Asteroid kills 90% of all mammal species: Anthropocene kills one rat (maybe)

Compare the tallies. Sixty-five million years ago an asteroid smacked-down and only 10% of mammal species survived. So far in the Anthropocene Catastrophe, one type of rat has been wiped off a 300m island.

Press Release Mammals almost wiped out with the dinosaurs

A study by researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath and published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, reviewed all mammal species known from the end of the Cretaceous period in North America. Their results showed that over 93 per cent became extinct across the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, but that they also recovered far more quickly than previously thought.

Afterwards, mammalian life recovered with unexpected speed and diversity. Chalk one up to nature and evolution. Not so fragile?

The scientists analysed the published fossil record from western North America from two million years before the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, until 300,000 years after the asteroid hit. They compared species diversity before and after this extinction event to estimate the severity of the event and how quickly the mammals recovered. The extinction rates were much higher than previous estimates based on more limited data sets.

Dr Nick Longrich from the Milner Centre for Evolution, in the University of Bath’s Department for Biology & Biochemistry, explained: “The species that are most vulnerable to extinction are the rare ones, and because they are rare, their fossils are less likely to be found. The species that tend to survive are more common, so we tend to find them.

“The fossil record is biased in favour of the species that survived. As bad as things looked before, including more data shows the extinction was more severe than previously believed.”

The researchers say this explains why the severity of the extinction event was previously underestimated. With more fossils included, the data includes more rare species that died out.

Following the asteroid hit, most of the plants and animals would have died, so the survivors probably fed on insects eating dead plants and animals. With so little food, only small species survived. The biggest animals to survive on land would have been no larger than a cat. The fact that that most mammals were small helps explain why they were able to survive.

Yet the researchers found that mammals also recovered more rapidly than previously thought, not only gaining back the lost diversity in species quickly but soon doubling the number of species found before the extinction. The recovery took just 300,000 years, a short time in evolutionary terms.

Dr Longrich added: “Because mammals did so well after the extinction, we have tended to assume that it didn’t hit them as hard. However our analysis shows that the mammals were hit harder than most groups of animals, such as lizards, turtles, crocodilians, but they proved to be far more adaptable in the aftermath.

“It wasn’t low extinction rates, but the ability to recover and adapt in the aftermath that led the mammals to take over.”

Surprisingly, the recovery from the extinction took place differently in different parts of the continent. The species found in Montana were distinct from those in nearby Wyoming, for example.

“You might expect to see the same few survivors all across the continent. But that’s not what we found,” said Longrich. “After this extinction event, there was an explosion of diversity, and it was driven by having different evolutionary experiments going on simultaneously in different locations.

“This may have helped drive the recovery. With so many different species evolving in different directions in different parts of the world, evolution was more likely to stumble across new evolutionary paths.”

Anyone want to worry about a real threat instead a fake one…

REFERENCE

N.R. Longrich, J. Scriberas, M.A. Wills. Severe extinction and rapid recovery of mammals across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, and the effects of rarity on patterns of extinction and recovery. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2016; DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12882

8.8 out of 10 based on 51 ratings

129 comments to Asteroid kills 90% of all mammal species: Anthropocene kills one rat (maybe)

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    “The species that are most vulnerable to extinction are the rare ones, and because they are rare, their fossils are less likely to be found. The species that tend to survive are more common, so we tend to find them.

    Actually, most of the rare species are yet to be found, or, if found, are not yet named.

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  • #
    el gordo

    Terra Nullius

    Around 300 million years ago the biggest asteroid impact ever, species extinction uncertain.

    http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2015/03/worlds-largest-asteroid-impact-found-in-australia/

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      I bet that rotten asteroid was made of bloody carbon!!!

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      King Geo

      Then that biggest asteroid impact (~ 300Ma) occurred close to the Permian / Carboniferous boundary. The next youngest boundary, the 252Ma Triassic / Permian boundary (also = the Mesozoic/Palaeozoic boundary) is where the major extinction of species occurred, nearly as cataclysmic as the 66Ma Tertiary / Cretaceous boundary (also = the Cenozoic / Mesozoic boundary).

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  • #
    Speedy

    Imagine if the conservation NGO’s were around at that time? “Save the dinosaur!” “Protect the Pterodactyl!” Imagine the heart-rending stories abut the irreversible environmental damage that would be caused by the extinction of a Triceratops! Or the mighty T-Rex etc…

    They reckon cemeteries are full of indispensable men. Same thing goes for indispensable species – another (and better) one replaces the ones that don’t survive. Get over it.

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      Amen, Speedy. Amen!

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      Rereke Whakaaro

      With so many different species evolving in different directions in different parts of the world, evolution was more likely to stumble across new evolutionary paths.

      1. “… species were evolving in different directions”. Were some evolving sideways, or backwards?
      2. “… evolution was more likely to stumble across …” Evolution is an outcome of genetic variance, it doesn’t walk anywhere, so how can it stumble?
      3. And it, “… stumbles across new evolutionary paths…” Were these new evolutionary paths just lying around, waiting for evolution to trip over them?

      George Carlin would have had a field day with this. He is sorely missed.

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    • #
      Iconoclast

      Charles Darwin laid out the roadmap on this one out nigh on 160 years ago.

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  • #

    The more that we learn, the more we realise that the less we know: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-19/karaops-spider-could-be-fastest-lunging-predator/7521250. Except for the Greens and their ‘experts’ that know everything there is to know.

    On another note, those rats didn’t know when to desert a sinking ship.

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      “Those rats didn’t know when to desert a sinking ship.”

      Any species that ignores well known proverbs pertaining to their innate behaviour will suffer extinction. Yonnie’s Law.

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      • #
        TdeF

        Maybe their lifestyle was not sustainable? Or perhaps they were LGBT and simply failed to reproduce? Or lost interest. Why is the extinction of a rare and fragile lifestyle someone’s fault? Such regular extinctions are the basis of evolution but it seems we should prevent them? That is not sustainable.

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      Glen Michel

      Bull…t! I’ve got a pet spider that will outperform this new species in the speed/lunge stakes; his name is not Boris either!

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “fastest lunging predator”

      The Victorian premier?

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      Iconoclast

      Hopefully the Greens don’t either. Know when to desert the sinking ship that is.

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  • #
    handjive

    It’s a maybe. They don’t know.

    Flying monkeys could emerge from my butt at a rate much faster than expected too, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

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  • #
    Another Ian

    May be O’t early but seems to fit IMO

    ” janus100
    June 20, 2016 at 11:47 am

    This describes the situation in Canadian Schooling:

    “…A high school teacher was arrested today at Toronto Pearson Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule and a calculator.

    At a press conference, Premier Kathleen Wynne said she believes the man is a member of the notorious extremist Al-Gebra movement. She did not identify the man, who has been charged by the RCMP with carrying weapons of maths instruction.

    ‘Al-Gebra is a problem for us’, the Premier said. ‘They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values. They use secret code names like “X” and “Y” and refer to themselves as “unknowns”; but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, “There are three sides to every triangle.”’

    When asked to comment on the arrest, Prime Minister Trudeau said, “If God had wanted us to have better weapons of maths instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.”

    Fellow Liberal colleagues told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by any Prime Minister…..”

    From comments at

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/20/greenpeace-co-founder-pens-treatise-on-the-positive-effects-of-co2-says-there-is-no-crisis/

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      Roy Hogue

      With that list of tools I would suspect he belonged to that elusive G-O-Me-Try group. You know, the ones who go around trying to worry about the shape of everything from the shape of species to the shape of the atmosphere, all of which of course, are in bad shape.

      Yep! It must be them. We have such a bad case of them at the moment, so bad a case that they’re very trying indeed.

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  • #
    TdeF

    There was always the idea that mammals unlike reptiles could survive because of internal temperature regulation. This would have been a cold period. Being omnivores helped too. You have to wonder at the profundity of life in what was probably a high CO2 warm environment where things grew to fantastic sizes compared with our current poverty of heat, vegetation and minimal CO2. We are still living on the rotted remains of that glorious time for all species of animals and plants.

