JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
There are a vast number of areas that WILL be having problems due to either bankrupt companies or technology getting too old and we don’t have much technology to contain these problems.
http://thephaser.com/2016/03/new-plague-like-super-virus-linked-to-fracking/
And three nuclear plants are leaking. We have no idea what is happening in these place until a crisis occurs.
Also many nuclear weapons at over 50 years old or getting there too.
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I take my cars to their mechanic on a regular basis to prevent them from breaking down unexpectedly. I have yet to be stranded along the side of the road in all the many years I’ve been driving. A suddenly dead battery while sitting overnight in my garage is the only thing that’s ever stopped me from starting the car and going wherever I please.
What is the matter with us that no one thought far enough ahead to consider the same problem with our infrastructure and our weapon systems? Both are far more critical to us than our automobiles.
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Preventative maintenance is essential. Thanks to the Second law of thermodynamics all things break down over time without an directed intelligent agent or force.
40
Or as we used to say about farm machinery which can be quite make / colour orientated in many farmer’s cheque book thinking.
It doesn’t matter what colour it is.
If it shakes, rattles and rolls it will break.
40
Oh no – PANIC!!!
Or not Joe Lalonde.
The scary video about fracking is a joke right?
As for its report of a super virus (H6N6) from fracking that’s pure laughable hokum!
Typical scare stories exist on people’s ignorance — so go on Joe find out what H6N6 is, find out how infective it is, find out how well it spreads across species, etc.. Oh and please find out from science journals – not these crass, ill-informed, anti-science, anti-progress videos.
I wager here and now, $10 to the charity of your choosing, that none of your quoted items turns into a national or international crisis.
They are local difficulties that normal engineering effort should solve. If it does not get fixed, find out what the local regulations are, find out if they are being complied with, if they’re adequate, then take your technical evidence to the regulatory authority, and the local/regional government representative. Hound them till it’s fixed or they are made accountable but remember if you have no technical evidence you have nothing but baseless scare stories.
As for your assertion —
“There are a vast number of areas that WILL be having problems due to either bankrupt companies or technology getting too old and we don’t have much technology to contain these problems.”
I have always worked in industrial repairs (more than 45 years), so from experience you are 100% wrong. Not only that but you are utterly insulting to all those working in industrial engineering, maintenance, and repair.
So Joe, crawl back under your stone while design engineers, and safety engineering specialists design-in fail-safe systems, propose new safety systems and regulation. They assess new or reassess old systems, qualifying them against known standards and regulations, annotating probable weakness, and highlight preferred maintenance regimes and procedures.
And then consider the vast armies of engineers, technicians, and repair professionals quietly carrying out routine periodic maintenance inspections, repairs, and re-qualifications; or others that are employed to safely decommission industrial plant — all done so that hypothetical disasters are avoided, or at a minimum well contained.
Or maybe Joe we should all give it up now and regress back to surviving on zero technology, living a shorter more brutal lives.
220
How many different varieties of wolf (H6N6) have there been so far ?
50
AndyG55
H6N6 is the quoted type from the link.
As for you question of the number of varieties of H6N6, I don’t know but here is a useful reference —
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034528813002129
From this it is evident that there are many varieties, as is the nature of flu virii.
The Joe Lalonde ‘thephaser.com’ link above has a video of dubious value/quality, containing as it does, attempts at subliminal messaging through flash(single or 2 frame) cartoon images and text. Accompanied by a poorly mixed sound track complete with ‘Dies Irae’ type descending chords reminiscent of the 1960s horror film style. I can understand that those who are easily suggestible are influenced by this video but really it is just empty BS.
60
How many times has H6N6 been cried as wolf — who cares, I bat it down every time I see it.
40
Well, it starts at H1N1, then H1N2, then H2N2 etc etc, so they’ve got plenty of scares left!
30
How many of who you talk of have been laid off or outsourced?
How many companies ONLY CARE about profits over all else?
These are valid concerns that will be destroying many communities as their is less and less funding in all levels.
Or, do you have a magic wand that the Federal Reserve have been waving for the last decade that has not worked?
29
The linked video is typical scary baloney! It does your argument no good to use it.
Cite specifics. Who? what? when? where? Without specifics you are just blowing smoke – you are acting as a scaremonger with no credible evidence.
Show all of us “How many companies ONLY CARE about profits over all else?”. As a percentage of all companies?
Or is that all you got — sweeping generalizations with no hard facts. More imagined terror…
110
Joe Lalonde,
Nothing new!
After the American Civil War the nation slowly took artisan jobs away from the world when it took-up mass production, and progressively refined modern manufacturing methods. America then sold these manufactured goods, at low prices, to those same nations whose artisans American know-how had impoverished.
Look-up who built the American railroads, dams, or major highways. Started local, then brought in European immigrants, then Chinese immigrants and others. Real outsourcing, on a huge scale.
During the 1940-1960 rich America bought-up and bough-in to industries all across Europe and the Far East. Effectively America resourced European/Japanese (outsourced) workers, while making a fat profit on the way.
During the 1960 till mid-1980s Japan did similar, refining production methods while using the cheap local labor … And so it goes round, China is having a crack at it now.
Look and learn.
What happened to those at the blunt end of those changes, what happened to their communities. Did they learn to adapt or did they perish?
50
Just think what’s going to happen when 3D printing really becomes mainstream in an industrial sense. I wonder if latter day Luddites will suddenly emerge?
50
Joe – leave your truth-seeking global warming and socialism pals for a short time, take a bus ride across a few states (or whatever the equivalent is where you’re from), talk to farmers, builders, engineers. Don’t access the internet for the entire time, and only watch the early am news for weather forecasts, so you know if a raincoat is needed. Don’t talk about anything gloomy doomy. Ask how folks are doing, say hello, nice day.
I am fairly certain that, if you do this, you will see there is no reason to panic about AGW, bank collapses or any other impending ethereal doom. You might, however, get mugged, sunburned, stung by assorted insects, or enlightened.
10
how many companies ONLY CARE about profits? 6,572,319. now try the cartel of companies called TPP:
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/03/is-this-australias-future-under-the-tpp/
00
Don’t forget April the first is heading our way.
A super virus that no one understand linked to Fracking could pull a lot of legs.
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Don’t forget that April the first is coming our way.
A super virus linked to fracking could pull a lot of legs.
30
You can say that again!…..oh, you did….
50
Is Lalonde french for” the sky is falling?”
30
Something called the “Green Climate Fund”, has been set up by the Pacific Islands Forum.
The money is to be used to help Pacific Nations get “Readiness Support” for climate change. The first recipient country is the Cook Islands.
The Secretary General of the fund, Dame Meg Taylor, is quoted as saying that, “… the money will help strengthen the Cook Islands’ capacity to effectively engage with the Fund”.
It would seem that the sole purpose of the “Readiness Support Fund” is to “build capacity” for Pacific Island nations to gain access to more climate change funding from the “Green Climate Fund”.
Presumably, the money from the “Green Climate Fund” is to be used to sponsor lobbists at various international fora? Unless, of course, the Islanders are expected to throw the money into the sea, to appease the climate gods.
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No matter what those islanders do with the money it sounds like wasted — wasted time, wasted effort and wasted money. 🙁
230
And how much does Dame Meg Taylor get? Which Pacific Island does he come from?
70
Fantasy Island “Look boss, de funds de funds!”
100
From her bio;
http://im4dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Meg-Taylor-Bio.pdf
Dame Meg Taylor DBE
Vice President and CAO
Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, World Bank Group
Meg Taylor, a national of Papua New Guinea,
received her LL. B from Melbourne University,
Australia and her LL.M from Harvard University,
USA.
She practiced law in Papua New Guinea and served as a member of the Law Reform
Commission. Meg was Ambassador of Papua New Guinea to the United States, Mexico and
Canada in Washington, DC from 1989-94.
She is co-founder of Conservation Melanesia and has served on the boards of international
conservation and research organizations. In addition, she has served as a board member of
a number of companies in Papua New Guinea in the natural resources, financial, and
agricultural sectors, and on the boards of companies listed on the Australian Securities
Exchange.
Meg Taylor was appointed to the post of Vice President and CAO of the World Bank Group
in 1999, following a selection process led by civil society, industry, and academia.
00
What they need the funds for is to create airports and resorts to house the 2038 Climate Conferences.
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Do the Cook Islands have enough space for 10,000 private jets ?
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Hey red thumbs..
Don’t you think the Cook Islands should have a chance to host a climate conference?
That’s pretty unfair. !
51
Rereke is correct, this is money allocated to go after the real money.
‘Wright-Koteka said the aim was to identify within the next 12 months projects that qualified to access money from the GCF.’
Strongly suggest cyclone shelters in every village.
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Most Pacific islands are coral attols. They will sink. The inhabitants should move, living there is as stupid as building in a flood zone. Nothing to do with “climate change”. The other reason these islands are claimed to be sinking is that buildings are built on US WW2 airstrips which were built with soil and rock shipped in from Queensland. Reclaimed land is not fundamentally stable and is now washing away.
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Coral atolls generally GROW, not sink ! 🙂
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Yes, but sometimes coral growth doesn’t keep up with natural sea level rises and also the land of many of those islands is poorly managed with extensive erosion.
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Coral atolls do keep up with natural SL rise. Geologists will tell you this. I have studied Miocene carbonate build-ups including pinnacle reefs (atolls) and termination of carbonate build-ups normally results from siliciclastic input resulting from significant eustatic SL fall not rise. In response to this SL fall the reefs initially back step but eventually they get overwhelmed by the persistent siliciclastic input. Of course you won’t read about this in the MSM only about non-existent catastrophic SL rise predicted by GIGO computer modelling.
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So called fragile corals atolls usually can keep growing as fast or faster than sea-levels can rise. Corals even regrows quite normally in Bikini atoll group despite parts of it being vaporized by nuclear explosion.
Corals are however quite fragile against man’s overpopulation of those Pacific and South Sea atolls (http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/pacificislands/overview), and all the human effluents and pollution that these populations inflict on the islands.
By far the only major problem on these islands is the large human populations growths, these are unsustainable at the current rates either economically or ecologically. They are the few places on the planet where mandatory population controls would be very effective. Maybe the UN could consider it, and not keep donating our money to these over-expanded populations.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPACIFICISLANDS/Resources/Chapter+1.pdf
10
Andy are you saying corals don’t sink atoll?……
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Will Pacific Island Nations Disappear as Seas Rise? Maybe Not
Reef islands can grow and change shape as sediments shift, studies show.
Ref; Paul Kench
University of Auckland
Pacific Island research publications and abstracts
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Yonniestone – it looks like you are trying to get a ‘rise’ out of people, or perhaps just gauging the current of unthreaded humour…?!!
20
A Japanese organisation drilled an almost vertical hole down through the coral of an atoll, looking for the thickness of the coral as it had grown up from the volcanic base (that’s what these islands are – volcanoes rooted on the deep sea bed with coral rings at the depths corals grow as the volcanoes grew)
The drillhole went down in coral for almost 1km before finding the volcanic rock base. Coral levels vary up and down according to sea levels. The main reasons a coral colony may not survive natural events are if the volcano erupts again or if a quake splits the island (French nuclear testing, too). Current sea level rises of about 1mm/decade do not threaten the existing coral colonies
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All this talk of atoll damage makes me think it’s a nothing but a bunfight at the O.K. Coral.
(sorry)
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Don’t apologise – that was very good.
10
The damage has definitely taken atoll.
20
Mike & James Murphy you both should perform at the Comedy Cellar in Manhattan, you know where Seinfeld perfected his craft. You both clearly have some good skeptic “Climate Change” material at your disposal. It all looks O.K. from this end and if it is atoll possible we Jo Novarites would love to see you both perform in NY – the audiences there no doubt would appreciate some avant-garde material.
00
Stop Press:
The New Zealand Government is now being called upon to “lead the charge to ensure that all Pacific Island nations can easy access this [the Green Climate Fund] support, and strengthen their climate capacity.”
This is serious stuff. $US6.8bn is up for grabs.
You can buy a lot of climate capacity for that kind of money. Perhaps if they doubled the amount, they could get sufficient capacity for two climates.
Wouldn’t that be great …?
10
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/11/one-of-the-very-first-global-warming-films-the-greenhouse-conspiracy/
Of course, if that program ran with that title today, the incompetent and serially abusive Stephan Lewandowsky and his collection of SkS bots would be all over it with “Moon Landing denier” accusations.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9j54rWnmeo&ab_channel=RathnakumarS
1990 Global Warming Debunked Video
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That was well worth watching.
30
I also watch this video of Svensmark – this guy has nailed global warming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI-KCN4p0Cw&feature=youtu.be
00
See 12.37 on video where the person is clearly stressed and this indicates that they may be lying
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If you are referring to Tom Wigley, University of East Anglia, then I would have to agree!
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Dr Roy Spencer has had to suspend comments on his blog due to the constant bombardment by a dogmatist who (according to Dr Spencer) seems to completely ignores both simple science and other perspectives.
This is part of the pattern of degeneration. First it was proclaiming the opinions of the worlds leading experts in the field. Donna La Framboise has shown how that does not apply.
Then it was name-calling, along with proclaiming that a meaningless consensus, with the likes of John Cook now leading the way.
Then it was calling opponents conspiracy theorists errant free-market views [Hard to figure out your meaning here. Perhaps you can elaborate.] AZ – The Lewandowsky approach
Even this fails. So now they resort to never recognizing that sensible folks have anything useful to say, or that they are ever wrong. An example of this is the latest draft from the Lewandowsky/Cook/Oreskes/ franchise. This is a rebuttal of Prof. Richard Tol’s rebuttal of Cook et al (2013). This paper consisted of establishing the consensus on global warming from divining the opinion from the abstracts of published papers.
