From Steve Goreham’s article on the “Horse and Buggy advice” from the green movement.
In March we enjoyed Earth Hour, when citizens were urged to turn off their lights around the world. Last week was Dark Sky Week, an effort to make citizens aware of “light pollution.” It’s always Dark Sky Week in Africa, where the majority of a billion people don’t have access to electricity.
Last year, Tony FromOz looked at Niger, Africa and discovered 17 million people use less electricity than the small town of Dubbo, NSW (pop 40,000).
…
From Steve Goreham:
Why do decrees from environmentalists always seem to come from the Dark Ages?
“Two hundred years ago, most people grew their own food or made their own clothes. Every farm spread animal manure and practiced organic farming.”
We live in an age of specialization of labor. An engineer writes software and sells his service so that he doesn’t need to grow his own food and make his own clothes. As author Matt Ridley points out, the magic of modern society is that everybody is working for everybody else. We each have thousands of people across the world making goods and services for us. Buying locally and producing your own goods are relics of the past.
The whole article: Communities Digital News.
I did not know forty percent of the US corn crop was fed to cars?
Ethanol and biodiesel vehicle fuels are “renewable,” and promoted by the European Union and the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce petroleum-based vehicle fuel and fight global warming. But in 2013, more than 40 percent of the US corn crop produced ethanol for only 7 percent of US vehicle fuel. Nine bushels of corn are needed to provide ethanol for one 25 gallon tank of E85 fuel for a Sport Utility Vehicle. Biofuels require huge amounts of land for little energy output.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
Actually it would be a bit more than a hundred years ago that most food was grown organically and most doctors practised what we would call alternative medicine and the life expectancy for America was 41,Europe 42.7,Asia 28.
Which I supposes makes a mockery of the death dealing pill pushing big pharmaceutical/medico Monsanto poisoned foods that we now have.
394
Not keen on sarcasm. It can be misunderstood. But yes!
60
Are you from Merriwa?
10
Was, yes. I have noted from time to time that we still think alike.
00
Yes, almost half our corn is used for biofuel, and, the production of corn has significantly increased since the ethanol from corn subsidies were started. There are several bad things about this.
1) Highly erodible lands previously taken out of production by the Conservation Reserve Program was ploughed out with significant increases of soil erosion decreasing productivity of the land. This is essentially robbing future generations of a valuable soil resource.
2) Ethanol production is thus, in part, unsustainable from an accelerated soil erosion perspective.
3) Ethanol production is not cost effective to produce without huge government subsidies. It is economically unsustainable in the long run.
4) Corn is a basic foodstuff in much of the world. I believe it is a crime and a sin against the poor to use food as subsidized, and unneeded, biofuels to blow out our exhaust pipes.
370
Don’t forget that many farmers are abandoning crop rotation and are going corn to corn to corn with the use of significant amounts of fertilizer. Anhydrous ammonia, a common fertilizer, is produced with natural gas! We’re just lucky they cut back on how many gallons of ethanol production was federally mandated or we’d be burning 100% of the crop.
40
Ethanol fuels are a dead end, they actually require more energy to grow and process than they produce (cultivation, harvest, and processing). But the $$$$ subsidies are what “drive” it.
50
Another factoid about Africa. C02 emissions per capita will be about the same in 2020 as in 1990 – just 1.1 tonnes per capita, or just 7% of those in the USA, and 12% of those in China. In the 30 years from 1990 to 2020, when African emissions per capita are forecast to be unchanged, India’s will have grown by 210% and China’s by 325%.
Africa’s total emissions will have doubled as the population will have doubled to around 1250 million people – still less than China (1418) or India (1366). Emissions are a proxy for economic development, so the African continent is staying dark at night and poor.
Source here.
A while ago the site eco-experts showed the consequences of lack of development. The developed a climate change risk map, combining the state of economic development to the (phoney) risks of climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa has most of the highest risk countries. It reminds us that natural disasters are far worse for the poorest countries, along with contagious diseases and economic crises. Source here.
300
Perhaps the hope may be realised that technology will ‘rescue’ the continent before the armchair ensconced, frappé swilling, UN and its divestment nonsense wreaks further primitivisation.
Can you believe the following? Read the language…
50
It may be instructive to calculate how much the global temperature would (fictitiously) rise if Africa were to be brought up to the US level of development and energy consumption — using UN-IPCC figures for the calculation.
I doubt that it could be possibly be measured, lost in the noise of natural African temperature variation.
40
Ooops typo,
Not “lost in the noise of natural African temperature variation.”
but lost in the noise of natural temperature variation.
40
Tom,
You can pick and number on costs. Quite literally. I tried to replicate the Cost-Benefit claims of the 2006 Stern Review in graphical form such as is used economic textbooks. I obtained
Where
C = the costs of climate change
T = Average Surface Temperature Rise.
This gives the following results T,C
0.5 , 0.03
.75 , 0.24
1 , 1
2 , 32
3 , 243
4 , 1024
Richard Tol obtained a net benefit up to 2 degrees of warming but had to use C=f(T^6)
This is why all those who believe in the climate models are really scared about going about 2 degrees of warming.
Those who relate models to actual evidence realize that there must be a very accurate coherence between the modeled costs and the actual costs with less than a degree of actual warming. The lack of nearly every short-term catastrophic prediction implies to sensible people that the claimed experts do not understand climate.
But what happens if you believe in the superior truth of the climate models? Failure of there to be any visible sign of the impending climate catastrophe means that the function must be even steeper than previously thought! In the real world nobody could be that ridiculous. But I have come across somebody who has two academic papers published on the subject. A Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of Bristol University (previously of the University of Western Australia) published two papers on just such a claim last year.
Lewandowsky expressed it as greater uncertainty, but in a modeled sense it is claiming the climate cost curve is steeper due to a lack of evidence.
20
Tom,
You can pick and number on costs. Quite literally. I tried to replicate the Cost-Benefit claims of the 2006 Stern Review in graphical form such as is used economic textbooks. I obtained
Where
C = the costs of climate change
T = Average Surface Temperature Rise.
This gives the following results T,C
0.5 , 0.03
.75 , 0.24
1 , 1
2 , 32
3 , 243
4 , 1024
Richard Tol obtained a net benefit up to 2 degrees of warming but had to use C=f(T^6)
This is why all those who believe in the climate models are really scared about going about 2 degrees of warming.
Those who relate models to actual evidence realize that there must be a very accurate coherence between the modeled costs and the actual costs with less than a degree of actual warming. The lack of nearly every short-term catastrophic prediction implies to sensible people that the claimed experts do not understand climate.
But what happens if you believe in the superior truth of the climate models? Failure of there to be any visible sign of the impending climate catastrophe means that the function must be even steeper than previously thought! In the real world nobody could be that ridiculous. But I have come across somebody who has two academic papers published on the subject. A Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of Bristol University (previously of the University of Western Australia) published two papers on just such a claim last year.
Lewandowsky expressed it as greater uncertainty, but in a modeled sense it is claiming the climate cost curve is steeper due to a lack of evidence.
00
Thank for the try, or is that tries.
Yes I’ve hit the same wall when attempting to get an idea of the ballpark figure — it all depends on whose figures you believe. Every time it came out lost in the noise, (0.49°, 0.12° or even -0.09°) with cumulative margins of error that are silly (around +/-half degree or more!).
00
The attraction of the past to the greenies is that there was a very small percentage of the population who had other people grow their food and make their clothes etc.
Usually called aristocrats (by themselves) but what they were called in private by the other 99% would get me snipped by the moderators. The greenies imagine that they will become the privileged class in the new old world order.
310
Who would want to be the privileged class in a severely regressed society?, see even the backwards thinking carries into their fantasies.
“He must be a King, because he hasn’t got S%!t all over him.” Monty Python could be an influence but someone should explain to the warmista it was just make believe.
160
Yonniestone:
Their whole life is spent in make believe.
100
Graeme No.3
I believe the word you are looking for is fundament.