    Still according to the Greens, life is perfect, even the temperature is perfect from the poles to the equator to 0.1C. A rumour of a variation of even 0.5C is enough to cause panic and needs to be taxed by strangers overseeas. These Greens are the people against everything. Hydro without dams. Nuclear waste with power stations. Windmills without steady wind. Inner city lifestyle without farmers. Consumer goods without factories. The Eloi of H.G Wells Time Machine, living on the hard work of others.

    In Australia the Greens even have a leader, Richard Di Natalie who wants to stop coal mining but continue making steel. Odd to have a GP with no knowledge of science or chemistry. Still we beat those dinosaurs, except for the turkeys, turtles, sharks and crocodiles. All are delicious.

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  • #
    King Geo

    The 66.0Ma terminal Cretaceous asteroid event created the Chicxulub Crater (200km wide & 1.5 km deep) on the Yucatan Shelf, Mexico. It lies in the sub-surface to the west of Cancun and is partly onshore & offshore. Ironically the COP16 Meeting was held in Cancun during a very cool November 2010. As Jo says it wiped out 90% of mammal species and in addition the Dinosaurs and nearly all marine plankton. “But tell this to the Warmists and they won’t believe you” (borrowing/emending a line from Monty Python’s comedy skit – the four Yorkshiremen).

    Anthropocene kills one rat? The impending LIA next decade will have significant casualties – that is very bruised “Warmist egos” in their millions.

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  • #
    TdeF

    Sorry, in South Australia they are talking accepting nuclear waste without power stations.

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      Yonniestone

      Well they did accept a waste of money without any power, quite a feat to obtain waste without producing anything……hang on I just described the Greens!

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    • #
      pattoh

      Methinks that is a camel/tent ambit.

      Do you remember the hissy fit over Pangaea(?) & a nuke dump for the whole world proposal?

      The poor Crow Eaters will have to come up with something to keep their economy going when GM pulls out because of the price of labour, LABOR & power.

      They could always merge with the VanDemonians, but it would destroy the 100+ yr thread of cartographic humour.

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    • #
      Peter C

      The best place for nuclear waste
      Is down a hole in a remote place

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      • #

        Peter C June 22, 2016 at 8:14 am

        “The best place for nuclear waste
        Is down a hole in a remote place”

        For the US; the bottom of an 80 ft ditch in the median of the interstates would be best! It remains unclear if that crap will be dug back up first as ‘not such a good place after all’ or ‘that is our bestus supply of remaining fuel’! 🙂
        -will-

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  • #
    sophocles

    A breed of Rat is dead. So what? There’s too many of them.
    It’s most likely not Klimae Change.

    A pregnant female from a remote population of something, somewhere, is washed out to sea on some driftwood, makes landfall on a 300m long cay. There’s food. Great. It pups.

    Anyone who has bred rats learns to separate the sexes well before they mature sexually if they don’t want to be buried in them. If it’s not done, the females are almost continuously pregnant. Rats do not subscribe to the concept of consanguinity. With no predators and plentiful food, a high rate of miscarriage, non-live births and non-viable pups doesn’t matter. It reduces over time. Four litters a year from close relatives and with no predators to keep numbers down and the population healthy, the animal’s population will grow geometrically to the limits of the food supply. Genetic mutations and changes which do not threaten fetal viability and prevent the individual from mating, will stay.

    It’s how mankind has managed to make so many races or breeds of dog. Nature does it faster.

    Numbers will only start to decrease as the food supply decreases and that might just be when it’s too late. Population crashes. Food supply does not increase because they’ve eaten everything which produced their food, and it’s a dead species.

    The initial massive in-breeding will make it a `new species’ pretty quickly.

    Yawn. Move along now, nothing to see here. The Climate didn’t do it.

    It’s too late to map its genome to find out exactly where it did come from and where it might go.

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  • #

    The average green seems to be blithely unaware that 99.99% of all species that evolved on Earth are now extinct. If only they’d follow suit …

    https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/green-myths-we-must-conserve-everything/

    Pointman

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    • #
      toorightmate

      Careful there Pointman.
      You’ll finish up where poor old Eddie has finished up.

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    • #

      nice myth there. Like I wrote to another person who needs some remedial biology classes, if alien invaders were to wipe out most of life on Earth including humans they could also tell the last pleading human, “you seem to be blithely unaware that 99.99% of all species that evolved on Earth are now extinct”.

      The last words of the last human, “hey that argument is a fallacy”

      03

      • #

        Agee Agee, I can see your snippy little nature hasn’t improved since our last contretemps. Things we write are much more understandable when a few rules of what’s commonly called grammar and punctuation are observed. Things like starting a sentence with a big letter, putting in a judicious speckling of commas (an undiscovered bourne for someone with your educational advantages) and only putting quotation marks (as distinct from speech marks) around exactly the words of whoever it is you’re quoting.

        Having said all that, the meaning of what you’re trying to express, if anything, eludes me.

        Pointman

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        • #

          basically, your percentage of 99.99 holds even if we wipe 50% of all taxa alive today. Secondly, it is irrelevant (yeah but I bothered anyway).

          Thanks for the writing lesson. You could use a lesson on bevity. It might help get your readership above 10.

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          • #

            Agee Agee, I despair of teaching you anything. Sentences start with a big letter. eg B = big letter, b = small letter. Again, your meaning, if anything, escapes me. You really are going to have to work on what us grownups call a line of reasoning. It runs along the general form of something called a syllogism. At its most basic; A = B, B = C therefore A = C. There are of course variations thereon, but I thought it better to keep it simple for you.

            Again, this is probably a tad ambitious for someone with your educational advantages, but do try and keep up.

            Now, go again, and this time try and make some sense.

            Pointman

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Pointman was discussing the evolutionary disappearance of species over a long period of time.

        The fallacy in your response, was to conflate that disappearance into a singular event, thus ignoring time.

        You are not comparing like with like. You are a very naughty carbon-based unit.

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        • #
          Mark D.

          You are a very naughty carbon-based unit.

          Her grape fig leaf wasn’t enough of a clue?

          20

        • #

          Indeed he was comparing the present time, a brief if not singular event, with alll of Earth’s history. Thanks for the back up.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Nice try Gee Aye, but you are incorrect, and obviously desperate to have the last word, so as to appear to have won the argument by strength of cronology. The “last man standing” logical fallacy.

            As I pointed out in my comment at #11.3.2, Pointman was talking about the whole span of evolution. It was you, who compared that to a singular event, of alien invaders wiping out most of life on earth, including humans.

            The introduction of “alien invaders”, is a hypothetical argument, and thus also a logical fallacy.

            I know you can do better than that.

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            • #

              but I am having the last word

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            • #

              oh and a real last word. You really did support me as he IS comparing all of evolution to a singular event and events (read the linked article dismissing pleas to conserve). Your logical fallacy is to portray the aliens as part of the argument whereas they are really just a rhetorical device employed to explain the argument (clearly not well enough). My point was that the 99.99% value can be quoted to dismiss even a deliberate and pointless mass destruction of the greater portion of life on Earth.

              01

  • #
    el gordo

    This mammal looks a bit like the Bramble Cay, its our distant relative when the asteroid impacted earth.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution#/media/File:CarpolestesCL.png

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  • #
    ROM

    Jo was quick of the mark with this one which I first saw yesterday.

    But to take a two at least of the climate alarmists and addled green’s shamanistic beliefs, add a couple of catastrophic future predictions originating in the minds of third rate scientists during a beer soaked, tax payer funded nosh-up held in some beer soaked annex of a third rate university somewhere in Queensland or NSW or WA and tremble, tremble, tremble for the scientific papers on the ” modeled and predicted” long night of human extinction may be at hand.

    NASA operates a asteroid / comet / Near Earth Object spotting Program which lists all the KNOWN Near Earth Objects in this list along with calculations for the chances of any of those NEO’s impacting on the planet.
    Nearly all of those known NEO’s are relatively small and would probably disintegrate while still a long way up in the atmosphere if their orbits took them into a collision path with Earth.

    The Tunguska meteor explosion over Siberia on June 30th 1908 is estimated to be have been about 120 feet [ 36.8 metres or 0.037 kms ] in diameter but the blast of the explosion [ NASA has pinched another truly frightening [ sarc/ ] climate catastrophe measuring system from a certain Queensland Uni cartoonist cum corn flake packet degreed climate scientist ] was still the equal of 185 Hiroshima Bombs with the blast shock effects throwing individuals off their chairs some 40 miles [ 65 kms ] away.

