fight the removal of green tax tells us all we need to know about your real belief about solar competitiveness. I’m sorry Bil, I know you don’t see it that way but the word is “parasite”.
4. Anyone who uses the D word is either a malicious political hack, or a gullible patsy fool.
Otherwise, thanks for writing in a non-inflammatory tone, which I appreciate. I’m happy to publish nearly anything by someone who is genuinely trying to make a point.
The eSkeptics page is based on the same old logical errors I’ve seen a thousand times before. Correlation is not causation. Argument from ignorance. Ad hominem (ouch, how embarrassing). He’s no skeptic, just another pandering obedient following of authority and fashion. Nothing he writes shows that CO2 caused the warming. He posts a hockey stick graph as if sticking two different data sets together has any meaning at all. The variance and resolution of both data sets is not remotely compatible, but it fools people easily. He ignores most of the actual skeptic arguments (missing heat, no hot spot, models fail) and knocks over strawmen.
42
Jo, that is not a credible considered response.
This grandstanding “I know better than all of the scientists and researchers in the world” thing that you have got going here is looking ever more ridiculous. You have got to come up with something better than that.
The person who put that linked piece together is a highly regarded geologist with 260 peer reviewed papers in globally recognised to his credit. How many have you got to your credit, Jo?
How many books have you compiled yourself and published?
How many institutions invite you to give presentations on your “expertise”?
14
Sorry, Bil, you are replying to someone else. Please read my comment and reply to me instead. Thanks.
PS: Argument from authority? Are you serious?
21
The description ‘pretentious w@nker’ comes to mind.
Good to see, like most leftard activists, that BilB-o reverts straight back to logical fallacies once cornered.
Using BilB-o’s logic one could assume that Lord Christopher Monckton is extremely credible given that he has been invited to give hundreds of presentations by many institutions, Richard Lindzen must be 100% correct because he has authored hundreds of peer reviewed papers and Ian Plimer is absolutely credible because he has written books on the subject.
This is right isn’t it BilB-o?
10
Since you (and others here) are somewhat obsessed with the actual dollar-cost and placement, and quite keen on coalburning as well, I’d like to throw this into the pot:~
Rather than attacking the people who make few bucks from the solar/etc industries, what about pushing the issue of the actual value of Australian minerals ~ including coal.
Bullshit arguments about mining taxes, etc are hardly a matter worthy of contention;
Australia’s minerals (and fishing-grounds, forests, uranium, etc etc.) are a national resource the value of which belongs to the people.
The value of such national resources should be retained ENTIRELY in the public purse. BHP, RIO and the rest have NO right to any part of the value of OUR property ~ except payment for the JOB of extraction, the right for which they should have to tender in a standard bidding process.
And no, this is not another leftie/socialist gripe; I’ve made a $million+ in the markets over the last 12 years and quite like the capitalist system.
But selling Australia’s property to the benefit of of Australians would provide all sorts of nation benefits, and hopefully reduce my bloody tax bill!
00
BilB,
I hope you also factor in the cost of the battery bank to run your solar PV system after hours.
Your residence, in fact, every residence consumes two thirds of their electrical power after hours of solar PV generation, so, just connecting a solar PV system to the grid is cynical at best.
You say you are acting with rational thought. If that is the case, then do it completely.
Don’t just pretend.
Don’t just rely on the rest of us to pay your high electrical power bill by making the rest of us pay more for our electricity to subsidise your gaming of the system via the FIT.
Please also don’t tell me you’ll be claiming the installation subsidy by telling the installing Company that you want to pay the full price and not claim the thousands of dollars via the rebate, that cost already factored in and taken off the installation cost, something also paid for by the rest of us who consume electricity.
Please say you’re not also gaming the system by staying connected to the grid and still consuming power from mainly CO2 emitting power plants.
Please tell us you’re willing to factor in the cost of those battery banks, and then replacing them every 5 to 7 years when the batteries life is expired, a cost of between 5 and $7,000 every five years. Please tell us you’ve taken in the environmental aspects with respect to the batteries, both at their manufacture and also at their disposal.
If you are serious about it ….. and have any moral feelings towards your fellow man, you’ll do this correctly, and not act in such a cynical manner.
Get a grid connected system which covers all your power needs day and night and then think you are generating what your home consumes is a false argument, because the power you generate in excess of your consumption during daylight hours and then sell back to the grid is not yours to claim as for your own consumption, You’ve sold that power at the exorbitant price you claim for it. It’s not yours to claim again as personal use, because you’ve sold it. It’s not yours any more.
Please tell us you’re doing this right.
Please.
Tony.
43
I haven’t got all of the information on the battery system yet but I know that the software that manages the battery life out over 8 years nearer to 10. Yes, storage is an area that will develop over time. I intend for the battery to be modular in 3kwhr blocks. The advantage being that it can be installed in a number of cheaper blocks, the further advantage being that replacement is staggered.
As for subsidies, as I have said I don’t believe that they are necessary. The system I am describing will be put together in my factory and is designed as a “clip on”, minimal installation required. I am using micro inverters to make the system readily expandable. I have aguy working for me who is fanatical about LED lighting and we are doing some pretty cool things in that area. The factory behind is experimenting with eutectic panels to enable the refrigeration system to “coast” through the night. This reduces the battery size required quite a lot.
The future I believe will be in microgrids where blocks of properties share their solar power capacity, storage, and co contribute to a backup system such as the Capstone microturbines. Such grids will have just one broad grind connection through which power can be traded between other microgrids and purchased from other renewable generators such as wind farms. The “wheeling” cost is about one third of what the electricity price used to be, or 6 cents per unit. These things will take time to develop but the writing is on the wall for the fossil fuel industry. Adapt to the new would of finitely managed resources or fail.
Tony while you wallow in cynacism and negativity you miss out on the excitement that creativity and innovation offers.
12
I would be interested in knowing how you plan to synchronise and smooth the frequency of these micro-inverters, with each other, and also synchronise any output to the grid with the mains frequency and phase, without any harmonics being produced.
10
And also, how you are going to reduce RF interference to below the required levels.
10
That is what the advanced circuitry and software do, Rereke. My business manufactures power electronic devices. We know what we are doing.
02
That is what I thought you would say.
But at the power levels we are talking about at grid level, you are going to need some serious structural engineering. I take it you are not going to try to balance this on a roof. 🙂
Field array?
21
You really don’t know anything about this subject, Rereke, to make those remarks.
13
Well that is highly likely, considering that you haven’t said what you are actually doing. At least, not in “the round”.
From what you have said, I have surmised that you will have an array of photovoltaic panels, that will give you a DC output at 12 or 24 volts, which will be passed through micro-inverters, to produce AC which will then be combined and phase syncronised in some way, in order to increase the voltage, presumably to 240V, without producing harmful harmonics, or radio frequency noise. I also assume that the output will be in the kilowatt range rather than the megawatt range, since my hint about field arrays caused such a scornful response.
I also assume that you will be feeding onto the grid to offset the costs of supplied power in the darkness hours, unless you are reliant entirely on batteries, in which case I would guess you are looking at something in the order of 300 to 500 A/hrs in battery backup, with a four to six hour cycle time. This is not small kit, hence my comment about weight loading on roofs, with a conclusion that the whole thing will be ground mounted in a field array.
Now that is a heap load of assumptions, any of which could make me wrong. I don’t have an issue with that.
So, would you care to enlighten me with the real situation. You don’t need to be gentle, I hold electrical engineering qualifications. I am also a life member of the IEEE, which means, according to my colleagues, that I don’t know swat about any technology later than the Schottky transistor.
40
Rooftop solar power 3,039MW Nameplate Capacity.
1,157,000 Separate Installations.
Average Nameplate Capacity 2.62KW.
