A trace gas in our atmosphere hit 410ppm for the millionth day on Earth says Grist and this turned the planet in to something different. Who knew 410 was that exciting?
We just hit 410 ppm of CO2. Welcome to a whole new world.
This is not normal: We’re on track to witness a climate unseen in 50 million years by mid-century.
In pre-industrial times, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stood at 280 parts per million. And that number has been rising ever since, warming the planet by 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C) along the way.
It’s Big Number Fear Mongering which works so well on the innumerate. It might be the first time CO2 was this high in 50 million years, but if CO2 is so important, how come temperatures haven’t gone “to a whole new world”?
Kate Yoder on Grist has the usual calm dispassionate analysis:
As fictional carb-thief Aladdin once said: “Unbelievable sights/Indescribable feeling/Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling/Through an endless diamond sky.”
Frankly, I think Grist missed that in Base 3 this is the incredibly important 120,012 ppm. Spooky eh?
PS: Find numbers in other bases here. How much fun can you have?
120,012 ppm
Unless one uses -1, 0, +1 for base-3, which might have some computational advantages if a tolerance window is used to establish the ‘digit.’
41
Surely not in South Australia! After all their suffering. They have crippled their electricity supply, blown up power stations and even turned off their airport to keep their CO2 under 410ppm. Trapped in lifts, urgent surgery cancelled or under generators, traffic lights out and hundreds of thousands of houses without electricity for days. Oh, the humanity, the sacrifice and right on Anzac day they get the terrible news that CO2 has gone up, even at home.
When are we going to send the bills to China and India for their extra 2 billion people since 1900. They should pay for their pollution. We are already sending $3Billion a year overseas to buy their windmills and solar panels and they do not have the good grace and decency to keep their terrible CO2 pollution at home? Perhaps if we stopped sending them all our cash and crippling ourselves they would stop making stuff and having children and polluting our planet? Common decency would dictate they do something, but I guess we will keep taxing ourselves and closing power stations and erecting windmills and paying them. Someone has to take Climate action.
464
By the way, that $3Bn is to buy windmills which we do not get to own. That is just part of what we spend to finance wind power companies who use our windmills to generate power which they sell to us, maybe. Then for every $1 of power they are also paid $2 by coal and gas generators for the right to generate power. Now we are going to spend more billions trying to store the power for which we paid triple and which is never available when you need it. Presumably they will then sell that power to us as well. It’s not the water flowing like a torrent which should worry everyone, but the money for nothing.
131
You do have a legitimate point when you mention the 2 billion people since 1900. If you actually look at the population curve and lay it along side the curve for CO2, there is a remarkable similarity, especially since every addition person “breaths,” and that adds a rather large amount of CO2 to the atmosphere every year. And of course, by driving the world into energy poverty probably doesn’t affect the CO2 directly, but the population dying from hypothermia in the cold seasons will.
30
Warmists have lost the battle:
153
But not the war – not yet, anyway. We are working on it.
201
Rereke Whakkaro,
In my opinion, AGW promoters produced a worldwide revolt against globalist and destroyed the credibility of government-supported science in the United States and the once high regard for Nobel Prizes and Nobel Prize winners, the reputations of the UN and the US NAS.
That is quite a remarkable accomplishment!
81
In fact, AGW promoters also exposed the whole world of manufactured reality: https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/the-manufacture-of-reality-vs-the-power-of-individual-imagination/
20
True but they will never admit it. The junk in article Jo has linked to will continue to spew out. There is a good case to be made that CO2 increase is mainly natural which would mean alarmism has no basis:
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2017/04/the-increase-in-co2-is-not-due-to-humans.html
92
I don’t know what the CO2 ppm is here in England at the moment – But it must have Fallen Drastically as we currently have some of the coldest late April weather I can remember in the last 60 years. (The silence of the BBC arch-warmists is very revealing …)
As the North Atlantic continues to cool and with a quiet sun who knows what the next 20 years are going to bring. I wish it would get warmer …. but I’m not going to hold my breath, just going to make sure that the next house I build is even better insulated and warmer so we’ll be ready if the UK gets cooler as I suspect it may.
353
Roger,
according to the R.S. there might be a slight hope. If you refer to the graph deep in the article it appears that the CO2 level was about the same as now 15 million years ago (not 50 million) and may have been very close to that a mere 7 million year ago. Unfortunately the graph indicates that there is no link between CO2 level and temperature change.
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/2001/20130096
71
Correction. Down at the bottom of the page in this link are some graphs of CO2 concentrations over various millions of previous years.
CO2 may have hit 400+ppm about 1 million years ago. Some slight exaggeration in the 50 figure.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/atmosphere-page/co2-page/
71
I find it amazing that anyone was able to accurately and precisely measure past CO2 amounts. Guess at CO2 amounts, estimate them based on assorted assumed relationships and smooshed snowfalls, but get an accurate, and therefor meaningful, measurement? Who is to know, for certain, that CO2 measures weren’t briefly over 400ppm 5,000 years ago? Or 3,000? If it were for a decade, or less, who’d really know?
Even these guys state it is, at best, a guesstimate based on readings and measures that may not reflect the entire picture. All it shows, in my mind, is what the environment was taking up, not what was is the air.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
21
I find it amazing that anyone was able to accurately and precisely measure past CO2 amounts. Guess at CO2 amounts, estimate them based on assorted assumed relationships and smooshed snowfalls, but get an accurate, and therefor meaningful, measurement? Who is to know, for certain, that CO2 measures weren’t briefly over 400ppm 5,000 years ago? Or 3,000? If it were for a decade, or less, who’d really know?
Even these guys state it is, at best, a guesstimate based on readings and measures that may not reflect the entire picture. All it shows, in my mind, is what the environment was taking up, not what was is the air.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
20
Yes, the “highest CO2 in 50 million years” does seem a wild exaggeration.
An indication of this claim being spurious is plant response to CO2. C3 plants have ancient genomes and respond better to elevated CO2 than C4 plants. However C4 plants (most of our crops) have evolved in the last 50 million years, and they have evolved to grow best at CO2 concentrations around 1200 ppm.
Interestingly the Royal Society graph you link to shows CO2 levels near 1200 ppm during the early evolutionary period of C4 plants.
10
NO. Don’t waste your money building houses. Sock it away in a high return investment.
You’re going to need all the money you can raise, earn or steal to pay your power bill in the coming decades.
91
Not a problem, you have millions of pounds worth of Diesel generators backing up the wind farms.
41
Roger….you are not alone…
This is interesting from Physics dot org. Three articles about grape vines in france… The first is about the struggle to find heat resistant varieties of grape vines and the last two are about crop losses in 2016 due to cold and the more serious losses being faced more recently...here are the links in decending order….
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-cold-snap-threatens-french-vines.html
https://phys.org/news/2016-11-french-wine-harvest-smallest-years.html#nRlv
https://phys.org/news/2016-08-reinventing-french-fizz-climate.html#nRlv
“Hard freeze kills 95 to 100 percent of France’s Alsace vineyard buds”
https://www.sott.net/article/349161-Hard-freeze-kills-95-to-100-percent-of-Frances-Alsace-vineyard-buds
“Europe Crop Losses, Record Snow and Cold with More in May”
https://investmentwatchblog.com/europe-crop-losses-record-snow-and-cold-with-more-in-may/
PIERS CORBYN WEBSITE DOWN OR DISAPPEARED…… keep an eye on that..probably just site maintenance.
http://www.weatheraction.com/
http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/01/06/record-cold-and-snow-has-descend-upon-the-planet/
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/02/climate-change-means-perth-smashes-the-coldest-ever-record-for-february/
From:http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4b994210cec34a028fe3bb746437fd59/deep-south-freeze-means-fewer-blueberries-and-peaches
“Last week’s deep freeze in the Southeast appears to have nearly wiped out Georgia’s blueberries and South Carolina’s peaches and seriously damaged a number of other crops like strawberries and apples.
In South Carolina, 85 percent of the state’s peach crop is gone while the small pink blooms remain on the trees, according to the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.
Up to 80 percent of south Georgia’s blueberry crop is gone, Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black said after touring the state late last week.”
……..
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E.S.
In European vineyards there are surviving vines of rarer varieties from many years ago. Arbane and Petit Meslier probably surviving from the Medieval Warm Period as did a number of varieties in Germany, now more likely to be found in Spain or Southern Italy. Indeed it is evidence of the warmth in medieval times when varieties known to have been grown then in middle Germany turn up as suited for southern France, Italy, Spain etc. One old German vineyard had things like Primitivo (Zinfandel) from Puglia in southern Italy.
Vineyards in Europe from Paris northwards were badly hit, even wiped out, by the icy conditions in 1709/10.