Tony.
70
Coming from the country I remember my parents grew most of our own food in a garden at the back, made jam, preserved eggs, bottled nearly everything in “Fowler jars” ; that was normal in those days, a bit like the “good life” and they were not particularly green.
160
They were green before being green was even a thing. Apparently, according to jo’s article, living simply and growing your own food is dumb. This article makes some leaps that are quite illogical. As you say the “good life” is bad now.
015
Please explain.
70
I can see your point,having a garden at you 3rd floor apartment is a good idea your friends will admire you when you tell them about all the fresh produce you harvest over two weeks of the year all at the low cost of $1200.00,sorry I come from a farming background and know about the realities of producing food for your own consumption and commercial sale.
But when it is all said and done a bit of gardening is good therapy for stress.
160
Yes, this is absolutely true, feeding a family of 4 might take an acre under total cultivation, then what do you do when you get a winter like 2013/14 in the Northern USA without good ole Colonel Sanders looking out for you. Not only that, feeding yourself like that is pretty much a full time commitment. Not to mention that the neighbours might get a little snitchy at the protein roaming your back yard befouling the environment – oh look you could even burn the dung for heat!
50
“Apparently, according to jo’s article, living simply and growing your own food is dumb. This article makes some leaps that are quite illogical. As you say the ‘good life’ is bad now.”
Living simply isn’t just dumb. It’s verging on the suicidal. For millennia, sophisticated societies have not been able to rely on “living simply”. The Roman and Inca empires are obvious examples of that. Why should African people, far more numerous than those in ancient empires, be expected to remain eternally on the farm, when agrarianism is diminishing everywhere else?
70
Hi Owen, I get your point but as someone who was born and raised in Africa I suspect you may not be aware of the reality of life there. Historically, Africans have always lived the agrarian lifestyle for better or worse. In post colonial Africa many of them have moved to the larger urban areas where the infrastructure simply cannot, for a grab bag of reasons, cope with the influx. Hence the rise in that very African phenomenon, the informal settlement where crime, lack of amenities and disease flourish. What chance does a child in that environment have?. They long for the convenience of our lifestyle which is why so many are prepared to to take mortal risks leaving in order to get it. The real villains here are the likes of the comfortable western liberal elites who can’t even begin to understand just how vapid a concept of a low carbon economy is in societies where need renders it meaningless. Greenies in leafy Melbourne or Auckland suburbs give themselves neck spasms with all the back patting just because they have grown three meals worth of runner beans. If the crop had failed it wouldn’t have mattered because their favourite organic grocer is just a short trip away in the Beamer. (Someone please explain organic food to me).
Afica, in my opinion, suffers as much now from the misguided and ignorant attitudes of the likes of the UN and well meaning NGOs as it did under the paternalistic attitudes of it’s former colonialists. Nothing has changed. We walk behind and pick up the pieces.
To cut a long diatribe short, agrarian is a reality for many and for those that are happy to live like that, leave them be. If thats their definition of happiness who the heck are we to….etc
70
Organic food is a display of wealth, pure and simple. Like designer cloths, made in the same sweat shop as discount brands.
My favourite Organic story, is when my sister in-law (doctors wife)proudly brought her (very expensive) organic sausages to a BBQ. Noticing a fly buzzing around, she promptly spayed 1/2 can of fly spray into the air. Over the table with the food on it!
10
” Why should African people, far more numerous than those in ancient empires, be expected to remain eternally on the farm?” Well, the current South African government seems to think that it is necessary to take commercial farms away from the detested ‘Boers’ and give them to the original inhabitants. And that the recipients are expected to farm this land for subsistence. The fact that 80% – 90% of such transferred farms go out of production in a short order (the Government’s own data) is an indication of what Africans think of subsistence farming. Ideally, the country boys ALL want to move to the big city.
30
DWP,
I don’t interpret Jo’s article as saying that — in essence what Jo eludes to is that in this modern era of specialization the maintenance of the majority of the population in any degree of health, safety, and comfort take an expenditure of energy. How much energy depends on your location and its population, and their expectations.
Grow all the food you wish with modern techniques and chemicals, but returning everyone to the conditions of the 200 years ago just will not sustain the current population.
“As you say the “good life” is bad now.”?
I think you’ll find that never really existed — it was a Green myth a eco-fiction.
A Green future = a Medieval life 👿
80
You are quite correct when you say that the article is not about everyone going back 200 years. However, that is what the IPCC is pushing. I like to say that they want everyone – accept themselves – to give up modern civilization and go back 200 years, as much because of the shorter lifespan 200 years ago had. However, care must be taken when you read items such as “average lifespan was 41 years.” Realize that when you average in children dying at under 2 years of age, that takes the “average” down pretty sharply. Yes, there were many men that died in Maine, USA, as an example at a young age – accidents taking most of them – in the 1800s, but when you walked the cemeteries and looked at the old tombstones, you saw many, many that showed the men were dying in there mid to late 80s. “Average lifespan” is a very misleading figure since like so many other things, we “assume” life was the same and causes of death were the same as well. They weren’t.
What the IPCC wants is what the UN wants which is what the “elite” want – a society composed of high tech lives for the 1% and about 750 million human chattel supporting them in that lifestyle while living the “simpler life style of 200 years ago.”
30
“Green” has become a fetish and cult which does not represent the rational, reasonable and environmentally resposible (larger percentage) members of the general population of each country.
40
I still have the full Fowlers Vacola bottling kit complete, that we used in the 50s to bottle a lot of our own fruit peaches nectarines, apricots & pares we grew, & a lot we bought in from other orchards.
The whole family would spend nights peeling slicing & bottling stuff, & the boiler thing would sit on the big Rayburn fuel stove for days.
We did vegetables as well one year, but no one actually liked them, so never bothered again, but stewed fruit & fresh cream was usually on the menu.
110
For a world without modern fertilizers. without herbicides,without mechanical fossil fueled machinery for working the soil and harvesting the grain, without the genetic breeding technologies used by plant breeders now and I am not referring to GMO’s either, in short a world of organically grown crops that are so desired and demanded by the usual mentally odoriferous ragbag of totally ignorant, latte sipping greens none of whom seem to have much in the way of comphrehension of the real and harsh world of food production.
The Greens repeatedly claim is that organic produced produce is all that is neccessary to feed the world of this 7.2 billions of humanity.
And we can get rid of the those nasty multinational grain and chemical and machinery corporations as well and grow our own food in our own backyards.
Providing of course as pointed out elsewhere, there is a coles or woollies or aldi’ or some such around the corner as a totally reliable source of replacements when the garden food plants have been eaten over the few weeks they are in season and that frost, insects, slugs , snails, disease, pathogens, lack of or surplus of water, heat at the wrong time, lack of the right soil nutrients, soil disease plus a few dozen more quite normal and natural plant dwelling life forms haven’t figured out that whats good for them humans is really good for us and clean the aforesaid “organically “grown produce out long before the “organically” ensnared humans can get their share.
To get a real world, hard headed example of the practicality and more to the point, the utter impracticality of that particular example of the usual green ignorance and lunacy re organically grown food supplying mankind’s numbers we just need to look at the grain yields of the European Middle and Medieval Ages where “organically” grown crops were not optional, they were mandatory if you didn’t want to starve.
The Medieval Europe and the western world in general food production situation was improving but the really big leap came in the mid 1800’s when the Industrial Revolution penetrated into agriculture/ food growing and when Australian farmers and agricultural inventors and engineers until about the early 1900’s led the world in the industrialising of agriculture.
Which has come as shock to many americans when I posted all this Australian agricultural history up on the Combine Forum back in 2010 in a series of [ long!! ] posts.
Prior to the industrialisation of agriculture around 80% of the population were peasants and directly involved with the growing and production of food.
Today in the western industrialised countries, the food producers are about 5% of the population.
And the key , the major key in just about every aspect to the abundance of food in the world today one wants to look at and the lack of major natural famines [ not including manmade famines from war and conflict ] for over half a century now is cheap, readily available, always there ENERGY in all it’s various forms.