So then, let’s synchronise 1,157,000 tiny little Inverters to the grid, making sure the phase is the same, and all set at EXACTLY 50Hz.
Capacity Factor for that rooftop solar power is 13%.
Actual power supplied overall, 13% of 3,039MW, 395MW, (38% supplying the daylight needs for 1,157,000 installations and 62% fed back to the grid, or 245MW fed back to the grid)
Synchronise ….. PERFECTLY ….. 1,157,000 tiny generators (inverters) to the grid, every start up at daylight, every morning, perfectly,
ONE generator at Bayswater actual 660MW.
You tell me what is easier to synchronise to the grid.
Rooftop solar power is boutique level power and perish the thought that any grid controller relies on input from rooftop solar power to supply actual daily demand, considering this is not one generator connected to the grid, but 1,157,000 of them spread across the length and breadth of Australia.
A dream of what may happen in the future is definitely not the actuality of right now with those 1,157,000 separate tiny generators, and are those 1,157,000 tiny generators going to be upgraded when this dream transpires, and who pays for it.
Why is it that green urgers live on future dreams?
Tony.
30
See, the Yanks had it right, all along. 110VDC may live again.
30
All you have to do, Rereke, is google the key words.
All of the primary information is readily available. All you need is the ability to understand it. Had you done so you would have discovered that although I did not specify the battery type that this system will have, however, most of the deep cycle gel cells are about the weight of a water heating cylinder for a substantial system. This only requires placement over a load bearing wall. However they do need to be externally vented so sitting outside encased in a protective stand alone housing is more likely. No structural considerations at all and the electrical connection is the same as for any domestic appliance.
As I have said we do know what we are doing here.
21
Hmmm. Is this what one could call a ‘vested interest’??
It seems that BilB-o may benefit financially from CAGW alarmism. I’ll keep that in mind when reading his comments from this point forth.
22
“Hmmm. Is this what one could call a ‘vested interest’??
It seems that BilB-o may benefit financially from CAGW alarmism.”
–
And, indirectly, from taxpayer funding perhaps?
12
Our product is entirely unrelated to climate adaption products. In fact my business partner was a skeptic until in research he found the proof, based on carbon isotopes, of human activity produced CO2 being predominate in the atmosphere.
However we did set out to fund a product range to utilise solar energy in a number of ways. the timing was not right so the initiative has stalled temporarily. I have decided to fit out my house and the factory with the product prototypes this year. That is why I am talking about it. The other reason is that I know what is coming up with climate change and resource depletion and it is important to have access to the right kind of assets so that ones options are not limited. This is for my daughters.
My father repeated that during the great depression the people with assets did very well. The same will be true with adaption to Climate Change, and I am not talking about all of the survivalist crap. It is more a matter of limiting ones risks. For instance I emphasize to people that most of the houses being built today are not built sufficiently well to survive their mortgage payments. If you could see beyond the plaster in your McMansion you would be horrified, particularly in the light of the climate changes that are occurring. So selecting the nature of your long term assets is important. Another example, after the next flood, which might be a while off if the El Nino fully develops, take note of how much of and what type of interior fit out winds up on the footpath.
11
Bilb, I know who you are.
You must be the joker that called late Friday afternoon from Windows, to tell me that my computer had problems. I’m sorry I had to tell you to F**K OFF.
What planet do you call home? The climate hasn’t changed for several hundred years down here on Earth.
Yeah, right. You have data that suggests an El Nino event is imminent? Did you get that from the same source that told you about peak oil? You must have gone to school a long time ago, because ‘known reserves’ have been 45 years ever since Hubbard King’s imagination captured the headlines.
01
Sorry Rod,
I can’t help you with your computer. That must have been one of your friends who rang.
Climate? There is no point in trying to convince someone with a face like that that things are changing. You won’t accept it until your food bowl stays empty.
El Nino? I would have thought from
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soi2.shtml
that we would be expecting a mild La Nina, that is until the last observation. The Indian ocean dipole has been neutral for some time, so it could go either way. But then with ocean warming and the currents changing as they are the El Nino just might work differently in future.
Peak Oil? I think the fuel price says it all. It is getting harder to find and extract. It is only our advanced technologies that keep the oil flowing. Keep an eye on that oil price sign as Indian and Chinese demand steadily picks up. The Chinese are keeping a close eye on developments in the Arctic.
01
Not on lead acid sealed gel batteries you don’t. Wet cells or exotic batteries maybe but let’s talk about cost and safety!
Mixed up good ideas with bad I’m afraid. The “block” idea is OK for ease of installation and replacement but it is NOT cheaper per kWh stored.
I know you probably meant “once carbon taxes increase sufficiently then these alternate (renewables) will be competative” But you probably can’t be that open and honest in your discussions. Am I right? Or do you have evidence of test systems already installed and operational for say 5-10 years? If so I’d like to see it.
All very sensible from a marketing standpoint, potentially from the perspective of having consumers service their own equipment. Not sensible from a system efficiency standpoint or manufacturing cost per kW standpoint.
Ok, LED lighting is transforming lighting, makes sense (as apposed to Green inspired CFL bulbs what a joke) but you are way behind the curve if you’re still experimenting. This market is way ahead already. If you have something that makes them more affordable, get it out the door!
Great idea from the function standpoint, now tell me how you’re going to convert the whole appliance marketplace from relatively small portable devices to what you propose?
SOUNDS great. Show your work, evidence please.
What “writing on the wall”? How soon is “take time to develop”?
Adapt to a network and infrastructure that isn’t built, not proven, will be less durable, less reliable, less efficient, more expensive? Hmmmm NO THANKS! I’ll keep what I have.
This is rich. We’re supposed to get “excited” about what this kind of innovation and creativity has to offer? It isn’t cynicism Bilb, it’s called honesty and pragmatism.
Get real Bilb, get real.
40
MarkD
I did not specify the battery type.
Cost difference is marginal.
Carbon tax is not required either, corporate greed has done the job far better than the carbon tax could have for electricity, and Peak Oil has driven the oil price to a level that is making the hybrid vehicles very marketable. These systems are affordable now.
Actually the cost per Kw as a result of the micro inverters is cheaper where one inverter serves two panels at a time. From the installation point of view the units are significantly cheaper. My solar thermal design is unique and allows for connection into the house system in minutes.
LED lighting is a well developed field, but there is still huge scope for improvement.
Eutectic slide in panels. Any fridge is suitable. Naturally a fridge built with the panels “built in” is far more effective, we have wait until the appliance industry catches up. It is wrong to assume that people will always by the cheapest an simplest. For items that are bought to last many years the decision order goes function aesthetics price, repeated over until all criteria are met.
Microgrids already exist in highrise buildings and with all of those features. I believe that these features will flow out to groups of soil to sun properties, probably starting with housing developments. This has been made more certain as grid operators off less for the solar output while escalating their electricity prices, particularly with time of use smart meters.
Peak oil is well upon us, hence the massive interest in the Arctic. Oil companies are keen for the polar ice to disappear with Global Warming so that they can exploit safely. Apart from that the big oil executives are now recognising that much of the remaining oil has to stay in the ground, and are moving into alternative energy technologies. As for coal, Distributed Solar Power Generation is far cheaper for the consumer, and it is just a matter of time before property sales will encourage solar system fit out along with the repainting before properties are put to market.
The first part of benefiting and profiting from change is in recognising that the change is taking place in our world where the future is all about doing more with less. So if you cannot see the benefit in eliminating the need for a personal annual 15 cubic metres of fossil fuel with a simple property improvement then you have not just retired your body, you’ve retired your brain as well. Or if your body is still working you have retired your brain early.
Adapt. “less durable, less reliable, less efficient, more expensive”?? You really don’t like using your calculator do you, MarkD?
