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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Statistics
What the pandemic has taught us about science
https://judithcurry.com/2020/10/10/what-the-pandemic-has-taught-us-about-science/
30
“We need to change”: Astronomers Admit Their Outsized Contribution to the Climate Crisis
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/10/we-need-to-change-astronomers-admit-their-outsized-contribution-to-the-climate-crisis/
20
Virtue, Wherefore Art Thou Signal?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/09/virtue-wherefore-art-thou-signal/
20
NOAA Confirm Heatwaves Are Declining In California
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/09/noaa-confirm-heatwaves-are-declining-in-california/
20
… so without its annual heatwave, California is also going to decline as a Climate Nervous Nelly’s favoured Summer destination.
What will be the point of going there if you can’t be baked Medium Rare?
10
The Guardian: Climate Denial is an Extreme Form of Avocado Buyer’s Guilt
The comments to this article are very entertaining.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/09/the-guardian-climate-denial-is-an-extreme-form-of-avocado-buyers-remorse/
20
The Guardian’s Peerless ‘Best’ Trash. I’m a Climate Crisis Denier — the Climate is just doing what it does best: quietly varying. I leave it alone and so far it doesn’t interfere with me.
But causing me to dither over the purchase of an Avocado? What absolute rubbish is this? I have never purchased an avocado, I never contemplate purchasing them and I never will ever purchase any. I can’t stand them!
I’m not even an Avocado Denier,.
If you want one or more, go ahead, buy as many or as few as you want. But don’t ever expect me to offer you any assistance to consume any of them … ptui. They’re ll yours.
There’s no room for dithering there.
There is no guilt whatsoever there. I’m leaving a whole, untouched Avocado there for someone else who may appreciate it.
And nobody is about to change my mind on that subject. Not even the silly Guardian.
10
Police Use of Deadly Force is Not About Racism
By David Wojick
https://townhall.com/columnists/davidwojick/2020/10/10/police-use-of-deadly-force-is-not-racist-n2577797
The beginning:
The headline screamed out, “Black Americans 2.5X More Likely Than Whites to Be Killed By Police,” which is the kind of assertion that is used to claim police are systemically racist. It leads to fewer police, fewer arrests, more crime, more racial discord, and more innocent black deaths.
Accurate, honest statistics show just the opposite, however. When police must use deadly force, whites are more likely to be killed than blacks. But we rarely see these statistics, because they do not support claims of systemic, systematic racism against blacks.
The sad reality is that as a percentage of their total American population, black deaths by police are around 2.5 times white deaths. But this has nothing to do with likelihood, because the vast majority of people of both races have near zero likelihood of being killed by police.
In fact, up to 88 percent of people killed by police were armed and being arrested at the time of their deaths. Such people are indeed at greater risk of being killed. However, racism has nothing to do with it.
On a per-arrest basis, the data say whites are much more likely to be killed by police than blacks. If so, the police are clearly not racist. Indeed, they seem to be deliberately trying not to kill blacks.
There is a lot more in the article.
Please share this.
David
52
“Things Look Better With Gaslight”
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2020/09/06/things-look-better-with-gaslight/
00
#6 David. Catch up mate! Stats are old hat. The modern methodology has simplified matters immensely.
It’s now all a matter of PROFESSIONAL OPINION! This determines where the money goes. Money decides what many a professional declares as an opinion (vs what a professional might believe, on data). We all have mouths to feed. So much easier than debating. Simply ask a politician what is their preferred truth and then gather together as many willing voices one can to ‘speak with the authority of numbers’.
Woke is in, man.So much easier; even reporters love something they understand from jounalism school.
10
If carbon (sic) causes everything, it causes nothing settled science- update:
2007: Global warming behind mild Irish winter, says Met Éireann
“An exceptionally mild winter is proof that global warming is already affecting the weather in Ireland, Met Éireann has said.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/global-warming-behind-mild-irish-winter-says-met-éireann-1.1197749
2010: Global warming linked to harsh winters
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/global-warming-linked-to-harsh-winters-1.688348
2010; Many years of cold winters lie ahead
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/many-years-of-cold-winters-lie-ahead-1.683433
2011: Ever-worsening weather events lead to inescapable verdict on [global warming]
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ever-worsening-weather-events-lead-to-inescapable-verdict-on-climate-change-1.17420
2011: Take cold comfort . . . humans not solely to blame for bad winters
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/take-cold-comfort-humans-not-solely-to-blame-for-bad-winters-1.1277858
2013: Ireland set for warmer, drier summers and wetter winters
Major study on impact of climate change projects greatly increased risk of flooding!