The agricultural revolution in medieval Europe
[quoted]
We should keep in mind the limits to medieval agriculture. While a yield to seed ratio of four to one was good back then, farmers today expect at least ten times that. What this means is that for centuries it took ten farmers to create enough surplus to support one townsman. Still, along with the greater stability brought by feudalism, the increased food production brought on by the agricultural revolution of the Middle Ages was essential for the revival of towns, without which our own civilization would not have evolved.
40
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2696181/posts
The “Green” thing….
00
You-all might find this interesting:
“The move by the central government to freeze Greenpeace India’s bank accounts and block sources of funds, is a blatant violation of the constitutional rights to freedom of expression and association”
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/apr/22/government-greenpeace-india-open-letter
“Freedom of speech does not apply to misinformation and propaganda.”
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/exxon-secrets/faq/
250
I notice the Indian open letter only has 182 signatures. One would have been sufficient, but if you want to show a consensus, having only 182 signatures compared to the entire population of India, is hardly impressive.
Placed in juxtaposition with their propaganda regarding Exxon, brings their motivations into stark relief. Nicely done, Rod.
110
Light pollution has nothing to do with global warming but that won’t stop the green movement from using it. It is a term used by astronomers who bemoan the fact that people who live in big cities cannot see the night sky with all the marvellous constellations of stars like they could in the 19th century. Much public and household lighting is sent skywards for no reason and campaigns to redesign street and security lighting have been successful in reducing this problem a little.
What this planet really needs is a “no-fossil-fuel-electricity-generated-day”. Electricity from renewables only. That would shake things up. Big business won’t allow it to happen of course.
202
1) why do you think other sections of the population would allow that ?
2) The pejorative “big business”, like “big polluder”, is pointless rhetoric. Anyone who has invested capital (even home cottage people) will object to deliberate damage
60
Ian, I don’t think “other sections of the population” would allow it. My point is that it is only big business (a useful term for the commercial sector) would have enough clout to stop it, for financial reasons.
80
You don’t need financial reasons. You just need to consider the essential services provided by hospitals. Quite a few people would die, if there were a total ban on fossil-fuel-generated-electricity.
There would also be a lot of traffic accidents, not to mention the number of muggings, if there were no street lights or traffic lights.
Play the game for yourselves. If you have kids, encourage them to work through the scenarios for themselves.
The house of cards we call civilisation, is entirely supported by the availability of plentiful electricity, as, and when, and where, it is required.
130
Indeed, unintended consequences.
Sewerage pump stations, town water treatment plants and sometimes water gets pumped to reservoirs, street lights, emergency services, airports, cold storage (food and crematoriums), rail, bus stops and stations, security doors (everywhere), security lighting, monitoring stations (millions of things are constantly monitored), light houses, Oh, and did I mention big business?
100
And once again, South Africa is in the lead in showing the rest of the world what happens if you neglect to maintain your electrical power infrastructure. We have been told to expect ‘load shedding’ (the euphemism for rolling blackouts of 4 hours a day) across the country for the next two or three years (or was it five?). Industry shrinks, unemployment rises, investment disappears. Hospital waiting lists for operations grow as the Government hospitals can’t assure the continuing supply (lack of maintenance of emergency generators again). Yep – it’s heading back to the Dark Ages – and WITHOUT Greenie assistance!
50
Ian,
The largest source of night time “white light pollution” is the Moon. It makes anything humans do largely irrelevant …
120
True, and even Venus can cast a shadow. However astronomers work around these natural light sources.
50
Even Jupiter is bright enough to cast light. In fact, one’s eyes, without other light interference, can follow a road by starlight. We forgot our torch once on a walk up to Steavenson’s Falls and it became dark by the time we were on our way back. There was no Moon that night but we could just make out the road by starlight (thank goodness!).
60
Long, long ago they used to turn off the street lights at midnight. It was seeing the contrast that sparked my interest in astronomy.
I’d like to see that done again occasionally but if it was done was for spurious Green reasons I’d feel obliged to stay indoors.
40
“What this planet really needs is a “no-fossil-fuel-electricity-generated-day”. Electricity from renewables only. That would shake things up. Big business won’t allow it to happen of course.”
A Red thumb from me. This sounds very left.
If it wasn’t for a big business there wouldn,t be any money for renewable energy subsidies. The Fossil industry has been used by governments as a proverbial tax milk cow. The major money grabber is the gov. that takes some 50-60% at the petrol pump. A company like mine that risks the capital in finding it gets ~10cents out of say 1.30$, the rest is refining, distribution and sale. Our strike ratio on average is 1 in 10. Gov. does not risk anything, in fact it wants us to find more of that stuff so we can pay more tax to them and this gets waisted on renewables.
Business always looks for better and cheaper solutions and this is what the fossil industry provides, not that they want to stop the uneconomic windmills, solar or ethanol.
Lots my mates are loosing their jobs in the oil industry now because a litre of oil often costs less than a litre of water. Why? because we are too successful in finding that stuff like the production from unconventional rocks now, only developed in the last 10 years and accelerating.
40
I’m not a leftie at all although I used to vote labor until Gillard came along.
I think most people can see I’m being mildly sarcastic with my suggestion. The Earth Hour and Day are pointless exercises. This one would not be. It’s going to happen sooner or later by itself anyway and more likely in South Australia where I live. Better to have a controlled one to alert people to the consequences.
40
“Why do decrees from environmentalists always seem to come from the Dark Ages?”
Because their intellectual capacity is running on empty!
The line should read –
“Two hundred years ago, most people had no option but grow their own food and made their own clothes from rough basic materials. There were no supermarkets and even if there were the extreme poverty of the majority precluded them from ‘shopping’ ever in their lifetime. Because of this, the lack of basic sanitary condition with poor cleanliness, and the disorganized largely unmechanized, basic farming practices like manual spreading animal manure, ensured terrible infections and parasites were common in these people, and in the animals they kept.
The poverty and the diseases ensured that living this organic life was painful, brutish, and short”
There fixed!
230
Good points tomo,
Even in the Middle ages there was a lot of specialisation of tasks. That is why we have surnames like;
Smith
Miller
Fletcher
Shoemaker
Butcher etc.
It was easier to earn money and pay someone else to perform the difficult tasks. The necessary skills were often kept in the family.
140
One of the main reasons that the Potato Famine in Ireland was such a disaster was that when the English decided to move food stuffs to Ireland there wasn’t any local distribution centres,no markets roads or civic infrastructure,even the Church in most of Ireland was feral.
40
Tomo:
The 200 years reference reminded me of this other pragmatist scandanavian, Hans Rosling:
http://www.gapminder.org/videos/200-years-that-changed-the-world-bbc/
He and Bjorn Lomborg are gifts to the world IMO. We may not agree with Lomborg on AGW, but at least he rejectes the useless solutions of ETS/carbon taxes as inefficient.
40
Now that I am semi-retired from the workforce, I take pleasure from growing a few of the vegetables we eat. I have noticed, however, that whenever I have a good crop of a particular variety, that same variety is on sale in the local supermarkets at very low unit prices, which render my efforts totally uneconomic. Th only reason I continue to grow the stuff is for much the same reason we enjoy participating in a sport – both activities are pointless, but give us huge pleasure.
230
Home grown tomatoes taste real.
160
Sweet corn taken from your garden and eaten within minutes of picking is heavenly.
130
Even better when pinched from Mr H’s crop next door to our little country primary school!
80
So do the apples and oranges taste good, even if they are not supermarket ‘picture pretty’.
80
As tha e song goes”two things money can’t buy;true love and homegrown Tomatoes ” Guy Clark?
40
Jonn Denver!
20
Right the first time!!
00
You are absolutely correct of course, AK. However, the pleasure of seeing our pantry adorned with sealed jars of tomato relish, tomato chutney and apple chutney, all from our own garden, does obscure the fact that they probably could have been bought cheaper. It is mainly a satisfaction and occupation thing for us older persons. Crops were good this year – must be the extra CO2!