Arbane doesn’t seem to have got people elsewhere interested but Irvine in the Eden Valley grows Petit Meslier (and makes a sparkling wine from it). The other 2 in the article are Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc (under local names), but from memory there was also some Sauvignon Blanc there called something else (retreated to its origin in Bordeaux and hence world wide).
41
PIERS CORBYN WEBSITE DOWN OR DISAPPEARED…… keep an eye on that..
It’s back…
but as slow as it ever has been.
20
It has been unseasonably cool in the western US too. New snow on the ground this morning. Spring is about a month behind schedule. It still looks like March.
20
Imagine what horrors the future will bring: 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 420, 425, 430, 440, 450, …
Green plants will take over.
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Green plants? They’re not churning out Greens in factories, are they? OMG we are doomed. Quick, buy tofu futures.
111
I had a flashback to a Dr Who episode in the Tom Baker years, where this plant becames a big as a house and tried to destroy it…kind of Day of The Triffids re-run….
41
Day of the Timid.
132
410 AD brings to mind the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire with the sacking of Rome by Alaric the Goth in August of that year. Could it be……
81
410 also brings to mind that it is lightweight compared to a 12 gauge.
121
410 brings to my mind the Gunbus 410 (cubic inch) v-twin motorcycle.
Gunbus 410
If only they had a production line for these, the CO2 we could belch…
41
There is no substitute for cubic inches……
21
There’s no replacement for cubic displacement
10
Alaric the Goth is no longer available. How about Alarmic the Gore?
121
Of the choices, I hear 420 is popular.
51
You mean Aussie extreme Greens might not be able to access to bottom of their former leader Bob Brown’s garden and the Fairy Consultants who live there?
31
Just wait till it gets to 451. All the cellulose will burn. Or something like that, ask Ray Bradbury.
31
Whenever I think of the hypothesis of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide “forcing” extra heat into atmospheric water vapour I cannot see how this can possibly work. Firstly the probability of returning infrared light from the earth surface first being absorbed by CO2 at 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, and then re-radiated to be additionally absorbed by water vapour at an average of around 2 percent (0 up to about 4 percent at the tropics) to be vanishingly small. In any event atmospheric water vapour will already be saturated with infrared heat from the earth’s surface and therefore in order to absorb additional energy would need to increase significantly in volume in the atmosphere. I can find no reference to any observed increase of atmospheric water vapour nor any “hot spot” where water vapour is most concentrated as clouds. As water vapour behaves as a liquid, and not a gas, it continues to clump together as the non symmetric molecules are weakly polarised, and form water droplets. These gain mass and fall back to earth taking the absorbed heat and cooling the atmosphere. Unlike CO2, water vapour does not immediately re-emit the absorbed infrared energy. This balance is one of the key factors that makes for sustained life on earth.
The second reason is that CO2 is just not sufficiently plentiful to contribute as a greenhouse gas in its own right. The first law of thermodynamics generally applies as energy transfers are in balance because if they were not we would be like Venus or Mars with either too much or too little heat energy (the magnetosphere plays a hand in keeping an atmosphere but not much of one in maintaining an energy balance). To understand energy transfers in terms of thermodynamic theory you need to boil everything down to probabilities. How likely is it that molecules when activated by kinetic energy (in this case absorbed infrared heat) will bump into another molecule and transfer some of that energy and hence heat up its neighbour. In order to make any impact on the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere you would need to increase CO2 by at least 250 times to about 1 percent as this is the level at which water vapour begins to act noticeably as a greenhouse “gas”. However it would need to increase to roughly 4 percent to double the water vapour effect at the tropics which means about a 1000 fold increase from present.
The problem with this is that humans and most mammals will pass out at this level of atmospheric CO2, so we will not be aware if it happens.
143
I thought we could still do okay beyond 8000ppm up to 12000ppm? I remember reading somewhere that this is the kind of concentration they reach in submarines. And many air conditioned office environments are many times the atmospheric levels.
Correct me if I am wrong please.
41
Grant, thank you for your comment, however you are confusing parts per million with percentages. 8000 ppm is only 0.8%. I was referring to 4% CO2 as being an issue. However I need to correct my early morning arithmetic as well. 1% CO2 is 25 times 400ppm and 4% CO2 is a100 fold increase over 400ppm. Cheers.
11
Thanks. I was a bit hazy. And of course when you get into those percentages you have to start diluting something else in the mixture. Do you reduce the Nitrogen, oxygen, or water vapour? I suspect that an increase in CO2 will also result in a higher conc of O2 as plants will churn through their job in photosynthesis and dilute Nitrogen in the atmosphere.
10
The CO2 is a product of combustion in the case of the atmosphere, so O2 is reduced. The same applies with your submarine example as respiration does the same thing. However the point you make is whether the increase in atmospheric CO2 could be counterbalanced by greater plant growth in turn increasing photosynthesis, and the answer is most likely yes. It may be that we will see atmospheric CO2 levels reducing once lagging plant growth catches up and wouldn’t that set the cat amongst the pigeons.
20
This is correct. However we did have CO2 scrubbers to rid the atmosphere of CO2. It was also closely monitored. We used Draeger units to measure CO2 content. We’d raise the alarm at 2%. 6% will leave you feeling delirious and “confused”. 9% is practically comatose and at 12% its death. Nuke powered boats tend not to suffer from this too much (if at all) as they use a unit called an electrolyser which extracts oxygen from seawater.
20
According to National Geographic, 400ppm was the tipping point, the crisis point of no return, the point where the CO2 would release more CO2 producing runaway warming. Seas would boil and rise, storms would howl and whole cities and islands would be swept away like Atlantis. The Ecopolypse. For some reason though the temperature has not risen for twenty years and appears utterly disconnected from CO2 levels, perhaps an inconvenient truth.
292
You just wait until the next coming when the heat rises out from deep down in the oceans …..
61
Those little particles of warmth just love hiding in the deep oceans,just like gremlins.
31
410 ppm at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii that is, I wonder if the temperature is just as disastrous there also?
103
Looks like it’s about 0C. Chilly for a tropical island beach, but the observatory is on a mountain.
72
How reliable are the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements anyway? It is an active volcano after all and volcanos emit lots of CO2.
81
If you were interested in the truth you would seek the truth.
31
410ppm may be premature by a little bit!
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
CO2 levels at Cape Grim, Tasmania are somewhat lower.
http://www.csiro.au/greenhouse-gases/
71
Sorry Peter, this is mostly a science blog. We would do better if we didn’t confuse the readers.
21
Interesting. First they measure and then they recalibrate. I would be inclined to do calibrate first, but maybe I’ve missed something with the “re” part.
10
I see this question about 6 times each year.
The answer does not change: It is very accurate.
Their pages, and others, explain what, why, how.
How reliable?
Very.
31
Does NOAA understand significant figures? They give the monthly average CO2 at Mauna Loa as 407.18ppm. We should therefore expect that the uncertainty is +/-0.01ppm.
However I did not find a mention of the of the accuracy of tthe measurement on their web page.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
21
Peter C,
Normally it would be assumed that the “8” is significant and that the uncertainty is +/-0.005. However, that only addresses the precision or resolution of measurement. The accuracy is another question entirely and all too commonly gets ignored in any presentation of ‘facts.’ Ever since the slide rule was replaced by hand calculators and computers, people have become very sloppy with significant figures.
See the following:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/12/are-claimed-global-record-temperatures-valid/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/23/the-meaning-and-utility-of-averages-as-it-applies-to-climate/
10
“And that number has been rising ever since, warming the planet by 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C) along the way.” ……. NO !!!
It ought to have read – “And that number has been rising ever since as the planet has been recovering from the Little Ice Age and accordingly warmed by 1.8 degrees F – part of the earth’s natural temperature cycles – and, as has been proven time and time again, CO2 increases have always followed temperature increases.”
183
Roger,
That statement, as it stands, implies that the total warming since the Little Ice Age is only 1.8 degrees F (my emphasis). I don’t think that is correct.
I think that what Jo wrote is “more correct”, if still a little ambiguous.
42
Hi Rereke,
I tend to agree with you , but it was only slightly tongue in cheek ……
The difficulty I have is that, so far as I am aware (and there is much I am not aware of), there is no empirical quantification of what (perhaps if any) warming can be attributed to mankind’s CO2 emissions. Plenty of theories and calculations based upon those but nothing which is proveable and reproducible.
Please help me if I am wrong in that regard.
R
83
Welcome to The Matrix, Roger.
The thing I love about Physical Science, is that it has rules, and those rules are always obeyed by nature. No “if’s”, no “but’s”.
