By Jo Nova
Lesson #457 in how to lie with science
File this lesson away in the Decline and Fall of Enlightenment Science. Nature, formerly known as the esteemed science journal, is now achieving everything a captured tabloid industry sales mag could hope for. They’ve squeezed a disaster out of a tiny change in a short record, and from a good news story. Let’s not forget, for the last 100,000 years most humans would have been happy that a bit of Antarctica was greening.
“Lush”? The only people who call this lush are penguins:
To appreciate the Black Belt level of naked exaggeration going on here, consider the opening hyperbole:
A fast-warming region of Antarctica is getting greener with shocking speed. Satellite imagery of the region reveals that the area covered by plants increased by almost 14 times over 35 years — a trend that will spur rapid change of Antarctic ecosystems.
“It’s the beginning of dramatic transformation,” says Olly Bartlett, a remote-sensing specialist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, and an author of the study1, published today in Nature Geoscience, that reports these results.
All this shock and drama arise from an area of “less than a square kilometer” expanding all the way up to “nearly 12 square kilometers”. These numbers “shocked us” say the PR team, I mean, the scientists, who continue on in their best Agony-Aunt impression: “It’s simply that rate of change in an extremely isolated, extremely vulnerable area that causes the alarm.” Sob sob, and Boo hoo too. It’s a lonely peninsula. Can we find it a friend?
Everything about this shows the pathetic decay of Western Science. We’re talking about 12 square kilometers of more habitable land on a continent with 14 million square kilometers of ice. The horrible affliction of unexpected tundra now covers 0.00009% of Antarctica.
It could get worse, the mosses might make … soil:
The research is “really important”, says Jasmine Lee, a conservation scientist at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. Other studies2,3 have found evidence that vegetation on the peninsula is changing in response to climate change, “but this is the first study that’s taken a huge-scale approach to look at the entire region”, she says.
Previous visits to the peninsula led the authors to think that most of the vegetation is moss. As mosses spread to previously ice-covered landscapes, they will build up a layer of soil, offering a habitat for other plant life, Roland says. “There’s a huge potential here to see a further increase in the amount of non-native, potentially invasive species,” he says.
It is, of course, due to climate change:
The researchers point to climate change as the driver of the landscape’s shift from white to green. Temperatures on the peninsula have risen by almost 3 °C since 1950, which is a much bigger increase than observed across most parts of the planet.
Nobody mention the 91 volcanoes they discovered there seven years ago which line up with the warmest parts of Antarctica. We sit on a ball of lava, and there is an edge of crustal plate under there. But really, it’s more likely the warming is caused by your Ford fiesta and those beef kebabs…
https://joannenova.com.au/2014/10/west-antarctica-more-evidence-it-was-the-volcanoes-that-melted-the-ice/
Quick, someone build a wind farm to kill off this feral moss!
Ardley Island is at latitude 62.2 S. The Antarctic Circle is further south at about 66 S. I’m sure that temperatures at Ardley Island get above 10C at times. I’d actually be surprised if there was no vegetation there at all.
The satellite record is not very long. A 35-year record only goes back to 1990. What happened before that? Oh, no-one knows and yet they are making sweeping claims about what’s recently happening?
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Volcanoes sometimes give life, they don’t always take it.
And do warmists ever wonder how coal was formed in Antartica? Or fossilised forests?
Ninety million years ago there were forests in Antarctica.
Despite continental drift, Antarctica was in about the same position back in the day 90 million years ago as it is now.
Warmists wouldn’t understand any of this because of their Aristotlean world view that the earth never changes, it always has been, it always will be….
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196516/traces-ancient-rainforest-antarctica-point-warmer/amp/
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A simple Brave search says “Due to Plate Tectonics Antarctica was once part of the supercontinent Gondwana, which began to break apart around 180 million years ago.” TPs will continue to move, jostle for position until the world ceases to be.
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Do get a grip Jo – even climatistas can’t get huge “research” grants for volcanos or solar ejections which are clearly beyond human modification or responsibility.
They’ve got mortgages to pay, EVs to charge, holidays to take…
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And and and a seat at the Big Table at this year’s COPROLITE gathering of Masters of the Multiverse (MOM) in the Azerbaijani Republic. Just don’t mention the word oil – it’s known in cult circles as Black Gold – because colonisation… or the Beverly Hillbillies.
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Ardley island is not on Antarctica. It is a small island at sea level North of the tip of the Antarctic peninsula. So not at 10,000′ like most of Antarctica and at 62 South, quite outside the Arctic Circle. (90-22.5=67.5). It is only Antarctica legally and technically, not practically. It would be much more convenient to move the research to Tahiti.
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For heavens sake TdeF – do you want Tahiti to be overrun by climate “scientists” looking for something they can call Global Warming.
Tell them to go to Heard Island or some such.
