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Weekend Unthreaded
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Four days to see if the mid term US vote give Congress to the Democrats, as is traditional, a protest vote against the government.
With the entire media against him, Trump is in a fight but the caravan, the agression of Hollywood, the scandal of the deceit in trying to stop Kavanaugh, so much is getting Republican voters out of their comfort zone. Normally with a Democrat vote level of 80% and a Republican voting level of only 60%, the core question is whether the Republicans get out and vote. The record unemployment, record low food stamps, record energy independence with fracking, even record low CO2, everyone is winning under Trump and Hollywood are very angry about it. Only Leonardo Di Caprio, Cher, Barbara Streisand, Alec Baldwin and Oprah Winfrey can save America now.
Then there is the Black vote with Blexit, whether Black voters give all of their votes to the Democrats, as is traditional. It is finally being questioned at all levels. As Kanye West said, they had a black Chicago president for eight years and nothing happened.
The mulitiple caravans of univited Guatamalans and others may make a difference. So much hinges on this election. The whole manufactured and imaginary Climate change crisis, the appalling Paris agreement, the UN/EU push for open borders, the relationships with China and Russia and even Brexit.
If the Republicans can hang on in the Congress and Senate, Trumps’ hand is enormously strengthened. We have seen the beginning of the end of climate change. We might see it over. And the end of open borders and the restoration of sovereignty, the destruction of which has been an obvious aim of the EU/UN. And a lot of conflicts allowed to grow under Obama, especially his ‘Arab spring’ which has devastated so much of the Middle East. A nuclear Iran. A nuclear North Korea. Reagan’s axis of evil. Finally challenged.
Hold onto your hats.
382
Four agonizing days and then nothing will be over util Donald Trump is buried a hundred feet down and the monument to foolishness is built over his grave.
You probably don’t know who Denis Prager is but he’s one of the most worthwhile talking heads on radio today — far more worthwhile than Rush Limbaugh on whom I gave up years ago. 2 days ago he was on an opinion show and he gave the best and certainly simplest explanation for Trump that I’ve ever heard, “Donald Trump doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him or of the United States.
I was floored by that because it was there all the time to be seen and I didn’t see it. But it’s true. And no matter the outcome of the election Republicans will probably keep the senate. If we lose the House of Representatives I won’t mind that so much because I would prefer to have Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court than to keep the house and I already turn of twits like Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters. In fact I’ll be happy to have a divided congress as I always have been because that means gridlock unless legislation can be agreed to by both parties and our totally independent president. And under such conditions the stock market will continue to do well since it always has preferred gridlock anyway. And that means my portfolio will continue to do well. And that is music to the ears of a retied guy like me.
I don’t know what Trump will do at the border but you can be sure that he wants stop that march of invaders from the south. I hope he has the steel resolve it will take because someone is likely to get hurt. And better that it’s someone bent on trespassing in my house than someone who is here legally because they’re citizens or resident aliens. That some may be children is because the first defense of scoundrels is always to put their women and children out in front as a shield, hoping the enemy won’t dare do anything.
I don’t know how to say it any more strongly than this. Those marchers are an invading army just as much as if they came in tanks and carrying machine guns. It needs to stop now.
But the fight will need to go on for a lot longer than Trump’s possible 8 years and that is what worries me more than anything else.
It will be a long time before the war is won…
301
And yes, one way or another Trump will be thwarted by anyone who can. He threatens both Democrats and Republicans along with any other party that takes itself seriously. He even threatens our allies even though it may look like we’re respected again.
So I’m not daydreaming here, I’m just reading the handwriting on the wall as best I can using what experience I have to hep me.
Happy election watching.
160
To MR. Hogue:
With typical midterm elections, only about 40 percent
of those eligible to vote actually go to the polls, in the US.
The question is whether the 2018 turnout
will be unusually high, and whether or not
one party is more motivated to vote than the other.
I have no idea.
The wife and I are more motivated to vote Republican
after the trashing of Judge Kavanaugh.
I normally favor libertarian candidates
but after watching Dumbocrats going berserk
in the past few years, I don’t want to see them
holding political office anywhere !
I write a politics blog, so try to get my news
from both conservative and liberal sources.
http://www.ElectionCircus.Blogspot.com
The liberal-biased sources (almost everyone in US)
have been 95% negative on Trump for years —
and most liberals would never even think of watching
Sean Hannity, or listening to Dennis Prager,
for even one minute !
They are told Trump is a criminal, colluding
with Russians, and a racist, every day.
If that two years of brainwashing
doesn’t motivate Dumbocrats to vote tomorrow,
I wonder why the Dumbocrats wasted their time
demonizing Trump, and making themselves
look like imbeciles, with all the false charges?
They must think fact-free demonizing of Trump
will work for them on Election Day 2018,
just like science-free demonizing of CO2
has worked, for them, for the past 30 years ?
My climate science blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
30
Yes, but that’s a good thing. Not caring about what the EU/UN/IPCC/Russia/China/India think is good. Remember in the UN they laughed openly at Donald Trump in his address. That included Germany. No one laughs at powerful dictators. They laugh at weakness.
From Washington DC to Brussels to Berlin and Paris, Trump not caring what the elites who controlled US policy think is the first step to formulating good policy. Trying to please everyone is not. For the first time in decades, apart from Hollywood, all of America is involved in arguing policy, not just following the dictates of Washington and the UN. Open borders? They bring countries down and destroy the very thing which attracts people. In Australia we did the impossible under Tony Abbott and stopped the boat invasion. That did not stop record high migration but was all about uncontrolled economic migration of the wrong sort of people. You want people to help build the place, not rip it down.
Climate Change is not ecology, caring about the planet. It is a device, an invention of the UN/EU to control America and all the other Western democracies. This is not a conspiracy. It is a policy to attack democracies and remove sovereignty and take their money. No one seems to care that most of the world positions themselves as beneficiaries. China, India, Russia, Africa, Asia, South America all ignore it. So it is aimed only at Western style democracies including Japan. The very premise that we control the weather is ridiculous. The fact that we pay pay a breathing tax to foreigners is incredible. Soon even the animals will have to be put down, to please others.
So he does not care about what people think? Good. Now perhaps Americans can think for themselves.
291
Also I do not mean not knowing what they think or want, but since Nixon’s approach to China, it has been a one way street and for good reason. China and the US are now interdependent and it is time for the relationship to mature, not end. The Chinese recognize that the US has every right to change the relationship and to look after its own interests. Friction will occur now, but that was going to happen. Otherwise there is a tendency to think you can get away with anything and that was starting. It is also necessary to bring Russia in from the cold, something Trump alone recognizes. Even in James Bond films, Russia has long stopped being the enemy.
So knowing what people are thinking and what they want and need is important. As they show in every airline safety drill, you have to look after yourself first before you can help anyone else. It is not selfishness, but practicality. Pleasing everyone is impossible. It’s time Hollywood actors accept that they only play at running the country on camera. Individually they could not run a cafe.
230
TdeF,
You have it exactly right.
80
I always find it humourous when hollywood actors – professional people who play make-belive for a living, stay rabbitting on about science stuff they know little about….
They are big on emotion, yes, I guess “arteests” are like that. Feelings, emotion, make believe…..like a celluoid version of climate science. Maybe the climate scientists are also paid actors?
Repeat after me…theres no place like home…there no place like home…..
150
At what point does acting and attention seeking and publicity and image creation stop and the real person appear? Perhaps never. It’s a bit like Peter Sellers who really forgot which was his original voice as he would go into character. You have every reason to doubt the sincerity of actors. They are, after all, actors.
130
Ronald Reagan was an actor and I never doubted his sincerity. He had his problems and I don’t think he would be the right president for today. But he was the right man for then.
80
The difference with Reagan was he was a ‘B’ grade actor, but an ‘A’ grade President. His heart wasn’t in acting.
Wasn’t too bad a Governor, either.
60
I think they don’t laugh quite so much now. But that may be just from fear because he has the resolve to go down the right road even when no on else goes along.
The world got much too used to taking advantage of us and now their free ride is ending, I hope forever.
120
Yep,
I go with fear as they were suddenly outside their comfort zones, with accusations they knew were spot on. Geoff
40
I know it’s tough for you Aussies to see the light at the end of the leftist globalist tunnel, but it’s there. Tucker Carlson has an excellent video commentary. The theme is the leftist globalists are losing and they know it
111
Thanks for the encouragement, our time is also close at hand.
31
Gees, I hope so.
Three years of Shorten would turn the rest of Australia into a backend nether region like Victoria is becoming under that clueless union-controlled twerp, Andrews.
52
I’m a New South Welshman and have little interest in southern politics.
10
Trump is a blowhard.
We need a real leader.
Cutting corporate taxes,
likely to benefit HIS business,
will not solve the nation’s problems.
In business meetings with Trump,
before he was president,
two people I know described him
as an “asshole” — one a loyal Republican!
There is no border wall,
and will never be one.
Trump can’t stop the “invaders” —
it’s all pre-election BS —
it will be catch and release, as usual,
because the $#@%& law requires that.
Trump single-handedly started a trade war
with China that is not going well — a man
with the character to build a team of nations,
to oppose China’s trade barriers and intellectual
property theft, could have done good.
But Trump foolishly fights China on his own.
I recognize his great ability as a salesman.
But he sounds like the dumbest president
in my lifetime (since 1953) when he talks
off the cuff at rallies — that can’t be good.
06
Trump is many things but is probably one of the best Presidents the Septics have had in a long time .
Since he took office .
Got America out of The Paris rip off .
4 million new jobs including the lowest numbers of unemployed Black and Hispanics in years .
Made the Democrats and other watermelons cry .
Got stuck into the EPA .
Is reducing regulation.
Stopped the war on fossil fuels .
Stock market up .
Seems to have made friends with the North Korean leader and slowed or stopped the rhetoric and posturing .
Appointed a high court judge of high quality .
Stopped the rot of companies moving offshore , in particular the auto industry and how he done that was pure genius.
Lowered company business tax which seems to be the catalyst of recent worker wage rises.
Look I could go on and on but you get the picture .
41
Reply to Mr. Rosicka
.
.
.
“Trump is many things
but is probably one of the best Presidents
the Septics have had in a long time,”
My comment:
After +1.5% real GDP growth for eight years under Obama, and two unnecessary wars under Bush, that’s not saying much !
.
.
.
“Got America out of The Paris rip off.”
My comment:
We were never really in it,
to need to get out of it
— it was voluntary,
not a treaty !
Obama wasted $1 billion
on the green fund,
only he could be that stupid
— check out how little money
is coming in from other nations !
.
.
.
4 million new jobs
including the lowest numbers
of unemployed Black
and Hispanics in years .
My comment:
The number of new jobs
in Obama’s last 21 months
was +4,477,000
(payroll employment
from April 2015
to January 2017)
WHICH WAS HIGHER THAN
the number of new jobs
in Trump’s first 21 months,
from January 2017
through October 2018,
which was +4,054,000 new jobs
Black and Hispanic
unemployment rates
are very misleading data.
The record keeping
is short term — started in 2008,
during a recession, so the
trend was expected to be down
until the next recession starts.
“Lowest on record” is misleading
when the record is so short,
and the bragging,
not always accurate,
is another reason
Trump annoys me.
.
.
.
“Made the Democrats
and other watermelons cry.”
My comment:
That, I love — great entertainment.
I wrote an article in 2014 that
Republicans had to become “Alinskyites”
to beat Dumbocrats at their own game
— Trump fights back unlike any other
Republican. That’s why he won.
.
.
.
“Got stuck into the EPA.”
My comment:
CO2 is still officially called “pollution”,
and I don’t see that changing.
.
.
.
“Is reducing regulation”.
My comment:
Trump’s executive order that each
new regulation requires two old
regulations to be dropped, was brilliant,
if it works.
The reductions
of the growth rate
of new regulations,
and cancellation of
Obama’s lame duck
regulations, is great news.
.
.
.
“Stopped the war on fossil fuels” .
My comment:
The war is hotter than ever !
The predictions of doom
are wilder than ever !
And CO2 is still “pollution”,
so the war is still on.
.
.
.
“Stock market up”.
My comments:
Up from corporate tax cuts that were
not necessary, and will inflate the
national debt for no good reason.
Corporations had high profit margins
and high stock valuations BEFORE
the tax cuts — they didn’t need
a handout !
.
.
.
“Seems to have made friends
with the North Korean leader
and slowed or stopped
the rhetoric and posturing .”
My comment:
Trump caused a lot of nasty rhetoric
before he “stopped it”.
I believe the Koreans conned Trump,
just like the Iranians conned Obama
— they will both have nuclear weapons
and there’s nothing the US can do about it.
The NK weapons tests seem to have stopped,
after they accidentally blew up
one of their test facilities,
and then mislead the world by
claiming they were “closing it”
as if doing that was a favor to the US.
In fact, it was too damaged to rebuild !
All their the weapons still exist.
That’s no victory.
.
.
.
“Appointed a high court judge
of high quality.”
My comment:
Two Supreme Court justices
and many other US judges.
Trump’s best accomplishments.
.
Made the Dumbocrats act like fools
— lying to derail Kavanaugh —
which I hope Republicans remember
tomorrow.
.
.
“Stopped the rot of companies
moving offshore ,
in particular the auto industry
and how he done that was pure genius.”
My comment:
Lower US corporate tax rates may keep
more US manufacturing here, but the
trend of outsourcing
labor intensive manufacturing
is over 50 years old,
with no sign it has ended.
.
.
.
“Lowered company business tax
which seems to be the catalyst
of recent worker wage rises”.
My comment:
There were some $1,000 one-time bonuses.
But past corporate tax rate cuts
have never led to increased worker wages,
except for executive bonuses.
Rising wage rates
are a result of
low unemployment
and higher inflation
.
.
.
“Look I could go on and on but you get the picture” .
My comment:
I think you have a strong pro-Trump bias
that is not justified by actual data.
He is growing government spending
and debt just like the past two presidents.
The unnecessary war in Afghanistan continues.
There is no border wall.
“Catch and release” is alive and well.
The stock market may be up,
from lower corporate tax rates,
but bear markets are not a
thing of the past.
01
So you agree with me he has done a remarkable job and is the best president in years .
20
I agree you have a good sense of humor./
BAD NEWS, IMHO:
I was against the corporate tax cut
— just a small short term stimulus
to help Repubs. win in 2018 election,
with negative long term debt consequences.
I wanted a border wall — there’s no wall.
I wanted new immigrations laws — no new laws.
I wanted Afghanistan War to end — we’re still there
I wanted military and general spending reduced — they went up
I’d like fairer trade with China, but it doesn’t look good so far.
The new NAFTA was almost a meaningless revision — maybe worse !
CO2 is still defined as “pollution”
.
.
.
GOOD NEWS, IMHO:
We got good judges and a reduced growth rate of regulations
We get to look at Melania, instead of Shrillary
White House interns are safe from Bill Clinton
01
Prager University is interesting viewing on Youtube
10
With that thought, TdeF,
“With the entire media against him, Trump is in a fight… ”
If the entire media is against him the most likely outcome is a Red Landslide.