But when it comes to climate science (note lack of capitals), we are no longer discussing Climatology or Meteorology. We are in Wonderland, where the rules can be made up to suit the political aspirations of the claimant. That is why detail is important. I, and the other regulars here, knew what you meant. But the passing lurkers might not. Hence my comment. Sorry if I offended.
103
Bless you – No offence at all.
52
Don’t you just love the warmist religionists who will leave a negative to the comment ‘bless you – no offence at all’.
Poor, intellectually and scientifically challenged little lambs.
91
The problem with warmism being a quasi religion, is that the end justifies the means.
Sceptics are their main threats, only because we are honest and use facts, not emotive and political nonsense.
51
“Plenty of theories and calculations based upon those but nothing which is proveable and reproducible. Please help me if I am wrong in that regard.”
Not only correct; but The Climate Clowns have not even a viable ‘conjecture’ as to ‘how’ increasing atmospheric CO2 above 180ppmv may possibly increase temperature near this planet Earth! Their models ‘assume’ many effects that simply do not occur. 🙂
133
For Human emission percentages, I’ve seen figures of 3% and 6% of 400ppm suggested.
10
Graeme #4 April 27, 2017 at 9:34 pm
“For Human emission percentages, I’ve seen figures of 3% and 6% of 400ppm suggested.”
Flora eat gaseous CO2 and CH4 to produce all manner of rigid hydrocarbons (trees)! Fauna eat hydrocarbons produce CO2 and CH4 plus wonderful furry critters!
Clever beyond belief hairless humans, without tails, eat both flora and fauna and produce rigid ships from trees. They also invent spoken language that has elite pronunciation “Ahs wi pay”, rather than celebrating the needed for tail-less critters ‘Asswipe’. ‘Oh woha are we’; replaces ‘What a wonderful planet!…
01
Not sure I understand what you’re driving at Will, but I know that your knowledge on climate issues far exceeds mine. I was trying to point out that perhaps we need to focus on the 10-25 ppm human emissions part and point out to folks that this is an incredibly small amount of the atmosphere, so surely there are more important issues to focus our interests and expenditures on.
10
Rereke,
I should have added that with the manipulation of temperature records that has gone on with earlier temps being reduced and more recent ones raised, even if only through use of too low a UHI allowance, it is very diffcult to arrive at an accurate figure of change since the end of the LIA.
It always concerns me here in the UK when winter weather forecasts regularly predict night-time temperatures in London as 4 and occasionally 5 degrees C warmer than the rural areas outside why the ‘homogenisation adjustments’ made by CRU for UHI are (from memory) less than 2 degrees C.
R
83
I would not buy a used car from anybody who works, or has worked, at the CRU!
It is a personal opinion, but I have no faith in that organisation since the time when Phil Jones was “The Man”, and apparently thought that effectiveness was more important than accuracy, in science.
112
That makes 2 of us then!
There was a time when Phil Jones and colleagues owned up in their CRU profiles to being adherents of Post Modern Science – and that explained everything.
Those entries seemed to disappear around the time of climategate. Probably still available from the Way Back Machine.
73
Phil Jones, whose, er, data made him a central player
in the climate(gate) debate concedes the possibility
that the world was warmer in the Medieval Warming Period
and there were other times warmed when no human input. He
also admits there’s been no statistical significant warming
recently. (Feb 2010.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html
52
Rereke,
Well that makes 2 of us!!
Jones and colleagues profiles on the UEA CRU site used to proclaim that they all adhered to Post Modern Science …explains all one needs to know about their so-called scientific work.
These PMS references disappeared around the time of climategate but are still probably in the Way Back Machine.
52
Surely a better description would be “Post Science Modernism”
21
Pre Jones and before it was “politicised ” it pursued climatology in a diligent manner.ie:Hubrrt Lamb and John.E. Hobbs whose book on climatology is a comprehensive book on climate related mechanisms and effects. He is retired now and enjoys a quiet beer or two.
61
They probably all ride bikes at the CRU,those ones with the silly little wheels,still you are right I would not buy a used bike from that lot
11
Little Ice Age that was ending when Cook explored the East Coast of the land we now call Australia.
41
Don’t these pundits ever get exhausted by all their angst-riddled hand-wringing over something they can’t possibly control? I mean, my God, how do they sleep at night?
73
I am told that it is very easy to sleep at night, on a mattress that is stuffed with folding money, preferably money consisting of large denomination notes.
132
So it isn’t hard currency?
71
Taxpayer funded grants monies
21
Nobody was hurt in the provision of this money.
10
Science.
“It’s such an amazing find and — if it’s genuine — it’s a game-changer.
It really does shift the ground completely,” says John McNabb, a Palaeolithic archaeologist at the University of Southampton, UK.
“I suspect there will be a lot of reaction to the paper, and most of it is not going to be acceptance.”
A third technique, which measures relative levels of radioactive uranium and thorium in bone, suggested that the remains are 130,000 years old. “I’m sure that many of our colleagues are going to be quite sceptical.
I would expect that.
This is far, far older than most archaeologists expect hominins to be in North America,” says Steven Holen. “I say that even for myself.”
Alistair Pike, an archaeological scientist at the University of Southampton who specializes in uranium dating, notes that the team’s method relies on simplified models of how uranium seeps from groundwater into bone, but he sees no obvious flaws in the dating work.
“At face value, these results are about as good as it can get,” he says.
Controversial study claims humans reached Americas 100,000 years earlier than thought
https://www.nature.com/news/controversial-study-claims-humans-reached-americas-100-000-years-earlier-than-thought-1.21886
Jonova,3rd April, 2017:
For a long time it was thought the first people arrived in the Americas around 13,000 years ago. Jacques Cinq-Marc found a set of caves in the Yukon called the Bluefish Caves laden with bones marked with cuts from human butchering.
They were radiocarbon dated as 24,000 years old. Cinq-Marcs published a series of papers between 1979-2001.
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/04/got-a-theory-that-breaks-a-consensus-expect-aggressive-silence-snickering-wait-decades/
102
A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA
https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v544/n7651/full/nature22065.html#access
31
It’s not politically correct to suggest humans arrived in North America more than around 13,000 years ago is it?
20
I was taught that the First Nation originally crossed into what is now North America, over a land bridge where the Aleutian Islands now sit.
The really interesting part though, was learning that another land bridge existed where the Kuril Islands now sit. The implication in this being, that the forebears of the American First Nation were probably related to the forebears of the Japanese.
41
The Bering Land Bridge, also known as central part of Beringia, is thought to have been up to 600 miles wide.
But that was before the ice age ended so it is obvious from AGW theory that those ancient settlers must have driven over in SUVs reeking havoc with all that CO2.
41
I daresay the brickbats will be hurled in my direction for this.
I am always mystified by this term ‘first nation’. I have always understood a nation to be a cohesive group in its own country with one ethos, under one law, usually one language and a recognised system of government assented to by the people of that nation. I’m at a loss to understand how disparate, often warring tribes can be considered a nation. Does anyone have a clear and acceptable answer to this puzzle?
20
Annie:
No. At the Anzac service in our town a local Councilor (a Greenie) carried on about the first nation in what quite a number considered an offensive speech. It wasn’t at all in the tone you might think, and as it happened he also got the ‘original’ local tribe wrong (as I know from a local aboriginal lady). I don’t think he enhanced his political ambitions, as many long time locals knew far better than him.
00
In Canuckistan, it’s First NationS, plural. A friend reporting to a room full of people, used the term “Indian” in reference to native North Americans. He was promptly chided by someone in the crowd: “That’s First Nations, Bud!!”. My friend replied: “I happen to know …… …., one of the founders of the American Indian Movement, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me!”. Needless to say, most of the crowd seemed to be on his side. Certainly not all…..
20
“humans reached Americas 100,000 years earlier than thought”
There is a high probability that humans and thought arrived at the same time, whenever that was.
61
I understand that snakes know
11
I think, therefore I am … here.
OK, so where is here? And why am I here?
And why am I grunting to myself, in my head?
21
RW – very serious questions. I ask myself these very questions every year in the middle of the Canadian prairie winter. Rye whisky gets one through.
00
Unless they travelled at the speed of dumb.
01
Nop! In base three it is 120,012 parts per 1,212,210,202,001. 120,012 parts per 1,000,000 is a much higher concentration.
11
Only if you use base ten for your million.
01
Again without any proof or explanation the underlying logic is that mankind controls CO2 levels, that fossil fuel has caused the increase in CO2. This is never proven, never argued, never discussed and assumed to be obvious even by people who disagree with CO2 warming. It is also not true.
