In less than 24 hours The Guardian can turn personal disasters into political advertising:
Climate change and the Victorian bushfires: this is not a coincidence
Klose tells us climate change is too complicated for stupid people:
“The issue of bushfires can’t be divorced from climate change. For too many people climate change remains an esoteric concept – something that may happen to someone else in the hazy, far-off future.”
Luckily gifted people, like Cambell Klose (political adviser) can “feel” the causes of climate change.
“Clearly this isn’t the case. The effects of climate change are being felt right now and it is having real impacts on Australians and people all across the world.”
Who needs computer models? (Or for that matter, thermometers?)
What not to do when faced with infernos:
“Yackandandah is trying to do something about this. The community has committed to powering themselves entirely by renewable energy by 2022.”
Some people reduce fuel-loads, others fight off the flames with a solar panel.
Wind farms may reduce bush fires if we have to chop down large tracts of forest to install them. Otherwise they make expensive fire-breaks.
What warming?
The region around Yackandanda hasn’t had much warming, or even possibly, any warming.
Yackandandah is 37 km away from Rutherglen, where the annual mean maximum is not that different now to what it was 100 years ago. In mean temperatures, the raw data showed a slight cooling trend, which was similar in neighbours like Deniliquin.
Rutherglen raw compared to raw data from neighbours Wagga, Sale, Kerang, Cabramurra. This is before homogenisation which creates warming trends.
Thanks to Ken Stewart
My sympathies go out to the families affected by the bushfires in Victoria. What they need is clear thinking and real data.
Well, that disqualifies nearly all main stream climate scientists.
542
Does one have to have any relevant qualifications to write for the Guardian?
340
An inability to generate enough revenue to pay the bills resulting in millions of dollars of losses so far in Australian based operation.
210
That kind of describes all of today’s media, to one degree or another.
120
‘Dumped minister Eric Abetz issued a press release headed “New ABC boss must stop lefty love-in”.
“The new managing director will inherit an unbalanced and largely centralised public broadcaster which has become a protection racket for the left ideology,” Senator Abetz said.
“The Ultimo-centric ABC has become engrossed in group think so much so that there is complete denial of any problems.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/incoming-abc-boss-michelle-guthrie-defends-independence-of-national-broadcaster-20151221-glscd0.html#ixzz3uzYVID1e
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
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Farout; the shakeup nobody thought would ever come. This’ll make many people very happy, and an equal number squeal like pigs.
70
Geez, and there I wuz thinking that Ray Martin would be objective and all that.A great results for pundits with a 97% success rate.
71
I fully endorse that, as long as the ABC budget is cut as well. Let taxpayers decide how much they are willing to pay for the ABC.
200
What does this have to do with Yackandandah, wind farms and bush fires?
JoNova’s blog – fully paid up mouthpiece for the far Right……..
669
Hey! You’re reading blogs again, which you said you don’t do. Your integrity and credibility has been certainly been ‘Left’ behind with your mates.
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Up the workers….
21
Perhaps you are too stupid 1735099 to comprehend that we are talking about the media?
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I have always laughed at lefties and how they like to fly the Eureka flag. They are too stupid to comprehend that the Eureka stockade was all about small business men (independent miners, such as I was in Lightning Ridge) protecting their rights, not suckhole unionists. It had nothing whatsoever to do with trade unions.
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Jo, do yourself a favour and chuck out Numbers.
114
Ah the slimy green potato peeler returns.
….with another empty meaningless comment.
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“JoNova’s blog – fully paid up mouthpiece for the far Right”
This is the sort of slime you bring wherever you go.
Jo is self-supporting.
It is totally disingenuous, and a FLAT OUT LIE of you to imply otherwise.
233
1735099,
Car to defend your science, rather than spew hate? Or are you afraid of being thoroughly embarrassed? Although, if you really understood anything about science, you wouldn’t accept the IPCC’s conclusions either.
171
Why don’t you all just ignore poor old 1735099? You are just feeding troll-like behaviour.
140
1735099,
having actually mentioned wind
farmsplants, perhaps you might like to expand on that and tell us how great they are.Tony.
PostScript – Also, we notice that you are doing the same thing all of those from your side do. They take one sentence or phrase from a comment, misconstrue it, change the context, and then fabricate a false implication from that. I’m beginning to suspect you all have a playbook you refer to on how to make comments at sites like this one. You guys have become so transparent. You fly in and then fly out ….. and then make stuff up about your experience here. You have no concept of how tiresome and boring you all are.
381
‘What does this have to do with Yackandandah, wind farms and bush fires?’
Its about a biased media, the ABC newsroom is full of Trots.
‘JoNova’s blog – fully paid up mouthpiece for the far Right……..’
Comrade, Jo’s blog is crowd funded and all those who can afford to give will do so. Its a broad church, my roots are in the far left and I only crossed the floor because of climate change.
This is the new media and we are recruiting for a ‘contrarian’ so that the place doesn’t become an ‘echo chamber’. You appear to have the qualifications.
173
That the ABC is predominantly Green/Labor leaning was made plain from a survey done in 2013, which was reported in The Conversation of all places.
My main concern is that there might be a link… increased CO2 –> increased vegetation growth –> more fuel for fires. Lack of a decent fuel maintenance (i.e. controlled burn off) plan is the main issue, surely.
BTW last time I checked wind mills were quite good at starting fires all by themselves… so clean … so green … Oh and don’t ask about the Mongolian REO plants necessary for those neodymium magnets in the transformers.
173
“JoNova’s blog – fully paid up mouthpiece for the far Right……..”
Far out! For real?
91
Bulldust, you mentioned here (my bolding)
Those magnets are in the rotor of the actual generator itself.
A rotating magnetic field (the rotor) induces a current flow into surrounding wires. (the stator)
The better magnetic properties of the magnet, the higher the current flow, hence greater power output.
Those rotor magnets are made up of an alloy of sintered Neodymium, Iron and Boron.
A typical direct drive wind turbine requires 600Kg of permanent magnet material in the rotor per MW of output, so a typical 3MW turbine will have 1.8 Tonnes of permanent magnets.
A turbine utilising a CSD will have a little less per MW output.
Note when I refer often enough to the life of these wind turbines being so short. The rotating blades drive the generator rotor. That rotor weighs 1.8 tonnes plus. All the stresses are on the bearings, and therein lies the problem, umm, 200 plus metres up there inside that confined nacelle. Now can you guess why maintenance costs are so huge for wind power, where you might have anything up to hundreds of towers, in comparison to a smaller number of units at a ground based power plant.
Tony.
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Bob,
I hope that your book is more coherent and relevant.
22
Tony, your description (12/22 9:50 am) of 1735099 reminds me of Scott Adams’ cartoon of the Bungee Boss (http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-09-07). In 1735099’s case, it’s a Bungee Troll because it’s hard to imagine 1735099 being the boss of anyone.
Thanks for the laugh.
52
Wind mill thingmabobs from now on >.>
01
You so funny Mr Bobby, me love you long time.
11
You have 5 times as many comments in one day on this thread, than you do on your lefty blog in the last month. Why do you even bother?
Back to Guardian groupthink you go….
21
[Removed by request]ED (1735099) you’ve swallowed the whole poisonous fantasy meme which is fostered by people who profit from the Global Scare. How sad for you. You think you “fight authority” yet you are acting as a useful idiot defending the interests of large financial houses, big multinationals (eg Shell, BP, GE, all want carbon trading), The UN, EU, World Bank, and the whole string of people who feed off the $176b carbon trading market, the $250b renewables industry and the up to $1.5T entire green-machine.
I’m funded by mums and dads and individuals who are fed up with being told that windmills will change the weather and that they have to pay for it.
So your entire scientific argument is that you reckon I’m a liar and you have no evidence otherwise (because there is none). Goldman Sachs thanks you, but don’t expect they will be there for you when you need them.
Your comments will need approval before posting. No more baseless ad homs, or off topic rants from you. Your wild conspiracies will need some substantiation. The minimum bar here is logic OR manners. So I’ll post your polite reasonable comments. But inflammatory “kool aid” that makes you feel important — don’t bother. Ad homs, argument from authority are logical fallacies. Do better, OK?
51
Thank you Jo; such a considered and wise response I have never seen before.
I speak honestly and not with hyperbole; thank you.
00
No! Especially if the guardian in Australia follows the guardian in the UK.
20
A full box of crayons for a start.
00
In many ways, that is actually a very pertinent point; children and crayons indeed. The Left is always ever vocal about what they consider uninformed commentators with no scientific credibility, yet they give full air-time and credence to journalists that have no scientific background whatsoever: http://nofibs.com.au/cambell-klose/.
20
The Yackandandah community “has committed to powering themselves entirely by renewable energy by 2022.”
NOT A GOOD IDEA…..wind farms are a fire risk!
Figures, compiled by engineers at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh, on wind farms, make fire the second-largest cause of accidents after blade failure.