Why?
Because left wing, liberterians and social justice warriors along with climate alarmists and activist minority groups never bother to research anything, so if the fake news media tell them there will be a Democrat Tidal Wave in the midterms they believe it.
Believing it takes the pressure off most to go out there and take part in anything… like actually voting.
They they are more into seeming than doing.
Big on virtue signals.
Low on action.
243
Election day might turn out to be different. So the whole thing could end with loss of the senate and the house. A president can be impeached for ANY reason. If enough members of congress don’t like how he parts his hair they can toss him out into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and there is no appeal or redress.
I’m sure Maxine Waters among others already has a bill of impeachment waiting. Seniority can put even such a despicable woman into a position of power.
101
From what I’m seeing the Republicans should not only hold onto the house but gain seats , if you just go by MSM the Republicans will be wiped out , if you go by the pollls same thing .
Some MSM today are starting to realise begrudgingly that Trumps popularity has grown .
While Trump may not be all things to all people he commands a massive following and any attempt to remove him other than by the ballot box might just turn nasty .
183
I hope you are right Rob. My head tells me it won’t even be close for many reasons. But I din’t pick the nic “Hanrahan” for nothing, I worry.
“We’ll all be rooned” said Hanrahan,
“before the year is out.”
For our American friends who may not know who Hanrahan is:
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/obrienj/poetry/hanrahan.html
80
I’d heard about “We’ll be rooned!” but had never seen the poem before.
Enjoyed that.
Thank you, Hanrahan
30
Roy,
I have faith in the integrity, independence and common sense of the American voter… pity us Aussies weren’t as switched on to the shenanigans of the left.
God Bless Donald Trump.
244
We are. All the losses have come from inside the party room. You would wonder why wrecker Turnbull was able to bring down the very popular Abbott government from inside, why he was so upset at actually winning if only by one seat and why he set out to wreck everyone once he left. It was never Abbott. It was always Turnbull and his Black Hand friends. Even now the left try to blame Abbott for the two changes of Prime Minister when it was Turnbull who disposed of Nelson and Abbott by backroom treachery along with his ABC.
Similarly in the US with the Never Trumpers and flakes like Flake. Collins showed sense and reason in the end in the confirmation of Kavanagh, although with as much grandstanding as Flake. For her vote she has received death threats. Why? The real problem in Australia are the awful people in all parties who want power at any cost and do not begin to agree with the principles of the party. You could make an exception of the Greens as they have no realistic policies, being the people against everything.
Turnbull himself was always Labor Royalty and was cheered by his ABC and Green voters and the ALP voters. They all still fear Tony Abbott. Turnbull’s other complete failure was to drive Abbott out of politics completely by removing preselection. Has there ever been a more deceitful and destructive force in Australian politics than the Turnbulls? Both of them.
201
Two Turnbulls? Three with M, L and A.
100
James,
I keep remembering that it was the American voter who put us into this mess in the first place. Didn’t someone once say, “Physician, heal thyself?” I wonder if with the current mess we can count on anything being healed. And that’s why I don’t pay attention to the words anymore. I just watch to see what actually happens and what the result of what happened is and then I know. Unlike so many I don’t sit up watching election returns. It will be settled or at least closer to settled in the morning and then I can find out the way it rally is. Losing sleep won’t change the result.
00
Roy, I heard someone say that Tuesday is not so much “election day” as it is “the last day of voting”. Here, the only way to vote early is a postal vote.
00
You can now buy a Build the Wall toy set. This is the first time that I can recall a political themed children’s toy set. I am going to get one for a Christmas present!
https://keepandbear.com/products/build-the-wall?aff=59
120
Ah. American innovation and creativity.
Better protect the IP or we’ll see the Chinese building one.
I can see in my mind’s eye a miniature plastic President Xi wearing a little plastic “Make Mao Great Again” rice hat standing in front of a great plastic wall of China.
Maybe it could be released in time for Chinese New Year?
90
you need to educate yourself. Google will reveal a long history of such things. Most of them made to appeal to the [snip]. you are just the latest
03
You trust Google? Good grief.
40
It doesn’t have to be google. Good grief.
02
Good grief!
No. It doesn’t have to be Google.
It could be Wikipedia:
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/11/seas-are-rising-everywhere-except-around-islands/#comment-2065351
But you’d not expect to get the truth there.
20
goodness… that was an interesting snip.
00
The default state of the left is anger. The over the top anger and violence we have been seeing is their reaction to the realization they’re losing. Nobody said this will be easy. Just remember it is often darkest before the light bursts through
80
Please excuse the short posts and occasional error. I’m using my phone because my computer is in a box on the way to DELL in TX to have the two year old friend hard drive replaced.
40
What short posts ?
22
Posts where I cannot get in what I want to say in a single post and cannot provide supporting links.
30
Hi Jo More on McLean
“Warmists and Skeptics Should Agree That This is The Real Scandal in Climate Science
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2018/10/warmists-and-skeptics-should-agree-that-this-is-the-real-scandal-in-climate-science.html
130
This is just a modern day adaptation of the memory hole technique invented by George Orwell in his famous novel 1984. It has been in full swing in many dictatorships for a long time now. The West is catching up.
70
This is why I’ve always advocated that we should keep copies of the raw temperature data so we can always show people ….
50
Good article.
It’s a nonsense to pretend that world temperature measurements are “science”.
Measuring the temperature of the World’s Weather Phantom which pops up here and slowly or quickly moves to there is a mission without sense. The combined “errors” inherent in the Mission would undoubtedly exceed +/- 1 C°.
There is only one reason for creating a “world temperature”.
It can be used as a political tool to belt taxpayers over the head with before relieving them of their hard earned Wealth.
The motto of the Climate Change schemers might be;
Confuse, Control and Dominate.
KK
70
“Yet another study illustrates that the Medieval Warming Period was not regional, but global”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/03/yet-another-study-illustrates-that-the-medieval-warming-period-was-not-regional-but-global/
Introduction
“Michael Mann and his team of
data manglerslike-minded scientists like to tell us the Medieval Warming Period was just a “regional” event rather than global, because if it was global, that destroys their narrative. “140
The climatariat was long informed of the extensive historical, agronomomical, speleological etc work from China on the MWP and just wished it away. While cherry trees in Japan may show odd tendencies to flower early in neon-lit heat-sinks there is plenty of sane work done on old climate there. The MWP managed to “regionalise” itself into East Asia: https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wea.281
I’m not sure that the climate beat-up is a deliberate distraction from the inevitable end of the Holocene and return to more average Quaternary conditions; but when life sends you particularly sour lemons and you’re right out of sugar…
80
“The Gulag Archipelago: A Foreword By Jordan peterson”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/11/03/the-gulag-archipelago-a-foreword-by-jordan-peterson/#comments
And the comments, starting with the first (IMO)
40
And if you cannot find the time to read “Gulag” find the time to read another brilliant work “The First Circle” for which Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Although fiction, describing the lives of prisoners in a special camp trying to develop ways to scramble telephone conversations amongst other things, this book like 1984,is chilling in the way it shows how easily any free thought or action can be used against individuals. One small example, and I paraphrase, two prisoners are talking, “how long is your sentence? 10 years. And what was your crime? I was captured by the Germans. And what was your crime? I survived.”
Ah, Solzhenitsyn, brilliant, insightful, clear thinker, humorous. communicator. No wonder the state hated him. The parallels with the climate change debate are many.
120
I now feel I should read it again. It is a very important book.
30
I’m old enough to remember when a few hot days was a few hot days …
Now it’s a very scary “low-intensity heatwave”.
BoM: Heatwave Situation for Thursday, Friday, & Saturday (3 days starting 1/11/2018)
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/index.shtml?hootPostID=281c37788c32532f689ca76458730425
About the Heatwave Service
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/about.shtml
Oct, 2017: Record-breaking temperatures prompt BOM to launch heatwave service early
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-10/bom-heatwave-service-starting-early-high-temperatures/9016262
These people are apocalypse crazy.
121
I remember from age four and many later Christmas times in Australia, northern rivers NSW close to the QLD border where the Tweed River begins not far from Mount Warning, rainforest and dairy farm country, hot summer days with high humidity and late afternoon almost every day a noisy thunderstorm and showers of rain.
Evenings of more high humidity until a cooling overnight respite before a new hot summer day.
71
That would be 20Ba/c no doubt; maybe even earlier.
11
Little different across the Tasman.
NZ MSM & National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) … mute when it is chilly, wet, interminably grey or plain damned cold, which is more often than not.
Hysterical when slightly warm, sunny or Föhn conditions prevail.
Deeply, deeply committed to the Climatism Church …“NIWA’s Dr. Jonny Williams was a reviewer of the summary for policy-makers. He says: We can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, but this will be challenging. This report studies many impacts of a 1.5 degree warming and goes way further than that: it highlights benefits to society and ecosystems of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees compared to 2ᵒ.
God help us and all rational people who treasure liberty and prosperity.
110
Article here in the NZ Farmers Weekly
(In case the link stuffs up it is Vol 17, No 41 29 Oct 2018)
Not going to do much for prosperity, Latus Dextro.
Madness.
60
Trendy lefty Ardern will send NZ back to 1840..
40
I’m changing the way I try and convince the brainwashed about CAGW .
I’m going to point out that Co2 is 400ppm in the atmosphere
Then convert that to a percentage
Then let them know that the percentage of Co2 that is man made is 3.18%
Then let them know what percentage of that is ours in Australia
Should end up with a decimal point and a crap load of zeros , I’ll then tell them how much we’ve wasted on renewables and carbon mitigation and saving the Reef etc and repeat the high ball number of wasted money along with the tiny fraction with all the zeros.
151
In my view the most compelling aspect is to point out that rooftop solar is subsidised by the financial disadvantaged who do not own a roof. Further they pay three times more for dumb energy from grid scale intermittents than for the local rooftop solar. This hits a sore point with anyone paying energy bills as well as those with rooftop solar because most think the subsidies come from general revenue rather than the poor renters who do not own a roof.
I have even got silence from most Reneweconomy disciples when I have pointed this out.
The lack of understanding on how the RET operates is appalling. Even the social security administrators support intermittents despite being representatives for the financially challenged who are bearing a disproportion burden for investment in dumb energy. They are paying a heavy price for their unfortunate economic circumstances through their energy bills.
It does not have much impact on young adults still living with their parents.
Beyond the dumb energy aspect I am doubtful that the planet is still warming. There is some compelling evidence that the oceans have been cooling for most of this century. I first assessed that by looking at the TPW data from MODIS:
https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV
This shows declining trend in TPW this century. Also I recently found a paper that compares radiosonde and satellite data and then shows the reduction in TPW over the tropical oceans in the decade 2007-2016:
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/9/5/174/htm
Falling TPW over oceans is a clear indicator of ocean surface cooling.
I am not yet certain that the oceans are on a long term cooling trend. Will not be certain until the 0-2000m ARGO data trends downward for a few more years.
50
Hi robbie
If renewables are a waste of money why do you have a roof full of solar panels?
Global military expenditure is estimated at USD4.8 billion PER DAY. And that doesn’t include the cost of rebuilding destroyed cities, or the cost of repairing broken bodies and minds. Not to mention the millions who have died in conflict.
And you reckon renewables are a waste of money.
28
Because I’m filthy rich with nothing better to do than make life hard for all the struggling battlers just in case they want access to my country club !
52
Actually the real reason I have solar is this !-
I was sitting at home worrying about how much my electricity was , could I do without the Spa or swimming pool , or maybe there was no need to have the lights on up at the tennis court .
Lord knows the 10 room mansion that I live cost a bundle to heat and cool let alone keep the lights on .
So anyway a heap of pensioners , dole bludgers and the poor offered to help me out by paying to install a solar system and keep paying by subsidising any extra electricity I generated and put back into the grid .
Now being down on my luck and having to let one of my butlers go I seen some merit in this scheme but worried if it was legal , my advisors told me I could just tell everyone that I was trying to reduce my carbon footprint and better still , helping to save the planet from dangerous Globull warming .
Although I don’t know why they laughed when they said that it immediately made me feel good that the less fortunate were only too willing to help me rid the world of evil coal , it wS a win win really .
They were taught a valuable lesson in socialism and I could re hire the extra butler .
210
You are actually benefitting the battlers. Your STCs and FIT cost about a third of what the battlers pay for wholesale power plus LGCs from the subsidy farms.
10
Did you actually read what he wrote?
10
Yes Yarpos both bits , the first bit I’ve answered the second bit about military spending doesn’t require a reply .
20
You could stop right there. The scare is not Global Warming or Climate Change but man made Global Warming and man made Climate Change. Good or bad, there is nothing we can do about CO2 and all our wars and cars and farts have done nothing and barely register on this huge planet.
The fact that Australia contributes 2% of 4% or 0.1% of nothing is no excuse to give us the world’s most expensive electricity and see all our money flow overseas like a river. For nothing. We don’t own the windmills but we paid for them and they don’t work. For what?
70
True @ #6, but unfortunately, the arithmetic illiterate will probably put all the zeros on the wrong place.
20
Too true as I’m finding out , the first figure of converting 400ppm to a percentage was different to a lot of the others I’ve seen at 0.04%.
Then I tried getting 3.18% of that which is the amount of Co2 that humans are responsible for and my calculator said it didn’t have enough zeros to answer but spat out 0.00001272% but I thought that can’t be right but it didn’t matter which way I poked my tongue out it insisted that was the correct answer .
So I stopped there but still have to find out what 1.8% of that is which is Australias contribution but it seems to be a ridiculously small irrelevant number .
11
‘Billionaire industrialist backs PM to underwrite more reliable east coast power generation, saying he has “big plans” for Australia.’ Oz
30
Call me cynical but I don’t think Gupta intends putting any of HIS money into the solution. Somewhat the reverse I think.
80
Gupta is a subsidy farmer who prefers to call it low cost capital rather than subsidy:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-30/sanjeev-gupta-throws-clean-energy-challenge-to-government/10445518
I love the throw away at the bottom of this piece:
AEMO are trying to protect their patch. Imagine what the grid will look like when all these commercial scale rooftop schemes are up and running. Trying to control the grid through the middle of the day will be a nightmare. It will kill grid scale wind generators because they will be increasingly constrained. It will kill coal generation because they will be up and down like yo-yos. That makes gas more expensive so the rate of making your own accelerates.
Consumers have a choice. Residential and commercial electricity consumers can make their own and industry can move to saner locations.
50
Rick Will mentions this: (my bolding here)
And that bolded section is patently just not the case.
I’ve been watching now for a while, and taking the daily data, and I’ve even gone back years to when there was less than a third of rooftop solar (RTS) we have now, and more coal fired power plants.
We are generating more NOW from coal fired power than we were back then.
I was certain I was wrong, so I isolated just the hours of power generation when RTS is actually working, 6AM to 6PM, and got the same result.
RTS is not having the slightest effect whatsoever on coal fired power.