If there was a true expert scientific consensus on global warming there would be no need to state this. The true experts would willing let the expert arguments be compared with non-expert counter-arguments on the same basis. They should win hands down.
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My reading of the Cook et al paper was that over 60% of the people who published on climate did not express any opinion on man made global warming. Of those who did, a mere 3-4% argued against man made global warming, thus the 97%. This is a startling result for all the wrong reasons.
The real numeric conclusion was that only 36% of people writing on Climate science agreed. Cook even goes so far as to argue that the 60% who say nothing clearly agree or they would not be writing on the subject but that he is kind enough not to count them as positives. The absurdity is for anyone to then claim this survey means 97% of all scientists agree. It is only 1/3 of a very specific group established without actually asking any questions.
We all know what happens to Climate Scientists who dare disagree. Like Murry Selby, they instantly lose their jobs. The survey proves only that people who make a living as Climate Scientists are too scared to speak out. This should be a scandal, not affirmation. How many people in the Politburo liked Josef Stalin. 97%. This would be fixed immediately by the NKVD. It paid to clap enthusiastically and not be the first to stop.
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From memory (not that reliable) papers from Soon and Idso were categorised as not having an opinion either way.
11
The well-known Doug Cotton …
He really does have a psychiatric issue or three
30
Or four or five….
20
You cover a lot of ground their Kevin!
Is Roy Spencer to be included amongst the untr*thful warmistas for closing all his comments?
I think that is unfortunate because it closes one more portal for Free Speech.
Roy’s first attempt was to ban any comments by anyone called D*ug! DC came back immediately with a comment under the nom de plume of RoysPhysicsTutor. LOL! Unfortunately Roy has now deleted his whole blog post (in the last 24 hours).
DC has a view which he is desperate to communicate but he keeps getting banned. Roy thinks it is false science and feels that he has to answer all questions arising from the DC comments just in case new readers SHOULD GET THE WRONG IDEA. That got too much for Roy so he shut down all comments.
I think that Roy should be more broad minded and allow DC’s comments. New readers should figure out for themselves if DC has anything useful to say.
41
Indeed.
New readers have at least 4 years’ worth of Doug’s old blog comments scattered around the web which they can find if they Google his various aliases. Even people sympathetic to the slayer cause were already describing Doug as “the most banned climate science blogger for endlessly and tirelessly repeating himself” as early as December 2012.
When Dr Spencer banned Doug last week, it was all down to Doug and no blame at all to Dr Spencer who has put up with far more repetitious nonsense than anyone should have to bear.
Under no circumstances should anyone be beguiled into believing that Doug Cotton was specifically ignored, maliciously shut down, or unfairly prevented from participating in climate science debate. The historic record on that is quite clear. At least 4 years’ worth, which anyone can check.
The more interesting issues are… What general rule can one extract from the Cottonfail phenomenon regarding what behaviour qualifies as genuine debate in search of an objective truth? How long should someone be permitted to deviate from that rule before banning is the best option? And how many JN regulars would be banned instantly if that rule was applied here uniformly?
30
I can see why Roy banned Doug. I mean, he was using every thread as a platform to promote his theory and Roy put up for it for quite some time. When one person is derailing every thread and using it to promote their theory, I think the blog-owner has every right to ban them. I think Roy warned Doug a couple of times, but to no avail. I don’t agree that the comments should be switched off though. Let the people viewing the thread decide, as you said. YouTube has a good system whereby people can flag comments as spam and if they get more than three flags those comments are automactially hidden from public view. It’s an easy solution and better than turning off the comments.
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When participating in blog discussion I have always taken the attitude that we are but “Guests” of the blog’s owner.
We don’t even have to pay for the privilege of being allowed to air our thoughts and opinions and are even allowed to create dissension provided it is polite, with other blog Guests over a whole variety of subjects.
But like Guests everywhere we commenters also are required to respect the “Rules of the House” which are sometimes written down, sometimes just understood as responsible behaviour and a respect for other guests, as laid down or expected by our blog Host / Hostess.
Anybody, any commenter, any Guest who at every possible occasion gets up on a high chair and attempts to shout down other Guests and force them to listen to his own cack handed beliefs, the prime example here being Doug cotton who really does seem from his continuing performances on a number of blogs, to have regularly shown he does a serious psychiatric problem, can and should be thrown out on their ear, ie; banned by the blog Host /Hostess.
As a blog Guest one should ever ever, metaphorically speaking, piss on the Blog Host’s carpet.
More so when the same Guest has done it more than once, has been warned and just keeps right on doing it in the belief he / she in their ignorance and arrogance has a right to continue to do so mostly because they are too ignorant to understand that they are but “guests” who are permitted to comment at the whim of the Owner of that blog.
My knowledge levels on the ownership and running of a blog are non existent but I gather that running a blog involving skeptical climate science or politics or maybe religion or a controversy orientated blog involves dealing with a vast array of fanatics of every level and order plus dealing with and eliminating highly vilifying and vituperative language towards those and from those who openly differ from another commenter’s beliefs and ideology.
Those blog Hosts and Hostesses who have persevered for a many years long period with the running of blogs that promote the skeptical questioning of the hard line climate catastrophe ideology and / or deal with the controversial aspects of politics and human relationships and other controversial subjects of which there is a whole chorus line, have my respect for their perseverance and ability to just continue on regardless of the vilifying they invariably receive from those who refuse to accept ANY other belief or explanation other than the one they themselves are fanatically fixated on.
[Excellent observations ROM.] ED
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Learn what is true in order to do what is right. Thomas Huxley Truth, Learn, True The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. ………Thomas Henry Huxley
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_huxley.html
As a blog Guest one should ever ever, metaphorically speaking, piss on the Blog Host’s carpet
………… ROM
20
I think he meant Never Ever.
10
‘National records were smashed in the scorching start to March, as the driest January-February in parts of northern Australia for half a century led to an unusual build-up of heat, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
‘In a special climate statement on the heatwave that is yet to ebb in parts of south-eastern Australia, the bureau said the first three days of the month were each warmer than any previous March day, based on area-averaged temperatures across the nation.’
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/scorching-start-to-autumn-smashed-national-heat-records-bureau-of-meteorology-says-20160312-gnha5q.html#ixzz42iyJS5IB
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
——-
Its only weather but has all the feel of a regional cooling signal.
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UAH Australia time century to Feb 2016 (avoiding BOM past-cooling adjustments)
http://s19.postimg.org/m4jm9tfeb/Aust_Feb2016.png
Parts of northern Australia are very often dry and hot.
Its called WEATHER. !!
52
Hannam didn’t have much to say on the dryness in northern Australia, back to the 1960s during a cooling regime.
22
Following up on all this, BoM makes a correct seasonal forecast with a new tool.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-26/new-online-tool-predicts-late-start-to-wet-season/6575208
The prediction was made in June last year, so credit to them.
30
Weather reporting is becoming like the cricket, people pulling records from nothing, especially heat records which are always smashed. The hottest first three March days in a specific area in fifty years! Run.
If in Melbourne we had one of the coolest summers in living memory and no heat waves at all, it is not newsworthy because it does not fit the theme which funds the BOM and the CSIRO. Where is our promised Angry Summer? Only Warming gets the BOM/CSIRO/ABC excited.
40
All you say is true, but I’ve moved on in search of a tipping point. Its crunch time.
30
A tipping point is the point at which positive feedback starts. More CO2 so more warming so more CO2 until armageddon. Why anyone thought we were at a tipping point is beyond me. It was never explained, a meaningless scare. What has been observed is a stationary point, where more CO2 produces no warming at all. This not only destroys the man made warming model, it makes a joke of the tipping point. It must be getting harder and harder to argue, so the profiteers of doom are just going for the case proven logic, having proven the exact opposite.
In fact the 350 CSIRO Climate scientists are now going to tell us how to cope with our terrible climate change. That’s a huge amount of money for nothing at all. How did they go with the last big problem they solved, a 5,000 man public service science research company working flat out to solve your problems. Really? What a disgrace. Perhaps we should hire oompa loompahs. At least they can sing and make chocolate.
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A global cooling tipping point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhB-xgtCNoY
Do you think it will get warmer, cooler or remain the same?
30
In the 1970s everyone was predicting a new ice age. Their logic was better. It is due.
20
‘It is due.’
Yes but why now?
00
A downward trend of 0.3 in the next few years is all we need to claim victory over the Klimatariat and their warmist minions.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/611111/Former-government-expert-disproves-climate-change-and-says-world-will-soon-cool-down?_ga=1.23444026.1456689065.1448868131
I’m preparing for the political and social upheaval which is bound to follow.
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An example of Climate Alarmism Reasoning–an ironclad proof that CAGW is real.
Yesterday I played 18 holes of golf and shot 90. Ignoring the 18 shots that ended up in holes on the greens, each of my 72 other shots ended up somewhere on the golf course. I asked myself: “Without CAGW, what would be the probability that I could play another 18 holes on the same course, shoot 90, and get each of the 72 non-holed shots to land within one inch of where they landed for the round I just played?” I failed in generating the actual probability, but if each shot had a probability as high as one in ten (a probability much too large) of landing within one inch of where it actually landed, then the probability of my playing the round of golf I just completed had to be smaller than 10^-72, which for all practical purposes is zero. I concluded that in the absence of CAGW the probability that I would make the 72 shots I actually made was for all intents and purposes zero; and therefore, CAGW has to be real.
20
Nice analogy with cricket. Nobody will base their comparison of batsmen on averages that differ by a few runs. Apart from differences in pitches, bats, professionalism and athleticism of bowlers, one lucky or unlucky break can make a difference of a few runs. These heat waves are the result of weather patterns that are not well understood and our temperature record is short with constant changes to the position of the station and things around it.
Bourke had 4 days in a row between 39.4 and 41.1 in early April in 1886, in a 12 day period that from the end of March that had 4 days over 40, compared to once in the 12 first days of March this year.
10
Joe Lalonde is correct , but you all don’t seem to get it , you have to wake up, your being had big time
44
doubtingdave
If you mean by the evidence of Joe Lalonde’s linked video then no! It is pure hokum.
If however you think we are being had big time then I agree, and we are all funding it.
Most Western governments have bought into the AGW/CC propagated by UN-IPCC. And there is the ringleader, the UN, unaccountable and unrepresentative — getting your government to reduce your freedoms by treaties and international regulations/agreements that then over-ride and/or change domestic legislation while your nation also funds the UN from your taxes. Changes that occur with too little press/media coverage for the average Jane or Joe to ever know what is happening.
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“What an incredible nation we have that the son of a bartender [Marco Rubio], and the son of a mailman [John Kasich], and the son of a dishwasher [Cruz] and a successful businessman can all stand on this stage competing and asking for your support.”
Ted Cruz
80
I don’t really see how these examples make it an ‘incredible nation’. Don’t all half-decent parents want their children to do ‘better’ than they did…?
What am I missing?
21
In communist China its unlikely that a person without family background in politics could rise to become leader of the nation.
00
The Curious Case of the Missing Temperature Response
Over the past two weekends I have remarked on the apparent absence of a warming and cooling of average global temperature in response to the elliptical orbit of the Earth about the Sun.
The orbit of the Earth about the sun is slightly elliptical with a nearest distance (perihelion) of 147.1 million kilometres and a furthest distance (aphelion) of 152.1 million kilometres. Perihelion occurs in January and aphelion in July each year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perihelion_and_aphelion
Solar radiation, spreading out equally in all directions should obey the inverse square law. Consequently the Earth receives more solar energy at perihelion in January than it does in July (aphelion). I expected that this might show up in the global temperature record as a regular variation with a period of one year.
Of course, for any individual measuring point on Earth there is an annual temperature variation due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis (the seasons). However taking the Earth as a whole this should balance out since the summer in the northern hemisphere occurs at the same time as winter in the southern hemisphere.
None of the global temperature data sets seem to show any regular annual variation.
How much might the global temperature be expected to change over the course of a year, due to the elliptical orbit?
To put a figure on it I have adopted the mathematics used by Christopher Monckton .
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/28/sense-and-sensitivity-2/
Parameters:
Average solar irradiation (at Earth’s orbit) 1362W/m2,
Perihelion147.1 million km,
Aphelion152.1 million km,
Reflectivity of Earth0.3
Emmissivity of Earth1
Assumptions;
1. Solar output remains constant throughout the year,
2. Earth behaves as a black body for absorbtion and emission (allowing for reflectivity).
Calculation:
1. Average Earth distance from sun= (152.1+147.1)/2= 149.6 million km.
2. Solar irradiation at perihelion= 149.6^2/147.1^2*1362= 1409W/m2
3. Solar irradiation at aphelion= 152.1^2/129,6^2*1362=1318W/m2
4. Difference in solar irradiation between perihelion and aphelion= 1409-1318=91W/m2w
The Earth subtends a disc as seen from the sun (pi*r2), whereas the surface area of a sphere is 4pi*r2. Hence to obtain the average solar input over the whole surface of the Earth, divide by 4. 30% of the solar radiation is reflected hence multiply result by 0.7.
5. Average solar input (perihelion), Q= 1409/4*0.7=246W/m2
6. Average solar input (aphelion),Q =1318/4*0.7=231W/m2
Applying the Stephan-Bolzmann equation to obtain the Earth temperature (at the mean emission surface), Q=sigma T^4. Therefore T= 4th root(Q/sigma).
7. T (perihelion= 4th root(246/0.0000000567)= 256.6K
8 T (aphelion)=4th root(231/0.0000000567)= 252.6K
The net result is a massive 4K difference between the expected Earth temperature at perihelion and aphelion. Since this is not observed in the Earth temperature records there must be an error in the assumptions for the calculations.