You will be abused by the Tahitian Tourist Bureau.
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I have already seen them on Bora Bora. From California. Bikini girls checking on shellfish on the beach in glass tanks as they bubbled in CO2. Looked like a wonderful job for their supervisor. Fantasy research for a fantasy problem in a fantasy location.
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Iceland is at a higher latitude and is home to 400,000 people. (not penguins)
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And Murmansk at 69 North, with 300,000 people. As with most of these areas, the snow vanished in summer. The problem with the real Antarctica is the 3200 metre average altitude, which alone drops the temperature another 30C. It is a block of ice as tall as the oceans are deep.
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Nothing will create an
emergency more than
the NEED to create an
emergency – for reasons
d’état* ‘n
that’s it!
*Keep the populace
clamouring for help …
“Help!”
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Some enterprising aspiring horror writer/director has a golden opportunity here to create a 21st century classic in the genre, along the lines of ‘The Fog’, or ‘The Mist’. ‘The Moss’ is sure to become a cult classic. It could even be used to launch a franchise of terrifying flora films, with sequels such as ‘The Grass’, ‘The Shrubs’, culminating in the terrifying conclusion … ‘The Trees’.
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Steve, #5,
____ … or, “The Day of the Triffids”.
____Title has been used already, by a doomsday enthusiast.
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Yeah, I was going for title similarity.
‘The Trees’ has basically already been made by M Night Night Shyamalan with ‘The Happening’ starring Marky Mark.
Maybe if things get bad enough, Solanum lycopersicum will start to grow in Antarctica and they can reboot ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’.
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On a related note, parts of the Sahara are now underwater due to flooding. Perhaps there is money to be made with ‘The Puddle’.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/10/16/sahara-sees-first-flood-in-half-a-century/
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That image of Antarctica is geographically incorrect; west and east have been reversed. I guess someone is obsessed with toxic masculinity. Here’s the correct image:
https://rclutz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/antarctic-map.png
[Thanks Ron. The image in Jo’s article is rotated but the east and west is labelled on it. No doubt Jo will review given you’ve highlighted it as a potential issue. – Raquel]
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With Australia on top of the world, that’s just how Antarctica looks Ron. 🙂
See https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-225.38,-96.83,653
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Jo seems to be correct here (as usual).
The Antarctic Peninsula is in East Antartica and the Ross Ice Shelf is in West Antartica.
I presume the prime meridian (Greenwich) is extended to the South Pole. Everything to the right is East and everything to the left is West.
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If you’re right on the south pole there is no east or west. Every way you turn and face is north.
Trivia. Alaska is both the most west and most east part of the USA.
https://youtu.be/keFjQZDTCDs?si=N554m8e6b2QIZrS3
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Fair enough. I just thought that from the South looking North, West is on the left and the peninsula is looking up.
[No problem. I think I had to rotate one of the two around to make the connection obvious. 🙂 — Jo]
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An interesting quote from the Australian Gov Antarctic Div/Program website.
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/ice-and-atmosphere/ice-sheet/
“The greatest known depression of bedrock – the Byrd Subglacial Basin – lies at 2,538 m below sea level. Only about 0.4% of Antarctica is not covered by ice.
Lakes occur in inland ice-free areas, some with water over 13 times more saline than sea water and freezing points as low as −18 C (seawater normally freezes at −1.8 C).
Some (Antarctic)lakes are warm with temperatures near the bottom as high as 35 C.“
Ahh,, so we have Antarctic lakes with temps as high as 35 degrees celcius at the bottom.
Hmm.. Ask yourselves a question.. How does a “warming” atmosphere of 0.0C localised temp, heat the bottom of an Antarctic lake higher than the surface temp?
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I didn’t just ask myself, I looked it up. Fascinating topic.
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9 likes!
What are you thinking people?
GA did not look anything up. If he did he did not learn anything, and if he did learn anything he chose not the share it with us.
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you’re so nice.
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Ice-free areas of Antarctica have been reported since the earliest explorers (some from aerial observation). And why wouldn’t they exist in areas of volcanic activity or other geothermal activity?
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So I said to myself “it’s me talking” (Tommy Cooper special)
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Its clear to us that subglacial volcanic activity is a fact of life in West Antarctica,
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Hammond Innes was well aware of it when he wrote ‘Target Antartica’ in 1994.
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Remember in the 1970’s when taxpayer funding was being harvested for the “global cooling” scare, there were proposals to dump carbon powder on the ice caps to melt them?
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E.g. https://notrickszone.com/2021/08/02/in-the-1970s-climate-modification-proposals-included-purposely-melting-arctic-sea-ice-with-black-soot/
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Strictly speaking, Ardley Island is one of the Subantarctic islands because it is north of the Antarctic Circle. It would make more sense to compare it to other Subantarctic islands such as Macquarie Island.