Pragmatic? I call that tired and stale. Fortunately young people pickup on the technologies hungrily. The world will be substantially converted to efficient energy technologies way before you ever notice. The most significant change in energy technology since the introduction of household electricity is underway, and you don’t want to know about it? It is possibly the wealthy countries with the most to gain that will be the slowest to change. Have a look at what is happening at the Barefoot College . (google)
01
BilB, you say here:
Even you know this won’t happen, so I don’t know why you even mention it. Your side of this debate always speak off into the future as if this is a dead set certainty. You also think rigidly down the tunnel, mentioning only residential electrical Power, which here in Australia is only 25%. (38% in the U.S.)
I have no clue as to how you hope to supply the remaining 75% of electrical power requirements, power in the main required absolutely for 24 hours of every day, power up around 25,000MW to 30,000MW.
Your side just gas no answers for that, except that like your sanguine belief that it’s off in the future, it will just come upon us.
That’s not cynicism, nor negativity. It’s reality.
Where do you propose to get that power from?
Tony.
21
Hey Tony, I knew you were talking about energy grids and supply etc on some unrelated thread quite recently;)
But serious question, what do you make of Carnegie? I mean it is small fry… but as a desal/energy plant they seem to me to be best of a bad bunch.
01
CETO 3 is a wave powered unit rated at 80KW.
The cost for that is $70 Million.
They hope to upscale later it to 240KW.
Two grants, one from the Commonwealth Gov of $13 Million. and one from the State Gov of $12.5 Million.
The problem here, as with all of these things is scale.
When you need hundreds, if not thousands of Megawatts, then 240KW units at that price, even if it could be considerably cut are, well, pretty much useless.
On top of that, if the power generated is used for the Desal Unit, then most of your generated power is consumed by the Desal unit.
Hard to imagine 11,000 of these units just to replace ONE plant the size of Bayswater if it is to be used solely for power generation alone.
If the units are to be used solely for desal alone, which in effect would consume nearly all the power generated, then, if the water situation is so desperate, then maybe these could be viable, thus raising the cost of water to horrendous levels compared to what you pay for it now.
As I mentioned the problem is one of scale.
Tony.
10
I think it drives the desal via a hydraulic motor rather than creating electricity to drive the desal, but granted the moving water can only do a certain amount… I tend to think that if you need the water and are off grid then it could be a handly little solution. But if you want water from desal for a city, which likely has its own energy, then maybe you;re better just drawing from the grid.
And yes of course it’s not a replacement for something like Bayswater… but it deos appear to be quite a useful system.
01
Scale it is!
And some thinking outside of the box.
I’ve been using solar-panels since 1981 and sometimes supplemented them with wind (savonius-rotor that cost nothing, and the only bugbear has been storage: batteries are expensive, unreliable and wear out.
Small-scale hyro works well and doesn’t require storage.(But there’s something poetic about turning gravity into useable power!)
However, tidal-power is THE answer to all these problems.
Oz has something like 80,000 km of coastline (at the highwater mark) and countless inlets.
Take Port Phillip Bay, for example. The force being expended by getting the Southern Ocean into the bay is probably immeasurable ~ and wasted.
Laying large pipes, fitted with turbines, from the Bay to the Ocean down near Portsea would generate as much power as anyone could even think about using, both coming and going 24-7. And that could be regulated with a simple stop-valve setup.
My off-the-cuff advice from an enginering-firm is that such a project wouldn’t cost $50-billion.
All the other infrastructure is already in place.
Moreover, given unlimited electrical power, it’d be a feasible prospect to create an endless amount of hydrogen (as long as the tides come and go) which could be used inn other, more portable mechanical applications.
Like motor vehicles.
A couple of local young blokes have clocked up over 2 million km in an old Ford running on hydrogen produced on-board, and fitted for $4000.
Do the arithmetic.
00
Not to mention the the thirty million or so pi$$ed up a post for Oceanlinx, or the millions wasted on Flannery’s precious hot rocks.
How much has Canada pi$$ed into the ocean in the last fifty years on tidal power?
It’s fine for these jokers to dream. It just gets expensive when they are using someone else’s money.
00
Why don’t you try sticking to the topic, Rod?
What I’m suggesting is nothing like Oceanlinx or the other tidal projects I’ve heard of so far.
The pipes are BURIED, and the motive power for the turbines is provided by that olde-tyme principle that water ALWAYS finds its own level, which I, for one, learned about in about Grade Two in Primary School.
And the same applies in reverse, when the water in the bay is at a higher level than the receding oceanic tide.
I can see you’ve never stood at The Heads and watched the Rip.
Try it. The foot-pounds of energy generated there would be beyond practical calculation.
01
ps. I’ve always been a DIY-er, and once built a 600-watt power-supply by running an old agricultural centrifugal pump backwards off the creek (with a bit of fiddling ~ it came from the tip) and attached a 90-amp generator from an old Celica to it. (Also built a hydraulic ram pump from shed-scraps, using a modified footvalve as the ‘clack-valve’, among other things.) If you have the mindset that can use natural forces, it becomes apparent that you needn’t necessarily go ‘high-tech’.
The KISS principle prevails.
01
The French have a tidal power station built in the 60’s. They were testing various electricity methods to develop independence from foreign oil suppliers. Solar and the tidal power station were one offs, and they bet on nuclear.
The Rance operation is still going, and is said to deliver quite cheap power twice a day, but there is no hope of it supplying 24 hour power.
00
One of the major issues, which never seems to be addressed, in these discussions, is the question of synchronisation of multiple small power sources.
People just don’t seem to understand, or they ignore, the amount of electronic and medical equipment that is highly dependent on a fifty hertz, power frequency, with a smooth waveform. That is, with negligible harmonics, and zero switching spikes.
Even the humble electric clock is dependent on the frequency quality of the waveform. A dialysis machine, much more so.
10
Thanks for this Rereke:
This means the 1,157,000 independent rooftop solar power installations, averaging 2.5KW, generating, (on average across the whole year) what amounts to only the equivalent of 400MW per day, feeding what the home consumes, (40%) and fed back to the grid. (60%)
That’s one million plus tiny inverters, all of them perfectly synchronised both phase, and frequency, not once at start up like with a single 660MW generator at Bayswater, but all of them individually, each and every morning at differing times, depending on which part of Australia you live in, not localised, but spread across the whole Country.
Those rooftop panel supporters seem to think ….. hey, no sweat, easy peasy. All of them are 100% perfect, day in day out for anything up to the life of the Inverter, which is nowhere near the (hoped for) 25 year life span of the rooftop panels themselves, and all this is an automatic function, absolutely perfect, every time.
Then, just mention the word ….. ‘Islanding’ and all you get is blank looks, and then try and explain that means that in a blackout, grid connected rooftop solar also cuts power to the home with the panels. Again, dumb and disbelieving looks.
Tony.
01
Good point Tony; Power islands.
I suppose Bilbo Baggins expects to island his ‘communities’ as well.
As for the tidal bore dude, I wonder how much thought he has put into the null period between tide wax and tide wane. It would be as bad as the stinking giant fans cutting out completely and then synching back in.
01
Another olde-tyme saying I learnt decades ago was that “Time and Tide stops for no man”.
The oceanic movements never cease; the varying rates of ebb and flow can be accommodated by good planning and operation.
The availability of a base-load can be assured by having enough turbines
operating at whatever varying rate prevails.
And the rate is continuous. Low-tide off the coast simply means the water (energy) stored in the bay is utilised as it then tries to find equality with the water-level. The turbines don’t care which way they run.
In some places place on our coast there’s a 40-foot difference between high and low tides. Even a much lesser difference over an area like Port Phillip Bay would be ample to keep the turbines spinning.
…..about 3000 cubic kilometers/6 hours of slack-water = about 500 cubic km of potential energy. You do the maths as to how much potential energy exists.