Then the argument is made that increased CO2 makes the oceans hotter. Considering that the amount of CO2 in the water is 50x greater than in the air, this is the exact reverse of what logic and science would say. When inventing the science fiction of man made global warming, real science and logic are the first casualties in the communist war on successful democracies. No one else believes it, not even Robert Mugabe who turned up in Paris COP21 for his climate money. Meanwhile the very left media are still running pictures of polar bears and steam from nuclear power station cooling towers. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
173
Tdef. Have been distracted from distractions recently spending a while looking into oxygen escape from earth. It along with other gases is blown off the top of the atmosphere into space by the solar wind. This rate increases as the wind events do, as the earths magnetic field weakens and at times when the solar cycle has altered the density of the higher layers.
By what percentage our oxygen going down makes CO2 appear to have gone up (without changing)I have not yet calculated. Instead distracted further into to the realisation that this periodic pole reversal started over four hundred years ago but some think can complete in as little as eighty years and be a extinction level event.
Looks like to save the planet we need to urgently bind oxygen to carbon NOW. ACT NOW.
41
For those who think It is a joke.
“Oxygen escape from the Earth during geomagnetic reversals: Implications to mass extinction”
https://www.mysciencework.com/publication/show/1db28ed70a4a71adc7695a8b45f14559
and
“Earth’s magnetic field could flip within a human lifetime”
http://news.berkeley.edu/2014/10/14/earths-magnetic-field-could-flip-within-a-human-lifetime/
and
“Solar storms can weaken Earth’s magnetic field”
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/10/solar-storms-can-weaken-earth-s-magnetic-field
Is it a coincidence that the CO2 scam has the same origins as Eugenics?
61
Eugenics originated in England in the late 1800s when the socialist Fabian Society was established, one of the first members was George Bernard Shaw.
Today the Australian Fabian Society is continuing the traditions.
31
Who was influenced by the people around Tyndall as was Svante Arrhenius.
http://www1.appstate.edu/~thomleyje/Moodle-Docs/STT3530/MacKenzie-1976-Social-Studies-in-Science.pdf
00
I take your point that CO2 is our only hope. However at 22%, Oxygen is 550 times more prevalent than CO2 at 0.04%. For Oxygen to go down enough to make CO2 increase 50%, it would have to drop by say 33% to 14%. We would have noticed. Interstingly that is what happens in your lungs where the oxygen comes in at 22% and comes out at 14%. CO2 however comes out at say 14% to 22%, so breathing is a huge generator of aerial CO2. Animals are the problem. We need to become vegetarians and get rid of the animals. The Greens would love it.
31
Sorry cannot find the link now but there is a paper out there someplace claiming it dropped by 17% over one of those very long time periods. Memory fail.
This Suspicious Observers (Ben Davidson) video has many clues.
https://youtu.be/VVgUZv9ccyQ
41
” However at 22%, Oxygen is 550 times more prevalent than CO2″
There are other gases too. Also we receive stuff from the solar wind and cosmic radiation. It seems these could also change the makeup of the atmosphere by binding to things and falling down (As per radio carbon dating N14). By how much has our nitrogen level changed? Is this the reason the oceans rise more linearly over time? The idea that change is abnormal is just wrong.
40
My tomatoes love CO2.
71
Not another variation in the LBGTQ list.
Will it be on the Plebiscite?
21
Only another 410ppm until we get back to a reasonable level.
122
The Chinese delegation to the UN IPCC Copenhagen Conference informed delegates that during 3,600 years of civilisation in China there were three warmer periods than the present (that ended in 1998), and each warmer period brought greater prosperity to China as crop yields increased.
81
Beck in his report on 180 years of accurate atmospheric CO2 analysis shows that atmospheric CO2 levels reached around 400ppm on three prior occasions, 1825, 1857 and 1942.
The IPCC decreed that they would not use chemical analyses of atmospheric CO2 prior to 1957 on the (dishonest) grounds that the measurement techniques were inaccurate. Instead they used a flawed proxy (CO2 in air bubbles trapped in ice cores) for the prior to 1958 measurements and then attached actual measurements from Muana Loa for the more subsequent period. This created a Mannian hockey stick which shows that CO2 levels were constant at around 280ppm for thousands of years and then, at the start of the industrial revolution, started to increase at an initially gentle but increasing rate as a result of increasing fossil fuel use.
The fossil fuel contribution to atmospheric CO2 flows is minuscule and far outweighed by variations in ocean outgassing. The story of CO2 levels being in equilibrium until man screwed it up is a myth.
203
So they are homogenising CO2 readings as well…
51
Now there’s a surprise – NOT. After years of temp manipulation and fudges.
London, UK winter weather forecasts routinely predict London temps as 4 – 5 degrees C higher than the surrounding rural area … and yet CRU use a less than 2 degrees C adjustment down from the London Temp when ‘homogenising’ the rural temps UPWARDS in line with the London temps…… and it is these artificial and falsely elevated rural temps that are then used to ‘prove’ global warming.
71
Good paper, thanks for the link Gorgiasl.
21
Well put Gorgiasl.
The issue of quantifying the human origin and “natural” CO2 components of the atmosphere is almost always politely ignored.
Where it is mentioned there is monkey business in pretending that human origin CO2 is somehow not subject to the chemical imperatives of natural sequestration. This allows the idea of “buildup” of dirty human CO2 in the imaginary atmosphere.
The truth is that at any time human origin CO2 is no more than about 4% and by the laws of chemistry will remain reasonably constant.
Fairy stories never go out of style.
KK
41
‘CO2 levels reached around 400ppm on three prior occasions, 1825, 1857 and 1942.’
Ah yes, off the top of my head its down to a strong El Nino, so global cooling and more La Nina should see CO2 levels falling below 400ppm.
52
There was an El Nino in 1824-25, then a particularly long El Nino from 1857-59 and later the devastating 1939-41 El Nino, which goes to prove we are at the mercy of nature.
Thanks for that Gorglasl, good catch.
51
This is very good news indeed. The minimum CO2 concentration required to support plant life is 185 to 225ppm according to one source I read so the increase of the CO2 level further beyond the point at which plant life and hence all life dies has to be a good thing. We are finally coming out of an era of a dangerously low CO2 concentration.
81
I am suprised to see the statement that CO2 was under 410 ppm at 50 million years ago was not dierctly chalenged.
In the mid eocine (not exactly 50 million years ago, but close) CO2 levels were quite a bit above 410 ppm, and were possibly 6000 to 16000 ppm. See. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6005/819
31
410 PPM now ??? and no one is underwater, dying of the heat or in any other kind of distress that I know about. And don’t forget, no one is suffocating because carbon (dioxide) can’t support life.
So thank you Ms. Nova, for this very considerate notification. I needed something to make me sleepy so I can take a short nap at my desk. Maybe if I shut the door so the carbon builds up in the room, making it stuffier in here it will also help me to get sleepy. I might even get some benefit from calling myself a climate denier because that’s getting really boring too.
Yawn and ho hum.
I deny ever having said any of the foregoing.
BB
52
Off topic, but can anyone interpret the interventions AEMO appears to be making into the SA electricity market?
For example:
Market Notice 58450
AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE.
Update – Direction – South Australia region 26/04/17
Update to AEMO Electricity Market Notice 58439, 58441 and 58447
The AEMO Intervention Event commenced in the 0750 hrs dispatch interval 25/04/17and is forecast to apply until 1200 hrs 26/04/17
Intervention pricing will be implemented during the AEMO Intervention Event.
Market Notice 58441
AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE.
AEMO Intervention Event intervention price dispatch intervals – 25/04/17
Refer AEMO Electricity Market Notice no. 58439
An AEMO Intervention Event has occurred. AEMO has issued a direction to maintain the power system in a secure operating state.
AEMO declares all dispatch intervals during the AEMO Intervention Event to be intervention price dispatch intervals.
The AEMO Intervention Event commenced in the 0750 hrs dispatch interval and is forecast to apply until 1200 hrs 26/04/17
Intervention pricing will be implemented during the AEMO Intervention Event.
I assume this has something to do with curtailing wind generation so that there is still sufficient synchronous generation, and/or imposing price caps, for instance:
Market Notice 58436
AEMO ELECTRICITY MARKET NOTICE
Issued by Australian Energy Market Operator Ltd at 0355 hrs on 25 April 2017
ADMINISTERED PRICE PERIOD DECLARED in SA region.
AEMO has determined that the rolling sum of the uncapped market ancillary Raise Reg services(s) prices for the SA region over the previous 2016 dispatch intervals has exceeded 6 times the cumulative price threshold (CPT) of $210,100.00.
21
Grist should grind himself in his own mill. I have no time or effort to devote to his needs, which are considerable and I won’t put him through my mill.
Grist? It’s more like porridge — call it slop. The future does need our help but not from him.
I deny saying any of the above also.
BB
21
Prof. Carl-Otto Weiss – The climate change is due to natural cycles.