Since the calculations are the same as those used to justify the Green House Gas Effect Theory I submit that the Green House Gas Effect Theory is also in error.
172
Interesting.
Comparing hemispheres is difficult, but it should show up comparing January to July temps anywhere around the equator.
30
To take it a little further, look here (https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Rainfall-Temperature-Sunshine,Quito,Ecuador) and check the annual patterns. Tmax falls in Jan and rises in July. Tmin does the opposite. Also see the hours of sunlight, and the rainfall.
Now Check this (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/) Mauna Loa data.
Your task, if you should choose to accept it, and waste some Sunday time, is to get your head around that lot.
Rationalise your prejudices.
20
The temperature variation should show up anywhere around the equator.
I am not so sure about that ghl. Many regions in the tropics have two distinct seasons, eg monsoon and dry season. I am looking for a global response. The global temperature data sets should show a very pronounced annual temperature variation but they do not. I would particularly expect something from the satellite measurements eg UAH, since they measure the temperature of the lower troposphere.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
It is still a mystery at this stage. Some how it seems that the Earth can shed an additional 90W/m2 during half the year yet it does not show up on any of the measurements, including satellite radiometers (as far as I know).
20
There is a misprint in equation 3. “3. Solar irradiation at aphelion= 152.1^2/129,6^2*1362=1318W/m2”
Should read; Solar irradiation at aphelion= 152.1^2/149.6^2*1362=1318W/m2
10
Interesting stuff. Could this have anything to do with the fact that the southern hemisphere has a lot more ocean? Water has a very high specific heat capacity and so it takes a lot more energy to see a temperature increase as opposed to the same amount of radiation on land. Also it has a very high latent heat of vaporization and so most of the absorbed radiation would be converted into the production of water vapour without raising the mean surface temperature at all. That could be one explanation as to why the extra 15 W/m2 does not show up in the data. 15 W/m2 does seem an awful lot though. You would think it should show up.
30
The anomalies are from a mean for the month so not only do seasons not show up but also the elliptical orbit.
While the orbit hasn’t changed significantly in recent times, ocean currents have and I do not expect to see the SST of the SH and NH follow each other as closely as they do for a century. The SH temps are inconsistent with recent research of proxies in Chile and raw temperatures in Aus that once showed cooling in the early 20th C while the north had warming. Apologies for not being able to find the links. Slow internet at the moment.
10
Re “Hottest Evers” and similar
“The physicist Richard Feynman used to make a joke about a posteriori conclusions – reasoning from known facts back to possible causes. “You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight,” he would say. “I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state what would be the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”
His point, of course, is that it is easy to make any banal situation seem extraordinary if you treat it as fateful”
Bill Bryson “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
70
Another Ian,
Alternatively in a banal situation some individuals with a narrow but very talented view within their subject can truly see how extraordinary some situations are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)
This mathematical genius could see the extraordinary in what other would see as mundane.
40
Oops the formatting has mash-up the equation…
It should read —
1729 = 1^3 + 12^3 = 9^3 + 10^3.
or
1729 = (1cubed) + (12cubed) = (9cubed) + (10cubed)
20
Why not just write
1729 = 1³ + 12³ = 9³ + 10³
20
AndyG55,
You’re right but I’m having a busy bad thumbs day!
10
Why not write (as you did).
Because I do not know how to do that on my computer keyboard! How did you do it?
10
I have long marvelled at the amazing coincidence of doorways always being precisely at the point in the room where I choose to enter or leave it, except for the odd occasions where windows have been used.
20
Re the “Standard Model” for particle physics
“Most particle physicists feel, as Leon Lederman remarked in a 1985 television documentary, that the Standard Model lacks elegance and simplicity. “It is too complicated. It has too many arbitary parameters” Lederman said. “We don’t really see the creator twiddling twenty knobs to set twenty parameters to create the universe as we know it”.
Bill Bryson “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
Thoughts for global circulation models too?
50
Another Ian,
Too true, but then again how are they to coherently link the passage of time, the invariance of the speed of light, gravity, and the particulate nature of matter to the size of the universe and what is on the ‘other-side’ of a black-hole?
20
The Media never took the skeptic’s side,
Being from the start, with governments allied.
Alarmists will avoid and truly hate,
To face the climate skeptics and debate.
The warmists model climatology,
By lucky numbers numerology.
Some scientists gain grants by bland intentions,
To seek discoveries and make inventions.
Let’s hope the zeal to prosecute ‘deniers’,
On warmists as with R.I.C.O. laws, backfires.
180
Good one Ruairi. Thank you.
40
Thanks Ruari,
I am enjoying the heroic couplets in ianmbic pentameter.
30
Nice, but I prefer the lilt of your limericks.
20
Robdel,
At limericks,I have tried my hand,
After hundreds, no further were planned,
While a limerick is nice,
The effort is twice,
What heroic couplets demand.
80
Sorry but too many on this site are not thinking straight, you vilify turnbull { and rightfully so } for being a Goldman Sachs owned man , yet because Ted Cruz speaks well on climate science you give him a free pass , despite the fact that he has borrowed money , hand over fist from Goldman Sachs for his campaign and even his wife is a high level manager at GS , what makes you think , with any confidence that Cruz , if he makes it to the White house is going to bite the hand that feeds him
101
DD:
Are you are relying on a politician to be consistent? Or are you assuming that GS won’t make another stuff-up requiring a “bail-out” which would politically impossible?
30
Perhaps you should check the attitude of Australian big banks on climate change. I think you will find they go along with the alarmist story. Cruz borrowed money from Goldman Sachs against his share portfolio (some reports say he borrowed half the value of his stocks) at a very good interest rate which may or may not have something to do with his wife being an employee. Thus Cruz is unlike Turnbull, who not only was an employee of Goldman Sachs but also is a true believer in anthropogenic climate change.
Cruz is about the only lawyer I know of who is intelligent enough to understand that alarmist climate science is based on fiddled data and a failure to understand the limitations, according to the science, of human emissions of CO2,in influencing global warming and hence climate change.
My guess is that most of the opposition to Cruz is because of his sound understanding of the inadequacy of the data used to back human caused climate change. Little is mentioned of his public promotion, in a Senate Committee, of satellite data versus faulty surface based data because it would be seen as promoting anthropogenic CC skepticism to the masses and the MSM would never do that.
So instead you will find he is attacked as an agent of theocracy or being inconsistent because he got a loan for his campaign from a banker (GS) that doesn’t share his skepticism.
However if you did a little deeper you will find opposition to his skepticism is the fundamental objection to Cruz. The other candidates, including Trump, are hopeless in their understanding of the basis for scientific skepticism or simply are not genuine skeptics.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/ted-cruz-takes-a-stand-against-science/419691/
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/10/ted_cruzs_junk_science_gop_candidate_denies_climate_change_while_citing_debunked_data_and_touting_his_inherited_math_skills/
31
Go The Donald – beholden to nobody!
70
The following link is mostly about Ted Cruz’father. But does the apple fall far from the tree?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/14/does-ted-cruz-think-he-s-the-messiah.html
21
Howie my contention is that Cruz is the only candidate who understands or at least is willing to publically expose the scam of human caused climate change on scientific grounds.
You seem to have a bit of a thing against evangelicals who turned you into an atheist and want to take it out on Cruz. Dominionism is certainly the antithesis of historic evangelicalism (the term was first used as an insult thrown at Wycliffe and the Lollards by the Church of Rome against those first British Reformers). The evangel simply means the New Testament gospel. Evangelicalism thus is essentially, from a reading of the gospels and NT, opposed to the concepts of Dominionism. Read the NT for yourself.
As far as looking at Cruz on other issues I would first be looking at his record as an Attorney in Texas and as a Senator.
From the following conservative site it would seem he is doing his job without recourse to any strange religious principles:
https://www.conservativereview.com/members/ted-cruz/
That said my only interest in Cruz is that he is on the wavelength of most ACC skeptics. That’s all that interests me at this time. My view is that Trump is a complete and utter idiot who seems to draw the moron class to his semi religious “meetings”. There is little doubt now that he is promoting physical violence.
If you are ignorant on the history of Evangelicalism here’s the bit that destroys the claims of Dominionism:
The Lollards were followers of John Wycliffe, the Oxford University theologian and Christian Reformer who translated the Bible into vernacular English. The Lollards had profound disagreements with the Catholic Church. They were critical of the Pope and the hierarchical structure of Church authority.
42
Does that make me a Lollard? Could be except that I am also wary of Evangelicals.
Thanks for the reference
10
Doms seem nice and relatively harmless crackpots, his dad’s zeal is not unlike some [snip] clerics.
[]ED
10
Apologies mod.
10
Tasmania’s Electricity Crisis
Since the damage to the BassLink cable connecting the island to national energy grid it has been reliant on its own generation. At that time in mid Dec. 2015 the lake levels were at 22.4% capacity; they are now at 15.5. % capacity.
As well as re-commissioning the Tamar valley gas turbine power station Hydro Tasmania is in the process of installing 200MW of diesel generators at various hydro stations. It also has concluded deals with the three major industries, Bell Bay Aluminium, Temco and the Boyer paper mill, to reduce their energy demand somewhat.
So essentially Hydro Tasmania’s decision of selling too much of its hydro energy on the national market and keeping its dam levels at record low levels is now affecting all the Tasmanian economy.
120
And why were they selling so much? Incompetence or pressure for higher dividends to help the Government ?
Certainly you would think that it would be prudent to go into late spring/summer with high dam levels because the expected rainfall in the next 4-5 months would be low. Or did they consult Tim Flannery and were advised that Climate Change meant they would get lots of rain in summer?
71
Bingo !
50
Send more GST.
20
Tasmania – The Welfare State.
10
;
Tasmania – The “Green” Welfare State!
Is there any other when the Green cult is involved?
20
G’day ROM,
I reckon South Australia qualifies. Its Basslink equivalent is also connecting to Victoria, but any failure of it should be capable of more rapid identification and repair than Tassies, as it is at least across land.
Meanwhile they’ve closed a coal mine and power station, and a steel works and a brickworks are under threat.
Cheers
Dave B
10
Tasmania – The State Of Anxiety
20
Is there any news yet on what actually happened to the Bass link cable?
20
Yes. It broke……
10
I had read on ‘our ABC’ that the fault has been located 89km from shore… but not what caused the fault.
Apparently Basslink carries “some power”… that’s quality journalism right there…
20
Actually if you read HT”s announcements, (Bottom of Hydro lake Levels) on the 9th. March they are talking about Phase 2 of their energy security task force if BassLink were to remain out over next Summer. Doesn’t show much confidence does it? The collary is when you run out of hydro, diesel is next best.
10
El gordo at #36 has provided a link to a fascinating graph which gives a hint of possible cause, but I’ve not seen anything else so far.
One report says they’ve cut the cable near the fault.
Cheers,
Dave B
10
yes, it seems they do not know what or where the fault is.
The have cut the cable themselves, and will likely cut it into a number of segments before they isolate the fault.
I suspect that it will turn out to be cheaper in the end to lay a new cable. That should have been considered already.
20
The hottest ever campaign continues every evening television news broadcast ……. no acknowledgement at this time that warm weather is most often the March-April situation until around Easter, and as Easter this year is in March no doubt warm conditions will continue after Easter.
As a once regular visitor to Thredbo Village NSW every school holidays in July I have realise that that is usually the time when snow begins to fall, but it is not guaranteed to fall at that time.
52
Have you noticed that just lately the background pic to the weather forecast on the ABC 7pm “news” in Victoria is of dry, cracked mud around a dam. I thought the pics used to change daily?
Yes, I know, foolish of me to expect anything different on the ABC. I didn’t watch for ages; I think I’ll desist again before I’m tempted to put an axe through the screen.
52
Well, here in the Adelaide Hills many trees have well developed autumn leaves, and starting 2-3 weeks ago.
Perhaps the “world’s best scientists” need to give the trees a ring to find out what the trees know.
30
Karoly v England, surface air temperature
. . .
February 2016 the hottest month on record: climate scientist
“Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Melbourne, David Karoly, said the El Nino of 1997-98 was stronger than 2016, leading them to believe there are other reasons for the rise in heat.
“So the record temperatures are partly due to El Nino and partly due to long-term global warming.”
Professor Karoly, who is also a member of the Federal Government Climate Change Authority, said what they had seen for February 2016 was preliminary analysis of surface air temperature and comprehensive analysis of satellite-based temperature observations, showing February 2016 had set a new record for the hottest ever February and the hottest ever month in long-term observation.”
~ ~ ~
March 3, 2016:
“There’s an over-emphasis on the surface air temperature.” – Prof Matt England, of the University of New South Wales climate change research centre.
. . .
For the Record:
March 2, 2016, Michael Mann: “I’ve always consider the satellite record the least reliable of all instrumental temperature observations”
March 4, 2016:
Global surface temperature is the major yardstick used to track how we are changing the climate.
It is the average the UN Paris agreement refers to.
August 2014
The surface air temperature is projected to rise under all scenarios examined by the IPCC.
21
More quotes, same links:
“This is only the global average surface temperature and it’s only one measure of the climate system – and it’s a very fickle measure.” –
Prof Matt England.
Gavin Schmidt, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said, “That’s not to say the satellite measurements don’t provide some value, but it is an indication why the surface temperature data analyzed and reported by NASA, NOAA and others is viewed as the gold standard.”
. . .
Fickle Gold Standards?
41
BoM, Andrew B Watkins, twitters NASA Global Surface Air Temperatures:
“Crikey. February redraws the NASA global temperature graph – nothing like it ever observed”
10
Summary on Obamer
– 20 Trillion Dollar Debt with 30 just around the corner.
– Open Borders. Diseases running rampant we had cured decades ago.
– Criminal Aliens raping, robbing and murdering.
