Young Bearded Dragon worried about falling SAT scores.
Ominously, cute Australian Bearded Dragons (Pogona vitticeps) may grow up to be more stupid if their eggs are incubated in a hotter world.
Bearded Dragons Are Dumber Because of Climate Change
–National Geographic
This has all kinds of implications.
Obviously, it follows that Victorian Bearded Dragons must be smarter than their Queensland cousins. I can see future papers coming on the IQ gradient of dragons down the East Coast of Australia.
Secondly, with this handy simple relationship between IQ and temperature we can infer the entire intellectual history of Bearded Dragons as the climate fluctuated: including the Peak Holocene Dolt Era and the Glacial Genius Maximum.
…
From National Geographic
” The researchers took a single clutch of 13 eggs and split them into two groups. Seven eggs were incubated at a toasty 30°C (86°F), while the other six were incubated at a milder 27°C (81°F). There was an almost even mix of males and females.
Ahh. The cause of lower IQs may be not a hotter world, but a hotter artificial incubator. The message in this paper is Don’t leave artificial incubators lying around the Australian outback.
“The only weak part of the study is the small sample size,” he said—a limitation noted by cognitive neuroscientist Josh Amiel as well.
The only weak part?
These test animals are not in the wild, where mothers choose their nesting sites, real predators test their cognition, and real evolution has kept them going for years.
Bearded Dragons live up and down the East Coast of Australia.
Reptiles were already facing steep odds from climate change—it’s estimated that one-fifth of all lizard species could be extinct by 2080. Mental dimming could further stack the deck.
Somehow dragons survived for millions of years, across millions of square kilometers, through ice ages, asteroid impacts and far hotter periods.
The real problem today is that legally Dragons are not permitted to move territory, dig deeper nests, find shadier trees, or selectively promote their smarter offspring without losing welfare benefits.
UPDATE: Poor Bearded Dragons are even being forced to change their gender thanks to your air conditioner. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that).
In fact, baby girl lizards may disappear!
Dragons that are genetically male hatch as females and give birth to other lizards.
And the way the lizards’ gender is determined is getting changed so much that the female sex chromosome may eventually disappear entirely, the study authors say.
To be serious for a sec: presumably having both sex chromosomes (which boys do in the lizard world) increases their genetic fitness (two copies of all the genes). Girls are born with one W and one Z chromosome, so like human males (XY) they would have a larger bell curve across factors encoded on the sex chromosomes, with more risks if the one and only copy they have of a gene is not a good one. So it makes sense that under stress more breeding is done from the safer boys-turned-to-girls option. Presumably during normal times the lonely W chromosome confers an advantage to offspring and recovers its role. Also presumably, this has been going on for millions of years.
Alarmists are getting so weird,
With strange climate woes to be feared,
That some dragons become,
Due to warming, more dumb,
Especially the ones with a beard.
–Ruairi
UPDATE: Delingpole mocks this too. “
No really, this is not a joke. Obviously you’re praying that it is because the last thing any of us would want – dear God, anything but that….”
REFERENCE
Harry Siviter et al. (2017) Incubation environment impacts the social cognition of adult lizards, Royal Society Open Science DOI: 10.1098/rsos.170742
H/t ClimateDepot
Image: Bearded Dragon : Ginnie~commonswiki
If I incubate them in a freezer will I breed intelligent Lizards?
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No you will have cool mints that taste disgusting.
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Will they cause mintal dimming?
60
Only in the land of the long white cloud. 😛
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Careful. Or we shall start making jokes about Australian intellectuals – both of them.
60
That many?
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Obviously, that has already been done, decades ago.
The hatchlings now have degrees, and have become climate scientists and politicians. I knew there was something dodgy about them!
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Dr. Mann couldn’t be happier. He now has a new proxy that he can exploit to establish past temperatures and confirm his hockey stick. All he has to do is obtain a grant to pay a few graduate students to interview some of the surviving bearded dragons about the progressive dumbing down of their ancestors. The only flies in the ointment are that today’s dragons (a) may not be smart enough to remember their ancestors, and (b) aren’t able to communicate with his graduate students.
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Monsieur Mann could receive another No Bell prize!
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I don’t know about a No Bell, but Mann’s not likely to get an award from the ASPCA–examining the widths of the rings in a lizard’s tail is singularly unpleasant for the lizard.
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Doesn’t need all that. All he has to do is randomly select, say a dozen, and cut them open and count the rings.
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Or the grad students aren’t smart enough to communicate with the dragons!
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I didn’t know there was an IQ test that applies to lizards, besides, like temperature ‘trends’ how can you discriminate between an IQ of 1 and an IQ of 0.99?
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I will not stand for this draconian testing of lizards!
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Actually, that part was interesting. I should have explained. They — can you believe — show video’s of other lizards opening a sliding door and test how long it takes the young lizard to copy and figure out the same sliding door.
Who said lizards are dumb?
The small numbers used surely limit the reliability — as any mother of thirteen will tell you “all her kids are different”. But maybe the SD of lizard IQ doesn’t vary a lot. I suspect it still would. There are so many ways cognitive ability can be enhanced or subtracted because it depends on so many factors.
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Do know about bearded dragons but the water dragons at the bottom of our drive are smart. It took only a few days to realise that our dogs which I had on leshes could not chase them and they stayed sunning themselves while I walked past about one metre away. I can talk to them and they watch me and the dogs.
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How many mothers have thirteen kids? Or are the mothers thirteen?
I can’t be a bearded dragon, because I am seriously confused.
Perhaps I will practice opening and closing a sliding door, until I feel better …
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I’m curious about how many sliding doors the lizards will encounter in the wild. Can’t be too many. I think it is impressive that a lizard could be taught to that at all, btw.
Perhaps the little guys who couldn’t master the sliding door trick were busy keeping their eyes on the large lumbering beasts observing them – or the ceiling, watching for winged death – or eyeballing a potential treat lurking out of human sight (under the baseboards, perhaps?) rather than how to open a door. THAT is more an indication of intelligence, as far as species’ survivability, I’d think – ignore the toys, watch for predators, and maybe spy a morsel to eat.
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As climate has never changed before, these biologists must be true believers: [Genesis 1:25] God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
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Corerect, but Leftists seem to hate God, because he holds them to account for thier actions…so in their stupidly, they wage war agaisnt God….Satan always has an ample supply of willing idiots, it seems.
Stalin used churches as storehouses as one aspect of trying to stamp religion out….didnt work….
Alea Iacta Est
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A silly study really as the test was done on too small a scale……
Now do one on something really interesting like Bearded Clams or Hair Lipped Oysters and watch the ears prick up.!
150
I once did some research into mollusc musical preferences.
We wanted to compare Beethoven, against heavy metal.
The molluscs were sanguine regarding Beethoven, but too much heavy metal, like cadminum, made them totally inedible.
01
So at 81f no change in intelligence, at 86f lower intelligence and I imagine if tested to 91f they become too dumb to hatch out of their egg …….. the only dumbness here seems to me to have been from the ‘scientists’
Have we reached the stage where fear of climate change has caused regression in ‘scientists’ intelligence – nobody but a blinkered-thought idiot would fail to consider the choices available and choices made by a mother-to-be lizard about where she lays her eggs. Nor would they ignore the depth she chooses to lay the eggs and the way that even a fairly shallow depth removes temperature variations and extremes – i.e Protecting the eggs from variations in air temperatures.
I guess the researchers were too much focussed on their desired outcome to consider that aspect, certainly one which would most likely nullify their proposition.
