JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
“For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity.
One of the names they invoke most often is Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=0
Always those who can’t explain where Willie Soon is wrong will resort to smear.- jo
227
There is more hard, relevant science in my university degree than any “Climate Scientist” could ever dream of, and that includes modelling, which CS’s quote but do not understand.
No doubt Willie Soon’s basic course work places him well above the qualifications of Climate Scientists also.
There is NO substitute for HARD science.
Klimate Science MUST obey the basic laws of Physics, chemistry and astrophysics as well as complying with the time frames implicit in the geologic records.
There just aint no way past that!
KK
280
Oh come now, KK. Of course you can get past that. Just ask any climate scientist if you don’t believe me.
Sorry, I’m not kidding. They move right past that hard requirement with the ease of a snake slithering through the grass without needing legs.
Never mind anything.
130
Neither the snake nor the climate scientist has a leg to stand on. But they both get along quite well anyway.
Still not kidding.
140
Where are you trying to go with this Michael Whittemore?
Why should they not do so? What is wrong with that? Are you saying that scientists who say that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity should not be heard?
Why have you focused on Willie Soon?
240
Michael Whitmore,
“For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity.”
John Cook’s own consensus of 11,944 papaers was based on 69 papers that acknowledged greenhous gasses may pose a risk opposed by 11,875 papers that disagreed.
That’s actually 2,915 handfulls of scientists that disagree on the basis that four fingers and a thumb represent a handfull.
I got one finger right here that already disagrees with your bull$hit.
272
Well done!
70
You forgot to tell him to sit on it and rotate 😛
100
For which we are all grateful.
81
Rereke,
Ignore him, he plays to an audience, and don’t forget to try the shrimp.
31
Response from W.M. Briggs
230
Michael Whittemore,
So basically, Michael, you’re saying that any researcher funded by Greenpeace or some other pro-AGW organization should have their paper rejected/retracted because of a conflict of interest.
Abe
121
No, what he is saying is that they received NO FUNDS from anybody, private citizen, company or government. On the other hand….. all the BS artist on the warmist side, depend AND receive ample funding from Governments. I am, yet, to read a warmist paper, Government funded, that arrives to a conclusion without need of further research…. therefore trying to guarantee future funding to do more study!!
The gravy train is still full steam ahead!!!!
130
Actually a lot of climate scientists get funding from oil companies. It is a very common source of funding. Oil companies like to be seen as environmentally aware and fund a lot of environmentally related science. It is only when the scientist in question goes against the warmist narrative that this is seen as significant.
60
We are always sure to keep our greenhouse gas levels below 8000ppm which ensures that it’s perfectly safe for anybody to enter our greenhouses. The gases pose zero risk to humanity.
Thank you.
100
Some years ago I used to waste a bit of time stirring up the Lefties on The Nation (www.thenation.com). It is a rabidly left wing US magazine that has Oreskes, a dimwit if ever there was one, as one of its lead contributors on AGW. Other regulars are Naomi Klein and the infamous clown of 350.org fame, McKibben.
To its credit it did not censor skeptical comments in those days. Perhaps it had not dawned on its editor then that there was no theoretical basis or observational evidence to support the catastrophic outcomes guaranteed by the alarmist sect of climatology which it heavily promoted then and still does.
I also got most of my generally negative responses to many New York Times articles by such “expert” climatologists as the economist Krugman published. Who for some reason at that time was the NYT resident expert on global warming.
My evaluation of the left wing NYT is that it is not far behind The Nation as an activist propaganda arm of the IPCC global warming scam. The sort of approach that article takes against scientists is typical of the left wingers, most of whom are gullible and credulous believers in a pseudo scientific scam and thus are ignorant of how science should work and thus they can only smear. This is the sort on nonsense that the NYT specialises in.
120
llew Jones,
A recent article on the William M. Briggs blog describing one aspect of AGW reporting tactics had a comment by Ken. The thrust of the article was that there was no way to get through to a climate change adherent in a direct confrontation. So, when discussing climate change with a warmist, among other things, Ken wrote . . .
Ken’s reasoning is sound. Once you read his entire post, you’ll agree that your time was not wasted.
Abe
50
Oopps!
I wrote. . .
The thrust of the article was that reporters tend to give themselves more importance than they actually have.
It was Ken’s post that explains why you can’t get through to a climate change adherent in direct confrontation.
My appologies.
Abe
50
llew Jones,
It’s as though these writers have studied all the relevant literature on the do’s and don’ts of rhetoric and then went ahead and applied all the don’ts in their writting.
Which leads me to
believestrongly suspect that this is why they were chosen in the first place.Abe
30
The New York Times still has Walter Duranty’s 1932 Pulitzer Prize on their wall He won the prize for 13 articles written in 1931 analyzing the Soviet Union under Stalin.
The CIA says:
“David Engerman has provided an important portrait of, among others, New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, by placing his patently dishonest and pro-Soviet reportage in the context of the Left’s commitment to strict economic and developmentalist planning during the 1930s.”
I think that tells us how much we can trust that rag.
40
After looking into my post on Willie Soon, I don’t really consider it News. He readily admits he is founded by oil and coal. Its very clear he focuses on key points of the climate debate so its hard to debunk him but nevertheless I find his work interesting. Ill scrutinize my facts better next time.
10
You need to be careful that you do not fall into the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent:
“He who pays the piper, calls the tune”
“Willie Soon gets funding from the oil and coal industries”.
Therefore (erroniously):
“Willie Soon’s scientific findings will always be in favour of the oil and coal industries”.
The first two statements do not logically imply the third.
My organisation gets funding for what we do, from a number of sources, because they appreciate what we do, and why we do it. But none of them have any influence over what we produce. I have full editorial freedom, and we can tell it like it is, even if it is to their detriment (we do give advanced warning, in those cases, though).
We take it upon ourselves to say when the Empdorer has got no clothes, and I suspect Willie Soon is much the same.
40
Michael Whittemore,
He readily admits to have been funded in this way on various occasions. Sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn’t. In the case of the paper, “Why Models Run Hot”, he was not so funded.
Futhermore, the funding issue is a red herring in any case because it has no bearing on the facts presented in the paper. If the facts are accurate and the findings are correct, then It’s totally irrelevant who paid for the research. The paper stands on it’s own.
The only case where funding would be an issue would be as in the case of the tobacco companies which were found to be misleading in their pronouncements on the health impacts of nicotine.
So, again, for all those who did not get the message. The funding only matters if there are flaws in the results and those flaws protect the interests of the funders.
In this paper, not only has the science not been shown to be flawed, but there was no funding to begin with.
Abe
40
http://phawrongula.wikia.com/wiki/Greg_Laden:_Man_of_Mystery
Just another climate jihadi looking for salvation. We just need to start laughing at the posturing witless clowns.
20
SO? Who cares except those who can not find anything wrong with the science and use Alinsky’s RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
In plain English – Be a bully throw a tantrum and toss mud.
However if you want to toss mud we have plenty of mud to toss.
Dana Nuccitelli – Guardian environmental contributor also works for Tetra Tech oil and gas services company.
In 2005 Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, set up a residual oil extraction technology company called Glorioil. It advised and gave technical assistance to big oil companies on extracting residual oil from fields which would otherwise have been abandoned.
What about all the money the US government gives the World Wildlife Fund?
Government Grants – June 30 2001
$24,589,994
What about all the OIL MONEY Greenpeace gets?
Greenpeace funders
Energy Foundation
(original $20 million endowment (in 1991) came from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.)
Rockefeller Brothers Fund [Standard Oil]
Rockefeller Family Fund [Standard Oil]
Rockefeller Foundation [Standard Oil]
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation [Standard Oil]
(daughter of former Standard Oil president William Rockefeller.)
J. P. Morgan Charitable Trust
…………..
And What About all the others?
Climate Research Unit (CRU) (of Climategate fame)
“From the late 1970s through to the collapse of oil prices in the late 1980s, CRU received a series of contracts from British Petroleum to provide data and advice….we would like to acknowledge the support of the following funders….British Petroleum,…Shell,…Sultanate of Oman…”
Source: cru.uea.ac.uk/about-cru/history
—–
“Exxon-Led Group Is Giving A Climate Grant to Stanford”
Four big international companies, including the oil giant Exxon Mobil, said yesterday that they would give Stanford University $225 million over 10 years….In 2000, Ford and Exxon Mobil’s global rival, BP, gave $20 million to Princeton to start a similar climate and energy research program…”
Source: New York Times – 21 November 2002
—–
Sierra Club
“TIME has learned that between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking…”
Source: Time – 2 February 2012
—–
Climate Institute – Found 1 October 2013
[Washington, DC]
Donors
American Gas Foundation, BP, PG&E Corporation [gas & electricity], Shell Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation [Standard oil]
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions – Found 1 October 2013
[Arlington, VA]
Strategic Partners: Entergy, Shell
Major Contributors: Duke Energy, Rockefeller Brothers Fund [Standard oil]
Green Energy Futures – Found 1 October 2013
“Green Energy Futures is a project and a journey that seeks to share the stories of green energy pioneers who are doing incredible things just below the radar of the conventional media.” Gold Sponsors: TD, Shell
I have five pages of these types of listing.
50
Hey Michael, since your link is titled “Ties to corporate cash…” would you like for us to start listing the ties to NGO cash, corporate cash, government funding, etc. of scientists supporting the meme? Then would you like to place odds on whose list will be longer? Yours or ours.
You need to remember your history Michael. When one of the “chosen ones” decided to “expose” the Heartland Institute funding the information he uncovered was so damnably un-damning that he had to make things up and forge documents.
Now if you want to establish why Soon is wrong via evidence and reasoned arguments that is one thing, but if all you can do is claim some conspiracy due to who or where he gets some money from then don’t be surprised that no one listens to you.
After all, you’re just doing Karaoke to a broken record.
40
Autumn soon and listening to thunder while the temperature drops.
70
Same here, rumbly afternoon, heat storms, nothing in them though, pop-up ‘n collapse teasers. Autumn won’t show ’till late April around here. Those poor sods in the US East and central parts were getting -30 C to -35 C again yesterday morning. Ouch.
80
And it will sold as Antroproghenic global warming(propaganda) in the media?
112
The Naturally Air Conditioned Tablelands! Hot during the day, a nice 3.30Pm Storm, a nice little breeze, a shower and a beer, ready for dinner “Al Fresco”…. How disgusting! In this day and age the temperature should be Constant all day long with a cooling in the evening, the Gobernment should do something about it!!
50
Thunder and lightning; very, very enlightening and lots of rain. Now why didn’t the BOM predict this?
110
I’m just a poo boy, nobody loves me.
He’s just a poo boy from a poor university,
Spare him his wife from this monstrosity.
80
Mumma. You two just thrilled the man!
KK
60
Correct me if I’m wrong but I always thought that was a rather curious ending, after tailing off so effectively with :- “nothing really matters, to meee…” to come back and finish with :- “Anyway the wind blows “, it seemed almost superfluous at the time.