– Criminal Health insurance rates. Mine are over $500/month. Compare this with my $25/month car insurance from Insurance Panda…. Private enterprise is the way to go. Stay out of my health insurance, Obama!
– Endless Wars. Thousands Dead. Tens of Thousands maimed. For what?
– A hollowed out military. Women on the Front Lines.
– Worse Racial Relations in 60 years.
– A lawless Judiciary. A lawless Presidency.
– A Health Care System that no one wants, jammed down our throats.
– Common Core.
– Daily assaults on our Privacy, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights.
– A Country divided against itself.
This is why we need Donald J. Trump.
150
I know I’m always going on about the failures of renewable power, and it might even be becoming passe, but as long as I keep looking, new things always seem to be turning up, people here at this site keep mentioning it, and drawing my attention to things, so I always like to try and leave answers that can be understood (relatively) easier, so that the average person can see for themselves how we are being quite literally conned into the belief that renewables can be effective.
When visiting this site of Joanne’s, each morning I like to scroll back through at least three of the most recent Threads to see if there’s anything newly commented on. More often than not there is, and sometimes I reply to them. However, quite naturally, some of those comments don’t get seen, as readers here are have moved on, and are mainly concentrating on the most recent Thread, and that’s okay. I just leave the comment in reply, and move on.
It happened again during the week, and rather than reply to that old comment, I thought I’d leave it to the Weekend Unthreaded to bring it to your attention.
The original Comment (at this link) was to draw my attention to a new renewable power plant in the UK, (well, sort of renewable anyway) a plant which burns straw trash as its fuel source, and even though this actually does emit CO2 as part of the process, it’s considered renewable because it is in effect returning CO2 to the Atmosphere which was pulled out of the Atmosphere during the process of growing the crop that the straw comes from.
I replied to that original Comment, and then there ended up being a number of further nested comments there. One of those comments was a short one from Annie at 37.1.3.1 which said this
Before retiring for the night, I read Annie’s comment, and realised that I hadn’t actually thought about that point.
During the night as I slept, and my brain subliminally worked on things, the thought came to me that made me wonder if these types of renewable power plants are claiming the full CO2 reduction savings, or whatever, for the full amount of CO2 being sequestered from the Atmosphere during the growing of the crop itself, if you can see the point I’m trying to make here.
I would think that there are three parts to this crop, and here that’s any crop, because all they are using is the straw itself. Those three parts would be the hay, as Annie mentions which gets used as feed, the roots of the crop, left in the ground and then perhaps plowed over prior to the new crop being put in, and then the straw, the stems of the crop. So here we have three effective areas where sequestered CO2 is, umm, for want of a better word, residing in that crop.
So, this power plant is only consuming the straw.
I wonder if this plant is claiming the full CO2 reduction savings for the approximate amount of CO2 as a whole crop, because they can never really be 100% accurate as to the actual amount in total being sequestered from the Atmosphere.
Just another example of how these renewable plants play very loosely with (almost every aspect of) the truth in their claims to appear greener than green.
Makes you think eh!
Well, it made me think.
Tony.
120
Well I don’t really know but I would expect the answer is yes.
The renewable apologists will claim the whole of the carbon sequestation as a credit against the CO2 output resulting from burning the straw. Farmers can then claim the whole amount of the carbon sequestration against the roots which carbonise the soil. And we who eat the grain can also claim the whole amount of sequestration against our CO2 output from all human causes.
10
It’s called Hyper-Advanced Bistromathics. Plebs like us will never understand why it’s correct.
30
Well if they did they either lied or am just plain damn ignorant.
My inclination is for both !
Way back in the 1980’s or thereabouts, for reasons I have long forgotten, there was a period when questions were being asked as to how much energy was being used to grow a crop of grain ie; say wheat, compared to how much energy was actually available in the end products, the grain and residues of that crop.
A couple of groups in American Universities had a go at answering that question and their conclusions created a bit of a shock and the question disappeared forthwith.
They did a pretty thorough analysis on the energy used beginning with the mining and processing of the iron ores to make the farm machinery to grow that crop, the mining and processing of the fertilizers , the industrial processing of the oil, coal and gas based chemicals to prevent and slow down disease, insects, fungal attacks, weed control and etc and etc involved in successfully growing a crop today.
They took account of the transport costs in energy usage, the fuels used in growing and harvesting that crop, the transport of the harvested grain, the processing of the grain into its flour, starch, gluten, and then baking and processing of the breads and pastries and food fillers and starch for hundreds of everyday uses.
The conclusions being after all this analysis was done, not much in the way of “models” was used I think, just lots of brain power and careful assessments using the reams of data that abound if you look in the right places, they came up with the surprising conclusion that the amount of energy in a food crop about equals the amount of energy [ fossil fueled energy, a concept about which nobody bothered their heads about in those halcyon days. Real stupidity only arose with the Green blob going Watermelon like and losing total touch with reality. ] required to grow that crop when EVERYTHING from “Go to Whoa” is taken into account.
Despite todays considerably higher grain yields per hectare , I suspect a similar analysis today would provide a similar conclusion as the inputs into growing a crop have increased and there have been so many more parasites inserting themselves between the farmers / growers of the world’s food crops and the end consumers of those crops.
Few city dwellers have any conception of where the products they carefully buy in the super markets and in the little speciality stores or drink at the chic little fancy eateries or those speciality cuts of meat all begin as a farmers crop or his orchard or his vegie or berry patch [ 400 hectares / 1000 acres / 2 Kms X 2 Kms of strawberry plants is just one Chinese farmer’s little patch ] or his few thousands of hectares livestock business somewhere out in the World’s vast grain and pasture fields on every continent.
As the bumper sticker so ably says;
EVERYTHING BEGINS by being GROWN or MINED !
40
As I posted the other day below Annie’s comment linked above, it is doubtful that the burning of straw would be “carbon neutral” even at a simplistic level. The warmists use the CO2 in = CO2 out argument to justify the ridiculous policy of burning biomass fuels.
Even if they claim the whole wheat plant as a CO2 offset rather than just the straw, they can’t offset the diesel input.
As far as I am aware none of their calculations include any of the diesel burnt to sow, fertilise, spray, harvest, mow, rake, bale and cart the straw to the power station. You can’t bale the straw until you have taken the grain off. The whole process has to be costed together. If you generously allocate 3/4 of the diesel usage to the grain production side of the ledger, it still amounts to a huge release of diesel CO2 for the straw, given the area required to produce 240,000 tonnes of straw each year.
See my other post for area calculations based on official English production figures. A couple of my assumptions could be debated, but the core of the calculation is solid.
Biomass fuels are a dead loss. As I pointed out, straw is bulky and sparsely distributed. It requires a great deal of fossil energy to concentrate it into a useable fuel stock for the Brigg power station.
Brigg and Sleaford power stations are both in Lincolnshire and each is planning to use 240,000 tonnes of straw per year. That’s an awful lot of straw being dragged around one county and a hell of a draw-down on straw supplies in that region. I haven’t crunched any numbers, but I doubt the 50 mile straw supply-radius they are quoting would be enough to sustain them. Remember that almost 50% of the available straw already has to be used for livestock production before the power stations get a crack at it.
Biomass fuels have the added problem of dry-storage which coal does not have. Straw and woodchips MUST be kept dry before use or they absorb too much moisture and their combustion becomes problematic or non-existent. In other words they require shed storage.
Straw has the exciting property of spontaneously combusting when you don’t want it to if it is damp and stored in bulk. Haysheds burn down for that reason if farmers misjudge the moisture percentage of their hay by just a few percent. I almost cooked a hayshed that way myself when I was young. I’m not sure if damp woodchips share that drawback.
I am sure that none of this will have any bearing on how many more straw-fired power stations pop up. Logic never does.
70
Was just thinking. Their stated 50 mile supply-radius might be the limit beyond which carting straw for fuel becomes uneconomic even with subsidies, then they change over to woodchips from US or Canada – much more environmental … NOT!
30
The wood chips for Drax are kept damp to prevent spontaneous combustion, hence lower efficiency and MORE emissions per unit of electricity than with coal. And there is the emissions associated with felling the trees, chipping and transporting them.
It is very hard to get figures for the increase in emissions. 20% extra just from Drax has been admitted, with a claim of 3% for the rest. Some estimates run up to 35% extra overall. But they are dismissed as this CO2 was previously sequestered in the trees and will be in future (over the 100 years it takes for the trees to regrow).
30
That’s contrary to what I’ve read elsewhere, but I’ll defer to your knowledge of Drax. That being the case, they must be keeping their chips VERY damp – as in soggy.
To use the hay/straw analogy, 20% moisture is OK. It is difficult to get moisture much below that. You can get away with 22%, which is still dry to the touch. Once you hit about 28% moisture you begin to get into dangerous territory. Just those few percentage points can cause disaster, depending on how big the pile is and how much heat is trapped at the core where the microbial activity is greatest.
As straw and woodchips are good insulators and tend to shed water, you would have to virtually drench the stockpile to cool the core enough to stop spontaneous combustion, either that or constantly stir it while you wet it.
If that is what they are doing, it is no wonder they have poor combustion efficiency. Do they pre-heat or pre-dry the chips using waste heat before they fire them?
20
The calorific value of dry wood chips is less than half of that of coal. And its density is lower.
So the volume of wood chips/pellets to be transported is more than double that of coal if the same power station output is to be maintained. The mass will be double. Add water and you will need to transport perhaps 3 times as much in mass.
That means bigger/more ships and longer trains to get the fuel to the power station.
The figures aren’t small. Each generating unit produces 660MW so the boiler has to burn around 1.5GW in calorific value (conservatively). At 17 GJ/t for dry pellets; it would consume one tonne of dry pellets every 11 seconds. The bulk density of pellets is about 650 kg/m³, so that tonne has a volume of over 1.5 cubic metres.
A day’s electrical power generation at capacity would burn 7850 tonnes of dry wood pellets; around 12,000 cubic metres. That’d fill at least 100 (typical) railway hopper carriages; each 11 metres long. Every day.
More than a kilometre of timber funeral train. Every day.
NB: Burning wood pellets also produces ash and toxic substances. Perhaps even more dioxins than coal – forest fires are a major, natural source of environmental dioxins.
Compare that to an environmental alternative: nuclear power where ONE truck a YEAR can carry enough fuel to operate a reactor with twice the attached generating capacity.
50
An interesting read.
10
yes but it depends it you see straw as a “waste ” or not…because all the actions consumming diesel or fossil energy you mention are done to produce cereal not straw, straw is a byproduction.
but starw is not a waste, you can use it as a a litter for animal, ultimately producing compost ( and methane!) as animal food too , as a direct organic “fertilizer” for the soil if you let it decay on it…
so they save CO2 if only there is too much straw … if not you need energy to produce fertlizer, food or litter to replace the burnt straw.
well it is the same with all biomass burning..is wood a “waste”?
20
In 2008 the National Non-Food Crops Centre in Britain put the break-even value of selling wheat straw at £32/tonne, which at that stage was 18% below the market value.
That £32 value reflected only its nutrient content extracted from the soil and the cost of baling. No benefits of leaving the straw in situ were considered.
So a “waste product” it is not – as you say.
00
Don’t they just compare vs the amount of coal that would have been burnt to produce the same power to calculate the CO2 amount that has been offset? Of course, the coal plant and coal type used in the comparison is never stated
Tony, in the other thread, you also stated
Now Drax is 2 GW of biomass powered, renewable goodness, burning sustainably sourced wood pellets from across North Eastern America. And they are want to double the output in the near future which is technically feasible. So howzat?
20
All I can say is that with coal it is biomass CO2 in and biomass CO2 out….
10
Trump gets it. The biggest threat we face is government agencies short circuiting the proccess- certainly not AGW. Trump details how the administrative state makes its own laws and enforces its own laws, and how it is usually rubber stamped by leftist courts:
http://www.rgj.com/story/opinion/voices/2016/01/07/trump-nevada-us-need-president-who-obeys-rule-law/78422530/
71
Ahoy Dave
How much of the “News” around the Trump Rally “Violence” is crafted following up on emotional fertilization by Soros provocateurs? The MSM SURE want to paint him as divisive!
The elite network of Bonesman Bankers must be getting worried that there is enough general unease & growing awareness of the failure of their debt money printing & global pillaging for a voter turnout ( that brief moment of democratic opportunity) which will blow down their house of cards.
It will be really interesting to watch the gold price & physical deliveries ( to whom ) as the election approaches.
20
The media, and Trump’s rivals of course, are still pushing the narrative that he can’t win in the general election. The last couple of days have indicated that must be false narrative. If it was correct then why are leftist operatives working so hard against him now?
The left, and the establishment republicans, and the world government types, and especially government employees, are scared to death that this guy will win and pull the rug right out from under their well planned agendas. Including Climate Action agendas and schemes, and government employed climate scientists. All that potential carbon tax revenue as well.
Voter turn out for the Democrats has been poor. Meanwhile, Trump attracts thousands and thousands of enthusiastic supporters, and Republican voter turn out has been massive. Trump has supporters from every demographic. Legal immigrants, black, white, poor, middle class , upper class, independents, some conservatives and progressives…
20
Yep, there would be a lot of Midnight Oil being burnt at the Head Office of the CFR!
( not to mention the offices of a few of the Military/Industrial Complex)
30
I forgot to add; perhaps they could get a cameo spot for HerRanganess ( Julia Gillard) screeching misogyny at Trump!
After all she is an Emily’s Lister – a Soros backed organization.
30
Dave
Have you caught up with this yet?
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/03/bills-wife-88.html
30
Oh, that’s good!
10
I’m on safe ground here, because this is an Unthreaded Post, and this comment relates indirectly to my above comment 19.
I mentioned that the thought came to me in the night as I was sleeping.