Lizards, from what I have seen on documentaries carefully check the site they are going to lay in – and the depth that they lay their eggs. Depth protects the eggs not just from predators but also from temperature variations.
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I’ve just checked a couple of articles on Bearded Dragons which recommend you provide them with a soil depth of minimum 6 – 12 inches in captivity for the egg burrow.
The temperature recommended for incubation is 84f but must be kept within an 80 – 85f range. Something new to learn every day.
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“Have we reached the stage where fear of climate change has caused regression in ‘scientists’ intelligence”
Now that really is a “chicken or the egg” type of scenario, isn’t it. !
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Ironic that fear of one kind of change should lead researchers to psychological identification with their research.
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What about the Dragons who shave?
I reckon its just discrimination!
All the above-mentioned clean-shaven Dragons use G****tte razors, which are proof against any climate modification.
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We have a water dragon that inhabits our yard and he appears to be clean shaven. Obviously this lack of IQ doesn’t affect unbearded dragons as our dragon certainly knows where to come for a handout!
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The shaving habits of lizards is not the only discrimination, Mike.
How about this?
How more blatantly heteronormative can you get than this? On behalf of the LGBTQ lizard community, I am outraged at this lack of sensitivity towards a vulnerable minority of defenceless creatures.
Academics, of the modern kind, should know better!
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Allen, here’s the thing with these lizards, it’s heteronormative to be non-normative. See the update to the post. Lizards born boys flip to girls under the right conditions.
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The real calamity here is the IQ of the researchers.
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The lack of motivation for the lizards. Life is just too good. The warm lazy ones are smarter.
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The real calamity here is that these researchers are being funded by Govt, ie us tax payers.
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On the contrary, it proves that warmer climates make researchers dumber. QED
10
The smarter dragons are campaigning for freedom, new and better jobs, and flight restrictions on predatory birds.
The dragons with significantly lower intelligence have formed a socialist union of dragons and are marching for increased welfare and less use of fossil fuels. Some of their ancestors may have become petroleum.
200
This supports climate intelligence migration. Smart researchers from Hobart migrate to far North Queensland where the next generation refuse to study, pass exams and get a top job with the CSIRO. They join James Cook University where dissent is not allowed but only as assistants and within a generations the family is forced back to Hobart where the cycle restarts. Often the men grow beards. Frill necked researchers.
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The adult Bearded Dragons Pogona vitticeps life span on a good day in good conditions is around 8 years.
These scientivists operated two heat conditions, namely: an average temperature of 30 ± 3°C, and an average temperature of 27 ± 3°C
There appeared no justification for the selection of these ambient temperatures.
Assuming the controversial Paris 2°C above “pre-industrial level” — itself problematic because this is not well defined eg. 1750 or 1850 – 1900 or whenever — let’s say 1800 for the sake of argument.
We know the the average centennial standard deviation of temperature over the last 8000 years of the Holocene was normally distributed at 0.98°C ± 0.27°C per century (say 1°C a century) (Lloyd PJ 2015). It may be seen then that the “warming” in the last two centuries of 2°C lies within the natural temperature variation.
The lizard researchers have projected an average incubating environment (3°C warmer) that could (draconian speculation here) take three centuries to arise … in lizard speak, nearly 40 generations.
I anticipate that it seems almost certain that Bearded Dragons Pogona vitticeps will have an epigenetic fix for not only the putative rise in average ambient temperature, but any accompanying alteration in fauna and flora.
It is stated by the authors that, “By contrast, there was an effect of incubation temperature on social learning, with the cold-incubated animals performing significantly faster than those that were incubated at a warmer temperature over time,” which makes perfect biological sense in lizard world, where cold is the most threatening condition to survival of a reptile whose function is highly dependent on temperature.
The relationship of human cognition to temperature may in some ways appear not dissimilar: Cold stress appears to negatively impact both simple and complex task performance, however, the research in this area is sparse in comparison to heat and hypoxia. Complex tasks such as working memory (spatial span test, pattern recognition) were significantly impaired through heat stress [45 min at 50°C, 50% relative humidity (r.h.)], whereas simple attentional tasks (match to sample, choice reaction time, rapid visual information processing) were not affected.
The Impact of Different Environmental Conditions on Cognitive Function: A Focused Review
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Sigh. Your comment is awaiting moderation.
November 24, 2017 at 5:58 am · Reply
Early morning chilliness?
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Give me your Bearded Dragons,
Your cute four legged friends,
Those huddled masses too warm,
Yearning to breathe cooler air,
Worried of their declining intelligence,
Desperate to pass through the golden door.
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Is this kind of crap just the result of scientists being unable to get any kind of funding for their work unless they link it to climate change? I want to study X, I apply for a grant to study X and my application is turned down. I then apply for a grant to study the effects of climate change on X and my funding is approved. The catch is that I then have to mention climate change a lot in my paper both to justify my funding and also in order to get it pal reviewed.
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Sadly, this does appear to be the case.
When global cooling takes a firm hold (in the coming decade) we’ll need to form a consensus on what to do about this corrupt practice.
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The climate scientists could retrain as snow shovellers?
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Should they be taught which end of the shovel to use, or should they be left to figure it out for themselves?
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As it happens the published paper did not mention climate.
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Rubbish ! Try reading it again .
http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/bearded-dragons-are-dumber-because-of-climate-change.aspx
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Seems as though the lizards aren’t the only dumb ones .
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The climate change Agenda has certainly stunted GA’s brain functions
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Actually I was trying to bait him that’s not the scientific study but if you go to the scientific study the very first reference they give (1) takes you to a reference by various people and climate change is written there so the leaf made a statistical anomaly or a hiatus in telling the truth .
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so?
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33 of the 39 years of the satellite temperature data are effectively “hiatus”
Only warming is from the El Ninos.
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The paper does not mention climate. You linked me to a popular science article.
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Learn to read leaf , the study itself first reference Clearly mentions the words
“Climate change”
As dim as you are you surely would suspect that any of these rubbish studies about a warming planet and its affects on everything A -Z are nearly if not always about CAGW.
Climate has and will always change no matter if you drive a Prius or get your power from blending or frying birds it’s always there and always changing .
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In other words the paper does not mention climate change but it cites something that mentions climate change. So?
Nice try at covering your error above too.
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I forgot you were a hypocrite troll , you said there was no reference to climate change in the study and there clearly is period .
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The article was about global warming, but lets not quibble.
What do you make of this Central England Temperature graph?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/CET_1659_-_2014_using_Hadley_Centre_Data.png
Focus on the early 18th century.
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What was the article about then?
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My second favorite quote from the wonderfull world of Gee Aye
“To rectify such arrogance requires deconstructing their argument/story and providing a detailed explanation, with references, about how evolution has been found to work through 100 years of observation and experimentation – within 24 hours of being written so as not to be left unread. Then you have to deal with the denial and the further comments made from ignorance that follow.”
It’s missing the bit about where he handed ROM a new one and put him in his place .
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Ah the old citation isn’t mentioning claim. And do explain why you would even think about doing this study if you weren’t concerned that the temperature might increase.
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.
Somehow I missed the bit about being put in my place as well!
.
Which I guess goes to show that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
.
Beauty amongst “Climate Change Trolls” is like putting lipstick on a pig.
.
Arguing with Climate Change Trolls is like wrestling with a pig.
The pig likes it and you both get covered in sh*t!
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Oh just for you ROM you paleofanatisist.
Having worked with Marlene Zuk many years ago I was drawn to read her book. This article gives a pretty good indication of the nature of the contents and I share the critique that it is sometimes trying to crack a nut with a sledgehammer. And here is an example of a paleofantasist with a poor grasp of the mechanics of natural selection and the details of human evolution.