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/ireland-set-for-warmer-drier-summers-and-wetter-winters-1.1540188
2018: Ireland could face ‘far colder winters and warmer summers’
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/ireland-could-face-far-colder-winters-and-warmer-summers-1.3478071?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fenvironment%2Fireland-could-face-far-colder-winters-and-warmer-summers-1.3478071
Snowstorms through the centuries: a history of Irish cold snaps
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/snowstorms-through-the-centuries-a-history-of-irish-cold-snaps-1.3406525?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fireland%2Firish-news%2Fsnowstorms-through-the-centuries-a-history-of-irish-cold-snaps-1.3406525
I’d make jokes about our Irish friends, but … political correctness …
h/t: Tony Heller
50
On a visit to Ireland the flight landed and the nice lady in charge of the cabin on Aer Lingus was giving arrival speech ” Welcome to Dublin, where the time is tree turty tree ” My wife smiled and said of course it is, when else you arrive in Dublin?
30
2 October, 2020: Authorities declared a three-month state of emergency in early September after the worst flooding in 30 years.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/10/1074512
>> South Sudan is a least-developed country located in east-central Africa.
“In addition to the negative impacts of long-term conflict, communities in South Sudan are also experiencing the negative effects of a changing climate. In general, the country is experiencing substantially warmer and drier weather, and the combination of these effects leads to more droughts.”
https://unfccc.int/files/adaptation/workstreams/national_adaptation_programmes_of_action/application/pdf/south_sudan_final_napa_-_24th_nov-2016.pdf
2002: Africa’s deserts are in “spectacular” retreat
>> They don’t admit the cause is rising CO2 but even @newscientist has to recognize the greening of the Sahel in sub-Saharan Africa.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2811-africas-deserts-are-in-spectacular-retreat/
2011: The Sahel is getting greener: natural vegetation dynamics are in favour
“In effect, while there was a rainfall deficit from 2000 to 2006, rainfall increased from 1982 to 1999.
Perennial plants were able to make use of that increase and survive during the subsequent dry period.”
http://www.cirad.fr/en/news/all-news-items/articles/2011/science/the-sahel-is-getting-greener-natural-vegetation-dynamics
abc, 1999: North African drought may have natural cause
“The severity of the drought had often been blamed on cooler sea surface temperatures that suppress summer monsoons and bring less rain to the Sahel region but the model did not support this theory.
“The new model, including natural vegetation changes, is a much better reflection of what the Sahel region actually experienced.
And it suggests that without the addition of man-made landscape changes, the climate system is fully capable of generating this devastating type of drought” says William Lau, a Goddard Space Flight Center atmospheric scientist.”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/1999/11/24/68333.htm
2017: Global Warming Could Transform Africa’s Barren Sahel Region Into Lush Greenery
https://sputniknews.com/africa/201707061055303077-sahel-region-global-warming-rainfall/
30
Sound familiar? a security/oppression apparatus connected with an oligarchic billionaire system
https://balance10.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-securityoppression-apparatus.html
10
FWIW
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2020/10/03/assasination/
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2020/10/10/the-superspreader-or-dr-fauci-is-an-idiot/
00
Trump picks up another Nobel Peace Prize nomination from Europe after diplomatic victories
Heads must be exploding all over the world.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-nobel-peace-prize-europe-diplomatic
110
Thankfully our prime minister, Comrade ‘Covid’ Cinders, didn’t take out first-prize honours and money, even though she was in 3rd place (according to the bookies) just behind Greta the Gullible and ahead of Attenborough the Alarmist. Imagine my shock (truly shocked!) when a UN-linked food program won the ‘explosive’ peace prize… (UN)biased I’m sure, boom-boom!
60
Thunburg backs Biden… a 17 year old in a different country, who has no idea of US politics, enough said.
110
The Ozone Hole Returns to Both Poles
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/10/the-ozone-hole-returns-to-both-poles/
30
No CFC activity created this anomaly, so it must have something to do with a quiet sun.
31
Whilst I believe the ozone hole theory is not as irrefutable as the scientists claim, the offending chemicals are still present, and China has of course been continuing to emit internationally outlawed chemicals (among other things, used as a blowing agent to make all the insulation we have to buy to ‘fight’ climate change in the west!)
20
Coincidently …
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/nobel-laureate-who-helped-save-ozone-layer-dies
00
Must be cold over the Artic.
It’s another sign of Cooling! – that’s what it is.
Ozone holes only form when the supporting —heh: unsupporting? — air column cools below a threshold temperature.