Keep in mind here that the average total power consumption per hour across those hours (6AM to 6PM) is around 20000 to 25000MW, and even with RTS delivering an average (spread across those 12 hours) of only 1500 to 2000MW and probably as high (in Summer) as a Peak of maybe 5500MW, there is still 15000 to 20000MW required, and that is what coal fired power is delivering at those times.
All it is doing is that now, there is less call for natural gas (NG) fired power and hydro power, both of which are commensurately lower these days with more RTS than before when there was less rooftops with those panels on them.
That’s not my just ‘saying’ that. The actual data is bearing it out.
It’s the same with wind power as well. if wind is up, then NG power and hydro are down, and vice versa, if wind is down, then NG and hydro are up.
And some might use South Australia as an example of where it (wind and RTS) ‘may’ be having some effect, but when that State is only consuming 6.2% of the total power consumption of Australia, then it is all but negligible.
Tony.
90
Your analysis has some weakness as you have a flawed assumption about rooftop solar being mostly behind the meter. That is not saying that your statement that coal generation in the NEM is steady is incorrect, but you are underestimating the actual demand. This link has a more comprehensive view of Australia and the decline in coal generation as a proportion of the mix:
https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/g/files/net3411/f/australian_energy_update_2018.pdf
If you look at the chart on p22 you will see that coal is declining quite rapidly as a proportion of total power generation in Australia.
If you take a look at SA today, SA has closed down its coal generators. Its 600MW link to Victoria caused the closure of Hazelwood. If they get the 800MW link into NSW it will hasten the closure of Liddell. Now you do not count for rooftop solar correctly in your totals. You assume that most rooftop solar is behind the meter. That is incorrect during the middle of the day. At 1245 4Nov18 the demand in SA is reported to be 1307MW with 692MW of that demand being served by rooftop solar. NEM is reporting the SA demand at 750MW because it has no control over the rooftop. On the basis that these are correct then rooftops are exporting 557MW. You would need to sum all the export of all the individual meters at retail level to actually know how much is going out to the grid. AEMO do not report the total demand although they make estimates of the demand and what will be supplied by solar. Irrespective 557MW out of estimated 692MW is a big slice.
Other states have managed to keep grid prices down such that the economics of solar have not been as clear cut as SA for as long. However all states on the NEM have aggressive support for intermittents and are all following SA into the abyss. At 1230 4Nov18 Qld has demand of 7130MW and 2010MW is being supplied by solar. NEM are only seeing demand of 5800MW in Qld meaning 1330MW of rooftop is going back into the grid.
Grid prices will continue to go up encouraging more to install solar and the demand on coal generators will swing more wildly as time goes by. That makes it increasingly uneconomic for coal generators.
You would need to treat the export of rooftop solar to the grid correctly to get the true picture of how the grid is changing. South Australia has definitely reduced its consumption of coal powered generation and all other states are following. Higher grid prices encourages more people to instal rooftop systems. Anyone who thinks grid prices in Australia are coming down are delusional or hopeful beyond belief that Australia will find an influential politician with analytical ability.
So if you treat the rooftop solar correctly you will see that coal has a declining proportion of generation per the chart in the energy update. Even taking coal generation as being steady for the last 10 years, it is declining dramatically on a per capita basis because the population has increased 15% in the last 10 years.
Keep watching as I am certain you will see impacts in other states similar to SA within five years. Also be aware that your analysis has a blind spot to the full picture. The increase in population is resulting in an increase in energy demand but coal generators are not seeing an increase and other states are now pushing as hard as SA toward intermittents; guaranteeing higher grid prices that become the incentive for more rooftop systems. Labor in Victoria is offering up to $2225 bribe plus interest free loan to instal solar systems if they get re-elected. Liberals in SA offered subsidised batteries as their bribe back in March; basically matching Labor.
15
And the fact that we are paying three times as much as we should be for power doesn’t seem to worry you RickWill?
Get a life.
Grow up.
CO2 is a hoax and you are one of the suckers (you are not lonely).
WHY ARE RENEWABLES STILL SUBSIDIsED IF THEY ARE THE ANSWER TO THE MAIDEN’S PRAYER?
71
People who have installed solar have mostly reduced their electricity bills. I know that burdens those who cannot or do not install rooftop solar but it reduces their burden compared with paying for grid scale intermittents under the RET. Rooftop power is about a third the cost to retailers of grid scale wind under the RET. If the RET remains at the present level and more rooftop solar goes in, the price of LGCs will fall dramatically because retailers will be able to meet their RET obligation just by buying rooftop solar at a price much lower than wholesale price plus LGCs.
I cannot see any prospect of any government in Australia slowing the gravy train. Tony Abbott was the last hope. I doubt we will see either major party, federally or in any state, going to an election to end the RET. In fact the opposite is likely with most proposing to increase the RET as well as offering more direct subsidies and interest free loans.
I am a realist and have taken prudent steps to control my living expenses. I saw the prospect for upward spiralling grid costs many years ago.
11
Oh Rick, please,
Yeah! Of course. Why would anyone even bother reading the actual power consumption data from the AEMO site? The Australian regulator. Surely you’re not saying that they are telling ‘porkies’ now, are you?
The power generation data is then collated from the actual power generation data, also from the AEMO, updated every five minutes.
That data IS (and let me stress that ….. IS) accurate.
When I take the data into account, I do two sets of rolling averages, one where I treat Rooftop Solar as behind the meter, and one where I add it on to give me a correct percentage of the total.
There are three sites for rooftop solar totals, and all of them agree, so that’s what I use as data for rooftop solar.
Then I did the data for both RTS and coal fired power for just the time of ALL rooftop generation, so that was also accurate as well.
And please, stop using South Australia as an example, as I made great pains to stress that SA only consumes 6.2% of the Australian total power consumption.
What happens in SA affects South Australia only, and has ZERO effect on coal fired power in the three Main States of consumption, which make up almost 90% of all power used, and as I have found through very careful work, coal fired power just hums along as it always has done.
There is MORE power coming from coal fired power now than there was four or five years back, and in fact, there is less coal fired power now than there was then.
Tony.
140
Only way the AEMO wouldn’t know what’s been generated and what’s being consumed from solar is if the house didn’t have a smart meter or version of .
02
Tony,
Check the wording
”
“The average cost of energy in North America” displayed the costs going into the grid, so for wind and solar, take the average cost of the reliable sources, add 25% for stepped inefficiencies (they must provide “spinning back up” for the completely random timing for wind and less unreliable for solar as these unreliables get priority otherwise their meager capacity factors would be worse) times 75% for the duration of time that they run when the unreliables don’t and average that with the cost of unreliabels and you get a roughly average (and grossly simplified) cost just above that of Coal. Take wind and solar off the grid, and those numbers are more accurate but quite useless for the energy market.
This “complexity” is beyond the soundbite capacity of the faith-based delusional greens and their parrots (media and their believers) pimping for the rent seekers who actually know better but need the obfuscation to live off the politico-green hysteria peddling symbiosis. IOW, Politicians and their clients live off hysteria, it sells.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/11/04/blowout-253/#comment-1157147
00
SA is the perfect example of where it is all heading. Prices are going up in every state. All state governments are supporting more intermittents and heading the way of SA. More people are installing rooftop solar to reduce their electricity bills.
There is no doubt that the variability of the wind generation in SA using the 600MW link to Victoria to source and sink power at will hastened the closure of Hazelwood. That has caused a reduction in coal generated power in Victoria. The same will happen with Liddell when the 800MW link is built.
You are not recognising that the metered power generation in the grid is static over the last 10 years despite the population increasing 15% in that time.
01
AEMO have no visibility of behind the meter use. The only data on behind the meter use is estimated on installed capacity by companies such as SMA using their inverter data. AEMO data is increasingly meaningless with regard actual power consumption. Australian population has increased 15% in 10 years while metered energy in the NEM peaked at 195TWh in 2009 and there is a declining trend over those 10 years:
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Images/Reports/2017/EFI-charts/NEM-annual-consumption—scenarios.png?h=427&w=800&hash=4E44A943C5177782CF6C4CE6470EBD6686DC0988
Who knows what the actual consumption is because anyone with a roof or open space can now make their own.
There is limited understanding why intermittents drive up grid prices and certainly no one with the will in government to slow the gravy train. There is no doubt the economics of coal stations have suffered (Northern and Hazelwood closed) and existing ones will go through economic ups and downs as more intermittents are connected to the grid; up when the next station falls off the perch and then a gradual down as more intermittents come on stream. THe 800MW link between SA and NSW will unleash the already constrained wind capacity in SA into the NSW network.
01
Rick Will mentions this:
Of course it is! (/sarc)
Middle of the day South Australia power consumption Less than 800MW.
Middle of the day power consumption, NSW, QLD, VIC …..
Of which, coal fired power supplies 15000MW+
Hmm! Let’s see rooftop solar handle that.
Tony.
20
You make the same mistake again:
The 800MW is what AEMO sees. For example at 1pm yesterday estimated consumption was 1325MW with 713MW being supplied by rooftop solar. AEMO saw 793MW.
You need to get a handle on the solar output to get the true picture of consumption. It is the growth in intermittents that impact the steady production from coal plants. Northern and Hazelwood have gone. Others will follow. Rooftop solar capacity is growing at around 1GW per year. It will have an increasingly destabilising impact across the grid.
01
I doubt there is ANY way of knowing, even approximately, how much RTS is “fed back” into the grid !
Smart meter data is limited to a small % of RTS installs, and currently not collected or consolidated anywhere that i am aware of.
The RTS data provided by the AEMO is a rough approximation , estimated from the total quantity of known panel sales combined with solar exposure data for specific areas…together with “sample” data from a tiny amount of monitored installations around the country.
There is analysis online by solar systems researchers that suggests that RTS systems below 3kW export very little, and even 5kW systems rarely export more than 40-50% of their output. And the average sized system is still below 3kW.
So whilst the SA RTS systems will reduce the daytime demand on the grid, you cannot assume any significant ammount of that RTS output is actually available to the wider grid.
20
Sort of makes sense that the variability will, as far as possible, be dealt with by the reliables most able to vary output.
20
Correct. Brown coal burners and boilers have the greatest thermal mass and the slowest response (days). Black coal a bit faster, gas much faster (hours), diesel and hydro faster than gas (minutes) and batteries within milliseconds
11
You have now proved beyond doubt that you are a [snip]
00
You have no clue. There is no difference between brown or black coal for a cold start up -about 2 days. However, either running at about 90% can get to 100% within 10 minutes with black coal slightly faster. Combined cycle gas is in fact slower than coal.
With regard to power output it has gone down inspite of more people due to closure of heavy industry such as aluminium smelting, steel production, copper smelting, car msking etc. The high prices and unreliable power supply is sending industry and rmploymrnt overseas. Instead of exporting processed minerals such as steel, copper and even cement Australia is now importing.
20
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.
How “special” was the recent slowdown?
Warmists and Alarmists are still fighting the idea, that there was a recent slowdown. In order to show just how “special” the recent slowdown was, I have created a new type of graph, which shows the warming rate plotted against the date range which was used to calculate the warming rate.
That may sound confusing, but when you look at the graph, it will become clear. The graph is based on very simple principles.
https://agree-to-disagree.com/how-special-was-the-recent-slowdown
23
Wrong. It does.
“Global warming” is a lingua franca cliché for the falsified anthropogenic global warming hypothesis based on a ideologically motivated absurd deterministic theory (being applied to a non-linear stochastic chaotic system) and therefore, of necessity, dependent and predicated on ‘settled politics’.
Most importantly, a “slow down” has never been predicted by the IPCC, UN, or any Met organisation.
A hypothesis that fails to predict leads to the rejection of the null hypothesis and its underlying theory.
NO UN IPCC climate model indicates or indicated a “slow down” temporary or otherwise at any time in the face of rising pCO2.
111
When I read this (twice) I realised Sheldon is agreeing that there is warming but the pause is real and valid .
No different to what we are saying really , is it ?
We all know the climate is changing after all the only thing our side doesn’t agree with is what caused the slight warming if any ,Co2 or natural and there is no evidence to convict Co2 .
30
When will “climate scientists” discover the value of error bars, I wonder?
41
UAH land from 1980-1997
https://i.postimg.cc/vZGHgPQT/UAH_NH_land_1980-1998.png
UAH land from 2000-2015
https://i.postimg.cc/XvJjxpB0/UAH_NH_land_2000-2015.png
Not just one slow-down, but 34 years out of 40 of NON-WARMING, separated by two NON-CO2 related El Nino events.
75
See how your “trends” all centre on the 1998 El Nino
Its all you have. !!
66
Take El Niño out of the equation and the warmists have no argument unless they want to blame Co2 for the El Niño, which I’m sure they’re working out how to do that and keep a straight face .
73
The Klimatariat reckon they have evidence that El Niño boosts CO2 levels, but they are a little way off from finding a definitive answer. Grant money assured into the never never.
20
Sheldon,
Whilst this is an interesting illustration of data,… Yet again you fail to mention where you obtain your raw data from ?
10
The biggest threat to the US in general and Trump in particular is the “caravan”. It isn’t waning, it is gaining strength 20,000 now we are told.
Trump has vowed not to allow them in and has a strong military force on the border to prevent this. I saw a film of a train with at least 26 tanks on it heading south. Somehow I doubt that the mob will take “No” for an answer and politely walk back home, I dread the outcome.
61
There’ll be batallions of SJWs mobilized to meet them and I read the arrival is a couple of weeks away.
After the Democrats get hammered on Tuesday the Trump Deranged will begin hyperventilating and it’s anybody’s guess what the outcome will be on the border.
61
Allegedly, people working for Texan candidate Beto O’Rourke (Dem) have been using campaign funds to provide food and other goods to the “caravan”. Did Beto know? who knows…
There’s nothing wrong with charity, but there is something wrong with how this seems to have been done.
70
Amazing how happily suicidal the SJWs are with the nations culture and economy. I guess they are desperate for more people to mow their lawns and wash their dishes.
10
I understand that someone suggested all “caravans” be henceforward admitted and directed into the Socialist Republic of Kalifornia, where they will be contained in perpetuity.
30
It seems my 20,000 estimate is overblown. A Rebel Media reporter, talking to Ezra Lavant said a couple of thousand have taken Mexico’s offer and there are 5;000 left. That will dwindle if it takes another 2 weeks to get to the border. That should be manageable.
50
Hi folks , it’s the American midterm elections this week , how hard is it for us that want to defend WESTERN CULTURE based on judAo Christian values to defend ourselfs
72
Yes its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness.
40
Our MSM is full of it, we are the 51st state after all.
The judAo Christian thingy has caused a lot of misery over the past two thousand years, I’m not sure having a singular deity is such a good idea. Unless its the sun god.
With the current election I think you will see a pattern emerge of greater involvement by women and millennials, but as its not compulsory voting the outcome is uncertain.
10
Having “compulsory” voting gets the message across that voting is not only a right, but a responsibility. If you dont vote, STFU and stop moaning about politics. 🙂
10
I’m for compulsory voting, but I reserve the right to vote Informal.
Being under the boot of the pseudo Marxist consortium I may have little choice.