The researchers claim that out of 200,000 wind turbines around the world, 117 fires take place annually – far more than the 12 reported by wind farm companies.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2695266/Wind-turbine-fire-risk-Number-catch-alight-year-ten-times-higher-industry-admits.html#ixzz3v0ze9FAM
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If they are to be completely powered by “renewables” I want to see them permanently disconnected from the grid…
00
Stupid?
The proCC antiCO2 brigade seems guilty of much worse than stupidity.
Just stupity is forgiveable.
What seems to me to be little short of criminal is the abuse of the scientific system where real data
is ignored, or , worse, tampered with to an extent that it is made to favour a theoretical outcome.
What is an abuse of position is the blatant misuse of the meanings of null hypothesis in statistics
where an entire mathematic system, statistics, is abused or misuse.
We have many politicians from the top down who should be aware of
all this but choose to favour the Dark Side for some unexplained political purpose generated via the UN.
Would anyone believe that our PM, a Rhodes scholar and expert in financial affairs and statistics would
not be aware of what is going on here? Let him get up and explain why our government now pushes such distortions.
He is not in the ‘stupidity’ category of later self defence by saying ‘I didn’t know’. His qualifications
exclude him from that defence.
I think the Indian gentleman, the former head of the ICCP, is showing much foresight in declaring sceptics
as his friends. Who wants to be pilloried by history for a thousand years as being a big part of the greatest
fraud to ever be brought down on the world. It makes the religions look child’s play, kindergarten perhaps as the
template for this Anthropogenic Global Warming scare.
51
Who is stupid?
In Esperance, southcoast of WA, there is a windfarm which has reached its use-by date.
It is not being renovated because the cost is too high!
Has anyone considered the true cost of maintaining windfarms when they have a finite life
of around 20 years I believe. How much energy is utilised in simply manufacturing the generators
to be replaced if your thing is CO2 reduction?
Indeed, I get the impression from the Paris Conference that CO2 and Global Warming due to man are
merely the façade for a huge money grab of Western (only) wealth for the UN which is $100B today
but aiming for $Trillions in the near future. Abbott was 100% right and the motives of the Turnbulls,
Bishops, Greens and Labor, the UN of this world must be questioned, absolutely.
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Clearly, STUPID is contagious and extremely dangerous.
In fact residents of Yackandandah will find out how dangerous when they take themselves off the grid in 2022 and become completely self reliant for their power needs.
I’ll mark it on my calendar and call them in 2022 to see how that’s going for them.
Unfortunately it seems they’re serious.
Cheers,
330
I wish they’d brought it earlier. And at least it’s their choice to do so.
When the whole reality thing sets in, they will have the experience of failing at huge cost. They may well be the best advertising for a realistic option available (if anybody listens to them). At least all their friends and relatives will hear about the cost/failure. So I say this is a good thing to do, and it’s their choice to do so (unlike the rest of us).
110
The main point to consider is just who conned them into making a stupid move like that. Obviously someone will be laughing all the way to the bank.
90
A friend suggested, tongue firmly planted in cheek, that the greens of Yackandandah could arrange for multi-coloured turbine blades, red over there, yellow over the other side, purple, pink for the little girls, blue for the little boys ……..
41
Funny, I’ve never seen a traditional fire break that alights itself, randomly kills birds or spews out toxic smoke when alight, progressive indeed.
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Yonnie:
That’s how they work as fire breaks, they set alight the surroundings before the bush fire can ….
Hmmm! I wonder if they have thought this through?
140
he he 🙂
Nice one, Centurion….
60
So CO2 makes trees and grasses grow and these can burn in summer, so no CO2 means no plants and no plants means no bushfires. Life is best avoided then. Clear thinking too.
Only from the caring political activists at the Guardian. Perhaps we need a law against bushfires and to imprison all the farmers, miners and manufacturers? These evil capitalists cause the bushfires, winter storms, tsunamis and all extreme events and changes in sea level. The question is whether the Guardian writers believe this nonsense? Are they really so simple or do they just believe their audience is?
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TdeF:
Yes, the Guardian writers believe this nonsense – otherwise they would crack ribs laughing.
Yes, they are that simple and gullible.
Yes, they believe their is just like them.
150
Graeme
BS is when someone is selling a BS story in which they don’t really believe
REAL BS is when someone is selling a BS story and they really believe it too
10
I’d like to think that NSW Fire Commissioners know something about fire behaviour but sadly they no longer wear yellow uniforms and they inhabit an air conditioned office. They frequently make multi-million dollar mistakes because they are out of touch with fire-crews on the ground.
I’ve tried educating Sydney journos about fire by taking them out to back-burning operations but it’s to no avail. Expecting any over-seas journo to have a handle on these matters is unreasonable.
Sadly, a lot of UK folk pay to read The Gruniad, assuming they are going to be better informed afterwards. As my sad old father once reflected …”the British Public gets what the British Public deserves”. That was his nice way of saying that the majority are too fik to discern fact from fiction.
40
Wind farms can cause [Global Warming], finds new study
Global Warming also means more snowstorms, but, it has yet to snow on the Gold Coast.
160
I shake my head….how dumb are these people? it would be like a hill delecting the local wind and causing a micro climate on the other side.
On the up side, if wind farms cause climate change, perhaps using the same “logic” if we powered the turbines and turned them into large fans, maybe we could make the earth slow its rotation, decrease gravity and we’d have no atmosphere, but the climate would definately change…oh, hang on…. he he 🙂
80
“What not to do when faced with INFERNO’S” aaaaaaahhhhhggggggggggggg! Someone keep an eye on the Children during the Christmas break.
90
I remember as a kid we used to have firebugs lighting fires…it was unusual not to hear the fire alarm go off at least every 2nd day….but we did live in a hot place in country NSW. They did catch the occasional kid lighting fires.
30
INFERNO’S? Just wait till they start on the fuel load’s, fire break’s and solar panel’s!
00
Why is it that just when I think I’ve read the most ridiculous article related to AGW , up comes another which moves the bar so much lower? I now believe there is a “bottomless pit” involved –there is no obvious end to how far the bar will be lowered.
300
“…ever-increasing bushfires”.
I stopped reading in the first sentence. ‘ever-increasing’ is not a scientific term, just like ‘ever-accelerating’, which is scientifically impossible. Someone please explain this kindergarten stuff to these scientifically illiterate journos.
250
Yackandandah is a beautiful village and pleasant tourist destination with strong community spirit and willingness to get things done.
51
However, I can understand how a wind turbine mentality has apparently developed there.
50
Wind turbines won’t help the tourism !!
People go to places like that for the scenery
I hope they realise that.
Imagine this with half a dozen yucky wind turbines.
http://www.travelvictoria.com.au/images/yackandandah/banner1.jpg
20
Please tell me how wind farms mix the air at ground level. Wind farms take energy out of the wind and transfer it into electrical energy to be shipped off site. These blades are not causing wind, they are reacting to it. They are not propellers. Maybe somebody who knows about flow patterns can set me straight.
70
40
Well, the global temperature between 1975 and 1998 rose 0.3°C, so we can take it then that this was perfectly natural 🙂
60
Ah, yes, but when the NOAA get all the excited about a difference of 0.04C leading to the “hottest year eva”, then 0.3C would have to be considered to catastrophic, n’est ce pas?
31
Turbine blades, like aircraft wings generate large vortices which eminate from near the tip. A wind turbine generares three of these in a helical patern. Down wind from the turbine these disturbances weaken but broaden for distances easily 10 times the height of the machine. Larger machines have blades in excess of 100m so the sweep is 200m. Add clearance from the ground and quite conceivably you would mix air in the 300m layer for well over 2km from the site of the turbine.
50
Doesn’t a brisk breeze do the same thing and isn’t wind a prerequisite?
10
No. Depending on terrain, the wind profile is that wind speed at the ground is near-enough to zero and increases parabolically (IIRC) with height. Unless the terrain is rough, wind speed is fairly constant above about 30 metres; still increasing, but gradually.
The mixing effect and turbulence in general is significant for about 20 diameters down-wind.
The wind energy removal (at very low efficiency) is significant for the average air mass, but the turbulent eddies do the mixing. The lower average wind speed down-wind means less heat removal from the surface by “forced” convection; increasing the “bake” under intense sun.
If you’ve been in Perth (Western Australia) over the past week, you’d have experienced days with shade temperatures under sunny conditions varying from maxima of about 24°C up to 38°C; mostly due to wind.
20
Yes, I get that the vortexes at the end of the blades increase mixing and reduced wind speed from energy extraction reduces it. My point is that its already quite well mixed once you get to the wind speeds needed for power generation and the already small differences relative to the whole are irrelevant.
Also, ‘forced convection’ is not a mechanism to remove heat from the surface. This is a kinetic effect of N2 and O2 molecules in motion, which radiate nothing and only radiation can leave the planet. The primary method of removing heat from the surface is BB radiation. Even latent heat is globally offset at the surface by warmed liquid water that falls as rain. Just as evaporation removes latent heat from the water being evaporated, condensation adds latent heat to the condensing droplets of liquid water.
23
Nope, condensation emits heat as infra-red.
http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-90-481-2642-2_326
The latent heat is added during vapourisation, and the water loses the latent heat during the subsequent condensation.