120
It was cheaper in the day, after the war.
We had a Rayburn slow combustion fuel stove. It’s fuel was the genuine multi use power system.
We collected our fuel from along the stock routes, or from soldier settler friends who still had some paddocks of standing ringbarked trees.
That fuel warmed you once as you cut it up a bit & loaded in in the trailer to take home, again as you piled it on the wood heap, again as you cut it to size for the stove, again each time you walked into the house, & yet again when you had a bath in the water from the stoves built in hot water system. Talk about efficiency, the modern world can’t even approach such efficiency.
So the bottling consumed no energy that was not already available, & being south of the fruit fly belt, little in chemicals.
In a year when there had been hail somewhere in the district, marked fruit was virtually free. The only expense was buying many new bottles, when all yours were full. This did stretch the limited budget when we first started.
40
Unfortunately for us the Grasshoppers and Fruit Flies were also in a bumper year so we got barely anything of our plantings over summer. At least now it’s too cold for the QFly
40
Let’s not forget North Korea.
http://static.businessinsider.com/image/51bf6aececad04e11700001a/image.jpg
80
The American government push to grow corn from sea to sea is producing vast amounts of corn. It is entering every part of our lives and not all of it is good. Corn Syrup is in just about everything as the cheapest source of sugar. Unfortunately corn syrup, especially high fructose corn syrup has side effects from the obvious obesity/diabetes epidemic to very specific long term eye damage.
The core energy problem is that each year we burn a million years of perfectly natural rotted vegetation. No matter where from, that is self limiting. You have to think the warmer, wetter, high CO2 world of the dinosaurs was much more prolific than our own. They lasted 150 million years. We have been going about 80,000. Nothing short of nuclear can provide the energy we need. Certainly not corn.
The good side of the carbon scare is that everyone is becoming far more economical with their use of energy, even if energy needs are skyrocketing. Even cars are producing triple the horsepower for half the petrol. Aircraft are running on two engines, which is good and bad. Even engine lubricants are far better. LEDs are fantastic. Those expensive stupid ‘long life’ halogens save very little and explode the moment you buy them, making fortunes for their promoters.
However we cannot get away from the fact that fossil fuels are a limited and irreplaceable resource. As usual, the utterly confused real Greens think we should go back to chopping down trees as long as we do not chop down trees. The communist fake Greens just want money and power [snip – bit inflammatory]. Greens never have a problem with [SNIP] child brides and mass murder, just Jewish people and Andrew Bolt. Nothing to do with trees.
80
It is important to note though that many of the efficiencies are not due to the carbon dioxide lobby, but to the simple reaction to high energy prices, the normal feedback mechanism which drives all innovation. People want things to be cheaper and more efficient means cheaper. The unilateral and sudden halving of Saudi oil prices is an extraordinary attempt to force the Americans to keep their shale oil in the ground. The combination of hunger for energy and government incentives to save energy is a good thing. Then you get Australia’s Tim Flannery and his opinions on technology. We would be better advised by Sir Les Patterson, Cultural Attache to the Court of St. James.
181
Quote from Sheik Yamani (Saudi Oil Minister). The Saudis want to sell their oil before we don’t need it any more.
130
Add greens have no problems with:
1. women inequality in any religion apart from Christianity;
2. Left wing dictatorships
4. Female circumcision
5. Refugees drawing at sea
6. Borrowing money as they can,t count and is not theirs
7. Tax Robbery of anyone especially when they perceive someone to be slightly richer than them, so basically anyone
8. Introduction of death tax.
9. Illegal drugs
10. Usage of energy only by them so they can create artificial twitter storms, have still their flat screens, drive efficient cars and be smug about it
11. Green genocides that includes reduction of population by 10% as long as they are not included in the %.
12. Drinking latte.
They are indeed Stone Age progressives.
20
Why do decrees from environmentalists always seem to come from the Dark Ages?
French towns swap rubbish trucks for horse-drawn carts
(via theguardian.com)
Perpignan is one of 60 French towns that have struck upon a cheaper and greener way to collect household waste – ditching the dustbin lorry in favour of a horse and cart.
YANQI TOWNSHIP, China (AP) — The nights are freezing for villagers near the site of an Asia-Pacific summit on the outskirts of Beijing, where authorities have banned wood fires to curb pollution and help ensure blue skies for the leaders instead of the usual grey smog.
“There cannot be any smoke, and we cannot heat our brick beds,” said Bai, 68.
Traditional raised sleeping platforms in frigid northern Chinese houses are often heated by coal and provide warmth during both the day and night.
. . .
The lunatics are in charge.
80
How is a methane and excrement producing horse that devours photosynthesizing greenery Greener than a modern vehicle with properly clean injectors, tuned engine and a catalytic converter?
/rhet
The lunatics are indeed running the asylum. Occasionally, they even over reach themselves.
50
Manfred, you are looking at this from the wrong perspective.
Instead of looking at the horse as a methane and excrement producing system, you should look at it from a more reasonable perspective.
Do this & you see the horse as & cheap & efficient fertiliser producing system, converting surplus grass & hay to a valuable resource, fertiliser virtually for free, while actually doing useful work.
We may yet have to bring them back to pull the night carts. If the greenies continue to stop necessary damn building, we will need them, when we run out of water to flush our toilets.
That should be fun in the inner city high-rise apartments so favoured by our lefty & environmentalist friends. I can’t wait.
50
Errrr…..Jo and Tony!
By local standards Dubbo is a big town!
60
Actually, Dubbo is categorised as a City.
The point here is that there are are whole Countries in Africa which have less electrical power generation for consumption than what is the total power consumed by Dubbo.
Dubbo has a population around that figure of 40,000, and there are 23 whole Countries in Africa, each consuming less power than Dubbo.
Now, while the population of those Countries ranges between less than a million and up to 18 Million, the total population of all those 23 Countries is 142 Million.
Now, add up the total power available to all those 142 Million in those 23 Countries and it comes to less power than that being consumed in Adelaide with a population of 1.1 Million.
The point here is that they are not frugal consumers of electricity when compared to use here in Australia.
It’s just that they DON’T HAVE electrical power, let alone on the constant and reliable availability which we have, and take so utterly for granted.
Tony.
210
Problem fixed,move em all to Adelaide!
40
Hey some of us here are stuck i Adelaide send them to New Zealand instead.
21
No Crakar, we don’t have enough houses.
00
I’m sure Sarah would find room at her place.
10
And Tony, it’s that taking for granted that’s letting the wrong people control it, people who will take it away if we don’t stop them.
40
So the next question is why?
Many years ago I met a man who told a hair raising story. He had been in the German army. By my estimate he would have to have been a kid in the German army. There were kids in the German army.
Then he was in the British army. ????? The Brits were in Germany, with work to do. Who better to employ to do it than starving German kids who already had some training.
Then he was demobilised. Out of work with millions of others.
He then took a job as a mercenary with “Mad Mike” Hoare in Africa. This turned out to be terrorising the general population by shooting up defenceless villages apparently at random. Destroying the social fabric of nations. Something he wished he could erase from his life. He told how Mike Hoare kept them under control. Summary execution.
I asked who paid for this? His reply was Jomo Kenyatta. Which I interpreted as Moscow.
Fact or fiction? In my view bizarre in the extreme, but not impossible. But why tell me?
If communist Moscow destroyed the social fabric of Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, who is going to move in there now?
10
I may have posted this before but it is worth repeating.
Here is a factual article from Bjorn Lomborg in the WSJ in February.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/the-alarming-thing-about-climate.html
And here are the facts about deaths from NATURAL disasters in the earlier 20th century and today. That fall of 97% today is remarkable and so are the other points he makes about so called CAGW.
Here is lomborg’s quote———————-
“This is important because if we want to help the poor people who are most threatened by natural disasters, we have to recognize that it is less about cutting carbon emissions than it is about pulling them out of poverty.
