Merry Christmas to everyone.
It’s a happy Christmas here, thanks to everyone who is chipping in to help cover the costs of science research and commentary that the government won’t fund.
A big thankyou also to the moderators.
Wishing everyone the best of health and happiness.
I hereby officially demand that my contribution be allocated to your mental health. I want you to buy a bottle or 2 of your favorite liquid
131
Merry Christmas!
(we open gifts already at the Eve)
50
Where other traditions give and open gifts on the 26th — hence the name, “Boxing Day”.
But Merry Christmas where ever Jo’s readers are – including the ISS (Hi, guys).
41
Um I don’t think they’re very big on Christmas……….oh the ISS, yes carry on.
40
‘Boxing Day’ was the day tradesmen were given their ‘boxes’…gifts of money and other things, as an acknowledgement of their service.They would call at the door to receive them. I remember giving them to our milkman, postman and so on.
41
Happy Merry Christmas!
40
Merry Christmas to all and a safe and interesting New Year.
But there’s still plenty to do in 2017.
As someone here referred to it; the Green Leftoid Blob, {Hugh or Will } is still very much embedded in the social fabric of our societies.
It may be about to stop growing, under the impact of the declaration of disgust made by the people through Brexit and Trump, but it has a big hold on our schools, universities, governments and electricity generation, to list the most obvious.
But we are moving, so
Merry Christmas.
KK
170
As I was answering someones Christmas email a short time ago I found myself saying, “Pray not for peace but for wisdom in leaders around the world.” Her message included a link to this very good rendition of my favorite Christmas Hymn. Enjoy. 🙂
Merry Christmas, late for all of you on the other side of the date line but just Christmas morning here. Happy New Year and I might add, may it be a prosperous one.
Roy
50
Thanks Roy, and Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Amazing wildlife scenes, including a real live birth scene.
Peace and goodwill to all.
KK
30
KK,
Mammalian birth always involves a messy scene and some initial squeamishness. We humans don’t easily take to things like that. But it’s easily overcome as I found out when I had the opportunity to see a training video for police and firefighters, a real live birth carried out in the back seat of a car with the doctor playing the role of the “hapless” police officer having to cope with nature unexpectedly while the real father stood by very nervously. I couldn’t help but watch it several times. The acting was terrible but it got the point across. I don’t know who they were who volunteered to let the birth of their child be recorded that way but I’m glad they did.
When my son was born they were not about to let fathers into the delivery room. And I found myself envying him when his son was born. Being there with his wife at that time is something I can only imagine. But I’m glad the medical profession has “wised up” since then.
61
That is absolutely beautiful Roy.
I wish you and yours the merriest of Christmases, and for many more in the future.
50
Thank you, Rod.
Our Son, daughter-in-law and grandson will be here today, the 26th and we expect a good long visit and a very Merry Christmas.
The problem is always two sets of grandparents and the need for someone to drive that 100 miles each way between them. This year we got the day after. I guess you can have too much family or too far flung to arrange for everyone to be together on the same day but what if Christmas is a day later? Big deal — not!
51
Merry Christmas Jo and family.
I check your blog every day looking for artillery.
You have enabled me to convert more than a few.
Thanks.
122
Merry Christmas to all who have not lost hope and to those who have the few will help you remember what it was and how it can be.
60
Best of Xmas to all.
50
Merry Chocolate to all!
90
Merry Christmas to Jo and all contributors to this educational blog in pursuit of valid science.
71
bahhhhh.. Humbug !!!
MC+HNY to all those who want it. 🙂
82
I do!
40
Same here. 🙂
Did the family get-together two weeks ago, so a nice quiet Christmas for me.
NYD.. not so much 😉
20
A very Happy Christmas to you both, Jo and David.
61
Just managed to disentangle myself from wrapping paper and sellotape for long enough to eat Santa’s mince pie and drink his port , and free my fingers to comment here , what is it about us men that makes us useless at wrapping gifts in paper , our lunch in cling film or even putting a cover over a duvet, hope that comment doesn’t brake any PC rules because I know you guys know where I’m coming from , have a great xmas one and all , please raise a glass to Joanne and David for all they do for us xxx
110
Dave, I like breaking PC rules, so well done! As it happens, I’m not that good at wrapping gifts, using cling film (Miles Kington, who sadly died a while back, called cling film a sort of enveloping fungus; I know what he meant!) and I loathe struggling with duvet (called doonas here in Aus…no idea why!) covers.
41
Annie , Rick Parfitt of STATUS QUO just past , my favourite song by Status Quo is paper plane , when my three year old grandson visits , I can fold a mean paper plane that flies forever , but still can’t wrap a xmas gift
[Don’t be too hard on yourself for being a normal man. It’s that Y-chromosome and nothing can change it.] AZ
60
https://youtu.be/dW3d9qSzxRk RIP Rick
30
The name, “Doona” is the masculine form of the word “Duvet”, seriously.
When duvet is pronounced using the original French phonetics, it is “doovey”, which sounds effeminate.
Aussie blokes, being as they are, wanted a blokeish sounding word, and since a duvet is full of down, a “Doona” is something a real man can discuss down the pub with his mates (yeah right!).
40
The answer is Duct tape.
After carefully wrapping a very small present in copious quantities of duct tape, you will never be criticized over your poor packaging skills by the recipient.
Merry Christmas
80
Seasons greetings and the big thanks goes to Jo & David for providing this blog site.
How’s the climate where you are for Christmas day?
Adelaide forecast to be world’s hottest capital city on Christmas Day.
24 Dec, 2016, abc: Third prolonged blackout in the west coast region of SA in about three months after storms damaged power lines twice during September.
* * *
When will South Australian renewable energy prevent it’s first storm?
130
To be fair, that region is always going to be vulnerable to power outages due to truly being at the end of the grid. It certainly would be prudent to have a decent generator and a reasonable fuel store and the ABC article indicates the locals have prepared.
I guess one could argue that without all the spending on power lines to wind farms, the line out to the west of Port Augusta could have been better maintained. Kudos to the teams who repaired the line in uncomfortable, difficult conditions – they’ve earned their Christmnas break.
132
Ignore red thumb,,,fat finger
60
Braggart………
20
My finger is actually quite small.
In Both senses.
Unless aroused by CAGW RUBBISH.
51
Kinky in deed as well as name…
30
When I see cagw stuff that is rubbish I hit the big red button for a thumbs down.
31
Renewable energy has brought an increase in religious observence. The entire S.A. Labor Cabinet is praying that there is no blackout over the holiday eason.
180
My thoughts are for a spell checker that works. Observance, and obviously Holiday Season.
Christmas day is the lowest peak demand day in the year so S.A. should get through today. Unfortunately a storm is coming tomorrow. Should that cause another blackout what will they blame this time? Reindeer getting bogged?