Maybe it’s gonna be a cold winter!
10
Who is going to win —Peta Credlin or Daniel Andrews? Either way Australia is heading for an entertaining week.
I think it will be Peta Credlin by a country mile, she has really got the bit between her teeth !!
160
Emergency Management Commissioner Crisp is reported to be taking a breather after the latest amendments to his testimony. The beat goes on…
40
And now Chris “Mister Wolf” Eccles has been obliged to acknowledge his was the crucial phone call in Credlin’s six minute window and resign which signals the prospect that the premier may not survive this week.
50
I hope very much that Peta will win. Himself has again extended the state of emergency and backtracked on his ‘roadmap’.
50
Peta!
To begin with …
11/10/2020|2min
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his senior staff will hand over phone and text records to the hotel inquiry board. It comes after Sky News Host Peta Credlin on Friday probed Daniel Andrews on why key phone records which could prove who decided to use private security were not tendered to the hotel quarantine inquiry. “The board have sought additional information from me and my senior staff, text message, telephone records, as I had indicated, as I had committed,” Mr Andrews said. “All of that detail will be handed to the board and it will be done as soon as possible. “I can’t give you an exact timeline because Telstra and others have to provide us with those details but that will be provided, just as they’ve asked, just as I indicated we would, if such a request was made. “All of us want answers … all of us are entitled to answers.”
60
They ought to be happy now – they who have participated in and benefitted from the left’s long march through the institutions, taking sixty years to set us back six hundred. Their task is completed, the logical conclusion is drawn – Daniel Andrews’ Omnibus Bill. The socialist fantasy is fulfilled with the proposal that authorised citizens will have the power to arrest their fellow citizens for the crime of even thinking about committing a misdemeanour against their malevolent overlords. Their children could even be removed! Please, everyone in Victoria, have the courage to stand up and remove this dysfunctional, underhanded, massively incompetent , unfit for purpose rabble.
160
Maybe more in the news during the coming weekdays, apparently Chairman Dan and Comrades is trying to sneak in another amendment to the dreaded Omnibus Bill to remove liability for government people from the penalties resulting from COVID-19 deaths.
If true that would surely be an admission of liability?
140
Echoes of Cuomo in New York if true. He move the goalposts when it looked like he could be charged after seeding NY nursing homes with Covid patients, while leaving hospital ships unused.
20
1984.
00
US polling numbers from fairly close to the ground. As they’re saying, 2016 the polls were out by 2%, but they are going to have to be out by way more than that this time, for Trump to win. Things are pointing towards wipe out! Not good if the Dems go with packing the court, and having Congress able to toss out a President. Being able to set up government so they cant be dislodged, as they have in all the big popn centres, is a worry.
My only hope was for the boil to come to a head, and burst, revealing fairly quickly how poisonous their ideas are, and allowing decent people to wipe the yellow stuff away, and rebuild. Not great, but really what other way to cleanse the body politic? But if they can set themselves up be very difficult to dislodge………There is so much white-anted already, that there really would need to be some massive catharsis to change anything. A wipe out, and the lunatics running free…………………..!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju1oedAzeK8
31
I would not take the mainstream polls as a good indication and I think The Hill is well onto the left side of US politics.
I cannot see how they can reconcile the size of Trump rallies and Biden’s basically non existent rallies (if he gets 20 people it is big!) with the polls. There was car rally in Florida yesterday and the police reckon there were 30,000 cars for” Hispanic supporters for Trump”. Rush Limbaugh had Trump on his radio station last week for 2hrs –50 million people tuned in, apparently ( I do not know how they work out the figure but I presume it is a similar way to how they work out viewer numbers for a TV program. Even if wrong and the real the figure is half that, it is still a huge number).
The Democracy Institute polling has Trump in a comfortable position. They were one of the few polls to get it right in 2016 and they also got Brexit correct. So they have the right form on their side.
80
Biden supporters are of the hide under the doona in a mask school. Rally attendance would signal negative virtue.
20
Rush claims over 50 mil listeners. Levin maybe half that with daylight third before any left wing talk show host.
Tim Pool, a once leftist now centrist has well over a million followers and regularly has a qtr to half mill views of his podcasts.
CNN and NSMBC seem puny by comparison, combined they can’t match Fox primetime.
Logic tells me Trump to win 40 states, but Hanrahan is the perennial pessimist.