The best way to see this is to look at the world’s deaths from natural disasters over time. In the Oxford University database for death rates from floods, extreme temperatures, droughts and storms, the average in the first part of last century was more than 13 dead every year per 100,000 people. Since then the death rates have dropped 97% to a new low in the 2010s of 0.38 per 100,000 people.
The dramatic decline is mostly due to economic development that helps nations withstand catastrophes. If you’re rich like Florida, a major hurricane might cause plenty of damage to expensive buildings, but it kills few people and causes a temporary dent in economic output. If a similar hurricane hits a poorer country like the Philippines or Guatemala, it kills many more and can devastate the economy.”
Dr Goklany’s work also backs up Lomborg claims.
And he states at the end of the article that the huge decline in death rates is because of the extended use of fossil fuels.
IOW if you want a more prosperous and safer way of life make sure you use more fossil fuels. And he is an IPCC author as well.
http://www.thegwpf.com/indur-m-goklany-global-death-toll-from-extreme-weather-events-declining/
80
The ABC is fanning the Lomborg bile at:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-23/uwa-academic-contradicts-pyne-on-policy-centre/6413984
I decided to tip some facts into the debate (assuming the ABC mods allow facts):
180
What it says after you submit LOL
Let’s see which greenie is on the desk today…
70
It is there as a reply to a comment by “brokenpromises” at 10:08. Your comment is timestamped 10:51.
Annoying aspect of the abc news comments is that replies to a comment are shrunk down to a little arrow to click.
90
I award you a green thumb Gee Aye!
40
Having fun now… in relation to Tuft Argus circa 09:30ish, let’s see if this gets up:
The toughish talk is because a couple progressive comments were meandering down the “population control” route. In before the Godwin 😀 The mods let much stronger comments through, so let’s see LOL.
50
Yeah – it depends on the type of story. They use a different blog system for news stories than The Drum. The later works more like this site. Now I will have to check for teh howls of outrage at my sensible comments.
Amazing how threatening to copy the comments results in them getting posted … don’t do it and it is a bit hit and miss.
50
And India plans to double coal production within 5 years. Good for them and us. But so much for the BS of the mitigation of CAGW.
http://www.thegwpf.com/india-intends-to-double-coal-production-within-5-years/
110
Environmentalists love to empower,
Their movement with calls for Earth Hour,
But what Africa needs,
Are electrical feeds,
Giving widespread electrical power.
270
Its a source of shame on the developed world really.
A facebook acquaintance said in relation to Africa developing its fossil fuel resources recently, “why don’t you send them a solar panel, that’s the best thing you can do”.
I know this person and they are not actually a racist, paternalistic, sociopath. Although most people who espouse the “let them eat sunlight” view of developing world energy needs are, in my opinion. He is just ignorant and distant. He cant, like most people, imagine what it must be like to live in 2015 and have to huddle around a dung fire with distant gunfire to send you to sleep. So its not important. How bad can it be when dolphins are at risk.
For most of the alarmist glitterati though, this is their day job. Keeping the developing world in the dark so they can continue their boy in a bubble lives is the main game.
Far better to let a few million of these surplus humans die now than risk them developing a bunch of CO2 producing technology that may risk their lives later right? At least that’s the argument. When we know the reality for even the moderate greens, peak oilers and “populations is the problem” set. Far better to let a few million of these surplus humans die now is all there is to it, don’t worry about the development bit, they just arnt going to let that happen.
Its shameful.
170
btw if your perception of the size of the African Continent comes from the distorted Mercator Map projection, check this, which shows Africa is larger than US, China, India, Japan…and all of Europe combined (plus more – see chart):
This Is The True Size Of Africa
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/africas-size-perspective
Wikipedia: Mercator projection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection
70
Thanks Pat,
You made me take another look at the map and at the NASA nightime image.
Firstly the distortions of Africa are minimal, precisely because it does straddle the equator. The really great distortions are; Antarctica, Siberia, Northern Canada and Greenland (which are grossly exaggerated by the Mercator maps
Secondly it is equatorial Afica which fares particularly badly on the night time light show. Morocco, Algeria, Libia, Egypt and South Africa are reasonably well lit. Most of the rest the rest is desert.
Take a look at Egypt in particular. Egypt is the Nile and nothing else.
30
You can also see alternative vies of the world, its population, resources, deaths, etc at http://www.worldmapper.org/index.html
10
Also http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/the-true-size-of-africa/ is a good graphic of Africa in relation to many other countries.
10
it’s always a dark day week in the MSM. this has already been linked on a number of websites, but the page appears to have been removed:
Lomborg’s research rating below par
The Australian – 17 hours ago
The Danish researcher Bjorn Lomborg has a research impact rating — or h-index — equivalent to a junior academic and only seven of his 28 have been cited…
404 error – Sorry your page could not be found
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/lomborgs-research-rating-below-par/story-e6frgcjx-1227315817232
70
Option 3
The article was removed to comply with a legal order.
50
The “Green” claim their particular view of “the environment” takes the highest moral ground (just as other religions claim “their” particular dogma is above, and therefore takes precedence over, all others). Yet it’s like the old parable of three little piggies who built different houses to keep out the “bad wolf”. The moral of the story is, if you build a house of straw, it will come tumbling down and you will get “chewed up”. Tne truth will eventually prevail. And the Green’s
“house”edifice is looking more like mouldy straw (in the early stages of turning into rotted organic matter). It certainly has an anaerobic characteristic.So-called “Renewables” are more correctly termed replaceables (as an energy source). Take the example of corn to ethanol. If one deducted all of the invested energy (e.g. steel to make tractors, tyres, fuel, fertiliser, chemical, transport, distillation, etc – add up the BTU’s) there’s probably only a whisker of sunlight energy left in the ethanol. Perhaps it’s even a negative equation. The same principle applies to wind and solar. The means of energy capture certainly aren’t “free” of capital, operating and depreciation costs and are redundant after a few decades. They are “renewable” only in the sense the physical structures can be replaced with more embedded (hydrocarbon or nuclear) energy. The only free energy is from plants reproducing themselves to renew the process of capture and storage (primary production) of sunlight energy, which all subsequent life forms are dependent on. Plants the only true renewable source of energy, and it costs nothing.
As for the major culprit, CO2, it’s the source of all life, including for those whose ideology is “green”. CO2 is literally the switch for life: low in relative concentration and the rate of primary productivity (photosynthesis) decreases and eventually stops. There is no feasible “too high” CO2 in the atmosphere as regards primary productivity. C2 is toxic to humans only if its ratio to O2 becomes to elevated, and it then literally switches off life. So if the “Greens” were actually serious about “feeding the world” and the true wealth of nations, not being faux conservationists, they’d be encouraging greater concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, not less. Compulsory (and quality) education in the earth sciences would be a much better investment in the future than indocrination of “green” and other equally propagandising mythology.
There are many constants in life defined in the Laws of the natural sciences. The only constant in being “Green” are the multiple inevitabilities of ignorance, arrogance and hypocrisy.
120
Meanwhile, at the cul-de-sac of conversation …
Whacky Will Steffen opines:
Unburnable carbon: why we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground
There is a relevant comment sure to be deleted, but copied/pasted here:
” Bernie Masters
environmental consultant at FIA Technology Pty Ltd, B K Masters and Associates
Sorry, any commentary such as this which does not also address the issue of how the world’s 2 billion poor can gain access to cheap, reliable electricity is irrelevant and deserves to be ignored because of it’s callous neglect of the reasonable needs of such people.” (5 minutes ago)
90
Some believe the glass is half full, others that it is half empty, few stop and consider the civilization it took to create the glass.
130
Jim Barker
“Some believe the glass is half full, others that it is half empty,” and some believe the glass is twice the size that’s needed.
🙂
10
Maybe we need a UN mandated panel set-up?
UN-IPGO (Inter-Governmental Panel [for] Glassware-size Optimization).