80
So, how did the 97% BoM go with todays climate report for someone who declared in 2008 a ‘permanent drought’ and claims to be able to project weather/climate in 100 years?
“SOUTHEAST Queenslanders have endured a damp and chilly Christmas Day, with the mercury struggling to make it past 23 degrees.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the temperature in the Queensland capital was just 23.5 degrees at 12.30pm, colder than even Hobart and the notoriously chilly Canberra.”
. . .
After departing a rainy Coolangatta, burnt some fossil fuel and spent day south of Byron Bay, where it rained continuously.
Score F for FAIL for Australia’s 97% Bureau of Meteorology, it’s permanent drought and ‘hottest year evah”.
82
Dunno about drought Mark, but try this one for a rare event.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-26/uluru-closed-homes-damaged-by-flashfloods-in-central-australia/8148430
It’s one of those things I’d really love to see, but doubt I’d enjoy experiencing.
Merry Xmas, and Happy New year to you all.
Cheers,
Dave B
PS it’s hot and dry here.
30
Gold.
72
Hello and seasonal greetings to you, Cohenite.
While searching for an old comment of mine, I have just noticed a misunderstanding from 4 years ago and, instead of letting sleeping dogs lie, I would like to clear it up.
On 2012-04-27 I replied to a comment about BEST’s analysis of UHI. I hyperlinked to a Climate Audit post but did not make it clear which details were imported from McIntyre and which details were (ahem) locally manufactured. Actually the only fact from CA that I used was that “Under Oke’s original UHI concept, the cumulative UHI effect was, as a rule of thumb, proportional to log(population).” I then made my own basic differential calculus examination of the effect of population on warming trend via UHI.
You replied to the same comment acknowledging that I had looked into it.
Nearly two years later on 2014-01-30 you commented on Jennifer Marohasy’s blog, saying:
That initial quotation mark suggests that McIntyre had written all of what followed, but actually you were quoting me.
Google tells me that you’ve quoted this again on 2015-10-29:
Now here you have done the same thing I did which is to not make it clear whether the hyperlink is the verbatim source of everything that follows or just other related supporting material. So I cannot fault you for that without risking my own hypocrisy. 🙂
I do note however that the ambiguity may allow the casual reader to interpret that comment as implying that my original work “gives the ‘best’ explanation as to why UHIE is real and why its existence confounds the land based indices” and was so good it was mistaken for the output of McIntyre.
So I will finish by belatedly thanking you for that unintended Christmas gift. 🙂
In this time of government plots for expropriating superannuation for hare-brained infrastructure projects and government interference in big mining project cancellations, there is one form of seasonal well-wishing that covers all the bases: May all your deposits be economically exploitable.
40
Merry Christmas to Jo, David and your family. And also Merry Christmas to the moderators – bless you for thoughtfulness.
61
My Christmas wish to you all is that Donald Trump does what he said he would do to the purveyors of bad science in the USA, as part of the process of ‘draining the swamp’.
Climate science has become so corrupted and twisted by ‘scientists’ trying to perpetuate their comfortable lifestyles and dodgy politicians seeking to win votes by ‘saving the world’. As with every great deceit, there has to be a small kernel of truth, encapsulated in a complex web of untruths and distortions – a lesson well learned by the Klimate Establishment and which now needs to be unraveled.
Trump has largely surrounded himself with people who have proven they know how the world works, as opposed to Obama’s policy of employing people who like to think they know how things work.
So in order not to be PC, it’s Happy Christmas to you all, not Seasons Greetings, nor Happy Holidays.
170
…. no Festivus either.
The Guardian editorial says the Donald is an ‘authoritarian and demagogue’ which is politically incorrect on a couple of levels.
Merry Xmas all.
110
The Guardian, unsupervised by adults, mistakenly thinks that the real bosses and leaders are ‘authoritarian and demagogue’, forgetting that the Obama administration really was full of them.
Merry Christmas and Happy new Year to Jo, David, moderators and all those other contributors that inhabit this site.
90
As ‘full of them’ as it was of the euphemisms, ‘hope and change’. But beware what you ask for, the devel’s in the detail.
Obama now prattles that he could have won a third term (the 2016 election) on a platform of ‘hope and change’.
There’s a sayin’ for those that repeat themselves and expect a different result.
50
Nor ‘Winterval’, for goodness sake! That was in Birmingham.
During our Midnight Eucharist I prayed for Jo and David and their family and for all those who stand up for the truth wherever it is at whatever it costs them to do so. May God bless all such wonderful people (irrespective of their religion or lack thereof) because truth and love are the things that matter.
90
Interesting Christmas message for The Donald from former CIA and US Marine infantry officer, Robert Steele
His advice on how to deal with all this is thought provoking – I don’t agree with it all but it’s worth mulling over. It certainly would be a break from business as usual.
http://themindunleashed.com/2016/12/former-cia-spy-surprising-christmas-message-trump.html
Robert Steele is an advocate of open source EVERYTHING
https://www.singularityweblog.com/robert-steele-open-source-everything/
40
Analitik,
What are your concerns of what Mr. Steele proposes?
20
Thanks Analitik for introducing a very interesting blog.
30
CANADA WINS!
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/climate-prat-of-2016-we-have-a-winnah/
Justin takes out “Climate Prat of the Year”
80
And deservedly so, with those Ted Bundy good looks and the matching regard for the people he
servesrules.51
The entire Castro family will heartily rejoice, I am certain.
20
I’ve heard that Justin is auditioning for the lead role in a remake of Peter Sellers’ “Being There”. Shouldn’t need a teleprompter for that!
60
His father was the reason I emigrated from Canada to Australia. In that the devil’s spawn was subsequently elected by the Canadian people, I can see my original decision to leave was a sound one.
(The rumours regarding daddy Fidel do have a frightening credibility!)
50
Moi aussi, although my destination was New Zealand.
40
Ne regret pas. Ou regrette ?
20
Mi no save.
20
Goodpella chrismas long dispella blog, all I callim Jonova.
10
Tower of Babel time?
20
Merry Christmas Jo, David and family.
30
merry Christmas to jo, david & family, mods and readers. have a great day. lovely & cool & drizzling in SE Qld.
MSM appear to be ignoring this – can’t find it anywhere else:
23 Dec: E&E News: EPA hands regulatory playbook to Trump team
by Robin Bravender and Kevin Bogardus
U.S. EPA has given the Trump team a report detailing the status of major Obama administration policies, which could become a playbook for the incoming administration vowing to scrap many of those rules…(SUBSCRIPTION REQD)
24 Dec: The Hill: Devin Henry: Greens ready for Trump war
Trump’s victory in November’s presidential election was a shock to the green movement…
If the initial reaction was depression and despair, environmental activists now sound energized to take on Trump.