00
McNamara’s Morons, another shameful chapter in US history.
It could be that the Forrest Gump story is based on fact. McNamara forced the Army to enlist severely handicapped men and shipped them to ‘Nam. The results were tragic for the individuals who died at a higher rate than others but, of course, they were a danger to those around them.
Watch and weep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J2VwFDV4-g
30
The US version of the T4 Program, in modern dress?
10
Japan is doubling their migration rate , from 30 to 60 and I wonder how long it will take the Greens or Labor to praise them in their efforts .
30
theirABC broadcasts the following CBC program weekly. it was on overnite – an MIT guy plus an MIT professor to respond (with effusive praise):
13 Oct: CBC: Scientists play Fortnite to teach us about climate change
***Listen 21:26
Back in the summer, Canadian climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe uploaded a webinar to YouTube, and it got about 1,000 views. On the same day, her son posted a video of himself playing Fortnite, and it was seen by 10 times as many people. She lamented this fact on Twitter.
That her webinar was not as popular as her son’s upload is not surprising: Fortnite is quite possibly the most popular video game ever…
Millions of people watch streams of other people playing video games on a platform called Twitch. It’s so popular that it outstrips NFL football games in terms of audience.
That got some people in the science community thinking: what if you could combine teaching about climate change with streaming game play?
So that’s exactly what Henri Drake did. He’s a graduate student in oceanography at ***MIT, and he plays Fortnite. So he started inviting people to ask him questions about climate change on his Twitch streaming channel, called Climate Fortnite.
He also invites other climate scientists to play alongside him, and they discuss topics from greenhouse gases to rising ocean temperatures, as other viewers type questions on the screen.
Drake told Spark host Nora Young that it allows him to reach an audience that is otherwise difficult to attract.
“I want to reach an audience that might not have an actual science background and wouldn’t have access to these kinds of topics otherwise,” he said.
“On Twitch it’s just basically anyone who happened to see my stream when they are scrolling through could join, and they can ask questions directly to an expert — which I think is really valuable and sort of unique.”
***VIDEO: 48min13sec
T.L. Taylor, a sociologist and comparative media studies professor, also at ***MIT, agreed.
She’s studied online communities for more than two decades, and her latest book, Watch Me Play: Twitch and the rise of Game Live Streaming is coming out this month.
“It fits in so many ways with what we see happening on Twitch which is people gathering together, around a shared love of gaming, but infusing that playspace with other conversations as well,” she said. “And in this case it’s serious science issues and questions and answers about climate change.”
Climate Fortnite is unique because it’s trying to engage its audience around a specific issue, she said…
(Henri) Drake said the channel is catching on, and the number of people who join him to play and talk about climate change is increasing. Other scientists are also using the game to talk about their subjects, he noted.
However, he cautioned that care is required when trying to infuse game play with another subject. “You could easily get into some unethical behaviour if you push that too far.”
Taylor said the Twitch community is, unfortunately, subject to the same fallibilities as other social media platforms.
“All of these spaces have tremendous, wonderful possibilities. But we also see everything from just ***misinformation to harassment and trolling. We all have to be pretty aware.”
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/scientists-play-fortnite-to-teach-us-about-climate-change-1.4860665
30
when the professor spoke of –
***misinformation to harassment and trolling
my immediate thought was that is precisely what Drake & other “climate scientsits” are doing!
***97 followers, 3 to 5 regulars who ask questions, but Wired considers that warrants this massive piece of PR:
9 Oct: Wired: I Learned About Climate Change By Watching Fortnite on Twitch
by Angela Watercutter
know very little about climate change. I know even less about Fortnite. And Twitch. (Yes, I know; I should be fired.) I’m aware that they’re all real things that exist, but videogames and global warming aren’t my beat. Yet, I’ve been staring at this one Fortnite Twitch video for a good hour. No idea what’s going on; still enthralled. Amid the shoot-outs and loot-grabs, the streamer in the headset is also very patiently explaining methane emissions to a user named Xoiiku. Usually when someone brings up burping and farting during gameplay, it’s a prank at best. This time it’s definitely not.
That’s how science goes on ClimateFortnite, a channel full of climate scientists who discuss issues of global warming while playing Fortnite on Twitch, hoping the platform’s massive reach will get their message in front of more eyeballs. And according to Henri Drake, the graduate student in climate science at MIT who was talking about methane in the video I watched, it specifically gets climate change in front of the young audience who will have to deal with its effects of the actions (or inaction) humans take right now.
“It builds a community where people can ask the hard questions directly to an expert,” Drake says. “For a topic like climate change that is steeped in misinformation, direct access to experts is crucial.”…
Drake sent up a flare on Twitter looking for scientists to contribute, and ultimately got quite a few to contribute. The videos can be anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours and while ClimateFortnite doesn’t have a huge number of followers (***97, as of this writing), the potential is massive. Twitch boasts some 15 million daily active users, and scads of those are Fortnite fans…
Being able to relate is key. “Scientists do a good job of communicating via traditional routes—talking to journalists and policymakers and writing op-eds,” says Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M who has been featured on Drake’s channel. “But not everyone listens to policymakers or reads op-eds or follows scientists on Twitter. ClimateFortnite is a great way to reach people who don’t get news from traditional sources.”…
So far, the public service these scientists are doing isn’t getting a ton of traction. Journalists (hi again!) and people on Science Twitter think it’s great, but Drake reports there are only about ***three to five “regulars” who tune in to every stream and ask questions. Drake hopes that number will increase and notes his sessions get a few dozen more viewers once they go up on YouTube; he’s also expanding his efforts to a game called Eco that is entirely focused on mitigating climate change.
Considering climate change denial, or at least skepticism, seems to be on the rise, I ask Drake if people ever come to him looking for a debate. He says it’s happened before, but the questioner was harmless…
https://www.wired.com/story/fortnite-twitch-climate-scientists/
00
Judge, jury and executioner.
As old as the hills.
If only they’d own up to the magnitude of uncertainty.
They won’t. They never will.
Not good for the globalism business.
30
averaging ***30 people a stream – or ***20 in the case mentioned – but their ABC thinks it warrants an entire programme on Triple J:
I couldn’t access it from the google result:
Scientists are playing Fortnite to talk to kids about climate change – ABC
ABC – 5 days ago
It’s a strange mix, but the ClimateFortnite Twitch channel Henri … video of him playing the game with other climate scientists and they all take ..
cached version:
ABC TripleJ Hacked: Scientists are playing Fortnite to talk to kids about climate change
Posted Tue 30 Oct 2018, 6:45pm Updated Wed 31 Oct 2018, 10:33am
By Stephen Stockwell
After hearing an 11 year-old’s Fortnite video got more views than a climate change lecture, Henri Drake had an idea.
A red haired cowgirl grabs a submachine gun from a building and as she runs away from an oncoming storm the player in control starts talking about the impact CFC emissions have on global warming.
“We basically have since banned those materials… but we found out last year that the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere is increasing again.”
The cowgirl is Henri Drake, a casual gamer and climate scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the game is Fortnite, a crazy popular multiplayer shooter game.
It’s a strange mix, but the ClimateFortnite Twitch channel Henri created is using the game’s popularity to teach people about global warming and climate policy.
He streams video of him playing the game with other climate scientists and they all take turns answering questions from the audience.
When a question about the Paris climate agreement comes up you hear Chris’s voice over the mic, a masters student from Boston University. He starts explaining who could fill the void if the US pulls out of the Paris agreement as the team skydives out of the Battle Bus, the way every Fortnite game starts.
Chris names several countries while landing in Pleasant Park, “China is obviously a large emitter,” before Henri interrupts to direct the team: “Let’s go north-east side.”
Chris continues as the team meets up, “Because [China is] such a large impact on the global economy and global emissions they’re someone to watch.”
Right place, right time.
This climate Q&A stream almost started by accident. A few months ago, when playing Fortnite in his PhD downtime, Henri Drake saw a tweet from climate scientist Katharine Heyhoe about how her son’s gaming vids were getting heaps more views than her lectures.
“I put two and two together and figured I could stream it on Twitch,” Henri tells Hack.
“Part of the gaming community really likes it.
“I get a lot of kids who are scared about what climate change means for their future, they come on and like being able to ask their question directly to an expert.”
The biggest streamers on Twitch pull in hundreds of thousands of viewers and at one point in June more than 1.5 million people were watching Fortnite streams. ClimateFortnite isn’t quite in that league though.
“We’ve been averaging about ***30 people a stream, which doesn’t sound like much but that’s the average,” Henri says.
Henri explains the average viewer number can be a bit misleading because it doesn’t account too well for drop-ins. For example, the Monday stream only had an average viewer number of around ***20 but there were almost 3,500 viewers over the 90 minute stream.
“I like to compare that with some of the other outreach that I do, so I’ll go and do a talk at a middle school, that’ll be a two hour event, I have to travel there, I have to prepare and then only about 20 kids get to see it.
“Even now I’ve amplified my communication just by doing it online, so I’m pretty happy with that.”…
Spreading the good word climate
Compared to the pure-bred gamers on Twitch these scientists are barely making a splash, but that doesn’t bother Henri Drake.
He’s not ruling out the a rise into the top tier of streamers.
“The upper limit for how many views you can get on a twitch stream is kind of absurd, there are people who literally have an average of hundreds of thousands of viewers every day.”
Even if Henri doesn’t make it to that level he’s pretty pleased with the response so far: “If I quit now I’d be happy with it.”
“I just want people to be aware that climate is going to be a huge issue over the next 100 years or so and I think there’s no age that’s too early to start talking about it.
“So if we get some 10 year old kids going up to their parents and saying, hey I want to learn about climate change, even is just a few kids do that, then for me that’s a big win.”
And hell, they’re getting some pretty good feedback during the stream too, with Henri getting this message during a match.
“We got our greatest compliment on our stream so far,” he pipes into the chat.
“We are, quote, woke: ‘This stream is woke.’”
(0 COMMENTS)
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Scientists Are Playing Fortnite on Twitch to Teach People About Climate Change
by DAVID NIELD
Science Alert – 16 Oct 2018
The channel now has 17 videos and counting, with Drake and his co-hosts discussing the finer points of climate change with other online gamers. From methane gas emissions to renewable energy, there’s a lot of ground covered – both virtually on the Fortnite island and in terms of the topics discussed…
The clip above features NASA Earth Scientist Peter Griffith dropping in to talk carbon cycle and warming in the Arctic while Drake blasts his way through a few opponents on the Fortnite island: it’s a good example of how the channel mixes gameplay with climate chat…
While viewing figures are relatively low for now, Drake and the other scientists working on the channel are hoping to attract a bigger audience over time. The channel is now available on YouTube too, and the very top Fortnite streams can attract hundreds of thousands of viewers…
And as well as highlighting some of the challenges and dangers of climate change, scientists on the channel also discuss some of the ways we can try and model it, mitigate it, and ensure the stable future of the planet.
If you’re a fan of Fortnite or just science in general, we’d recommend tuning in…
These Scientists Formed a Fortnite Squad to Teach Players About Climate Change
Gizmodo-7 Sep. 2018
But it got MIT graduate student Henri Drake thinking…
owned by virulently anti-Trump owner of WaPo, Jeff Bezos:
Wikipedia: Twitch.tv
Twitch is a live streaming video platform owned by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon…
On May 18, 2014, Variety first reported that Google had reached a preliminary deal to acquire Twitch through its YouTube subsidiary for approximately US$1 billion…
On August 25, 2014, it was announced that Amazon.com would acquire Twitch Interactive for US$970 million…
Sources reported that the rumored Google deal had fallen through and allowed Amazon to make the bid…
As a teaching tool
Twitch is often used for video game tutorials; the nature of Twitch allows mass numbers of learners to interact with each other and the instructor in real time…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch.tv
20
some good stuff:
AUDIO: 1hr06min: 2 Nov: Dan Bongino Show: The George Papadopoulos Interview You’ve Been Waiting For
by Team Bongino
In this special episode, I interview George Papadopoulos and his answers are explosive. You don’t want to miss this.
https://bongino.com/the-george-papadopoulos-interview-youve-been-waiting-for/
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the first and only pro-Trump BBC article I have ever seen online:
2 Nov: BBC: How real is Trump’s jobs ‘miracle’?
By Andrew Walker & Daniele Palumbo
BBC World Service economics correspondent & BBC data journalist
A successful American political strategist once said “it’s the economy stupid” or something very similar…
Just a few days before the Congressional elections, President Trump had some helpful economic news – on employment – to put some wind into his sails.
The final bit of major economic news before the election showed another month of strong gains in jobs and the unemployment rate staying at its lowest in almost half a century.
Employment is perhaps the economic variable that matters most politically…
The number of people with jobs increased by a quarter of a million in October and the unemployment rate was 3.7%. Average hourly earnings were 3.1% higher than a year earlier…
The unemployment rate hasn’t been lower since December 1969…
Many economists think that there is an unemployment rate below which inflation will pick up…
To the extent that this theory is right, if unemployment goes below that level, you are likely to get a problem with increasingly rapid price rises.
Many thought that the US would run into that problem long before it got to current unemployment rates. It hasn’t happened…
Wage rises have gathered pace however, after several years of sluggish performance.
The new figures are the strongest since April 2009 and well above inflation, which means they suggest rising real pay. The rise in pay may reflect the fact that over the last few months, official figures show more job openings than people seeking them…
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46075879
theirABC has nothing on the above, but they found space for:
“HBO not happy with Trump’s use of ‘sanctions are coming’ Game of Thrones meme”
and taxpayer-funded Zoe Daniels found space for this:
2 Nov: ABC: America is a powder keg ahead of midterms as Donald Trump’s supporters rally behind him
By Washington bureau chief Zoe Daniel
Strengthen the economy? Tick. Economic growth is running at over 4 per cent, partly built on the policies of the Obama administration, but whatever.
Grow jobs and reduce unemployment? Tick. Unemployment is at lows not seen for 40-plus years. See above comment re: Obama…
Tax cuts? Tick. Trickle-down economics may be a long-term fail but for the moment people have a few extra bucks and a bit of optimism, and they’re good with that…
I could go on, but you get my drift. (Yes I know Trump’s opponents find several of the above things unconscionable. Here’s a piece from The New York Times that also looks at his “reality distortion field”.)
Anyway, there are several avenues for nuanced rebuttal of the above report card (thanks Politifact)…
Just while we’re looking at Politifact, here’s a pie chart that breaks down the promises that Mr Trump has in the works, kept in full, kept with compromise, broken or stalled.
Interesting huh?…
America right now is a powder keg
Last week a man allegedly sent a collection of pipe bombs to high-profile Democrats and Trump critics before being arrested.
And then in a separate incident another man entered a Pittsburgh synagogue on the weekend, shooting 11 people dead.
Minutes before the attack the Pittsburgh shooter posted on hate speech social media site Gab…
Remember last week I was consulting the dictionary on the meaning of ‘nationalist?’
New word for the week
“Stochastic”.