CO2 has no identifiable effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAELGs1kKsQ
How has this been totally ignored, surely this is what we should be emphasizing.
With recognition and acceptance of this the whole CAGW effect would shrivel up and die.
51
The CO2 thing is not about science, it is about the destruction of capitalism and Western Civilisation in general.
61
Professor Weiss spectral analysis shows convincing multi-cycle
cross referencing whereas temperatures and Co2 fail the sync test.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Screen_shot_2013-07-19_at_2.21.08_PM.png
10
“Well I’m loving it.” – A plant.
71
According to these two documents
http://endcoal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Jan-2017-Proposed-by-country-annual-CO2.pdf
http://endcoal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Jan-2017-Proposed-by-country-MW.pdf
the world is adding another 272,940 MW of coal power and 1,156 Mt/year of CO2 by building more coal fired power stations by the hundreds as we speak. So much for the world trying to reverse the CO2 trend. We must be the only significant country on earth who actually is following the AGW agenda to close down coal fired power stations and not build new ones but instead rely heavily on building renewable energy sources. So much for joining the rest of the world to reduce urgently man-made CO2 emissions. What amazes me is how Vietnam and Indonesia are high on those lists. Actually I know of one coal engineer who is retired but frequently goes to Vietnam advising on them on building coal fired power stations. We must be the dumbest people on earth – and I’m not referring to the political parties. Wake up Australians!
91
So, everywhere else in the World, they are powering ahead with new coal fired power plants, especially in China and India. In China, this has been happening for more than ten years now, and all those new coal fired power plants are those new tech USC coal fired power plants.
So, then, let me show you something very important.
This first link is to a China Monthly power report from September of 2015, barely 18 Months ago.
The only thing I want to draw to your attention here is the item at Line 22, where it shows The National Coal Consumption Rate, and here it is shown in G/kWH, and that’s Grams of coal to generate one KiloWattHour of electricity from ALL of the coal fired power plants in China.
Note here that the figure is 317, so 317 Grams of coal to generate 1KWH of power.
Okay then, this link shows the most recent Monthly Report for power generation, and that is for March 2017. (Last Month) (DIRECTIONS – At the link I have given you, click on the top link, (January-March) and when that comes up, hover your mouse over the link in the box, and when the new link shows above that, press the top link, and the data chart will open)
Note at Line 22 the most recent figure is 302 grams of coal to generate one kWH of electricity.
That’s an almost 5% reduction in barely 18 Months.
Why the drop?
That is because China is closing coal fired power plants hand over fist, and all of those plants closing are old tech plants from before the 1980s. tiny little plants from 10MW up to some 100MW plants, small ones spread across China to provide local power.
Close down literally many hundreds of these small plants and replace them with new tech large scale plants, and expand the grid, and there’s no need for these low power babies any more.
Those new USC plants have a coal consumption rate around 282 grams per kWH, so as those tiny plants close and the new ones open to replace so many of the closed ones, that coal consumption rate falls and falls quite dramatically.
So then, nearly all of our coal fired power plants here in Australia and all of them in the US, well, what’s their coal consumption rate then.
Well, it’s between 450 and 480 grams per kWH.
Note the difference, and that’s pretty huge really.
So, as you can see here, you actually can clean up coal, just be replacing old for new.
As you look at that list provided in the links from PeterS above, be aware that virtually every new coal fired plant being currently constructed is HELE USC coal fired.
Everywhere but here in Oz and the U.S.
Tony.
112
Tony
Somewhat O/T
Following on from that SA joke about
“What did SA use before candles? Electricity”
The latest in household appliances
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/04/dead-rose-count-3.html
The new ultra-modern solar clothes drier
31
India’s draft national electricity plan shows they plan to use more renewables but they also have under various stages of construction a total of 50,025 MW of new coal based power projects coming on line 2017 – 22. That’s the equivalent of over 30 Hazelwoods! I think most of us don’t mind using renewables – pretty much everyone else is but to close down our coal fired power stations one by one and not build new ones is worse that madness – it’s economic suicide. Why are both major parties trying desperately to shut down our economy?
21
Hooray!
71
Here’s a plot of ppm CO2 for 24 hours at my place from last year:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f241nq3pfpq9753/CO2on16-07-31BBeach.jpg?dl=0
Drops from 400 ppm to about 380 after photosynthesis kicks in, then levels off at about 395 from midday.
Biosphere heavy-lifting is in the morning? Goes back up to 400 as sunset approaches. Stays above 400, with peaks to 430, until 8 am next day. So, Panic Time of 410 is EVERY DAY at about 7pm AEST, and lasts for 13 hours. OMG !!!
I would expect a similar result for most tropical and sub-tropical locations on the eastern seaboard. It would be interesting to work out why those peaks occur. Could be change of airflow strength or direction. Here it has to be a natural phenomenon. I’ll dig up the records for the nearest weather station, which is similarly located 11 km away.
61
How are you measuring the CO2?
21
Measured with one of these:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c8s8z3gnqbv70ko/dloggercase.jpg?dl=0
Sits inside an enclosure like a Stevenson Screen, only smaller and elevated a bit, eg 2m instead of the standard 1.25m. It sits on a part of my property that has the best exposure to the north-easterlies that blow in off the Coral Sea 60% of the time. As it currently runs over an unboosted USB2 cable it has to be no more than 5m or so from the receiving port, so it is close to a blank white house wall on that side, so not useful for any other measurements except perhaps humidity. I have tested its sensitivity to man-made emissions. It will pick up the exhaust from a lawn mower parked 1m upwind. Does not pick up anything from the occasional vehicular traffic passing on the road 25m away. A 10 tonne diesel truck idling about 15m away was identifiable. The beach is 250m away. There is an estuary, mangroves, Magnetic Island (mostly uninhabited on that side) then nothing but ocean until Honiara (1800 km in that direction according to GE.) The device has registered elevated levels on one or two occasions when there have been controlled burns and bushfires to the south and south-east, and the airflow has been coming from the affected areas.
40
For those who enjoy German, EIKE (European Institute for Climate and Energy) released an anti-alarmist video that discusses and disarms the main catastrophe points of climate alarmism: Extreme weather, IPCC, glaciers and sea levels. [Atrocious, automatic translation of the German subtitles is available on YouTube.]
40
reducing emissions!
26 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Karl Mathiesen: UK foreign office cut climate staff in half under Tory government
Labour says the 46% reduction in foreign office climate jobs since it was in power is “staggering” and a sign the government is not serious about the issue
Staffing records, released by the foreign office under freedom of information laws, show the previous Labour government more than trebled the amount of time devoted by foreign office staff to climate and energy issues between 2007 and 2009.
As the world built momentum towards ultimately calamitous 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen, foreign secretary David Miliband headed an army of climate staff, the equivalent of 277 full time jobs…
As campaigning begins for the UK’s June election, the Labour Party’s spokesperson on climate change Barry Gardiner said the “staggering cut in the number of FCO staff working on climate change shows that the Government is not serious about implementing the Paris Agreement”.
He referred to a report in the Times this month that prime minister Theresa May plans to “scale down” concern about climate change in order to win new trade partners post-Brexit…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/04/26/uk-foreign-office-climate-staff-cut-half-tory-government/
26 Apr: CarbonPulse: China suggests US could buy offsets to meet emission goals as Paris concerns grow
China has suggested the US could buy foreign carbon credits to help meet a shortfall in the country’s international emission goals, one of the clearest signs yet that patience is wearing thin among the global community about the Trump administration’s commitment to climate action.
20
And we still can’t paddle a canoe into those ancient seaports and invasion landings where they used to park whole fleets. More ppm please!
41
When I suggested to somebody recently that the ancient sea ports being excavated on the eastern shore of Corsica were still 3-4m above current sea level, they said it was due to “tectonic lift” of the island. Yeah?
50
The Canadian Nuclear Society’s “Homes Supplied and CO2 Avoided” graphs are useful for comparing capacity to output(mouse over them)but,and I get the reason for the spin, how does wind/solar/green crap qualify as “CO2 Avoided”?
https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelectricity.html
30
Ontario specifically.
10
If you ever wanted to know why you get called a climate change denier, here is everything you ever wanted to know about the reason for the term but were very sensibly afraid to ask.
I got handed this recently when I objected to being called a climate change denier. And I have a free all expense paid congratulatory comment for the reader who can point out the most errors in this NCSE explanation of the term.
These are teachers teaching about science in our American classrooms. They should call themselves the National Center for Ignorance of Basic Science.
You don’t need to make this stuff up, they just hand it to you.
40
Yes Frank, because in the cult of climate science two anonymous unpaid pals must approve of any interpretation of the data.