“Our goal is to channel that sense of outrage into political pressure,” said Jamie Henn, the co-founder of climate group 350.org.
“We’re happy people are venting on Facebook, but we’d much rather they start marching in the streets.”…
Environmentalists view Pruitt as an existential threat to the EPA…
“We’re playing to win,” Melinda Pierce, the Sierra Club’s legislative director, said…
Greens’ objections to Tillerson at State might be more self-evident…
Activists hope to turn his confirmation hearings into a probe of Exxon’s history on climate science, and Henn said 350.org will storm Capitol Hill offices when his nomination begins moving…
Polls show the environment is usually a second-tier issue for voters…
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/311670-greens-ready-for-trump-war
25 Dec: BusinessInsider: Bonner Cohen: Four Obama regulations Trump can undo right away
Here’s where Trump can start:…
4) Environmental Protection Agency: Accustomed to issuing rules and regulations with the force of law behind them, EPA has become a de facto lawmaking body (minus the accountability such bodies usually have). With its disregard for standard administrative procedures, its misuse of science to forward its regulatory agenda, and its funelling of taxpayers’ money to political cronies on the outside, EPA has become a state within a state. The agency is too institutionally corrupt to be reformed.
Congress didn’t create EPA — President Nixon brought it into being by a 1970 executive order. Trump can dismantle it with his own executive order.
Trump has already expressed interest in devolving EPA’s functions to state environmental agencies. It’s an idea whose time has come. Appointing Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a relentless EPA critic, to head the agency bodes well for change.
Draining Washington’s swamp will be a messy business. Those creatures that have grown fat and happy off the swamp’s corruption will scream bloody murder at the mere thought of losing their power and privileges. This is a fight Trump should relish…READ ALL
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/four-obama-regulations-trump-can-undo-right-away-2016-12
61
“and Henn said 350.org will storm Capitol Hill offices when his nomination begins moving”
Really !!! I assume security guards will be on the look-out for this sort of criminal behaviour and respond accordingly.
71
“Exxon’s history on climate science”
….. is exemplary.
They did the right thing by their stockholders and ignored all the unsubstantiated BS from the AGW alarmists.
72
another EPA story FakeNewsMSM weren’t interested in resurrecting this year:
8 Apr: GovExec: Charles S. Clark: EPA Official Who Faked CIA Duty Moves to Halfway House
The longtime Environmental Protection Agency clean-air expert who skipped work while posing as a CIA agent has been released from prison and is now in a halfway house.
John C. Beale, who joined EPA full-time in 1988 and helped run its Office of Air and Radiation with current Administrator Gina McCarthy, was sentenced in December 2013 to 32 months in prison and $1.4 million in restitution after having pleaded guilty to felony theft of government property. He had faked his time cards and falsely claimed to moonlight for the intelligence agency…
Patrick Sullivan, the assistant inspector general for investigations who worked on the Beale investigation and turned results over to the IG’s auditing division, said changes prompted by the debacle include a policy that “EPA will no longer accept it at face value when an employee says they have to fly first class, but will check the documentation. No longer will travel vouchers be rubber-stamped,” Sullivan told Government Executive this week, noting that Beale’s boss had delegated such approvals to someone in the front office.
“Other weaknesses found were that no one was confirming the hours submitted on his time sheets, but [supervisors] were using batch approval” every two weeks, even though no one knew where Beale actually was…READ ALL
http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/04/epa-official-who-faked-cia-duty-moves-halfway-house/127352/?oref=river
NYT never even reported on the original story and WaPo whitewashed it in their “Public Safety” section:
Dec 2013: WaPo Public Safety Section: EPA official, who pretended to work for CIA, sentenced to 32 months
By Ann E. Marimow
“His actions are a stain on the work of tens of thousands of honest federal workers,” said (Assistant U.S. Attorney James E.) Smith…
Beale wasn’t golfing or taking expensive vacations, he said, but exercising, working on his houses and pursuing a research project he had started years earlier.
“In hindsight, I think, how stupid could a person be?” Beale said. “Shame has become my constant companion this past year.”…
Dec 2013: NBC: Michael Isikoff: Climate change expert sentenced to 32 months for fraud, says lying was a ‘rush’
The EPA’s highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison Wednesday for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job…
He perpetrated his fraud largely by failing to show up at the EPA for months at a time, including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did “absolutely no work,” as his lawyer acknowledged in a sentencing memo filed last week.
When (Judge Ellen) Huvelle asked Beale what he was doing when he claimed he was working for the CIA, he said, “I spent time exercising. I spent a lot of time working on my house.”
He also said he used the time “trying to find ways to fine tune the capitalist system” to discourage companies from damaging the environment. “I spent a lot of time reading on that,” said Beale…
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/climate-change-expert-sentenced-32-months-fraud-says-lying-was-f2D11768995
Dec 2013: UK Daily Mail: Michael Zennie: How a top climate change expert defrauded EPA out of $900K by claiming he was an undercover CIA agent and spent $260K traveling first class so he didn’t have to show up for work
John C. Beale was a high-profile policy advisory at the Environmental Protection Agency
Publicly retired and threw party for himself, but collected paychecks for another 18 months
He billed taxpayers for 33 plane flights between 2003 and 2011, including personal trips to London and California, which he flew first class. He stayed in five-star hotels and billed the government for expensive meals and limo rides. The total cost: more than $266,000…
He even lied and said he had contracted malaria while serving in the Vietnam War in order to get a handicapped parking spot. He neither had malaria nor served in Vietnam, according to prosecutors…
Sullivan, who investigated Beale, said he believes the culture of the EPA made it ripe for this sort of fraud.
‘There’s a certain culture here at the EPA where the mission is the most important thing,’ he told NBC.
‘They don’t think like criminal investigators. They tend to be very trusting and accepting.’
Beale is a Princeton-educated ‘senior policy adviser’ who worked as one of the EPA’s top climate change experts.
He helped rewrite the Clean Air Act in 1990, led EPA delegations at climate change conferences in 2000 and 2001, and helped negotiate carbon emissions agreements with India and China.
Beale is married to Nancy Kete, who President Barack Obama appointed the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. She is currently managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation.
The couple own a $872,000 townhouse in Arlington, Virginia, and a $626,000 vacation home on Cape Cod.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2524730/John-C-Beale-climate-change-expert-defrauded-EPA-900K-claiming-CIA-agent.html
[Sometimes comments that are entirely acceptable get trapped in moderation because of certain words. The fact that I approved this one should not be taken as license to use words like fraud, faked and others in any way you please. There is generally no problem when quoting someone but other usage can and will be snipped and all will be reviewed by a moderator. Thanks.] AZ
40
“There is generally no problem when quoting someone but other usage can and will be snipped”
The secret of free speech – getting someone else to say it 🙂
10
I rarely comment here, my thoughts being so sophisticated that they will float over your tiny antipodean heads. That said, Merry Christmas and a happy new year from Old North Wales.