    Enter NASA’s NEO program and with Tunguska in mind plus another recent Siberian meteor explosion near Chelyabinsk in Feb 2013 with the power of around 40 Hiroshima bombs, we see some very interestingly sized NEO’s swooshing past our planet at velocities of anywhere from some dawdlers at about a mere 2.5 kms second to a few that seemed to have missed a bus somewhere out in the far reaches of Space and are trying to catch it so are sprinting along at around 38 kms or more per second.

    A somewhat obese member of the sprinters is the NEO 2008 FF5 which besides motoring along at some 39.7 kms second also comes in at an estimated 0.081 Km’s [ 81 metres ] diameter or about twice the diameter of the Tunguska meteor and therefore probably about eight times the estimated volume and mass of the Tunguska meteor.

    However you can all relax as NASA has calculated that if this thing was going to impact on the planet which is very doubtful, it would only do so somewhere around 2060 and by then a goodly percentage of us on Jo’s blog today will be dead or at least dis-interested.

    One that might impact when we are all very definitely dead is the heavy weight at about a billion tonnes 29075 which at 1.3 kms diameter is trundling along at a mere 14.1 kms / sec but will only impact the planet , if it ever does which is doubtful to say the least, in 2880.

    NASA’s very long list of NEO’s has quite a numer of possibilitiesa all of which might be exploited by the “Save the Planet” mob  who as the climate just keeps on doing what a climate always does might have to find new employment in another scare of even more frightening dimensions.

    A potential and looming large scale meteor impact would most definitely fulfill their pathalogically embedded and frustrated need to fulfill their deepest and most base psychological conviction of trying to frighten the hell out of any and all ordinary sensible citizens.

    A potential meteor impact for politicians would be god send.
    They could demonstrate their deep empathy for those wiped out and give them excuses to throw even more of the tax payers hard earned at another lot of chicken bone reading meteor impact modellers from various assorted third rate universities and other notable nose holding centres of politically motivated scientific non advancement.

    The Greens they could show their deepest feelings for the welfare of the planet by holding a mass demonstration of greens and green supporters at the anticipated point of impact to demand that the meteor cease and desist in its attempt to alter the planetary climate and it should just p**s off elsewhere or it will be black banned.

    The CMFEU could hold yet another stop work meeting at the estimated point of impact to demonstrate their solidarity with the Greens and to discuss and demand the levels of compensation that they will receive for the noise and heat and dust that the impact will cause and to appoint another two hundred Union work supervisors to oversee the point of impact damage restitution work.

    Shorten could accuse the government of imbecilic neglect in not convincing the meteor to p**s off elsewhere while showing solidarity with the Unionists whilst visiting the CMFEU’s salubrious offices built at no cost by some forward looking building contractors at the estimated point of impact.

    Turnbull would promptly resign and rejoin Goldman Sachs to instigate a system of “Impact credits” that will be a compulsory buy as legislated by the former Turnbull government, for all those who might be affected in any way by the meteor impact and which “impact credits” he will no doubt assure us, will strongly mitigate and reduce the effects of the meteor impact.

    All in all such a major meteor impact could bring very considerable benefits to the same people who have benefitted most from the climate change disaster.

    What is there not to like about such a scenario?

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  • #
    thingodonta

    “….reviewed all mammal species known from the end of the Cretaceous period in North America. Their results showed that over 93 per cent became extinct….”.

    That’s over 93% in N America, not the world.

    N America was hardest hit because the asteriod/comet landed near there, in what is now Mexico. Places like Australia, being far away, did not suffer such high rates of mammalian extinctions.

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  • #
    ROM

    A quote from an Australian Geographic article; Australia’s best meteorite craters

    Australia has 30 impact craters out of 176 recognised worldwide.

    [ See our gallery of some of the best.]

    AUSTRALIA IS AN ANCIENT land. Some of the rocks in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, for instance, are 3.5 billion years old, while other sedimentary rocks from Mt Narryer, WA, have been dated at around 3 billion years and contain much older mineral grains derived from pre-existing rocks that are 4.4 billion years old.
    Some of these ancient rocks have lain undisturbed for almost a billion years.
    &
    In Australia seven distinct craters, ranging in size from about 25 m to around 1 km in diameter, have been recognised.
    Five of these are associated with meteorites.
    In addition, there are another 30 very much larger but deeply eroded and enigmatic circular scars that present some evidence of an origin by impact.
    Among the largest are Woodleigh in Western Australia (60-70 km across), Lake Acraman in South Australia (greater than 35 km) and Tookoonooka in Queensland (50 km in diameter).

    While their sizes have yet to be determined precisely, these three structures are clearly very old, and in the case of Woodleigh and Tookoonooka they have become buried beneath a mantle of younger sediments, such that they are no longer visible at the surface.

    Thirteen other structures have been recognised, either as surface features or by geophysics.
    For these, there is little or no evidence other than their distinct circular shape to suggest they were formed from an impact.
    These structures include two underwater craters, Mercury and Maningrida, which occur off the coast of northern Australia.

    On land, 11 structures tentatively identified as possible impact sites include:
    * Lorne Basin (a doubtful structure in New South Wales)
    * Gnargoo, Herbert, Ilkura, Lennis, and Skirmish (all in Western Australia)
    * Mingobar (Queensland)
    * Barramundi, Calvert Hills, Renehan and Wessel (all in the Northern Territory).

    At this stage the origin of these structures, both on land and in the sea, are considered speculative.
    In total, some 50 of them have been recognised in Australia, to highly varying degrees of certainty.

    A map of the known and suspected meteor impact craters across Australia is also provided.

    Probably not widely known and I only know this because my Father until his early death at 61 years, was for a decade in the 1960’s on the board for of the Lutheran run Finke River Mission including the Hermannsberg Mission which is located to the west and north west of Alice Springs.
    So he had contact with a lot of genuine bushmen both aboriginal and white and got to see a lot of places and things that no longer exist or remain well hidden from the general run of the public.
    [ I only met the famous aboriginal painter Albert Namatjira just the once ]

    The Old Man climbed the Eyres Rock monolith guided I think by a couple of the local aboriginal people.
    Known today as Uluru but then without any of the supposed sacred sites and etc and etc being suggested.

    Eyres Rock was in those now long gone and more sensible days was a not very often visited piece of very impressive and monolithic Centralian scenery.

    He came back after one trip to the Mission with the news that the American astronauts in training in the 1960’s for the Moon Missions had actually in a very low and under the media radar trip, just arrived in Australia to climb, explore and familiarise themselves with the extremely dry, dusty and rugged terrain of a few very remote Central Australian meteor craters and to ascertain the conditions and to test equipment in the outback’s meteor craters which they thought might be similar to conditions they might find on the Moon after they had landed.

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      Peter C

      Our family took a trip to the red centre about 20 years ago. We visited a site known as the Henbury meteorite craters, which is a short diversion off the main road from Alice springs to Uluru.

      The craters are well formed and resemble the craters on the moon. According to signs there, this was the site that the NASA astronauts were taken to prior to the first moon landing.
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henbury_Meteorites_Conservation_Reserve

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        LightningCamel

        Speaking of impact signs, I have long been intrigued by the circular course taken by the headwaters of the Diamantina River in Western Queensland. The river and its tributaries form an almost perfect circle centered near 141°49’E 22°15’S with a diameter of around 120km.

        The rest of the topography doesn’t look crater-like but I wonder what underlies that circle.

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      ROM

      I think I could have easily met the standards required to get a position on the ABC’s recently disbanded Fact Checking department.

      It was Ayers Rock, not Eyres Rock as I posted above.

      Ayers Rock was named after the the Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers by the explorer William Gosse in July 1873.

      As one gets older, many things along with one’s outlook on life takes on a very different perspective.

      We are a very young nation by global historical standards.
      The discovery of the Centralian monolith Ayers Rock, now known as Uluru, in mid 1873 by William Gosse is now 143 years ago.

      Or as I now see it in my pending dotage, just short of two of my lifetimes ago.