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The link never worked but if you go to the wonderful world of the leaf you’ll find the link highlighted in the above words .
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I’m reminded of the following wisdom of the troll.
“I have had so many requests from my legions of fans to post more blogs. No really, there are a surprising number of people out there that read and re read my pastes… I mean posts … and check in to see if I have added anything new.
So today’s, and possibly this year’s, new post should satisfy those fans. Basically it is this link about scientific theories.
Yep, this is another placeholder in case I need to move someone on from their argument by distraction. You know the one where they write, “it is only a theory”. Amazingly, people still try to slip that one into an argument. They are often the same people who distract with, “it is only a model”, without understanding that their lives would soon come to an end without models.”
Seems to have need edited must investigate god knows he needs the extra visits to his lonely site.
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I’ve long been convinced that GA lives in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
The more I read his child-minded crap, the more convinced I am.
A total NUTTER !!
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There is no predator more to be feared than an academic searching for funding.
No species is safe. Bearded dragons the latest victims.
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Never ever stand between a Climate scientist and a bucket of money!
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In my experience an ‘academic’ looking for funding is more akin to a mooching and forlorn caricature of love lost. There is no love and no prospect of love with no means of acquiring it. It is a grey dismal existence.
So, the question then becomes how much is one’s soul worth?
With a little spin here, a little spin there, ‘climate change’ is woven into the project proposal and hey prestissimo, the stage lights switch on again, the spot light centres, and love is found again. And it gets easier every time.
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Well… I’m not a bearded dragon but I do have a beard. So I’m qualified to speak.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the states. 🙂
Roy
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What about the wife?
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She likes my beard. 😉
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“What about the wife?”
Bearded as well ??
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Roy suggested he was not a bearded dragon.
So my question was; is she a bearded dragon?
but I was being polite 🙂
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Hey guys. I’ve been reading this blog for a long time now and if I wasn’t already in the middle of 2 writing projects I’d go back through Jo’s archives where I’ve no doubt that I could find exchanges such as #15 above where no individual comment is anything very funny but taken together the whole exchange is one of those ROFLMAO experiences. I’d then put it all together in a book called, “A Funny Thing Happened One Day on the Internet.”
With my luck it would be a worst seller — but, sometimes I get lucky…
This blog has more of the good guys on the internet than any other in the world.
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By the way, my wife is as soft and cuddly as a pussycat… unless you cross her… then look out…
Fortunately she has a very good sense of humor. 🙂
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Clearly, the authors grew up in a hotter than normal environment. What does this infer about people who live near the equator?
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Ian:
Since the majority of people like living where it is warm and the electricity bills for heating non existent, and the death rate from cold weather is minimal, then there is no evidence of dumbing down. Also that agriculture is much easier. In fact, if it wasn’t for the humidity…..
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The authors (in the UK) report no funding for this study. But it clearly has massive implications – if you live in the tropics, only procreate on cold days. Never procreate with the heater on. Does it also imply that the smartest animals on the planet are polar bears and antarctic penguins? Do greenies breed in hotter environments than the rest of the population? ROFL.
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Seriously?
Are scarce taxpayer funds used to carry out such irrelevant studies as these?
It would make more sense to study the fall of the Roman civilisation, because that’s where the contemporary West is heading, fast.
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“Mental dimming.” LOL.
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This “scientific” observation is amazing.
They currently live in very cold places like Cloncurry, White Cliffs and Oodnadatta – just to stay smart.
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Well, remember the term ‘Gone Troppo’?
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No sliding doors out there that’s why. They’re smarter than the scientists studying them.
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I looked it up and apparently it also makes trolls dumber !
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Must have been happening for quite a while then !
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This study will be in the running for an IgNobel prize.
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Alarmists are getting so weird,
With strange climate woes to be feared,
That some dragons become,
Due to warming, more dumb,
Especially the ones with a beard.
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thanks Jo, I was already cranky when I came to work this morning and then I read this 😉
Absolutely brilliant riposte though – skewered through the real hole in the argument.
It’s impossible to take these people seriously, and as for National Geographic, well, when one runs out of toilet paper….
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Tiny little bit off topic – why the Great Barrier Reef is endangered by 1-2 degrees temperature rise?
Would not little coral dragons swim to Black Sea, which temperature never goes above 22 degrees? Should not some clever ones investigated other opportunities?
I grew up on the beach there – never seen a single one…
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They are clever enough to know not to freeze! I have seen remarkable amounts of snow around the Black Sea in the winter (from about 40,000 ft).
40
Not sure why, but it reminds me of this – “Life of Brian”…whereby Brian gets a grammar lesson….
CENTURION: What’s this, then? ‘Romanes Eunt Domus’? ‘People called Romanes they go the house’?
BRIAN: It– it says, ‘Romans, go home’.
CENTURION: No, it doesn’t. What’s Latin for ‘Roman’? Come on!
BRIAN: Aah!
CENTURION: Come on!
BRIAN: ‘R– Romanus’?
CENTURION: Goes like…?
BRIAN: ‘Annus’?
CENTURION: Vocative plural of ‘annus’ is…?
BRIAN: Eh. ‘Anni’?
CENTURION: ‘Romani’. ‘Eunt’? What is ‘eunt’?
BRIAN: ‘Go’. Let–
CENTURION: Conjugate the verb ‘to go’.
BRIAN: Uh. ‘Ire’. Uh, ‘eo’. ‘Is’. ‘It’. ‘Imus’. ‘Itis’. ‘Eunt’.
CENTURION: So ‘eunt’ is…?
BRIAN: Ah, huh, third person plural, uh, present indicative. Uh, ‘they go’.
CENTURION: But ‘Romans, go home’ is an order, so you must use the…?
BRIAN: The… imperative!
CENTURION: Which is…?
BRIAN: Umm! Oh. Oh. Um, ‘i’. ‘I’!
CENTURION: How many Romans?
BRIAN: Ah! ‘I’– Plural. Plural. ‘Ite’. ‘Ite’.
CENTURION: ‘Ite’.
BRIAN: Ah. Eh.
CENTURION: ‘Domus’?
BRIAN: Eh.
CENTURION: Nominative?
BRIAN: Oh.
CENTURION: ‘Go home’? This is motion towards. Isn’t it, boy?
BRIAN: Ah. Ah, dative, sir! Ahh! No, not dative! Not the dative, sir! No! Ah! Oh, the… accusative! Accusative! Ah! ‘Domum’, sir! ‘Ad domum’! Ah! Oooh! Ah!
CENTURION: Except that ‘domus’ takes the…?
BRIAN: The locative, sir!
CENTURION: Which is…?!
BRIAN: ‘Domum’.
CENTURION: ‘Domum’.
BRIAN: Aaah! Ah.
CENTURION: ‘Um’. Understand?
BRIAN: Yes, sir.
CENTURION: Now, write it out a hundred times.
BRIAN: Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
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You know what’s funny?
The Romans didn’t speak Latin.
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What did they speak?
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The elites spoke Greek, the plebs spoke whatever their local language was, eg Latin in and around Rome and Syriac, Coptic, Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek in Greece.
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So Roman Law is written in Latin but the Roman lawyers used a different language?
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Lawyers always do.
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According to wiki, they spoke Latin and Greek. They interacted with French, German, English, Sicilians, and everybody else within 1000 miles regularly too, so I could imagine their language was a mish-mash.
Their formal written language was always Latin. That only started to change around 1300. Dante’s book A Divine Comedy was among the first of the books written in the spoken language of the day, rather than the formal Latin.