So then, think about it, really. How often has something like that happened to you?
I have a theory on it, and it also is related to the matter that you can’t think of something you know, but just cannot remember. You think about it for a while and it exasperates you that you cannot remember it at all. You forget about it and then move on. However, sometime later the answer just pops into your head. There it is.
My theory is that the answer is always there, only now it’s hidden away down the neurons in the brain, and because you haven’t thought about it for a while, that path to that memory, or answer, has been lost. Now that you think about, the brain starts to restore that path to that exact memory, and some time later after you’ve moved on, that path gets restored, a message gets sent to the front of the brain that the path is restored, and viola, you have your answer.
The same with thoughts that magically appear in the middle of the night, sometimes even waking you up. You even smile with relief that the answer has finally come, go back to sleep, and sometimes, even after you wake up in the morning, the answer is umm, lost again, and yes, that has happened to me.
You all know I do a slot at my site titled Sunday Music, when I’ll find and show a music clip of my favourite music, and write up some text about it.
That whole idea of doing a Music Post started in December 2008, when I was on holiday with family, and not wanting to be tied up on their PC for many hours, I just tossed together something quickly, and got back to family. Later on, in early January, when I got back home after our holiday with family, I thought it would make a good regular thing every Sunday, and it has endured since that time, and now I have close on 450 plus separate songs.
However, that very first one was for one of my most favourite Instrumentals, and a similar story to that thought process was involved with that very song.
The two Farina Brothers lived in a small apartment in NY, and their father a WW2 returned soldier wanted his sons to play a musical instrument. He got hold of one, specially made for the older of the two boys, and the younger brother just started out with the guitar.
In the hours after Midnight, the older of the two boys woke up his younger brother and said he had this piece of music floating around in his head, and he wanted to work it out. So, they both got up, and worked on this piece of music in the dead of night, and got it down pat.
The song was recorded and became a monster hit for the two brothers in 1959. That song still endures as perhaps the greatest Instrumental of all time. When the younger brother asked his older sibling what he wanted to title the song, his older brother said that he’d call it the name it went by in honour of them working on it in the middle of the night, hence the title: (and this is the link to that original Post of mine from December of 2008.)
Sleepwalk by Santo and Johnny
Tony.
70
That song almost epitomises the 1950’s for me, reminds me of the great instrumentals of The Shadows soon after, great music.
20
Yonniestone,
there’s something about some Instrumentals that just strike a chord.
Take the 1960’s, the whole of those ten years, when the World Music Universe centred around what was happening in the UK. There were so many new bands, new singers, both male and female, and coming out with new songs on a weekly basis. No sooner was there one song that you loved, it was replaced sometimes less than a week later.
List the bands and artists who ….. arrived in the 60’s, and the huge number of songs that came out at such a bewildering rate.
At the very pinnacle of that plethora of music stars who shone in the 60’s was The Beatles, and each new song virtually debuted at Number One for most of those ten years.
So, take every song that reached Number One in the UK during those ten years, and The Beatles would easily head that list.
However, only two songs in the whole of that ten year period actually stayed at Number One for longer than four weeks. Both of them were written by Jerry Lordan, a name no one has probably even heard of.
Those two songs were recorded by The Shadows, Apache, their first hit as just the band, which spent five weeks at Number One in 1960, and then Wonderful Land, released in 1962, also by The Shadows, and that song spent an incredible seven consecutive weeks at Number One, unheard of at the time, and later.
Both Instrumentals.
Incidentally, that band started out life as Harry Webb and The Drifters in 1957. Harry wanted to bring U.S. rock’n’roll to the UK, and his early performances indicated just that, a really rocking beat to them.
Norrie Paramor saw this guy had a real future, so he signed them up. He thought that Harry could do with a name change, so Harry changed his name, Cliff because of its association with rock, (the thing that is, not the music) and Richard, as a shout out to his musical hero at the time, Little Richard, so they became Cliff Richard And The Drifters. Cliff was the star, so he was signed to the main contract on his own, and the backing band were signed to a separate contract. Their first hit, Move It was a rock song, and it went to Number 2. Of that four piece backing band, only two of them were perceived as competent enough to play for the recording session for the song, and the remainder was done by session musicians in the studio.
After that first hit, they got a new drummer, Tony Meehan, already a big name. Then they got a new Bass player, Jet Harris, who, incidentally was the one who Jerry Lordan originally pitched his song Apache to, and who worked out the new arrangement for the band.
A couple of minor hits followed for the new group, when they decided, mutually, that to get any further, they needed a better guitarist. They knew where they could get the one they wanted, at a local music club. The one they wanted was not there on that particular night, but they did hear a young 16 year old who they thought could fit the new band, and Hank Marvin was hired, on one proviso from Hank, that he wanted his friend Bruce Welch to join them. (Hank was originally Brian Rankin, but changed his name to Hank Marvin, Hank because that was his nickname as a child when there were a lot of Brians around and to differentiate, he was called Hank, and the Marvin surname came from an American Country singer, Marvin Rainwater.)
So now, the new improved Drifters were Cliff Richard’s backing band. Cliff was offered a new song as his fifth Single, and he rejected it out of hand as it was not the rock music direction he wanted to take. Under contract now, the boss said “Do this song.” They played around with it and Jet Harris actually suggested they do it as a Country style, far removed now from the rock direction he wanted. That song was Living Doll, a monster Number One, and the rest is history for Cliff Richard.
The song was his first hit in the U.S. The existing band The Drifters, huge in the U.S. threatened legal action if they continued with that name, so at a night in the pub, Jet Harris suggested The Shadows.
The Shadows, with their separate contract eventually released their own music, and Apache was their first, of many huge hits. That beautiful cherry red Fender Strat Hank became famous for was purchased from the U.S. by Cliff Richard, and he presented it to Hank, the first Strat in the UK.
As for Instrumentals, there are just so many good ones around. My favourite five of them, in no particular order, are Sleepwalk, Samba Pa Ti by Carlos Santana, Albatross by Fleetwood Mac, (the original Peter Green group) Wonderful Land by The Shadows, and Going Home by Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits.
There are just so many really good Instrumentals from the modern era.
Tony.
20
I have a large collection of LP’s, old vinyls I just can’t bring myself to part with, around 400 Plus or so of them.
I also have about 40 Singles and EP’s, those small 45’s, most of them my good lady wife’s, but a dozen or so of them are mine, and among them is the very first record I ever purchased with my own money.
That was Theme For Young Lovers by the Shadows back in 1964, my first year at High School. It still has the small price sticker attached, as hard as they always were to remove in those days. 2/6. Two shillings and sixpence, and that equates to 25 cents in today’s money, and that 2/6 was a quarter of what I was being paid on most Saturdays helping out with the canoes at our local beach on the Broadwater at Labrador. 10 Shillings for around 12 hours work, and on Saturdays, that beach was always packed and the boss and two helpers around my age worked pretty hard at it. Good fun too.
Link to Theme For Young Lovers
Tony.
40
Thanks for that insight Tony, a bloke I work with is a very good guitarist and can give a plethora of information/history about guitars, amplifiers off the top of his head, it’s good to listen to and absorb things you might not have considered before.
Have you done any radio spots before Tony? I think you’d have a very interesting show.
10
Did j know that they were originally Cliff Richards and the Drifters.
When they achieved some fame, it was brought to their attention that there was already a USA group called “The Drifters”. So they changed it to Cliff Richards and the Shadows.
One of the best guitar musical groups EVVVAAAAHHHH.
20
21.1.1 has it covered.
10
Yes Tony, I use that technique often – that is, thinking intensely about something that I can’t “remember” for a few minutes, then getting on with life until, hours or days later, the errant memory comes to the fore. I believe that, unless one is suffering from senile brain cell loss, nothing is ever “forgotten”. I liken it to a filing cabinet, with the older memories filed away at the back of the lower drawers. You (or your brain “assistant”) starts at the top and works its way down to the right drawer, sometimes taking shortcuts as clues come to light, and finds the right folder with the document you want safely ensconced within, to be pulled out with a flourish and placed on top of the filing cabinet. But, like you, discovery during the night can be obscured again at dawn, but is more quickly revealed this time, as it is in the top drawer.
Well, that’s how I see it!
30
Peter,
it happens to me so often now that I have learned to trust it. I know it’s ….. in there, and all I have to do is to initiate the process, comfortable in the knowledge that the answer will ….. arrive, in exactly the same manner as you described.
Tony.
10
I went to a seminar in Perth in the 1980s. There was a professor from an American University who lectured in Communications. He said to put an idea trap and a magic wand on your bedside table. This was a small notebook and a ball point pen to write down these inspirations that occur during the night. I find it most helpful.
10
Peter and Tony
I’ll have to update my terminology – I thought it was just taking time to work through the mental rust flakes.
10
Tony
I’m not sure this helps what you’re thinking.
lb/bu Bu/acre lb/acre Ha/acre lb/kg Kg/Ha T/ha
Grain 60 45 2700 0.4535924 0.4046863 1224.69948 3026.293403
Straw 2260 0.4535924 0.4046863 1025.118824 2533.119663
A 1 ha wheat crop could reasonably be expected to produce 3 Tonnes of grain and 2.5 tonnes of straw, 60% of which is used for generating steam. (at GOK what efficiency)
10
“Sleepwalkers” – a brilliant song. It was the theme song in one of Stephen King’s movies entitled “Sleepwalkers” (1992). This music is haunting and an ideal soundtrack for this very scary movie. The Farina brothers hit song was played repeatedly throughout the movie. Stephen King, like many of his movies, played a cameo role in the movie – a cemetery caretaker.
20
I meant the song “Sleepwalk” – perfect soundtrack for the movie “Sleepwalkers” (1992).
10
That song Sleepwalk is also associated with the movie La Bamba, the life story of Ritchie Valens, where Ritchie was played by Lou Diamond Phillips in his breakthrough role. That song was played as Ritchie’s mother finds out by hearing a news report on the radio of the (Buddy Holly) plane crash in which Ritchie was also a passenger, and then again in the funeral scene in a flashback of Ritchie’s younger life.
Oddly the song was omitted from the Movie Soundtrack album release.
Tony.
30
Besides Sleepwalk The Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” were omitted from the release. Other omitted songs were “Oh Boy”, “Rip It Up”, “The Paddi Wack Song” (written by Valens)
Why the omissions? maybe copyright, extra royalties, but I did find a mistake in using Sleepwalk in the movie,
Near the end of the movie, a DJ announces over the air that the crash had occurred that killed Buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson (commonly known as “The Big Bopper”), and Ritchie Valens. The DJ then plays the Santo & Johnny tune “Sleep Walk” as a tribute to the lost musicians. The crash occurred on Feb 3, 1959 (and one would assume the radio news announcement was within 24 hours of the crash). The song “Sleep Walk” was not released until July 1959.
20
As a programmer I have often come across very difficult problems. Rather than banging my head trying to solve the problem I would just study it, then sleep on it.
More often than not then next day I would solve the problem in a snap.
40
Guess what? I woke up this morning after trying to remember the name of recall theories and came across this wiki page on Recall(memory) that has a good overview of types, history etc study into human recollection thought processes.
There is a more recent discovery on the human brains retention capacity but I can’t quite recall it, bloody seriously! 🙁
30
Many years ago I was at a meeting where Dr Bill Williams (Professor, CSIRO, ace at statistics) was the after dinner speaker.
In this he pointed out that the human brain was ahead of the best in electronic existence, particularly in memory capacity, but a little slow in recall.
And was the only one that could be constructed by entirely unskilled labour
10
Bolt has posted a thread on the following, which I missed completely. can’t recall a link on jo’s site, so here goes:
1 Mar: Daily Telegraph: Miranda Devine: Side-tracked Right missing Mal’s plot
WHILE conservatives rip into each other over the Tony Abbott-Peta Credlin saga, they’re missing a looming disaster as Malcolm Turnbull quietly stitches up a power-sharing deal with the Greens that has the potential to remake Australia.
On both fronts, the Australian people are forgotten and ignored…
At the same time Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger has been creeping around Victoria stitching up cynical preference deals with the Greens to deliver them Labor marginal seats, and Turnbull has been dithering over union-busting bills in case they offend the Greens, who owe much of their cash flow to unions.
The stage is being set for a July 2 double–dissolution election that will remake the Senate, and so the obvious conclusion is that Turnbull is planning some sort of power-sharing deal with the Greens.
Tempting though it may be to stop the likes of Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus holding the country to ransom, the alternative is far worse. Imagine a Senate controlled by the likes of Sarah Hanson-Young and Scott Ludlam…
According to Senator David Leyonhjelm (the vet), at the infamous crossbench dinner at the Lodge last month when Lambie (soldier) and Lazarus (footballer) walked out on Turnbull before dessert, Turnbull told him: “I’d rather deal with the Greens and (green-leaning independent Nick) Xenophon than with Lambie and Lazarus.”
Of course he would. Turnbull, like his beloved David Cameron in the UK, is a greenie at heart. Doing a deal with the pragmatic new Greens leader Richard Di Natale would be as natural as mother’s milk.If you thought Gillard’s deal with Bob Brown was bad news, you ain’t seen nothing yet. And the only people who could stop it are squabbling over a book…
If Turnbull sells out the Liberal Party to the Greens he will return as a prime minister who owes nothing to the party’s shattered conservatives, and will set about delivering same-sex marriage, a republic, a carbon trading scheme and the rest of the Left-liberal agenda, while setting himself up as Australia’s first president. That’s my hunch, anyway.