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        We need more people with pending dotage. At least those with pending dotage learnt some real science, whilst at school.

        I found the sex life of plants to be particularly boring. Making explosives, after school, was a lot more interesting however …

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    Harry Twinotter

    False equivalence fallacy.

    The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction level event may have taken thousands of years to occur, they just do not know for sure.

    The AGW event on the other hand has only been running for maybe 100 years, give or take. And no one credible is calling it an extinction level event. The level of global warming is not that much higher than natural variability just yet.

    It is interesting you mention extinction level events. The Permian–Triassic extinction level event may have been triggered by climate change, and it was far worse than the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction level event.

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      James Murphy

      Where does natural variability end, and AGW start, in terms of, oh, I don’t know, lets start with temperature.

      What should the ‘global’ temperature be doing now, if one was to suppose that humans hadn’t decided to burn lots of stuff?

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        James Murphy June 22, 2016 at 7:17 am

        “What should the ‘global’ temperature be doing now, if one was to suppose that humans hadn’t decided to burn lots of stuff?”

        Could you provide some/any possible meaning for the phrase ‘global temperature’? Outside of ‘GRAND SCAM’, that is. -will-

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          When I hear the term “global temperature”, I think of taking the maxima and minima for each weather station, and averaging them.

          Of course, this give you a totally meaningless number (well two numbers, actually), but you feel that you have done something for future generations, as yet unborn.

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            Rereke Whakaaro

            “for each weather station” should read “for all weather stations”.

            I must try to think, faster than I can type.

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          Harry Twinotter

          Will Janoschla.

          Here is one, it took me 2 minutes to find. The technical term is Global Mean Temperature which Wikipedia does not go into. It is usually assumed to be defined at the earth’s surface.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature

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            AndyG55

            And please Harry, enlighten us, (lol)

            What SHOULD the Global Mean Temperature be?

            Argue your case with reference to the last 10,000 years…

            ie the current interglacial.

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        James Murphy

        Will Janoschka – I am not aiming to provide definitions, or meanings, I am merely attempting to engage people like Harry Twinotter in some sort of discussion at a level at which they may be familiar – so, obviously it cannot involve too much in the way of scientific principles.

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        Harry Twinotter

        James Murphy.

        You have framed your questions like rhetorical questions, but I will answer anyway.

        For natural variability here is a global temperature reconstruction for the last 1,000 up to 2000. The light blue is the natural variability plus uncertainty. The global temperature has outstripped the light blue area.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T_comp_61-90.pdf

        What should the global temperature be? I do not know, but looking at the elbow of the hockey stick graph gives a rough indication of where is would be without AGW.

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          Jaymez

          Harry,
          I can’t believe you are clinging to the reconstruction hockey stick of Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1999 ) to prove a point. I can’t put it any better than Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick did in their paper CORRECTIONS TO THE MANN et. al. (1998)
          PROXY DATA BASE AND NORTHERN HEMISPHERIC AVERAGE TEMPERATURE SERIES.

          The data set of proxies of past climate used in Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998,“MBH98” hereafter) for the estimation of temperatures from 1400 to 1980 contains collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data,geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects. We detail these errors and defects. We then apply MBH98 methodology to the construction of a Northern Hemisphere average temperature index
          for the 1400-1980 period, using corrected and updated source data. The major finding is that the values in the early 15th century exceed any values in the 20th century. The particular “hockey stick” shape derived in the MBH98 proxy construction – a
          temperature index that decreases slightly between the early 15th century and early 20th century and then increases dramatically up to 1980 — is primarily an artefact of poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect calculation of principal components.

          When you look at the graph using the data Mann et al used to create the graph you refer to, but without all the errors they incorporated into their hockey stick, hopefully not intentionally (?), you will see the graph re-institutes the uncontroversial Medieval Warm Period which disappeared in Mann et al’s graph, and shows quite clearly that present temperatures are not unusual.

          I can’t believe we still have to point this out.

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            Harry Twinotter

            Jaymez.

            “I can’t believe you are clinging to the reconstruction…”

            You personal incredulity is not an argument for anything.

            “Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1999 )…”

            Did you actually look at the chart? The green curve is the PAGES 2K reconstruction which replicates fairly well the results from the MBH99 reconstruction.

            MBH99 is actually a bit dated. And from memory it only covers the northern hemisphere.

            So you are making an Appeal to Authority by referring to the McIntyre and McKitrick paper, those well-known climate scientists (actually a businessman and an economist). Ad hominems aside, you might want to refer to the North Report which endorsed MBH99.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Report

            “I can’t believe we still have to point this out.”

            I was thinking the same thing… it only takes a 5 minute consultation with Dr Google to find that MBH99 was an OK piece of research, and has since been confirmed by other studies.

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      el gordo

      Dr Patrick Moore reckons we were on the verge of extinction just 18,000 years ago at the LGM.

      ‘Moore looks at the historical record of CO2 in our atmosphere and concludes that we came dangerously close to losing plant life on Earth about 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels approached 150 ppm, below which plant life can’t sustain photosynthesis.’

      WUWT

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      Graeme No.3

      “The Permian–Triassic extinction level event may have been triggered by climate change” – leaving aside that there seem to have been 3 events,
      it MAY have been also triggered by asteroid impact, volcanic eruption (Siberian traps), and the animals tripping over inflatable plastic toys left behind by unicorn shaped aliens.
      Evidence of the latter is slim to non-existent, but it MAY have happened.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        … it MAY have happened.

        That is very true. We need to apply the precautionary principle and assume that a) It definitely did happen; b) If it definitely did happen, then it definitely might occur again; and c) If it definitely might occur again, then we must prepare ourselves for having no viable civilisation, by dismantling civilisation now, whilst we still have time do so, under controlled conditions.

        Whew, that was a close call …

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        Harry Twinotter

        Graeme No.3

        Correct. Just like the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction level event was caused only by an asteroid. It might have been only an asteroid, or an asteroid in combination with something else, or the asteroid was the final blow in an extinction level event that was already underway. Geological timing tends to be imprecise.

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      Raven

      False equivalence fallacy.

      […]
      The AGW event on the other hand has only been running for maybe 100 years, give or take.

      False premise fallacy.
      Glass houses . . stones . . and all that.

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        Harry Twinotter

        Raven.

        I have heard of a false premise, but not a false premise fallacy. So you might want to explain.

        If you consider AGW to be a “false premise” well OK, fair enough. But it would be helpful if you say why you think AGW a false premise.

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          Raven

          Harry,

          A false premise is fallacious by definition.

          You’re usage of AGW is a false premise particularly because it was so casually presented referencing an indeterminate time frame as if it were fact and beyond dispute.

          It’s reminiscent of the well worn “it’s basic physics” argument; trivially true but beyond that, vapid, meaningless and essentially disingenuous rhetorical dogma which explains nothing largely because it defines nothing.

          Perhaps I should have said your statement assumes facts not in evidence but it wouldn’t have rolled off the screen as nicely.

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            Harry Twinotter

            Raven.

            “A false premise is fallacious by definition.”

            Reference please.

            “… explains nothing largely because it defines nothing.”

            Ummm no. It looks like you are trying to build a straw man here, unsuccessfully I might add.

            “… facts not in evidence…”

            Really? So you are just going to ignore all the evidence for AGW, and the majority opinion of the climate scientists?

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              Raven

              So you are just going to ignore all the evidence for AGW, and the majority opinion of the climate scientists?

              I’m not ignoring anything.
              How about we consider a more scientific approach and ask a better question:
              Why are you ignoring the null hypothesis? After all, that’s what you’re trying to dislodge isn’t it?

              None of the the hand waving about the “majority opinion of the climate scientists” or alleged “evidence“ has impacted that.
              Thus, we are obliged to accept the null hypothesis stands.
              That’s the way it works.

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                Harry Twinotter

                Raven.

                So you are going to dodge my questions and change the subject I see. I can understand why you are attempting a distraction, you screwed up badly on your “fallacy” definition.

                If someone mentions the null hypothesis in relation to climate change, it is a clear indication they do not know what they are talking about.

                ‘alleged “evidence“’ – Conspiracy Theory.