60
Ok, this is sung to the tune of something by Queen, isn’t it?
20
Bohemian Rhapsody
20
They have corrupted science and media and spend a huge amount of money and effort the last 25 years to get the climate propaganda they need to get global government based on enviro socialism. A lot has gone wrong since Climategate and Copenhagen 2009. They even gave Obama the peace prize, based on what he had done after just 2 weeks in office? Of course they are getting desperate now and Obama in particular? He might be the worst president in history and ending up not signing a climate treaty in Paris this year that gives us global socialist government and ending capitalism, the reason for the peace prize? I think the next “democratic/socialist” candidate in USA is not that keen on having the support of Obama?
242
Ending capitalism and democracy has happend, nationally, earlier in history in USSR, China(Mao), Cuba etc but it just did not and still does not work. Even Communist China have realised that they need some sort of room for capitalism. And now they are trying to repeat historic mistakes, but this time on a global level?
171
Communism. Fine in theory just never in human hands.
100
Capitalism may not be all sweetness and light but it is in a way self regulating that Communism is not. Therefore things have to get a whole lot worse under Communism before it collapses under the weight of its own inherent contradictions.
110
Is that why so many gullible people to fall for the Greenies ? ( I used 2B12 ) While in reality they are worse than the Moonies.
60
It is not even good in theory – as in a well tested and well supported hypothesis. However it is good in the imaginations of many who start with the presumption that “our gang could have done it better”. They are the ones who invariably who fail to consider the nature of man, of reality, and of man’s relationship to reality and feel the brute force can solve all problems.
50
At one point in history, Mao Tse Tung, decided that there were too many fly’s in China.
So he decreed that every person in China should catch five flys a day, and take them to their local Government representative.
This resulted in all the Chinese doing extra work, in running around, catching their quota of flys.
The Europeans however, purchased a fish tank for the family, and bred a number of flies, that not only met their quota, but provided a surplus number of flys that could be given to their Chinese friends.
Capitalism vs Communism. Imagination trumps dogma every time.
60
Flies?
10
Matty,
Communism is the form of government practiced by every human being when they take a mate and start a family. The dictatorship is maintained in the home as long as the kids are too young and inexperienced to make their own decisions. As our kids get older, we teach and encourage them to make thier own decisions by reasoning through a situation rather than using our feelings to react.
Communism, as a form of national government, is an aberration designed to prevent human beings from becoming intellectually mature and thereby keeping them dependent on the state to make al the decisions.
Abe
50
Communism was never a fine theory. Again if this leads to deaths millions there is nothing fine about it!
People keep saying this all the time and yet none of them lived through the crap. I could say the same about nazism that it had a lot of good points like building roads, keeping people employed, building communities, wanting to build unified Europe, introducing first environmental laws, engaging capital. All of this hitler wanted…in theory.
20
I find some of the younger ex residents of Yugoslavia less hostile to the old system, than those from other EastEuropean countries
00
Communism was a scheme*** by the Banker/aristocracy to move the peasants back into accepting feudalism. It was conceived just after the revolutions that ended 1,000 years of rule by the Divine right of Kings.
The Divine right of Kings is what gave the aristocracy legitimacy to rule over the peasants. The Enlightenment and the rise of the middle class upset that apple cart and you had revolutions and unrest including the American, French revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars.
Communism was designed to replace the Divine right of Kings and give the Vanguard of the Proletariat legitimacy in ruling over the peasants. As religion promised the peasants their reward was in heaven, Communism’s reward for the peasants was the ‘Withering away of the State’ sometime in the nebulous future.
The target of communism was not the aristocracy but the middle class.
Note that Marx is bemoaning The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers. Is it any wonder that Academia wants to be ‘restored’ to an occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe?
*** This is based on my readings and therefore has no references.
30
The new President of Greece is an avowed communist,strange therefore that it will be his remit to remove Greece from the Euro Zone in due course and thus commence the collapse of the Euro Zone in general or should we call it the franco/prussian axis?
20
Precipitable Water and the Green House Effect
Last week I outlined a project, whereby I looked at the BOM weather recordings at 2 inland sites (Giles WA and Charleville QLD).
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/02/weekend-unthreaded-66/#comment-1682524
Taking just the 2 sites, and comparing conditions on just one day I concluded that Charleville, which had a higher dew point was cooler by several degrees. Greenhouse theory predicts higher temperatures on the site with more moisture.
However comments by LtCusper have persuaded me to modify this approach. LtCusper suggested that I should look at Precipitable Water (PW),
“Precipitable Water (PW). The amount of rainfall which would be generated if all of the water in the atmosphere was precipitated to the surface.” -from BOM
The calculation of PW involves integrating the dew points at each level up through the atmosphere and adjusting for the decreasing barometric pressure. This seemed beyond my resources, but fortunately the BOM gives the figure for each balloon flight (top right corner of the page).
SO here are new results taken this week.
Charleville:
PW, T max, T min.
24.7, 37.8, 21.1
26.9, 35.1, 23.1
35.3, 34.6, 23.5
Giles:
20.4, 40.1, 24.1
20.5, 40.8, 25.5
22.1, 39.6, 22.1
25.1, 38.4, 28.3
35.1, 39.5, 28.3
PW might have an effect on T min values, but T max is either unaffected by PW or there is a cooling effect.
I may post more results as I continue the study.
90
Peter C 3:43pm: What are the units for PW?
Now what you need to do is focus on a certain time of day at each site where Tmin profile reasonably might occur – as I suggested 0700. Then estimate the PW in the column for that time for which I showed the process in your linked thread.
Here is an example of an appropriate conclusion you could draw if, say, the PW you show could be based on PW&T profile conditions at 0700 in the 1st line of each site:
Charleville:
PW, T max, T min.
24.7, 37.8, 21.1
Giles:
20.4, 40.1, 24.1
There is less atm. radiation from the PW at Giles but more atm. radiation at Giles from the column surface Tmin. profile if both occurring at 0700. A wager win for more radiation at the surface at Giles v. Charleville 0700 is not reasonably foreseeable.
—–
Based on middle of each site list occurring at 0700:
Charleville:
PW, T max, T min.
26.9, 35.1, 23.1
Giles:
22.1, 39.6, 22.1
Here both PW and Tmin. profile are less at Giles. In THIS case based on knowing/understanding the theory, you COULD reasonably win a wager that the atm. radiation would be measured less at Giles at 0700 because both atm. PW radiation and Tmin column radiation would reasonably be less.
00
Thanks LtCusper,
I see where you are going with this. Thanks for your interest and help.
Firstly the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM)likes to fly all the balloons at 23:00 UTC (Universal Co-ordinated time – in the old days Greenwich Mean Time). I think that this helps to feed into World Meteorology Commission weather modelling ( which is actually very helpful to me- as a glider pilot).
The precipitable water (PW) figure is mm.
I have not tried to calculate PW myself. Instead I have taken it from the BOM balloon flights (calculated figure) which are conducted at 2300 UTC at both sites. For Giles that is 0930 (South Australian time) and Charleville 1000 (Queensland time).
After that I take the T min and T Max from the automatic BOM data from each site (given in local time). The T min is usually 0500-0600 (local time) which occurs a few hours before the balloon flight and the T max is about 1600-1800, which is about 8 hours later. I assume that the atmospheric PW has not changed much over that time period.
I could alternatively take the temperature at the time of the flight. I am not sure how long it takes the balloon to ascend to 50,000 ft (possibly an hour).
I think I might suspend observation s for the time being. Giles is about 1 degree further north than Charleville. Both are south of the Tropic of Capricorn by a few degrees. We are now entering into the period of maximum solar change. Observations are probably better taken near to the solitices.
00
Peter C – Ok mm. At around 25mm PW then there is about 1″ of rain stored up in each column. Thunderstorms might produce rain at several inches per hour so you get a feeling that rain storms can concentrate wv from the surrounding area.
You can use Tmax too, just need to get the temperature profile time synchronized with the wv calculations and/or measurements. Try data also from a known desert area with a known farmable area, the results might not be intuitive as I showed in the earlier thread.
00
LtCusper,
Thanks.
25mm is not a lot, but thunderstorms do not form until PW gets to 45mm or higher. Yes I agree that thunderstorms can concentrate the moisture from a large surrounding area.
From the American Meteorological Association
precipitable water
The total atmospheric water vapor contained in a vertical column of unit cross-sectional area extending between any two specified levels, commonly expressed in terms of the height to which that water substance would stand if completely condensed and collected in a vessel of the same unit cross section.
The total precipitable water is that contained in a column of unit cross section extending all of the way from the earth’s surface to the “top” of the atmosphere. Mathematically, if x(p) is the mixing ratio at the pressure level, p, then the precipitable water vapor, W, contained in a layer bounded by pressures p1 and p2 is given by
W=1/pg x Sigma x.dp from p1-p2
where ρ represents the density of water and g is the acceleration of gravity. In actual rainstorms, particularly thunderstorms, amounts of rain very often exceed the total precipitable water vapor of the overlying atmosphere. This results from the action of convergence that brings into the rainstorm the water vapor from a surrounding area that is often quite large. Nevertheless, there is general correlation between precipitation amounts in given storms and the precipitable water vapor of the air masses involved in those storms.
Sorry about the formula. It did not copy. I think this is what you told me last week . However it just gives the PW between two pressure levels.
The problem is that the dewpoint varies very markedly with height and in a very non uniform way. Hence I cannot calculate PW for the atmosphere from the surface dewpoint.
Lets not get too distracted. The issue (for me ) is to see if I can find the Greenhouse signal for surfaces temperatures ay a site with clear skies. So far I have not. But there is still a problem with clouds forming and T min!
00
Peter C 8:03pm: You are using a round about way to find that signal. The wv & Tmin method will confirm & likely win wagers for you though. An easier way to find that signal you seek is a US$30 Ryobi IR002 IR thermometer pointed up at nighttime clear sky glow and then at cloud glow. This after you confirm the IR002 calibration to your satisfaction using well known emissivity material and mercury thermometer in the material.
10
> How Do You Know Your Solar Panels Are Working Correctly? You Probably Don’t
(greentechmedia.com)
> Solar experts claim multi-billion dollar subsidies wasted on cheap and dodgy panels
(smh)
“Australia now has more than 1.3 million households powered by solar, making it the biggest market for small-scale systems.
“If someone is getting a subsidy there is an expectation that the benefit to the environment and society equals or outweighs that cost.”
~ ~ ~
Yet, the climate continues to change in Australia:
Cyclone Marcia: Climate change is expanding the tropics (smh)
. . .
How many solar panels does it take to stop a cyclone to ‘benefit the environment’?
120
You might recall that I wrote years ago about the implied contract to deliver electrical energy in return for the RECs as “cash” to the owners of systems.
Nobody thought to figure out how/if these things could be audited and what would be necessary to ensure that the contract was fulfilled by the owners and operators of the systems. One cannot simply assume that technical systems will function as “desired”; not for up to 15 years; and under the naturally perverse social circumstances, even when new!
Any system without the capability to be audited is going to be rorted. To be corrupted.