According to the history book I’m reading; when Dante penned his novel, the formal written Latin language hadn’t been a spoken language for many hundreds of years.
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‘Latin is a language, as dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans and now it’s killing me’.
Remembered from schooldays when we struggled with Caesar’s Gallic Wars ( De bello Gallico? if I remember aright) and the adventures of Aeneas or whatever his name was 🙁
I’m more interested in Latin and Greek from the point of view of the origins of our own language rather than writings from that time 😉
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Back in the sixties we were subjected to Latin For Today, a 1928 text for the amusement of adolescent boys. Every single copy was defaced throughout. The title was always altered to Eatin’ For Today. Every illustration was altered and captioned. We were wits.
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Wasn’t as bad a French, but.
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Greg, I doubt the Romans interacted with the English as there weren’t any in those times … Croeso 😉
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Probably true. I’m researching the years leading up to 1300, and there was a lot of interaction. The Italians still called themselves Romans, but the empire was long gone.
I don’t know much of the English history way back then.
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Strictly speaking, a study of English must surely be a study of the language of the Engels, as a separate race from the Saxons, Picts, Normans, Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Roman, Frankish, etc.
The pragmatic approach, pre-history, was to include all of the above (and more) into a Polyglot that has become the English of today.
And it continues – we have Pizza, Chop Suey, Sushi, and so on. English is constantly evolving. Which is why it is so hard to learn. Most English people, myself included, can’t use the language properly, if at all.
“But, by Harry, ’tis a wondrous thing, to speak with authority, in a global tongue, in a noble cause”.
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And that’s why Roman poets and historians wrote in Latin?
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Bearded dragons are found throughout oz even in the desert fringes , I notice there is a small disclaimer with this study .
““The only weak part of the study is the small sample size,” he said—a limitation noted by cognitive neuroscientist Josh Amiel as well.
Amiel, who currently collaborates with researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada, found the opposite—a boost of brainpower with incubation heat—when he looked at non-social learning in hatchling three-lined skinks (Bassiana duperreyi). Because dragons are somewhat far away from skinks on the lizard family tree, “it’s not really surprising that it affects them differently than it did the skinks in my studies,” Amiel said.”
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That made my morning Jo! The graph with added notes and the note about ‘the only weak part of the study is….’, I’d say it was small, in such artificial surroundings too. Ha ha ha!
Thanks for the laugh 🙂
I’ve yet to screw up the resilience to face some article in the UK Telegraph wittering on about polar bears while using that photo of oodles of them eating the dead whale. 🙁
The only useful thing the DT does is produce the Matt cartoons; there is a corker today about Brexit. Otherwise I might just as well cancel my subscription. Oh well, they do have Charles Moore writing and a couple of others who can still write English properly. There are too many others who call themselves journalists but seem not to be able to use anything other than modern jargon and poor usages.
I realise some might think that puts me in the firing line re English usage but I have never aspired to making a living from it and resent paying for the sort of trash that is commonly seen.
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Can I be so bold as to ask what the implications of this study might mean to the comparisons of the intelligence levels of the warm region dwelling Queenslanders and Territorians as compare to the enhanced intelligence of the colder region dwelling Victorians and Tasmanians.
Excluded from this comparison of intellectual abilities and intelligence levels as related to regional temperatures, are Politiciians and Climate researchers and Bearded Dragon researchers for as we all know that at least for South Australian and Victorian politicians plus probably Queensland’s JCU Barrier Reef researchers, you can’t measure something that doesn’t exist.
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When I was in the Army, we found the Queensland girls hard to understand. The comment was often made “It is the Sun does it”. I reflection the Queensland girls were no different than any other females in Australia.
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As far as intelligence is concerned, Victoria and South Australia can’t say much with Dopey Dan and Weatherdill but then, how about Queensland with the Palacechook?
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I excluded the Vic and SA politicians, Dopey Despot Dan and the Whirling Dervish of SA, Windmill Weatherdill from any measurements of relative intelligence as, unless you are a climate scientist or a climate modeller, you can’t measure something that is not there.
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[ Dervishes first appeared in the 12th century; they were noted for their wild or ecstatic rituals and were known as dancing, whirling, or howling dervishes according to the practice of their order.]
Seems to sum up most of the decision making practices of Windmill Weatherdill of SA and Dopey Despot Dan of Victoria ]
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Looks like our Kimberley Bearded Dragons didn’t make the cut. They thrive in our searing heat, unlike the scientists who never looked for them here.
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[Snip “Maybe the mothers of”] the authors [snip] were in a severe state of heat stress during the pregnancy?
Obviously random intelligence doesn’t come into it, or it would be taken into account with the lizards.
Education isn’t a factor either, as the lizards all went to the same school, and only a few went on to university.
It’s mind boggling that these people could put their name to a “study” which involved taking 13 eggs out of 50 bloody million or so, cooking them, and making a statement as to the intelligence of the resultant lizards, compered to lizards 10,000 years ago.
How the hell can you measure the intelligence of lizards 10,000 years ago?
00
Unless power bills and emergency diesel consumption continue to soar, by the year 2080 bearded dragons will be dumb enough to write for National Geographic.
90
Bearded, unbearded, no good picking on one lizard, no matter what hemisphere,
they never seem to know what’s going on… Poor old Bill.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6b/20/85/6b208526703fbb388b2754c68bcd20c8–adventures-in-wonderland-alice-in-wonderland.jpg
30
“Bearded Dragons Are Dumber Because of Climate Change”: A clear case of psychological projection by Harry Siviter et al et National Geographic.
60
step aside dragons, make way for the octopus:
24 Nov: Guardian: Graham Readfearn: Could octopus DNA reveal the secrets of west Antarctica’s ice sheet collapse?
Understanding what happened to the ice sheet will be key to knowing what the future holds for global sea levels
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) holds a lot of water – enough to push up sea levels around the world by 3m or so.
Even though this sort of melting would play out over century-long time scales, getting a handle on how much melting there would be, and how fast it could happen, are big questions with big consequences.
Hundreds of millions of people living around coasts and cities around the globe might be interested in the answer, as would cartographers who would need to be redrawing maps of the world…
In a scientific paper just published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews (LINK), Associate Prof Strugnell, of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, describes an ingenious plan.
Strugnell writes that by examining the DNA of some bottom-dwelling animals currently living around the entire Antarctic continent, you can work out if the ancestors of those species were able to move through that trans-Antarctic seaway.
It sounds complicated – and it is…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/nov/23/could-octopus-dna-reveal-the-secrets-of-west-antarcticas-ice-sheet-collapse
30
Now I feel bad. After five weeks in the fridge that hard-boiled egg I ate this morning could have been the Einstein of chickens. But after ten minutes in boiling water it was nothing more than a Darwin Award candidate.
80
You have to cook it in ice. 😉
30
…dry ice.
20
And now, after further processing, a mixture of assorted greenhouse gases. You personal contribution to making the world a warmer place.
30
Off topic;
Its all beginning to happen!
.
The beginning of the end when governments start slithering sideways as they finally run out of other people’s money to finance the stupidity and straight out near criminal craziness of Renewable energy, the costs of which with all the green taxes on the customers , are now being being held responsible for raising the winter cold death rate amongst the elderly and most vulnerable by 40% due to the now unaffordability of power due to all the green taxes that have been imposed on power users so as to “Save the Planet”>
Via the GWPF
From UK’s; Energy Live News
Budget 2017: No subsidies for green energy until 2025
&
.