20
Andrew,
Heat is is removed from the water being evaporated cooling it and added to the water being condensed warming it. The warmed water radiates BB radiation in the LWIR spectrum, but this happens independent of latent heat considerations.
In the steady state, atmospheric water is absorbing the same amount of energy that it’s emitting, thus the latent heat is effectively returned to the surface as rain that is warmer than it would be otherwise.
Not all of the latent heat is returned to the surface and that which is not is the source of the energy driving the weather producing heat engine that uses water as its refrigerant. You really need to look at the water path in the context of a Carnot Cycle to really understand the role of latent heat.
03
Cripes. Adds new meaning to ‘when a butterfly flaps its wings in China’.
00
”
Q. What do you call a gullible fool with a calculator?
A. A climate scientist
Q. What do you call a gullible fool with a calculator, who knows how to turn it on?
A. A a BBC/Guardian climate science expert.
Q. What do you say to a BBC climate science expert in a few years time?
A. Big Mac, large fries, please.
Q. What do you say to a former MP caught up in climate science scams?
A. Has Open Prison changed you?
”
From http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2563294
241
Smack!!
Four!
Jolly good shot, what?
10
That should be “fore”, unless you were referring to the number of questions
20
There is a common meteorological event in this country, particularly over the summer months, with a low pressure system in the west and a high pressure system in the east which results in hot dry northerly winds between these systems. This gives us heatwaves, and unfortunately bushfires if there is a source of ignition, commonly lightning but often by man inadvertantly or due to arson.
We cannot change this weather pattern but can only take common sense precautions which are well established, but have been prevented from doing so in some cases by officialdom. Unfortunately there are those who use these tragedies for their political agenda.
230
‘The other key driver in autumn and early winter is the location of the high-pressure systems, known as the subtropical ridge. In recent years, the highs have been further south. That has made it harder for fronts and weather systems to bring rain to southern Australia.’
Andrew Watkins (BoM)
30
In my area at least (Western Australia), conservation and farming practices have an impact. As does community awarness and individual competence.
Farming here has shifted to no-till stubble retention cropping and sheep numbers are way down from traditional numbers so big crop stubbles equals high fuel loads.
Conservation practices have steered us away from hazard reduction burns, although the pendulum is swinging back.
Community views are changing as pro firefighters tool up with high tech, high cost equipment many in the community see fire risk as someone else’s problem.
50
In the ACT the gummint had to bow to common sense and allow fuel reduction burns…I’d say the greenies must have been grinding their teeth on their macro whole food weeties that morning….
70
Cambell Klose gets his information directly from the discredited Climate Council.
‘Our latest report, The Burning Issue: Climate Change and the Australian Bushfire Threat found the length of the fire season increased by almost 19% globally between 1978 and 2013. Longer fire seasons are reducing opportunities for controlled burning and intensifying pressure on firefighting resources.’
The idea is preposterous, the fire season is not growing longer, its a just a very dry continent. The gum trees have adapted well, but humans are still struggling to cope.
181
The answer is to further reduce the amount of ground cover clearing that can be carried out.
After all fire is nature and creatures need ground cover to survive in.
30
I was being sarcastic.
10
One may ask WHO is throwing all those matches around.
10
The main thing growing is not the length of the fire season, but the length of bureaucratic red tape choking off routine hazard reduction burns.
A deputy bushfire brigade captain near where I live (NSW) stated that it can now take the brigade up to 2 years to get a burn approved by the big boss types who control such things, while those bosses are busy pandering to demands from the greenies.
Gone are the days where a burn could be quickly approved at a local level by the brigade captain exercising his initiative to take advantage of ideal burning conditions. Now it is all under the plodding centralised control of the media-star fire commissioners and their underlings.
The result is that the brigades give up trying to organise hazard burns, little hazard reduction takes place and the fires just get more unmanageable.
Combine that with hordes of weekend hobby farmers who don’t graze their properties and take no fire reduction measures, and you have a disaster waiting to happen as fuel levels grow by the year. The brigades work harder and harder and get further behind.
50
Back to the Dunalley fire in SE Tas. where people were driven to the water’s edge. Farmers had been prevented from burning off by officialdom and actually strong autumn winds and bone dry fuel caused much preventable destruction.
The mounting loss of life, wildlife and property damage with wildfires is mainly due to the greens refusing to accept the fact that we live in a fire environment, and using their political power to thwart common sense. Nothing much to do with global warming.
20
As the AMO (or PDO for east coast effects) was on the rise for 30 years until 2008 it would not surprise me at all if the length of the fire season had increased over that period, for entirely natural reasons like circulation changes due to altered temperatures (or vice versa, who can say).
The really tenuous part is trying to blame industrial CO2 for such events. The additional radiative forcing even in theory (1.6W/m^2) is so small that it could not be a significant temperature difference (0.3°) against all the other sources of ignition (lightning,arson) and circulation factors (SAM, El Nino, IOD, chaotic turbulence, etc) that create heatwaves of 5.0° or more above average to exacerbate bushfires.
It’s the same characters that keep popping up, such as the ex-Climate Commission member Dr Karoly. It’s worth remembering the 2009 Victorian bushfires and the link Karoly tried to make in the 2nd-last paragraph of this interview transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2486757.htm
No number of deaths is too sacred for fund raising. This blame game has been going on for a long time.
10
How Goldman Sachs are targeting our money; http://www.goldmansachs.com
40
This claim in not supported by the latest University study. See this link. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-11/bushfires-in-south-east-australia-mostly-caused-by-humans/7013914
40
The recent fires in this area were caused by lightning strikes.
20
I’ve seen massive bush fires in northern WA, visible from high flying aircraft. These never seem to be reported by the news media, presumably because these areas are very sparsely populated or unpopulated. At the same time massive thunderstorms were going on even further away, there was lightning playing around reflected from over the horizon. The combination was awesome and spectacular. I doubt human activity had a great deal to do with it, but then, I could be wrong?!
40
I read an interesting article last year about how the WA Government is using Aborigine Rangers who ouse traditional land management skills together with helicopters and the latest technology to start fires and monitor them to improve land in the Kimberly region of WA. The aim to to encourage the growth of native grasses and to keep fuel on the ground to a minimum other than native grasses and other living plants.
As a result cattle property owners and lease holders have noted a marked improvement in feed for their animals. In the books Dark Emu Black Seed and the Biggest Estate On Earth relating back to Australia before the 1800s the Aborigine people used fire for land maintenance and to promote native grasses. They harvested the seeds to grind into a flour. And the grasses attracted native animals that were hunted for food without having to walk long distances to find them.
62
A difference in outlook
Apparently in the NT stations get a yearly issue of matches to encourage burning off. And they’re proper “will light” matches not these almost fireproof (I’m guessing EU standard?) ones we seem to be forced to buy here.
20
What this nonsense does, blaming someone for everything is that it prevents the truth from coming out. Professor Turney really believed there was no sea ice in Antarctica. Dr Irvine really believed there is no ice at the North Pole for Christmas. Obviously a PhD does not mean someone is smart. Now we have someone who believe solar cells prevent bushfires.
Sadly in Australia bushfires are normal and natural like kangaroos and sharks and snakes and a characteristic of the country. Bushfires are no more preventable than tornadoes in Kansas. There are fewer bushfires since man arrived and started putting them out. What you can do is minimize the damage by regular burning off, clearing undergrowth, clearing around properties and not building your house in the gum trees and having a fire shelter.
What we have to do is minimize the risk to life and property, not rail against the forces of evil and CO2. Ecologically in Yellowstone park they had to torch the place, just to reestablish the natural order. Gum trees are the world’s fastest growing trees and reproduce quickly by bushfire, overwhelming other vegetation, like pine trees where the cones open in extreme heat. At the same time, tree racists want to get rid of English trees and replace them with wonderful branch dropping gum filled gum trees. In Canberra in 2003 the residents even stopped council clearance of debris and trimming and the whole suburb was burned down in the next fire with several deaths and 500 injured. This inside a major modern city!
In the 1880s our fast growing drought tolerant gum trees were exported all over the world, from Jordan to Greece to Spain to California. The bushfires went with them. Now there are groups wanting the removal of gum trees from California, with good reason.
What you don’t do is build your home among the gum trees. If you do, prepare to run. In the last major Australian bushfire tragedy, Black Saturday in 2009 Australia lost 2,000 homes and nearly 200 lives. Consider that California that same year also lost 2,000 homes but only 20 lives because they evacuate where Australians are told to stay and fight.
Apart from the human cost, the tragedy of ignorance is that stopping fires, preventing burning off inevitably just increases the fuel load. So a fire is far hotter and the trees are killed in the inevitable fire, instead of just being scorched and recovering quickly. Similarly for the wildlife.
So ignorance kills. Blaming CO2 for the trees is correct. Without CO2 there would be no trees and no people and no bushfires, but how perverse is that?
242
TdeF, absolutely!
And to this point a quick study of the Victorian State County Fire Authority Environment Strategy publication provides the evidence of their skewed view of their job, including the requisite lecture on ‘Climate Change‘. The heavy hand of the UN is omnipresent.