00
The “tidal bore dude” is working at a theoretical level, with a number eight fencing wire mentality.
Here in NZ, the Cook Straight has literally terawatts of potential energy flowing through it every day.
New Zealanders have managed to put a submarine cable across that flow to shift power from the South to North Islands. You would have thought that the idea of harnessing all that power would have come to mind, wouldn’t you?
Well, it did, but the research showed that the current was not consistent, and therefore the speed of the turbines, and hence the frequency of the output was not consistent. So even with dynamos, the voltage would constantly vary.
The same thing applies to open streams and rivers. The flow is not consistent. To get a consistent flow, you need to have a static head of water, giving a constant pressure, flowing though a pipe at a constant rate, that drives the turbine. In New Zealand, we call that static head of water, “a dam”, and we have several of them. We have yet to figure out how to dam Cook Straight, and still make it accessible to shipping.
00
Tony,
That’s one million plus tiny inverters, all of them perfectly synchronised both phase, and frequency, not once at start up.
So true, and let us not forget how that synchronisation would work. You cannot rely on the frequency you receive being correctly in phase with other parts of the network. You need to have an independent reference signal, between all points of the network, that allow for the propagation delay, in order to keep the waveform clean.. The multimillion dollar company, that makes a significant amount of the electrical control equipment currently in use, is Scada. Their website is well worth a visit. [I have no connection to the company, whatsoever]
00
I don’t think I’m educated enough to work at a “theoretical level”; but I have been around for a long time and have an imagination.
Here in Oz we also have “dams”; among them the Snowy Mountains Scheme (which I saw being built ~ my father worked on it.)
https://www.google.com.au/#q=Snowy+Mountains+Scheme
….and I even have a couple of them in the top paddock.
But I did have an IQ in the top 2% of the population, and was always willing to ‘Suck It And See’, as they say. That’s why I suggested Port Phillip Bay might be useable as a self-filling dam. Even at a low head (about 1.5/2 metres on average) 3000 cubic KILOmetres of water is a lot of potential power ~ and probably enough to flood the whole of NZ!
And it fills and drains twice a day. (So does Queensland!)
Consider trapping that amount of water in a ‘bay’ of some description that sees a 40-foot tide! (Loch-type gates at the entrance??)
As you say, consistency is important, and I don’t have the education to make any useful comment. But will say that with today’s technology that should be a lesser problem. I’d suggest that NO power-producer runs consistently enough to feed straight into the grid (including the power produced in the LaTrobe Valley coal-burners, according to a bloke I know who was one of their top-level engineers for years). Certainly auto electrical systems don’t: they have a things called ‘capacitors’ and ‘regulators’ and ‘rectifiers’ and such.
And I can’t help feeling that stuff I’ve seen and used over the years on a small-scale must have applications on a large-scale.
eg. Hydraulic ram pumps, which on vastly-variable-sized flows (as in a mountain creek) can lift water from a 2-metre head to over 100 metres. (for dam or house-tank filling)….. A friend of mine has an undershot ‘paddle-wheel’ (which could conceiveably be floated on the surface of a strait) with a roll of poly-pipe attached which pushes water to a tank over 200 metres higher by employing the air-pressure ‘parcels’ that get trapped between ‘dips’ as the wheel turns.
At 200ft of head even a tiny amount of water would run a useful-sized Pelton wheel.
And as someone said: It’s all a matter of scale.
Given national-sized resources and will there are endless possibilities.
00
oops! the ‘paddle-wheel’ pushes water to a tank 200 FOOT higher.
00
You’re right, of course, but isn’t all that stuff already in existence and inline? Just the matter of pooling the input and refining it on the way out, surely?
eg. I run all my solar-power through a regulator and directly into the battery-bank, bypassing the ‘load’ take-off. Then I run an entirely different circuit from the battery-bank to the inverter (or one of several DC circuits I use for other purposes). The battery-bank acts as an ‘evener-outer’. Never had a problem.
00
Good on you Tony , apart from the lead acid battery banks what about the glass, aluminium ,copper and other rare metals in Bilb’s PV panels. All this stuff has to be mined ,processed and refined using fossil fuels for the energy, as you keep on saying there is no sense in doubling up or over capitalizing on electricity generation,especially if it gives well heeled types such as Bilb the warm fuzzy feeling that his pooh doesn’t stink.
41
Tony, grid synchronization is completely automatic, takes several cycles before connecting then it is instantaneously maintained. This is what electronics do really well. It is a far bigger deal for Bayswater to start up and connect than it is for 1 million inverters which by their very nature come one soft and build up. Also, optimum solar systems do not feed into the grid at all. The aim is to use all of the power within the local system unless the grid calls for the power and the offered rate is acceptable (smart meter preset), this being an extended feature of future smart grids.
01
BilB.
If you want to be considered as a “rational” discusser, you have to stop linking to sites that are obviously “alarmist”.
Please , start to look at the sites you link to with a more open mind.
If they are obviously just regurgitating the warmist meme, linking to them here will do you no good at all.
The realists here will just laugh at you.
Your arguments need to be back with something more than warmist rhetoric.
23
Griss if you bothered to read the article and then performed even basic followup research you would draw entirely different conclusions.
This is about science and research. Full stop.
All of the political tripe is everyone else.
34
And what about the Engineering? You know, the actual operation of the network, day in day out, 24×7, with consistent reliability, and load balancing to meet the demand, wherever it occurs? And that is on a good day, without even considering emergency situations.
I would say that you have never witnessed the operation of a major power grid control system. You might be able to simulate it in the lab, with theoretical scenarios, but in the real world? I am not so sure.
01
What a nonsensical remark, Andrew Griffiths. A PV system sufficient to provide all of the average persons energy needs requires once off just a quarter of a cubic meter of silicon glass, a quarter of a cubic meter of aluminium, and several kilogrammes of copper. Having applied that there is no longer the need to mine or extract 15 cubic metres of fossil fuel every year per person under that roof.
If you are are a farmer you will grasp that saving potential instantly. If you are a pensioner you will see the value in the savings there. If you are a business person it will be a no brainer. So if this is a mystery to you and you cannot comprehend the benefits here, I have got to wonder what kind of person you are.
34
Bilb, I’m just an ordinary guy interested in keeping my energy consumption down and from what I have seen in my travels, PV and Wind generation don’t really cut the mustard. I know a farmer living in a windy location who was conned into spending about $40k on a state of the art wind generator that would supply most of his households energy needs plus feed some into the grid, this rig doesn’t perform any thing like the promised claims of the promoters. The generator company has gone into liquidation so all he can do is warn others not to be suckered by over con job alternative energy promoters.
The main problem with your PV panels is storage , you need a bank of batteries to tide you over the intermittent supply problems. I doubt if there is enough lead in the world to make all the batteries that people would need if we did not have large scale electricity generation fired by coal. Ditto nickel,cadmium,germanium or whatever storage method you could think of.
I own a solar hot water system that is about 30 years old and I recently paid $700 to have it overhauled,hopefully it will last another 30 years.
You cannot convince me or most other readers of this blog that industrial societies can do without cheap base load energy that is now supplied by burning coal. Hydro generation,nuclear fission energy are proven technology and have a future. Alternative energy sources are boutique players that really are dependant on industrial and mining technology for their existence.
32
For the 5 States and ACT East of the WA border here in Australia – 18,000MW required ABSOLUTELY 24 hours of every day, 7 days of every week, 365 days of every year.
Average rooftop solar system 2.62KW.
Tony.
30
Tony,
That is only true for the time being. As Solar capacity builds up that figure changes. As water heating circulates to Peak Solar time (effectively off peak equivalent) that figure changes some more. Eventually that figure will erode to perhaps 6 gigawatts. Hybrid CSP can provide all of that demand 24/7/365.