80
Peace and goodwill, Ar hyd y nos.
40
My great great grandfather came from Abersychan: but that’s not old North Wales.
40
Of course they will since Scotland is so far north that even the stuff emanating from the other end is well above our heads! Merry Christmas, watch out for the tootsies when you venture outside.
40
Happy Christmas Jo and family and all the gang here. It’s been a helluva year.
Pointy
90
MERRY CHRISTMAS
May our “creative fires” burn bright in 2017!
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/my-work-the-individual-returns-to-his-creative-fire-3/
40
Raise a glass with the spirit of science,
To Joanne for her work and defiance,
Of the vile U.N. plan,
To blame climate on man,
So widespread by warmist compliance.
361
Hear hear! That’s excellent Ruairi. 🙂
40
Henry Lawson’s poem is of an Australia that is now gone forever but as a country person who grew up when Henry Lawson’s Australia was still a very deep part of the Australian national psyche and that pioneering of Australia was still within the memories of the old folk of my youth, it is a poem still moves me as I can personally relate very closely to the both the powerful emotions the Australian bush arouses in the men and women of the Australian countryside and the Christmas spirit that Henry Lawson is encompassing in this poem.
——————————
The Fire At Ross’s Farm – Poem by Henry Lawson
.
The squatter saw his pastures wide
Decrease, as one by one
The farmers moving to the west
Selected on his run;
Selectors took the water up
And all the black soil round;
The best grass-land the squatter had
Was spoilt by Ross’s Ground.
.
Now many schemes to shift old Ross
Had racked the squatter’s brains,
But Sandy had the stubborn blood
Of Scotland in his veins;
He held the land and fenced it in,
He cleared and ploughed the soil,
And year by year a richer crop
Repaid him for his toil.
.
Between the homes for many years
The devil left his tracks:
The squatter pounded Ross’s stock,
And Sandy pounded Black’s.
A well upon the lower run
Was filled with earth and logs,
And Black laid baits about the farm
To poison Ross’s dogs.
.
It was, indeed, a deadly feud
Of class and creed and race;
But, yet, there was a Romeo
And a Juliet in the case;
And more than once across the flats,
Beneath the Southern Cross,
Young Robert Black was seen to ride
With pretty Jenny Ross.
.
One Christmas time, when months of drought
Had parched the western creeks,
The bush-fires started in the north
And travelled south for weeks.
At night along the river-side
The scene was grand and strange —
The hill-fires looked like lighted streets
Of cities in the range.
.
The cattle-tracks between the trees
Were like long dusky aisles,
And on a sudden breeze the fire
Would sweep along for miles;
Like sounds of distant musketry
It crackled through the brakes,
And o’er the flat of silver grass
It hissed like angry snakes.
.
It leapt across the flowing streams
And raced o’er pastures broad;
It climbed the trees and lit the boughs
And through the scrubs it roared.
The bees fell stifled in the smoke
Or perished in their hives,
And with the stock the kangaroos
Went flying for their lives.
.
The sun had set on Christmas Eve,
When, through the scrub-lands wide,
Young Robert Black came riding home
As only natives ride.
He galloped to the homestead door
And gave the first alarm:
`The fire is past the granite spur,
`And close to Ross’s farm.’
.
`Now, father, send the men at once,
They won’t be wanted here;
Poor Ross’s wheat is all he has
To pull him through the year.’
`Then let it burn,’ the squatter said;
`I’d like to see it done —
I’d bless the fire if it would clear
Selectors from the run.
.
`Go if you will,’ the squatter said,
`You shall not take the men —
Go out and join your precious friends,
And don’t come here again.’
`I won’t come back,’ young Robert cried,
And, reckless in his ire,
He sharply turned his horse’s head
And galloped towards the fire.
.
And there, for three long weary hours,
Half-blind with smoke and heat,
Old Ross and Robert fought the flames
That neared the ripened wheat.
The farmer’s hand was nerved by fears
Of danger and of loss;
And Robert fought the stubborn foe
For the love of Jenny Ross.
.
But serpent-like the curves and lines
Slipped past them, and between,
Until they reached the bound’ry where
The old coach-road had been.
`The track is now our only hope,
There we must stand,’ cried Ross,
`For nought on earth can stop the fire
If once it gets across.’
.
Then came a cruel gust of wind,
And, with a fiendish rush,
The flames leapt o’er the narrow path
And lit the fence of brush.
`The crop must burn!’ the farmer cried,
`We cannot save it now,’
And down upon the blackened ground
He dashed the ragged bough.
.
But wildly, in a rush of hope,
His heart began to beat,
For o’er the crackling fire he heard
The sound of horses’ feet.
`Here’s help at last,’ young Robert cried,
And even as he spoke
The squatter with a dozen men
Came racing through the smoke.
.
Down on the ground the stockmen jumped
And bared each brawny arm,
They tore green branches from the trees
And fought for Ross’s farm;
And when before the gallant band
The beaten flames gave way,
Two grimy hands in friendship joined —
And it was Christmas Day.
160
Merry Christmas ROM.
KK
80
Thanks for that ROM, our Henry told a good yarn.
It has all the elements for a film script.
30
Merry Christmas all,
Interesting news story on our ABC today (it was on the ABC so it must be true right?) Apparently there is a shortage of cherries in Australia this Christmas due to the fact that it has been so cold in South Eastern Australia and Tasmania that the bees refused to leave their hives and pollinate the cherry trees. This on the same ABC that just a few weeks ago was telling us over and over that it was the hottest year ever, ever and forever! Something just does not add up.
On top of this the Western Australian wheat crop was hit by a late season frost. Spare a thought this Christmas for the WA wheat farmers who not only lost a lot of their hard work to a cold snap but have to sell what they have still got into a depressed wheat market with record low prices due a world over supply. And we were told that the great global warming monster was going to destroy food crops and produce mass starvation. Something does not add up.
The models and predictions of the climate pseudo-science seem to be the reverse of what is going on in the real world.
Things are going to change on about the 20th of January, and I don’t mean the climate.
110
DonS
Scotch thistles in flower in western Qld at around Xmas
40
The cherries around here are good but not quite up to last year’s standard. Our Linden tree is in full bloom and full of bees; I certainly don’t remember it flowering this late before. Ditto with other plants. On the other hand the apple trees are full of fruit (were full of fruit in some cases…thanks, ruddy cockatoos!) which is swelling nicely and I’ve never seen so many pears coming, all thanks to the long wet winter and spring. If I can keep the birds off we should have a good crop but it is a big ‘if’! Last night was warm after a hot day but most nights are pretty cold still.