Under the heading ‘High Environmental Risks‘ (pp11) you will read the following:
May I suggest in the light of the above that the CFA have given up their day job and vacated their primary responsibility in favour of UN orchestrated environmentalism. Anticipate the human tragedy as more people and property perish in uncontrolled fires in Victoria and other States, (see also, Greens NSW Bush Fire Risk Management Policy) where UN eco-slacktavism is rampant and as out of control as the fire risk they pretend to quell.
They betray themselves at every turn.
111
TdeF, your post immediately remind me of the story a few years ago at the link.
Nothing and I mean nothing has changed.
Any half brain that lives in the bush knows that reducing fuel loads on and around your property is a must.
But with “green” oriented councils populated and dominated by “tree changers”, it becomes a tad tiresome trying to explain to them it’s simply not rocket science to reduce the fuel load.
Their response is to give you another colored hoop to jump through.
The story at the link is a classical example of one man that avoided the personal tragedy of the kinglake fires by doing it right.
Just one of the many tragic comments at a council meeting after the fires that is highlighted in the story.
“We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down,” Warwick Spooner told Nillumbik Mayor Bo Bendtsen at a meeting on Tuesday night.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/fined-for-illegal-clearing-family-now-feel-vindicated-20090212-85bd.html
71
Yes, I remember a similar story. The fine was an amazing and criminal $150,000. The irony was that when the fire came, everyone went to the farm and were saved. The fine stood, regardless of sense or even gratitude. Green gum tree worship is killing people. I also believe they hate less flammable trees, like elms, maples, birches even palms. I fought a battle to stop my inner city palm being destroyed, as a bush fire risk? A mixture of madness and nationalism. The $150,000 was just cash for the council, like parking fines. Right and wrong vanish with Green fascism. I wonder if this will be moderated?
71
I do hope that everyone whose life was saved on that property chipped in to either legally fight the enforcement of the fine, or at least help pay it .
I continue to clear and maintain an adequate gum tree exclusion zone around my cabin,and firebreaks within my gumtree forest , regardless of council regulations, and woe betide any Greenie or jumped up Counciller who enters my property to convince me to do otherwise. Since Black Saturday and losing some of my close neighbours, this has become very personal to me .
20
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=jpur (2011)
“We found that the constellations of wind turbines in a wind farm impact local climate conditions in and around the wind farm. The results of this study show that as air travels through the wind farm, it is “churned” by the wind turbine propellers, which causes the air at a higher elevation to mix with air at the surface. ”
I am sure that BEST, NASA and NOAA will now place their newest temperature sensors in around these farms. Further, I am sure that the climate alarmists of today are time travelers from our future trying to save their society’s..
31
meanwhile, Guardian, like the rest of the MSM, seems to have kept this story, which began in October, out of the news til after Paris!
21 Dec: Buzzfeed: Jim Dalrymple: Tons Of Methane Are Spewing Out Of California, And There’s A Connection To The Governor
The out of control leak has forced thousands of residents to flee their homes. Gov. Brown’s sister is a paid board member at the company that owns the well…
The natural gas leak, which has forced thousands of residents to flee their homes in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, is spewing 100,000 pounds of methane into the air per hour…
The leak was discovered in October, prompting hundreds of complaints, resident relocations, school closures, lawsuits, flight restrictions, and a condemnation from star lawyer Erin Brockovich — and shows no sign of stopping.
The methane is coming from a ruptured pipe at a storage facility owned by Southern California Gas Co., which in turn is owned by San Diego-based Sempra Energy…
But Gov. Brown’s connection to Sempra goes even deeper. Campaign finance records show that Brown has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Sempra and Sempra employees going back to at least 2006…
The Golden State governor spent the year touting his green credentials and has specifically singled out methane — the gas leaking near Porter Ranch — as a greenhouse emission he wants to cut. Earlier this month he also was a star attendee at the Paris climate conference — a global gathering that explicitly aimed to curb greenhouse gas emissions…
Brown himself has been publicly quiet about the massive leak…READ ALL
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/sister-of-climate-hero-jerry-brown-is-overseeing-a-mind-bogg
18 Dec: OCRegister: AP: Ellen Knickmeyer: Gov. Brown’s sister on board of firm in gas leak
While public-health officials say the leak is not an immediate health threat, residents complain of nosebleeds, headaches and nausea
The utility is paying to relocate nearly 3,000 households…
Brown’s sister, Kathleen L. Brown, a lawyer and a former California state treasurer in the 1990s, has served as a director of Sempra Energy since 2013, receiving $188,380 in salary last year. Federal filings show she also holds stock in the company currently worth about $400,000…
In 2010, Kathleen Brown left a West Coast position with Goldman Sachs in part to avoid any perception of conflict of interest after her brother was elected governor, the securities firm said then…
Toney said the focus should be stopping the leak — something that authorities say will likely take months…
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/brown-696690-leak-energy.html
50
Actually, loath as I am to admit this, there is some truth in the Climate Council’s claims that the extent and ferocity of fires has risen world-wide. The reason being of course that with the extra CO2 our plants are now much more productive than they were previously (probably about the 20% or so claimed) and so there is that much more fuel to burn.
This has been assisted by the dangerous insouciance of local and state government authorities in Australia in allowing fuel loads to build, sometimes up to 30-40 years which means that when they get going there is so much fuel available to burn, and it is hard to stop.
Farmers in SA recently were quite surprised by the ferocity of the fires around the Mid North, as they always felt they could put out fires in open paddocks where they could navigate their equipment reasonably easily. However, they found that it was much more than expected, and the reason was that crop biomass production in the past 20-30 years has increased in the order of 200-300% due to a combination probably of better agronomic practise and more productive plants from CO2. Consequently, once the fire got going they couldn’t stop it mainly due to the intensity.
The other thing is that livestock production in that time has decreased and so paddocks are not eaten down the way they were once, and have been replaced by very flammable annual plants which always dry out in this part of the world every summer (as you would hope), and so is available to burn.
So, the Climate Council is correct in their claim, but not for the reasons they think, and this will not help Yackandandah either
100
Charles
We have to call in to the urban fire central when burning and seem to meet the urban-rural divide
Urban “We aim to put it out before it burns something”
Rural “We aim to burn something before we put it out”
40
Good point Another Ian, one other reason why the fire in SA got away was because they were told to wait for the plane to put it out before risking personnel at the fire-front. The plane was over 2 hours away at the time, and when it got back to SA couldn’t operate because it was too windy to take off.
In the interim the fire got away and then couldn’t be stopped. The reason for this was because last year a fire-fighter at Nantawaraa fell off a fire rig and burned to death. On the same day there was another breakout at Lameroo as well as one near Peterborough, both were extinguished immediately as they were far enough away from Adelaide to be not hindered by bureaucrats unlike the one at Mallala.
30
Charles,
If you check (perhaps you have) the refs. posted in links at 16.1 it becomes compelling that a (I suspect ‘The’) leading reason for increased fires is the massive increase in fuel load and virtual elimination of controlled clearance due to The Green environmental polices.
And then the effects of such policies are compounded, as you allude to, by the following:
00
These maths challenged fools should protest in the non OECD countries because they will emit at least 90% of new co2 emissions until 2040. OZ will produce under 1% by 2040, what a joke.
That’s if they think that co2 emissions can make any difference to bushfires at all.
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=90&pid=44&aid=8&cid=CG6,CG5,&syid=1980&eyid=2012&unit=MMTCD
42
I think it’s important also to mark the graph as ‘pre or post homogenization of temperature records’.
It seems Klose being too stupid to understand the complexities of climate change defaults to all weather and naturally occurring events are due to humans.
31
jo, could you please stop using apostrophe’s for plural’s?
31
yes, it could start a catastr’ophe….
40
Not sure if anyone has been to Yackandandah recently, but as someone myself who grwew up in the riverina area, I can tell you yackandandah has been taken over by “alternative lifestyle” crowd – rainbow flags, herbal stuff , arty farty and general cluelessness…
The fact they all want to go off the grid and sing stirring folk songs is kinda irrelevent…except there are a few retirement facilities that I am very sure will stay solidly connected to the grid and its reliable power. I have this mental image of someone plugging in a defribulator and waiting for the wind to strengthen before thery can use it….
We live in hope….*sigh*
151
Campbell Klose should try to wrap his or her mind around the following history from the past of Victoria before CO2 was seen as a problem.
Black Thursday bushfires
Location : Victoria, Australia
Date 6 February 1851
Cause Heat wave, careless burning (not CO2)
Fatalities 12
“The Black Thursday bushfires were a devastating series of fires that swept the state of Victoria, Australia on 6 February 1851. They are considered the largest Australian bushfires in a populous region in recorded history, with approximately 5 million hectares, or a quarter of Victoria, being burnt. Twelve human lives were lost, along with one million sheep, thousands of cattle and countless native animals.”
“The temperature became torrid, and on the morning of the 6th of February 1851, the air which blew down from the north resembled the breath of a furnace. A fierce wind arose, gathering strength and velocity from hour to hour, until about noon it blew with the violence of a tornado. By some inexplicable means it wrapped the whole country in a sheet of flame — fierce, awful, and irresistible.”