                Ummm so a majority of climate scientists agreeing on the conclusions from the scientific evidence, is irrelevant? Oh boy. The denial.

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                Raven

                Sorry Harry,

                (My last post on this matter)

                Your “majority of climate scientists” is an appeal to authority; another fallacy.
                You’re ad hom is juvenile and an instant losing strategy.
                If you’re not prepared to accept the standard scientific method of inquiry which includes notions like the null hypothesis, there’s no basis for a rational discussion, and thus, no point in continuing.

                Cheers.

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                Harry Twinotter

                Raven.

                I agree, there is no point in having this discussion when the central arguments are not being discussed. So this is an FYI.

                “Majority of climate scientists” is not an appeal to authority. It is an appeal to relevant authority which is not a fallacy. I am sure if only a minority of climate scientists accepted the evidence for AGW, then the denier camp would use that as evidence against AGW – you cannot have it both ways.

                I do accept the scientific method, so you plucked that challenge out of thin air just to be argumentive. I know in general what a “null hypothesis” is. The null hypothesis is rejected wrt CO2 increase compared to the Global Mean Temperature so I am surprised you mention it as it is evidence for AGW. I am sure if the GMT was flat or decreasing while CO2 rises, then we would not be having this discussion.

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                > It is an appeal to relevant authority

                Excuses excuses. Does the relevant authority control the climate? Are they Gods? Have they ever been wrong about anything?

                Your pathetically dismal reasoning does not fool us, even if you fool yourself with your fallacious excuses for your fallacious reasoning. Your inability to acknowledge even the most baby basic logic is getting to be very boring Twinotter. Either you have observations and measurements to support the consensus or you have nothing scientific.

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                Harry Twinotter

                Jo Nova.

                More ad hominems – I thought your blog policy cautions against using ad hominems?

                Your judgement of my reasoning means nothing to me. But I am happy to leave judgement to the readers of this blog, that is fair.

                ” Does the relevant authority control the climate? ”

                No, it doesn’t. But your ideology does not control the climate either.

                “Either you have observations and measurements to support the consensus or you have nothing scientific.”

                Do we really have to go over that ground again? So tiresome. I posted references to the data that supports my position. You might think that the majority of climate studies that support AGW is somehow irrelevant, but I don’t.

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    Roy Hogue

    Anyone want to worry about a real threat instead a fake one…

    Mein Got! Could it be true that the rare species show up less often in the fossil record and the more abundant are found more often? Someone really studied his statistics. I’m impressed. I would never have suspected that the probability of finding an object of interest, OI, in the set of all objects, AO, would be a function of the ratio of (number of OI in AO)/(total number of objects in AO). That’s quite a surprise discovery I think and must have taken months of work, if not years. Maybe this can qualify for some prize in mathematics?

    And from this kind of thinking we can determine with such precision that X% of all mammals went extinct is an even bigger discovery. More math prizes please.

    Science has the bad habit of building huge piles of conjecture, one on top of another and then stating their final conjecture with the same conviction one can have that 1 + 1 = 2.

    So Jo, nuts but no. It’s a whole lot more fun to fiddle with phony threats than real ones. For instance, I wish I could have spent a career fiddling numbers and announce my results with no consequences if I was wrong, without even any certainty that I was right. Instead, dumb old me, I chose a career where what I delivered to the company and its customers actually had to do exactly what was specified for it, one in fact where I might lose my job if I couldn’t make it work. I couldn’t even speculate about whether it worked or not. If the wrong thing happened when the button was pushed, it didn’t work. I didn’t get to publish papers about it either, after all, every last line of code I did was company property, proprietary and kept strictly private.

    I’m beginning to be jealous of these research types. But I think I really should think more along the line of cutting off their money and telling them to get a real job.

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      Roy Hogue

      Fortunately I’m in a good mood today. Otherwise I might launch off into a real rant against this kind of science.

      Sorry, there is no yellow or any other color face that describes my feelings about this.

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      Roy Hogue

      I would never have suspected that the probability of finding an object of interest, OI, in the set of all objects, AO, would be a function of the ratio of (number of OI in AO)/(total number of objects in AO).

      Just in case: If you don’t understand probability, the probability isn’t just a function of the ratio. The ratio is the actual definition of the probability of finding OI in AO. I wouldn’t want any confusion on the matter. At least no more than there is already. 🙂

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    Ruairi

    The mammoths, they numbered a lot,
    In millions, by tusks that were got,
    When the climate changed fast,
    As a quick freezing blast,
    Froze many right there on the spot.

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    • #

      Thanks for this Ian.

      See what happens when you let Pixie Ann Wheatley a journalist write an article on anything to do with electrical power generation. They haven’t a clue, and then don’t even bother to go and check if it’s even close to the truth.

      The actual headline was just the first of the mendacities.

      World’s First 24/7 Solar Power Plant Powers 75,000 Homes

      Nine words, three lies. It’s not the first. It’s not 24/7. It doesn’t supply 75,000 homes.

      Tony.

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    Geoff

    Not sure if a single large asteroid impact would affect the entire planets heating. However, I am sure that if CO2 levels dropped it would be difficult for large animals and plants to “breathe”. This would cause a mass extinction. There are multiple causes of this. It would be cyclical. Equally, an increase in CO2 would result in massive growth rates and result in much larger animals and plants. As CO2 in our atmosphere gets greater we get taller. As CO2 rates fall we get shorter.

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      el gordo

      ‘As CO2 in our atmosphere gets greater we get taller.’

      A world of giants (WOG) no less, but surely you have forgotten the impact of dietary intake?

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        Geoff

        Dietary intake would affect an individual. Whether it affects the gene pool is unknown. Food availability would affect growth rates for children. Too much food would affect adults poorly. It extends cell longevity, cell replacement slows, cancers and CVD results.

        CO2 directly controls O2 intake and O2 availability. The more free CO2 results in more available O2.

        C3 plants would thrive.

        Less CO2 means more fat must be stored. A rapid drop in CO2 levels would result in plants storing fat.

        Whether a rapid drop in temperature caused by an asteroid hit reduced CO2 levels is unknown. It could equally be caused by a big carbon sequestration buildup in huge forests. They literally ate themselves to extinction.

        In summary, more CO2 good, less CO2 bad.

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          el gordo

          If we can agree that all life on this planet is carbon based, then obviously humanity would benefit with more CO2 in the atmosphere.

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  • #
    pat

    CAGW policies are the biggest threat to our well-being.
    an absolute must-read:

    22 Jun: Australian: Keith DeLacey: Solar and wind power simply don’t work — not here, not anywhere
    (Keith DeLacy is a former Labor treasurer of Queensland)
    The problem we have in Australia is when we talk renewable energy we are talking wind and solar only — low value, expensive, unreliable, high capital cost, land hungry, intermittent energy.
    According to the Department of Industry and Science wind currently generates 4.1 per cent and solar 2 per cent of Australia’s electricity. But even this is highly misleading because it is such low value power. You could close it down tomorrow (which it regularly does by itself) and it would make no difference to supply.
    If we talk about total energy, as opposed to just electricity, wind and solar represent 1 per cent of Australia’s energy consumption. This despite billions of dollars of investment, subsidies, creative tariffs, mandates, and so on.Solar and wind simply don’t work, not here, not anywhere…
    Let’s look overseas where many countries have been destroying their budgets and their economies on this illusion for longer and more comprehensively than we in Australia…READ ALL
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/solar-and-wind-power-simply-dont-work–not-here-not-anywhere/news-story/66f188a1399705745abc0f2663a4a9c3

    good accompanying article by Graham Lloyd, except he doesn’t question or express an doubt about the validity of Climate Institute & Lowy figures?