BRITAIN’S DEADLY ENERGY MADNESS: NUMBER OF WINTER DEATHS AMONG ELDERLY BRITONS RISES BY 40%
Campaigners demand urgent cuts to power bill after number of winter deaths among the elderly rise by 40%
Pensioner groups call for energy bill reductions to safeguard against deaths
ONS figures point to 34,300 ‘excess’ deaths due to cold weather
Women and the elderly thought to be worst affected by excess winter mortality
There were some 34,300 so-called ‘excess’ deaths during the cold months, according to new figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
The figure equates to 11 pensioners dying every hour and represents a rise of 39.5 per cent – 9,720 – on the year before.
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You really have to wonder how anything survived the climate optimum which came about not that long ago at all.
Those geologists, archaeologists etc who research the Nubian (Sudanese) desert regions are of the belief that cattle were grazed there by herders in well vegetated landscapes some seven thousand years back. This would coincide with the climate optimum, the same warming not long ago which brought about isolation of England and that of Tasmania.
Not long ago. Got that, warmies? Climate change is real and radical. I believe it, but do you? The world went from drastically cold to very warm in the space of a few centuries…not long ago. And the climate roller coaster didn’t stop then, it just got a bit less steep with its ups and downs.
We won’t breach the unpleasant topic of what cooling really means for much of Asia, the ME and Africa. (Just be careful what you wish for.) The subject is bearded dragons. They were around when Bass Strait was dry, when sea levels went above current levels and they’re around now.
And if this egg-in-incubator experiment is not about climate but merely about the effects of incubators on eggs let it be funded by some egg board and published in Egg Monthly.
70
And very egg citing too.
70
further to ROM’s link:
23 Nov: UK Times: Government’s stealth tax on energy bills is the height of hypocrisy
by Robin Pagnamenta
This week, Centrica’s chief executive, Iain Conn, offered an olive branch as he battles to repair relations with ministers and an increasingly hostile public. By offering to scrap the group’s most profitable standard variable tariffs, he hopes to stave off the threat of price controls — or worse still, a threat of wholesale nationalisation proposed by John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/government-s-stealth-tax-on-energy-bills-is-the-height-of-hypocrisy-fkn2cxscc
excerpts at Carbon Brief – which appears to believe all CAGW schemes ***”should be paid” for – re the above UK Times’ piece:
Government’s stealth tax on energy bills is the height of hypocrisy
The Times’s deputy business editor joins the growing calls to stop adding “stealth taxes” to energy bills to pay for things such as the new Hinkley C nuclear power plant, which he says is a “highly regressive form of tax”. Pagnamenta says: “Hinkley may be the most costly and egregious example, but it is not the only project to be funded in that way. These days, when consumers fork out for their monthly bills, they are bankrolling a host of government green tariffs, wind and solar projects, subsidies for smart meters and energy efficiency schemes for those in fuel poverty…Regardless of whether or not such schemes have merit, this surely cannot be the best way to fund them. And if the government insists it is, then ministers should at least be straight with consumers and fairer on the companies they rely on to do their work. The mechanism has grown so obfuscatory there is not even agreement on how much these tariffs cost.” He doesn’t say, though, ***how they should be paid.
40
Australia is special, renewables are always the cheaper option somehow! that’s what you get when you commission Frontier Economics:
2 Nov: Guardian: Renewables will drive ‘steep decline’ in wholesale electricity price in Australia – report
Exclusive: Frontier Economics’ modelling commissioned by government says 6,000MW of renewable capacity entering market will reduce prices in 2018-20
by Katharine Murphy
Modelling commissioned by the Turnbull government as part of its efforts to back in the national energy guarantee says renewables will drive the first wave of price reductions under the policy. It also floats substantial regulatory intervention to stop the electricity market becoming even more concentrated.
The work by Frontier Economics, obtained by Guardian Australia, says a steep decline in wholesale electricity prices forecast between 2018 and 2022 is due to the entry of 6,000MW of renewable capacity which has already been incentivised by the existing renewable energy target…
It forecasts household power bills between 2020 and 2030 would be in the order of $120-a-year lower, in today’s dollars, than under a business-as-usual scenario, if the policy applied across the national electricity market.
Wholesale electricity prices would be 23% lower than business-as-usual between 2020 and 2030, on average…
The South Australian energy minister, Tom Koutsantonis, said the Frontier modelling showed the Turnbull government policy would “guarantee a longer lifeline for coal, more market power and more profits for existing generators”.
“Essentially the national energy guarantee is a guarantee for higher prices in South Australia,” he said. “There is nothing here for South Australia.”
The Victorian energy minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said the federal energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, “is more interested in briefing newspapers than Coag partners”.
“We won’t commit to a political fix for Malcolm Turnbull – we will deliver an energy policy that ensures Victorian families and businesses get the affordable, reliable and clean energy they deserve.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/22/renewables-will-drive-steep-decline-in-wholesale-electricity-price-in-australia-report
22 Nov: Guardian: Adam Vaughan: No subsidies for green power projects before 2025, says UK Treasury
Government accused of ‘turning their back on renewables’ after saying there will be no more money for new low-carbon levies
The Treasury said it had taken the decision to “protect” consumers, because households and businesses were facing an annual cost of about £9bn on their energy bills to pay for wind, solar and nuclear subsidies to which it had already committed…
The WWF said it was a huge disappointment, while Greenpeace claimed Wednesday’s budget was one of the least green ever.
Business groups also reacted with dismay. The pro-environment Aldersgate Group, whose members include BT, Ikea and Marks & Spencer, said the lack of clarity on low-carbon power investments was disappointing.
James Court, head of policy at the Renewable Energy Association, said: “The UK government seem to be turning their back on renewables by announcing no new support for projects post-2020 and a freeze on carbon taxes.”…
It is understood the policy will only affect projects generating electricity before 2025, so would not stop firms signing contracts for power stations coming online after 2025. That means the backers of new nuclear power stations are unlikely to be affected by the decision, because none was expected to be built by then. But it could be a blow for the companies wanting to build solar farms, onshore windfarms and other clean power plants at an earlier date…
Some industry figures took comfort from Treasury language suggesting that some contracts might be allowed for renewables if the price were so low as to be effectively subsidy-free.
The government confirmed that it would honour an existing pledge to auction £557m of renewable energy subsidies, beginning next year. But most of that pot is expected to be taken by giant offshore windfarms, likely crowding out other technologies such as tidal…
“It is disappointing that the Treasury is continuing its indefinite freeze of the carbon price support rate, a move that could endanger the achievement of the UK’s emissions target for 2030,” said Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
He added that the current price of around £24.50 a tonne of CO2 was likely to be too weak to drive the energy market to shift from gas power stations to renewables and nuclear.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/22/no-subsidies-for-green-power-projects-before-2025-says-uk-treasury
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pat mentions this: (my bolding here)
Amazing, isn’t it?
Koutsantonis can tell the truth, and make it sound like the filthy disgusting ‘put down’ he meant it to be.
The biggest wind plant in South Australia is the Lake Bonney Plant with a Nameplate of 280MW. All up, it generates 740GWH of electricity each year.
Bayswater generates 17,500GWH of power each year.
So, when you generate 23.6 times the power, it pretty much stands to reason you are going to make more profit eh.
Heavens, the whole of Wind power in South Australia has a Nameplate of 1700MW and generates 4500GWH of power.
Bayswater still generates 3.9 times the power so it still makes more profit, and doesn’t have to spread that across the 19 Wind Plants.
And 6000MW of NEW renewables coming on stream between 2018 and 2020. That’s still not enough to replace Bayswater, only generating 15,800GWH from all that new renewable power.