As the people who dreamed up these schemes were supposed to be experts in the matter, one can reasonably conclude that the system was implemented as intended.
110
Isn’t it interesting that my electric service from Edison has been installed on this house since it was built in about 1962 and there never has been a failure of any of it attributable to any component failure, reduced efficiency or anything else. Neither Edison nor any electrician has ever been here to fix anything. We’ve used electricians to install additions and modifications but that’s it. Edison once modified the wire drop from the pole to the house for their own reasons but that had nothing to do with any failure.
How do solar panels compare with this? Well they compare rather badly. At a bare minimum, all else continuing to work, a solar panel will soon be covered with dirt, ordinary everyday dirt that blows around everywhere. You dust off everything in your house periodically because of this and yet no one appears to believe it can affect solar panels. The top surface of those panels must remain transparent to visible light and a layer of dirt can reduce that transparency by 10, 15, even 20 percent if it’s allowed to accumulate.
I found out this the hard way when I had solar water heating. I was up on the roof inspecting the panels after a few months (yes I do that sort of thing) and found a layer of dirt so bad I couldn’t see the collector fins below it. The rain doesn’t wash this stuff off any more than it washes your car. Any night there’s dew the dirt already there becomes stuck a little tighter and then more is added. I had to use a hard brush, detergent and a squeegee to get mine clean. That’s when I gave up on solar anything. I wasn’t about to go through that exercise on a regular basis. I suspect neither will anyone else. I tried to get what benefit from the system that I could because I’d paid the rather steep asking price. But I vowed never again.
I’ll not even go into any other difficulties. The dirt problem soured me on solar anything on my roof.
If you have solar panels and you doubt me, just climb up and take a look.
130
Roy,
I hate to mention this, in polite company, but a large proportion of the dust you find in your home is actually dead human skin cells. Forensic Scientists find this very useful, at times. But it is different to the wind blown inorganic dust, which is mostly sandstone or limestone (depending upon where you live), that covers solar cells.
[Knowledge is the “stuff” that you carry in your head, all of the time, and cannot erase. – Thought for today.]
70
I guess you don’t live where the wind blows constantly or near a busy highway or where I live, both apply.
In any case, the problem is the same. You wouldn’t fail to clean your house (I hope anyway). Why then does no one recognize this problem with solar panels.
20
“….How do solar panels compare with this? Well they compare rather badly. At a bare minimum, all else continuing to work, a solar panel will soon be covered with dirt, ordinary everyday dirt that blows around everywhere….”
….
You are in Australia!
A Dumb Yank shouldn’t have to tell you how to operate solar panels.
Our Solar farms in NC are enclosed in wire fencing. In the spring, lambs are turned out to crop the grass around and under the panels. When you need to clean a panel you grab a lamb, flip it and use its back to clean off the panel. When the lambs outgrow the food supply or the the grass starts dying back in the fall you put a lamb in the freezer to keep the grass/lamb ratio in balance.
20
Infinitely many, since they have no effect at all beneficial to the climate. But an infinite number might do the job. 😉
60
A cyclone might accidentally rip the panels off your roof though. Does that count? 😉
50
The story of George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River, which occurred on the night of December 25–26, 1776:
“Planned in partial secrecy, Washington led a column of Continental Army troops across the icy Delaware River in a logistically challenging and dangerous operation.
The army crossed the river back to Pennsylvania, this time laden with prisoners and military stores taken as a result of the battle.
Washington’s army then crossed the river a third time at the end of the year, under conditions made more difficult by the uncertain thickness of the ice on the river.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_crossing_of_the_Delaware_River
2015 Feb:
The frozen Delaware River, the lightship Barnegat, and the Philly skyline seen from Petty’s Island.
https://twitter.com/mikecobballen/status/568450446404276224
80
Just the other day, I drove back to Newtown PA from Frenchtown NJ and crossed the river at Washington Crossing. You can see the Delaware River all the way along River Road, R29, and it is frozen all the way. The Delaware Canal along side the road is also frozen solid.
The same type of boat Washington used is on display at the Mercer Museum in Doylestown and I think there is one of his boats in the Washington Crossing village museum.
I have often wondered why they didn’t just walk across the river.
BTW. when in the USA, visit Bucks County PA, beautiful country, summer or winter.
40
i have posted this – which raises more questions – plus more at the “hyping cyclones” thread.
22 Feb: Brisbane Times: Cameron Atfield: Cyclone Marcia: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk backs Bureau of Meteorology after Marcia surprise
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has defended the Bureau of Meteorolgy’s forecasting after the rapid escalation of Tropical Cyclone Marcia caught most by surprise.
***TC Marcia had been forecast to be a Category 1 or 2 as it approached the Queensland coast but quickly gained power and was a Category 5 – the most powerful classification – when it crossed the coast near Shoalwater Bay…
“This is something that they have never seen before as well, going from a low pressure system to a (Category) 1 all the way up to a 5,” she said in Yeppoon on Saturday afternoon.
“They’d never seen this in their lifetime, so this was a rare event.
“Now, they’re going to go back and look through all the research and try to work out how that happened so quickly…
***Localised flooding was reported across south-east Queensland, but Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the city was fortunate to have missed out on the forecast 120km/h winds…
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/cyclone-marcia-premier-annastacia-palaszczuk-backs-bureau-of-meteorology-after-marcia-surprise-20150221-13l730.html
also mentioned no wind or rain down my way and any localised flooding in SE Qld is from the separate Tropical Low system.
112
I’ve just read Jennifer Marohasy’s latest article below.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17109
As Spangled Drongo notes in his comment on her website, you only need to review what a Category 4 can do to a city – Darwin after Tracy, to gain some perspective.
An even more deadly storm, Cat 5 has just hit Yeppoon, apparently. A town obliterated worse than Darwin? You would think that such deadly devastation would at least be front and centre in the local news for a bit longer? Top stories in the Brisbane Courier Mail at present are the NRL drugs scandal and property prices in Brisbane.
Perhaps some media have realised that something a bit stinky has gone down and they all got caught up hyperventilating. Now they’re all averting their gaze and trying to move on quickly.
I so hope Jennifer pursues this! The BoM costs Australian taxpayers hugely and their sole purpose is to provide objective scientific data on which many sectors rely. Either we’ve just witnessed a major stuff up (in which case expect much backside covering and a PR campaign to denigrate those who point out the factual inconsistencies, instead of coming clean), or something more venal is in play?
61
lmwd,
Thy wait for Jennifer? Any Australian can persue this because every Australian pays for the service.
Jo has posted an Australian politicians e-mail list.
I’m sure a short but polite request for an explanation and corrective action would go a long way.
You pay for the service and so you’re entitled to expect accurate information.
Abe
20
Perhaps so. The BOM predicted a Cat 2 cyclone, and that is what Yeppoon got by all accounts.
What seems to be unprecedented is how a Cat 2 cyclone got transformed into a Cat 5 cyclone by the combined forces of the BOM spokesmen and the media.
220
Lesson here is never underestimate the radiative forcing of climate mania, we now have data showing a 2.5 multiplication effect from said mania.
An equation for ‘stupid’ is believed to be an impossible task, CAGW is a quantum leap towards a solution.
160
They may not have cracked artificial intelligence yet but BOM has cracked artificial stupid.
152
I thought the desert tortoise I have in my back yard was pretty stupid, no personality, really just a rock with legs. If you put a dozen of them side by side they’ll all show the same personality without any difference at all. But she knows how to take care of herself in one of the most hostile environments in North America, the deserts of California and Arizona, where both food and water are scarce, summer temperatures exceed 100° F (38° C) and winter nights can go below freezing. And that’s not bad for an animal with a nearly invisible brain.
I wish the climate change pushers with their very large and visible brains could manage to do something at least as intelligent.
90
Peter Martin flies an infrastructure kite.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/low-10year-bond-rates-are-the-deal-of-the-century-but-abbotts-not-at-the-table-20150120-12tq4j.html
10
Peter C –
20 Feb: Eureka Alert: NASA-JAXA’s TRMM satellite sees rapid intensification of category-5 Marcia
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
At 11 p.m. local time (1324 UTC) on Feb. 19, 2015, the Precipitation Radar on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite observed the eyewall of Tropical Cyclone Maria in the Coral Sea. At that time, Marcia was rapidly intensifying to category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, a little more than 12 hours before an expected landfall in Queensland, Australia.
The TRMM satellite is managed by both NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency…
In this case, the heavy precipitation (the red volume of the image) near the ocean surface is the powerful base of a hot tower in the southwest quadrant of the eyewall.
A “hot tower” is a rain cloud that reaches at least to the top of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere. It extends approximately nine miles (14.5 km) high in the tropics. These towers are called “hot” because they rise to such altitude due to the large amount of latent heat. Water vapor releases this latent heat as it condenses into liquid. NASA research found that a tropical cyclone with a hot tower in its eyewall was twice as likely to intensify within the next six hours, than a cyclone that lacked a tower…READ ALL
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/nsfc-nts022015.php
Peter Hannam/SMH (and only Hannam btw) disclosed it was the following whose data declared Marcia a Cat 5…& they are associated with NOAA:
Uni of Wisconsin-Madison: Space Science & Engineering Centre – About Us
(scroll down) Associated Organizations
(LINK)National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NOAA Satellite & Information Service, NESDIS)
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/overview/
no MSM carried this Press Release:
20 Feb: Eureka Alert: NASA-JAXA’s TRMM satellite sees rapid intensification of category-5 Marcia
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
At 11 p.m. local time (1324 UTC) on Feb. 19, 2015, the Precipitation Radar on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite observed the eyewall of Tropical Cyclone Maria in the Coral Sea.
***At that time, Marcia was rapidly intensifying to category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, a little more than 12 hours before an expected landfall in Queensland, Australia.
The TRMM satellite is managed by both NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency…
In this case, the heavy precipitation (the red volume of the image) near the ocean surface is the powerful base of a hot tower in the southwest quadrant of the eyewall.
A “hot tower” is a rain cloud that reaches at least to the top of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere. It extends approximately nine miles (14.5 km) high in the tropics. These towers are called “hot” because they rise to such altitude due to the large amount of latent heat. Water vapor releases this latent heat as it condenses into liquid. NASA research found that a tropical cyclone with a hot tower in its eyewall was twice as likely to intensify within the next six hours, than a cyclone that lacked a tower…READ ALL
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/nsfc-nts022015.php
cyclone experts need to go over all the data because this looks like a hoax perpetrated on the public. redress has figs in the “hyping cyclones” thread with actual data.
i don’t pretend to understand the technical stuff, but it should be possible for cyclone experts to delve into the data from BOM and NASA etc and get to the truth. uni of wisconsin-madison need to be asked for an explanation too.
90
To a non-scientist like me, watching Marcia come ashore on the rain radar and thinking “BS” was all one.