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24 Dec: ZeroHedge: Tyler Durden: Obama Quietly Signs The “Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act” Into Law
Late on Friday, with the US population embracing the upcoming holidays and oblivious of most news emerging from the administration, Obama quietly signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorizes $611 billion for the military in 2017.
In a statement, Obama said that:…READ ALL
Just like that, the US Ministry of Truth is officially born.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-24/obama-signs-countering-disinformation-and-propaganda-act-law
and it is bipartisan.
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Very disturbing Pat. Also disturbing is the completely off-the-planet stuff in your next bit below re Holdren and co. Obama ‘the most science savvy of presidents’????!!!! Eh? Wot?!
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Of course, in later years, all will blame the deplorable conservatives for signing this act, and the fact that Obama signed it will be forgotten. The progressive, liberal, freedom loving peoples everywhere will be screaming for blood, forgetting their own beloved leader played his part in gutting their freedoms.
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Levitan, politically partisan? agenda driven? not in his own mind:
23 Dec: Gizmodo: Dave Levitan: What It’s Like Being a Sane Person on the House Science Committee
(Dave Levitan is a science journalist, and author of the book Not A Scientist: How politicians mistake, misrepresent, and utterly mangle science)…
Since Texas Republican Lamar Smith took over its leadership in 2012, the Committee has spiraled down an increasingly anti-science rabbit hole: absurd hearings aimed at debunking consensus on global warming, outright witch hunts using the Committee’s subpoena power to intimidate scientists, and a Republican membership that includes some of the most anti-science lawmakers in the land…
“I think it’s completely embarrassing,” said Mark Veasey, who represents Texas’s 33rd district, including parts of Dallas and Fort Worth. “You’re talking about something that 99.9 percent—if not 100 percent—of people in the legitimate science community says is a threat….To quote Breitbart over some of the most brilliant people in the world—and those are American scientists—and how they see climate change, I just think it’s a total embarrassment.”
Paul Tonko, who represents a chunk of upstate New York that includes Albany, has also called it embarrassing. “It is frustrating when you have the majority party of a committee pushing junk science and disproven myths to serve a political agenda,” he said. “It’s not just beneath the dignity of the Science Committee or Congress as a whole, it’s inherently dangerous. Science and research seek the truth—they don’t always fit so neatly with agendas.”…
http://gizmodo.com/what-its-like-being-a-sane-person-on-the-house-science-1790387102
20 Dec: Wired: Dave Levitan: Obama’s Outgoing Science Advisor will keep watch in 2017
President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, isn’t kidding when he praises his boss. “I sincerely think [he] is the most science-savvy president since Thomas Jefferson,” he says. “And there’s a lot more science to be savvy about.”…
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/obamas-outgoing-science-advisor-will-keep-watch-2017/
29 Nov: Scientific American: Dave Levitan: Serious Changes Possible for National Security Policies on Climate Change
New Trump appointments could de-emphasize intelligence reports on climate as “threat multiplier” but military investments may be hard to alter
12 Sept: Newsweek: How Politicians Lie About Science
In the era of social media, around-the-clock cable news, and Donald Trump, preventing the spread of misinformation has become one of the greatest challenges facing the scientific community. That’s especially true when it comes to politics. On this week’s episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast, science journalist and author ***Dave Levitan calls out some of Washington’s worst offenders.
As a former writer for ***Factcheck.org’s SciCheck project—part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center—Levitan has spent countless hours pouring over statements made by politicians about science. Sometimes our leaders get the facts right. But frequently, says Levitan, they distort, misrepresent, or flat-out fabricate the data in order to pander to their audience or push an agenda…
Yale Environment 360: Dave Levitan
(LIST OF LEVITAN ARTICLES – IT’S ALL ABOUT SPRUIKING RENEWABLES)
http://e360.yale.edu/author/Dave_Levitan/97/
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Merry Christmas Jo to you and your family
GeoffW
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I guess you guys are already in Boxing Day 🙂 Merry Christmas all the same. Will be starting our Christmas Day lunch in about two hours or when the kids arrive. Sun is shining right now. Most unusual. Hope the weather forecast is wrong again and the cold does not turn up this evening.
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Many Thanks Jo! – you’re Simply The Best! Merry Christmas to you and yours.
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Seasons greetings for Jo and family and all the stellar nova people here.
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OT – Bizarre output figures from 4 South Australian windfarms today around 9:30pm AEST today
Go to the Aneroid wind page below and turn off all states and then turn back on
. HDWF1 – Hornsdale Wind Farm
. SNOWNTH1 – Snowtown Wind Farm Stage 2 North
. SNOWSTH1 – Snowtown South Wind Farm
. SNOWTWN1 – Snowtown Wind Farm Units 1 And 47
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2016/december/25
WTF????
Lucky Christmas is a low demand day – less than 10% output for South Australia’s wind farms from 10:30am to 9pm AEST.
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Actually, I missed 4 others behaving oddly around the same time
. CLEMGPWF – Clements Gap Wind Farm (output lifted off half an hour earlier)
. HALLWF1 – Hallett 1 Wind Farm
. HALLWF2 – Hallett 2 Wind Farm
. NBHWF1 – North Brown Hill Wind Farm
Did they schedule transmission line maintenance north of Adelaide today? Odd that Waterloo (WATERLWF) wasn’t affected although The Bluff (BLUFF1) has been outputting zero since 6pm AEST when the other 8 mentioned basically fell to zero (although not precisely in the case of Snowtown South Wind Farm).
The only other explanation would be a 3-4 hour burst of 100km/h+ wind that went through the area, shutting down these wind farms (again avoiding Waterloo)
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Cheers Jo and David,
Have a Merry Christmas and a happy and cool new year 🙂
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A very happy Christmas to all!!!!
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Merry Christmas to the whole family Jo. You do an important and valued job and you shouldn’t have to wait till the cupboards are bare and the Mods take over to ask for some financial support.
Don’t be shy about telling us next year when you need a top up.
We know you aren’t getting any fossil fuel funding. It would be great if you were though. And the Government aren’t going to make it a level playing field for climate researchers anytime soon. We need people like you and David to help block the UNIPCC propoganda obligingly spread by the MSM.
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Merry Christmas to all of you down under.
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Thank you. Happy Christmas to you and everyone else.
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Down Under saith: https://im42na.wordpress.com/2016/12/27/hot-spot-under-west-antarctica/
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Merry Christmas – or what remains of it – and a Happy New Year to Jo, David and family, which of course includes the readers, posters and mods!