Tony.
50
Koutsantonis is promising that by the year 2018 no South Australian diesel generator salesman will be living in poverty.
100
Finally a politician who is telling the truth .
20
who wrote this section for our globalist (rules-based order) PM?
23 Nov: Guardian: Katharine Murphy: Australia facing climate disaster on its doorstep, government’s white paper warns
Foreign policy paper says climate-related conflict and migration could put Australia’s economic interests under pressure
The new white paper, released on Thursday, contains warnings over the disruptive effects of climate change in Australia’s immediate region, noting that many small island states will be “severely affected in the long term”, and the coming decade will see increased need for disaster relief.
The white paper notes the demand for water and food will rise, with the world’s oceans and forests under intense pressure. It notes climate change and pressure on the environment could contribute to conflict and irregular migration, impacting specifically on Australia’s economic interests…
It notes that politics in some countries has become more fragmented and “volatile”, with nationalism and protectionist sentiment on the rise, with global governance and the rules-based order now contested.
It notes that a more inward-looking world is a world less likely to rise collectively to meet collective security challenges…
Malcolm Turnbull said the world was experiencing unprecedented prosperity and opportunity “but the liberal, rules-based order that underpins it all is under greater stress than at any time since its creation in the 1940s”…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/23/australia-facing-climate-disaster-on-its-doorstep-governments-white-paper-warns
24 Nov: Brisbane Times: Turnbull government claims win on energy policy at ministers’ meeting
by Nicole Hasham & Peter Hannam
The Turnbull government has avoided an all-out brawl with the states and territories over its signature power policy, securing agreement from most energy ministers that more work will be done on the proposed national energy guarantee.
But South Australia’s Labor government says coal is not part of Australia’s future and the federal government is “clinging to the past”…
PHOTO CAPTION: Ahead of a COAG meeting in Hobart, Shane Rattenbury (ACT energy minister) says the federal government’s National Energy Guarantee will constrain the growth of renewable energy
Rather than reject the policy entirely, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania – along with the Commonwealth – voted in favour of the Energy Security Board conducting more analysis of how it would operate. South Australia and the ACT opposed the move. Queensland is in caretaker mode ahead of the state election and did not cast a vote…
The mood inside the Hobart meeting was described as “fraught”…
PHOTO CAPTION: Shane Rattenbury, the ACT energy minister, is pushing for changes to the NEG.
PM Turnbull: “The days of picking winners, the days of ideology and idiocy, which we’ve seen in past energy policies, particularly I’m afraid to say in South Australia under the Weatherill government, that should be put behind us.”
South Australian Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the meeting was disappointing and “the coal-dependent states are sticking together”.
“Coal is not the future of this country. Coal represents the past. It seems that this Commonwealth government is addicted to clinging to the past,” he said…
Mr Koutsantonis said South Australia and the ACT will conduct their own modelling on an emissions trading scheme and clean energy target, and compare it to the government’s policy.
“Quite frankly what I think it will find is the [federal government policy] comes third … because it has a reliability requirement that keeps in old, clunky, expensive coal-fired generation at the expense of new, cleaner cheaper renewable technology,” he said…
Before the meeting began, various ministers spoke out about their hopes for Friday’s gathering.
“We certainly need a plan for the national energy market but we need a plan that will address the environmental needs of Australia that will also deliver on energy security and energy affordability,” ACT Energy Minister Shane Rattenbury, a Greens MP, told the ABC in Hobart.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/federal/josh-frydenberg-to-come-under-pressure-over-renewable-energy-at-ministers-meeting-20171124-gzrx0q.html
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O/T
Now deep fat fryers cause climate change!
At least they supposedly cause cooling, not warming…
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42081892
40
Also make everything taste good .
20
O/T
The government is looking for a Chief Engineer.
I wonder if he’ll have to be “True Believer” like the Chief Scientist?
https://theconsternation.net/2015/08/18/australia-seeks-chief-engineer/
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Absolutely, watermelons only need apply .
41
Barriers to entry
(making a mockery
of their lefty-
gender equity
policies,) Orwell
got it right,
some need not apply.
40
National Geographic is to science what New Idea, Woman’s Day, Women’s Weekly, Hello! and others are to newspapers.
40
So its the hot weather in Vic that is causing stupid decisions by the dragons in government. Another hot day, and Vic cannot generate enough power within the State. Imports are coming from SA (not from wind, but from gas generators), from Tas (hydro) and NSW is passing on some coal-generated power from Qld. Spot prices are hovering around $200, while up in Qld the price is $75/MWh.
50
23 Nov: Irish Times: Snow and ice warning issued as temperatures of -4 degrees forecast
Road users warned over black ice as ‘polar low’ set to sweep across country on Friday
by Rachel Flaherty, Niamh Towey
Met Éireann has issued a nationwide snow and ice warning as a “polar low” sweeps over the country over the next two days.
The yellow alert comes into force on Friday at 5am and will remain in place until midday on Saturday.
Snow showers are expected across the country during the alert but the heaviest snowfall is forecast for counties in Connacht and in Ulster.
Met Éireann said this “polar low” would begin to track down the country from the North. Friday and Saturday are set be bitterly cold, with widespread frost and ice and temperatures falling as low as minus 4 degrees
A second weather warning is in place for low temperatures across the country.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/snow-and-ice-warning-issued-as-temperatures-of-4-degrees-forecast-1.3302439
20
oops…
24 Nov: Daily Mail: The German town that is CRACKING apart: Bungled drilling operation is making the ground swell in Staufen – and experts have no idea how to stop it
The government created seven boreholes in 2007 for geothermal energy
Under the town is a layer of anhydrite, below which is a layer of groundwater
The holes made groundwater enter the layer of anhydrite, causing it to expand
This means the ground in Staufen is bulging, forming cracks in houses
In 10 years, the town hall has risen and moved by more than 0.5 metres
It is predicted to cost 50 million euros to fix – and a solution remains unclear
There are eight other German towns with similar problems
By Shivali Best
In the video, Mr Scott explains: ‘That might not sound like much, and yes, if everything had shifted evenly it might not be a problem.
‘The trouble is that different parts of each building have shifted by slightly different amounts…
‘Even modern buildings couldn’t cope with that, and that town hall was built in 1546.’
Authorities are now trying to get the water out from the anhydrite layer to reduce pressure, pumping water out at a speed of around one litre/second.
This has slowed the swelling down from about one centimetre/month to about one millimetre/month…
Mr Scott said: ‘There are eight other German towns with similar problems. Geothermal drilling was popular and not massively regulated.
‘And while the industry and the country have learned from those mistakes, for this town, that knowledge comes a little too late.’…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5111635/The-German-town-CRACKING-apart.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline
20
geothermal comment in moderation re: 24 Nov: Daily Mail: The German town that is CRACKING apart: Bungled drilling operation is making the ground swell in Staufen – and experts have no idea how to stop it
28 Oct: WeirtonDailyTimes: Company to build ethane storage facility
by CASEY JUNKINS and JANELL HUNTER
Mountaineer NGL Storage officials announced plans Thursday to spend $150 million — and potentially as much as $500 million — on its proposed natural gas liquids storage facility along the Ohio River near Clarington.
By 2019, company Managing Director David Hooker hopes to store up to 420 million gallons of ethane, propane and butane in caverns along the river, with the goal of allowing the potential PTT Global Chemical cracker plant to access the product via pipelines that would only need to stretch about 10 miles.