    22 Jun: Australian: Graham Lloyd: Federal election 2016: De Lacy claims ALP energy polic will hurt
    The ALP’s 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 would cost blue-collar jobs and hit poor people hardest, according to former Queensland Labor treasurer Keith De Lacy.
    Writing in The Australian today, the former treasurer says Labor’s target would have enormous ramifications for economic growth and living standards, and disproportionate impacts on traditional Labor constituencies.
    He says ALP policy has escaped scrutiny during the campaign…
    ***New research from the Climate Institute showing public support for action on climate change and renewable energy is at its highest levels since 2008…
    ***A Lowy Institute poll has found 53 per cent of Australian adults see global warming as “a serious and pressing problem and that we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs.”
    Of those polled, 88 per cent see the use of fossil fuels as “in decline around the world and Australia should invest more in alternative energy sources”…READ ALL
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-de-lacy-claims-alp-energy-polic-will-hurt/news-story/8a32a5e8ef6f245523fd8d2fcfb7df4d

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      Thanks for pointing this out, pat. I had to chase it up, but I found the full article.

      How refreshing to see that someone from the political arena, (ex Queensland Labor State Treasurer) actually sought out the facts on something like this.

      It should be required reading for all politicians, not just those from his own State Labor friends, who probably on the back of what he says here, will undoubtedly shun him totally.

      Incidentally, it seems that the bottom has fallen out of Palaszczuk’s popularity. (link here)

      They also held the first public forum into the Queensland 50% renewable target two nights back, and I can’t find a word on it anywhere, not even a mention at the main site. I wonder how that’s going. Can’t wait for them to get to Rockhampton, that’s if I get an invitation to attend, that is.

      Tony.

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        Tony, I imagine that you should get an invitation to go to the discussion. However, you have put up some very good technical points of view to the effect that the 50% renewable target is correctly and virtually impossible to achieve. With consensus prevailing in climate science, there may be 97% of the submissions supporting the 50% target to save the reef, or whatever. So if it is a political decision then the answer is a big rubber stamp, irrespective of the technical impossibility. Why should the Qld. government be any saner than the south Australians, or Victorians for that matter.

        Looking at the BOM’s Met eye map this morning only just reinforces your comment about the best location for wind farms is the southern coastline, not Qld.

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          Imagine constructing a wonderful new huge wind plant somewhere on the Queensland coastline and then having a Cyclone go through.

          See now why they are doubly problematic in Queensland.

          According to their own wind map, Queensland has marginal wind by comparison to where they are now in the South, and Queensland is more susceptible to Cyclones.

          Unmitigated disaster if a Cyclone were to wipe out a wind plant.

          Cyclone Marcia passed directly overhead of Rockhampton, and Stanwell just hummed along as usual.

          We all lost power for almost a week, but that was only because all the lines went down.

          Tony.

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          And Robert O,

          thanks for even thinking that I’ll be given an opportunity to say anything at all. I somehow doubt it.

          Tony.

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  • #

    Very useful post as it prompted me to learn a bit more about the proposed anthropocene. For a start I thought it might have begun in say Roman times when humans in Europe and Asia (primarily) started large scale landscape changing (moving water about, clearing land, pollution, desertification etc), with the consequent wiping out of local populations via ecosystem change and protein gathering. But it is proposed to start mid-20C so that excludes Dodos, passenger pigeons and Tasmanian Tigers. Humans are off the hook for those.

    So really, one mouse maybe since 1950? Jo do you really think that is all.

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      AndyG55

      There is no such thing as the Anthropocene.. its a figment of the Green agenda.

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        It is not for me to say but the name and the proposal is driven by geologists and ultimately by geology. It is not accepted by any of the formal societies but it is on the table for consideration. The scientific publications that discuss it are authored by geos.

        If the stratigraphy that is being laid down now is demonstrably changed by human activity so that, in the future, it can be identified and isolated from what came before it then will need to be named. You can debate the name but not the evidence.

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        Here is the green conspiracy http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/workinggroups/anthropocene/

        and here is a picture of them http://www.fni.no/news/160425.html

        check out the beard on one. And jeans and checked shirts!!! There are even women so they can’t be serious.

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      el gordo

      Its well known that humans wiped out the mega fauna long before the anthropocene (sic).

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        The proposal has raised interesting debate and is worth looking at (even for those with green blinkers who think it is all a conspiracy). Epochs eras etc are all named retrospectively. This is obvious but beyond that not much is really revealed about the processes that lead to the different layers. If strata is examined by someone or some thing 2 million years from now, they might see a leading signature of nuclear tests for instance and then a whole lot of disturbed land (e.g from agriculture), or bits of masonry or whatever on top of that, but under it might be the bones of a speared diprotodont in an otherwise normal holocene layer. When or what is the human activity doing that will mark itself out for posterity?

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        tom0mason

        But elgordo, all the Greens know that the mega-fauna was natural and wicked humans aren’t.

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        • #
          Mark D.

          Right Tom, not wicked though; created and ordained by God. Dominion over all other creatures, be fruitful and multiply etc.

          And all that other old fashioned stuff….

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            tom0mason

            Agreed Mark D…

            But the way I see it — the Greens appear to believe that humans are not part of this world’s nature, often they seem to voice the view that humans are anti-nature aliens.

            I believe we are part of and within the great cipher known as Nature.
            As such we are unable to perceive what humanity’s ultimate mortal destination is on this planet.
            At the risk of derailing the thread, I have only this to say about the very personal matter of religion —
            Religions, among many things, attempts to indicate the direction each individual should take to optimally benefit humanity, however free will (within the bounds of our individual resources and nature) allows anyone to do as they please.

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    ROM

    Off topic

    But as we are discussing the wiping out of species by the so far still to be verified and observed and therefore unmeasured Climate Change, I think this interesting bit of real science allied with a truly crazy piece of pure utterly unprovable conjecture from Science Daily might go close to winning the Gold Medal for Cretinous Climate Change Claims.

    Immense species richness of bacterial-eating microorganisms discovered in soil

    Typically ignored, the millions of microorganisms that we tread upon daily play a major role in the decomposition of soil matter — one that is of far greater significance than that of the whales and pandas that tend to steal our attention.

    A group of researchers has just shown that there is an enormous diversity among a group of bacteria-eating microorganisms known as Cercozoa.
    In four small soil samples, each consisting of a half gram of soil, they discovered more than 1000 different species per sample.

    The research suggests that a drier climate in the years ahead due to climate change will contribute to a shift in the number of soil microorganisms, and thus, a shift in the decomposition of soil matter, with as of yet to be known consequences.

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      this is hype to suck in the readers

      Typically ignored

      not ignored by soil ecologists and microbiologists. There is literature on these stretching back to the origins of the microscope and to the earliest biochemistry. It is true that the modern mass genome screenning methods have been an eye opener but not because these things were ignored.

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        Mark D.

        not ignored by soil ecologists and microbiologists. There is literature on these stretching back to the origins of the microscope and to the earliest biochemistry. It is true that the modern mass genome screenning methods have been an eye opener but not because these things were ignored.

        Yeh sure but what have they done for me lately?

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          well they are almost certainly the source for the bulk of the mobile genetic elements that confer resistance to fungi i.e. antibiotic resistance. So they’ve provided you with something to fear when you next visit a hospital.

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    pat

    on the way out, hopefully? California’s cap’n’trade:

    21 Jun: Vox: David Roberts: California’s signature climate policy is struggling through its awkward teen years
    Policy-wise, cap and trade is a modest piece of the puzzle. It’s responsible for less than a third of the carbon cuts driven by state policy — the rest come from an array of regulations, standards, and investments.
    Politically, it’s a different story. The cap-and-trade program has boosted California’s reputation as an environmental leader…
    And it is in trouble…
    The fateful question every carbon pricing program must answer: Who gets the money?…
    Looming over all this is uncertainty about whether the program extends past 2020, the date of its statutory emissions target…
    If California’s cap-and-trade program can’t find its way through this current dumpster fire intact, it could give the reputation of carbon markets a stain that will be difficult to erase.
    http://www.vox.com/2016/6/21/11955104/california-cap-and-trade-troubles

    14 Jun: LA Times: California’s cap-and-trade program faces daunting hurdles to avoid collapse
    By Chris Megerian and Ralph Vartabedian
    Unless the state acts, “the whole system could fail,” said Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles). “If that happens, we could lose an entire stream of revenue to make our communities more sustainable.”…
    Meanwhile, clean energy businesses and environmental justice groups are counting on cap and trade to provide financial support for their products and their communities…
    “The name of the game wasn’t to raise revenues,” said Dean Florez, a former Democratic state senator who is now a member of the Air Resources Board.
    But since then, lawmakers and the governor have relied on the program to pay for a broad swath of initiatives, increasing their reliance on the money. Even Republicans who oppose cap and trade have suggested using the funding to repair dilapidated roads…
    “If we cease to have [cap and trade], that’s going to send a very loud message to the rest of the world and one we may not want to send,” said Michael Wara, a Stanford law professor…
    http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-climate-change-challenges-20160614-snap-story.html

    13 Jun: Sacramento Bee: Dan Walters: Could California’s ‘cap and trade’ auction meltdown happen again?
    http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/dan-walters/article83098292.html

    15 Jun: Reuters: Rory Carroll: California’s landmark cap and trade program faces uncertain future
    “It has given people in the market some pause,” said Todd Maiden, a partner with the law firm Reed Smith. “If the court was to suddenly invalidate the auctions, where do you go from there? Does that mean we go back in time and refund the money? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

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    RoHa

    “Asteroid kills 90% of all mammal species: Anthropocene kills one rat”

    Note to self: must try harder.