Best Wishes,
Speedy
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OK Mods, you convinced me to flick Jo some cash, despite my being the poorest white man on the pacific rim.
Being Mods, you might enjoy this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8spRyPGSpds
by the recently deceased Ray Columbus, singing what was NZ’s highest selling single for 20 or so years.
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Post Xmas Delingpole
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/12/25/delingpole-moronic-self-righteous-disgusting-losers-tried-to-turn-the-berlin-attack-on-nigel-farage/
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Probably pull it.
The link works to Breitbart but it has disappeared when you log in there now.
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I’ve just used the link, no problems.
Words fail me re these lefties quoted.
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EPA followup…E&E covered Beale’s release:
1 Jul 2016: E&E News: ‘Beale effect’ persists as fraudster released from jail
by Robin Bravender
U.S. EPA’s notorious fake CIA agent has served his time in jail, but his crimes continue to affect the agency and its workers…
“I think there is a Beale effect,” said Doug Parker, who recently left the agency after serving as head of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division. The impact has dissipated over time, he said, but will linger.
“It’s a pretty outlandish chapter” in EPA’s history, Parker added. “I don’t think it’ll ever completely go away. It’s a crazy, absurd story that people unfortunately bought into.”
Beale, now 67, was a longtime senior official in EPA’s air office who worked on the landmark Clean Air Act amendments of 1990…
Patrick Sullivan, EPA’s assistant inspector general for investigations, who worked on the Beale case, said in an interview that Beale was “like the canary in the coal mine in that he pointed to a lot of potential problems.” Those included EPA’s policies for tracking travel, personnel time and attendance, and retention bonuses…
The crackdown on EPA’s rank-and-file staffers has irked some employees, including John O’Grady, president of a union chapter that represents EPA workers in the Chicago-based Region 5 office.
“There’s been an increased review of everyone’s timekeeping, and I find that rather odd since he was a senior executive. I think rather they should focus on themselves … and clean up their own shop,” O’Grady said. He accused Beale of “making us all look bad.”…
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060038145?platform=hootsuite
more reasons to abolish the EPA!
May 2014: GovExec: Charles S. Clark: Lawmakers Wonder ‘How Much Porn’ It Takes to Fire an EPA Employee
Tensions between the inspector general and main staff at the Environmental Protection Agency spilled into the open on Wednesday at a House oversight hearing that veered into EPA’s inability to prevent individual employee misconduct ranging from porn viewing on the job, to falsifying attendance records, to an alleged workplace assault on an investigative agent.
“The EPA is truly a broken agency,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in reeling off a string of stories of personnel misconduct still under adjudication in the wake of the December sentencing of EPA air quality specialist John Beale to 32 months in prison…
The cases, detailed by witnesses from the inspector general’s office, include a $120,000 a year, bonus-winning, still active employee who spent two to six hours a day visiting porn websites and downloading 7,000 pornographic files to an agency shared server. Another involves the human resources manager who failed to spot Beale’s fraudulent explanations for his absences, and a third involves an ill employee confined for a year in an assisted living facility but still collecting full pay.
A fourth, perhaps most dramatic, episode involves an allegation that Steven Williams of EPA’s Office of Homeland Security in October 2013 committed an “assault” on Office of the Inspector General special agent Elisabeth Heller Drake in an EPA hallway as she sought to inform him of his obligation to remain silent about what she termed her “difficult” interview with him on an investigation…
“You are running an organization in which no one can be fired,” Issa said, noting that in the private sector, firings are more commonplace…
http://www.govexec.com/management/2014/05/lawmakers-wonder-how-much-porn-it-takes-fire-epa-employee/84052/
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***endured? how about “enjoyed”?
25 Dec: Courier Mail: Nathan Torpey: Brisbane weather: Christmas Day forecast
SOUTHEAST Queenslanders have ***endured a damp and chilly Christmas Day, with the mercury struggling to make it past 23 degrees.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the temperature in the Queensland capital was just 23.5 degrees at 12.30pm, colder than even Hobart and the notoriously chilly Canberra.
Rain added to the miserable feel of conditions outside…
CHRISTMAS DAY FORECAST
Brisbane: Possible light morning shower, 28C…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/brisbane-weather-christmas-day-forecast/news-story/44aa34fd45d9f6c85d1a50e37f547a49
so much for the temperature forecast…and it rained or drizzled ***all morning:
26 Dec: Courier Mail: Nathan Torpey: Queensland weather: Christmas Day 2016 the coldest in 40 years
QUEENSLANDERS have partied through the coldest Christmas Day in more than 40 years as mild and wet conditions kept the mercury well below average.
Brisbane’s maximum temperature of 25.5C at 4.52pm was its lowest Christmas since 1970 when it was 24.2C.
The Bureau of Metrology said the 23.5C temperature in Brisbane at 12.30pm was the coldest across the country at that time, beating even the notoriously chilly Hobart…
Senior BOM forecaster Brett Harrison said the conditions were so damp and cold across southeast Queensland that many cities failed to even reach their maximum (forecast) temperatures. “The southeast has certainly been cool compared to what we usually experience at Christmas time,” he said.
“We have seen showers along the entire coastline and thunderstorms across the southeastern part of the state and large parts of the interior.”…
Mr Harrison said it had been a very wet Christmas Day and “anywhere from Brisbane northwards had seen showers and the odd thunderstorm” which may continue into the week.
“The heaviest rainfall was around the Sunshine Coast hinterland area where we had 60mm reported,” he said.
“Brisbane City had 6mm of rain but some of the bayside suburbs recorded around the 15mm mark.
Surf lifesavers reported a slow start to the day with holiday visitor numbers on the Gold and Sunshine coasts, but they said that the number of beachgoers increased ***during the afternoon as the showers eased…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/photos/queensland-weather-christmas-day-2016-the-coldest-in-40-years/news-story/4bf5f4960ae408e501f30cf5f58e996e
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Its a regional cooling signal.
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Nonsense; it is the Left’s response to all those banana benders planning to vote for One Nation. They’ve moved the hot weather south to convince the southern stragglers that global warming is here. That way they get another wacky Senator.
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I’ve been posting some weather stuff, because i’m sick of FakeNewsMSM pushing the Arctic heatwave stories.
btw can’t recall anyone posting this:
21 Dec: RealClimateScience: Washington Post Record Arctic Fraud Continues Unabated
The Washington Post is misleading their frozen US readers once again about the Arctic, telling them the Arctic has temperatures 50 degrees above normal and record low sea ice. They say this is not normal…
Temperatures in Greenland are incredibly cold. The reason the North Pole is not as cold as normal is because deep waves in the jet stream have brought the cold air south, and milder air north…
It has snowed in the Sahara Desert for the first time in 40 years…
Arctic sea ice extent is higher than 2012 and 2013, and about the same as last year. There is no “record low sea ice” as the Washington Post fraudsters claim…
What is going on in the Arctic with meridional circulation was explained by Science News during the 1970s ice age scare. There is nothing unusual going on in the Arctic…
The December 1977 issue of National Geographic showed exactly what was going on…
This is just one more fake news attempt by the Washington Post to derail President Trump’s efforts to end junk climate science. Warm air in one place normally means cold air somewhere else. This is perfectly normal weather and has nothing to do with fake news global warming.