But he will also set the stage for a third party to emerge from the right that will tap Trump-esque depths of anger…
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/miranda-devine-sidetracked-right-missing-mals-plot/news-story/6fcdec6d948e334a05af61517896fb3b
70
My understanding was that Liberals intended to leave the Construction union bill off the list tomorrow, so that the independent senators could not pass it. Has this changed? As I have written before, Malcolm and the Greens are combining to restore the Greens to absolute control of the senate. This is part of the Kroger/Turnbull strategy which has nothing to do with representing Liberal/National voters and everything to do with keeping Liberal politicians in a job.
If Joyce wants to make himself a hero, he could force a review of the Liberal leadership. Putting Abbott back would please most coalition voters. This business of how unpopular mysogynist bullying and dictatorial Abbott was is the creation of Malcolm and his ABC. If Joyce is going to struggle against Gillard’s turncoat Windsor, he needs to be do something or be the shortest lived leader of the Nationals in history.
20
have just posted a link to Miranda Devine DT article on Turnbull dealing with the Greens, which has gone into moderation.
wanted to add that there are a mere 8 comments on the article, all posted only 13 hours ago or less, which seems strange if the article has been up for 12 days.
50
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/miranda-devine-sidetracked-right-missing-mals-plot/news-story/6fcdec6d948e334a05af61517896fb3b
20
opposing views!
12 Mar: Kevin Rey: ThePeakCalifornia: Naomi Klein calls out Trudeau on “pretending to care” about climate change
SFU lecture features well-known activist criticising recent environmental policy
What is something that former Prime Minister Stephen Harper has over Justin Trudeau? According to Naomi Klein, “at least he didn’t pretend to care” about climate change.
On Friday, the prolific writer and environmentalist spoke to the danger of a government that did not take climate change seriously at an event hosted at the Vogue Theater by the SFU Vancouver Speaker Series in partnership with SFU Department of Philosophy. The sold out show drew environmentalists, students from SFU’s semester in dialogue, as well as SFU President Andrew Petter himself…
Is what happened in Paris a [. . .] breakthrough or an ecological disaster?” asked Klein…
On Friday, Klein criticized a recent statement by Trudeau that pipeline projects will pay for the transition to a low carbon economy…
http://www.the-peak.ca/2016/03/naomi-klein-calls-out-trudeau-on-pretending-to-care-about-climate-change/
12 Mar: CBC: John Paul Tasker: Justin Trudeau’s climate agenda praised by Americans
‘We are just delighted to have a partner who understands and acts on the science,’ John Kerry says
“I have to say, the current government has certainly picked up the pace in terms of collaborating, particularly in climate-related activities,” Ernest Moniz said in an interview with host Chris Hall on CBC Radio’s The House. “We have a lot of enthusiasm to go forward.”
The cabinet-level secretary says Canada has been eager to partake in new climate projects such as Mission Innovation, an international agreement that commits the 20 signatory countries to doubling the amount of money spent on green technology research and development.
“I must say, with Mission Innovation … this new government joined on within weeks after its coming into office, and that was because it fit their campaign statements in terms of the focus, the Canadian focus on innovation,” Moniz said…
Moniz’s comments come after other senior American officials lavished praise on the Liberal government’s ambitious — albeit fledgling — climate agenda…
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ernest-moniz-climate-change-trudeau-1.3487697
20
Gallup: 0% of Americans think
climate changeGlobal Warming is the #1 problemhttp://www.gallup.com/poll/189869/americans-name-economy-government-top-problems.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication
20
The Australian taxpayer was ripped off yet again because the Dark Green forces convinced the Government that it would never rain again and most states invested in desalination plants which were supposedly powered by associated “renewable” wind farm energy. (Arguably, there was a genuine need for one of these plants in SA that has always suffered from a lack of water.)
Here is an interesting cost comparison.
According to Wikipedia the VIC desal plant cost A$5.7 billion and generates (if it is running which it isn’t most of the time) 410 megalitres per day.
The Russians are building a floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov which can generate 300 MW of thermal energy for onshore heating, 77 MW of electrical power and optionally it can have a desal plant that generates 240 megalitres per day. The cost of that package? US$336 million (A%$444 mill).
The VIC desal plant produces only 1.7 times as much water and no clean electricity or heat for nearly 13 times the cost.
61
9 Mar: Deutsche Welle: Green revolution costs German power company billions
The oil price isn’t the only thing hitting German energy companies. Once upon a time, they practically had a license to print money. But the good times are over. Germany is switching from nuclear to renewables. And the biggest power provider here just posted a stunning 7-billion-euro loss.
http://www.dw.com/en/green-revolution-costs-german-power-company-billions/av-19104873
9 Mar: Deutsche Welle: E.ON reports record loss on power plant writedowns
Germany’s biggest energy company has posted its second-consecutive record loss in as many years after writing down the value of its coal and gas-fired power plants. It plans to split in two separate entities this year.
Unveiling a record net loss of 7 billion euros ($7.7-billion) on Wednesday, the German energy giant warned that its restructuring amid Germany’s shift towards a wider use of renewable power would be “tougher and longer than anticipated.”
E.ON reported writedowns of 8.8 billion euros for 2015, triggered by declining wholesale power prices which slumped to their lowest since at least 2002, and were 75 percent below a 2008 peak…
Conventional power vs. renewables
E.ON’s annual net loss was the third in the company’s history after being unprofitable in 2011 and 2014…
RWE, the second biggest German power company, reported plant writedowns of 2.1 billion euros on Tuesday, while Sweden’s Vattenfall wrote down 15.2 billion kronor (1.6 billion euros, $1.79 billion) on its business in Germany.
The utilities have complained that the country’s transition from conventional carbon fuels to greener, cleaner sources of energy is squeezing their margins. In addition, a government decision to phase out nuclear energy by 2022 as well as lavish state subsidies for renewable energy have pushed them deeply into the red…
(uhe/cjc Reuters, dpa, AFP)
http://www.dw.com/en/eon-reports-record-loss-on-power-plant-writedowns/a-19103895
20
10 Mar: World Bank Blog: Pierre Guigon: 10 practical steps to create an Emissions Trading System
As countries move towards the implementation of the Agreement, it is the focus of a World Bank conference in Zurich this week which brings together over 30 developed and developing countries to discuss opportunities and challenges related to the role of carbon pricing in meeting their mitigation ambitions…
This week, the World Bank’s Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) (LINK) – jointly with the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP)(LINK) – launched “Emissions Trading in Practice: Handbook on Design and Implementation”, (LINK) a new guide for policymakers that distills best practices and key lessons from more than a decade of practical experience with emissions trading worldwide. The preparation of this Handbook involved experts from the Environmental Defense Fund (US), Motu (New Zealand), Vivid Economics (UK), Oko-Institut (Germany), MIT (US), and Tsinghua University (China), as well as input from over 100 international policy practitioners and technical experts…
To help policymakers design, implement and operate an ETS, the Handbook sets out a 10-step process of decisions and actions to be taken…ETC
Private sector involvement is also critical for building consensus and reducing the risk of future discord. To this end, the PMR established a long-term and systematic collaboration with the Business Partnership for Market Readiness (B-PMR) (LINK) initiative of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA).(LINK)…
China’s effort to develop its national carbon market is an extraordinary example of climate leadership…
https://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/10-practical-steps-create-emissions-trading-system
10
best to go straight to the comments:
11 Mar: Science Mag: Carolyn Gramling: Q&A: Author of ‘feminist glaciology’ study reflects on sudden appearance in culture wars
Last week, science historian Mark Carey of the University of Oregon in Eugene found himself thrust into the limelight as the latest target of conservative-leaning bloggers questioning federally funded research. In 2013, Carey received a 5-year National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Grant, one of three NSF grants he has held. He is a prolific scientist, with more than 30 articles and book chapters, as well as three books under his belt. But one article he co-authored—published in January in Progress in Human Geography—included a hot-button word guaranteed to draw some bloggers’ ire. The article, “Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research,” has become the latest talking point in an ongoing controversy about NSF-funded research…
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/qa-author-feminist-geology-study-reflects-sudden-place
30
My current reading of the Oz Federal political situation:
1) the Libs and Greens will combine in the Senate to push through changes in Senate voting rules. Both the Libs and Greens expect to benefit from this, with Lord Waffle clearing out the Augean stables and the Greens likely picking up another Senator from the ALP
2) the ABCC bill will then be put to the Senate. It will be refused, with both the ALP and Greens (to preserve their generous donations from the CFMEU) together with a few independents voting against. This gives Waffle a good reason for a DD campaign – Heydon’s Royal Commission comes into it’s own
3) to allow time for this double-shuffle, the Budget and the traditional right-of-reply will be brought forward a week or so. This then gives us an unmerciful 9 weeks of campaigning
4) once the kerfuffle of a Joint Sitting is over (I expect Waffle to retain the Lower House on a diminished number of seats), an ETS will be pushed through. Will Waffle refer to this during the election campaign ? No, he might lose too many seats then
In short, us-who-don’t-matter are about to be shown just how little we don’t
70
Correction:
In short, us-who-don’t-matter are about to be shown just how little much of the public don’t care or are too dumb to know what’s happening and why.
20
There seems to be a strange and sudden increase in the mysterious Force X:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/03/12/record-breaking-heat-again/
40
‘…because you’re in the grip of an ideology that denies science when you don’t like it’
The irony burns.
ENSO is unrelated to AGW.
31
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/ag-lynch-doj-has-discussed-whether-pursue-legal-action-against-climate
The Attorney General has discussed referring climate change deniers to the FBI.
20
UK scientists analyse the pause.
http://www.hydro-international.com/content/news/project-investigates-the-global-warming-hiatus
20
World’s largest solar thermal plant FRIES birds that fly over it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560494/Worlds-largest-solar-farm-SCORCHING-BIRDS-fly-it.html
50
Clearly those birds are flat earth birds that can only fly in designated Flat Earth zones only. and/or.. ….Maybe roast pigeon really can fly into the mouth. mmm…yum…. Yellow Bellied Parrot Stew might taste ok???
40
From http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/keywords/roasted/
He expects that larks will fall ready roasted into his mouth.
French Proverb
2. Birds fly not into our mouths ready roasted.. Latin Proverb. Birds fly not into our mouths ready roasted.
Latin Proverb
3. Roasted pigeons will not fly into one’s mouth.. Dutch Proverb. Roasted pigeons will not fly into one’s mouth.
40
Old news. The problem occurred when the plant was idling because the mirrors were set to focus to a small zone just above the tower. By further defocussing the mirrors, the solar flux was lowered to a level that prevented birds from being killed
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/16/one-weird-trick-prevents-bird-deaths-solar-towers/
This is not to say that concentrated solar power is a good solution. It is exorbitantly expensive for the power that is produced, environmentally obtrusive and the power is still intermittent, no what the proponents claim.
30
Mojave Fried Duck….
20
There’s a old french expression “…Se faire pigeonner…” which means to be taken in by a bad deal, more or less…
20
Another fLaT eArtHer.
10
Basslink Debacle
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=4353
20
Thanks for that eg. A fascinating graph. Looks like cause and effect to me. At least worth investigating.
Cheers,
Dave B
20
As I understand it, it took a long time to locate the source of damage in the cable. Why was this? Surely time domain reflectometry would have instantly indicated the precise location of damage?
20
The Heartland Institute are doing a live lecture in a few days that might be interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poi8YLUIgVs
The description reads:
I wonder what their explanation will be for the increase in CO2.
30
The Province of Alberta in Canada foolishly elected a green socialist government.
Suddenly, the “have province” is fast becoming a “have not” province.
This video is produced by the Friends of Science and is an excellent argument regarding the hypocrisy of this climate religion.
20
On a different tack, I have written extensively on how radio carbon dating can prove CO2 in the air is not fossil fuel CO2. I cannot say anyone else has ever disputed this. Coincidence is not causality.
In reading CLIMATE CHANGE from the IPA, an excellent set of essays, I keep stumbling on the immediate concession by most writers, especially scientists, of man made CO2 increase. If not said, it is tacitly accepted, implied and skipped.
Scientists
Ian Plimer (i) There is an increase in emissions of Carbon Dioxide by human activities
Richard S. Lindzen: Does adding greenhouse gas cause warming
Bob Carter: It is widely misrepresented in the public domain that Earth’s current levels of atmospheric CO2 are dangerously and atypically high.
and this is naturally accepted by non scientists
Nigel Lawson: .. by burning fossil fuels we are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and thus, other things being equal, increasing the earth’s temperature.
Even public figures like Melbourne’s RMIT Chancellor and former nuclear physicist Ziggy Switkowski wrote in the Australian and said exactly the same thing. CO2 is going up and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The fact that this is a result of human activites is always implicit.
From that point everyone is so intent on following their favorite argument about whether CO2 produces warming, that warming produces climate change and even that climate change alters the frequency of extreme events that this unproven assumption remains unchallenged.
In science you have a chain of logic. The first step of the chain is that man has increased CO2. The second is CO2 causes warming. Before you even get to Plimer’s excellent presentations and entertaining books full of valid science and historical lessons from geology, I remain puzzled that he has not ever examined the first statement. Has man increased CO2 and can you prove it should have been be the very first question.
I contend and no one has disagreed, you can radio carbon date the air we breathe and show that the fossil fuel component is near negligible. Under 5% of the CO2 is fossil fuel CO2 and that vanishes rapidly with a half life of 14 years.
As man has not increased CO2 levels and cannot change CO2 levels, what is this all about? Surely one of the 350 Australian CSIRO scientists who have spent years studying Climate Change can answer? What about someone from NASA or NOAA or the CRU or even the BOM? It needs to be said, man has not and cannot change CO2 levels significantly or for very long.
121
A statement cannot be any more true than that, TdeF.
If one uses the logic of Socrates to disembowel a statement such as:
Does such a thing as “global warming” even exist? Where is the evidence that this is true?
Does carbon dioxide cause any significant change in temperature? Where is the evidence that suggests this notion?