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    ROM

    Now for the other side of this discussion so as this is long I will divide it into three posts as it has three different perspectives on the possible developments that led directly to the formation of life on this planet.
    All of which are hypothesized and can never be proven absolutely.

    Part 1 / As we are discussing meteor impacts and their effects on planetary life, from Science

    Asteroid impacts may have formed life’s building blocks

    A high-powered laser in the Czech Republic has now provided provocative evidence that the hellish conditions produced when an asteroid or comet slams into Earth could have created some key building blocks of life on Earth.
    In a lab experiment intended to duplicate the high temperatures and pressures of such an impact, researchers used the laser to simultaneously make adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil, the four organic compounds in RNA, which many believe to have been the first molecule to encode genetic information.
    &
    Researchers have long sought to identify ways that the nucleobases that make up RNA or DNA (which uses thymine instead of uracil) could be made from simpler substances.
    That, in turn, could help scientists ascertain where, how, and under what conditions life might have originated, says Svatopluk Civiš, a physical chemist at the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry in Prague.

    In recent years, Civiš says, researchers proposed that a simple substance called formamide was a possible source of such genetic building blocks.
    This minimalist chemical, which forms when hydrogen cyanide reacts with water, would have been abundantly available on early Earth and has the major elements needed for prebiotic chemicals—namely, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen.
    Indeed, some teams have already produced individual nucleobases in lab experiments using various catalysts to drive chemical reactions between formamide and other ingredients.
    And other teams have done so starting with different grab bags of simple chemicals.

    In the new research, Civiš and his colleagues fired their institute’s laser into a formamide-bearing solution that also included clay.
    In that mixture, intended to represent a chemical-rich pool on ancient Earth’s surface, the one-third-of-a-nanosecond-long pulses generated intense pressure, temperature spikes exceeding 4200°C, and a cascade of radiation including ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths—just the sort of conditions expected when an object such as a comet or asteroid strikes the ground.
    Reactions sparked in the experiment’s harsh conditions, besides producing substances such as hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and methanol, also created the four RNA nucleobases, the researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of sciences.

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      ROM

      Part 2; Where molecules with the right chirality, the correct left or right handed assembly structure of its atoms, Chirality, that is one of the essential molecular characteristics of Life as we know it.
      A molecule with the same identical atomic structure as found in Life but assembled in the reverse, the opposite Chirality, is usually deadly to that life form.
      June 2016 ; of which I first read a couple of weeks ago

      Scientists just detected this life-forming molecule in interstellar space for the first time

      [ Quote below is from the article ]

      For the first time ever, scientists have detected a complex organic molecule called a chiral molecule in the reaches of interstellar space, and the discovery could greatly enhance our understanding of how biological life came to be on Earth – and maybe even life’s prospects for evolving elsewhere in the galaxy.

      The molecule in question, propylene oxide, was discovered in a gigantic gas cloud called Sagittarius B2, located about 390 light-years from the centre of the Milky Way. Sagittarius B2 has a mass around 3 million times the mass of the Sun, and now we know that this huge conglomeration contains chiral molecules in its midst, which had never previously been detected outside our Solar System.

      “This is the first molecule detected in interstellar space that has the property of chirality, making it a pioneering leap forward in our understanding of how prebiotic molecules are made in the Universe and the effects they may have on the origins of life,” said chemist Brett McGuire from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Virginia.

      Chirality is a geometric property of molecules, where asymmetric molecules display an almost identical chemical composition, but in an altered configuration – much like a mirror image – in what are called left-handed or right-handed versions.

      It’s a key chemical property of life on Earth, where every molecule that helps to form living things – such as amino acids, proteins, enzymes, and sugars – appears in only the left- or right-handed version of itself. This is called homochirality, and while it gives a biological benefit – as the matching molecules can fit better with one another to make larger organic structures – nobody knows how this ‘chiral bias’ came about.

      As such, the discovery that chirality exists well outside our Solar System – with the detection of a ‘handed’ molecule in Sagittarius B2 – is a pretty big deal. Why? Because it could help explain why life essentially picks one molecular orientation over another.

      “Propylene oxide is among the most complex and structurally intricate molecules detected so far in space,” said one of the researchers, Brandon Carroll from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “Detecting this molecule opens the door for further experiments determining how and where molecular handedness emerges, and why one form may be slightly more abundant than the other.”

      The researchers identified the molecular signature of propylene oxide using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, with supporting observations coming from the CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in Australia.

      The team thinks complex molecules like this could form in the gas cloud from thin mantles of ice that develop on extremely tiny dust grains floating in space. These ice mantles would enable the molecules to form larger molecular structures, and help produce other chemical reactions within the cloud should the ice evaporate.

      It sounds like a glacial process, but the fact that chiral molecules are doing this at all in deep space could help explain how they later make their way onto asteroids and comets – which might end up seeding the molecules on the surface of planets in the event of an impact.

      [ more >>>> ]

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        ROM

        Part 3;

        ORIGIN OF LIFE: THE PANSPERMIA THEORY

        [ As quoted from the article ]

        How life originated on earth is a question that people have pondered for ages. Theories abound, from those based on religious doctrine, to the purely scientific, to others that border on science fiction. One possibility that hovers on this border is the panspermia theory, which suggests that life on Earth did not originate on our planet, but was transported here from somewhere else in the universe. While this idea may seem straight out of a science fiction novel, some evidence suggests that an extraterrestrial origin of life may not be such a far out idea.

        One argument that supports the panspermia theory is the emergence of life soon after the heavy bombardment period of earth, between 4 and 3.8 billion years ago. During this period, researchers believe the Earth endured an extended and very powerful series of meteor showers. However, the earliest evidence for life on Earth suggests it was present some 3.83 billion years ago, overlapping with this bombardment phase. These observations suggest that living things during this period would have faced extinction, contributing to the idea that life did not originate on Earth.

        However, in order for life to originate elsewhere in the universe, there would have to be an environment on another planet capable of supporting it. Our study of the universe suggests that life as we know it would have a hard time surviving outside of the Earth. But, it is important to note that life on Earth can withstand many extreme conditions. Some bacteria grow at temperatures as high as 113°C. At the other end, microbes can thrive at temperatures as low as -18°C; many can be preserved in liquid nitrogen at -196°C. They can also tolerate high doses of ionizing and UV radiation, extreme pressure, etc. These observations suggest that it is difficult to define the conditions that favor life, and make it harder for us to predict that life is unique to Earth.

        The presence of water elsewhere in the universe reinforces this. Mars is believed to have contained water in the past. Much excitement for the presence of life on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, has been fueled by speculations that it may have underground oceans. However, while water is essential for life that we are familiar with, its presence does not necessarily indicate the presence of life.

        The fact that organic matter is relatively common in space could also support the idea of extraterrestrial life. Organic matter refers to matter composed of compounds that contain carbon. All living things on Earth are carbon-based. A variety of organic compounds have been detected in meteorites that have landed on earth, including amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins (and proteins are primary components all of living cells). The presence of carbon-based matter in meteorites supports the possibility that life on our planet could have come from outer space. But, even though life on earth is composed of organic matter, organic matter itself is not considered life.