The wind associated with a Cat5 cyclone is enormous, yet the BOM stations (Williamson) that were near landfall were showing a maximum of 105 Km/H!! Samuel Hill 93 Km/H, smart weather system, sneaking around 2 stations on it’s way down…. or maybe as soon as it got to land it dropped it’s bundle and slowed down Immediately! That would be a first. There is only one way left on finding out the approximate speed of Marcia when it landed and that’s a visual inspection of the site. I am a bit too far away to go for a stroll.
Maybe BOM, CSIRO or the Army might want to find out what went wrong…..
81
22 Feb: Daily Mail: Wills Robinson: Siberian Express shows no signs of slowing as record-breaking deep freeze to continue for most of next week as death toll climbs to 20
Toll includes nine in Tennessee, six in Pennsylvania, two in Illinois and one each in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky
They all succumbed to hypothermia in the plummeting temperatures. Several other deaths are being investigated
Forecasters predict another round of ice snow and freezing rain will sweep from Missouri to the mid-Atlantic
At least 500 daily record lows have been broken from Cincinnati to Washington to New York
Bitter cold temperatures have shattered at least 500 decades-old records from Cincinnati to Washington to New York…
In western Pennsylvania, temperatures dipped to minus 18 in New Castle, minus 15 in Butler and 6 below zero in Pittsburgh – all records… etc
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2962635/Siberian-Express-shows-no-signs-slowing-record-breaking-deep-freeze-continue-week-death-toll-climbs-20.html
80
It’s bloody cold in North America;
h/t via WUWT; dbstealey
160
It’s just a rumor.
80
It’s damned good humor though. 🙂
50
Being unthreaded I can probably say stuff and see what happens. I am getting old now and I have seen a lot of BS passing as science during my life. Medical science for the first dig, after telling us and killing us with the cholesterol bogey man and telling people to eat oddly modified fat products that killed people admit it is ok to eat real fat as cholesterol does not kill us. That BS*** killed my father.
Next the standard models, particle physics, the wonderful world of borrowing imaginary particles from an aether that to them does not exist so that their model works or inventing new imaginary particles to make the model work, very inventive are they at new names for imaginary friends.
The standard model of the universe, so clever yet suddenly they find most of it missing, what do they do, invent dark matter but that failed so they added dark energy. Both of these are invisible like the missing heat in global warming. Black holes exist only between the scientists legs and in the middle of their heads between their ears.
Like the science in global warming, they should all introduce themselves with “Once upon a time” I am getting old now, too old for fairy tales, I would like some truth in science, those in the past with truth were sidelined, jailed or killed.There are some working to discredit the crap, but oft secretly as it is still fraught with danger.
One can only wait for so long for science to see the error of their ways, to turn around, look out the window and see the truth, so bugger it, I am going to spend some time with my good woman on the back of my harley scooter smelling the country side and looking at the stars.
May have a bit of news for you Jo in a few months about an experiment that could change science.
180
Excellent Wayne,
I watched a program on Cosmology recently.
Firstly they patiently explained the Big Bang Theory, then dark matter (the stuff that they can’t see). But then they got to the problem. The recession of distant galaxies does not seem to be slowing down, as would be expected from gravitational attraction. So as you say, they had to invent dark energy!
Finally some one thought that they could guess at the geometry of space-time by measuring to internal angles of a triangle over astronomical distances. And guess what?, the angles add up to 180 degrees which means that space time is flat, which means that the universe goes no and on forever, just the same as we see it.
So what does that mean for the Big Bang theory? Fred Hoyle was right when he dismissively called it a Big Bang. And what is it that Cosmologists actually do?
30
Wayne Job,
They fed humanity with this garbage and humanity ate it up.
So they figured, if it worked before, then it will work again.
I used to read Science, Scientific American, Nature, etc. as a teen-ager in the seventies and into the eighties in my twenties. That was about the time when they all started publishing BS pseudo-science articles. They did it slowly, but I noticed and stopped buying them. And by buying I mean both purchasing tham and buying into the misinformation. Today I call them scientific tabloids.
I clearly remember the day when I finally came to my senses and parted ways. Two realizations came to me almost at once. I’ll describe one of them now.
We were told that because observations show that the universe is expanding, if we ran the clock backwards, all of it, the entire universe, must have at some point been compressed down to a point with infinite density. But this meant that the gravitational effect on this point must have also been infinite. You see the problem here, right? I mean, if gravitation in the beggining was infinite, then you would need an infinite amount of energy to expand the universe!
So how did they get around this? Rather than abandoning the infinite point with infinite mass theory, they just patched it up. Against all logic, the theory of hyper-inflation was created, promoted, and accepted. Hyper-inflation states that at some point, very early on, the space in the universe suddenly began to expand faster than the speed of light.
In an article describing this new, revolutionary, theory, the inventor was quoted as saying, and I paraphrase here, “We had to invent a completely new mathematics to describe the events in the first moments of the big bang. This is because the laws of physics break down at those time scales.”
To the question, “How do you justify doing that and how do you know that the theory is correct?”
He answered, “It must have been the way we describe it because we are here, after all, are we not.”
In other words, the theory is not falsifiable and so he might just as well have said G-d did it. Or, as Dawkins has said, the green spaghetti monster must have done it.
The standard model is taught this way to this very day. And nobody seems to notice, and nobody seems to care.
And as long as we’re talking about George Carlin, you should question everything.
Abe
30
Thanks Just a Guy.
Very perceptive
30
I’m sorry, dear trolls of the Internet.
I just wrote a 975 word reaction to Abbot’s handling of the Sydney Siege Report, but I don’t want to post it just yet because… I want to read more of the official report and consider my argument some more.
yes I know, I have totally failed to spew a half-baked knee-jerk reaction, so your troll appetites will have much less to feed on.
Which is not to say that it won’t still be half-baked when I do publish it, but I’m giving myself the benefit of the doubt.
What I will say is… when someone starts a company called “Hizbullah Australia”, openly aspires to violent Jihad, then holds 30 people at gunpoint, claims to be acting in support of ISIL, and asks to speak to the Prime Minister to issue a list of political demands, I’d say that clearly qualifies as terrorism under any definition I’ve ever seen, and Monis was therefore a terrorist. It is quite bizarre that some people argue “he wasn’t a terrorist just a lone nut”, as though the two were mutually exclusive. (Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik had no other terrorist contacts and nobody had any qualms about calling them terrorists.) If we can’t call a spade a spade, why even have a word for spades.
150
I think the distinction was supposed to differentiate mad Man Monis’s actions from organised and co-ordinated acts of terror that have much more potential for causing mass ‘terror’ in populations.
The lone nutter acting totally unsupported has much less scope for causing multiple related incidents. Breivik of course was highly motivated and highly destructive, yet still by all accounts a nutter ( about the only thing he denies).
We see all to many examples of a lone gunman with some chip on his shoulder (yes it usually is a he) . They don’t seem to be branded terrorism, unless their is some element of ‘Islamic’ or anti-‘Islamic’ sentiment in the motivation. Was the shooting of JFK terrorism ? Many think it would be if Oswald hadn’t been acting alone.
10
I disagree, on three counts:
1. There had been no identified coordinated acts of terrorism on US soil, prior to 2011. Terrorism was something that only happened outside of the US, in the public psyche.
2. If Oswald was not acting alone, then the evidence would point to a Cuban intelligence operation, perpetrated through the local Mafia. Lee Harvey Oswald had mob connections, and had spent time in Cuba. If it quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and looks like a duck, chances are … ?
3. Terrorism is when innocent bystanders are brought into the fray, with risk to life or limb. The Kennedy assassination was shocking, but it was targeted at one person, and so the bystanders were shocked, but were not targets themselves.
20
Yes that last point was complete rubbish. An ill considered throwaway line. So please, just throw it away. I should have known such sloppy thinking wouldn’t pass here. I take it the rest of it may have some merit though.
00
I’ll be very interested to read it, It’s a natural survival reaction to have a zero tolerance policy towards anyone who genuinely want’s to and will take your life, sadly due to the watering down of peoples self worth this reaction is hesitant with the threat of public vilification taking priority over preservation of life.
It’d be interesting to see the reactions if this same situation was acted out by a lunatic professing to worship Gaia.
60
The definition we use is:
I note that the above definition excludes the creation of fear or worry through the application of propaganda, or other psychological techniques, that do not involve violence.
60
A few footnotes to consider –
“who wishes to” … someone who wishes to commit a murder isn’t a murderer. Supporter of ??
“intended victims” … or “targets” ??? Plus their neighbors, or fellows, or landsmen.
“threat of death, torture, [etc]” … or outrageous style of carnage: suicide bombs, beheading, immolation, ….
20
Rereke Whakaaro,
They call that fear-mongering propaganda. Or, in other words, the nightly news.
Abe
10
There seem to be two main groups in society today – the sheep and the wolves. Most of the lefty/green european and western governments seem hellbent on turning voters into sheep and have no qualms about trying to appease the wolves, but we should be thankful that in all corners there are still a few shepherds.
60
Are you feeling crook, today?
00
No, jus feelin the luv, bro.
00
In the meantime, the war is upon us and we continue to be asleep at the switch.
This is not a new war either. In a prior thread I posted a link to a long list of terrorist attacks on U.S. interests that begins in 1972. It’s been festering all that time while we refused to take action.
I guess the lesson will only be learned when we suffer another Pearl Harbor Day — if even then. And we’re all in this boat together: United States, UK, Europe, Australia, Canada. Our boat is taking on water and nothing useful is being done about it. Only Jordan and Egypt seem at all serious about it and they need help… …help that will not come under present leadership.
Jo would not permit the rest of what I want to say but you’ll have no trouble guessing.
60
Roy,
Not everyone is asleep at the switch. But it is good that you are worried that they might be.
The most effective responses to terrorism never get into the press. Silence provides little information to prospective perpetrators, and allows successful strategies and techniques to be used multiple times.
From that perspective, CNN is not your friend.
70
And neither is the United States Government which insists on announcing its every plan against the terrorists in advance so they are forewarned, which as the say, is forearmed. The president is not about to do anything effective and anyone with any sense knows it.
50
Point taken.
I can’t comment from a current American Perspective. It has been a long time since I worked in The States. But even when I did, I could never figure out how you arrived at the Presidents you got.
But what I was alluding to, were the activities deployed in preventing terrorist incidents from materializing, and then the weapons and tactics used to contain and manage individual terrorist incidents, when they did occur. Putting that sort of footage up on television is just another training resource, for the bad guys.
30
I can’t understand most of them either. So don’t feel bad. I don’t understand how you got some of your leaders either. As the carnival pitchman says, “You pays your money and you takes your chance.”
10
It seems your link may need a sign in to Verizon to view Roy.
Is this what you were referring to:-
Al Shabab punching above its weight, promoting shopping centre attacks, in Canada , the US and UK.
10
Matty,
I don’t know why a sign-in would be needed. I certainly do not sign in to view anything that shows up on my home page.
Your direct link to CNN is not the same CNN clip I watched. One video clip begins with two reporters and the other begins with three. However, it’s definitely the same threat.