30
7th. Feb 1967 in S.Tas, roaring northerly winds, very low humidity and high temperatures about 39 degrees, roughly 1000 houses destroyed and 80 odd lives lost.
20
Don’t know what the “globe” was doing back in 1851, but that’s when history’s greatest known inferno occurred – in Victoria, naturally. I suppose the continent’s driest year, 1902, would have generated some big fires…but what was left to burn after the colossal monsoon failures of the mid 1890s, which killed millions in India and coincided with lethal heat in the eastern US and eastern Australia? Seems no drought ever dried like that of the late 1830s, which managed to empty the ‘bidgee, but the Fed drought lasted and was the start of half a century of rainfall deficit, so length does matter.
As to how so many perished from heat, drought and fire in our Year-From-Hell – 1939, which was actually a La Nina year, go figure – we might have to ask a climate expert. But where do you find one of those?
51
CYCLONE MAHINA: 1899
Australia’s deadliest storm
31
A history of Brisbane floods.
11
It seems 1939 was a neutral year, as far as ENSO goes.
https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/products/australiasvariableclimate/ensoyearclassification.html
00
More unsettled science. The BoM still has 1939 as a La Nina:
“A dry La Niña, especially so in the southeast. April 1938 to January 1939 (Figure 1) was very dry in Victoria, southern NSW and southeastern South Australia. Victoria had 98% of its area in the lowest decile, and southeast Victoria had lowest-on-record falls. When this low rainfall combined with extreme heat, it resulted in the Black Friday fires, which lit up almost all of Victoria, southern NSW and southeastern South Australia, causing massive devastation. Some 1.5–2 million ha was burnt in Victoria, much of it protected forest.”
And if one is to believe BoM’s version of things, the driest decade for the continent generally, 1930s, had no El Nino. Different versions elsewhere, which makes one wonder just how settled any part of “climate science” can actually be. Uninformed, preachy fops like Campbell Klose and the juvenile Guardian not withstanding.
10
To be fair to all parties, Long Paddock lists calendar years, so the La Nina is attributed to 1938, while BoM lists the actual period of ENSO conditions eg 1938-9. Yet while Long Paddock lists 1932 as El Nino, the BoM still lists no El Nino between those of 1925-6 and 1940-1. You have to wonder how such obvious and unnecessary confusion can stand.
But climate experts don’t seem to mind a bit of sloppiness about past events and conditions. They reserve their precision for stuff which hasn’t happened yet.
20
Mosomoso
Add this site to your collection for el Ninos
http://sabolscience.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/a-deeper-look-at-top-10-el-ninos-since.html
20
Thanks for link, Ian. It sure explains a lot about 1878, when killing drought wrapped right round the middle of the globe. If similar global conditions occurred now, I’m sure they would be “unprecedented”. Down the memory hole with 1878!
00
Yep, we’re saved:
ABC: A record low in pricing for renewable energy has been set as part of a deal to buy power from a South Australian wind farm, the ACT Environment Minister says.
The French-developed Hornsdale wind farm has been selected to supply power to the ACT, at a cost of $77 per megawatt hour.
~ ~ ~
July 23, 2015, Theconversation: FactCheck: does coal-fired power cost $79/kWh and wind power $1502/kWh?
Correction: An earlier version of this piece misquoted energy figures.
The Productivity Commission said the cost of electricity generated by wind was $150 to $214 per megawatt-hour, not $1502; and solar was $400 to $473 per MWh, not $4004.
10
So building wind farms and more solar panels will stop a tree falling on a power line will it? And also stop the wind gusting at 100 km/h?
These were the main factors that caused the Barnawartha fire to threaten the Yackandandah community. Even if the temperature was in the low 30’s or high 20’s, this fire still would have had a similar outcome.
It would take a deluded mind to think that we can prevent such tragedies by “tackling climate change”. Or, they know what they are saying has no bearing on reality and are just using this tragedy to further their cause.
60
***oh good, there might be money to be made by some CO2 emissions traders!
21 Dec: ReutersCarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: Germany’s energy-related CO2 emissions up 0.9% in 2015 -research group
Energy-related CO2 emissions in Germany, the largest emitter in the EU ETS, rose by 0.9% in 2015 due to increased demand and more burning of lignite and natural gas…
***If accurate, the findings could be slightly bullish for EUA prices because the German energy sector is the single largest national source of emissions under the EU ETS.
Overall energy consumption in Germany, which is also Europe’s biggest economy, rose by 1.3% to 455 million tonnes of coal equivalent or 13,335 petajoules, AB Energiebilanzen said…
http://carbon-pulse.com/13587/
posted online by Reuters 12 hours ago, but none of their western MSM subscribers have picked it up, except UK Daily Mail:
21 Dec: Reuters: Maria Sheahan: Police arrest suspect in carbon trading probe at Vienna airport
Police arrested a Swiss national at Vienna airport who is suspected of money laundering and tax evasion in connection with the trading of carbon emissions certificates, German prosecutors said on Monday.
The move is part of an investigation relating to so-called carousel trades made in 2009 and 2010…
The 55-year-old Swiss man, whom Austrian police detained on his way from Zurich to Vienna on Wednesday, is suspected of having been a member of a gang making such trades and having evaded payment of taxes worth 125 million euros ($135.8 million), the Frankfurt attorney general said in a statement…
It said 10 people had been sentenced to prison terms ranging from two years and nine months to almost eight years for their involvement in carbon trading scandals, which European police agency Europol has
estimated cost EU governments more than 5 billion euros in lost revenues…
Also, Frankfurt prosecutors in August indicted seven current and one former employee of Deutsche Bank in connection with its carbon fraud investigations.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-carbontrading-germany-arrest-idUKKBN0U40VT20151221
10
During a blocking high, it was 41C. Since it has warmed by about 0.25C during the satellite record, one might assume it could not have been less than 40.75C (if ALL of the warming was CO2 and none was post-LIA trend or other factors such as the PDO).
Are they suggesting that bushfires would be averted at 40.75C?
52
It does represent a regression to a more primitive state of mind, a belief in a form of apotropaic magic where James Delingpole’s “bat-chomping bird-slicing eco-crucifixes” have become the modern equivalent of pre-enlightenment ”weather crosses” or “hail crosses” once common around Central Europe countryside erected to ward off natural disasters and extreme weather and intended to supersede the old pagan superstitions associated with thunder, storm and hail.
40
I feel partly responsible for these fires. I had a chance to donate money to Al Gore and I didn’t.
🙁
60
Anyway, I am pretty sure that the fire started in a pile of dead polar bears that were washed up in Deniliquin beach by an ice storm.
90
Tim Blair: Ad More Defcons
“Al Gore: We Need to Go to DEFCON 5
The will to act is itself a renewable source”
10
Don’t worry Clive Palmer handed him a cheque.
40
Has he cashed it yet?
10
Rubber ball time !!
11
The very same wind that turns those windmills is a direct contributor to both the cause and the severity of the fires. One downed power line or something falling on a power line is all it takes. And wind drives the fire before it like a sheep dog drives the sheep. Just try to stop it.
Southern California has the same fire problem, though thankfully without so many wind turbines. The chaparral and woods both are subject to fires where people have built housing into the area. The relative lack of fires in not yet built up areas is a dead giveaway that people have a direct causative effect. Windy conditions are worse because every now and then someone gets tempted to try arson just for the fun of it. And it’s been that way for as long as I’ve lived in Southern California.
It has nothing to do with climate change, not even if by some flight of imagination you can say climate change is happening.
40
So using the stupid logic of climate change alarmists, it’s all happening now, disregarding the actual evidence. OK then. It’s too late. Any coordinated effort on the part of mankind to reverse the CO2 trend will take decades if not a lot more. So it’s all too late. How about we worry about something else? How about the alarmists just SHUT UP!
31
OT, but interesting report on WUWT.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/21/the-holocene-thermal-optimum/
I suggest the resident trolls actually try to read it and try to comprehend that we are actually very much at the COLD end of the current interglacial.
81
Interesting AndyG55. I had a look and wondered immediately about the ‘hide the decline’ (Mann) associated with “recent proxies?” I note the x (time kyrs) axis ends at 2004, at the end of an uptick over the last century perhaps. The second graph shows this in a far better perspective. As you know, ‘hide the decline’ Mann dropped the post 1988 (from memory) because they showed an inconvenient decline in temperature.
40
Too esoteric for some? Adelaide faced the same devastating conditions as Melbourne in 2009 but no git lit up an inferno.
You need more than heat. The globe has probably only heated up half a degree (not a whole fudged degree) since Australia’s worst bushfire in the 19th C and Australia has had a pause for longer than 18 years according to the satelites. Its worse to have a 35° day with strong winds than a still 45 so half a degree matters little. There is no data to show droughts are getting worse but its obvious that 1/3 to 1/2 of fires are deliberately lit and a similar amount are due to accidents.
Too complex or to obviously wrong that no amount of jargon or bombast can disguise that it is a coincidence that bushfires are bigger news now that CO2 has gone up?