The rest of us just use our own eyes.
71
Are you trying to find some to pay?
23
well that was weird. I hope nothing is broken
22
Allis ist kaput! 🙂
10
Sorry broken thread to #50
Gee Aye April 27, 2017 at 2:21
“well that was weird. I hope nothing is broken”
Allis ist kaput! 🙂
11
I think that should read climate “science”, Jo…
21
More accurate to say climate anti-science.
21
I cannot find any comment from Frank – does that mean he couldn’t find two anonymous unpaid pals to prove that he exists?
Probably rejected by the Kennel Club who refused to register him too?
Hmm! A transparent, non-existent Troll. Forced to roam the Blogosphere unnoticed and unwanted – a ghost doomed to haunt without hope.
41
Yeah, I looked for him too.
10
Frank, that is. Seems like the reply tag is tired.
10
Frank’s comment was not exactly incendiary, in fact a bit dull, so I can’t see why it would have been moderated out. It was no less relevant than, “I love my CO2”
00
Grist says “a climate not seen in 50 million years” – meaning not since the Early Eocene period, in the early Tertiary.
A major problem with this hypothesis –
short-term high and low CO2 values are thought not to be detectable in the historical CO2 proxy record averages (beyond 150 years ago). And the splicing of current 410ppm instrumental level onto the historical proxy record is thought to be invalid.
Its likely that the tertiary CO2 record contains short-term high values well beyond current levels, but the proxy methods of measuring CO2 just dont have enough resolution to see them (less than 10-20,000 years).
Although we dont have the resolution to see the detailed CO2 data, we can see the air tempertaure data from oxygen isotopes in ice cores. They suggest that we have had much hotter average global temperatures than today at the peak of past interglacials – at 130ky, 240kyr, 330ky, 410ky and on it goes. That also suggests we are not at the interglacial peak yet, and we have another 10-20,000 years to go. Daily CO2 will probably go higher, then start to fall before the temperatures peak (the CO2 peak-temperature peak offset).
Whatever the scientific outcome, the earth is most likely at the end of the current interglacial period (proxy peak 300ppm CO2), and getting ready to swing into the next glacial. That will be a lot of fun (not).
Science is a bi*ch when it provides adequate explanations for the current climate. Hey wait a minute – wasnt there a march or something recently about that?
40
I love my co2 !!
31
Yes it gives your bread, your beer head and yourself a rise
31
Yep – just invested in a carbonating rig so I can make my own soft drink. So far so good. No explosions yet.
30
21 Apr: GreenTechMedia: Stephen Lacey: The Solar Lead: Donald Trump May Be the Only Hope for Struggling US Solar Manufacturers
The first word: WWIII won’t be over North Korea nukes; it’ll be over solar…
Suniva blamed Chinese producers for setting up shop in other Asian countries not covered by the tariffs: “These tariffs have not been effective in preventing dumping of Chinese solar products into the United States.”…
Suniva is majority-owned by a Chinese company, Shunfeng…
The list of problems in the American solar manufacturing space since 2016 is quite long:
• Suniva: 230 layoffs between Georgia and Michigan as of Chapter 11 filing in April 2017, with an additional 24 layoffs planned. “Temporary shutdown” of production facilities in Michigan and Georgia in Q1 2017.
• Mission Solar Energy: 170 layoffs in March 2017, and plans to reduce its Texas manufacturing capacity from 200 MW to 48 MW.
• Tesla/SolarCity/Silevo: Tesla noted in its annual 10k filing that Silevo will not achieve its volume production targets and essentially signaled an abandonment of the Silevo technology. Instead, Tesla will partner with Panasonic, with the 1 GW Buffalo, New York facility expected to start production in summer 2017 and to be ramped to full capacity in 2019 — a delay from earlier targets.
• First Solar: 450 layoffs for Perrysburg, Ohio production facility in November 2016 as part of strategic shift and retooling for Series 6 thin-film module. Roughly 1,000 employees remain on staff at facility, according to The Toledo Blade.
• Panasonic: 50 layoffs in Salem, Oregon in February 2016 while production volume winds down…
Deals worth watching
Sungevity (Spectrum?): It has been a tough few months for Sungevity. The company was finally sold off for $50 million to a private equity group, but not before laying off even more of its remaining staff — and failing to give them severance packages. The new company will be called Solar Spectrum, and will presumably focus solely on lead generation through software.
Spruce Finance: The residential solar financier is reportedly up for sale. And more executive departures may be coming. Watch to see if the firm can raise more money…
https://www.greentechmedia.com/squared/read/donald-trump-may-be-the-only-hope-for-struggling-solar-manufacturers
26 Apr: Bloomberg: Brian Eckhouse: Taxes No Longer Certain — And That’s Affecting Solar Deals
“It’s causing disruptive effects on finance,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive officer of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in an interview Monday at Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Future of Energy Global Summit in New York. “Costs are going up.”…
Part of the reason for the rush: lower corporate tax rates may deplete the supply of tax equity, an esoteric but critical source of financing for wind and solar farms. In such deals, clean-energy developers sell a portion of their projects’ tax credits to companies — often banks and some insurance companies — that can apply the federal credits to their own tax bills. If tax rates fall, investors would have less need for write-offs…
Solar tax equity totaled about $5 billion last year. There are more than 35 companies that invest in tax equity…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-24/taxes-are-no-longer-certain-and-that-s-disrupting-solar-deals
21
So which comes first; climate change or global warming? Kahn states that ‘global warming will be the lasting legacy of climate change’ (or to that effect).This to me implies that climate change caused the warming. My understanding of the warmist argument is that increased Co2 = warming. So that it is warming that is happening and climate change is it’s legacy. I would appreciate some comments.
GeoffW
10
“Global warming” came first, when the slight downward trend from around 1945 to 1976 changed to a slight upward trend. They looked around for something to blame it on and could only come up with CO2 which was also increasing. That became, and still is, hard-wired into most of the “climate models” that now abound. The modellers failed to observe the caveat familiar to nearly everyone else who has done modelling work, that correlation cannot be assumed to be causation. This error was as foolish as the old “eating ice cream causes drowning” thing. So when the trend levelled off and there was no significant increase in temperature but CO2 levels continued to rise, the term got changed to “climate change” as a means to obfuscate the issue. No one sensibly doubts that climate changes, but the term was recycled to mean climate change caused by humans. The meme of CO2-causes-warming is so entrenched that all argument and evidence to the contrary is vigorously opposed. Actual temperature observations started being homogenised and adjusted, knowingly or unknowingly, to maintain the deception.
It is all bunk. Nonsense.
It is unsurprising that you pick up on the idea that climate change is a “legacy” of this alleged warming, because the alarmists continually claim that all changes are a consequence of warming which is caused by CO2 which is produced by humans. Or the other way round. Both are meaningless.
20
Thanks Martin for a clear and helpfull response.
All that you say makes sense; these are fundamental arguments that we have to maintain.
GeoffW
00
totally o/t but ever so funny…take a break for a BELLY LAUGH:
25 Apr: The Blaze: Matt Walsh: If Bill Nye is a “scientist,” so am I
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/matt-walsh-if-bill-nye-is-a-scientist-so-am-i/
41
Nino Wrecks Carbon Sink
“The CO2 rise in 2016 was the fastest on record – 3.4ppm (parts per million) per year – because the El Niño weakened the tropical carbon sink and gave the ongoing CO2 rise an extra kick on top of the effect of human emissions,” said Prof Richard Betts from the Met Office Hadley Centre.
“As a result, 2016 became the first year in which CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa remained above 400ppm all year round.”
WMO Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas (BBC)
10
Thinking about that ‘extra kick’, I’ll take this a little further.
There was a strong El Nino in 2009 and in the following year this had a positive impact on the SST in the north tropical Atlantic, which coincided with a strong positive AMO.
In reaction the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) shifted northward compared to its usual position, which produced a huge rainfall deficit. As a consequence CO2 ‘outgassing’ increased in the Western equatorial Atlantic.
Now I understand the connection between El Nino and CO2.
10
So the Australian RET is not working? Then why bother.
20
You all just wait until the sky darkens as “carbon pollution” spreads around the globe.
Then you will regret complaining about Labor’s carbon tax.
20
27 Apr: ABC: Malcolm Turnbull defends energy market intervention, says electricity prices will halve
By political reporters Henry Belot and Stephanie Borys
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has defended an intervention in the energy market, saying it could halve electricity prices and save up to 65,000 jobs…
But Mr Turnbull sought to clarify those comments two hours later, saying not all gas prices would be halved.
“When the market is in balance, when it is adequately supplied, wholesale prices should be not materially different from the export price,” he said…
The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) is disappointed with the announcement.