So far, everyone who has jumped in front of the Trump Train has been crushed.
http://realclimatescience.com/2016/12/washington-post-record-arctic-fraud-continues-unabated/
BBC find is so serious, they end with a cute Santa tale:
24 Dec: BBC: Victoria Gill: Arctic heatwave could break records
Dr Friederike Otto, a senior researcher at Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute told BBC News that in pre-industrial times “a heatwave like this would have been extremely rare – we would expect it to occur about every 1,000 years”…
Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve, in what scientists say is a record-breaking heatwave.
Climate scientists say these unseasonably warm weather patterns in the Arctic region are directly linked to man-made climate change…
Dr Thorsten Markus, chief of NASA’s Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory, said the heatwave was “very, very unusual”…
Asked if the conditions on Christmas Eve were likely to affect Santa’s all-important journey, Dr Markus said he was confident that his sled would cope with the conditions.
He added: “Santa is most likely overdressed though. Maybe in the future we’ll see him in a light jacket or plastic mac.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38417198
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Ho, Ho, Ho and a bag of reindeer droppings for the BBC.
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” 24 Dec: BBC: Victoria Gill: Arctic heatwave could break records ”
When did another broken record begin to sound like so many broken records ?
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When the Summer scare tales exceed the scare tales of the previous Summer, again and again.
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http://realclimatescience.com/2016/12/california-to-check-out-launch-a-climate-satellite/#comment-32865
and in comments
“Psalmon says:
December 26, 2016 at 5:11 am
The Federal govt (we) own 47% of California’s land. How much is each Sequoia worth…to China? How much would Qatar pay for Yosemite? Shasta Dam (largest reservoir in CA) would cost $50B to build now…we want $200B.
I’m thinking we could get $20T for OUR half of California. With CA’s GDP of $2.5T, that’s 12x Revenue + $5T separation bonus to pay for national security etc over the years. National Debt solved.”
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Australia leases Darwin harbour to China, so leasing might be the best political option for The Donald.
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VIDEO/PICS: 26 Dec: 9News: AAP: Record-breaking rain forces closure of Uluru
VIDEO CAPTION: Record-breaking rains have turned Uluru into a temporary waterfall
Superintendent Pauline Vicary said between 12.30pm Christmas Day and 8.30am this morning, it is estimated that around 398mm of rain fell in the community…
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/12/26/14/25/heavy-rain-shuts-uluru-national-park
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Today I was visiting friends in the Latrobe Valley (VIC). Hazelwood, Yallourn and Loy Yang power stations are all nearby and quite close together. I decided to take a first and last look at the Hazelwood Cooling Pondage which is a popular recreation area and the water is around 26C year round. There are large numbers of powerlines connecting this hub of power stations and Melbourne and elsewhere. I felt sickened at the prospect of the forthcoming closure of Hazelwood and the deliberate sabotage of cheap and reliable electricity production in Victoria. Also the pond has been stocked with a variety of warm water fish which will die when the power station is turned off. I took some videos of the area and will post them on YouTube and post the links here later.
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Here are links to three short videos I mentioned above.
https://youtu.be/8k6eCM_ftws
https://youtu.be/GZGo18mRByA
https://youtu.be/8k6eCM_ftws
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Sorry, disregard the first video.
The first should have been: https://youtu.be/4X0-wiQ9fDA
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The final indignity for Hazelwood is the Regressives want to turn its associated open cut coal mine into a lake and recreational area.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/hazelwood-coal-mine-in-the-latrobe-valley-could-become-a-lake-after-mining-ceases-20160930-grsh68.html
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Of course, there already is a wonderful one as shown in the video.
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I have no interest in fishing but I was channel surfing and saw a fishing show discussing fishing for Barramundi at the Hazelwood Pondage. This was made before the announcement of the closure.
I found the program on YouTube. The growth rates of the fish in that environment are very high.
https://youtu.be/STKtKhE-6WE
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“Christmas Advice for Those Worried About Global Warming
December 26, 2016, 9:04 am
If you are worried about greenhouse gasses and global warming, then I have some Christmas advice for you. When you are done with your Christmas tree, do NOT take it to one of those “recycling” locations most towns have. The recycling process is typically chipping and mulching the trees, which just accelerates their decomposition into greenhouse gasses. If you are really concerned about catastrophic warming, you want to use your tree as a carbon sink. Have it shrink-wrapped in some sort of plastic what won’t biodegrade and then landfill it — the deeper it is buried, the better. Those folks trying to get you to “recycle” your tree are secretly in the pay of the Koch brothers and trying to trick you into ruining the environment.”
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/12/christmas-advice-for-those-worried-about-global-warming.html
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NYT editorial acts as a “conduit for information” to the States:
26 Dec: NYT Editorial: States Will Lead on Climate Change in the Trump Era
Over the last decade or so, most states have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by promoting energy efficiency and renewable fuels. These trends should continue as clean energy costs continue to decline and, in some parts of the country, fall below the cost of dirtier fuels like coal…
And many people expect him (Trump) to walk away from President Obama’s commitments under the Paris climate agreement and get rid of or weaken the E.P.A.’s Clean Power Plan, which requires states to lower carbon emissions from the electricity sector. He and his appointees might also try to water down fuel economy regulations for cars and trucks, and cut clean energy tax incentives and research spending.
States could blunt much of that damage…
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/opinion/states-will-lead-on-climate-change-in-the-trump-era.html?_r=0
25 Dec: ConservativeTreehouse: sundance: New York Times Gasps: Trump Likely to “Hinder Press as Conduit For Information”…
Could they clutch their pearls any tighter:
NEW YORK TIMES [LINK] Mr. Trump’s unconventional, sometimes hostile, relationship with the news media and his penchant for communicating through unfiltered Twitter posts threaten to upend a decades-old Washington tradition that relies almost entirely on protocol. The result, reporters and editors say, could be a loss of transparency that would hinder the press’s role as a conduit for information to the people…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/12/25/new-york-times-gasps-trump-likely-to-hinder-press-as-conduit-for-information/comment-page-2/
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‘….a loss of transparency that would hinder the press’s role as a conduit for information to the people…’
No that won’t happen, quite the reverse.