21
Australia this century.
http://s19.postimg.org/evqcc7gz7/Austfrom2000.jpg
21
Interestingly, you can see a pattern from 2005ish of steady cooling with the two jumps in late 2009 and late 2012.
Will we get a jump early next year…. if not, the trend will continue downwards.
32
Note that the Arctic got the 2010 step-up, but not the 2012.
http://s19.postimg.org/sm42pougj/No_Pol2.jpg
32
Looks like there is significant cooling after an EL Nino of 3-4 years
00
Windmills do not work that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDVHs-juPo
20
“No Yackandandah, wind farms will not stop bush fires”
But …
Burning fossil fuels ‘COOLS planet’, says NASA
> They must be burning alotta fossil fuels in Colorado:
Colorado Weather Station Hits -51°F, Ties One Of Coldest Temperatures Ever Recorded
“The last time that happened was on Feb. 8, 1989.”
50
ROFLMAO..
Could they be more DISHONEST if they tried !!!
They know what is coming after this El Nino.
They know about the sullen Sun
What a MONUMENTAL JOKE they have become. 🙂
41
NASA is implying that aerosols are cooling the northern hemisphere and the hiatus has nothing to do with a quiet sun.
10
But there were far more particulates and aerosols in the period in which the world was actually warming.
Pollution controls have cut these REAL pollutants significantly.
10
El Nino? What El Nino !!
http://notrickszone.com/2015/12/21/the-super-collapsing-el-nino-ncep-cfsv2-n-hemisphere-temps-plummet-1c-in-a-single-week/comment-page-1/#comment-1067055
21
‘And how will the current very mild winter weather in Germany and Europe proceed?’
The NAO is still in positive territory, so my guess is that it will go negative by the middle of next month, with the development of blocking highs, a rerun of the 1946-47 European winter.
00
VIDEO/TRANSCRIPT: 21 Dec: Climatedepot: Obama tells NPR: ‘Perfectly legitimate’ to believe I’m engaged in ‘war on coal’
http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/12/21/obama-tells-npr-perfectly-legitimate-to-believe-im-engaged-in-war-on-coal/
10
2 pages: 16 Dec: Forbes: Jude Clemente: COP21 Doesn’t Change Our More Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas Reality
Let’s face the facts: the developing nations – which constitute nearly 85% of the world’s population – will not restrict critical economical and human development in the name of restricting coal, oil, and natural gas use – sources that indicatively constitute nearly 85% of the world’s energy. Governments in poor nations know that they don’t have that luxury because they can’t ignore the much higher costs of renewables like Thomas Friedman loves to do (see here). The 2009 Copenhagen Accord confirmed that poverty eradication comes first.
To illustrate, rich Germany’s $1.4 trillion plan to “transform” its energy economy based on renewables has been an “utter failure” with skyrocketing costs and actually HIGHER fossil fuel use. Ridiculously, a single windmill in Germany can cost $30 million (read that again)…
In 2015, despite tens of billions of dollars invested and 29 state Renewable Portfolio Standards (which mandates usage), wind and solar respectively generated just 4% and 0.6% of U.S. electricity, thereby combining for less than 2% of all U.S. energy…
There are now about 1,300 million cars on the world’s roads, and 90 million new units are sold each year. Just about 700,000 of them run on electricity. Additionally, electric vehicles obviously require electricity, which globally is 70% supplied by coal and gas….
Here’s a required reality check for those celebrating the “end of fossil fuels:” Paris was about avoiding a public relations disaster as much as anything…
The Need for More Coal, Oil, and Gas isn’t Negotiable…ETC
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2015/12/16/cop21-doesnt-change-our-more-coal-oil-and-natural-gas-reality/
10
pat says this (my bolding)
That’s 0.05% of those cars are electric cars.
And the Greens here in Oz want every vehicle to be electric by, well, whenever.
Tell ’em they’re dreamin’!
Tony.
110
Tony
“Tell ‘em they’re dreamin’!”
But isn’t that their role?
20
21 Dec: CarbonBrief: Guest post: Climate change before the court
(This guest post is based on the following peer-reviewed article: Thornton, J. and Covington, H. (2015) Climate change before the court, Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo2612)
A guest post from James Thornton and Howard Covington, chief executive and trustee, respectively, of the environmental law firm ClientEarth.
We take a look at how litigation – the process of resolving disputes in a court of law – could have an important role to play…BLAH BLAH
***For the time being, we need scientists to keep developing robust climate attribution science and ***lawyers to keep devising innovative ways to hold major emitters to account. This, maybe more than Paris Agreement, could be the best way to protect people and the planet.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-climate-change-before-the-court?utm_content=buffer7461b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
11 Dec: PublicFinanceInternat’l: Emma Rumney: Prince Charles says economic re-wiring needed to stem effects of climate change
He said all sectors of society needed to come together in the “biggest private, public, NGO and civil society partnership the world has ever seen” and “act now” to create a sustainable, waste-free economy.
The finance and accounting community will be vital in deterring the private sector from the draw of a business-as-usual approach, he said, and system-wide action is the only way to eliminate the “unhedgeable risk” faced by investors…
***The prince referred to comments from Bank of England governor Mark Carney who recently warned that those who fail to act on climate change could face legal liabilities in decades to come, hitting carbon extractors, emitters and their insurers the hardest.
Efforts by “innovative organisations” within the private sector and asset owners such as UK’s Environment Agency Pension Fund, which has committed to decarbonising their portfolio, show organisations are increasingly willing to act, he said…
http://www.publicfinanceinternational.org/news/2015/12/prince-charles-says-economic-re-wiring-needed-stem-effects-climate-change
10
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm#ixzz3v18MlmS5
20
They will have to change the law. Sue someone for causing Climate Change and you will have to prove the connection. The whole of the IPCC can swear they are 99% sure but until there is proof or they get the “right” judge in place they won’t win.
10
The way out is to create a factory whose sole, stated purpose is to produce CO2, wait for the EPA to sue, then force them to prove their case. CO2 is innocent until proven guilty, right?
30
Unhappily, that’s not too hard to do. People claim the US Supreme Court ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, but the original Supreme Court ruling on the initial EPA ambit claim was by one (1) sole activist judge, and one may obviously expect this to have been easily anticipated by EPA Counsel prior to the hearing
So, too easy …
40
I wonder what expert advice the good citizens of Yackandandah have obtained regarding the total cost of installing wind turbines? Were they advised that wind turbines effective service life is less than twenty years and replacement costs must be factored into the original installation costs? Have they compared the costs to electricity grid connection costs over the same period? Have they considered wind turbine down time when wind speed is too low or too high for operation?
Have they considered the environmental impact damage relating to the manufacturing of components and installation materials? And for the dumping of waste products after service life is over?
I understand that Yackandandah has at least one supermarket and many other shops and hotels, and at least one motel, and a sports centre, street lights, etc. Is it cost effective and practical to attempt to become reliant on so called renewable energy by 2020? Is self reliance real if the town remains connected to the electricity grid?
I read that this self reliant town is prepared to fund a candidate for member of parliament (Albury), a truly local member. Is this one of the “green” town project motivators?
40
19 Dec: Yale Climate Connections: Daniel Grossman: Après Paris Accord, What Next for IPCC Reports?
With the new COP21 Paris Agreement still fresh in mind, some think ahead to future of IPCC’s closely-watched Summary for Policymakers.
(Grossman’s reporting from Paris is supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.)
For its work, the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Al Gore.
Then was then, now is now
But more and more climate researchers and science policy analysts now say that what was right when research on global warming was in its infancy is not suitable today. They say the time has come to make some changes. And, although diplomats in Paris did not have it on their agenda, ideas for improving the IPCC were on the minds of researchers circulating through the corridors and attending meetings on the periphery of the formal negotiating sessions.
Peter Fromhoff, director of Science and Policy at the Union of Concern Scientists, said, for instance, that the physical science of climate change probably needn’t be fully re-examined every five years, a view widely shared by other climate researchers. At this point, he said, “the incremental added value is modest.”…
In an interview at a crowded cafeteria at the Paris conference, Stanford University biologist Chris Field called the review and approval process for each summary chapter arduous.
It’s “somewhere between 3-dimensional tic-tac-toe and a bullfight,” he said…READ ON
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/12/apres-paris-settlement-what-next-for-ipcc-reports/
19 Dec: NYT Dot Earth: Andrew C. Revkin: On the Media and the [Landmark][Disastrous] Paris Climate Agreement
Journalists examine dueling proclamations of success and failure that emerged from Paris climate treaty talks…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/on-the-media-and-the-landmarkdisastrous-paris-climate-agreement/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog Main&contentCollection=Media&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
10
Oh and, you know some of the climate jabberers say crops will be adversely affected?
Well.. NOT !!