        Even if extraterrestrial life did exist, proponents of the panspermia theory must still determine how life arrived on Earth. The best candidates to act as “seeds of life” are bacterial spores, which allow bacteria to remain in a dormant state in the absence of nutrients. Bacteria constitute about one-third of Earth’s biomass and are characterized by their ability to survive under extreme conditions—those that we initially believed were unable to support life. In light of panspermia, the important question is if bacteria or bacterial spores could survive in space.

        [ more >>>> ]
        —————–
        Those are the three main hypothesizes, two of which hypothesise on how Life through the creation of the organic molecules needed to form the essential DNA and RNA either formed and developed on this planet or came already formed and raring to go by way of express delivery via meteors and asteroid impacts from somewhere out in the far reaches of the Cosmos.

        The third way was the creation of those essential to life organic molecules that make up the RNA and DNA right here on the Planet but again as you may have noted, they are hypothesised to have been created through the effects of massive meteor and asteroid impacts so again are reliant on space based and Cosmos bodies impacting on the planet.

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    pat

    21 Jun: Reuters: Tom Polansek: Bayer crop unit apologizes to farmers after Twitter gaffeBayer AG’s crop science division apologized on Monday for a tweet that suggested reduced meat demand could benefit the environment, in a bid to appease outraged farmers who buy the company’s seeds and chemicals.
    The tweet, published on the official Bayer Crop Science (@Bayer4crops) account on Sunday, linked to a Vox.com article that said “going vegetarian can cut your food carbon footprint in half.”
    The post sparked a backlash on Twitter from North American grain growers who sell much of their harvests to livestock operations and from farmers who raise animals. A decline in meat consumption would hurt their incomes…
    “The livestock industry feeds our planet & we’re glad to support it. It was never our intention to antagonize it – sorry!” Bayer Crop Science tweeted repeatedly…READ ALL
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-crops-tweet-idUSKCN0Z623O

    Guardian & usual CAGW suspects are making hay out of this one, but note ***

    21 Jun: UK Telegraph: Climate change campaigners welcome China’s plan to halve meat consumption
    Climate change campaigners have welcomed new guidelines which urge Chinese consumers to eat 50 per cent less meat, even though food experts say enticing the country’s growing urban middle classes away from beef and pork will be a huge challenge.
    The Chinese Nutrition Society last month called on consumers to reduce the amount of animal-based food they eat from about 300 grams to 200 grams a day and their meat consumption from about 62 kg to 27 kg per year.
    The Beijing-backed health agency hopes the guidelines will help ward off a growing obesity and a diabetes time-bomb in China, while global warming campaigners believe they could also result in huge benefits for the planet…
    PHOTO CAPTION: Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron are leading a campaign to reduce meat consumption for the good of the environment…
    ***But the new guidelines have changed only marginally from those that were released in 2007, and since then China has been rapidly increasing its consumption of meat, particularly in urban areas…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/21/climate-change-campaigners-welcome-chinas-plan-to-halve-meat-con/

    nonetheless – it’s “new” to Chatham House! lol.

    China Shows Way with New Diet Guidelines on Meat
    Chatham House (press release) (subscription) – ‎18 hours ago‎

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    pat

    links included, but don’t know & don’t care if the links go to the full polling data, because they are so ridiculous:

    22 Jun: SMH: Peter Hannam: Federal election 2016: Polls point to rising support for climate change action
    Political parties that dither on tackling climate change do so at their own electoral peril if two polls out this week pointing to rising voter concern are any guide.
    The Lowy Institute’s annual poll on Australian Attitudes to The World surveyed 1202 adults earlier this year and found support for taking action to curb global warming “even if it involves significant costs” to be at its highest since 2008, up 17 percentage points to 53 per cent after hitting a nadir in 2012. (See chart below.)
    “This is a result which puts climate policy firmly on the agenda for whichever party wins government on 2 July,” Michael Fullilove, Lowy’s executive director, said in a statement…
    A separate poll out on Wednesday from the Climate Institute found a similar rebound from 2012, with almost two-thirds wanting Australia to be “a world leader in finding solutions to climate change”. (See chart of results below.)…
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/federal-election-2016-polls-point-to-rising-support-for-climate-change-action-20160620-gpn6si.html

    22 Jun: Courier Mail: Cold fronts to deliver hail and snow to large parts of Australia as the first winter cold snap hits
    Shae McDonald (AAP)& Michael Morrow
    QUEENSLANDERS will be shivering through temperatures as low as -3C this weekend as a cold front makes its way across southern Australia…
    The mercury will drop below zero in the south-west of the state from Saturday, with Stanthorpe expected to experience temperatures 6C below average.
    Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Annabelle Ford said the town averaged a minimum of 2.5C at this time of year, but on Sunday it would drop to -3C.
    Brisbane residents will also feel the chill, with the temperature tipped to drop to 9C – 1.5C below average – on Saturday.
    Ms Ford said the cold weather was only expected to last a few days before average temperatures returned.
    Snow could fall as far north as Queensland as the first major cold snap of 2016 sweeps in just days after the latest east coast low…
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/cold-fronts-to-deliver-hail-and-snow-to-large-parts-of-australia-as-the-first-winter-cold-snap-hits/news-story/640521a075dfc9ef125c3657afa62413

    [I found this in moderation. I don’t know what put it there. But even if it had something objectionable in it (which it does not) I would approve it just because it pokes a great big stick in the eye of the climate alarmists.] AZ

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    pat

    comment #29 is in moderation.

    20 Jun: UK Telegraph: Tony Lodge: Why Europe is to blame for the UK’s acute energy policy failures
    Too much electricity in the summer and too little in the winter. Fifty-year-old coal plants being paid tens of millions of pounds to stay on because replacements aren’t being built. Electricity prices more than double those in the US. Panic measures to buy in more and more foreign electricity.
    These acute failures in British energy policy go to the heart of the EU referendum debate…
    EU policies have done real damage to our security of supply. They have forced the premature closure of coal and oil-fired power stations before their replacements are ready. This issue is the main reason for Britain’s looming energy crunch.
    To date, the EU’s various power station directives have forced the UK to close a staggering 16,000 MW of capacity. These coal and oil fired power stations had generated reliable electricity since the 1960s and 70s. The closures represent nearly a third of baseload UK electricity generating capacity. The EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive will force the shutdown of remaining coal plants before new and cleaner gas-fired power stations (known as CCGTs) are ready…
    More expensive, weather-dependent wind turbines, solar panels and undersea cables to import foreign electricity aren’t the answer. We need new policies in the national interest and fast. The Government has had to resort to spending tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to subsidise under-sentence coal plants so that they will stay on and generate electricity this winter…
    In another Commons answer, ministers have admitted foreign electricity imports have risen by 30pc in just two years…
    Billions of pounds of public money raised from consumers’ electricity bills have been spent to subsidise the wind and solar sectors to try and reach this target…
    As a result, a medium-sized business in the EU pays 20pc more for energy than an equivalent firm in China, 65pc more than in India, and nearly 100pc more than those in the US…ETC
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/20/why-europe-is-to-blame-for-the-uks-acute-energy-policy-failures/

    About the writer: Tony Lodge is a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies.
    He is author of ‘The Great Green Hangover – how to cuts bills and avoid an energy crisis’, which is published by the CPS.

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    Analitik

    From Recovery plan for the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola)
    – circa 2008

    Threats summary
    1. Erosion of the cay is the major threat to the species survival. The cay is in a state of flux with its movements strongly influenced by the prevailing weather patterns. While there appears to have been a net loss of the cay in recorded history, recent measurements suggest the cay might be in a depositional phase. Erosion may be compounded by high winds, wave action and storm surges associated with cyclones.

    2. The introduction of exotic predators or weeds to the cay could potentially be catastrophic, given the small and vulnerable nature of the melomys population. The cay’s isolation, close proximity to PNG and its use as an anchorage by fishing boats means there is a threat of pest and/or disease establishment. Two weed species are already present.

    3. Genetic analysis of this species reveals a level of inbreeding which theoretically could lead to inbreeding depression and ultimately extinction.

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      PeterPetrum

      What a surprise – who would have thunk it! A little bit of literature research before making fools of themselves might have helped, but then, think of the funding issue. Sigh.

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