“We’ll all be ‘rooned”
said Hanrahan
“before the year is out”
40
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Gallup predicts a Trump landslide, as does the best election model which has 100 years of forecasting and hindcasting success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3b3aNdYnv4
(It’s worth putting up with a couple of Chris Turley’s ads for the quality of the analysis. Skip to 2:10 for the nitty gritty.)
And don’t forget Trump is about to dump the Hillary server cover-up evidence into the ring in the next couple of days too. They have the “deleted” emails. That will shake the Democrat tree. Let’s see Presumptive-President Kamala and her boy Joe talk their way out of that one.
The unknown quantity in this election though is the level of corruption made possible by the mail-in voting scam.
101
Just like 2016 the “polls” seem to be a massive gaslighting campaign. Are there locally organised car and boat parades fo Biden? how many people go the Biden rallies vs Trump rallies? How many videos do you see of people stealing Biden lawn signs? How many people want a doddering fool and a smirking psychopath in the White House?
20
13 Polls in October 2016 That Showed Hillary Clinton with a Big Lead over Donald Trump
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/10/13-polls-in-october-2016-that-showed-hillary-clinton-with-a-big-lead-over-donald-trump/
20
‘How much energy does it take to change the speed of rotation of the Earth in a solar activity-dependent manner? And who provides that energy? The answer to the second question is obviously the Earth. It is the Earth that changes its rotation speed in response to solar activity, and not the change in TSI that causes it.’
My quote of the week from Javier (in comments at wuwt).
11
That is all a bit obscure el gordo,
Does the speed of rotation of the Earth change in a solar activity dependent manner?
If it does change is it the Sun that provides the signal and the Earth supplies the energy? How could that happen?
Javier seems confident but he does not explain?
10
He goes on to say …
‘Therefore we DO KNOW that the climate system can and does respond to changes in solar activity in ways that are not proportional to the change in TSI. Solar activity provides the initial signal and direction, and the climate system provides the required energy and mechanisms.’
11
Peter it has to do with Length of Day, but I’m not a mathematician.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2010GL043185
11
For the laymen, in the late 19th century large icebergs broke off from Antarctica, to preserve the globe’s angular momentum, which rapidly increased the length of day.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/Iceberg.htm
31
Ahhh. That would do it!
10
A review of some leading COVID vaccine candidates
This article by an eminent scientist who is no anti-vaxxer, discusses 4 of the major vaccine candidates:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/09/23/covid-19-vaccine-protocols-reveal-that-trials-are-designed-to-succeed
Because phase III trials won’t be complete until 2022, the plan seems to be to release the vaccines after interim trials for which the efficacy bar has been set very low. They are only required to be 70% effective at eliminating symptoms in around 50 PCR-positive subjects, out of thousands who receive the trial vaccine. The symptoms concerned can be very mild; as the author of the piece puts it, “These vaccine trials are testing to prevent common cold symptoms”.
So, not only are the normal safety tests to be cut short, with all the risks that implies https://www.buzzfeed.com/shaunlintern/these-nhs-staff-were-told-the-swine-flu-vaccine-was-safe but the vaccines are not required to have any effect on anything that people are actually concerned about, such as:
* hospitalisation
* death
* durability of immunity (concerns have been raised by some about the durability of naturally-acquired immunity)
* being infectious while asymptomatic
* testing positive in a PCR test
* Long COVID, MIS-C or other complications
As the author says, “It boggles the mind and defies common sense that the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and the rest would consider the approval of a vaccine that would be distributed to hundreds of millions on such slender threads of success”.
80
Anyone watch this?
“In case you are needing to know where the science is re global warming, may I recommend the ABC’s Sunday night Qld News broadcast, about 15 minutes in. ”
From an email, likely a /s too.
00
People who support the largely unwarranted alarmism and actions over Covid may as well ‘park’ any attempt to inject sanity into the climate change and energy policy arena. It’s been clear from the outset that the elites were growing impatient with the slow progress towards their goals using the climate change vehicle, and far more drastic measures were required.
https://spectator.com.au/2020/10/dangerous-elites-planning-the-great-reset/
40
Substantial ban on Aussies travelling until 2022
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8827821/Japan-Singapore-South-Korea-likely-nations-join-Australian-travel-bubble-amid-COVID-19.html
00
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving.
It is tomorrow here but today in Oz.
Let’s all be Canuck for a day!
Canada and Oz are built somewhat the same way. The inhabited part is a few hundred miles wide and a few thousand lives long. But Oz is a loop while Canada is a long line.
10
NEWS from Western Australia
More than half of WA’s coal-fired power plants may be shuttered by 2025, report says?