Since I have no Internet access through any other ISP I can’t check whether there’s some restriction if you don’t get there from Verizon. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some special cookie is required to get to the video clip and only Verizon puts it on your computer. ISPs do stuff like that sometimes.
00
Your link was to a Verizon page Roy, which I guess is because you subscribe, whether explicitly or implicitly through your using them as an IsP.
I tried to identify the direct link, but it’s not an exact science. I got the message though and thanks for posting it.
00
read all:
23 Feb: OnlineOpinion: Jennifer Marohasey: Cyclonic inflation
In the case of Marcia, the US Navy acknowledged that their Dvorak estimates were higher than the surface observations from Middle Percy Island. In particular their real time “warning”, no longer available on the internet, noted an “intensity of 110 knots” based on the anemometer on Middle Percy. This corresponds with the highest wind gust recorded on Middle Percy Island as Marcia passed over. The maximum sustained wind speed, however, never exceeded 156 km/h, and the central pressure was never less than 972 hPa. This makes Marcia a category 3 based on the Australian system, and only a category 2 based on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
Yet the bureau continued to report the cyclone, not as it was, based on the surface observations, but as they had forecast it in a media release the previous day:
“Tropical Cyclone Marcia to reach Category 5 system at landfall”…
Today, Sunday, Daniel Smith from James Cook University has completed the official “Preliminary Damage Assessment Report for Tropical Cyclone Marcia”. This report documented the cyclone as crossing the coast at 8am as a category 5, and sustaining wind speeds of more than 200 km/h. I immediately emailed asking the basis for this assessment. Dr Smith indicated by return email that it is based on the Bureau’s listing of Marcia as a category 5 at the time it made landfall, noting that the Bureau has “its own methodology of computing cyclone wind speeds.”…
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17109
ABC’s Trevor Chappell to caller (who’d just come on & wasn’t calling about Marcia at all) last nite:
where in Qld are you?
Caller: Cairns
Chappell, all excited: whoa you really copped it.
Caller: No. lovely weather up here (paraphrasing).
HOW EASILY EVERYONE HAS MOVED ON (TO NEW MSM-GENERATED SCANDALS MOSTLY). ON JENNIFER MAROHASY’S “How do we know that Cyclone Marcia was a Category 5 at landfall?” THREAD, TAMMI COMMENTS:
“Well as a local who just experienced first hand the above mentioned cyclone, I don’t care what category the storm was classed as ~ I can guarantee it was not a piece of cake. Who cares if the rating was not completely correct?! A very good friend of mine has had her roof completely blown away and has lost pretty much everything inside. Do you think she cares what the rating was, or any of the other people who have experienced house destruction?!!”
Keith J has a good response for Tammi.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2015/02/know-cyclone-marcia-category-5-landfall/
50
Nice to see Dr Marohasy back on board, thanks for that Pat.
30
Hype gets attention and that is what the media seek. Channel 7 started Sunrise an hour early on Friday to ensue the got the coverage of the two cyclones “hitting” land. ABC news were also into the “hitting” hype. Cyclones no longer track or pass over a location but they “HIT” it – more emotive.
I wonder how many Australians have actually experienced a Category 5 cyclone. WA holds the distinction of the highest recorded non-tornado windspeed of 408kph. Any cyclone is frightening for the people in its path. It will not be surprising to see climatalogists pressuring for rerating of cyclone categories due to their hyping the intensity from global warming each time there is some property damage. A category 5 does not sound as menacing as a category 10 – maybe a scale 1 to 100 would be even better.
I have seen/heard press statements that the old Queenslander houses were built for cyclones. That is a myth. Any of them from Bundaberg north that are still standing have simply defied the odds. At best they would handle winds from a Category 1 storm passing nearby. Only houses built after 1980 have some limited ability to withstand a Category 3 storm. There are not many houses that will endure a Category 5 storm – all windows need solid shutters to have a good chance of being undamaged in a Category 5 storm.
The actual intensity of cyclones is important from an engineering perspective as it is embodied in the Australian Building Code and associated standards. Increasing structural requirements to meet more onerous storm intensity would add to building cost.
20
Nye on combatting the cold!
17 Feb: VIDEO: Daily Caller: Bill Nye Tells MSNBC To Say Climate Change, Not Global Warming, When It’s Cold Out
Words are everything, even in the global warming debate. TV personality Bill Nye the “Science Guy” told MSNBC’s Joy Reid to use the phrase climate change, not global warming, when it’s so cold out.
“Let’s not confuse or interchange climate change with global warming,” Nye told Reid on Monday. “Global warming – The world is getting warmer. There is more carbon [dioxide] holding in more heat.”
“So when the climate changes, some places get colder,” Nye added. “And the thing that’s really consistent with climate change models is this variance where it’s cold, it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s warm… So what I would hope for, my dream, Joy, is that you all, you and the news business would just say the word climate change.”…ETC
http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/17/bill-nye-tells-msnbc-to-say-climate-change-not-global-warming-when-its-cold-out/
50
Unfortunately, I don’t believe the climate realist message will ever get out there to the average, brainwashed man/woman in the street in any useful numbers. I’m an average Australian, retired motor mechanic, and on FaceBook I have 116 so called ‘friends’, presumably also average Australians. As an experiment I selected from Jo’s FB page, the easiest to understand and entertaining IMO post I could find. ‘How to convert me to your new religion of global warming in 14 easy steps’ by Clipped Wing Warrior. Well in around 24 hours, only 3 respondents, and they were quite clueless. No one wants to know and couldn’t care less enough to click on to the link to learn some climate truths. I hope these 116 friends don’t accurately represent a cross section of the Aus community, indeed the Western World community at large, but I fear that it does ! I have just about had it with this country and society in general, but where to go ? Maybe I should take up Base Jumping sans parachute !
50
Don’t despair, hang around, the plateau in temperature cannot last forever and you’ll be needed to explain what is going on. We are few, but natural variability should see us home and hosed ahead of the pack.
Our side requires a scathing satirist who can reach out to those who don’t want to know and couldn’t care less.
50
“…Our side requires a scathing satirist who can reach out to those who don’t want to know and couldn’t care less.
…..
James Delingpole!
US physics professor: ‘Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life’ (UK Telegraph)
CO2 Good; Climate Change Bunk; Greens are Raging Extremists, says Greenpeace Co-Founder (Breitbart)
10
Oh, And also Sean Thomas
If you have never read this article you are in for a treat!
When it comes to climate change, we have to trust our scientists, because they know lots of big scary words
10
Banned from the conversation yet again! I said absolutely nothing in any way offensive.
I am running out of accounts to login with…….
50
Once again we find the Bureau of Meteorology hyping their reports & predictions.
We just had a cyclone through the Yeppoon area, with a huge kerfuffle about a Cat 5 blow. Even their own station on Middle Percy, where the eye actually passed over, gave figures for a low 3, while they were screaming 5.
Then we see Yeppoon, with a few old cow cocky weekenders, jerrybuilt 60 years ago with a bit of damage, indicating very low cat 3, but probably cat 2.
All this hype for a blow at about a mid strength Sydney southerly buster.
Why do they do this? What is in it for them, when every knowledgeable northern Queenslander knows it is garbage?
I don’t like this modern world much.
40
Hasbeen,
lmwd had a post echoing similar thoughts on the BoM’s inaccuracies. My response there may be appropriate for you as well.
Don’t despair. Promote repair. I know that sounds corny. Ambarassingly so. But so what.
Abe
10
Adjustments and all that…
‘Mother Nature has certainly been showing her amusement at those excitable claims last month that 2014 was “the hottest year on record”. In the north-eastern US, the past month has been the coldest since records were kept, and four of the five Great Lakes are on the verge of freezing over completely for the first time in living memory.
‘Snow has fallen in Greece and across the Middle East as far south as Saudi Arabia, where locals gleefully building snowmen were greeted by a fatwa sternly pointing out that to make images of animate creatures was an offence against Islamic law.
‘How did we know that 2014 was “the hottest year ever”?
Christopher Booker (UK Telegraph)
30
Here you can see the US in more graphic detail.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2015/02/23/0000Z/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/overlay=temp/orthographic=-92.49,40.88,1043
10
Here’s a photo of global warming at work: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/22/big-picture-frozen-us-from-space/.
30
Good piece in The Oz completely going to town on Media Watch’s unjustified attack on a windmill-health piece:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/legal-move-threatened-over-media-watch-report/story-fna045gd-1227234600320
TL:DNR version – Scientific study found there may be issues with windmills and sleep disruption/health etc, ABC sets the attack dogs on author and The Oz. Author considers suing ABC.
51
‘Lloyd “is the best journalist writing about wind turbines in Australia”.
Yep, he is one of those real journalists.
20
Bulldust says –
“ABC sets the attack dogs on author and The Oz”
only when it suits them.
here’s a real lovefest (there have been quite a few lately between ABC & Murdoch “journos”. Michael Rowland this morning interviewing The Australian’s John Lyons, whose attacks on the PM and Peta Credlin over meaningless matters show, yet again, Murdoch media is out to replace Tony Abbott:
23 Feb: VIDEO 10 mins 26 secs : ABC: The Australian backs Iraq deployment report
The Australian’s Associate Editor John Lyon stands by report that Prime Minister Tony Abbott canvassed a unilateral troop deployment to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-23/the-australian-backs-iraq-deployment-report/6216388
the relentless Murdoch media campaign against the PM began almost immediately after:
Rupert Murdoch tweets:
Abbott again. Tough to write, but if he won’t replace top aide Peta Credlin she must do her patriotic duty and resign. More
10:42 AM – 28 Jan 2015
10
The Greens and their cohorts have managed to make Australian energy costs somewhere around the third most expensive in the world. What if the same philosophy were to be carried across to food production; traditional farming eventually banned and all food production to be conducted in enclosed, hydroponic, style environments? The Greens I believe do wish to ban all meat products, so hydroponic food production would be their nirvana. How far do their dreams/plans extend? Nothing would surprise me.
20
bemused:
No, they’re against hydroponics because it uses CHEMICALS !! (I’m not sure if the typical greenie would know a chemical unless he tripped over the bag).
What they want is Aquaponics; this involves a tank of fish crapping in the water and being saved from asphyxiation in their own waste by circulating the water through channels where various leafy green vegetables grow and absorb the free, if dilute, fertiliser. The pumps need to run almost continuously so are powered by solar (Spanish solar) and the fish food is probably gluten free vegan.
The leafy greens are mostly water with stuff all nutrition, and I am not sure if you are allowed to eat the fish.
20
Whatever the alternative, I suspect that they’d gleefully get rid of traditional farming and introduce something as sustainable and efficient as solar and wind.
30
Mr. Shorten stated that Cyclone Marcia was a cat. 5; it’s official, it’s now in Hansard, but I only saw gusts with a max. speed of 170km./hr. looking at the BOM Yepoon data which makes it a cat. 2.
40
AGW Skepticism is getting a Guernsey over at Zerohedge.
Most of the comments are skeptical of AGW.
REF: republicans investigate nasa over climate data tampering
I suppose that I live in hope that sanity and data validity will prevail.