It means “random” or “involving chance or probability.” Stochastic terrorism has been defined as the use of language “to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable”…
It’s fed by things like the fact that since Mr Trump took office, hate crimes have risen 57 per cent, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League…
Oh, by the way
Twitter launched a new midterms page … and it immediately started surfacing fake news, conspiracy theorists and trolls…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-02/midterm-elections-trump-supporters/10458826
why hasn’t Zoe been withdrawn from the US and a proper journalist sent to replace her, if there is such a thing at theirABC?
40
2 Nov: BusinessGreen: Global briefing…China calls for more analysis into cost of meeting 1.5C target
by Madeleine Cuff
China has this week issued its first official response to the IPCC’s landmark 1.5C report, calling for further analysis into “cost-effective” options for meeting the ambitious target.
According to Chinese media reports (CHINESE-LANGUAGE LINK), Li Gao, climate department chief at the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and the Environment, said further research is needed into the lowest cost pathway for achieving 1.5C, and more innovation is needed to develop new carbon-cutting technologies.
But Gao went on to stress China’s commitment to doing more to slash its emissions, promising to “increase our efforts in this direction”.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/analysis/3065256/global-briefing
LINK GOES TO CHINESE-LANGUAGE SITE, RELEVANT QUOTE TRANSLATED:
GAO: At the same time, this report also made some assessments on the related costs. We believe that whether the temperature rise is below 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees, it is a very big challenge and needs more effective actions in terms of mitigation, capital and technological innovation.
At the same time, we also recognize that to take relevant actions, we need to conduct further in-depth research and evaluation of the scientists’ recommendations, especially considering cost effectiveness. What measures can be taken to achieve the target of temperature rise control at 1.5 degrees, what costs are required for these measures, and whether cost-effective measures can be screened out. At the same time, some measures are not yet available, and further research and research are needed…
10
Maybe not the first to post this but it is worthy data that does no harm to repeat. The state of Global Warming as of October 2018:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_October_2018_v6.jpg
A massive 0.22C above the 30 year average to 2010. The first time this global average value was exceeded in the Satellite era was 1987. So here we have 31 years of catastrophic global warming without an increase in tropospheric temperature.
There is currently a massive search underway in the cLIMATE sCIENCE cOMMUNITY to find the missing heat. If anyone can help can they please notify Michael Mann or James Hansen. Any vague clue will be considered. The more obscure will be funded.
50
3 Nov: Guardian Katharine Murphy: Instead of ‘fair dinkum’ power, how about some ‘fair dinkum’ action?
Labor was lashed for doing something about carbon emissions; the Coalition is being lambasted for doing nothing
On Tuesday, Combet launched a new report by the Industrial Relations Research Centre at the University of New South Wales investigating how countries such as Australia can achieve a fair transition for coal workers displaced as the economy decarbonises.
It got a bit lost in the wash of the week – let’s face it, it’s hard for substance to compete with the rolling spectacle of political dysfunction – but it’s an interesting bit of analysis funded by the CFMEU’s mining and energy division…
Business and energy retailers are on the frontline of increasingly frantic calls for policy certainty. The Gillard government would have killed for the conditions the Coalition has blown away over the last three years with reckless abandon.
In any case, Combet ventured out this week about the future of coal. He insists the outlook is clear. If the world, and specifically Australia, is to do what is necessary to contain warming at 2C, then almost all coal-fired power will be gone by 2040. “That’s only 22 years away,” he tells Guardian Australia. “The energy companies get it. This is very much front of mind for the asset holders, and they want rational policy. They aren’t fighting it anymore. They don’t want stranded assets.”…
“Workers in coal power stations need to know the truth. You really have to tell people the truth about structural change when it’s coming – you can’t be populist about it”…
Earlier this year I asked the resources minister Matt Canavan whether he felt an obligation to help Australian communities face up to the inevitability of a carbon-constrained future. He responded as if I’d committed a thought crime (LINK)…
While the science says the energy sector has to transition, and quickly, Taylor is digging in for coal…
When it comes to Australia’s 8,000 coal workers and the communities that depend on those workers spending their incomes locally, governments can either pretend they can hold back the future, indulging inane, virtue signalling with Alan Jones about “fair dinkum” power while letting real people be crunched in the transformation, or they can act to make the shift as just as possible…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/03/instead-of-fair-dinkum-power-how-about-some-fair-dinkum-action-on-climate-change
2 Nov: AFR: BHP’s $14.7bn capital return a sign of resources revival
by Chanticleer, Tony Boyd
Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting lifted profit 28 per cent to $1.75 billion in the year to June and Glencore’s Hunter Valley coal mining operations are firing on all cylinders judging from a briefing for analysts on Wednesday.
Glencore’s upbeat disclosures about the performance of its Hail Creek thermal coal mine will be read by some as an indictment of Rio Tinto, which sold an 82 per cent interest in the Hail Creek joint venture for $1.55 billion in March this year…
Coal is now Australia’s single largest export earner according to the latest analysis of the September trade data by Annette Beacher, chief Asia-Pacific macro strategist at TD Securities…
https://www.afr.com/brand/chanticleer/bhps-147bn-capital-return-a-sign-of-resources-revival-20181101-h17e7n
1 Nov: TheBull: Record trade with China
Coal, coke and briquettes rose 4.0 per cent, due to increasing demand for thermal coal
http://www.thebull.com.au/articles/a/78083-record-trade-with-china.html
30
3 Nov: Sina: Chinese vice premier meets World Bank president
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He met with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim Friday in Beijing.
Noting that this year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening up, Liu said the first China International Import Expo, to be held in Shanghai from Nov. 5 to Nov. 10, is a major policy initiative and commitment taken on China’s own accord to open up its market.
“The Chinese side is willing to deepen development partnership with the World Bank to improve international economic governance and to promote economic globalization as well as sustainable development,” Liu said.
The World Bank highly evaluated China’s achievements in reform and opening up as well as poverty reduction and development, Kim said, also expressing gratitude to China for its positive contributions to the World Bank.
http://english.sina.com/china/d/2018-11-03/detail-ihnfikve9818113.shtml
2014: World Bank Projects: China Partnership for Market Readiness
ABSTRACT*
The objective of the Partnership for Market Readiness Project is to enable China to design a national carbon emissions trading scheme. There are two components to the project, the first component being enabling design of key building blocks for a national Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). This component will support technical assistance, studies, including policy research and analysis, and workshops that aim to assist the DDC in developing the key ETS building blocks…
26 Sept: BrettonWoddsProject: Carbon finance: The role of the World Bank in carbon trading markets
Summary
PHOTO: A climate protestor in Melbourne in December 2009, while COP15 meetings were taking place in Copenhagen (PLACARD “ETS EMISSIONS TRADING SCAM”)
This Inside the Institutions analyses the role of the World Bank in carbon finance initiatives, including managing trust funds linked to carbon trading measures under the Kyoto Protocol, and supporting emissions trading schemes adopted by countries and sub-national entities.
Over the past two decades, the World Bank Group (WBG) has emerged as a major actor in initiatives to build carbon trading markets, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process and beyond. The WBG currently acts as a trustee for 15 individual carbon funds and facilities…
The WBG has been active in the ‘proof of concept’ of carbon trading schemes – sometimes alternatively referred to as emissions trading systems (ETS) – creating the first-ever carbon fund with the establishment of the Prototype Carbon Fund in 1999. Since then, its activities have expanded considerably…
https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2018/09/carbon-finance-role-world-bank-carbon-trading-markets/
19 Oct: TheFinancial: IFC Invests in China Bank Green Bond
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has committed $150 million in a green bond issued by China Banking Corporation, the first privately-owned commercial bank in the Philippines. The bond is the second green bond issued by a local commercial bank, opening up more financing for projects that combat climate change…
2 Nov: Devex: Will the World Bank push China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the right direction?
By Michael Igoe
In the 18 months since the World Bank signed on as a partner to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the risks associated with the massive infrastructure investment effort have begun to crystalize, prompting some observers to ask just what kind of a partner the World Bank plans to be.
In a handful of countries — including Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and others — concerns about debt sustainability in the face of massive Chinese lending are on the rise…
“It’s basically very simple for us. We are a country-based kind of organization,” said Mahmoud Mohieldin, the bank’s senior vice president for the 2030 development agenda, United Nations relations, and partnerships…
Mohieldin said that in a meeting with Arab and African finance ministers during the bank’s annual meetings in Indonesia, he sympathized that they must feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of initiatives — each with their own policy and investment requirements — that have descended on developing countries in recent years. From the Sustainable Development Goals, to the Paris Agreement on climate change, to the Belt and Road Initiative, to the variety of “old ties with the conventional economic powers,” government ministries are tasked with a massive coordination and prioritization challenge.
Part of the bank’s role, he said, is to help ministers figure out “how to harness and manage all of that,” according to Mohieldin…
https://www.devex.com/news/will-the-world-bank-push-china-s-belt-and-road-initiative-in-the-right-direction-93657
10
While mooching around on the internet today I decided to have a look at from the wattsupwiththat site. This comment I thoutht may be worth reproducing here, it from Dr Norman Page and his research into the possibility of the next climate cooling event
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/02/the-millennial-turning-point-solar-activity-and-the-coming-cooling/#comment-2509255
Dr Norman Page ¯November 3, 2018 at 5:31 pm
[My italics and bold]
60
I wrote a blog article about another instance of rule makers making rules that set limits within natural variability:
Diesel Bans Based on Limits Within “Natural” Variability
Subsequently, marathon runners cause NOx levels to rise dangerously close to the permitted level. 😛
90
ee https://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/11/chen-quanguo-xinjiang-dictator.html
00
ho! Once upon a time there was a gutless mouse
who worshipped ever at the trade altar,
hence he was sure to lose the House,
his shirt, mind, fellows and falter falter falter
30
in plain english:: https://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-kissinger-mao-secret-deal-1971-and.html
00
Sounds like fun …
Royal Australian Mint launches treasure hunt involving $1 coins
Royal Australian Mint chief executive officer Ross MacDiarmid said three million $1 coins had secretly been released in September each stamped with either an “A”, “U” or “S” underneath the body of the largest kangaroo.
If you look closely you’ll also see a tiny “35”, a nod to the $1 coin’s 35th anniversary next year.
The challenge for Australians is to find a $1 coin of each letter for the chance to win prizes.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/royal-australian-mint-launches-treasure-hunt-involving-1-coins/news-story/9fde98455953d22ee441d0f7e681d858
30
did a search for alt-right on ABC website – 196 results. did a search for alt-left and got one result – the Stephanie March Foreign Correpsondent piece below from March 2018.
went to Stephanie’s Twitter page only to find her latest tweet is spruiking that program in relation to mid-term elections!
TWEET: 3 Nov: Stephanie March, ABC North America Correspondent: Ahead of the #midterms for some insight into how some parts of the U.S are divided check out our doco on #antifa group #redneckrevolt from earlier this year. @ForeignOfficial #antifascist
2 Retweets 9 Likes
https://twitter.com/steph_march/status/1058827670920806401
meet the softly-spoken, articulate, friendly, disarming, honourable, food-sharing, working class resisters, who wear the red bandana symbol of coal miners, as they react to the provocations of fascist Trump and his supporters!
18 March: ABC: Antifa: The hard left’s call to arms
Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president a year ago reinvigorated many right-wing groups, including white supremacists. Now the militant left is fighting back with some shock tactics of its own
Foreign Correspondent By North America correspondent Stephanie March
Softly-spoken and slight of build, Mr Dixon is a vegan who spends his days lecturing in anthropology at a local university.
Today he’s preparing for the moment he may raise a deadly weapon on the streets of a US city…
The rise of Antifa
Mr Dixon, 45, is a member of the far-left group Redneck Revolt, whose chapters have multiplied in the past year from just a handful to over 30 across the United States, they claim.
Their ranks are swelling in response to a resurgence of white supremacist groups, in part emboldened by President Donald Trump’s election victory.
Redneck Revolt is part of the rapidly-growing “Antifa” movement — short for anti-fascists.
Many are wary about showing their faces in public or talking to the media, for fear of a backlash from the police, the far right and even their own families.
After lengthy persuasion, the Silver Valley chapter of Redneck Revolt in North Carolina allowed Foreign Correspondent rare access to their world of guns, resistance and camaraderie.
“We want our story told because it’s ordinary people standing up against fascism, facing down fear, and attempting to reshape our small corner of the world into a space of egalitarianism and shared efforts for our needs and desires,” Mr Dixon says.
He is articulate, friendly and disarming, even when holding an assault rifle…
For the past decade he has lived in Durham, an urban, progressive bubble in the conservative south.
He speaks with a sense of urgency, especially when on the subject of white supremacists and the activities of the far right.
“These are people with clearly stated intentions to carry out violence against people of colour, against queer folks, against women,” he says.
“They’re not just speaking — they’re marching. They’re marching in a way that’s intimidating, as we all know is harking back to the torch light rallies of the Nazi era.”
While the term “redneck” is often derogatory — a stereotype of poor, uneducated, racist whites — the group wants to reclaim the mantle.
Mr Dixon wants to instil honour in the word as a tribute to America’s working class; people who, they say, may not realise they are being hurt by big business and government.
***Redneck Revolt’s signature item is a red bandana, the same cloth worn by coal miners in West Virginia during an uprising against mining companies and the state in 1921…
They have food-sharing programs and do first aid training, but their most striking feature is their readiness to bear arms…
“I wish we didn’t have them, didn’t need them, but I think a wise deterrent is not something to scorn.
“None of us think about firearms in a cavalier way,” Mr Dixon insists, before heading back to the firing line to help his friends reload their guns…
Mr Dixon says it is a false moral equivalence to say those on the left who are prepared to use violence are just as bad as those on the right…
“When the left uses violence, in the rare cases that it happens, it’s resistance,” Mr Dixon says…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-15/redneck-revolt-and-the-hard-lefts-call-to-arms/9303758
10
Can “people of colour” be accepted into a Redneck organisation?
KK
40
Red is a colour. As an ageing Ranga , I can assure you that we Gingers have suffered under the worst forms of discrimination and abuse with no sympathy, emapthy or govt benefits at all. I demand reparations! n free stuff
20
“with no sympathy”
You have my sympathy 😉
23
so welcome, it is a heavy burden
10
***when did you ever concern yourself with what’s fair, ABC?
7 Mar 2017: ABC: ***Is it fair to call Donald Trump a fascist?
RN By Keri Phillips for Rear Vision
CAPTION: Photo: At protests in the US, Donald Trump is likened to Adolf Hitler (BANNER WELCOME TO NAZI USA – TRUMP AS HITLER)
If you’re worried about the popularity of the UK’s Nigel Farage, France’s Marine le Pen or US President Donald Trump, you might think it’s returned to haunt the 21st century.
These three right-wing politicians have risen to the top on a wave of popular support. They’re known for their patriotic fervour and their claims to represent the forgotten majority against the powerful elite.
But can they (and their supporters) really be described as fascists?…
(Historian Richard Evans): “I think in America Donald Trump is operating in a way that does constitute a real threat to American democracy.