If “global warming” causes ‘climate change”, where is this thing you call “climate change” and how would “global warming” be the cause if there is no “global warming”?
Even if carbon dioxide were relevant in the study of weather and temperature, how much atmospheric carbon dioxide is natural?
The climate religion is as illogical as the Salem witch trials.
90
Some readers here have disputed that claim quite vigorously, although perhaps not proven it either way.
Granted that the C14 atmospheric levels following the cessation of the nuclear testing show quite clearly that CO2 residence time in the atmosphere has a half life of about 14 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14#/media/File:Radiocarbon_bomb_spike.svg
I think it is a good question to ask if human emissions are causing the currently rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and if so in what proportion. I don’t think that the question has been answered definitively.
There is a simple way to answer the question, but it is not feasible at present. That is to shut off all burning of fossil fuel and then see what happens. That is of course what the Greens and IPCC and all the alarmists are trying to do. The consequences of such an action would be catastrophic. So I prefer your indirect chain of logic TdeF.
60
Thanks for the comment.
Turn off all sources of CO2? That’s a bit extreme and certainly not simple. Besides, there is no need. We can measure fossil fuels levels instantly as fossil CO2 has no C14. If 1/3 of CO2 was fossil fuel, C14 levels would be down 33%. That is not true.
I also have not read those ‘vigorous disputes’ so I would appreciate a reference.
Anyone can be wrong and the business of CO2 actually causing warming is the next discussion. On whether man has changed CO2 levels at all I have written to a few people and Lord Monckton was kind enough to enter into a dialog. Personally I cannot see the point of writing papers on science facts and there seems to be more truth in the blogs than in peer review. Climate Commissioner Will Steffen for example just referred me to the IPCC. ABC Science said I did not understand radiation.
Once again the question was answered by Dr. Suess in 1955 when Radio Carbon dating was started. His measurements showed 2% man made CO2 from fossil fuels. It was named the ‘Industrial Effect’. His observation stands.
The sudden doubling of C14 after the 1965 atomospheric bomb tests firstly showed conclusively that the half life of C14 and thus CO2 in the atmosphere was 14 years and the asymptotic e-kt decay is a single not complex curve to the historic level, just 2% below the level of previous millenia. So there is no significant effect on CO2 from the 20th century burning of fossil fuel.
This is all simple science, so it’s not just a good question, it has been answered. As this is unthreaded, I thought I would ask everyone. Has anyone seen an actual proof man is increasing CO2 levels? Or is that just considered obvious?
90
Turning off all CO2 production is conceptually simple, but as you say an extreme resort.
Does fossil fuel have zero C14? It seems likely that all the C14 would have zero C14 but has any of it been measured?
More importantly, what is the natural level of C14 in the atmosphere? What was the natural level before 1958 and does it change with time? The C14 levels cannot be down 33% because it was boosted up by the atomic tests at about the same time as fossil fuel burning began in earnest from the end of the second world war. It takes about 7 half lives for a exponential process to get back near the baseline. The half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is 14 years. 7*14=98 years. Hence we may be able reassess the atmospheric C12/C14 ratios after 2063 to see if the ratio is falling as a result increased CO2 from fossil fuel.
Alternatively if we had a reliable measure of the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere, which was independent of the atmospheric tests we could obtain an answer by comparing the bomb test half life with the natural half life. Unfortunately we do not have a good independent measurement.
In any case C14 is constantly generated by the action of cosmic rays on Nitrogen in the upper atmosphere which makes it even harder to agree about what is going on.
60
This is not meant as criticism in any way, but as a perception.
See how we have become locked into the thinking that even though CO2 emissions come from a variety of sources, the general public have become (well, technically I suppose) brainwashed into the belief that all we need do is to turn off those coal fired power plants, and that of itself will, how do you put this, make the problem go away.
The electricity generating sector ….. as a whole ….. make up 40% of the total CO2 emissions. That comes from the two main sources, coal fired power, perhaps the bulk of that sector at around 80% of that sector’s CO2 emissions, and the Natural Gas sector the remainder.
However, the second largest source of CO2 emissions is the Transportation sector, and that makes up 32% of all emissions.
So, where this is said:
(and I understand the qualifier at the end as being an extreme event)
However, what that effectively means is stopping every car, (of every type) bus, train, boat, plane, etc ….. full stop.
Now, turning off power plants, no matter how drastic that seems, may look to be conceptually possible, but you try stopping people from driving their cars, and then see what happens.
ANY, and let me repeat that, ANY ….. emissions reduction targets MUST be applied across the whole spectrum of emissions, and when people actually begin to be told the truth about how this affects their cars, then that’s where the bovine waste will come into exceedingly hard contact with the rotating wind generating device.
The backlash from that will be worse than just ….. turning off ….. Hazelwood!
Tony.
70
“rotating wind generating device”
Is that another name for a “Turnbull”….. Its spins and creates mindless wind.
50
AndyG55, I have an idea you already know what the whole phrase is, but it’s my polite way of saying when the s**t hits the fan!
Tony.
30
Tony, I enjoy your analyses of power generation and the absurdity of windmills replacing fossil fuels.
My point seems hard for people to grasp though, that C14 is a tiny radioactive tracer like a medical tracer. We do not need to turn off sources of CO2 to measure it.
In 1965 we accidentally injected a great deal of new C14 into the world’s atmospheric CO2 in 1965 and it is 90% gone. The C14 cannot vanish, so all the aerial CO2 of 1965 is gone as well.
SO there is no CO2 problem. We do not and cannot control the CO2 levels. Chemistry does.
Where has it gone? Into the huge reservoir which contains 50x as much free CO2 as the atmosphere. Where else? The only way the IPCC and others argue this does not happen is to argue that the deep ocean plays no part with its masses of compressed liquid CO2. They are obviously wrong. CO2 rises from the depths. Even a small warming releases a lot of CO2.
As one of the most prolific elements in the universe, Carbon forms CO2 as readily as Hydrogen form H2O. There are some rare sulphur based organisms in the deep ocean trenches around volcanic vents but the vast proportion of life on earth is carbon based, made from carbon. It is as natural and healthy as H2O but both will kill you in enough quantity.
There is no need whatsoever to reduce aerial CO2. We could not control it anyway. The ocean does. After all, who set CO2 levels in the time of the Romans?
91
I will try to answer your questions and address the statements with sense
Q Does fossil fuel have zero C14?
A Yes. It is over 100 million years old and C14 has a half life of 5730 years, so it is all gone. That’s 10million half lives.
Q What is the natural level of C14 in the atmosphere?
A. One part per trillion. It is only created in the atmosphere from high energy cosmic rays. These appear to be near constant. In 1965 it went to 2 parts in a trillion.
Q What was the natural level before 1958 and does it change with time?
A A constant one in a trillion CO2 atoms is C14. This is the basis of radio carbon dating.
Q The C14 levels cannot be down 33% because it was boosted up by the atomic tests at about the same time as fossil fuel burning began in earnest from the end of the second world war.
A Correct. It was constant up to 1965, down 2% with the ‘Industrial effect’. Then it suddenly doubled with new C14 from the atomic explosions, which are not natural. Now after 50 years the amount of C14 is only about 10% higher than what it was in 1965. So 90% of the new C14 is gone in 50 years. As C14 cannot vanish, 90% of the 1965 CO2 is gone too. Vanished. Where is irrelevant even if we know.
Q. we may be able reassess the atmospheric C12/C14 ratios after 2063 to see if the ratio is falling as a result increased CO2 from fossil fuel.
A. We have the graph. No need to wait. You can see it nearly returned to normal now.
Q. if we had a reliable measure of the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere, which was independent of the atmospheric tests we could obtain an answer by comparing the bomb test half life with the natural half life. Unfortunately we do not have a good independent measurement.
A. Half lives do not vary. They are a result of nuclear decay which nothing can change. C14 is easy to measure accurately in tiny quantities because it is radioactive, emitting electrons, beta rays.
Q. C14 is constantly generated by the action of cosmic rays on Nitrogen in the upper atmosphere which makes it even harder to agree about what is going on.
A. The bombs did not change total CO2. They just doubled C14 and so the number of CO2 molecules which carry C14, from one in a trillion to two in a trillion. So watching this tagged CO2 disappear so quickly, proves CO2 is vanishing. All of it.
We do not care really where the C14 goes, except that it leaves the atmosphere we breathe along with the CO2 of the time. So with all our fossil fuel CO2 with no C14. It has all gone too. We humans are insignificant in terms of the vast amount of CO2 in the planet, especially in the oceans.
Thanks for the dialog.
81
We know the disease of this idee fixe with CO2 warming is in the psychotic zone when people like Bob Brown go to jail for wanting to save forests.
In terms of destruction of the planet, lets stick to basics, like the complete failure to stop deforestation and species destruction. This includes the destruction of the right to stand up against it.
00
If we are allowed to try to save forests, maybe we can try our hand at cutting other emissions later in a balanced way looking at all the molecules that are anthropogenic in origin like herbicide and pesticide etc. The economic slowdown is doing a great job of slowing CO2 emissions without our direct help in any case..
00
Really? What about China and India?
10
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-25/china-warns-social-stability-threatened-400000-steel-workers-are-about-lose-their-jo
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-23/china-proposes-fix-its-crashing-housing-market-transplant-100-million-farmers-its-ci
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-20/dropping-flies-largest-steel-maker-chinas-shanxi-province-defaults-cny-3-billion-deb
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-06/images-death-chinas-rustbelt
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-23/fear-surge-debt-defaults-business-failures-and-job-losses-means-china-will-cut-rates
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-20/what-really-happening-china-my-career-basically-ended-today
00
And then there is …..
“As Of Today, The Baltic Dry Freight Index Has Never Been Lower
“The Baltic Dry Freight Index has collapsed to all-time (back to 1984) record lows.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-19/today-baltic-dry-freight-index-has-never-been-lower
The truth is the crash in this indicator of mans ability to pollute continues, which continues to plummet like the proverbial rock…… 🙂
Great for cutting emissions of all kinds except war emissions of bomb smoke and the like.
00
This is some of this mornings news about China’s ongoing ability to continue to pollute which is caused directly by demand for the goods and services obtained there in that geographic location.
“Caught On Tape: “Enormous Crowds” Of Unemployed Chinese Miners Take To The Streets, Clash With Riot Police
While so far most Chinese worker strikes had been largely peaceful, two weeks ago we said it was only a matter of time before these turned violent after Reuters reported that “China aims to lay off 5-6 million state workers over the next two to three years as part of efforts to curb industrial overcapacity and pollution.”
All this changed overnight when as AFP reports, thousands of miners in China’s coal-rich (or poor depending on one’s perspective) north have gone on strike over months of unpaid wages and fears that government calls to restructure their state-owned employer will lead to mass layoffs.
00
13 Mar: LA Times: Christine Mai-Duc: San Bernardino Assembly race could define what it means to be an Inland Empire Democrat
What happens when a Democratic lawmaker strays from party leaders on a key piece of Gov. Jerry Brown’s policy agenda? One assemblywoman who held back support for a sweeping climate-change bill last year is starting to find out.
Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-San Bernardino) was among a group of business-aligned Democrats who objected to a provision in the bill, SB 350, that would have cut California’s motor vehicle petroleum use in half by 2030…
Protesters have shown up at her local events. Some of her supporters have defected, endorsing Reyes early in the fight.
“Do you ever feel that something is not going quite right?” Brown said in a recent phone interview. “They are after me, and I still don’t know why. I don’t know who ‘they’ are. But I will find out soon.”…
Husing (John Husing, an economist with the Inland Empire Economic Partnership) came to Brown’s aid, arguing that lower-income families might have been harmed by potential rising energy costs that may have resulted from implementation of the provision.
“That’s fine if you live in San Francisco and can afford a Tesla,” said Husing. “It’s not fine if you’re a poor family living in downtown San Bernardino … and the folks that stopped that deserve a welcome thanks.”
A group of twenty-somethings interrupted him, calling Brown “a corporate hack.”…READ ALL
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-brown-reyes-campaign-20160313-story.html
30
13 Mar: Columbia Daily Tribune: Alicia Stice: Repercussions of climate change, not debate over its existence, dominate MU conference
Richard Alley wasn’t pulling any punches Saturday morning.
As the Penn State professor and environmental scientist addressed the crowd at the MU Life Sciences and Society Symposium, he made it clear that he was not interested in a debate about whether climate change was occurring or whether people have caused it. Instead, he wanted to give people context and talk about paths to wider use of new sources of energy to substitute for fossil fuels.
He held up his cellphone in front of the crowd, an example, he said, of how humans have used science to make incredible things out of sand, oil and “the right rocks.” But, still, some people bristle at ideas put forth by the scientific community.
“I have gotten emails that say ‘you scientists are evil liars. I hope you suffer personally. … I am trying to get you fired,’” he told the crowd. “And the irony of doing that with a cellphone seems to be lost.”
Life Sciences and Society Director Mary Shenk said that when organizing the symposium, she made a concerted effort to make sure the speakers focused on exploring the way climate change might affect people and how its effects might be mitigated rather than engaging about a debate over the science. There is widespread acceptance in the scientific community about the existence of climate change…
The answer, he (Alley)said, is in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy…
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/education/repercussions-of-climate-change-not-debate-over-its-existence-dominate/article_0660b4ae-f627-531d-9d5a-6fa130cae155.html
30
Oh dear! Irony is a sword with two edges: (my bolding here)
This professor goes home and plugs his cellphone into his own personal solar cell to charge up the battery when it goes flat.
ALL of the infrastructure that makes it possible for him to actually use that cellphone, everything behind what keeps that network going is required absolutely to be be powered for 24 hours of EVERY day, and wind and solar power cannot provide those huge amounts of power for those 24 hours of EVERY day.