30
Note the language amongst the comments at ZH is “robust”.
The Backslider : I got banned at The Conversation for saying Ove H-G was a rider on the academic gravy train and the IPCC were a bunch of UN tax eaters. Precious, delicate bunch, those lefties. The whole site is an utter disgrace as it is tax funded at least in part and many of the articles seem to have zero information content when they aren’t blatant leftist propaganda.
10
the “Manmade Cat 5 Cyclone Marcia” must be disputed.
i believe the MSM know it was manufactured, but they are busy with bigger issues. my google news page has these two separate stories:
Prince Philip a knight for fortnight before PM revealed captain’s call
The Australian – 17 minutes ago
Philip a knight for fortnight before Australia Day
The Australian Staff
wowee. decisions re honours are made in advance of announcements!
not that i would go anywhere near this combined Foxtel/Channel Ten-commissioned program, but how’s this?
Real Housewives of Melbourne plays the fame game
The Australian-20 Feb 2015
I’VE finally caught Gogglebox, the new weekly observational series that … (All they have in common, really, is they all loathe Tony Abbott.) …
josie’s blog tells us more:
Josie’s Juice: Gogglebox Australia: VIDEOS + PHOTOS
Only one ep(isode) in and I am obsessed with this show ‘Gogglebox Australia’.
Di’s comments are pure gold…
Likewise for long time couple Wayne and Tom “I’d do Manu; “Taser him (Tony Abbott) and get him out.” …
The pics below… everything.
About Tony Abbott:
“I don’t care whether he stays or he goes”
“Taser him and get him out”…
http://josiesjuice.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/gogglebox-australia-videos-photos.html
now isn’t that hilarious?
the sooner the MSM self-destructs the better.
10
funny that ABC/Fairfax have gone along with Murdoch’s attack on so-called powerful/strong Peta Credlin, without any FEMINIST OUTRAGE WHATSOEVER. why aren’t they defending her and going on about how men can’t tolerate strong women! instead, Fairfax’s Latika writes:
28 Jan: SMH: Latika Bourke: Rupert Murdoch calls on Tony Abbott to make ‘cruel choice’ and sack Peta Credlin
***According to Mr Murdoch’s chief of staff Natalie Ravitz, the mogul was in News Corp’s headquarters in New York on Tuesday…
Ms Credlin is a controversial figure within the government with MPs complaining she is too controlling…
Conservative columnist Miranda Devine earlier on Wednesday opined that Mr Abbott need to make a “sacrificial offering” to his colleagues by sacking Ms Credlin…
“The Prime Minister has to make a sacrificial offering to convince his colleagues that he has learned a lesson,” she wrote.
“Something that causes him pain, like chopping off his right arm. In other words, moving on chief of staff Peta Credlin.”…
***Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon told Fairfax Media during the Rudd/Gillard wars that a Prime Minister could survive with one media outlet campaigning against them, but never both.
Nearly a dozen government MPs have told Fairfax Media that “calls are being made” to test the mood of the backbench with several believing Mr Abbott’s ability to lead was now irrecoverable…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/rupert-murdoch-calls-on-tony-abbott-to-make-cruel-choice-and-sack-peta-credlin-20150128-12zvy8.html
***Latika – maybe you should now write about Murdoch’s chief of staff, Natalie Ravitz, former Press Spokeswoman for Democrat, Barabara Boxer, when Boxer chaired the Environment and Public Works Committee that tried but failed to push through the Cap & Trade Bill in September 2009, just before Climategate broke. she sounds strong & powerful, & perhaps unduly influential, to me:
June 2014: UK Express: Adam Helliker: Natalie Ravitz may be the new woman for Rupert Murdoch
DURING all her tribulations, Rebekah Brooks has been ably to rely on the moral – and financial – support of Rupert Murdoch
Just one year after his acrimonious divorce from Wendi Deng, Murdoch is the subject of chatter among his staff over his closeness to Natalie Ravitz, the blonde who has been appointed to oversee his inner office.
At 34 she is twelve years younger than Rebekah.
As a successful career woman in her own right, Washington-born Miss Ravitz (nicknamed “Ravishing” by her male admirers) fits the profile of the media tycoon’s previous female friendships.
A former journalist, she worked for the New York Department of Education before being headhunted to become 83-year-old Murdoch’s new “gatekeeper”.
She has forged strong allies in Murdoch’s inner circle; her former boss overseeing New York’s schools was Joel Klein, whom Murdoch tempted away to News Corporation with a job as vice-chairman.
***Klein is now in charge of making sure the News Of The World phone-hacking allegations do not spread to the American courts.
One of Murdoch’s senior employees observes: “Some of us have been working for Rupert for 20 years and never had the same sort of trust that he has lavished on Natalie. She’s only been with him for two years but she’s gone right to the top. He seems to adore her.
She’s even posted adoring pictures of him on the website Tumblr.
“Rebekah might not like it, but she will now have to go through Natalie if she wants to make an appointment to see Rupert.”
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/adam-helliker/485542/Adam-Helliker-on-Rebekah-Brooks-Natalie-Ravitz-and-Rupert-Murdoch
for those who are not aware of the controversial Joel Klein, formerly of global media conglomerate Bertelsmann, who served under Clinton & who was appointed by NYC Mayor & CAGW advocate, Michael Bloomberg, to the post of Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States, in 2002:
for starters, google how he was heavily criticised by Australian academics & media when then Deputy PM Gillard brought him to Australia in 2008 under the sponsorship of UBS Bank, to “share his (education) reform experience”. ABC, Fairfax & Crikey all have attack pieces.
then, if u want, u can check out his critics in the US.
no excuses, Latika, you have enough background material now for a sensational “big” story. go for it.
11
This new blog looks interesting.
https://climanrecon.wordpress.com/
20
from the US alternative online left website:
23 Feb: Counterpunch: BINOY KAMPMARK: The Case for Removing the Fantasist-in-Chief
Tony Abbott and the Islamic State
(Dr. Binoy Kampmark lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge)
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is full of predictable surprises. Stomping and punching his way into the history books, his government finds itself teetering before the electoral precipice. As it should…
Even a publication such as Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian, which has done its best to feather the nest of the Abbott government since is monstrous inception – has gotten nervous. While it continues to have its demagogic spouters write the government script – Chris Mitchell as editor-in-chief, and the frothing Chris Kenny – the revelations about various meetings Abbott had over the course of his short term as prime minister is instructively dangerous. They reveal a fantasist-in-chief, a self-appointed suicidal villain keen to send thousands to their death at a moment’s trigger-happy notice.
The story, written by John Lyons in The Weekly Australian, makes the claim that, on November 25, 2014, the Prime Minister “suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq, with 3,500 Australian ground troops to confront the Islamic State terrorist group.” …
Abbott has similarly claimed that the story “as reported was false,” claiming that the Chief of the Defence Force “is as mystified by this as I am.” Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has called the story a “fabrication” (Daily Telegraph, Feb 21). The first rule of political survival is avoiding soapbox deniability – the more adamant one is in one’s rejoinders, the greater the clout to the claim. Refutations become full-blown confessions…
The time for Tony’s removal, it would seem, is nigh…
He shows that he is incapable of being a steward of any sort, a steroid-charged Biggles with an immolating streak…
Coups have been launched for less, and it can be well argued that the dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975 took place in less imperilling circumstances. High time for a re-enactment.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/23/tony-abbott-and-the-islamic-state/
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21 Feb: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: The proof we got a bad deal on offshore wind farms
Fears that offshore wind farm subsidies awarded without competition were too generous set to be confirmed as result of competitive auction comes in cheaper
They were hailed by the Government as “a new stage in Britain’s green energy investment boom”: five big new offshore wind farm projects, awarded £12 billion in subsidy contracts less than a year ago.
But this week, evidence is expected to emerge that the prices handed to the projects were too generous – saddling consumers with millions of pounds in needlessly high energy bill levies for 15 years to come…
Bill-payers are estimated to already pay close to £2 billion a year in subsidies for onshore and offshore wind farms.
Under Government plans to tackle climate change, ministers are offering new green energy projects contracts guaranteeing them a subsidised price – several times the current market price of power – for every unit of electricity they will generate…
In total, the NAO estimated that over their 15 year contracts the five projects will require £11.7bn in subsidies and warned that companies could reap “excessive” profits because of the lack of competition. Margaret Hodge, chair of the PAC, said consumers were being “ripped off by incompetence in Government…
By far the biggest beneficiary of the contracts awarded without competition last year was Danish energy giant DONG Energy, which owns three of the five offshore wind farms and stands to reap £7.8bn in subsidies…
Gordon Edge, director of policy at RenewableUK, said the contracts last year were “vital to engender a sense of confidence among offshore wind developers at the earliest stage of the process”…READ ON
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/windpower/11426763/The-proof-we-got-a-bad-deal-on-offshore-wind-farms.html
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‘Sea ice extent in the Southern Hemisphere has experienced a mean positive trend of 0.9 percent per decade.’
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V18/feb/a18.php
That is since 1979 (satellite era) indicating a regional cooling signal.
11
I think that you all might like to read this Willie Soon article
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=1&referrer=
It sedms that Willie has not been all that honest wit us.
03
23 Feb: ABC: AFP:: IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri to miss meeting over sexual harassment case
A TOP UNITED NATIONS climate change official has pulled out of a key meeting in Kenya next week as Indian police investigate a sexual harassment complaint against him, officials have said.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), withdrew due to “issues demanding his attention”, the UN body said in a statement late Saturday…
The IPCC said Pachauri had informed them “that he will be unable to chair the plenary session of the IPCC in Nairobi next week because of issues demanding his attention in India”…
Another Delhi police official said on Sunday that Pachauri will “most likely appeal for anticipatory bail tomorrow at a lower court”, after the Delhi High Court last week granted him “interim protection” from any arrest until Monday.
“He needs to be in Delhi to seek bail,” the police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.
Pachauri’s office did not immediately respond to calls for comment…
The IPCC won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with former US vice president Al Gore, for galvanising international action against climate change.
But its image was then dented by several hitches that were found in one of its major reports, providing ammunition for critics who say the IPCC is flawed or biased.
A prediction in the report that global warming would melt away the Himalayan glaciers that provide water to a billion people in Asia by 2035 has been dismissed by glaciologists as preposterous…
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2015/02/23/4185322.htm
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22 Feb: Independent: Mark Leftly: Global ‘green club’ of companies will fight climate change and poverty
Mr Leggett, who has advised the World Economic Forum on green energy, said that he has already had unsolicited emails of interest from a dozen companies, including some of the biggest in the US, interested in the 5 per cent For-Climate-and-Development Club, which will be launched later this year.
He believes it will allow investments of “billions of pounds” in projects over the next decade.
Mr Leggett said: “[The club] is a microcosm of what developed countries are going to have to care about in the developing world. Sadly, history shows we cannot expect most shareholders to care about that.”