In you mind though there is no need to do that as you have bought into the skeptic religious belief that there is no CO2 problem, and that is the basis of your objections. However In the absence of a CO2 concern you should be equally concerned for the waste of fossil fuel resources, which is equally concerning. When I was at high school we were told that there is oil to last for hundreds of years. Just 45 years later we know that to be completely false. The same will apply to coal, though it may take longer. The thing that accelerates these consumptions is compounding. ie when the oil hits a certain extraction price it then becomes cheaper to convert coal to oil, and the coal extraction rate goes up and the coal reserve life goes down.
21
Now I understand.
You’re taking the pi$$.
18,000MW down to 6000MW.
You’re dreaming.
That’s two thirds of every building taller than 2 stories gone, and for starters here look at Capital city skylines.
That’s two thirds of the electrified rail system gone
That’s two thirds of all hospitals gone.
That’s two thirds of Industry gone.
That’s two thirds of Commerce gone.
That’s two thirds of traffic control gone.
That’s two thirds of the water supply for all Australia gone.
And if you seriously think that even down at 6,000MW, that can be supplied by CSP, then you’re dreaming.
And when you say HYBRID CSP, then that means Natural Gas fired turbines supplying power when the Sun goes down, and umm, there is CO2 emissions right there.
Worldwide, currently, the Capacity Factor for ALL CSP is 27.5%, worse even than Wind.
You seriously need to be checking what you say here.
And pray tell, when is to happen by?
This has to be a wind up.
This Comment needs to be preserved for posterity. I’ve seen some dreams, but this is a hallucination on top of a dream.
Tony.
72
Hi Tony
I’ve been reading this snoozer’s gushings and am reminded of my own words a quarter century ago.
The Research Report for my MBA was a strategy for a power company which would use distributed generation to capture and retain customers in what is known as “the churn” in the retail market.
It all looked good on paper (enough to get a good mark) but like so much academic theorising it couldn’t cut it in the real world.
This joker is just out to cash in some government grants so he can replicate the success of the electric car company or Tesla.
21
Well you arr certainly in a position to have a meaningful opinion Rob, being a functionary at AETV Power, assuming that is you. But then you are also a CO2 emitting vested interest operating a CCGT Power Plant. The other negative to your opinion is that the energy industry have been completely blind sided, through arrogance I suggest, as to the influence that Solar PV and Wind Power would have.
On the otherhand there is scope for scoffing at projections on the growth of distributed power generation as the uptake rate is still sluggish. I argue that this is due to there not being a comprehensive energy product package offered with a clear financing strategy independent of power distributors.
The technology continues to improve with Panasonic just announcing a 24.5% efficiency milestone and a commitment to advance that to production.
Government grants? I’d say that was more up your street. For the moment we are ckntent to build our little machines for export and build up our electronics expertise.
The solar products are a background development project, but one that can be brought forward very quickly. There is a lot of interest in the combined Solar PV/Thermal product area.
As an industry participant you would be extremely foolish to underestimate the potential and the potential to disrupt of the distributed power sector.
03
Hi Tony.
Each to his own,but I’d take issue with your use of “requirement” ~ and even with “ABSOLUTELY” (“18,000MW required ABSOLUTELY”)
It wasn’t long ago that households “required ABSOLUTELY” NO electricity. (60 years ago there WAS no grid in places only 15 miles from Melbourne CBD, (eg Wantirna where I lived for a few years, and we got on with it: Kero lamp and a lead from the tractor battery to the mantel radio; everything else was achieved. manually.
“Requirement” is a vastly different thing from ‘need’.
And I for one don’t ‘require’ a single one of those 18000MW you say are “required ABSOLUTELY”……which is the whole point of the topic.
Lived for years in the forest out of Marysville and produced what power I needed from solar panels (1981 ~ 2×45-watt panels – later bought 4 more) and a micro-hydro system I built from stuff laying around the shed, which kept the fridge and freezer fed.
Batteries came from the tip – recycled from timber-jinkers and bulldozers: one lasted nearly five years; once defunct I’d fill ’em with water and use them as a solar-heat-collecting floor in the greenhouse ~ where I grew food even when the snow was 2 foot deep!
Neither did I go without: lights ~one at a time;TV,6-inch screen @10 watts; stereo-radio. etc. (even an electric caravan kettle sometimes ~ depending on the weather.
Microwave/washing-machine/power-tools (I built my own 30-square house for $8500 in 1990/92) and so on were run by a demand-start generator for a few minutes at a time The panels are still working for a friend living remotely, and I’m still using (Phillips) energy-efficient globes I bought back then for about $32 each.
And so on etc.
Grew much of my fruit/veg. and shot my own meat. My dogs lived on venison! People who “required” venison at the local tourist-traps were happy to pay $35 for a slab of it on their plates. The world’s full of idiots.
Hot water was from a coil of polypipe via an instantaneous lpg heater when necessary; a bottle of lpg lasted a couple of years. House-heating was by a centrally-placed Arrow wood-burner. It came out of a ‘standard’ industry-pre-fab house where it used to go through 18/20 metres of wood a year. Due to proper placement, operation and house-planning it’d heat my entire house (ceilings up to 16-foot high) for less than half of that. Glass right across the roof and floor-to-ceiling glass as the entire northern wall allowed the daylight to heat painted concrete floors and internal southern wall/other heat-traps. Cosy.
In the summer deciduous vines (grapes and kiwi-fruit kept the sun out.
Certainly no “requirement” for 10-hp airconditioning. On an average day I used about 1 kw, give-or-take, all up.
Happy to discuss the possibilities…..as you can see!
10
Thanks Jason, but you see, here’s the point.
When people think of consumption of electrical power, they think at the personal level, what they consume in their homes, as you have done here.
Residential power consumption here in Australia is only around 28% of total power consumption (38% in the U.S.) and the remaining 70%+ is consumed in two other areas, Commerce and Industry. Even the main residential power consumption is on the upper side of that curve, above the line, from 6AM till 9AM, and from 4.30 till 10.30PM, so nearly all that below the line across the page power consumption is outside of residential power consumption.
If you read 8.2.1.1.1.1. again, you’ll gain an inkling as to where that power is actually consumed.
Here is the Load Curve for power consumption in Australia, well everywhere East of the WA border anyway. As you can see, that actual power consumption never falls below 18,000MW, so that is power that actually is required ABSOLUTELY, 24 hours of every day, 7 days of every week, and 365 day of every year. It’s been the same for years now.
Very little of that is for the residential sector, as I said, barely 28%.
The pink area you see there is virtually all coal fired power, with a tiny amount hydro, and a tiny amount gas fired. The blue area is some coal fired, some hydro, some gas fired, and some others. The yellow area stumbling along the bottom is ALL wind power. ALL solar power, including rooftop solar is around the thickness of the black line indicating the curve itself.
Where power is required for the full 24 hours is something that will never change, and if it does fall, (and that’s a HUGE if) it will be only by a very small amount, and that entails everything I mentioned in 8.2.1.1.1.1. and what I wrote there is only part of what would be required.
There’s no way you can knock a significant hole in that.
Every time a new guy comes along, I have to explain this, so for all you regulars, I apologise for repeating myself yet again.
Tony.
01
Sorry Tony. (“Thanks Jason, but you see, here’s the point.”)
I take your point, but point out that it’s irrelevant.
The real point is that not only can (commercial) domestic electrical consumption be vastly reduced ~ by cutting out waste of all kinds ~ and even(as I continue to prove) reduced to less than zero-reliance on the current-type generator.
I currently have a 2.6kw solar system up, which produces an average of just over 8kwh per day p.a. and ~ after expenses like ‘service-to-property’, off-peak usage/whatever ~ returns me about $1400 p.a. from Origin. My total usage for all purposes average about 2.15kwh per day. (I also have 400 watts separately/battery-bank which keeps the fridge and freezer going flat out all day as well as, sometimes, the computer.)