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/record-cereal-harvests-in-2015/
31
Mooney doesn’t realise the status quo changed post-Climategate. it’s Mooney/Mann et al who deny what Climategate revealed & cling to the old status quo:
18 Dec: WaPo: Chris Mooney: Why the Paris agreement could be the beginning of the end for global warming denial
Psychologists have conducted considerable, often fascinating research on what drives climate change doubt — and it’s these findings that explain why Paris could potentially help to end it…
Shifting the status quo. One key idea that suggests this conclusion is the notion that climate change denial is, in part, a manifestation of what is called “status quo” bias — implicit and default justifications of the current, industrial system for getting energy. This system not only benefits many people, but is also simply what we are more familiar with. And there is mountainous evidence suggesting that we tend to be biased toward the familiar and the well-established.
Status quo biases make political and social systems very hard to change — but at the same time, once they actually do change, the same biases then work to enforce the new status quo…
“Climate change denialism has become completely marginalized now, because the world is moving on,” says Michael Mann, a climate researcher with Penn State University…
When it comes to attacking climate science, Paris may give added oxygen, for a time.
But around 2020, as temperatures continue rising and as the world begins the first round of assessing how effective the Paris climate accord has been — well, matters then may feel very different indeed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/12/18/why-paris-could-mark-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-global-warming-denial/
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It could instead be the beginning of the end of man-made global warming fraud as the colder and longer Winters become the normal conditions leading into a new little ice age.
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Tuesday 22 December 2015, 4.30 pm and 20C in my home office inside the house.
Wind chill factor several degrees lower outside.
BoM forecasts several more days of low temperatures and rain here on the NSW mid north coast.
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Dennis, maximum today in Blackheath, Blue Mountains, 12.5C and 20mm rain. It is three days before Christmas and we have the fire on. I think it’s called weather!
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Just posted this in the guardian
Bushfires are clear evidence of global warming….says political advisor Cambell Klose. Yackandandah is mentioned as being in the line of fire, so I thought I would check the BOM to see how much it has actually warmed.
It hasn’t got a weather station registered for temperature but the nearest is at Beechworth, 13 km away. The BOM data shows there has been no warming in Beechworth since records began in 1910.
So then I checked rainfall for December and Yackandandah did have a station for rainfall going back to about 1890 and rainfall for the last three years has been above average.
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[…] people all across the world. However the on the ground temperature records in the district shown no warming at all over the last century. The region around Yackandanda hasn’t had much warming, or even possibly, […]
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They are going to create a bubble of cool. I understand the windfarm will be built by Arthur Fonzerelli contracting.
10
obviously a toxic subject!
19 Dec: HuffPo: Sam Levine: Two Straight Debates On National Security, And No Questions About The Real Threat To The Globe
The moderators didn’t mention climate change.
In a Democratic debate focused on national security Saturday evening, one topic was notably missing from moderators’ questions: climate change.
Even though a major climate agreement was reached recently, it didn’t even come up during Saturday’s two-hour debate or the GOP debate on Tuesday…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/democratic-debate-climate-change_567626dfe4b014efe0d5cc56?section=australia
Raw Story: Twitter rips ABC debate hosts for ignoring climate change and asking inane question about spouses
ABC’s Democratic debate draws smallest audience yet
Chicago Sun-Times-13 hours ago
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Well good luck Yackandanda I say.
As of 1200hrs, 22 December 2015 the total output of all wind power plants in Australia was ~800MW – 22% of the total installed 3,600MW. (The peak output for the previous 24 hrs was ~50%)
Total Victoria was 200MW of 1,200MW (17%) installed with a maximum contribution also of 50%.
The nearest plants to Yackandana contributing as follows:
Waubra – West of Clunes – 0% (0 of 192MW)
Challicum Hills – SE of Ararat – 0% (0 of 52MW)
Mt Mercer – S of Ballarat – 22% (29Mw of 131MW)
http://energy.anero.id.au/wind-energy
Stupid is what stupid does.
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At the same site check out the November contribution for Victoria.
Daily variation was from 0% to 90% with average sitting around 22-25%.
Yackandanda – good luck with working out what capacity wind power plant you can afford to install.
I’m sure that the rest of the East Coast is going to want you to keep contributing to the cost of the grid as you’re gouing to be using it a lot!!
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How do they produce minus 22% and Minus 50% of capacity, Andrew ? I’m no scientist, I’m just a layman, but the way you have written it, as -22% and – 50% , it reads like the turbines are drawing power from the grid instead of contributing to it !
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They are “dashes” , not negative signs 🙂
the squiggle is meant to be an approximation sign.
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The commenter *Bulldust* above covered this following topic, but I think it is an important observation.
I am yet to see the CAGW alarmists publicize that bush fires are increased by heavier biomass growth caused by higher CO2. I’ve never seen one of them make a major point about this. I believe it is pretty unavoidable that higher plant growth will create worse fires.
… having said this, it seems to me that their emphasis on the ‘rise in temperature’ and ‘reduced rainfall’ caused by CAGW, is their only – and deliberately blinkered – talking point for helping the ‘poor families with burnt down houses’ that they claim to care about so much.
Is this perhaps because increased biomass might change public opinion towards ADAPTATION to change, rather than directing this money towards ‘Green’ ‘academia’ and the bureaucratic cancerous growth which covets these funds? Also, would it educate people too much about the fast ability for the biosphere to flourish from higher CO2, and thus pull much more of it out of the atmosphere than the fear mongers want to publicize?
I believe the media is complicit in selective observation to enforce an agenda, which of course requires the presence of a conscious bias.
How many water-bombing aircraft and trained pilots could we buy and maintain with all the government money we have thrown at the CAGW cancerous growth?
Surely, BILLION$ could more than quadruple our front-line forces who fight fires and protect property, not to mention it will actually create jobs that are needed anyway, because nobody is predicting that global CO2 concentration will decrease over the next 100years. No money to adapt when we need to, and limitless money to corrupt science and feed fraudsters.
Our politicians are negligent to the safety of our own citizens, and all three major parties agree that throwing money at global bureaucrats, and bankers in finance centers, is more important than the safety of people in the here and now! It is criminal in my opinion.
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It’s actually laughable that a whole Country town can, umm, take itself off the grid. They can’t and they won’t, most likely won’t be allowed to. Imagine the lawsuits from the supermarket that all its perishable food which must be kept in constant cold storage goes off and must be thrown out. That’ll only need to happen once or twice before the lawyers step in.
This is how they’ll get around it.
They’ll just work out how much total power the town uses, for everything and then install the Nameplate to equal that amount, and in fact you can bet they’ll just go on Nameplate alone, which will effectively be around a third of actual consumption.
Then the town can say that the turbine(s) provide equal power to what the town consumes.
Because they will still be connected to the grid (by law) there will ALWAYS be power on tap all the time, so they can smile that smile of the satisfied thinking that their precious turbine will be supplying all their power.
Then the maintenance bills will come in, because as the owners of the turbine(s) they will be liable. Then there will be the faults, and then after a few years, perhaps 15 to 20 is they are astoundingly lucky, they’ll have to put in all new ones to replace the clapped out relics of the past.
Meanwhile, the real grid, supplied by huge amounts of actual real power, coal fired power, just keeps humming along.
That original green dream will be a far distant memory.
Tony.
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It reminds me of when John Brumby said “the less trucks on the road the better” in some pseudo greeny rant back in about 2003. I was working for Pickering Transport in Mildura and we wrote to the paper to point out that we can test the theory anytime people want to. Just don’t expect to see any fresh fruit and veg in Woolies the next day because believe it or not, there is no light rail track to the local shops. Its just fantasy.
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Bushfires – and the solution is …??
So to extinguish or prevent bushfires one builds more windfarms.
and what is to be done in the meantime?
These politician activitists are a threat to families and their homes.
This is truly a frightening level irresponsibilty …:(
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Then you’ve got to ask yourself what safety can be had if a mighty plague of fires could occur simultaneously in the middle of autumn, at a high latitude not far from the Canadian border. The Chicago-Peshtigo Fires of 1871 had all the ingredients of a classic inferno: heat, drought, wind, weather change etc. They weren’t just due to bad luck and too many forestry scraps and wooden buildings. The climatic conditions were horrific. The Great Fire of London in 1666 was preceded by parching drought and then promoted by screaming dry easterly winds equivalent to those westerlies we fear in eastern Australia.
So why shouldn’t we have disastrous spring-summer fires in NSW and even worse summer fires in the south? Since the bush is in no way pristine (Bob Carr made that up), why don’t we change our management of vegetation rather than try to change the climate by sending money to the villains we neglected to lock up after 2008?
I’d like to ask our very green PM’s opinion, but if he starts a sentence now he may not finish it till next Tuesday.
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Mosomoso
“Since the bush is in no way pristine (Bob Carr made that up)”
Otherwise stated as “most of the bush is about as pristine as a recycled virginity”
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🙂 🙂
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Bush fires are the norm for our forests, I had a property on the edge of the state forest were the ash wednesday fires started that took out Macedon and many other places. I had prepared my property and tho’ ordered to leave by police stayed and protected it. All those around me lost their houses, preparation and forethought is all that is needed.
As an after thought a singed Koala wandered up to me the next morning,I picked it up and it cuddled me
I put it in an unburnt tree next to my house and it to survived.