The idea is based on Mr Leggett’s solar panel company, SolarCentury, which transfers 5 per cent of its profit to its own charity, SolarAid.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-green-club-of-companies-will-fight-climate-change-and-poverty-10061880.html
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Tea? anyone?
http://www.climateplus.info/2015/02/23/welcome-to-the-green-tea-coalition/
00
How many climatologists does it take to change a light bulb?
None , the light bulb does not exist.
00
It took one helluva lot of Climatologists, Bureaucrats, NGOs & Politicians and in the end we have to change them ourselves. B£@@?y useless, the lot ’em.
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While scanning comments at WUWT
—————————————
Leo Smith February 23, 2015 at 1:59 am
” In one of Castenada’s novels there is a story about a young man who left his poor village in Mexico and went to the city to get an education.
On his return to the village years later he found that the villagers were in thrall to a man who had a book, out of which he read long passages. This book it appeared contained all they needed to solve their problems. However the young man noticed that the man was holding the book upside down.
“Your hero is a fraud: He cannot read” he declared “And I can prove it, he is holding the book upside down!”
“What difference does it make, to a man who can read, which way up the book is? ” retorted the man, and the villagers cheered…
The problem is, that when people reject all of science already, a scientific refutation of global warming is (politically) meaningless.
I too have been appalled by the standards of debate over this, and other, issues. I have come to a terrifying conclusion.
Perhaps less than 10% of the population understands science at all, and of that 10% probably less than 10% actually understand the mathematical principles involved in the AGW proposition. And most of those are not in climate science.
This is ultimately both something that has always been the case with science and indeed rational thought, and something that is deeply worrying right now, because we are in a deep crisis as a society and need better understanding than that.
Humanity en masse proceeds along more or less bigoted lines according to the fashionable prejudices of the age. The AGW protagonists understand this: their business is to move the fashionable bigotry along to suit their agenda.
If we step back a minute and regard the implications of what I propose to be the case, they are these: The vast majority of humanity is incapable for one reason or another of understanding the science and technology that forms the backdrop to their lives. And in a democracy that means they are more or less unfit to vote on matters that affect it.
A small minority of ‘movers and shakers’ – and these days they are (to borrow Jilly Coopers terminology) the ‘Tellystocracy’ , the media luvvies and those who use mass media to ‘inform’ public debate – are the ones who count. They are the new elite, the new lords and masters of the brave new world, and it is this group that has been so thoroughly targeted and infiltrated by all and any group with a political or commercial axe to grind. It doesn’t matter what some obscure group of scientists believe, or what the mass of people believe, what matters is what this group do in terms of forming (rather than informing) public opinion.
This group then are by and large the group that actually carries out political change. They are in charge of the fashionable bigotry that comprises what we have come to know and love as political correctness. That vast and loosely affiliated propaganda machine that tells us what to think about, and what to think about it.
What we need to do if we are to introduce truth into this tissue of lies and deceit, is to make the case to the media/political luvvies that in fact their particular brand of bigotry is deeply dangerous to themselves as a class.
In the case of AGW we have two main avenues through which this is happening.
First of all the man in the street is getting fed up with falling standards of living, and his winters seeming just as cold wet and miserable as the summers are, despite claims it was the warmest year on record.
Secondly the more astute members of the tellystocracy are becoming aware that infrastructure is for everyone, and that includes them. Victorian sewers were to protect the elite of the day from disease, by eliminating it from the great unwashed. This is a potent line of attack – Wind turbines and solar panels become not source of individual profit, but a disaster for all including those that profit from them.
Ultimately the game is this: Science in its broadest terms is nothing more and nothing less than a means of predicting the future. Science says if we do this or that, the other will happen. The complex mathematical laws we deduce, infer or discover (according to your metaphysical picture of what Laws are) have no justification beyond the fact that they work, and what they say will come to pass, comes to pass, mostly.
Science that fails to predict anything is untestable, and if it fails to produce the result that reality provides, it’s junk science or no science at all. You can summarise this by saying that in the long term reality trumps bullshit.
Ultimately AGW either produces correct predictions or its junk, It’s looking to be junk. However that doesn’t stop people believing in it because it’s fashionable bigotry. But here we invoke Darwin. Societies that fail to realise what reality is, and cling to fashionable bigotry, will suffer accordingly. There are signs that the whole West will in fact ultimately collapse in an orgy of self destructive mutual deception and liberal angst. Or perhaps it will wake up and smell the coffee.
And in the end, that is the conundrum. It is true to say that people are reasonably easily led, and that even those that lead them, are themselves subject to fashionable bigotry. That is a fact of life that we have to deal with. In the end we have only one yardstick that works to dispel the fog of Belief In Bullshit and that is Reality herself, and Reality is a hard mistress. If She needs to destroy entire societies that are so infected with irrational bullshit that they can no longer support themselves at all, She will.
I don’t like to get political here, but this is to me the great argument for not having the sort of monolithic world government that the cultural Marxists of the UN and the ‘liberal and social’ democracies seem to espouse. that and we all go down together. Whereas having political islands of national ideologies at least allows for some diversity of political thought, and if the West becomes so decadent not because of Capitalism, but because of Marxism and its descendants itself, that it is in danger of falling to a stronger culture, maybe one of those political islands will have the tools and the strength to resist and prove to have the next line of fashionable bigotry to deal with the new reality.
From my perspective there are two completely different dimensions in play here, and it helps not to confuse them.
There is the technical and scientific reality of the data: that the world ain’t warming any more, never warmed very much, and windmills and solar panels are a complete waste of time and money, and destructive to boot, and if we want to stay alive in the absence of fossil fuel the logical alternative is nuclear power.
That these things are provably and demonstrably true is, however, irrelevant to the second dimension, which is what people think.
Or can be induced to believe. And here there is in fact a world war in progress, World War III. Its not being fought with weapons (much) that kill, directly, but with weapons that corrupt thinking. It is a war of propaganda and competing ideologies, none of which have a particularly strong basis in Reality, because Reality is pretty damned complicated, and its easier to get people to believe in simple stuff. ‘Four legs good – two legs bad’ sort of stuff.
I have to say that I have more or less given up on the science: The jury is in for people to understand the maths and the physics and how real science works. AGW is a crock of shit, and that’s that.
The real game is the war for hearts and minds. And that is a game of psychology, propaganda, money, power, politics, greed, fear, uncertainty and doubt. If we can’t win it, it will in the end destroy Western civilisation, and so it should. If we have no answer for lies, we don’t deserve to make it.
Once we had a system that worked. The brightest and best, and a few of the rich, got excellent educations and were indoctrinated with a culture of care for those less fortunate, and a sense of duty towards the masses. They did what they considered to be right, after duly listening to the problems.
Today that is destroyed by egalitarianism, which ensures that no one at all gets a good education that everyone cannot afford. Except for a very very few – too few – people who espouse state education but manage to avoid it in the case of their children. Worse, they dont educate them into the actualities of science and technology even then, they educate them into the practical techniques of propaganda. We have in short a generation of peole who are highly skilled in the manipulation of public opinion, but no idea how a smart phone works. People ideally placed to control and dominate a society, and take from it all its riches, but without actually having even the most basic understanding of how those riches are created.
Such a situation is dynamically unstable. We, the technologists, are not screaming out for recognition ‘because its unfair’ or ‘because its morally indefensible’. No, we have a much quieter but devastatingly powerful message. “If you don’t take at least some notice of Reality, you will in fact die of ignorance, and likely take us with you”.
*shrug* If they don’t listen, it’s Goodnight Vienna. We wont be the first culture to commit racial suicide in pursuit of idiotic beliefs.”
—————————————-
dbstealey February 23, 2015 at 2:56 am
Leo Smith, You’re one in a million! Thanks for posting that, I’m in complete agreement. The problem isn’t science; that is 100% on the side of skeptics of MMGW. The problem is human nature. Some people/groups have that figured out, and that’s bad news for the rest of us.
A.D. Everard February 23,2015 at 4:30 am
Leo, your comment should be a post in itself. It should be widely read. This is so much what needs to be understood. Thank you.
George Tetley February 23,2015 at 12:49 am
WOW !!!
30
More problems with ‘solar farms’ killing birds. This is reprehensible.
20
Carbon dioxide has a net cooling effect – but less than 0.1C° as proved in the papers linked from this website using standard thermodynamics with supporting evidence.
The following demonstrates how downward convective heat transfers occur which have been completely overlooked by climatologists due to their lack of understanding of entropy. For more detail see the first linked paper.
An isothermal profile in a gravitational field is not isentropic, for the simple reason that, firstly you are assuming all molecules have the same kinetic energy, but secondly, we know the ones at the top have more gravitational potential energy.
So, consider the following initial state …
Molecules at top: More PE + equal KE
Molecules at bottom: Less PE + equal KE
In such a situation you have an unbalanced energy potential because the molecules at the top have more energy than those at the bottom. Hence you do not have the state of maximum entropy, because work can be done.
Let’s consider an extremely simple case of two molecules (A & B) in an upper layer and two (C & D) in a lower layer. We will assume KE = 20 initially and give PE values such that the difference in PE is 4 units …
At top: A (PE=14 + KE=20) B (PE=14 + KE=20)
At bottom: C (PE=10 + KE=20) D (PE=10 + KE=20)
Now suppose A collides with C. In free flight it loses 4 units of PE and gains 4 units of KE. When it collides with C it has 24 units of KE which is then shared with C so they both have 22 units of KE.
Now suppose D collides with B. In free flight it loses 4 units of KE and gains 4 units of PE. When it collides with B it has 16 units of KE which is then shared with B so they both have 18 units of KE.
So we now have
At top: B (PE=14 + KE=18) D (PE=14 + KE=18)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=22) C (PE=10 + KE=22)
So we have a temperature gradient because mean KE at top is now 18 and mean KE at bottom is now 22, a difference of 4.
Note also that now we have a state of maximum entropy and no unbalanced energy potentials. You can keep on imagining collisions, but they will all maintain KE=18 at top and KE=22 at bottom. Voila! We have thermodynamic equilibrium.
But, now suppose the top ones absorb new solar energy (at the top of the Venus atmosphere) and they now have KE=20. They are still cooler than the bottom ones, so what will happen now that the previous equilibrium has been disturbed?
Consider two more collisions like the first.
We start with
At top: B (PE=14 + KE=20) D (PE=14 + KE=20)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=22) C (PE=10 + KE=22)
If B collides with A it has 24 units of KE just before the collision, but then after sharing they each have 23 units. Similarly, if C collides with D they each end up with 19 units of KE. So, now we have a new equilibrium:
At top: C (PE=14 + KE=19) D (PE=14 + KE=19)
At bottom: A (PE=10 + KE=23) B (PE=10 + KE=23)
Note that the original gradient (with a difference of 4 in KE) has been re-established as expected, and some thermal energy has transferred from a cooler region (KE=20) to a warmer region that was KE=22 and is now KE=23. The additional 2 units of KE added at the top are now shared as an extra 1 unit on each level, with no energy gain or loss.