Also, the Mountaineer NGL Storage project could be the first part of the Appalachian Storage Hub, or “ethane hub,” which American Chemistry Council officials said could eventually lead to $36 billion worth of investment and about 100,000 permanent jobs.
“We are pretty excited about this project,” Hooker said Thursday. “It is a nice means for industrial growth in the area. It will be nice to keep the product local.”
Hooker said he already has a permit from the Ohio Department of Transportation, but is still waiting for authorization from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources…
Hooker said he expects all environmental permits for the project to be obtained within the first six months of 2018, after which construction could begin…
During the summer, Hooker joined a panel discussion in Canonsburg, Pa. organized by West Virginia University to discuss storage capacity for the Appalachian Storage Hub, which American Chemistry Council officials said could eventually lead to $36 billion worth of total investment in the region…
http://www.weirtondailytimes.com/news/local-news/2017/10/company-to-spend-150m-on-ethane-storage-facility-along-ohio-river/
10
Lizard intelligence?
Since the time long ago when I studied zoology, botany, ecology, I wondered if they were sciences. Similarly for psychology. Some nice people, but really. How far has it come?
Assign an intelligence to a lizard. Cook the eggs. Reduce the intelligence. Claim Climate Change makes some animals more stupid. No, but it does reflect on this swarming mass of would be scientists who form the group of ‘scientists say’.
Worse are the professional writers, spokespeople, public relations people whether they are from the WMO, IPCC, UN, NASA, CSIRO, BOM, the apologists for awful science who dare to interpret results in ways which show no understanding or qualification in basic hard sciences. Ocean acidification? Then you get English graduate Flannery on nuclear energy or hot rocks. “The technology is straightforward”. How would he know? It all gets a bit much when you get to lizard intelligence. More cunning I would think. Then you might be talking about lizards. A Bearded dragon says man made Global Warming is real? That settles it then. Almost beyond parody.
60
Regulator questions future of coal power
The Australian-17 hours ago
The nation’s peak energy regulators have crushed talk of big new investments in coal-fired power, issuing formal advice that shows no new coal under the federal government’s national energy guarantee. The findings will sharpen the political dispute over coal as state and…
Chinese have plans for Australian coal-fired power
The Australian-8 hours ago
Why would two large Chinese power companies engage in a bidding contest for a brown coal-driven power station when we are being told that coal, especially brown coal, has no future?…
23 Nov: SMH: Cole Latimer: La Trobe Valley’s Loy Yang B coal-fired power station sold to Chinese-owned company
The role of brown coal in Victoria’s energy supply has been bolstered by the sale of the La Trobe Valley’s Loy Yang B station for an estimated $1 billion to Chinese-owned Alinta Energy after six months on the market.
The 1000 megawatt station, which generates 17 per cent of Victoria’s energy needs, was offloaded by Japan’s Mitsui and French energy giant Engie, the company that closed its ageing Hazelwood station in April this year as part of its long-term scheme to divest itself of coal-fueled assets…
Alinta confirmed that the deal has been ticked off by the Foreign Investment Review Board…
Alinta Energy chief executive Jeff Dimery told Fairfax Media that the Loy Yang B purchase “is very exciting”.
“We were attracted to Loy Yang B by the fact it is the newest brown coal generator, so it is likely to be one of the last operating; it is also one of the more efficient power stations and is very reliable,” he said…
The purchase of the plant comes as Victoria is set to face its first summer without a reliable supply if(of) electricity from Hazelwood, which once supplied 20 per cent of the state’s electricity.
Two temporary malfunctions at the Loy Yang and Yallourn stations have recently reduced Victoria’s energy capacity by about 1300 megawatts and drained the state of more than 10 per cent of its peak period energy supply.
The drop in available coal-fired power has forced Victoria to import large amounts of energy from South Australia, Tasmania and NSW this week and to burn more gas, contributing to spikes in the wholesale energy price in the past week…
The sale of Loy Yang B met with muted response from the state government, as it “is not expected to have any implications for electricity supply in Victoria or the National Electricity Market,” according to a statement from a spokesman for Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio.
Loy Yang B has been slated to shut down in 2043…
Alinta Energy is owned by Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, and was touted as a front-runner in the acquisition process, which is believed to have included China Resources Power Holdings and a joint bid from NSW coal-fired power station operator Delta Electricity and private equity firm Apollo Management.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/alinta-buys-loy-yang-b-brown-coal-power-station-in-11-billion-deal-20171123-gzrf77.html
50
Electricity was connected to resources, coal, gas, timber. Now the Federal government has taken over through the new National Grid idea. Queensland power for South AUstralia and ignore the losses.
“The nation’s peak energy regulators have crushed talk of big new investments in coal-fired power”
What? Now that’s a feast of Canberra public servants against coal. Nothing to do with the needs of the people or the States or manufacturing. This is the core problem, a Federal RET, Federal agencies and a licence to dictate who gets what and for what purpose. The “Peak Energy Regulators”. Who set them up? Why do we need them? What good do they do?
This is rule by the Greens in Canberra. When we finally get some sense back, the only rule should be supply and demand, not regulation of power by politicians based on politicial bias. Meanwhile $6Bn a year without our permission and largely without our knowledge is given to strangers so they can own our power supply and charge us more. This is all wrong. All in the name of the UN, the Paris Accord and saving the whale.
70
I mean electricity was solely and wholly a State issue. The states have been rolled.
60
Much hate about coal in this report from “experts” .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-24/qld-election-experts-criticise-shocking-power-station-plan/9175214
21
“prolonged high wholesale prices and with no carbon price ”
So it is all about the ‘carbon price‘. What about no carbon price? Why should we humans have to pay a massive cash price for being carbon life forms? What else is there?
All based on political science. Carbon dioxide pollution. Utter fantasy. Our lives in Australia are utterly dependent on coal and their answer is blowing in the wind.
30
24 Nov: Australian: Mark Schliebs: Queensland election: anti-Adani protesters should be ashamed, says Jackie Trad
Deputy Labor leader Jackie Trad has launched a last-ditch bid to hang onto her seat, saying anti-Adani protesters should be “ashamed” while campaign flyers claim One Nation will help form government if she is not re-elected. This is despite One Nation not having a candidate in her electorate.
Ms Trad is trying to fend off the Greens’ Amy MacMahon and hold onto South Brisbane, which at the last election she held with a margin of 13.8 per cent.
But a Galaxy poll for the Courier-Mail conducted a fortnight ago had the Greens ahead of Labor in South Brisbane on a two-party-preferred basis, at 51 per cent to Ms Trad’s 49 cent…
On Wednesday night, during an at-times heated community forum, Ms Trad accused the Greens of repeatedly opposing the efforts of federal Labor to establish an emissions trading scheme.
She then said people should be “ashamed” of making Adani the biggest topic in the climate change debate. “It’s been a great campaigning issue for the pro-Adani people, who have basically said Adani will be the saviour of regional jobs,” Ms Trad said.
“And for the anti-Adani people, who have basically said that ‘we can’t participate in the complicated, messy national debate about energy policy and taking action on climate change, so we’re going to focus on this one mine’. That is it, in terms of the climate change debate in this nation, and quite frankly, I think we should be ashamed of ourselves.”…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/queensland-election/queensland-election-antiadani-protesters-should-be-ashamed-says-jackie-trad/news-story/bffd954441a0e15d2f4beb56d9ad0ae5
FROM THE COMMENTS AT TOWNSVILLE BULLETIN – 20 Nov: Anti-Adani protesters vow continuous action:
by N: I have to wonder the motivation of these protesters. It can’t be the fact that the coal will be exported through the great barrier reef as hundreds of millions of tonnes have been export this way for the last forty years without problems.