“We are living in difficult times and we need to be vigilant. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, as someone once said.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-07/is-it-fair-to-call-trump-a-fascist/8328888
who, if anyone, said “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” is much debated.
for some odd reason ABC felt Zoe Daniels should re-imagine Trump’s inauguration day:
Updated 7 Jul 2017: ABC: Backstory: Dramatic moment for correspondent covering Donald Trump’s inauguration
By Washington bureau chief Zoe Daniel
It was a very heavy sky over DC that day…
It’s been described as a ‘dark’ speech and in that sense it was no different to many that he gave during the campaign, much of which tapped into the fear and loss of control and political influence felt by many Americans. The quote that really stood out for me was “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now” and “from this day forward a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward it’s going to be only America first”…
We emerged near the White House where we encountered a few thousand protesters, some singing and dancing and painting banners, others smashing cars and burning trash in the street. Police were using tear gas and flash bangs to control the group so we had to use caution, placing ourselves near the edges of the group where we had a clear exit and spending only a short amount of time in each location.
Correspondent Steph March was carrying a couple of gas masks from the office for her and cameraman Nick Castellaro but in the end they weren’t needed…
Activist punched during interview
As we were walking up to the intersection where the protest was at its most heated ABC producer Brooke Wylie pointed out a young woman whose face was covered in white tear gas residue.
We stopped to interview her and while we were doing that a man ran from across the street and hit far right activist Richard Spencer who was standing nearby.
Richard Spencer is the head of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist who first coined the term ‘alt-right’. He’s a well known supporter of Donald Trump and although he denies being a fascist and a Nazi, ***many describe him as such…
There will be many challenges covering the Trump years due to the level of extra fact checking that’s required, the lack of detail that’s often given, the limited access that’s available to international press and the fact that Americans selectively consume the media that they agree with therefore they have an inbuilt and increasing distrust of any alternative viewpoint.
The other key challenge and priority is to report without assumptions. Much of the media was badly caught out by an inbuilt expectation that Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win the election. I’d like to think that our coverage was a lot more nuanced that that and we will approach coverage of his Presidency in a similar way, by talking to people across the spectrum of backgrounds, places and perspectives.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/news-coverage/2017-07-03/backstory-dramatic-moment-covering-trump-inauguration/8673054
***2 Aug: Daily Caller: D’Souza Gets White Supremacist Richard Spencer To Admit Being A Socialist Progressive
by Benny Johnson
The film seeks to dispel rumors about which political ideology embraces fascism, racism and genocide. D’Souza makes the case that the progressive movement is rooted in the same cannon as Nazism and fascism…
In one particularly compelling interview, D’Souza grilled notorious white supremacist Richard Spencer. Spencer is typically associated with the conservative right and Republicans. D’Souza drilled down to what Spencer actually believes.
Spencer’s responses are revealing and not at all in alignment with the foundations of liberty, conservatism or modern Republicanism.
D’Souza gets Spencer to admit that all rights come from the state. Spencer shrugs off the idea of natural rights, opting for a statist opinion that “ultimately the state gives rights to you.” Spencer said he did not admire Reagan but instead looked to presidents Jackson and Polk as role models.
When confronted on Jackson being the founder of the Democratic party, Spencer demurred, “Party is just the vessel one uses,” Spencer replies…
Later in the film, Spencer admits that he could be aligned with the political views of a “progressive Democrat from the 1920s.”
D’Souza eventually gets Spencer to identify as a “progressive” in his world views after explaining the roots of the Democratic party.
“I guess I’m a progressive,” Spencer says in the footage.
Further footage shows Spencer saying he embraces socialism, specifically nationalized healthcare and economic government control.
https://dailycaller.com/2018/08/02/dsouza-richard-spencer-socialism/
10
a final sad note. taxpayers are sending yet another Trump-hating ABC staff member to the US:
TWEET: Stephanie March, ABC North America correspondent: Welcome new North America Correspondent @jamesglenday !! Follow him on twitter- he’ll be here through the midterms and 2020 election!
30 Oct 2018
an example of Glenday’s “work”:
‘I’ve been arrested 10 times’: A day with Britain’s alt-right
By Europe correspondent James Glenday
Posted 5 Mar 2017, 5:33am | Updated 30 Nov 2017, 10:10am
Members of alt-right movement Britain First claim Islamist terrorist attacks in Europe, Brexit and Donald Trump’s election have helped make their views more mainstream.
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what do they do? why are they there? what do they add to the “conversation” that isnt on a wire service or many many web sites hours before they do their piece to camera.
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a comment is in moderation.
re left media darling, historian Richard Evans:
Wikipedia: Richard Evans: He writes reviews of history books for the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian, as well as historical reflections on recent events for American magazines and websites, including Foreign Policy, The Nation, and Vox.
5 Feb 2017: Guardian: Trump’s lies are not the problem. It’s the millions who swallow them who really matter
by Nick Cohen
The temptation to think it a new totalitarianism is too strong for many to resist. Despite readers reaching for Hannah Arendt and George Orwell, strictly speaking, the comparison with fascism and communism isn’t true. When I floated it with the great historian of Nazism, Sir Richard Evans, he almost sighed. It’s not just that there aren’t the death camps and torture chambers, he said. The street violence that brought fascists to power in Italy and Germany and the communists to power in Russia is absent today…
We are not reliving the 20th century, for how could we? Rather, ideas from the past have melted and reformed into a postmodern fascistic style; a fascism with a wink in its eye and a bad-boy smirk on its face…
No one in the west has seen Trump’s kind of triumph in politics since the age of the dictators…
Unless Twitter bans him, which it should if Trump incites violence, the same tactics can be used against politicians…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/05/donald-trump-lies-belief-totalitarianism
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easy to see why ABC would turn to Richard Evans:
10 Feb 2017: Slate: Too Close for Comfort
How much do the early days of the Trump administration look like the Third Reich? Historian Richard Evans weighs in.
By Isaac Chotiner
Richard Evans established himself as arguably the pre-eminent historian of 20th-century Germany with his astonishing trilogy on the rise and fall of the Third Reich…
America is not Germany, and this is not 1938, let alone 1933. But as an expert on fascism and as a historian who has written about how authoritarian regimes accumulate power, Evans has particular insight into the early days of the Trump administration…
Isaac Chotiner: What do you make of Trump as a leader in these early days, and how would you compare it to the way other authoritarians have started their time in power?
Richard Evans: When you look at President Trump’s statements, I’m afraid you do see echoes, and they are very alarming…
Isaac Chotiner: There has been a debate in the press and among progressives about whether, crudely speaking, the guy is a buffoon and crazy and has no plan, or whether he is canny and smart and has a real plan for authoritarianism. Was this debate similar to ones about Hitler, once he came to power?
Richard Evans: Absolutely, yes. Many people thought that Hitler was a buffoon. He was a joke. He wasn’t taken seriously…
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/02/historian-richard-evans-says-trumps-america-isnt-exactly-like-the-third-reich-but-its-too-close-for-comfort.html
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Headline in Breitbar.com. “Mitt Romney: Donald Trump’s Vilification of the Media Is Unprecedented”
The more accurate headline is that the Media’s vilification of the President of America is unprecedented.
So failed Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain/Paul Ryan all have a problem with successful Presidential candidate Donald Trump? What a suprise! Next the press will be chasing Bob Dole (95) to criticise the President.
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We are all so engrossed with the persona of Trump.
He is not perfect.
Not like Turnbull, Gillard, Rudd, Merkel, etc, etc, etc.
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No, he isn’t perfect, and his actions related to being president should be scrutinised by the media, and he should be held accountable for his actions, both good, and bad.
Having said that, I don’t believe he should have to face the situation where something in the order of 92% of media reports (if the surveys are to be believed) about him are negative, and a lot of them seem to grasp at straws.
I don’t particularly like any of our Australian politicians, but I don’t see that any of them deserve consistent and relentless attacks by the media, especially when a section of that media is government (taxpayer) owned.
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Was John Kennedy judged by sex like Donald Trump? Was anyone previously? It is odd in the odd world of LGTIBQ acceptance and gay marriage and flexible relationships that the left of politics demand a spotless straight non deviant character to be a judge. Or President. Then hypocrisy is never a problem with the left of politics. Trump is labelled as anti semitic when the left of politics are fervently anti semitic. It is only the conservatives who are expected to be faithful, honest, caring, loyal, Christian and in a nuclear family. There are no such constraints on anyone else.
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It is also amazing that Trump is labelled as fascist, anti semitic, dictatorial when the great dictators of history, Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse Tung were all communist or socialist. NAZI means socialist.
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We had the same nonsense in the Australian parliament when Tony Abbott, a man with a wife, three daughters, a female chief of staff and a female 2IC was labelled mysogynist in a speech by our lady Prime Minister, a woman with no family. All for no reason that could be given. Labelling people is a feature of left politics. Ad hominem. Denigration. Violence.
What has this to do with Climate Change? Everything. It is a similar invention of the left of politics which makes no sense and if you do not believe it, just see who supports the myth of global warming/climate change. It is not science, it is political science, a socialist world platform. Meteorologists are not welcome.
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I like to think my political views are a mix of “left” and “right”, and it’s my view that the current implementation of the “party” system does more harm than good, isolates politicians from the people, and, ultimately, takes power away from voters.
However, seeing how Labor/Greens behaved (still behave) when Abbott was PM, and then how Gillard played the victim card at every opportunity, plus the gross intellectual deficit generated by Shorten and Albanese, I can’t see myself doing anything but putting Labor/greens last in my electorate in the foreseeable future, no matter how amazing the individuals might claim to be, or indeed, might actually be.
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Can’t remember which channel it was but there was a reporter asking random people on the street what would it take for you to dislike Trump , and the answers amazed me.
Seems DJT could do no wrong and none of the interviewed believed a word that came from the media that was negative .
Wouldn’t matter what he did the support he had was unflinching .
The more they attack him the stronger the support for him grows and the watermelons just can’t work out why .
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In the last few years of taking notice of US politics I have come to realise that the President, theoretically, is uniquely protected from sins committed BEFORE his election. He cannot, for example, be indicted which is a legal process. Mark Levin, whom I consider a scholar on such matters, insists that there are two recent DOJ edicts which clarify this. There is good reason this is so: He has been “tried” in the court of public opinion when elected. Once elected the framers of the constitution believed that it is such an all consuming position he holds that he should NOT be bedevilled by private matters. Courtesy and past practice allows them to retire in peace once their term is over.
Impeachment is a different matter entirely, it is not a legal process but a political one. Even accepting this courtesy and precedent has protected presidents who were simply “disliked”. Today’s dems have no courtesy nor do they believe in precedent [never before has the past President campaigned relentlessly against his successor] so it is critical that Trump strengthen his senate majority.
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An interesting commentary on a survey conducted by a vaguely reputable firm:
People Actually Blame The Media and NOT Trump For Division:
https://youtu.be/l0guik0T0pE
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I’ve held this view (the media are a mendacious, lying manipulating cabal of propagandists) since the 2000 coup in Fiji. Being present throughout and keeping a business running wasn’t much fun, not helped by the media fawning over that gangster Spheight.
The 2006 coup was much the same but the media allegiance had shifted to the demonising of Voreqe Bainimarama and the attempted ruination of the Fiji economy by way of isolating the place from tourism, etc.
Bah! If any civil violence erupts anywhere, I’d lay the blame squarely at the feet of the media and the main players should be in the front row for any subsequent Nuremberg trials.
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to FijiDave @ #29.1.1.1.1
Welcome to real life.
Who owns and runs the newspapers and magazines?
Who buys/owns shares in them?
Who controls/dictates the editorialising?
The main-stream media has been and still is the voice of those who want to and, to a large extent, do control society: the “elite.” What we call The Main Stream Media has always been the Purveyors of Propaganda for those who own them: the very wealthy “scum” floating at the top of Society. Look back into the eighteenth century and beyond, back to the western (re)invention of the printing press in the early fifteenth century. There have always been times, every one to three centuries, when their grip has slipped and the “Deporables have had fresh channels of intercommunication.
But they have never lasted long. There were always the little voices in the form of the pamphleteers and their “Penny Dreadfuls” who couldn’t and wouldn’t be silenced. Grrr. The Gutenberg Bible printed in or around the 1450s, was an instant best seller with one wee problem: it was in Latin. The English translation wasn’t for another hundred and fifty years, 1604, and that, you will notice is known as “The Authorized Version.” That, too was an instant better seller. It either set the stage or was just one of many translated versions. That was what the people wanted.
The printing press was probably the driving force of the Renaissance: “ordinary” people could write, publish, print and distribute books. They had their own copies of the religious books in their own languages, and didn’t need priests to mediate their access to them. That bit of control had slipped.
And Pamphlets. The “elites” of the time weren’t slow to pick up on it and created their own organs, The Weeklies which became dailies when someone connected a steam engine to a press and invented hot-metal type-setting, which grew into the large newspapers, with money being pumped in, too, of course. Small dissenting papers were run out of business through bankruptcy—no finance available for them during the inevitable hard times, or bought out where or when that wasn’t possible, their proprietors made “offers they couldn’t refuse.”
This new thing called “science” set the public and the pamphleteering alight again in the late eighteenth century into the nineteenth. The elites lost control, again. Then came magazines and it was all safe and under control again before the new century rolled in.
Then there was the Internet. The little voices suddenly had another medium they understood and which was not under control. That is slowly coming. It’s not going to be as easy as before, so it might take longer, but the early days of ignoring control attempts (enforcement of copyright for example) are already over; Copyright has gone international.
The MSM is still having difficulties with the Internet. The BBC has (I hope) shot itself in the foot by turning “denier” in the face of “deniers” by “banning” them and their ideas and opinions. Over the next few years Nature herself may show them their idiocy. The NYT still hasn’t got it sorted: the ivory halls 🙂 rather than the Ivory Towers where ivory is now “densely” derogatory. The Guardian is or has closed it’s blogs. I hope it was because they were losing heavily on `clicks’ so they weren’t paying their way in advertising views.
(I added an ad-blocker to my browser only recently after google’s ads became intrusive. They blocked content I wanted to read. So out they went. Now, other web sites are crying (crocodile tears) that my ad blocker is hurting them. None of those shedding tears, on investigation, showed themselves worthy of my support. Gee, ain’t life tough.)
We live in Interesting Times.
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You’d think it should be obvious to a long lived political party like the Democrats that insulting and denigrating people is not going to win their votes…
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That infers the ability to learn from your mistakes and a willingness to change or at least adjust. Their egos wont let any of that happen.
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Their new motto is live for the moment.
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How dare the deplorables ignore or even talk against the propaganda of those born to rule, the only true and natural leaders of democ-oc-oc-ah-government. How dare they not listen and how dare they not vote for us. Rant rage fume …
-that’s why.
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JFK, a CIA hit job.
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JFK made a few terrible errors. Firstly he chose LBJ, a crude, ruthless, ambitious man as VP, he went against the central bank [historically a dangerous stance] and he trusted his SS body guard.
Pence is not as crude, personally, as LBJ but I don’t trust him NOT to fall in line with a 25th amendment challenge. Trump looks about to throw down the gauntlet to the fed so let’s hope he has his body guard on their toes. Trump is a perfectionist so I doubt any slack SS agent will last long. I would assume that he has his own, trusted, men keeping an eye on them.