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That’s extremely courageous. How close did the fire get to your house? What preparations and precautions did you take? And were you in trouble for not leaving? Another Victorian bloke was fined $50,000 for clearing trees around his property.
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Yackendandah corrected to Yackandanda. oops. Late night posting again.
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Would I be correct in saying that a, Australia has bush fires, had them before anyone dreamed up this scam. And b, many are prevented from clearing bush that in the past nature would have cleared, and c, many chose to build homes in the middle of potential fire prone risk areas. That’s my impression anyway.
101
… and d, talking about wind farms in this scenario is a massive rational disconnect.
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22 Dec: NDTV: Thomson Reuters: Australia Approves Port Expansion, Adani Enterprises Welcomes Move
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt issued the approval only after reengineering reduced dredging by 97 per cent from the original proposal, according to a statement from Hunt’s office.
“All dredge material will be placed onshore on existing industrial land,” the spokesman said.
The work still requires approval from the Queensland state government, which is awaiting assurances that a giant coal mine owned by Indian conglomerate Adani Enterprises will proceed to the construction phase…
Anthony Lynham, Queensland’s development minister, said in a statement Adani still needed to demonstrate financial closure for its project before the port expansion is cleared by the state…
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/corporates/article-australia-approves-port-expansion-adani-enterprises-welcomes-move-1257615
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.
WOW
Canberra homes and businesses could be fitted with renewable batteries under ACT grant
“More than 5,000 homes and businesses in Canberra could be fitted with renewable energy batteries”
Had to look at the NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY BATTERIES?
Zero
Nothing at all
I thought a brand new battery had been invented.
Nope
Just a Tesla like battery at what $40,000 just for a house!
And that’s a house without a fridge, EV car, Washing machine or electric oven!
Now at least I know I will not be moving to Canberra
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Just so long as they build the wind turbines in the ACT and not in NSW.
Let those who want this CRAP, wear this CRAP !!
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Hmm…having a 4kwh Li-ion battery bolted to the side of your house eh?
Have anyone seen how when Li-ion burn they go up super hot, super fast?
No thanks. I’ll stick with deep cycle lead acid…..
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Speaking of brush fires; would it be a bit cynical of me to think OZ’s bill for carbon offsets just skyrocketed? North Korea has a few credits if you need them.
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A red thumb for this? Humorless troll.
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There is a small issue of 40 to 50 ton of fuel load per acre. No amount of CO2 reduction will stop that fuel from burning when there is an ignition source. Nor will the best effort of Part Time Firies. The foolishness of building next to Gum Trees which has Eucalyptus Oil which burns just as well as diesel or kero has never been given adequate media time.
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Read Kero Instead Of Diesel
New research suggests biofuel made from oil mallee trees could be a viable source of jet fuel, offering a glimmer of hope for growers in Western Australia who planted the trees in large numbers in the past two decades.
And that about says it all
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When Phil Jones admitted to the BBC in 2010 that he had been faking records for twelve years since 1 9 9 8
and then worldwide meteorological orgs didn’t go back and correct their numbers to what he admitted the real global temperature is,
every
single
record
established
using those uncorrected records
is
fake.
Faked by the Head Faker in Charge who admitted Faking them so he could keep up the Fake Fiction about the Fake Physics.
2009: someone at England’s world climate data aggregation laboratory the Met Climate Research Unit or CRU, released a thousand emails of government employees on multiple continents, scamming weather data in order to steer worldwide energy markets and environmental politics. Out of the emails PHIL JONES: SCAMMER in CHIEF: seen saying in 2005:
”The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world cooled since 1998.
Ok it has but it’s
only seven years of data
and it
isn’t statistically significant.”
Look around – what is the data set that says that – that since 1998 it hasn’t warmed, and that in fact there’s been some cooling?
The climate data posted raw online by law. Why? To stop data fraud.
Fast Forward Oct or so 2009.
There’s Jones: ”Some reporter said it stopped warming in 1998. We probably should do to him what we did to the other one.”
There’s Mann: ”YOU issue a press release saying you read it and it isn’t true.” Then ”YOU issue a press release later in the day saying the same thing.” Then ”And YOU release one a little later on and you guys make sure none of this looks like it’s being coordinated.”
Look at the names on the email. James Hansen Head of Goddard Institute. Mann at a University. Trenberth at another University. Jones working at the world data collection center in London. Look at the list of names of people seeing them saying ”Where is the warming? We haven’t seen any.”
Look when Jones simply throws out there *precisely as he did in 2005 when he knew there would be z e r o argument it hadn’t warmed*
Not
One
Soul said a
Single
Word about a
Single doubt in their Government Employee Data Scamming minds, they knew exactly what that referred to.
The temperature reflected by the data placed raw online by law to stop THEM from committing data ADJUSTMENT FRAUD.
Fast Forward 2 0 1 0
Three months after someone in the laboratory got disgusted and Snowden’d them,
There’s Jones: admitting to the BBC in exchange for not going to jail what the real global temperature is.
He lost his job, but he didn’t go to jail.
BBC: ”Isn’t it true that it hasn’t warmed since 1 9 9 8 and that in fact there’s been some slight cooling?”
Jones: ”I have done the math and find it has not warmed since 1 9 9 8 and in fact there has been some slight, not statistically significant, COOLING.”
Go look at the raw data placed online by law in 2010. What is the temperature it reflects? It reflects that
IT STOPPED WARMING in 1998 and that in fact there has been some SLIGHT but NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT, COOLING.
Did worldwide meteorological organizations go back and correct that data? No?
That means every word published by those people regarding the temperature of the globe is FAKE.
It is FAKE data
when the man in CHARGE of the faking,
admits to international media, he has been FAKING the warming for TWELVE count them, YEARS.
The atmosphere is NOT a HEATER. There is no heating component to a frigid fluid self refrigerated bath.
The atmosphere creates 3 separately defined, uniquely described and named modes of energy REDUCTION to the planet.
Two of those modes are created almost entirely by the very gases claimed to be participating in heating the planet.
The first mode of energy reduction named and described in thermodynamics is ‘diffaction loss’ where 20% energy to the planet is lost. The Green House Gases create this energy loss almost SOLELY.
The addition of gases creating two modes of cooling for the globe constitutes addition of COOLANT.
The addition of gases raising the percentage energy lost to planetary surface to 21% rather than 20%, is additional diffraction loss known as COOLING.
There is no uniquely described and defined mode of energy gain to the surface of the planet, created by the frigid refrigerated bath which is cooling the planet.
When the atmosphere stops 5% energy arriving through diffraction that is COOLING.
When the atmosphere stops 10% energy arriving through diffraction that is COOLING.
When the atmosphere stops 15% energy arriving through diffraction that is COOLING.
When the atmosphere stops 20% energy arriving through diffraction that is COOLING.
*When the atmosphere stops 21% energy arriving through Green House Gas Diffraction, THAT is COOLING.
The atmosphere can not function as a heater. The atmosphere creates, 3 uniquely described, separately named modes of COOLING.
They are
diffraction
conduction
convection.
11
Your contribution here, Abe should be posted regularly on Social Media, but I’ve reached a conclusion that the majority who populate Facebook, Twitter etc are brain dead nincompoops who won’t bother to read or can’t read it !
01
When more of the substance creating the mode of cooling of the earth named diffraction loss, is added to the atmosphere, such that instead of 20% loss there is 21% loss of energy to the surface
this is amplification of diffraction loss. Energy loss, is cooling.
The atmosphere is not a heating device: The green house gases whose very existence creates the modes of cooling known as diffraction loss and convection loss, are not the core of a magical heater,
no matter how many Stefan-Boltzmann massage therapists try to make the three uniquely described, defined and separately named modes of energy
LOSS
into a magical heater in the sky.
Now the real thermodynamicists of this world told the people of the planet, there is never: Not Once Not Ever – going to be identified, a mode of heating
created by the frigid fluid bath the globe is immersed in, being
shaded (diffraction loss of 20% energy)
scrubbed (conduction loss involving all atmospheric species, Green House Gas Water leads the pack in cooling per molecule)
refrigerated (convection loss most notably recalled due to phase change refrigeration performed by Green House Gas species Water)
When the last Magic Gasser drops dead,
the frigid fluid bath refrigerating and shading the planet will STILL not be a heater because you all agreed it has to be one.
You will not add more substance creating 20% diffraction mode cooling,
and magically create warming.
10
All your journalistic hopes and dreams combined with all the fake physics from Academics who are afraid for their jobs,
will not make addition of more
of the substances creating 20% diffraction LOSS of energy to the rotating sphere of the earth,
magically into heating.
Sufficient gas to block 5% energy to the globe creates diffraction cooling.
Sufficient gas to block 10% amplifies the cooling another 5%.
Sufficient gas to block 15% energy in, amplifies the cooling another 5%.
Sufficient gas to block 19% energy in amplifies the cooling.
Sufficient gas to block 20% energy in as conditions are currently is more COOLING than 19% loss.
Sufficient gas to block 21% shall result in another percent COOLING.
No matter how many ____________________ (name some hicks) say so.
End of their bull shoot.
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