Unfortunately this panel could only be formed after the UN-Glassware (sizing) Investigative Team concludes that excess human urination causes the glassware to be twice the required volume globally.
Some have surmised that the resulting UN mandates for each country would do little more than just taking the pi$$.
🙂
30
I couldn’t help drawing folks’ attention to this notice connected to the Apple Home Page. It just sums up the mentality of the climate activists, and how Big Media and Big IT is channeling big money into the whole scam, and getting BIG profits in return:
“We don’t want to debate climate change. We want to stop it.
We understand that making as many products as we do has a significant impact on the environment. Our carbon footprint is something we’re always aware of, and it’s something we’re always working to address. We’ve found ways to use energy and materials more efficiently in our facilities, to get energy from cleaner sources, and to design some of the world’s most energy‑efficient electronic products. In fact, all our product lines don’t just adhere to ENERGY STAR standards, they surpass them. And while we have a long way to go, our efforts are working. Even though we’re manufacturing and shipping more products than ever, our carbon emissions per product have been dropping since 2011.”
And it goes on, and on…
Where oh where can one find a corporation that is not involved big time in this whole scam and gravy train?
81
” Huge amount of land for little energy output” that’s why the doomsayers claim that we will face famine in the future! Somebody has to feed the family car…..
50
I see that the UNFCCC is pushing the per capita emissions barrow again, and is making it a condition for pledges for Paris.
Look at the article at this link, and it’s only from yesterday. and note specifically those two images, underneath the one of the, umm, Economist who heads up The Climate Authority, and why are all the Climate bodies headed by economists, which should tell you something, that perhaps maybe it really IS just about the money, eh!
See the top one which shows that here in Oz we are the far and away BIGGEST EVER per capita emitters on the Planet, in fact, 3.5 times greater than China.
Now look at that inflammatory
toxic black smokeCO2 emitting second image which shows that China is far and away the BIGGEST EVER emitter on the Planet, in fact 17.2 times greater than Australia.Let’s meet them half way then. We, here in Oz could actually turn off ALL CO2 emitting power plants, both coal fired and Natural Gas fired, and we would still be higher than China.
Then to bring China up to our level they could still double their emissions.
See how that per capita emissions metric is a crock of bovine waste product.
Timbo was on Lateline last night still pushing that per capita emissions for all it was worth.
I don’t know how he gets away with spreading it around like he does, and can keep a straight face while he does it.
Tony.
70
It’s just propaganda through imputed guilt
We’ve both noticed that even the various ALP govt’s, propped up by inner-city green votes, exempt the bauxite smelters from CO2 tax imposts – so guilt is pushed at the general populace but some segments have dispensation
That this insane situation is generally accepted by the populace, not even recognised actually, is an example of why I think the war is lost
30
just mentioning it’s been lovely & cool up my way:
VIDEO: April: Brisbane Times: Natalie Bochenski: Brisbane and Queensland weather: Cold snap sees April records tumble
Weatherzone forecaster Brett Dutschke said winds from a front that moved across the state earlier this week had left dry, cool conditions in its wake.
“It was the coldest April night in Brisbane for three years at 12 degrees,” he said.
“In Redcliffe it dropped to 11.3 degrees, their coldest night in six years.”
Other chilly minimums included 7.4 at Toowoomba, 6.3 at Dalby, 5.4 at Warwick and just 2.9 at Kingaroy.
Coolangatta on the Gold Coast dropped to 8.1 degrees, its coldest April night in 16 years.
The Sunshine Coast shivered through a 7 degree low, 10 degrees below average and the region’s coldest April night in 20 years.
“Maryborough had the coldest in at least 59 years with a low of 6 degrees, 11 below average, and Mackay was the coldest in 63 years with a low of 11,” Mr Dutschke said…
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-and-queensland-weather-cold-snap-sees-april-records-tumble-20150422-1mqlff.html
in the video, BoM’s Jess Carey also mentions Hughended had lowest April temp of 6.3 degrees since records began in 1888. Fairfax Bne Times doesn’t include that for some reason.
22 April: FraserCoastChronicle: Tracey Joynson: Maryborough low of 6.2 degrees is coldest April morning on record
UPDATE: Maryborough’s minimum of 6.2 degrees at 6.13am on Tuesday is the city’s lowest April temperature on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.”
In Maryborough, we haven’t seen this occur in the last 107 years,” Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Jess Carey said.
“That’s not to say it hasn’t occurred before but certainly the time at which we’ve been taking temperature records there, since 1908, we haven’t seen a temperature this cold in April.”
The previous record was 6.7 in 1966.”
Mr Carey said both Maryborough and Hervey Bay were 10 degrees below their April averages…
http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/mboro-low-62-degrees-coldest-58-years/2614706/
50
Afrikan:the dark continent.I think PERSONALLY it should stay that way. That image would disturb me if it reflected as much as Europa.
00
Could you be a little more explicit? I’m in the mood for a couple of rounds.
00
Sorry,but no!First in best served in short.That is my position!
00
Oh dear!
Look at the article at this link (from barely three weeks ago) and watch the short video at the bottom.
South Africa, the second largest economy in all of Africa, is suffering rolling blackouts, and this Country has the highest power generation total in ALL Africa, with 35% of the African total power generation, for only 1.6% of the population for the whole of Africa.
Why?
Aging plants have been allowed to get old, without planning for their replacement, or perhaps even turned into bungee jumping platforms.
So, naturally, the Government does the only thing they can think of.
Government Ministers
look in the mirror, and know that they caused this, so they sack themselves, umm, sack the boss of the power generation company.The video goes for 2.34, and the only possible answer for this is given right at the end of the video, at the 2.22 mark.
Yep!
You guessed it.
Note also how much research was done by the person who wrote the script for our erstwhile talking head reporter, where she says that, umm, “the towers used to generate 300MW…..” Yep, cooling towers.
Tony.
90
From Breitbart a couple of days ago:
It’s not just an African disease. The odeur is heavy in Spain.
80
Cape Town has a nuclear reactor! Check them out on the night Earth photo. An Oasis of light.
” Nuclear power was considered because it was more economical than transporting coal to the existing fossil-fuel power stations”
How about this. The Africans flocked to a nearby source of electric power.
“The power plant was originally located outside the metropolitan area, whose growth has far exceeded expectations in the intervening 20 years, so that the power plant is now close to suburban housing. “
30
We already had Dark Sky Week in Rockhampton after Cyclone Marcia hit. It was called a natural disaster. Long queues for fuel (at first only a couple of servos had generators to work one or two pumps); long queues for ice; no cold or frozen foods in supermarkets; panic buying; cooking by gas (when you could get any- stores were out until new supplies trucked in- and then rationed); no TV and only battery or car radios; no phones- batteries went flat, mobile networks down, even landline dodgy, limited internet; traffic lights not working- and thieves pinched some generators running lights; schools closed; hospitals and nursing homes on limited emergency generators; no air conditioning or fans, and it was stinking hot, and no pool pumps/ filters. But the sky was certainly dark, and we survived, and got to appreciate the magic of electricity.
120
Murdoch’s Business Spectator:
23 April: Business Spectator: Sorry, 90% of Australia’s coal needs to stay in the ground
by Will Steffen & Martin Rice
(This article was originally published on The Conversation)
https://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2015/4/23/policy-politics/sorry-90-australias-coal-needs-stay-ground
23 April: Daily Mail: Francesca Chambers: I love the smell of jet fuel, says global warming advocate Bill Nye the Science Guy as he takes Air Force One to preach on carbon emissions
Engineer-turned-science-TV-host told a White House pool reporter that he loves the smell of jet fuel
Earth Day trip with President Obama aboard Boeing 747 is meant to highlight climate change threats but will leave a massive carbon footprint
Flights to the Florida Everglades and back will cover 1,836 miles and consume more than 9,180 gallons of fuel
The White House said Tuesday that Nye…would make the trek today on its behalf to shoot a video of the president…
Nye told press it was his first time on the president’s private jet, but he once rode AF2 with former Vice President Al Gore…
In a tweet last night, Nye said he was ‘heading down to DC to catch an #EarthDay flight on Air Force One with President Obama…
‘That said, the excitement, much like #climatechange, is real,’ he added in a follow-up tweet a minute later.