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Trump made it perfectly clear to Jim Acosta what he meant. He said “Fake news media is not only my enemy but the enemy of the people” or words to that effect. Strangely a search on that does not give a result of the actual quote but I’m pretty sure I have it close. The only results are about Trump calling the media the enemy of the people, which is not what he said originally.
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It’s out there …
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1.407 – To Prime Minister: SUSTAINABLE DECEPTION in the State of Denmark. (Agenda 21 / 2030)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwsl_rdFfEU
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Born Lucky: Stars Align Perfectly for PM’s Son with Mammoth Bet on Wind Power Outfit Infigen
.
“………………….So what was it that attracted Alex Turnbull to Infigen?
.
Certainly couldn’t have been their balance sheet or cash flow. Running a fleet of clapped-out Suzlon S88s, which are close to the end of their useful economic life, losing $304 million in single year, blaming its ‘performance’ on a lack of beneficial breezes, burdened with a staggering pile of debt and watching its senior management run to the hills would ordinarily spook any sensible investor.
.
But not Alex Turnbull.
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As outfits like Infigen exist and only exist as a result of government mandates and subsidies, anyone backing them would need to be reading the political tea leaves with a particularly keen eye.
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Of course, politics moves fast and the creation and removal of policies that favour rorts like wind power subsidies are very hard to forecast in advance.
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On that score, Alex ‘Lucky’ Turnbull must’ve simply read it better than most.
.
With Infigen’s shares tanking to around $0.20 in 2014 and trading at that level through most of 2015, in the latter part of that year – through his hedge fund, Keshik Capital – Alex began pouring money into an outfit that had been losing it faster than a drunk in a casino.
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And, wouldn’t you know it, the political tea leaves aligned, as if by magic.
.
On 22 April 2016, Alex’s dad, Australia’s PM, Malcolm Turnbull sent his then Environment Minister, young Gregory Hunt off to Paris to sign the climate change agreement. This from daddy’s website:…………………………………….”
.
https://stopthesethings.com/2017/03/13/born-lucky-stars-align-perfectly-for-pms-son-with-mammoth-bet-on-wind-power-outfit-infigen/
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Was the corporate sector paid $444 million to get them to lay low for a while giving Turnbull’s son time to amass a fortune from government subsidies?
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And in November 2016 Environment Minister Hunt was sent back to New York to ratify the Paris Agreement.
Prime Minister Turnbull had been told that President Trump intended to dump the Paris Agreement.
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That Danish video was a rambling effort – I very much doubt if any Danish minister watched it after the first few minutes. An amateur effort such as this doesn’t help IMO.
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So, big week in politics coming up for those into blood sport. 🙂 And then we have the Vic elections coming up where someon gets a damn good spanky spank. 🙂
Reckon things must be grim in QlD. Our PM of the moment taking his special bus on a tour??
What could possibly go wrong??
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Will be wont it Phil , your hero the greens have just announced that with their Comrades help (Labor) they will reduce Co2 emissions by 62 – 80% by 2020 and 100% by 2030 .
Now I for one will now be voting Green .
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100 % by bla bla blah, sounds like a vote winning formula.
KK
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The big news Phil is the Victorian government embracing the Belt and Road.
What do you think of this political strategy?
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embraced?
02
‘Accept (a belief, theory, or change) willingly and enthusiastically.’ wiki
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Like it or not as an initiative, acceptance of emerging realities and geo-political changes. Denial that China is a major player now and into the future would be the worst option, particularly with the current silliness and toxicity in the US.
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Yep, the leftists in the USA have made the place very toxic for normal people.
They have become DERANGED and decidedly moronic, violent and seething with HATRED.
That toxicity came to the fore after at the last election when their slimy evil gob-mother was defeated by a much better person, one that actually CARES for the US and the ordinary people.
Glad you realise the damage the leftist institutions and their anti-human socialist agendas and corruption are doing to American democracy.
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As a general rule Andy, anyone who capitalises “deranged” and “hatred” in a blog post a case of pot calling kettle black.
Have a Bex and a good lie down dear.
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Poor phlop, you know I was speaking the truth.
Are you a paid up member of Anti-Fa? Or Get-Up ?
That response probably ranks as your most PATHETIC to date. 🙂
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https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1058082550751477761
“Two choices JOBS or MOBS”
Where are the masked Republican attacking Democrat rallies, Phlop ???
The hatred and derangement come purely from one side.
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Andy, for the last 6+ months of the campaign in ’16 I was waiting for the candidate switch from the dems. Killary was/is a fantastic fund raiser but a HOPELESS candidate. I never thought it possible that a party with a genuine wish to win power could think she could deliver. As each deadline passed and she was still the candidate I went into shock that supposedly intelligent people thought they could win with her at the van. The only thing that surprised me about Trump’s win is that it wasn’t a greater landslide.
My head tells me nothing has changed in the two years since. If there was any justice he should win seats in the house and a super-majority in the senate. If the dems don’t win the house the election night wrap will be even more dramatic than two years ago. I may put a nice bubbly on ice and hope I can enjoy it. 🙂
As an aside, the dems were so confident that they could get a drover’s dog elected in ’16 because they believed voter fraud could overcome all. Will illegal residents come out to vote in great numbers knowing that it is a felony, enough for ICE to deport them?
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Ahhh…we are onto paranoid conspiracy theory now are we??
Another Bex and another lie down for you is probably in order dear. 🙂
Or is all this just our little energizer bunny doing some kind of satire on deranged loonies??
BEHIND YOU!!!!
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They are flying kites to test the public mood and it should be okay if they start with VFT transport infrastructure to unlock the regions. Premier Glayds might also come onboard before the NSW election.
Satellite cities and coal fired power stations will have to be a part of the mix. Beijing is exporting economic revolution, what could go wrong?
Australia is a vassal state in the Alliance and I think we need to have a debate in the MSM, the Pine Gap show illustrated the tensions. I’m for a divorce and non-alignment, Beijing and Washington would accept that.
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Bread and Circuses
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-premier-gladys-berejiklian-warms-to-idea-of-bullet-trains-for-nsw-20170822-gy1rwm.html
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Watching video of Steve Irwin and his gang and Aussie diggers saving a couple Crocs from atrocious conditions in East Timor years ago.
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Spygate bigger than Watergate….from the Epoch Times, alleged collusion between Clinton Obama and US media to bring down Trump.
https://youtu.be/Nwbefqcgh9U
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Did y’all know, that compared to the same fortnight in the year…
The Arctic as had it fastest re-freeze in that fortnight since 1988 at least (my spreadsheet only starts at 1988)
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as -> has
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Poor red thumbs, NEVER able to counter FACTS. 🙂
You must feel particularly insignificant and worthless :-).
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Probably doesn’t realise that there are collective not published fingers of the rude kind responding?
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behind paywall:
Victoria’s BRI deal with the Chinese government stays secret
The Australian-10 hours ago
The Victorian government will keep secret the detail of its memorandum of understanding with Beijing for Chinas Belt and Road Initiative. … An Andrews government spokesman said the contents of the deal with China were not for public consumption…
It comes as federal Trade Minister Simon Birmingham welcomed the deal between China and Victoria, although he has not seen the detail of the agreement…
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He is on top of his portfolio, not.
Having failed Education maybe he could do better with Defence and submarines?
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I know, I know, it’s only weather when it turns cold then snows then freezes… in November… in South Africa… http://snowreport.co.za/facebook/ The Big Freeze returns to southern Africa this week.
And Australia too http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/forecasts/thredbo.shtml Snow and below zero temps for VIC & NSW high country mid-week. But don’t worry about little ol’ Enzed – it’s been snowing (freezing) here for the past 48 hours on the tops down south, which is why we call it Snow-vember. Only 6 weeks to go till our White Christmas 2018… c’mon Santa, you can do it, just think of the children!
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** chuckle **
In the Southern Hemisphere we see the beginnings of a cooling regime, the cold winds being dragged up from the edge of Antarctica. This not a cold air outbreak, more a steady pattern like a stadium wave.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-241.96,-81.78,405
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4 Nov: DDNews Gov India: Heavy snowfall in Himalayan states
The Jammu-Srinagar national highway was restored for one way traffic, after remaining closed for over 18 hours due to massive landslides in Ramban district and heavy snowfall in Qazigund, both sides of Jawahar tunnel, Shaitani Nallah & Banihal…
There are report of snowfall in Dhauladhar range of Kangra district, Manimesh of Chamba, Jalorijot of Killing, Shikaridevi of Mandi, Chanshal pass, Dodrakawar of Shimla.
29 Oct: Swarajya Mag: With Water Frozen In Pipes, Jawans Turn To Snow For Drinking Supply As Unprecedented Cold Engulfs Uttarakhand
by Swarajya Staff
Heavy snowfall in the upper Himalayan region has frozen the water in the pipelines forcing the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) jawans, posted at the China border in Uttarakhand, to melt the frozen water in the pipes to get water for their daily needs, Amar Ujala has reported…
Generally, water in the pipelines in the area like Nabhidhang, Kalapani used to freeze around mid-December but this year the ITBP jawans had to face this problem earlier than they expected. The temperature in Nabhidhang has touched minus nine degree celsius, minus five in Kalapani and minus three in Ganji…
The jawans, in order to melt the frozen water in the pipeline, had to remove the plastic pipes laid under ground and keep them in the sun at 10 am in the morning. The heat from the sunlight melts the water which is being used to fill the water tank. However, this only ensures water supply for two to three hours…
According to the ITBP sources quoted by the paper, in the preceding years, the water in the pipeline used to freeze only after 15 December but this year due to excessive cold in the higher Himalayan regions, the phenomenon is being witnessed in October itself…
https://swarajyamag.com/insta/with-water-frozen-in-pipes-jawans-turn-to-snow-for-drinking-supply-as-unprecedented-cold-engulfs-uttarakhand
4 Nov: TelegraphIndia: Jammu-Srinagar highway opens after a day’s blockage because of snow, landslides
Sharma said over 300 stranded passengers, including tourists, were evacuated from the Jawahar tunnel area and brought to Banihal late on Saturday night…
The officials said about four feet of snow had accumulated on the ground in Peer Ki Gali area over the past couple of days. Over 120 people, mostly truckers, were rescued after they got stranded in the high-altitude area on Saturday, the officials said…
Snowfall has thrown life out of gear in Kashmir’s Doda and adjoining districts in the Chenab Valley and farmers and orchardists fear serious financial losses…
The local meteorological department has figures for only 20 years after its establishment and such heavy snowfall in the first week of November has happened for the first time in the past two decades, meteorologist Ramesh Sharma said…
Local people claim such a heavy snowfall has happened in the area after more than four decades.
Overnight snowfall in hills and showers in the lower areas of Uttarakhand added to chill across the state…
It has been snowing intermittently in the higher reaches of the mountains in Uttarakhand including the four Himalayan shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri since Saturday…
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/jammu-srinagar-highway-opens-after-a-day-s-blockage-because-of-snow-landslides/cid/1673842
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The claim that CAGW is science gone bad, or so called scientific mistakes, is totally false.
‘The Rio Earth Summit of 1992 brought together the policies of Climate Change as a Corporate feudal system which has taken over the world. Businessman George Hunt was there and reported on the event and that the Climate Change Agenda was brought to the UN by Maurice Strong and Edmund De Rothschild.’ they needed to create an apocalypse…That apocalypse is CO2 causes catastrophic warming.
Strong – the human hating eco nut, Rothschild family the bankers that have ‘owned’ the Banks of the western world since 1700.
Rio 1992 – all the accords after that Kyoto etc. agenda 2021, 2030…
More at https://windowsontheworld.net/video_type/globalists-create-the-fourth-world/
Mark Windows with Piers Corbyn and Sandi Adams bring in The Bigger Picture.
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American patriots, you have the good will of people all over the world.
This is a year old but amazin’ none the less:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iafeXAf4ZFo
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1 Nov: Campus Reform: Dartmouth prof: ‘If we don’t abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us’
by Rob Shimshock
Dartmouth College lecturer Mark Bray made the remark in an op-ed for Truthout (LINK), titled “How Capitalism Stokes the Far Right and Climate Catastrophe.”…
“We are on a deadline,” Bray says. “Lesser-evilism among capitalist politicians may have some rationale when spending five minutes casting a ballot on Election Day, but we don’t have time for it to be a guiding strategical outlook. We need to organize movements to build popular power and shut down the industries that threaten our existence.”
“Fascism is ascendant,” the Ivy League professor continues. “The world is on fire. This is no time to be patient. If we don’t abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us.”…
“We must recognize that the climate crisis and the resurgence of the far right are two of the most acute symptoms of our failure to abolish capitalism,” the scholar asserts. “A capitalist system that prioritizes profit and perpetual growth over all else is the mortal enemy of global aspirations for a sustainable economy that satisfies needs rather than stock portfolios.”…
Bray’s faculty profile lists the Dartmouth lecturer as an associated visiting scholar of the school’s Gender Research Institute…
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11470
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what percentage of votes does it take for theirABC to accept a result? heard this “narrow win” stuff on ABC radio and wondered why no other MSM seemed to be suggesting it was close:
5 Nov: ABC AM: New Caledonia narrowly votes against independence
By Stephen Dziedzic on AM
But the result was closer than many expected: provisional results suggest about 56 per cent of voters said no, while 44 per cent cast their ballot for yes.
That should ensure that the debate over independence continues to dominate political life in the French territory for years to come.
And independence leaders are already promising to intensify their campaign in the lead-up to future referendums in 2020 and 2022
5 Nov: ABC: New Caledonia narrowly rejects independence from France in historic referendum
By Pacific affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic and Prianka Srinivasan
Late last night the French government released provisional results showing 78,361 people voted No in yesterday’s historic referendum, while 60,573 cast their ballot for Yes — a margin of 56.4 per cent to 43.6 per cent…
Late last night activists gathered at the headquarters of the pro-independence coalition FLNKS, blaring horns in celebration waving multi-coloured Kanaky flags.
A local FLNKS leader, Jean-Raymond Postic, was buoyant about the result.
“I would call it a semi-victory. I certainly wouldn’t call it a defeat,” he said.
“We have already defied the polls. We really mobilised against everything that was said against us.”…
FLNKS campaign director Gerard Reignier said French loyalists could not ignore the size of the pro-independence vote.
“The independence forces have not lost, it’s quite the opposite,” he said.
“So [the loyalists] have to take us seriously, they have to acknowledge our authority.”…
The referendum has exposed ethnic and social fault lines in this Pacific territory, and some officials worry there might be violence in its aftermath…
LINK Why New Caledonia may vote Yes (LINKS TO UPDATED ABC PIECE WITH A DIFFERENT HEADLINE)
PHOTO: The island’s Indigenous population continues to experience social and economic disadvantage, and New Caledonians want that to change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-05/new-caledonia-rejects-independence-from-france/10464248
ABC happy to report?