These people are so locked into validating only their Science, that they actually believe that renewable power can take the place of what provides ….. RELIABLE electrical power, in every facet of their life, not just their cellphones.
You’d think that being a University professor, that they would actually spend a fraction of their time to investigate something outside of their own knowledge base. They have the d@mned brains for it.
Tony.
60
It amuses me to see so many of the latest mobile phones that have non-replaceable batteries. The makers want/know they will be discarded for the next model before it becomes un-rechargeable(dead).
10
It’s called built-in obsolescence. The waste of materials is disgusting.
00
I agree,
But recycling the materials is cheaper than updating the technology. In some ways the mobile phone is the ultimate example of planned obsolescence. They last as long as they need to!
00
no wonder people are fed up with career politicians:
14 Mar: SMH: Michael Koziol: Liberal greats would never deal with the Greens, says Eric Abetz
Conservative Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz has led the charge against a rumoured preference deal with the left-wing party, while Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger continues to defend the proposition as a shrewd electoral tactic.
Senator Abetz has appealed to the Liberal Party’s federal president Richard Alston, expressing his concerns in a letter that he also copied to the party’s federal executive
Expounding on the virtues of such an arrangement on Monday, Mr Kroger said it would force Labor to spend more money and dedicate more resources to defending their Victorian seats.
“We don’t like handing Labor seats for free. I think that’s not a clever thing to do politically,” he said…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/liberal-greats-would-never-deal-with-the-greens-says-eric-abetz-20160314-gni5l3.html
above links to:
10 Mar: SMH: Michael Koziol: ‘They’re not the nutters they used to be’: Liberal Party open to Greens ‘arrangement’
Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger has indicated the Liberals would be prepared to enter a “loose arrangement” with the Greens ahead of the forthcoming federal election, saying the minor party are “not the nutters they used to be”…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/theyre-not-the-nutters-they-used-to-be-liberal-party-open-to-greens-arrangement-20160310-gnfy0q.html
20
This has been the obvious agenda of Michael Kroger and Malcolm Turnbull since the removal of Tony Abbott.
The Greens only have one member in the democratic House of Representatives. 1 in 200! So why chase preferences? Why remove the independents in the Senate? Why is Sarah Hansen Young preferable to Jaqui Lambie?
It is all an attempt to move the Liberals to a Green party and the next move is an ETS. In Victoria Kroger is head of the Liberal party. The acting President of the NSW Liberal party is Trent Zimmerman, seen with both Turnbull and hugging Shorten at the Gay Mardi Gras in Sydney while both promise gay church marriage since gay civil unions are law anyway.
So the Liberals being driven in the Green/Gay direction. Labor Unions are openly threatening Green funding and directly controlling Labor. You can understand why so many Americans and Australians are sick of the parties and why Malcolm wants them removed. Individuals and pressure groups are openly hijacking government through control of the major parties throug deals and funding and putting their own people in power.
Bring back Tony Abbott. He should never have been removed. We do not want a carbon tax.
70
As my comment #30 pointed out.
The next moves in this Game of Thrones have been played.
Rick Muir (Senate, SA Independent) is pushing the idea that enough of the independent Senators together with the Libs can quarantee passage of the ABCC bill through the Senate. This requires a few of them (Independents) to change their minds on the ABCC bill, but Waffle has given them that motivation with his proposed Senate voting changes
If Muir is successful, Waffle is lost for a good fighting reason to call a DD, so said Independents may last another 3 years on ordinary election timetables.
That this possibility upsets the “elitey-heads” is seen in today’s editorial in the Oz. Most uppity about it, they are 🙂
30
It all depends on what the creditors allow them to do…….when everything is privatised. Haaaa…..CFMEU very small potatoe donations. OMG, maybe the CFMEU can bail out the banks when it’s our turn. Good grief.
“(to preserve their generous donations from the CFMEU)”
20
My apologies, but i have to laugh about the notion that politics is actually politics, and not controlled by rather massive financial interest governed by who knows what or who, in particular, least of all the CFMEU.
30
The CFMEU have donated over $2m to the Greens so far, before this campaign starts. Only the WOTIF man has made larger donations.
Not small potatoes, despite your apparent wish it was so.
You’re quite clueless if you think the Greens don’t dance with the CFMEU, if that’s what you do think. But “rather massive financial interest governed by who knows what or who” doesn’t cut it.
Apart from that, I can’t make much sense of your comments. And I do try hard … but paranoic incoherence always puzzles me, I admit to that.
60
What…??…. Only 2 million… In todays world only trillions count. 2 million might just pay for a compact to powder the nose of one or two paid actors, but that’s about it.
2 million is enough to pay for a couple of days worth of smoke and mirrors.
20
It is really very simple. Creditors to our government call the shots. The CFMEU don’t really fit the description of being able to print money.
Wait until our debt portfolio is sold to the IMF.
20
Now that I can understand. Fortunately, I think I won’t last that long.
And the CFMEU does indeed have the power to print money, provided the ALP is in control of Treasury, since then “quantitative easing” is recycled through innumerable industry super funds, union commitees and … never-ending blah.
If the US goes down, I agree there’s no way out of Horrorville. Might it ? Dunno, but it’s at least possible.
What I’m saying is that Aus being called on its’ debt into the the IMF is possible, but unlikely. More likely is a severe recession causing loss of credit rating and a Govt panicking to raid savings accounts including superannuation deposits like Brussels did to Cyprus a few years ago.
20
““quantitative easing” is recycled through innumerable industry super funds, union commitees and … never-ending blah.”
I suspect australians can called upon by whatever to get their credit rating back by donating/borrowing money to do something like this…
” Obama administration pays out $500m to climate change project
The first chunk of a $3bn”……… blah blah
The way i look at it, it is kind of like a ‘stock buy back’. Very popular pastime these days.
Especially in the oil business that is in the process of getting owned by creditors through the same “stock buy back” popular pastime. Strange to think of oil companies as being hopelessly in debt.
No fracking hope. 🙂
10
“Humans have triggered the last 16 record-breaking hot years experienced on Earth (up to 2014), with the new research tracing our impact on the global climate as far back as 1937. The findings suggest that without human-induced climate change, recent hot summers and years would not have occurred.”
The article:
http://phys.org/news/2016-03-human-climate-dates-1930s.html
Opinionated know-it-all’s discussing the issue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/4a9d6u/humans_have_triggered_the_last_16_recordbreaking/
10
The last 16 hot years up to 2014….When from?
So the temperature is warmer than it was in the Little Ice Age, so what? Most of the previous 9,000 years have been warmer than the Medieval Warm Period. These fools just keep repeating slogans like parrots.
Warmest ever – wrong
Hotter than it has been for 10,00 / 500,000 / 5 million years – all wrong.
Unprecedented temperatures – wrong.
None of them ever check facts. But I must admit parrots was the wrong choice, drongos would be the better term.
61
“The findings suggest that without human-induced climate change, recent hot summers and years would not have occurred.””
So we would be heading back into another LIA.
WELL DONE HUMANS.. and WELL DONE on the extra CO2, as well. 🙂
(the quoted statement is of course total rubbish)
31
Having nothing better to do on Labour Day I ended up listening to David Berlinski “destroying Darwinism”. What got me in was that I could have sworn he was talking about the AGG as we do on Jo Nova. All the same categories, lack of evidence, government funding, Marxism etc. Interesting as his rationale for the existence of a science he does not accept. I’m clueless about biology but interested in his “name calling” such as reputations and getting government grants etc by biologists and their study of biology.
“A critic of the theory of evolution. Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, a Seattle-based think tank that is a hub of the intelligent design movement. Berlinski shares the movement’s disbelief in the evidence for evolution, but does not openly avow intelligent design and describes his relationship with the idea as: “warm but distant. It’s the same attitude that I display in public toward my ex-wives.”[1] Berlinski is a scathing critic of evolution, yet, “Unlike his colleagues at the Discovery Institute,…[he] refuses to theorize about the origin of life.”[1]wiki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptxo2WHEyLc
22
When you come across an “intelligent design” advocate, always ask the question:
“Where’s the intelligence in the design of, say, spina bifida ?”
Thats if you never wish to see them again, of course. It’s also why Berlinski doesn’t openly avow …
00
Here are two airlines not to fly with:
Air NZ, Virgin looking for local aviation biofuel supply
And here, courtesy of Jo, is why you should not fly with these people:
Killing people with “concern”? Biofuels led to nearly 200,000 deaths (est) in 2010.
It is only through things like GM and increased pCO2 in the atmosphere enhancing agricultural productivity that there aren’t more poor people dying of malnutrition related diseases.
20
not sure if this has been posted under a different heading:
9 Mar: Science Daily: Eyeing climate change, satellites provide missing information
An international team of scientists led by Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem found a way to measure missing critical information needed to quantify humanmade responsibility for climate change.
In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors describe a new way to determine both cloud-base updraft speeds and quantify the aerosol particles’ ability to create cloud droplets. The new method used measurements from an existing meteorological satellite, operated since 2012, rather than conventional aircraft and ground stations…
The international research team also includes Meinrat O. Andreae from the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, Zhanqing Li from the University of Maryland in the USA, Paulo Artaxo from the University of Sao Paulo, and Xing Yu from the Meteorological Institute of Shaanxi Province, Xi’an, China…
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160309083425.htm
10
the Daily Hannam – CAGW melt-down…EMERGENCY ALERT!
14 Mar: Canberra Times: Peter Hannam: ‘True shocker’: February spike in global temperatures stuns
Global temperatures leapt in February, lifting warming from pre-industrial levels to beyond 1.5 degrees, and stoking concerns about a “climate emergency”…
“This is really quite stunning … it’s completely unprecedented,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, from Germany’s Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research and a visiting professorial fellow at the University of NSW, noting the NASA data as reported by the Wunderground blog…
‘Emergency’
“We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” Professor Rahmstorf said, noting that global carbon dioxide levels last year rose by a record rate of more than 3 parts per million…
The heat surge also comes as the future of climate science hangs in the balance in Australia , with the CSIRO planning to slash monitoring and modelling research…
The Great Barrier Marine Park Authority said on Monday that it detected “highly variable but widespread coral bleaching” across the park.
The area around Lizard Island, situated 250 km north of Cairns, and sites further north, had fared the worst, Russell Reichelt, the authority’s chair, said in a statement…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/true-shocker-spike-in-global-temperatures-stuns-scientists-20160313-gni10t.html
20
Jo
FYI
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/ice-does-not-control-ocean-rise-the-mantle-does/#comments
10
Good tectonic plate primer
Isostasy and eustasy are next, or rather in addition
10
Re power stations run by straw and other things
http://pindanpost.com/2016/03/14/they-great-big-energy-con-loophole/
30
CO2 doesn’t cause warming.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2016/03/noaa-research-natural-climate-change-global-warming-co2-1935-2016.html
00
Climate Emergency
‘Global temperatures leapt in February, lifting warming from pre-industrial levels to beyond 1.5 degrees, and stoking concerns about a “climate emergency”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/true-shocker-spike-in-global-temperatures-stuns-scientists-20160313-gni10t.html#ixzz42sCTY023
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Quickly. Stop your cars. Stop flying. Stop that air conditioner. It’s too hot somewhere! Or move to balmy Antarctica. A continent the size of South America with ice 4km thick, it is the ideal place to retreat when it just gets too hot. The 7 day forecast? Now -57C Cloudy, Tuesday -44C Cloudy, Wednesday -44C Cloudy. In fact every day -44C. Enjoy. Take your bathers.
Or try Singapore today 32 feels like 36, tomorrow 34, Wednesday 34, Thursday 35, Friday 35, Saturday 35, Sunday 35. Somewhere in the middle it is just right.
Isn’t a Global Temperature just a wonderful concept?
50
You wouldn’t dream of being sarky now TdeF would you?
Thanks for the weary smile!
40
My comment is to the discussion generated by TdeF’s post 39. That was very interesting and informative. The idea that co2 increase in the atmosphere is all or mostly from the activities of man is central to the whole thing. (Is that why benign and open scientific discussion gets a red thumb?) The science doesn’t matter because it is political.
If co2 increase in the atmosphere is not caused by man’s activities then climate action and related policies to mitigate man’s co2 output are:
A) Not needed.
B) Will do no good even if the co2 climate sensitivity is as claimed by the warmists.
C) The massive costs of Climate Action to society are nothing short of criminal.
40
Somebody hand me a tissue.
Electric car Tesla slapped with $15,000 tax surcharge
And you can’t argue with a formula used by bureaucrats. It is their Gospel. Their one true guiding light and entire reason for existence. OK. OK. Maybe overplaying that a little bit. 😉
30
FYI on electric vehicles
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/03/the-electric-vehicle-mileage-fraud-update-singapore-figures-it-out.html
10
Friends and family, if they look into science and climate at all, find things like this
http://perfscience.com/content/2143433-nasa-report-says-february-has-broken-global-temperature-records-stunning-margin
and
http://perfscience.com/content/2143431-el-nino-and-human-caused-global-warming-set-new-global-temperature-record-february
and
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0314/Sea-level-rise-Why-13.1-million-Americans-might-need-to-move
and send them to me, thinking, perhaps, I’d never find them on my own.
I, in return, send them scientific abstracts full of actual data and fact that shows these articles are fluff and noise.
Now, I have no degree, not in anything. Never had the patience or money to complete one. Friends and family, highly educated. A few have degrees in various sciences. A few are quite intelligent, even.
But as far as AGW is concerned, the fluff pieces are beating the abstracts and empirical results and studies on real-world, not modeled, data.
I really don’t get it.
10
Christopher Hitchens about to roll in his grave.
http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/03/15/20/58/mother-teresa-to-be-made-a-saint-pope
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