Much as I resent the spiralling ‘service charge’, I calculate the cost as substituting for extra batteries. The minute they send me another bill (haven’t had one for near four years) I’ll disconnect and buy the extra batteries ~ about the same price but less convenient. (but getting cheaper and better all the time.)
THE point is that any domestic residence can operate without grid-power; and even if that IS ‘only’ 28% of the “requirement” it’s nonetheless a substantial amount.
How’d you feel about your income being reduced by “only” 28%?
The further ‘point’ is that what’s “required” for commercial/industrial purposes could probably be greatly reduced as well. After all, homomsapiens got along fine for 500,000 years without any electrical “requirement” at all ~ and in fact, in that period, produced some of civilisation’s greatest achievements. The whole Industrial Revolution caused about as much pollution as,say, New York generates in a week. …….and I’ll wait with bated (baited??) breath for some texting/blogging genius to produce something even approaching the league of the bible, Shakespeare or Goethe. Let alone the Magna Carta.
But of course none (most anyway) of us want to go back to quills,candles, buggies and women who know (and love!) their ‘place’ in the scheme of things, so electricity is fairly important to life as we know it.
But as a figure pulled out of thin air I’d suggest our real ‘requirement’ is probably a tiny percentage of what we use.
And that can be produced at a hugely-reduced rate of global pollution.
I maintain that gravity ~ applied to water or used in other ways ~ holds the key to a virtually infinite supply of energy.
…..and we might also explore the greater use of hydrogen:- the most common (and among the least-polluting) source of energy in the Universe.
A good place to start is to reduce the human population to something like ‘natural’. Extinction looms unless we stop breeding like rabbits on viagra.
27
Jason,
man, where do I start.
There is no way known that you will get every residence in Australia covered with solar panels, and should I have capitalised ….. NO WAY.
The almost virtual complete and utter reliance upon the grid for those rooftop solar systems is the ONLY reason they actually sell at all.
If there was NO grid connection, hence no FIT, and the only option was battery banks, not Jerry Built battery banks, but the correct bank of batteries to actually support the rooftop system, designed for each residence, then virtually no one would buy them at all, with those correct battery banks costing upwards of $8K to $12K every seven years. (at the outside best case)
The grid connection is rooftop solar’s dirty little secret. It makes people believe their needs are being supplied by the panels, because when panel output falls, the grid takes over, so there’s always 24/7/365 electrical power available.
Of those 1,157,000 installed systems, averaging only 2.6KW, virtually all of them are grid connected.
You now suddenly tell all these people that the grid is going bye byes and they have to fork out all that extra for batteries, you watch and see what happens. It would be absolute sheer and utter anarchy.
As to reducing that 18,000MW Base Load, ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT, and how many times do I need to repeat that, well good luck with that, as that will also NEVER happen. As I mentioned, read 8.2.1.1.1.1. It will not happen, maybe 2,000MW perhaps but I even doubt that.
You green dreamers have absolutely no idea whatsoever.
Your last paragraph is very telling. So not only do you want to deny the two thirds of the World’s population what you take so utterly for granted, access to reliable electricity, you want them to be culled, but hey, I bet that doesn’t include you.
You dream your green dreams, and then want to impose them on the rest of us.
I have one response to your absolutely outrageous dream.
WHO PAYS for all this?
You’re just taking the pi$$ too, because even you don’t believe what you say here.
Ed was just too kind here.
Tony.
72
Jason:
There are probably services supplied by the grid that you don’t realise. Do you have a digital radio or TV or recorder? All these get time signals from the grid supply. Of course you can do without that, it is just a convenience. So is regular, constant electricity.
As for your suggestion that we use hydro-electricity – where? Australia is the second driest continent and has about 5.5% capacity. Expanding that would be great but the Greens are strongly, indeed irrationally opposed to that. In any case we would be struggling to get anywhere near full capacity.
As for hydrogen as fuel, it has the desirable virtue of burning to water vapour, but I think you need to do a bit of study. Firstly, it is not a good fuel for internal combustion device, secondly there is a storage (or leakage) problem, and thirdly the economics aren’t attractive.
Lastly, the claims that the World is over populated and running out of resources are offered without proof and come from Europe and USA denizens. It is really racist in origin. Look up the population densities of Africa, Sth. America and Asia and compare them with Europe.
10
Jason says:
That makes me sick. The history of mankind before cheap reliable energy was one of illness and disease, squalor and short miserable lives, poverty and inequality.
Cheap reliable energy has liberated the masses and elevated humanity to a level of life beyond the rotten tyranny of nature.
And here we have another smug elitist with his private electricity supply romanticising the horrible past and negating the benefits that cheap electricity provides to the rest of the community.
Residential use of electricity is 25% of Grid power.
The other 75% of electricity use is for social infrastructure; factories, hospitals, schools, transport, street lighting, etc; the things which sustain our society and community.
It’s all very well for smug elitists boasting about how they are above the fray and can live off the grid. But to say the rest of society doesn’t need grid power is a monstrous lie.
Greens and AGW alarmists have been advocating this lie for a while. For instance Beyond Zero Emissions, a typical ivory tower bunch of green spivs and academics devised their Stationary Energy Plan whereby Australia could convert to renewable energy by 2020. A critique of this plan was done by engineers Martin Nicholson and Peter Lang.
Nicholson and Lang showed that BZE was correct; Australia could convert to renewables; all it would take was a reduction in energy use of 60% based on today’s usage. 60%. Over half the week without power.
Advocates like BZE and this fool live in an ivory tower where they are Gods who can defeat AGW, which doesn’t exist, and are superior to the rest of us.
In fact Nicholson’s and Lang’s excellent analysis was wrong in a couple of key points; namely they worked on the capacity factor of green energy which is the actual power produced by green energy compared with the installed capacity which is what the green energy would produce if it were working 7/12. The capacity factor is about 20%.
But the capacity factor is an AVERAGE over a period usually a year. All that power could be produced in a couple of good months with little produced for the rest of the year.
The more accurate measure of green energy is the reliability point which is the % that the green power produces its installed or maximum power which is about 3%.
3%.
Nicholson and Lang also thought the conversion would only cost $4 billion. This is a gross shortfall; the FIT NSW scheme introduced by the previous corrupt ALP government was going to cost $4 billion by itself; but if something doesn’t work like green energy then there is no cost to be put on it.
Green power is irreparably unreliable and intermittent. It will always need the constant reliable fossil or nuclear back-up.
To say otherwise is to condemn humanity to the life they had before reliable power existed.
People who advocate this deserve the strongest condemnation.
50
Hi Graeme.
Yep, agreed (more or less).
I DO have a digital radio, tv, recorder, computer and much more. ~ and ALL of them run off my solar panels. And beyond that I contribute electricity to the grid to run YOUR radio ~ and to the computer of that John Cleese clone who complains about unfulfilled ‘requirements’!
I use most of the mod-cons you all do, and perhaps more than you do because I’m home most of the time, but do it much more cheaply in terms of resources and cash-costs. Origin tells me tha ‘average’ power useage per household is about 21/22 kwh per day. MY consumption ~ again according to Origin ~ averages 2.35 kwh perday. And apart from some forethought and downsizing ( TVs that run on 10 & 66 watts respectively instead of a kw+ for eg.) I don’t go without anything.
And despite the Luddite rants about ‘required’ power, I’d lay long odds that commercial/industrial users could make similar adjustments to whatever extent. For example, street lights at 3 am.; entire shops and office-blocks lit up 24/7 ~ and often much more brightly than anyone needs to see by. I get sick of making the point that until relatively recently nobody had ANY electricity ~ and we survived; and even today large populations still live with no or very little electricity ~ and they survive. (They make their own fun, as my generation was exhorted to do by its parents.)