5 Nov: ABC The World Today: Unrest in New Caledonia after close vote against independence
By Stephen Dziedzic on The World Today
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/worldtoday/unrest-in-new-caledonia-after-close-vote-against-independence/10465666
Twitter page: Stephen Dziedzic ABC:
Police have closed the highway north of New Caledonia’s capital Noumea. Residents of the Kanak village of St Louis have laid tires and other objects on the road and set them on fire after yesterday’s vote against independence…
Unrest in New Caledonia after yesterday’s vote against independence. Kanak residents in the customary village of St Louis have lit fires and closed the highway north east of Noumea…
He morning after the vote. It’s incredibly quiet and still in Noumea, and New Caledonia remains part of France. But the result in the independence referendum was closer than many expected. Advocates for Yes say it’s only a matter of time.
Imagine what the scenes would be like if they’d won! These Kanak independence activists took to the streets of Noumea tonight waving flags, even though New Caledonia voted no today. The result was closer than many of them expected and the mood was buoyant…
https://twitter.com/stephendziedzic
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I don’t know how to fully crop a youtube video, but Jordan Peterson was asked a really dumb question by a green blobster.
Enjoy his answer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bRDbFU_lto&feature=youtu.be&t=1218
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Recommend this one ,good find Kevin .
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Can you provide an approx time ref so that we don’t have to watch the entire video?
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I just watched the first question
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Thanks Robert. He is so good at what he does – nails the issues every time in a very clear way. Hopefully he made all those young folk think a bit more.
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every Australian should be made aware of the attempt by the CAGW zealots to grab the pension fund “pots”:
4 Nov: Financial Times: Pension funds fail to insulate against climate-change risks
by Attracta Mooney
Only 5 per cent of the UK’s biggest corporate pension funds, which collectively oversee £479bn in assets, have a policy on climate change despite growing concern about the possible effect of global warming on returns.
None of the 43 funds analysed had a target for investment in low-carbon, energy-efficient or sustainable assets, while all also lacked a decarbonisation target for their investment portfolio, according to research by Pinsent Masons, the law firm…
In September, the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions announced rules, due to come into effect in 2019, that will force pension fund trustees who disregard the long-term financial risks from environments, social or governance issues to justify why this does not hurt investment returns.
The concern is that some companies could suffer while others benefit under measures to reduce global warning(sic) in line with the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit temperature rises…
Peter Uhlenbruch, investment engagement office for Asset Owners Disclosure Project, a research group, said pension funds needed to step up their responses to climate change.
“There may still be a conception among the global pension fund community that climate change is only about values, ethics or opinions, and not about investment risk,” he said.
He warned that pension funds “may be facing significant exposure to unassessed climate-related transition and physical risks, putting the savings of millions of beneficiaries in jeoardy”.
“The quicker pension funds learn to measure and manage these risks, the better,” Mr Uhlenbruch added…
A survey by the AODP last month found that 87 per cent of assets managed by the world’s largest public pension funds have yet to undergo a formal climate risk assessment, while onloy 10 per cent of the retirement ***pots had made a formal commitment to align their portfolios to the goals of the Paris Agreement…
Research in September from Schroders, which surveyed 650 investors with $24trillion in assets globally, found a mismatch between institutions’ perceptions of the importance of ESG issues and what was happening at the coalface of the investment process…
https://www.ft.com/content/99d5c50a-30bf-39c0-b67d-6752abd7e53d
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for the record – not much!
31 Oct: JakartaGlobe: Commitments Worth $10b Made at Bali Conference to Protect World’s Oceans
By Telly Nathalia
“The commitments involve 14 million square kilometers of protected marine areas around the world. These commitments are from 22 countries, about 25 to 30 nongovernmental organizations, private companies and philanthropists,” Anastasia Kuswardani, head of the team reviewing the commitments, said at a press conference.
The fresh pledges will add to 663 previous commitments made between 2014 and 2017, ***of which only a third have been fulfilled completely…
***Since commitments made at the Our Ocean Conference are not legally binding, it has been hard to track down and review the outcomes of those that have been made since 2014. Indonesia took an initiative after last year’s event in Norway to start tracing and reviewing the outcome of each commitment made at previous conferences…
“We got a lot of inputs from Indonesia as well as other hosts on how to do it right. And we are going to deliver that to Norway at the end of this year, so it can be used for the first time in Oslo at Our Ocean Conference 2019,” said Ramon van Barneveld, international relations officer at the European Commission.
Many parties, including Indonesia, hope the establishment of a review mechanism would eliminate commitments made in name only.
“Starting from this year’s conference, each commitment was reviewed before being accepted,” Anastasia said
https://jakartaglobe.id/news/commitments-worth-10b-made-at-bali-conference-to-protect-worlds-oceans/
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Not sure of the validity of this, Not krimate change stuff.. but some light (supposed UFO) was seen over lake perseverance near Toowoomba maybe today or yesterday..not sure
Just saw it on a news site supposed to be on ‘farcebook’ too somewhere.
UFOs, well, nope sorry Im not a believer, you have to show me the actual spaceship and how it survives interstellar space travel including the biological organisms that are:
1. More superior to us.
2. Want to destroy us.
3. Travel thousands of lightyears of space without aging. Breaking laws of relativity.
4. Hide so the ‘experiment’ wont get contaminated.
5. Like flashing strange lights so we just might get a glimpse of them, but not too close.
6. Have been hidden by the US military since 1945 in secret bunkers.
etc.
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Mathematically it can be shown that there is only one planet supporting life as we know it.
The odds that there is a planet with a benign climate where a spark of life can survive and multiply is infinitely small. But there is an infinitely large number of rocks hurtling around the cosmos.
Infinity/infinity = 1. And we are it.
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please be my maths guru. I want to know what you know.
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Loosen up friend. 🙂
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You have a point. I remember a class of mathematics devoted to infinity. You see you have the infinity of positive integers. It’s only half of the infinity of all integers and much smaller than the infinity of real numbers. All great mind exercises but worryingly silly. I think they were labelled with ‘cadinal numbers’. It was all like a theory called disaster theory where you had a few critical things which could fail with catastrophic results and you had to predict the consequences of failure. Again, worryingly silly but potentially important.
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Also if you traveled at near the speed of light you would not age, which should make travel quite acceptable except that the people who sent you would never hear from you again. In their lifetimes.
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What you need is a worm hole in the space time continuum, but every good science fiction junkie knows that one. It could be true. It’s certainly more likely than CO2 produced global warming.
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Cantor’s Cardinal numbers better explained here.
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Is the Drake Equation old hat?
The cosmos is carbon based and planets of the right size, within the habitable zone, only need water to start the process. Where did our oceans come from?
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I think it, Drake, is still sort of valid, depending on the numbers you use.
I suspect that there is plenty of life around the galaxy but if we could go visit a planet wed more likely to find dinosaurs than intelligent apes.
As far as he aging thing (TdeF) that dammed Fitzgerald contraction.
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The problem I have with UFOs is that, despite the planet being littered with perhaps over a billion cameras, smartphones, dashcams, CCTV etc. We can only ever manage a shakey, low res, distant shot of the alledged objects. HD everything else but UFOs? nada.
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There has to be intelligent life out there somewhere because there is naff all down here .
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Buzz Aldrin, 88, claimed he saw a spaceship on his way to the moon, adding: “There was something out there that was close enough to be observed … sort of L-shaped.”
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Do you think crop circles are man made?
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2018/martinsell/martinsellhill2018.html
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I see the Aussie legal system has decided to play games in the Peter Ridd case. Reminds me of what they’re doing to Mark Steyn here in the US. Delay, delay, delay …
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Ever had a bad day at work ? Spare a thought for this poor bloke !
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-05/runaway-bhp-train-deliberately-derailed-near-port-hedland/10467616
I imagine there would be a lot of carnage at the speed it was doing .
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Makes a good case for two man crews [how much does one extra wage add to the cost of such enormous trains?] and/or a dead-man switch. Hardly high tech.
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They could unmanned trains.
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And derail them every time something goes wrong. Top idea.
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Umm, no. The automated trains are monitored 24/7 via a slow-speed wireless link while in transit and can be shut down when required. They also have high-speed wireless links at end locations.
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Crewed trains cost the iron ore companies a fortune. One recent figure was wages around $400,000 pa. At one time when train crews were unionised, they were demanding many kgs of prime steak every day “for lunch”, along with a large swag of unreasonable demands. The Rio concept of automated trains is a good idea, provided everybody at the remote automated crossings does the right thing. ( Last year a truckie was caught on camera tying up a closed boom gate with a piece of rope.)
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in the 70’s Qld Rail had long diesel trains haulin coal outta the Bowen Basin to Abbot Point, primitive communications to the unmanned engines half way down the train a given for the time. When communication was lost the driver had no choice but to overcome the uncontrolled engines with heavy breaking. Imagine the flat tyres and mayhem after that.
That line is now electrified which must give train crews the option of asking the control room to cut power to train.
BTW How man years of wages do you reckon that derailment would have cost? If BHP has a union problem, confront it. Our coastal shipping is non existent because of similar conditions. As things stand any Australian buyer of Australian bulk minerals buys them out of Singapore. Even deck hands on tugs that never go out of sight of land are paid like airline pilots.
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Weak 9: Thousands of Empty Seats Remain As NFL Starts Second Half of the Season,
That’s a headline in Bteitbart. I had to open it to see if it was a play on words. Nope. Just bad spelling. Hell! I’m a bluddy mechanic and it jumped out at me.
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Watched two games today and didn’t notice ,was too caught up in the games .
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Apologies if this has been covered before.
I stumbled upon this paper in a comment at wattclarity. It questions electricity distribution modelling.
The paper is written by engineers and published by Elsevier.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315745952_Burden_of_proof_A_comprehensive_review_of_the_feasibility_of_100_renewable-electricity_systems#pfb
The abstract and conclusion of the pdf is as follows:
Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems B.P. Hearda,⁎, B.W. Brookb, T.M.L. Wigleya,c, C.J.A. Bradshawd a University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia b University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia c National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80301, USA d Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, South Australia 5001, Australia
Quote”ABSTRACT Keywords: Renewables Wind power Solar power Transmission Ancillary services Reliability
An effective response to climate change demands rapid replacement of fossil carbon energy sources. This must occur concurrently with an ongoing rise in total global energy consumption. While many modelled scenarios have been published claiming to show that a 100% renewable electricity system is achievable, there is no empirical or historical evidence that demonstrates that such systems are in fact feasible. Of the studies published to date, 24 have forecast regional, national or global energy requirements at sufficient detail to be considered potentially credible. We critically review these studies using four novel feasibility criteria for reliable electricity systems needed to meet electricity demand this century. These criteria are: (1) consistency with mainstream energy-demand forecasts; (2) simulating supply to meet demand reliably at hourly, half-hourly, and f ive-minute timescales, with resilience to extreme climate events; (3) identifying necessary transmission and distribution requirements; and (4) maintaining the provision of essential ancillary services. Evaluated against these objective criteria, none of the 24 studies provides convincing evidence that these basic feasibility criteria can be met. Of a maximum possible unweighted feasibility score of seven, the highest score for any one study was four. Eight of 24 scenarios (33%) provided no form of system simulation. Twelve (50%) relied on unrealistic forecasts of energy demand. While four studies (17%; all regional) articulated transmission requirements, only two scenarios—drawn from the same study—addressed ancillary-service requirements. In addition to feasibility issues, the heavy reliance on exploitation of hydroelectricity and biomass raises concerns regarding environmental sustainability and social justice. Strong empirical evidence of feasibility must be demonstrated for any study that attempts to construct or model a low-carbon energy future based on any combination of low-carbon technology. On the basis of this review, efforts to date seem to have substantially underestimated the challenge and delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonization pathways.
6. Conclusions
Our assessment of studies proposing 100% renewable-electricity systems reveals that in all individual cases and across the aggregated evidence, the case for feasibility is inadequate for the formation of responsible policy directed at responding to climate change. Addressing the identified gaps will likely yield improved technologies and market structures that facilitate greater uptake of renewable energy, but they might also show even more strongly that a broader mix of non-fossil energy technologies is necessary. To date, efforts to assess the viability of 100% renewable systems, taking into account aspects such as financial cost, social acceptance, pace of roll-out, land use, and materials consumption, have substantially underestimated the challenge of excising fossil fuels from our energy supplies. This desire to push the 100%-renewable ideal without critical evaluation has
ironically delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonization pathways. We argue that the early exclusion of other forms of technology from plans to decarbonize the global electricity supply is unsupportable, and arguably reckless. For the developing world, important progress in human development would be threatened under scenarios applying unrealistic assumptions regarding the scale of energy demand, assumptions that lack historical precedent and fall outside all mainstream forecasts. Other outcomes in sustainability, social justice and social cohesion will also be threatened by pursuing maximal exploitation of high-impact sources like hydro-electricity and biomass, plus expanded transmission networks. The unsubstantiated premise that renewable energy systems alone can solve challenge of climate change risks a repeat of the failure of decades past. The climate change problem is so severe that we cannot afford to eliminate a priori any carbon-free technologies. Our sobering results show that a 100% renewable electricity supply would, at the very least, demand a reinvention of the entire electricity supply-and-demand system to enable renewable supplies to approach the reliability of current systems. This would move humanity away from known, understood and operationally successful systems into uncertain futures with many dependencies for success and unanswered challenges in basic feasibility. Uniting the alleviation of poverty with a successful climate-change response in our energy and electricity systems should be an international goal. This is likely to require revolutionary changes in the way we grow food, manage land, occupy homes and buildings, demand electricity, and otherwise live our lives. Such changes will require more, not less energy. It would be irresponsible to restrict our options to renewable energy technologies alone. The reality is that 100% renewable electricity systems do not satisfy many of the characteristics of an urgent response to climate change: highest certainty and lowest risk-of-failure pathways, safeguarding human development outcomes, having the potential for high consensus and low resistance, and giving the most benefit at the lowest cost. A change in approach by both researchers and policy makers is therefore required. It behooves all governments and institutions to seek optimized blends of all available low-carbon technologies, with each technology rationally exploited for its respective strengths to pursue clean, low-carbon electricity-generation systems that are scalable to the demands of 10 billion people or more. Only by doing so can we hope to break the energy paradox of the last twenty years and permit human development to continue apace while rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation and other demands for energy. Anything less is an abrogation of our responsibilities to both the present and the future.”end quote
I have similar views on 100% RE but dont give AGW as much credit. In anycase the experiment is going much too fast.
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Notice that it starts with the assumption of AGW being factual .
I cannot trust the analytical skills of anyone who starts off from that premis
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I have always believed it is the sign of a smart researcher, if they can produce a lucid conclusion section that can be read in 5 minutes…..
That one failed !
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A woman at trump’s rally in Missouri collapsed and needed medial treatment, He called for a doctor and for 8 mins said “No hurry” to the Doc before she was wheeled out.
Of interest was that occasional shouts from the back “CNN sucks” were not carried on. Instead at the end there was a spontaneous chorus of Amazing Grace. Didn’t sound like Nazis to me.
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