“Restricting exports is almost unprecedented for Australia,” APPEA chief executive Malcolm Roberts said.
“At a time when we need billions in new investment to create more gas supply, any intervention which creates sovereign risk is alarming.”
Mr Roberts is not convinced the export restrictions will reduce power prices…
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox welcomed the intervention and said the sector had been calling for the Government to help businesses…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-27/turnbull-says-gas-export-restrictions-to-halve-electricity-price/8475676
Reg reqd:
26 Apr: UK Times: Jeremy Watson: ‘Pie in the sky’ fuel policy will drive up heating bills
The GMB union said that the Scottish government was attacking the gas industry and that an increased reliance on imports from countries including Russia raised ethical concerns.
It added that politicians were ignoring the reality of daily life by shifting from gas to more expensive, greener alternatives.
The Scottish government has said that by 2032, 80 per cent of homes will be heated by low-carbon energy sources. Gary Smith, the GMB Scotland secretary, said that to achieve this would need one domestic gas boiler to be replaced by a more expensive electric heating system every four four minutes for the next fifteen years…
26 Apr: PressReader: Herald Scotland: Union fears push for renewable energy will hit thousands of gas jobs
THOUSANDS of jobs in North Sea gas production could be at risk from the drive towards renewable energy sources, according to a trade union.
Scotland is the second largest gas producer in the European Union, with the oil and gas sector in the region supporting 125,000 Scottish jobs. But the GMB warned at the STUC conference in Aviemore that many of these could be lost, saying an affordable and prosperous energy future without gas is “pie-in-the-sky politics”.
An independent report produced for the union by Strathclyde University’s Centre for Energy Policy found that 70 per cent of UK heating is provided by natural gas. The SNP Government’s own figures show rising numbers (79 per cent) of homes in Scotland use gas as their primary heating fuel.
Against the backdrop of rising fuel poverty, the GMB has been pressing the case for a full examination of the cost, environmental and employment implications of winding down production.
GMB Scotland secretary Gary Smith said: “The future of affordable domestic energy in our country is at risk and the Scottish Government cannot keep dodging the tough choices we need to make if we are to meaningfully tackle fuel poverty.
“The idea that we can affordably heat our homes, power our economy and sustain thousands of jobs without domestic gas production is just pie-in-the-sky politics and the main losers will be hard-working Scots and the poorest in our society.”…
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-herald/20170426/281590945454314
20
Some facts on Australian gas and electricity prices from AEMO:
Victorian wholesale gas prices averaged $3/gigajoule 2008-2011 and $4/gigajoule 2012-2016. However in Q3 2016 the price was $9/gigajoule, $7/gigajoule in Q4, and $9/gigajoule in Q1 2017.
Wholesale electricity prices in Victoria have escalated to $108.75/MWhr (that’s 10.9 cents/KWhr) in the first half of April following the closure of Hazelwood power station compared to an average of $46/MWhr in 2016, up from $28/MWhr in 2005. The “poster child” for renewable energy, South Australia, shows an even more disastrous outcome. Wholesale electricity prices for SA have risen to $118/MWhr in April 2017, up from $62/MWhr in 2016 and $36/MWhr in 2005. Add to that the $82/MWhr subsidy through the RET legislation paid to wind/solar generators that is built into the retail electricity price – no wonder we no longer have affordable energy.
Current 5pm spot prices per AEMO for electricity: SA $175 (receiving 400 MW from Vic to meet demand of 1500 MW. Vic price $152 (receiving 410 MW from NSW and 230 MW from Tas). And for gas spot price in Vic: $12/GJoule.
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24 Apr: UtilityWeek: Tory victory could end low-carbon consensus
There is “no such thing as an untouchable policy” warns consultancy chief
It’s “perfectly plausible” for a future Conservative government to row back on future contracts for difference (CfD) rounds and other decarbonisation schemes, an energy consultancy has warned.
Speaking to Utility Week, the chief executive of Cornwall, Gareth Miller said a future Conservative government could break away from the cross-party consensus on decarbonisation, which has been in place for almost two decades…
“There is an opportunity for a new government to pause, think and reconsider what they do,” he said.
“CfD auctions this parliament? They have earmarked the budget and said they will run three, but there’s nothing in law that says they have to. It’s perfectly plausible for a new government to turn around and say ‘bills are going up, we need to take pressure off consumers and we just have procured several gigawatts of offshore wind in this [current] auction, do we really need to do this?’
“You can see plenty of scope for those things to happen, particularly if they get a whopping majority.”…
http://utilityweek.co.uk/news/Tory-victory-could-end-low-carbon-consensus/1301222#.WQFk0pK1vcc
Exeter University: Policies, politics and demand side innovations: The untold story of Germany’s energy transition
By: Caroline Kuzemko, Catherine Mitchell, Matthew Lockwood and Richard Hoggett
Published in: Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 28, June 2017, Pages 58–67
Abstract
This article shines a light on a less examined aspect of sustainable energy transitions: governing for demand side innovations in Germany. Demand innovations are considered to be central to affordable, efficient and politically acceptable energy system transformations, however many argue that not enough is being done in governance terms. In a departure from much analysis on demand policy demand innovations are defined broadly here to explicitly include demand side response, demand reduction and distributed energy – given that each has important roles to play within demand-oriented markets. Demand governance is conceptualised as a long-term political process that is both contextually specific but also open to challenge and change at various points in time. The single case study is Germany where demand governance, recent changes in energy markets, and implications for how the politics of energy are changing are all analysed. This paper reveals the specific ways in which critical policy debates emerge over time and influence political decision-making; the ways in which these debates relate to changes in energy markets; as well as a lack of governance in relation to enabling demand side response and local energy markets…
***The full paper can be accessed via: Energy Research & Social Science (Free until June 14, 2017)…
http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/igov/paper-policies-politics-and-demand-side-innovations/
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26 Apr: Daily Caller: Andrew Follett: Congress Asked To Eliminate $270 Million A Year In Solar Subsidies
Conservatives want Congress to pull funding from the Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative, citing recent investigations that found the program provided subsidies for rooftop solar power.
The letter calls SunShot the “ground zero of the solar subsidy machine,” arguing that it gives out millions of dollars in subsidies through net metering programs. Such programs force utilities to buy the electricity from rooftop solar panels at up to six times the market price, effectively forcing non-solar residents to pay more to maintain the grid.
“Net metering threatens the stability of electricity grids by depriving them of necessary investment,” William Yeatman, an energy and environmental policy researcher at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), told The Daily Caller News Foundation…
Conservative groups signing the letter included CEI, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Energy Alliance, Americans for Prosperity, and the Consumers Alliance for a Strong Economy…
Without government support from net metering, solar energy is non-viable, according to a 2015 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)…
Without high net metering payments, rooftop solar “makes no financial sense for a consumer,” Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity, told The New York Times last February.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/26/congress-asked-to-eliminate-270-million-a-year-in-solar-subsidies/
24 Apr: BNEF: Japan May Pull Support From a Quarter of Clean-Energy Projects
About a quarter of all approved clean-energy projects in Japan may no longer qualify for government incentives after failing to meet a deadline to secure grid access, according to preliminary estimates from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
Some 456,000 projects totaling 27.7 gigawatts failed to get connections to the grid from local utilities by a government-imposed deadline, the ministry said in the report, adding that the final number could be smaller.
Japan introduced the deadline to weed out stalled clean-energy projects that had won preferential power prices but were never built.
As of the end of June 2016, the ministry had approved about 3.15 million projects, representing a combined capacity of 106.5 gigawatts, to receive the preferential rates, according to the ministry data released Friday. The clean-energy developments that no longer qualify for the rates are among this group, which also includes projects that were built and running before the incentive program’s introduction…
The projects at risk represent about 26 percent of the approved projects by capacity and 14 percent by volume…
https://about.bnef.com/blog/japan-may-pull-support-from-a-quarter-of-clean-energy-projects/
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Jo, my reply became a new comment. This has been happening a while now, usually in comments above number 40.
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On radio ABC-RN (Australia) today “scientists” involved in the anti-science “March for Science” spoke about concerns such as they would be rounded up as under the Nazis (I think only Jewish scientists were purged by Nazis, not others). They also spoke about the attack on science, when they are the ones attacking science. It was quite bizarre.
See http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/the-threat-to-science-and-science-integrity/8461040
52
410ppm!
26 Apr: Hobart Mercury: Showers and cold change could bring snow to Mt Wellington
The temperature was a fresh 3C on the Mt Wellington today, while Hobart reached a maximum of only 13C — four degrees below the April average of 17.3C.
Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Debbie Tabor said the temperature dipped to only 7C by 4pm, although felt much colder…
27 Apr: news.com.au: Debra Killalea: Cold change sends temperatures plummeting
CITIES and towns along the east coast of Australia have shivered through single-digit temperatures as a nasty cold front delivers a rude shock.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, the cold front stretches to a broad low pressure centre over the Tasman Sea, resulting in a big change in our weather system.
BOM senior forecaster Scott Williams said the cold front has hit South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT, Victoria and NSW.
While cold fronts aren’t rare for this time of year, Mr Williams said it was a particularly strong system which had pushed warm humid air to central and Northern Australia…READ ON
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/cold-change-sends-temperatures-plummeting/news-story/d7e169aa18e7af4bfbf78eb546102278
26 Apr: Stock&Land: Growers get big break
“Temperatures on Thursday will be five to seven degrees below the April average, right across the state (Victoria),” (Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) senior forecaster Scott Williams) said…
11 Apr: WarwickDailyNews: Early taste of winter for the Rose City
The Bureau of Meteorology tipped the temperature in Warwick to drop to 5 degrees but by 6am the mercury had fallen to a biting 3.4…
BOM meteorologist Michael Paech said the dip was one of the coolest recorded around the state.
“This morning’s minimum hit just before 6am and that is well below Warwick April average minimum of 11.3,” Mr Paech said…
“Kingaroy, Wellcamp and Roma all recorded the coolest overnight temperatures at 3.3 in the state but Warwick was just a smidge warmer than Applethorpe on 4.3.”
19 Apr: Aljazeera: Cold wintry weather sweeps over central Europe
Temperatures have been as much as 10 to 15 degrees below average across the region. Vienna has been particularly cold, with temperatures struggling to reach 3C or 4C. The April average is 15C…
21
I knew the world seemed a bit different when I woke up this morning, but I thought it was just because my cat was in an odd mood.
10
I taught some 11 year olds binary code the other day. They picked it up pretty quick.
If we started from scratch with out counting system I reckon base 16, hexadecimal, would be the best system.
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Turtle of WA April 27, 2017 7:04 pm
“I taught some 11 year olds binary code the other day. They picked it up pretty quick. If we started from scratch with out counting system I reckon base 16, hexadecimal, would be the best system.”
Gots one to many digits on each limb! Why they used only two hands is puzzling. 14 digits and one opposing, for base 60 would is Greck! I suggest teaching quaternion algebra before multiplication. 🙂
11
Back in the 70s I was asked to explain number systems to a bunch of “oldies”, so did this with 20 cold stubbies across the front of the desk. This got their attention! Divided the stubbies into different groups and showed how we could number the groups using different number systems. And I scored the beer…
10
O/T
Don’t forget submission are due soon to this inquiry.
http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/review-climate-change-policies/discussion-paper-2017
How you can get involved
The Discussion Paper is open for public consultation until 5 May 2017.
Read the Discussion Paper
The 2017 review of climate change policies Discussion Paper is available to download.
Review of climate change policies Discussion Paper (PDF – 540.35 KB) | (DOCX – 4.97 MB)
Complete a cover sheet for submissions
Submission cover sheet (PDF – 54.58 KB) | (DOCX – 51.83 KB)
Send your submission
Please complete the cover sheet above and send your submission to climatechangereview@environment.gov.au
Electronic submissions (in Microsoft Word .doc or .docx) are preferred.
Alternatively, submissions may be posted to the address below to arrive by the due date:
Climate Change Policies Review – Discussion Paper submissions
2017 Review Branch
Department of the Environment and Energy
GPO Box 787
Canberra ACT 2601
Submissions close at 5:00pm AEST on 5 May 2017.
10
Hello Roger and beththeserf,
References to Phil Jones and colleagues being supporters of Post Normal Science may have disappeared from their recent web sites. However, there is no need to search in the Way Back Machine for those references since there is a very useful book (Ref. 1) by professor Mike Hulme of the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) which makes the leap between traditional science and post normal science.
According to Ref. 1, Hulme is Professor of Climate Change at UEA and founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. So we know where he is coming from both literally and metaphorically!
At pages 92 and 93 [Ref. 1] Hulme writes,”With respect to climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the creation of this new operating environment for science or, one might say, is an attempt to create a new interface between science and policy suited to a ‘post-normal’ operation of science. Yet exactly what the IPCC is, how it is governed, what sort of knowledge it produces, and with what authority its knowledge is endowed are all matters of some ambiguity …”
At pages 340 and 341 [Ref. 1] Hulme writes, “In order to get a better vantage point I suggest we change our position and examine climate change as an idea of the imagination rather than as a problem to be solved. By approaching climate change as an idea to be mobilised to fulfil a variety of tasks, perhaps we can see what climate change can do for us rather than what we seek to do, despairingly, for (or to) climate.” Further down page 341 he writes, “I describe these ways of talking about climate change as ‘myths’,… Indeed, myths in this anthropological sense transcend the scientific categories of ‘true’ and ‘false’.”
Are not these quotes sufficient to show to anybody with an open mind that Hulme is advocating the abandonment of the traditional scientific method and the adoption, for one’s own political motives, of means that superficially mimic traditional science but are in fact very often nothing of the sort? Viewed in this light the ‘tick box’ mentality of the alarmists in ascribing any and every harsh weather event to catastrophic climate change becomes understandable, at least to me.
Reference
1. Mike Hulme, “Why We Disagree about Climate Change”, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Regards,
Idiot_Wind.
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Could be because Detroit had filed bankruptcy in 2013, and couldn’t afford to send 2 garbage trucks to throw rubbish into one hole and pretend that something is being “recycled” to make the virtue-signallers feel better about themselves – they couldn’t afford to pay their pensions! Perhaps City Hall had also concluded that with the population trending asymptotically towards zero, it didn’t make sense to invest in long-term processing infrastructure for what will soon be a ghost town – that they should simply run with that they have.
Sounds like even the hapless Detroit Council had more brains than “The Fixer.” (And wasn’t that Chris Pyne’s title?)
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It is worse than we thought.
In base 410 we have now been forced into using two digits for the first time in ages: 10. 🙂
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omanuel says: 27 April 2017 at 4:21 pm “@Will Janoschka Jon Rappoport exposes the damage to society from “Quantum Mechanics“
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/the-free-and-independent-individual/
”
Oliver,
E²=p²c²+m²c²c²….E=root(p²c²+m²c²c²)! .. Where p is the momentum of the object.
Or your E = mc² can be E/c = mc, or zero = mc-E/c =. E/c -mc = zero! Also E²/c²=p²+m²c²! If Lorentz invariance\covariance is that t = -1/t, than t² = -1! That makes time imaginary, but chirality\parity is but an opposing POV! Time describes the past. Frequency describes the future. Scam describes right-now, right-cheer!
Some quantum ‘stuff’ is interesting, most is nonsense! Nothing quantum can replace painful learning experience/practice!! I believe I will have another beer!!
All the best! -will-
01
The absorption of LWIR by CO2 is a logarithmic function. Small changes in CO2 are meaningless.
Doubling CO2 has NO MEASURABLE IMPACT on the lower atmosphere temperature, none
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/climate-science-on-trial-the-forensic-files-exhibit-l/
The relationship between CO2 and Temperature simply isn’t linear
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/climate-science-on-trial-the-forensic-files-exhibit-n/
01
Bill Nye “Is Not The Right” Guy Would Prefer an Ice Age Over the Current Warming
The Nation Magazine didn’t even grasp that if what Bill Nye said is true, CO2 is the greatest gift man has ever been given. Forget New York flooding in 10,000 years due to global warming, New York would be covered in ice after just a few years of an ice age. Societies collapse and die during ice ages, they thrive during warming periods. Liberals are so blinded by their ideology they don’t even understand how insane their positions are. Possible death 10,000 years in the future due to warming, or certain death during an ice age. Bill Nye makes is sound like the certainty of death and misery during an ice age is preferable to continued warmth.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/29/bill-nye-is-not-the-right-guy-would-prefer-an-ice-age-over-the-current-warming/
01
The whole narrative is wrong wrong wrong! Instead of asserting how much better plants do at higher concentrations of CO2, the truth needs to be described as them being stunted because CO2 concentration dropped below the minimum level needed for maximum plant efficiency, something around ~1200 ppm.
For more than 100 million years, carbon in the carbon cycle has been sequestered away and now there just isn’t enough of it to cycle at the levels life needs. Most of what was active in the carbon cycle that long ago is now sitting at the bottom of the ocean, a smaller amount was sequestered as fossil fuel.
50 years ago the total amount of carbon being cycled on the planet was about 100 GT. Now it’s over 200 GT so … the amount of life has doubled because of us!
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13428
Warming isn’t proving to be any problem so the above study proves that those who want to limit CO2 are [[snip] wrong].
00