It can’t be that the government is helping pay for the rail line as the government paid for the rail lines that support all the mines in the Bowen Basin.
It can’t be for environmental reasons as this mine has some of the strictest environmental restriction ever in place, have any of these protesters ever been on a mine site have they seen how controlled they are? the southern cities they all live in would produce far more environmental damage than this or any other mine site could ever do.
It can’t be because it is a new coal mine because if this was the case why aren’t they camped out the front of Q Coals new operation or on the front steps of BHP, Rio and Glencore.( Though to protest these might affect the value of there superannuation and don’t want hurt themselves would they?)
Is it because this is an Indian company trying to improve the living standard of the people of that country?
I recently watched an meeting between the Indian energy mister and former vice president Al Gore where Gore was asked if he did not see the hypocrisy of 1st world countries like the US and Australia that built their economies on cheep fossil fuel to turn around and tell a 3rd world country like India that it can’t do the same to improve the living standards of its people.
I would suggest these protesters go and live with the people of India in their 3rd world condition for a year or two and tell them that they are not entitled to have the same living standard that they enjoy in Australia before they earn the right to try and prevent it.
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/antiadani-protesters-vow-continuous-action/news-story/1d3b772e5989c83754d7b4d4e7feae59
40
At the bottom of all the comments;
If Jo had set out to to run a blog that used satire as its modus operandi to make a point, she could scarcely have done any better than the sarcastic and satirical collection of quotes that her denizens have assembled above.
40
“experts” say…ABC’s answer to everything that doesn’t fit their agenda:
24 Nov: ABC: Queensland election: Experts say LNP’s power station plan not viable, would raise prices
By Josh Robertson
The LNP’s election pledge for a new coal-fired power station in north Queensland is akin to an idea conceived by “guys in a bar who have had too much to drink”, a former power company executive has said.
Chris Walker, who previously ran the rule over new coal power projects for Queensland’s largest electricity generator, said a new plant would be commercially unviable, unlikely to bring down power prices and rely on “massive” taxpayer support.
The scathing assessment from Mr Walker, a former general manager at Stanwell Corporation, adds to mounting criticism of the LNP proposal by energy experts and conservationists
Shadow treasurer Scott Emerson said a “hidden” report commissioned by Labor showed the project would actually lower emissions and provide cheaper power…
‘Hidden’ report lacks substance: experts
However, the report — which found a north Queensland coal-fired plant was only viable at prolonged high wholesale prices and with no carbon price more than 30 years — appeared to have been produced in just a few days, according to its own notes.
And the company that produced it, Energy Edge, had expertise in energy trading but no experience in studying new power projects.
“It is a back-of-the-envelope exercise … there is so much more you need to do,” Mr Walker told the ABC…
Power plant would cost taxpayers billions
Meanwhile, energy economist Hugh Grant, a former manager at state network operator Powerlink, said the proposed plant was “uneconomic”, while economist John Quiggin said it looked “certain to become a stranded asset”.
And a new report by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) claimed the plant would cost taxpayers an extra $7 billion over its 30-year lifetime from pollution-related disease, climate change impacts and government subsidies.
ACF economist Matt Rose said the plant would cost Queensland taxpayers $1.6 billion to $3 billion to build.
He said it would cost another $230 million a year in government subsidies, health impacts from pollution and climate change impacts…
“To choose coal when clean energy alternatives are ***so much more affordable, and don’t hurt nature, cause climate pollution, or damage the health of Queenslanders, is a shocking decision,” Mr Rose said.
Mr Quiggin, an Australia Laureate Fellow in economics at the University of Queensland said it was “hard to see any financial institution taking a risk on this”…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-24/qld-election-experts-criticise-shocking-power-station-plan/9175214
“expert”//activist Chris Walker:
LinkedIn: Chris Walker, Utilities professional
Previous: Stanwell Corporation Limited
Education: The University of Queensland
I am a co-founder and co-administrator of Redlands2030 which is a forum for people concerned about local government in Redland City, Queensland.
Redlands2030 believes that major planning and development decisions in our city should be guided by values that are well documented in the Redlands2030 Community Plan, including:
– Widespread community involvement in determining the future of the Redlands
– Sustainable economic development
– Respect for our natural environment
2 Oct: RedlandCityBulletin: Rally sees protest group formed to fight Cleveland’s Toondah Harbour project
by Brian Williams
Chris Walker, from protest rally organiser Redlands2030, said there was major opposition to the project, with 1411 submissions to the federal government against the idea and just eight supporting it.
He said a petition was launched at the rally of about 300 people, asking for council to reject the proposal…
It seeks to avoid dredging or any other environmental harm of the Moreton Bay Marine Park…
A new protest group, the Toondah Action Group, also was launched.
Mr Walker said the action group would focus solely on Toondah Harbour, as opposed to Redlands2030 which had broader interests…
the ABC writer:
Guardian bio: Joshua Robertson
Joshua Robertson is Guardian Australia’s Brisbane correspondent. He previously worked on the investigations desk and covered organised crime for the Courier-Mail and the Sunday Mail
check the biases on Robertson’s Twitter page. ABC management clearly have no problem with this, as it’s pretty much the same on many ABC staff’s Twitter pages:
Twitter: Joshua Robertson, Reporter @abcnews Brisbane
https://twitter.com/jrojourno?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
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comment in moderation re: 24 Nov: ABC: Queensland election: Experts say LNP’s power station plan not viable, would raise prices
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Since humans are supposed to be extinct by 2026 anyway, who cares.
One minute they tell us we are all about to die; the next minute they tell us we should be deeply concerned about the effect of rising temperature on the intelligence of a rare lizard.
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Bearded dragons?, rare?
Come now, surely you jest, I’m sure I could repopulate Australia from my back yard alone.
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I read the sex reversal paper in July 2015, when it was published in Nature. The reference is
The stureal-world to have found real world evidence of sex reversal. From a Telegraph article, Australian lizard changes sex in high temperatures
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I believe one should verify the figures. The percentages are based on the from the following.
2003 was 1 out of 15
2004 was 6 out of 44
2011 was 4 out of 18
Catching lizards, I believe, is somewhat tricky, so one cannot be sure of statistically unbiased samples. Even if they were unbiased, the numbers are quite small and taken from a very wide area of Southern Queensland, New South Wales and North West Victoria.
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The real world data is on the increased proportion of sex-reversed females is meant to be related to rising average temperatures. The bearded lizards are in very remote areas, but one temperature station is Thargomindah Airport, Berkeley Earth Station 152212. I have produced a graph of the average annual anomalies.
https://manicbeancounter.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/thargoairportannmean.jpg
Notice that average temperatures in 2011 were more than 0.5C lower than in 2003 or 2004. This contradicts the hypothesis.
A second graph looks at mean monthly temperatures compared to the constant incubation temperatures in the lab where sex change was observed.
https://manicbeancounter.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/thargoairportmthmean.jpg
The test incubation temperatures were from 22C upwards. From the paper Fig 3
Bearded Lizards are hugely adaptable, so if average temperatures rose they would lay eggs more in the winter. Average annual temperatures would have to rise by 10-20C for the sex reversal range of temperatures to become applicable in the real world. Even then, daily temperature variation may override the constant temperature impact.
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[…] Jo Nova factors out that this “examine” concerned 13 eggs from the identical clutch being break up in two. Not a lot of a survey pattern. She additionally has a enjoyable graphic noting that the Bearded Dragons will need to have been genius’ over the past ice age. […]
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So are scientists born in warmer climates dumber? Just curious.
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