That represents the process of downward diffusion of KE to warmer regions which I call “heat creep” as it is a slow process that happens in which thermal energy “creeps” slowly up the sloping thermal profile. It happens in all tropospheres, explaining how energy gets into the Venus surface, and explaining how the Earth’s troposphere “supports” surface temperatures and slows cooling at night.
01
Doug Cotton, et all, has again heat creeped into and again hampered any possible understanding of this planet and its ocean and atmosphere. Doug has nothing to offer. Miles Mathis, Gary Novack, Joe Postma, even Stefan Mitich has much more “something” to offer. 🙂
21
Assertive statements without a single word that in any way refutes what is in the comment, or the overwhelming evidence outlined here. And, speaking of Postma (from the Slayers) his conjecture is refuted here.
01
To Wendy,
A quote from Smelly Cotton Sock Puppet:
“we know the ones at the top have more gravitational potential energy.”
Do you really think this is some sort of Science? Please explain how The Sock fictitious “gravitational potential energy” can ever express itself as energy, power, or work, within a compressible fluid, within a gravitational field!
Doug Cotton, et all, has no need for refutation by others, all such nonsense refutes itself.
01
Jo,
I not that a plot of yours appears on WUWT which shows about half the US spending that appears on the link I provided below..
The US government site below indicates that the annual spending circa $20+ billion on climate change.
[What plot? Sorry, since this is unthreaded, I don’t know what you are referring too? – Jo]
Can you please explain the difference, I would appreciate an e mail.
Thanks for all your efforts.
Don Shaw
“I am not sure of the differences between the government report below versus that stated in the article, but this 2014 FY government report indicates that the federal climate change budget/expenditures are in the order of $ 20 + billion dollars. See below:”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
Federal Climate Change Expenditures
Report to Congress
Table 1
Summary of Federal Climate Change Expenditures
Summary of Climate
Expenditures in $ Millions
FY 2012 19,781
Enacted Budget
Authority
FY 2013 22,598
Enacted Budget
Authority
FY 2013 22,195
Current Budget
00
Thanks for your reply
Here is the link to the plot
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/climate_money.png?w=975&h=615
I respect your work, what am I missing?
The link to the original article that Watts should have provided. Thanks for the info. The figures in that graph need updating (1989-2009) and I’ve compiled them, but need to publish the update. – Jo
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/07/massive-climate-funding-exposed/
00
Gosselin takes a swipe at Hannam and the Fairfax rag.
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/23/the-sydney-morning-heralds-peter-hannam-grossly-deceives-his-readers-using-massively-doctored-photo/#sthash.WJ5hubs4.dpbs
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el gordo –
glad u posted the Hannam/Hunter Valley/Gosselin link.
i’ve been preparing to post the following. hope TonyfromOz listens to the audio:
what a benign, misleading, little ABC ***headline for this all-out attack on coal and the govt, with so much misrepresentation of the facts, u need to hear it to NOT believe it:
23 Feb: AUDIO: ABC Life Matters: Natasha Mitchell:
Bob Massie: ***is a coal free future really feasible?
(Bob Massie: Expert on climate and finance…advisor to a US investment fund – Boston common asset management and a US business school. Also the outgoing President of the New Economy Coalition and one of the leading thinkers in sustainable development.)
Renewable energy to replace fossil fuel dependence is both a vision and a realistic goal for many.
But for others, it’s nothing but a pipe dream and a goal divorced from the reality of technology and economic sense.
Well, Bob Massie is an expert on climate and finance, the outgoing President of the “New Economy Coalition” and one of the leading thinkers in sustainable development.
He is conducting a series of talks around the country, focussing on “Just Transitions”: what is required to shift our economy from fossil fuels to renewable and still maintain jobs and prosperity.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/bob-massie-just-transition/6163508
comment by rollo: I was disapointed by the one-sided alarmist tone adopted in Natasha’s interview with Bob Massie.
Comments such as “frying the planet” should not have been allowed to pass, given that the IPCC themselves have stated that most of their models have overestimated the rise in average temperatures. Sea level rise is well below earlier predictions, also admitted by the IPCC Why wasn’t this pointed out to Bob Massie? The IPCC have backed away from many of their earlier more dire predictions, but this is not reflected in any ABC reports.
Bob’s comment that “clean coal is an oxymoron” can be answered with another , ” dirty carbon dioxide is an oxymoron”. CO2 is a gas which is sequestered naturally by a process called photo-synthesis and is an integral part of all of life’s processes. In Australia the amount of CO2 sequestered is greater than our emissions so there is no problem, even for those with carbon-phobia. Why cripple our economy wasting money on technologies which need a quantum leap in capability before they can be considered a replacement for coal?
(a David Giles opposes rollo, then easytiger says: I am with you Rollo)
Massie was in Coff’s Harbour about to get on a plane, but what Natasha didn’t tell the listeners:
had to go to the cached version of:
Hunter Upcoming Events – Lock the Gate Alliance
http://www.lockthegate.org.au/hunter_events
to get this text:
Life after the boom: a new economic vision for Newcastle and the Hunter
Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 01:00 PM
Hunter Wetland Centre, 412 Sandgate Rd, Shortland
350.org and Hunter Community Environment Centre will host a roundtable forum to bring together local leaders from industry, government, finance, the community sector, the union movement and the public in a meaningful discussion about what a low carbon economy would look like in the Newcastle and the Hunter, and the practical steps required to achieve it. Join us to hear from local experts in conversation with leading US economist ***Bob Massie, who will explore the regional opportunities to create a strong and stable economic future with a just transition that supports jobs, communities and our environment.
yes, ABC/Natasha, u were going to DEBATE whether or not a coal-free future is feasible? LOL.
who knows where else Massie has been/is going in Australia. lockthegate makes it very difficult to actually find mention of him on their website, even tho his name comes up in results for lockthegate+bob massie, which is why i had to go to the cached version.
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pat,
The cached version of a page changes over time. If there is a web page that you feel you need for further reference and is currently only available as a cached page, then save the cached page to disk. This is because if the web page gets changed again, then the old cache will be replaced by a new one.
Like this:
original page gets posted on web cite.
google scans and caches the page.
google search will display the current page.
later, original page changes.
old page is in cache, new page is displayed on screen from web cite.
google search will display the current page, but old page is in cache.
later, changed page changes again.
google scans and caches the page again.
google search will display the current page, but now the page with the first changes is in cache.
The original page is now gone.
Abe
00
Just posted this on Weatherzone… Asking Ken / Blair if they have info from this station. I only have my phone to do this – but it seems to me that given the station is still functioning, that it would have reported wind speed and direction as well as pressure at the time of the crossing. I reckon (by eye) that it will be even closer than Samuel Hill to the eye wall of Marcia.
Post:
Hi Ken / Hi Blair
Did you get any data from Williamson Airport? But this site is reporting “live” data
http://wind.willyweather.com.au/qld/fitzroy/williamson-airfield.html
The widget at the bottom allows a historical range to be selected. Between 19/2 and 21/2 the max wind is:
105.5 km/h W 20th February 2015
Also Wundergouund has a sustained wind of ~60Km/hr and ~987hpa pressure.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/stat…gic=&reqdb.wmo=
How correct is this? Do you have access to this data? it is another datapoint.
00
Just-A-Guy –
i’m so tech-challenged i’m not sure if u r serious or having fun. either way, thanx for the advice, if that is what it is, but i have no idea how to apply it to my online research!
00
pat,
I was both serious and having fun, but not at your expense.
This is a link to the cached version of Google.com. Notice that at the top of the page there is a link called “learn more“. If you click on it you’ll find a brief explanation of what a cached page is and why google provides one in their search results.
So, a cached page is basically a back-up or copy of the original. Google keeps the copy on their computer, and the original in on the computer (the server) of the website. When a website makes a change to a webpage, the change is made to the original, but not to the copy (cache) that google keeps.
My point was, that a cached page can and eventually does change. This means that information on the cached page will then be lost. So, if you think that having a back-up copy of a web page might somehow/sometimes help you, let me know and I can show you how to do that also.
I was having fun because I enjoy teaching ppl stuff, so having fun in a good way. I may not know a lot, but why waste what’s there.
Abe
00
Jo,
Thanks for your reply above to my question on climate change funding.
If you look at this government website, the climate change funding is running per table 1 about $20 billion per year (including 2012 through budget for 2014) which is considerably larger/year than your updated plot.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
Are we looking at apples and oranges? One must include other climate change activities not included in the other?
Thanks for all your good contributions to the global warming issue.
Don
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Jo this needs a separate post.
It seems the government in the USA has gone totally crazy and has started directly attacking scientists.
Ivan Frishberg is the campaign manager for Organizing for Action On Climate Change an Obama-Allied Group and has Enters The Climate Wars (Huffington Post)
For those who do not know Organizing for Action was originally part of Obama’s presidential campaign apparatus. Previously it went by the name Organizing for America.
Steve Goddard has posted three rather nasty e-mails that threaten Willi Soon and then
Richard Lindzen
Roger Pielke Jr.
David Legates
Judith Curry
John Christy
Robert Balling
The first e-mail was followed a day later with hit pieces against Willi Soon in several US newspapers.The newest one was received today threatening the same for the other scientists.
On top of that there is a MoveOn Petition – DEMANDING Dr Soon be fired.
Already Congressman Raul Grijalva has sent nasty McCarthyist letters to the heads of dept of the seven listed.
Judith on a twitter says: Looks like I am up next in this ‘witch hunt’
https://twitter.com/curryja/statuses/570265059156500481
The letter:
http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/sites/democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/files/Judith%20Curry%2C%20Georgia%20Tech_0.pdf
Other Democrat Congressmen are also attacking:
http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/24/campaign-to-out-climate-denier/
Dr. Briggs has several post on the attacks:
http://wmbriggs.com/
*The hacker called Willi Soon, William Soon instead of Dr. Wei-Hock Soon showing how incompetent these people really are.
10
gai,
Have you seen this? Calling out Deniers.
Abe
00
Just-A-Guy –
knew u were trying to help but, if i start asking u to sort out all my computers problems, we’d need a new website to handle all the questions.
thanx anyway. i plod along somehow, often with info gleaned from those like u on tech forums, who are so good at identifying problems & offering suggestions. sometimes i amaze myself when i apply their advice and actually solve a problem.
00
23 Feb: CarbonBrief: Robert McSweeney: Uncertainty behind climate projections could be cut in half by 2030, study shows
More certainty about the climate’s sensitivity to emissions means a better assessment of our chances of keeping global temperature rise below the two-degree limit, the researchers say…
In its 2013 report, the IPCC estimates TCR is likely to lie between 1.0 and 2.5 degrees Celsius. The new research, published in Nature Geoscience, suggests scientists will be able to reduce the uncertainty around these estimates by about 50 per cent by 2030…
Co-author Prof Piers Forster, director of research at the University of Leeds, says he’s looking forward to getting past his frustrations with uncertainty in climate projections…
Mhyre, G. et al. (2015) Declining uncertainty in transient climate response as CO2 forcing dominates future climate change, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo2371
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/02/uncertainty-behind-climate-projections-could-be-cut-in-half-by-2030-study-shows/
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