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27 Dec: Australian: Nick Cater: Since Davos, only the climate remains unchanged
There is nothing like an approaching disaster to save experts from irrelevancy. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, 750 economists nominated climate change as the top threat to civilisation this year. Everything else appeared to be going pretty much to plan. Britain would remain in Europe and Hillary Clinton would win the US presidential election…READ ALL
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/nick-cater/since-davos-only-the-climate-remains-unchanged/news-story/0a15da9133d6b2a7f1a7bbb01b3d4a13
25 Dec: DailyCaller: Michael Bastasch: New Book Exposes How EPA Distorts Science To Fit Its Political Goals
Lawyer-statistician Steve Milloy’s new book, “Scare Pollution,” shows readers how EPA has distorted the science behind air pollution regulations to hamper politically incorrect industries, from coal to logging to manufacturing.
“I have worked on EPA science controversies for 25 years,” Milloy told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “EPA doesn’t use science so much as it abuses it for its political ends.”…
“When I began writing ‘Scare Pollution’ in 2015, I had no idea that 2017 would present real opportunities to stop EPA’s abuse of science,” Milloy said.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/25/new-book-exposes-how-epa-distorts-science-to-fit-its-political-goals/?print=1
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The Cater story is behind a paywall, here we have it.
https://www.menziesrc.org/news/item/since-davos-only-the-climate-remains-unchanged
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Very funny, just the facts. Extremely embarrassing for all the alleged experts who could no more pick a football match than
a Presidential candidate or the popular mood with BREXIT. Joyce appears to be in the same boat.
Do they really believe those juvenile journalists who write for online news with their ‘zingers’ and ‘you would not believe’?
Turnbull does not want Abbott’s plebiscite, because he suspects what everyone knows, the people of Australia disagree with Turnbull on everything.
He is even spruiking his Republic, having failed once already.
The people of Australia are just working out how to keep Labor out of power while not voting for Turnbull’s Liberals. It is the Liberal and National MPs who are deluded, not the voters. As we saw in Orange. The gloves are off.
Labor in Australia are particularly bad, with US Ambassador Kim Beasley’s “narcissistic buffon” and Shorten’s “barking mad”.
and Turnbull’s “loathesome” to describe incumbent US President. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is no better with her promise to ‘endure’ the new President.
Do these buffons really speak for Australia?
So our ally against the world is our enemy now? Even Paul Keating railed against dependence on the UK in WW2 and the betrayal at Singapore.
The Twittering classes lost every game this year. Twits.
Now in 2017 to end this Climate Catastrophe where every hot day or bushfire is absolute instant proof or a rapidly warming planet where snow in the Sahara and a flood at Ayer’s Rock is just natural variation, once in 50 year events.
Ironically Fake news best describes all climate reporting.
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Then you get the new ‘fact checking‘ which appears to be the journalist’s version of ‘peer review’. It means that if enough journalists or professional historians agree with each other, it must be true.
I put it down to ‘post modern’ history where the facts are changed to suit the plot and any attempt at the truth is ridiculed. So a landing of settlers in Botany Bay is an ‘invasion’ and Carbon Dioxide is the greatest threat to civilization, even though we are all made from it, breathe it out, eat carbohydrates and utterly rely on fossil fuels? This is the new truth, the new science, that science is written by journalists. Science fiction pushed by science fiction writers like Flannery and Gore. Climate Scientology.
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Does Emeritus Professor Dr. Tim Ball (http://drtimball.com) still face criminal charges in Vancouver BC (BCSC Action No. VLC-S-S0111913; Vancouver Registry) for publicly criticizing Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth?”
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Criminal Charge! Not s far as I know
Is criticizing Al Gore’s movie a crime now?
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Merry xmas Jo and all, my brain sees things that are out of place or unusual, very handy for an aircraft ground engineer and flight engineer. I was just over at WUWT looking at the solar page.
The butterfly diagram which starts way back in the 18 hundreds gives the solar spot count as an area of the sun. Looking at it the area gets bigger all the way from the 18 hundreds up until the last solar cycle.
This cycle has fallen in a hole, for me it is not a problem,I am almost past my use by date, but looking at the suns past history it is due for a holiday.I can only guess but I would imagine that global warming will
not feature much in the news over the next 100 years or so. Bloody cold and getting colder would be my guess. Climate refugees from northern europe and america over this century will be our new aussies.
Only a thought after seeing the graph.
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PICS/VIDEO: 27 Dec: ABC: Neda Vanovac: NT weather: Tourists in car washed away by Central Australia flooding found safe, six still missing
A number of records have been set over the past two days.
Yulara, the tourist village at Uluru, broke its December record, previously set in 1987, as well as its 24-hour rainfall record, with 84mm falling in one day.
“Yulara’s had nearly 179mm, compared to 94mm last year for the entire year,” said Sally Cutter, senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) NT.
A total of 128mm fell on Curtin Springs, beating its record for a 24-hour period of rainfall, previously set in 1982….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-27/nt-weather-central-australia-missing-uluru-national-park-reopens/8149186
27 Dec: Australian: Oil producers turn to wind power
by Zeke Turner & Sarah Kent, Dow Jones/News wires
The Netherlands wants to build the world’s largest offshore wind project, and an unlikely company is helping: Royal Dutch Shell.
The oil-and-gas giant is facing shareholder pressure to develop its renewable business… ETC
Offshore wind’s competitiveness is highly subject to local power prices and government measures, including tax credits, subsidies and rate guarantees. Nonetheless, in European markets, the wind industry had thought near parity was years away.
???“Right now the offshore wind project is competitive with any power source,” said Dorine Bosman, Shell’s manager developing its wind business…
Fossil-fuel companies’ push into wind reflects their growing sensitivity to global efforts to limit climate change and how that will affect consumer demand for their main offering: oil and gas…
France’s Total wants 20 per cent of its portfolio to consist of low-carbon businesses within the next 20 years. Shell established a new division this year focused on investing in sources such as wind, solar and biofuels. Statoil has a $US200 million fund for projects such as wind technology and batteries.
Investments by big European oil companies in wind and other renewable energy sources remain small — around ***2 per cent of their overall capital-spending budgets, according to McKinsey. The industry is cautious about betting big on alternatives after getting burned in the past.
It remains unclear if offshore wind can be a steady moneymaker without government support, which besides tax credits and minimum rates can include guaranteed access to power grids.
“It should be the ambition of everybody to not have subsidies,” Ms Bosman of Shell said.
Jeffrey Grybowski, CEO of Deepwater Wind, which developed the Block Island project, said the oil companies will face a tougher landscape in the US compared with Europe because of bureaucratic hurdles and fewer incentives…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/oil-producers-turn-to-wind-power/news-story/e4fc14d0c51a11c8a11c444ab0aee9f5
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