The statements were met with puzzled responses.
‘Doesn’t jet travel leave a big carbon footprint?’ user Timothy Grome wrote.
‘Hmm, seems ironic. doesn’t seem very climate friendly earth day,’ Allison B. of Galveston, Texas, said…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3051026/Climate-change-advocate-Bill-Nye-Science-Guy-takes-Air-Force-One-preach-carbon-emissions.html
50
21 April: Edmunds: Hybrid and Electric Vehicles Struggle to Maintain Owner Loyalty, Reports Edmunds.com
Earth Day Analysis Shows Car Buyers Trading in Alternative Fuel Vehicles for SUVs More than Ever Before
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — April 21, 2015 — Car buyers are trading in hybrid and electric cars for SUVs at a higher rate than ever before, according to a new analysis from car-buying platform Edmunds.com. The analysis offers a surprising look at how today’s gas prices are drawing hybrid and EV owners toward gas-guzzling vehicles at a much more accelerated pace than in recent years…
According to Edmunds.com, about 22 percent of people who have traded in their hybrids and EVs in 2015 bought a new SUV. The number represents a sharp increase from 18.8 percent last year, and it is nearly double the rate of 11.9 percent just three years ago…
“For better or worse, it looks like many hybrid and EV owners are driven more by financial motives rather than a responsibility to the environment,” says Edmunds.com Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell. “Three years ago, when gas was at near-record highs, it was a lot easier to rationalize the price premiums on alternative fuel vehicles. But with today’s gas prices as low as they are, the math just doesn’t make a very compelling case.”…
***Edmunds’ analysis comes at a time when overall sales of alternative vehicles have continued to slide. EVs and hybrids accounted for just 2.7 percent of all new car sales in the first quarter of 2015, down from 3.3 percent during that same period last year. The share of SUVs, meanwhile, has increased from 31.8 percent in Q1 2014 to 34.2 percent in Q1 2015…
http://www.edmunds.com/about/press/hybrid-and-electric-vehicles-struggle-to-maintain-owner-loyalty-reports-edmundscom.html
30
9 April: Bloomberg: London Brokers Handle No UN Carbon Offsets for First Time
by Alessandro Vitelli
Carbon brokers in London handled no United Nations certified emissions offsets in March, the first time volume in the over-the-counter market fell to zero, according to an industry group.
Buying and selling of Certified Emission Reductions spot and futures contracts slid from 415,000 metric tons in February and 18 million tons a year earlier, according to data Thursday from the London Energy Brokers Association, which started reporting monthly volumes in January 2011…
Trading of the UN contracts plunged as factories and power stations are expected to almost exhaust this year a quota for CER use of about 1.5 billion tons for the period from 2008 through 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. International talks over climate action after 2020 have yet to clarify the outlook for demand for offsets…
“More than enough CERs have already been issued and traded for EU compliance,” Trevor Sikorski, head of natural gas, coal and carbon analysis at consultancy Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said Thursday by e-mail. “Everything else is simply going to go into the voluntary market, where they can earn a premium that allows them to meet issuance costs.”…
CERs for delivery in December advanced 11 percent to 50 euro cents (53 U.S. cents) a ton by 5:01 p.m. on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange, poised for the highest settlement since Dec. 30. The contract fell to a record 25 cents in June…
“The 2020 deal doesn’t have any type of compliance infrastructure in place, so where is demand for UN offsets really going to come from?” said Sikorski at Energy Aspects. “In an agreement where every country just details its domestic policy measures, who really needs offsets?”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-09/london-brokers-handle-no-un-carbon-offsets-for-first-time-ever
30
was not Flannery suggesting we don’t get Winter rains any more on Lateline last nite?
22 April: ABC Lateline: Interview: Tim Flannery
TONY JONES: But I’m wondering, if we do see lots more cyclonic extreme weather, is it possible that we could actually see those losses of rain made up in other ways?
TIM FLANNERY: It’s unlikely. You know, what used to give us – what used to fill our dams was good winter rains. Starting through the Autumn, preparing the soil, wetting the soil down, then you get stream flow and the dams’d fill with filtered water. These big dumps tend to run off very, very quickly, bringing a lot of soil and other things into the dams with them. And they’re not really a replacement for the old way that the climate system used to work…
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4221859.htm
no transcript as yet:
23 April: ABC The World Today: Will Ockenden: Weather Bureau tips wet winter ahead for much of Australia
The Weather Bureau is tipping a wetter than average winter for much of the country, including the areas of New South Wales which have just been pummelled by storms. The bureau released its seasonal outlook this morning, saying the climate is being influenced by unusually high temperatures in the oceans…
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4222240.htm
40
Incorrigible.
That must be those good old days before Dorothea Mackellar (1885–1968) wrote her poem in 1904, which is about 50 years before any human influence on the climate could possibly have been detected.
70
Interesting that when Dorothea penned those words about “flooding rains” she was referring to her childhood experiences on the family property near Gresford on the Paterson River, just one mountain valley over (and a short spit) from Dungog which has just been so heavily impacted by the latest floods. The “lithe lianas” and so on describes the rainforest around the Gresford/Dungog district. The reference to drought was supposedly from experiences around Gunnedah in western NSW.
Tim the Climate Man also needs a lesson in Australian rainfall patterns. Now is precisely the time we would expect torrential rain in the Dungog/Paterson/Maitland district. We have had floods galore at this time of the year since the early days of white settlement here in about 1815. Summer and autumn are our wet seasons under a mainly tropical influence, winter our dry season, although we are within the convergence zone of tropical and polar systems, so we get floods at any time of the year.
50
ABC also pushing this on The World Today, but no transcript up for that as yet either.
pdf: 60 pages: WWF: Reviving the Ocean Economy
The Case for Action – 2015
Lead author: Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
http://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/reviving_ocean_economy_report_hi_res.pdf
mad headline on WWF website:
“Ocean wealth valued at US$24 trillion, but sinking fast”
New Daily has it too:
TheNewDaily: Dan Moss: Find out how much the world’s oceans are worth
And the worlds fish species were either exploited, overfished or recovering from depletion, the report Reviving the ocean economy: the case for action, states…
The report, produced with the Boston Consulting Group, the UQ Global Change Institute and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, said the largest share of the ocean’s value comes from fisheries, coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass, valued at $8.9 trillion…
***It calls on nations that use oceans to ally to better manage the common resource.
The report has called for “deep cuts to (greenhouse gas) emissions” to address risks to the ocean like acidification.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/04/23/oceans-value-now-known/
how extraordinary that a minor Queensland Uni should be so “influential” in the world of CAGW!
20
Fair crack of the whip Pat. University of Queensland has its’ share of nutty professors and research assistants but I don’t think it is correct to call it a ‘Minor’ Uni on the State, National or even World scene. [Yes it is one of the tertiary institutions of which I am proud to be an alumnus and I currently have a granddaughter enrolled there too].
30
Bill Burrows –
no offence meant. i should have written – “how extraordinary that such a minor player in the CAGW field like Uni of Qld should be so ‘influential’ in the world of CAGW today!”
i find it astonishing that, whereas Uni of Qld would only appear occasionally in the world media on CAGW in the person of Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, we now have John Cook popping up regularly as if he’s a major CAGW player.
post-Climategate, Cook got fawning, free PR from none other than Revkin at NYT & all the memes were ready to go, so to speak:
March 2010: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: A Physics Maven’s Take on Skeptical Science
I’ve been meaning to highlight a particularly interesting blog on climate, Skeptical Science, and finally have the chance. What’s appealing about it is the simple way its Australian creator, John Cook, has cast his ***journey…
I traded questions and answers with Mr. Cook by email:…
COOK: I’m a Christian and a strong aspect of my faith is social conscience – hating injustice and caring for the poor. As I pored through the research into global warming impacts, I learned that poor and developing countries are those worst affected by global warming. Ironically, these are the countries least able to adapt to climate change.