The point being that we CAN do with much less than we consume; and that includes EVERYTHING we consume from food* (tackling obesity alone is consuming ever-increasing resources that shouldn’t need to be wasted) through water, petro-chemicals and the destruction of forests/oceans which provide the oxygen we actually DO “require”.
But fine, we do need to consume to survive. And anyone with half a brain would (a) find ways of reducing the amount we ‘require’ and (b) find the most efficient (= least destructive) ways of providing for those ‘requirements’ that ARE necessary; as a matter of morality/principle if nothing else.
There are plenty of options available;and despite the brainless, standardised objections from morons who haven’t had a new thought in years (if ever) sometimes the simplest ideas ~ including those which DEMONSTRABLY work on a small scale ~ provide the most stunning solutions. Solar (panel) power may have it’s hurdles, but the IDEA of turning daylight (from the most huge ~and safest! ~ nuclear furnace we know, and which we don’t even need to feed or stoke!) into useable energy via something so basic and plentiful as silicone is BRILLIANT.
….and may be on a par with those few ancestors of ours who came up with the idea of shedding their tails and walking on the ground. No doubt if some of their contemporaries had had their unimaginative way we’d still be living in trees and fighting over the diminishing food-source due to overbreeding. (Not that Nature would even allow that sort of overbreeding: many animals, including cockroaches STOP BREEDING when resources
are scarce. Unfortunately people aren’t as smart as cockroaches.)
How do we get the energy actually required? I’ve always liked hydro as a concept. And I was at the Franklin Dam protests and told all my greenie mates (most of whom I still have) they were being stupid. Even now Tas. could produce a big slab of Australia’s power needs (as distinct from ‘requirements’.) . I also tell them to this day that, despite risks and other problems, nuclear-power is a FAR better option than the burning of fossil fuels. Some of them are as thick and stubborn as the dills on sites like this, and take extreme positions simply to thwart the extreme position of the “other side”. There will alway be dills who never realise we’re all in the same Lifeboat Earth.
If we’re going to consider euthanasia (which I have NOT suggested) then is can think of a good place to start.
But back to my favourite: Hydro power. Aus. may be ‘the second driest continent’, but how does that matter if you need a requisite amlunt of water in just one place. Egypt is at least as dry as Oz ~ yeah? ~ but have you ever heard of the Aswan Dam, which is being added to even as we speak.
It’s not so much the amount of water that matters as the head achievable.
The Murray river falls three THOUSAND feet on its way to the sea; and since water doesn’t wear out, with some decent enginering and a little imagination you could build a dozen dams along it, each with a head of 250foot.: which is a lot more than most existing dams operate at.
The Murrumbidgee falls FIVE thousand foot before it joins the Murray.
Of course some other considerations would have to be modified or abandoned; but it’s a truism that you can’t make omelettes without breakin eggs.
But on the upside ~ depending on consistent source ~ they dams may not necessarily hold back the entire flow. A syphon-pipe sort of set-up could bring down just the water needed to run a given-size turbine.
That’s something I’ve down on a small-scale with 2″ polypipe just laid on the ground.
And I won’t go on, but repeat I’ve seen hydrogen (produced on board, so there are no transport/storage problems, drive an (internal combustion) Ford car over 1 million km. It was shown that more problems arose in very modern engines with tiny tolerances ~ and computerised fuel systems, but worked nonetheless. I don’t understand what you mean about unattractive economics ~ unless you mean getting a high enough level of water purity??
Lastly: I didn’t claim the world ” is over populated and running out of resources”.
I merely made the point that the more people there are the more resources have to be exploited to provide for them ~ which creates all sorts of problems including global warming and other pollution.
Every breath you take, every fart you make adds to the problems we need to consider if we’re to have a future. I personally couldn’t care less: I’ve got 2 or 3 years left in me; but I do care for the helpless creatures ~ including your kids and grandkids ~ who will have cope with the shit we’re piling up.
And no matter how well they cope, if breeding isn’t restricted AT SOME POINT resources WILL run out on both local AND global scales. (Ever seen ‘Soylant Green’?)
Racism has nothing to do with it.
And we’ll probably have choked to death by then anyway.
Or fried.
Or drowned.
But that’s OK: so long as each of us can drive our 2-ton inertia machine to our non-productive job miles away before it all hits the fan.
*I see on the news the other night that unrestrained industrial activity in China has already turned 20% of previously arable land into a lethal conglomeration of heavy metals and other pollutants. Certainly cheap plastic shoes and solar-panels, and other fripperies are ‘convenient’. But at what price? And not just in our time ~ and not just in China. Plastic cards aren’t the only form of debt we’re racking up.
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Yep!
“The history of mankind before cheap reliable energy was one of illness and disease, squalor and short miserable lives, poverty and inequality.”
….and your point is?
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/aug/23/what-to-do-about-slum-dwellers
MY point is that we’ve survived as a species for 500,000 years.
Is anybody taking bets we’ll last ANOTHER 500,000 years?
ps. there’s NO such thing as “cheap and reliable energy”
You really need to get out more.
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Cohenite…are you familiar with the old saying (Solomon, I think) about the emptiest vessels making the most noise?
It’s good to see your concern for other people, but try to maintain a perspective from whence you can see what concerns EVERYbody (and all other species for that matter) on a permanent basis.
And do try to resist making ignorant and absolutely stupid assumptions about people of which you have not the faintest inkling .
I’m about as far from being ‘elitist’ as you could imagine.
I was born in a bomb-crater in Germany at the end of WWII to a 17 y.o German mother who’d been driven half-insane by the unceasing bombing and a slavic peasant (‘non-human’) father who’d been machine-gunned and dumped in a concentration camp. They came out here with two little kids, no knowledge of the language or anything else and 30 shillings (maybe $50 in newspeak) along with a few million other refugees in the same condition.
Their lives were hard and tough and poor and isolated.
Education for kids was something that happened sporadically, if you weren’t required to do other work like chopping wood or picking fruit, or finding the snake someone had seen crawling in the back door. etc. Medical attention (mostly for accidents) was a two or three-hour walk away, and the simplest ‘service’ cost about half a week’s wages ~ so we mostly went without.
All this while living in the middle of a swampy paddock in a disused dairy-shed without plumbing and wooden shutters for windows ~ and thankful that we had that. Many didn’t.
And, beyond that, Australia then was (with a few notable exceptions I’ve cherished ever since) as maliciously racist as South Africa ever was.
But those people made it work out, with endless hard work; I could tell you stories you’d not believe:- sacrifice, hunger and abuse.
(and a lot of them without electricity ~ some hadn’t even heard of it.)
That’s the country I grew up in, fought for (and with: for which I was gaoled) and (to some degree) succeeded in.
I grew up learning that the value of things didn’t have much to do with price, and how to get 10-cents worth of value out of five cents.
And I grew up hating bullies and tyrannies of all sorts, including poverty and it’s favourite sibling:- Waste.
My last breath will be spent fighting them.
These days I can lay my hands on about a million dollars in cash, but I still buy most of my clothes at op-shops in order to help a useful charity and try to help avoid waste. I drive a rough 15-y.o. Ford because it still does the job, and live in a solid ex-commission house that cost me less than 100k, but from which I can do my thing, and to which I can bring people who need a feed or a bath or are sleeping under a bush or who are so mentally deranged that nobody will talk to them. And I can do all that without the slightest concern about my personal safety (they sense I’ve ‘been there’) or the condition of my carpet because of the sick junkie rolling around on it in pain.
Year on year I manage to donate perhaps more than you earn to good causes that matter most to me ~ anonymously ~ because I don’t need it.
And although I could easily afford to put up 100kw of solar-panels, I put up 2 (and a bit) because that would provide me all the benefits and waste none of it.
Don’t you dare call me a fucking elitist!