And
Matthew Bowen, a partner at law firm Jackson McDonald specialising in energy, said coal was no longer able to compete with solar and wind on economic grounds as the costs of new technologies fell.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/future-of-wa-energy-system-half-coal-power-plants-shut-by-2025/12750068
10
nothing like law firms dishing out engineering and economic advice, the good folk of WA can now relax.
40
NEWS from Western Australia
More than half of WA’s coal-fired power plants may be shuttered by 2025, report says?
And
Matthew Bowen, a partner at law firm Jackson McDonald specialising in energy, said coal was no longer able to compete with solar and wind on economic grounds as the costs of new technologies fell.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/future-of-wa-energy-system-half-coal-power-plants-shut-by-2025/12750068
20
I think that is nonsense. My feeling is that they will either be boarded up or wrapped in chains.
21
Feelings are very important, don’t discount them.
40
Within five years global cooling should be obvious and NSW wii build new coal fired power stations.
31
Beliefs are very important; don’t discount them.
21
The AMO and PDO combo are going to trash AGW, or do you still think CO2 causes global warming?
21
I’ll bookmark this for 5 years’ time
01
I believe this could be correct. The state Labor govt seems to be deliberately letting the upgrades and maintenance slide until even newer coal plants such as Bluewaters will eventually fail. Like SA, the moment Kwinana shut down, the site was being demolished. If no new gas replacement power stations are built, then the SW of the state could be in trouble in the long term.
50
Over the last year, WA’s SW grid has derived 43% of its power from gas, 33% from coal, 21% from wind and only 2% from utility solar. Rooftop solar is not included in these figures.
30
Further calculations/estimations for WA’s SWIS grid:
Annual energy generated without rooftop solar(AEMO): 481.3 GWh
Rooftop solar contribution: ~26.6%
So total estimated power generated, inc rooftop solar: ~650 GWh
And rooftop solar annual energy generated: ~173 GWh
10
Which raises another interesting point. If we assume that on average, solar panel users are only saving $26% of their annual power bill, and if we assume that an average annual power bill is $2000, then the annual savings is only $520. This is not enough to pay off the solar system…
20
Hmm ?..i dont think that is good logic Graeme.
That would require EVERY consumer to have RTS when we know that only 20-30% of homes have RTS.
So, say it is 25%, then that suggests those 25% of consumers are generating ALL their power requirements from RTS..
Obviously that wont be the exact case either , but somewhere in between is the real situation…
…IE ..SOME of the solar owners are covering SOME of their cost, SOME of the time .
00
Think you’re right Chad, my logic is astray. Will wait until my next and last bill for 2020, when I will know exactly how many units I saved using solar for 2020. But still think it may be in the 25% range.
10
I remember there was an article in The Scientific American (Oct. 1987) about the rapid drop in cost of solar panels. It predicted that by 1993 no-one would be building new coal fired stations as they couldn’t compete, and from 1995 any large scale power stations being built would be solar.
Strange that Germany should have built 10 new coal fired stations since then.
70
Wow! Social engineering under our noses. The New World Order is here! Just Google any of, white people, white girls, white boys, white gay couples or white couples, then go to photos. White couples photos is excellent.
Holy F.
10
Tried that FC. VERY interesting and not what I had expected.
00
Explanation.. ?
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2019/01/google-image-search-results-black-white-couples.html
00
well duh. The thing about furiously curious is that he/she is really just furious.
It also highlights the very issue that the people he labels as social engineers are trying to highlight. So many things in western society are white biased and white people who moan about efforts to redress the bias are either unaware of it or are trying to protect their position of power in society.
01
Headwinds in Germany Wind Farms …
An excellent Doco from DW on the decline of Germanys Wind industry..
https://youtu.be/Qr5PEAK1t3U
There is increasing public reaction to Wind farms in Germany, leading to increasing regulation and planning restrictions for nwe installations.
Some authorities are making new installations commercially unviable, and together with the windback of subsidies,.the wind power industry is in a stagnant ( declining ) period.
GDr Government are in turmoil over the huge costs of RE conversion and are considering “importing” much of their future power needs ,..in the form of Hydrogen ? !)…from cheap producers overseas (Saudi etc)
Net result is that its very likely in 2021 Germany will decommission more Wind turbines than new ones are installed.
Atlast, some reality enters the debate ..( well, until the Hydrogen solution entered the discussion 🙄 )
The Video IS worth the time .!
00
Interviewer: “ what do you think of subsonic noise?”
Person in street: “I can’t hear it, so it doesn’t bother me.”
No different from the average response you would hear in Australia.
00
The ink is black…..the page is white
00