The other motivation for me is I have a 10-year-old daughter and the latest science tells me she’ll see one to two meters’ sea level rise in her lifetime. This isn’t the rabid predictions of alarmist environmentalists – these are the results from multiple peer-reviewed studies using independent techniques that all arrive at the same answer. With such solid evidence being laid before us, I want to be able to look my daughter (and hopefully grandchildren) in the eye when I’m an old man and although my generation dithered on acting on climate change, at least I tried to change things to the best of my abilities.
Q.You seem to have steered clear of the questions in which science intersects with policy (global warming is happening but it’s not calamitous; the costs estimated for cutting emissions exceed the overinflated costs of adaptation, etc…). Is that by choice or simply limitations of time or…? (Or if I’ve missed them, please send links!)…
COOK: …But sadly, the debate has gone backwards – in many cases, we’re not even talking science as the focus has shifted to attacking climate scientists and the I.P.C.C…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/a-physics-mavens-take-on-skeptical-science/?_r=0
the Revkin piece is lengthy, with Cook’s emails seemingly being published unedited. it’s unimaginable that Revkin would give a truly popular blogger like Anthony Watts (or Joanne for that matter) such an opportunity to present his (or her) ***journey.
Revkin to Cook: “You seem to have steered clear of the questions in which science intersects with policy”
LOL.
Skeptical Science Homepage
(Top Story) Big insurance companies are warning the U.S. to prepare for climate change (4 comments)
China and other big emitters challenge Australia over its climate change policies
Here’s what China closing coal-power plants means for emissions
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Politicians denying science is ‘Beginning of the end of an informed Democracy’
University of Queensland offering free online course to demolish climate denial (1 comment)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Cook’s website is about as popular as George Marshall’s ClimateChangeDenial blog. MSM loves them both!
some references from Wikipedia’s Skeptical Science page:
Bud Ward (2 December 2010). “Skeptical Science Founder John Cook; Climate Science from ‘Basic … to Advanced’”. The Yale Forum.
Cook, John (28 April 2011). “How climate change deniers led me to set up Skeptical Science website”. The Guardian (London).
Emami, Gazelle (17 February 2010). “Skeptical Science iPhone App: Knocking Out Climate Skepticism, One Argument At A Time”. Huffington Post.
Communicating climate science with blogs and apps: Q&A with John Cook (Skeptical Science)”. American Geophysical Union. 1 December 2010.
again, i am astonished that Uni of Queensland is mixed up in the Cook “journey”.
10
I’m always suspicious of pictures such as these which are taken from space to show that we are illuminating the cosmos. They’re often used by the warming brigade to demonstrate how much energy the human race is consuming – which makes me doubly suspicious regarding what we’re being shown.
Are these images taken using sensors which amplify the luminosity of cities around the globe, or some other technique?
What would an astronaut actually see?
Any information welcome!
30
They may do some colour correction, but methinks the luminosity is as the astronauts see it.
https://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/afp-getty_515815594.jpg
40
Thanks el gordo – it’s interesting that there are no clouds to be seen anywhere, so a certain amount of studio modification of the pictures certainly goes on. I remain suspicious!
00
I’m now experiencing what it would be like to live without power in a Green (sic) world. The Central Coast/Newcastle/Hunter area still has a huge number of homes without power following the East coast low this week.
50
O/T
‘A free online university course created in Brisbane aims to explain the mentality behind climate change denial and give students tools to combat it.
‘The University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute has developed the seven-week program, Making Sense of Climate Change Denial, which will be offered for the first time from April 28.
‘It features lectures and interviews with 75 leading experts, including Sir David Attenborough, Michael Mann and Katherine Hayhoe.’
Brisbane Times
30
You know Gordo, They are running a course on making sense on the mentality behind Climate Change Denial and yet there is not ONE denier (Sorry Jo) -ala sceptic lecturing in the course. Of course this is Par for the Lew coached Cook where good ole Lew published a study on Deniers which was only promoted on Alarmist Blogs….
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall, but alas my spleen would be bound to explode 30 seconds in…
40
It would be great if the students could be directed to this blog, so that they can test their metal and we can give them a science lesson.
30
bobl: I’ve always thought it odd that here is a man (Cook) with a physics degree who seems to have become obsessed with pseudo-psychology. Why hasn’t he developed his interest in something closer to his degree subject, or at least written a book about his views on the world climate instead of berating what he calls ‘deniers’?
20
If we don’t turn on all our lights Aliens will crash into our planet.
90
What about alien moths? They will crash into us if our lights are on!
20
The Universal Pictures globe at the start of a movie shows heaps more lights on in Africa. Perhaps that’s just assuaging a little progressive guilt with some neat effects.
30
When I count up the number of things in my house that require electricity the total is startling. And it’s even more startling to count up how many of them are using standby power 24/7 even when they’re “off”. I can read the instantaneous demand from my kWH meter and it’s never below 300 – 400 Watts. The A/C running bumps it up to over 5 kW, more if something else is running — dishwasher, washing machine, etc.
We don’t realize how blessed we are by the convenience of relatively cheap and abundant electricity — at least not until it starts disappearing as it has in Europe and soon will in the U.S. and apparently in Oz as well.
How many people realize that even when their computer is off the power supply is on so it can see the power button being pushed the next time you want to use it. Your TV is alive so it can see the remote telling it to turn on. We take all of this for granted. And the thing taken for granted is the easiest for someone to take away. It’s time for people to wake up before it’s too late.
I could bleed for Africa if I would let myself. But that won’t help. What will help is for the rest of the world to wake up and realize how much they depend on electricity and once they do, to throw out those responsible for the man made shortage.
30
And it needs to start at the top — with the UN.
20
Another case of being dead wrong. Ethanol hasn’t done a thing for pollution and who cares about the small difference in CO2 output? Why are we wasting good food crop land on this deception of the American people?
This only benefits the manipulators who managed to get it enacted. Big money in growing “ethanol” instead of food. No real benefit to anyone else.
20
Two factual corrections.
1. The original intent ofbethanol as a gasoline additive had little to do with renewable biofuels. There were two reasons. Replace toxic MBTE as an octane enhancer (MBTE replaced tetraethyl lead, even more toxic,) and an ocygenate to reduce smog. The max additive was high octane premium gas in California at just under 10%. So 10 percent became the design blend wall. The E85 nonsense was not just the green/farm lobby. ‘Flexfuel’ vehicles allow automakers to game their fleet CAFE numbers. They make no sense otherwise.
2. 42% of the corn crop goes to ethanol, but resulting protein enriched (by yeast) distillers grain returns 27%. The net use is only about 15%. It is an excellent feed supplement, especially for ruminents like beef and dairy cattle. On my dairy farm, distillers grain has enabled a crop rotation change to more corn acres and less alfalfa acres. So the main food impact was the few years increase in price, itself more related to poor growing conditions in 2011 and 2012 than to ethanol. Good crop years 2013 and 2014 have brought the price back down below $4/bushel. Through all this, US corn export volumes basically did not change– they remained about 15% of production.
20
Corn in this article refers to Maize.
00
One small part of the African Darkness can be explained by the decison to fund 2,000,000 (two million) allegedly low-energy light bulbs from Philips and give them to the Government of Malawi, which would distribute them to all and sundry, thus allowing a 20% saving in energy consumption.
Problem is, that outside the two smallish cities of Lilongwe and Blantyre, nobody has electricity anyway. All the aid money has been stolen by the natives, and squirrelled away in Swiss bank acounts (HSBC, for example), no-one is faster than a Malawi politician when it comes to getting his share of the proceeds.
There is a great similarity between the African darkness and that lack of light which is so apparent in the whole of North Korea; the only difference being that in NK, the peasants have no choice, in Africa, the choice has been stolen by greedy politicians
00