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Hey!…if it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck and has about as much credibility as a duck……..
I take it you’re not a Monty Python fan?
This fellow starts out by asking where to start; my suggestion in a round-a-bout way was to gently suggest he gets some facts, some experience and considers some realities instead of intimating that I’m a dill based entirely on crystal-ball assertions.
His first sentence alone makes an absolute statement of ‘fact’
~ which he wishes he’d capitalised! ~ when it’s an absurdity in itself. eg. (albeit an extreme one just to make the point):- One way to get every roof in Australia to mount solar panels is to legislate that it be so.
Then he goes on to make all sorts of ad hominem attacks on me, entirely unfounded in reality or anything I’ve said:-
“You dream your green dreams, and then want to impose them on the rest of us.”
(Not only am I not Green, I’m a devout anarchist who has served a fair bit of time in the nick denying the right of anyone ~ including government ~ to impose any (victimless) rules on anyone else.)
“I have one response to your absolutely outrageous dream.”
“You’re just taking the pi$$ too, because even you don’t believe what you say here.” …….??? Indeed?
This from a twerp who, I’m willing to lay you odds, has never actually DONE anything constructive and whose ‘social-conscience’ ends with his assessment of the dollar-value.
And probably only to himself anyway.
Oh…and he does look like John Cleese (particularly as Basil Fawlty!), and I merely suggested he stop trying to sound like him too.
(And keep in mind that truth is always a full defense against an accusation of slander.)
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I had an accountant who spent %20,000 on his first XT computer, then just a week later he could have bought the same functionality for $4500. Did that make computers a bad investment, a failed technology or something that would never work?.
The technologies are improving daily. Keep in touch with it.
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Andrew Griffiths:
He did mention a Capstone microturbine. These have been produced for about 10 years, for remote area use in particular.
The smallest unit seems to be 30kW capacity, so how he gets a 3kW module I don’t know. Presumably getting 9 neighbours into a micro-grid.
Not being an electrician I am not sure how he will be able to connect the combination to the grid. Perhaps BilB means that it will be a stand-alone mini grid.
Leaving aside the cost of the PV panels etc. a storage unit of suitable size 20kWh would cost $30,000 and a 30kW microturbine at least $60,000 (extrapolated from $1.76 million for a 1,000 kw unit). Add in the cost of 30kW capacity of PV panels and the controlling circuitry and you are in a costly exercise for the average consumer.
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Andrew I mentioned the Capstone turbine as a backup for a microgrid of 30 to say 100 properties. For that you would use a 100kw unit or larger and the installed cost is $300,000 as a self contained unit with all of its controls and pulse storage.
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So you are looking at $3,000 per property for the mini turbine backup. + the cost of the PV installation.
Will you have battery backup as well? I cannot see that as less than $10,000 per property with all the wiring & controls. It is starting to get rather expensive and complicated just to reduce (not eliminate) your CO2 emissions.
What are you going to do for heating in winter? Or isn’t that a factor? Pity you aren’t somewhere cool like Copenhagen with an average annual temp. of 8℃ where small CHP units are quite efficient providing you can use the heat most of the year. I’m not up to date on their pricing but they were about the same as those figures above. Just don’t connect a wind turbine as the fluctuating output plays merry hell with the efficiency as you still have to supply heat without using the electricity.
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[…] Amusing yet accurate piece on Jo Nova. […]
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From the Guardian comes a marvellous addition to the lexicon of the warmenistas:
“Five warning signs Tony Abbott is turning Australia into a reckless charco-state
Is Australia a risk of becoming the coal equivalent of a petro-state. Here are five warning signs”
The quotation marks are mine. The rest of the non-punctuation is the author’s doing, I presume.
Old Sailor Man (Reply)
Fri 11 Apr 14 (06:28am)
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Somebody above told someone else above not to quote Alarmist sites on here.That to me is perplexing because I look at loads of alarmist sites as well as Sceptic sites ,searching for nuggets of truth somewhere,anywhere!
If someone quotes an alarmist site , surely the approach would be to refute the quote/comment and if there was a scientific angle to it,then provide the scientific refutation.
As someone once said “the truth is out there” and it is in all of our best interests to get at it.
I am aware that a lot of sceptics intensely dislike the “denier” word but some of us are actually quite proud to be called deniers,since that implies that we do not believe in the climate religion.
I have spent several months writing on predominantly alarmist blogs, since that is where the challenge lies.I love reading the comments here and on other sceptical blogs, I enjoy learning new stuff and being able to hold my own in some discussions.Where I cannot argue a point I do not expose myself to ridicule but instead ask where can I find out more on that?
I feel sorry for a lot of the sheep on the alarmist sites, the level of debate is weak and uninformed ,so could we maybe allow people the same rights we feel we are entitled too? I quote Jo and Stefan and Steve every opportunity I get and I get the same , “dont quote your denier site here reaction” but if it opens somebody’s mind it has to be worth the examination.
Voltaire:- I do not believe in what you are saying, but will defend with my life your right to say it.
Cheers!
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2014/04/how-to-convert-me-to-your-new-religion-of-global-warming-in-14-easy… […]
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A much-appreciated article. I would add that, with a few adjustments of terminology, it would be good advice for proponents of neo-darwinism.
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The greenhouse conjecture would violate the laws of physics. It is totally wrong.
My study showing water vapour cools is not hard to replicate. To prove me wrong you would have to produce a similar study proving water vapour warms by about 10 degrees for each 1%, as is in effect claimed by GH advocates.
The Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube provides evidence of the gravito-thermal effect. You would need to provide contrary empirical evidence.
You would also need to produce a valid (but different) explanation as to how the necessary thermal energy gets into the Venus surface in order to raise its temperature by 5 degrees during its sunlit hours.
BigWaveDave considers the gravito-thermal effect (seen in the vortex tube) worth your time thinking about …
“Because the import of the consequence of the radial temperature gradient created by pressurizing a spherical body of gas by gravity, from the inside only, is that it obviates the need for concern over GHG’s. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhD’s, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.”
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Well done Jo!! ~ you’ve set back the (feminist) movement that claims women have brains by about 1500 years. Your logic is unassailable!….mainly because it doesn’t exist. Improve your station in life: go back to being a stupid bitch, stop wearing knickers and catch a husband.
Have a nice day.
J.
[I think I will hold this in moderation for Jo to see. I am sure she would like a good chuckle. Her husband might also find it amusing. -Fly]
[Chuckle we did… – Jo]
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Good to see amusement: I intended no malice, and in fact agree with your iconoclastic approach; have been a contrarian all my life (“If a thing is the convention there is, in principle, something wrong with it.”), and been fairly successful at staying outside of The System (shudder!)
However whilst being a strict individualist, I’d suggest that ‘tribalism’ is not only necessary, but a good thing. The rot sets in when the Tribe begins to exceed the natural boundaries (about 50 or so people*) when individuals have no input and, most particularly, when individuals are no longer allowed to drop out/leave/not participate.
eg. Why should I have to be an ‘Australian’ ~ with all the bullshit that entails ~ simply because I live (by choice or otherwise) in a particular geographic place?
Why should I be bound by what a bunch of self-interested strangers and (mostly) [SNIP crass] determine ‘democratically’.(Marx called ‘democracy’ the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: how’s that different from any other dictatorship? (You know, the ones we bomb for not being a democratic dictatorship!)
How’s the ATO any different in practice or principle from the Mafia standover ‘protection’ rackets or other thugs:- ‘hand over your money or we’ll hurt you severely’?
So,on that basis, do continue to fight the good fight.
…..even if you ARE
quite wrong on this issue. 😉
The good news is that it doesn’t really matter anyway.
Shit happens, and none of us get out of here alive in any case.
More anon.
Jason
*…and their wives, of course! 😉 )
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