And we’re cheering the re-greening of Macquarie Island, the recovery of its native vegetation after the introduced rabbits and rats were eradicated.
There are a few species of flowering plans native to the Antarctic Peninsula, all cushion-forming perennials not much bigger than the mosses. The recovery of their populations after the recent minimum would be a good thing too.
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It’s that far north, it could almost be part of South America/Chile. (approx. 1250km from tip of South America)
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The carbon from the carbon dioxide that mosses take in from the atmosphere to use for photosynthesis becomes fixed in the cells of the new growth. Because mosses are non-vascular plants, they don’t transport this carbon around the plant—it stays put in that layer of growth. As the moss grows, it lays down more and more layers, so as you go down the layers, you’re essentially going back in time.
Radiocarbon dating techniques can be used to date the moss. Mosses grow super slowly—just millimetres per year—and so even though they’re generally only centimetres tall, many of them are between 50 and 500 years old.
https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/amazing-antarctic-moss
Oohh, 500 years old?
So not due to petrol cars,cattle or people breathing out then?
Yes, mosses are sorta interesting.
Non vascular, inbuilt sunblocks, dessicate then rehydrate, sunbake to survive.
Probably friends with Tardigrades.
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Tardigrades do live in Antarctica and in the moss. Hence an alternative name, moss piglet.
https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2019/jul/moss-piglet-tardigrade-antarctica
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I think trust in the science media (except JoNova) just dipped another 2 or 3%. Trust must be getting close to statistically non-existent.
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Hot off the presses!
Gerbil warming is growing volcanos in Antarctica! In turn Antarctica is growing green stuff! This is a disaster! It’s all caused by gerbil warming!
As Jo wrote…
These people are cultists, not academics or scientists.
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Cultists, doing what they need to do – to prosper.
If that involved trotters in the trough – and a suspension of disbelief – so be it!
Pension funds to consider, I guess!
Auto
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Very few plants can survive,
In West Antarctic, where mosses can thrive,
Colonizing terrain,
That never sees rain,
Desiccating and rehydrating to stay alive.
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Again just for the delusional donkeys who love their anti- science BS and fra-d in large chunks.
The Co2 Coalition Scientists tell us that the previous Eemian inter-glacial was 8 c warmer than today.
Also our Holocene optimum was much warmer for thousands of years and SLs then were much higher than today’s level on our Aussie east coast.
In fact even their ABC’s Catalyst program told us that SL at Sydney area was 1.5 metres higher just 4,000 years ago. IOW it’s much cooler today in 2024.
Here’s the link to the Co2 scientist’s “facts section” and the further study link.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/the-last-interglacial-was-8c-14f-warmer-than-today/
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The world will also come to an end if the government reduces its’ budget by 0.00009%.
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The “greening” is not due to volcanoes.
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Ooh-ooh, I know – ‘tis the remains of a clan of Apocalypto Man who migrated south to escape the unbearable heat of Greenland’s icy summit plateau.
The verdant hue is all that’s survived of their sustainable eco-rags, which were available in any colour desired as long as it was green. The End.
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Perhaps it has something to do with the extra CO2 in the atmosphere?
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West Antarctica has been cooling for two decades, so the greening has nothing to do with global warming.
‘During the second half of the twentieth century, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has undergone significant warming at more than twice the global mean and thus is regarded as one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth.
‘However, a reversal of this trend was observed in the 1990s, resulting in regional cooling. In particular, during 1999–2018, the observed annual average surface air temperature had decreased at a statistically significant rate, with the strongest cooling in austral spring.
‘The spring cooling correlates significantly with the second leading modes derived from empirical orthogonal function analysis on the sea level pressure over
Antarctica during 1999–2018, associated with the negative phase of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation with an average of cooling of central and eastern tropical Pacific surface sea temperature (SST) anomalies.
‘The results in the enhanced cold southerly winds on the continental WAIS through the cyclonic conditions over the Amundsen Sea region and a blocking high in the Drake Passage and northern Antarctic Peninsula, causing the WAIS cooling trend.’ (Xueying Zhang et al 2023)
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Again, the Turner Nature study also found that the Antarctic peninsula had cooled since 1998 and this was just part of the natural variability of that area.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature18645
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And we, as a species, know what caused the cooling.
Auto
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BTW Ken Stringer called the much warmer earlier Holocene “the world’s biggest thermometer”.
And he used the real measurable data of much higher SLs around Australia during the warmer Holocene climate optimum.
And even their ABC linked to the Narrabeen man Catalyst story and told us that SLs at Sydney were 1.5 metres higher just 4,000 years ago.
Ken Stewart links to many SL studies that proves his point.
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2021/08/23/the-worlds-biggest-thermometer/
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Again,
and we, as a species, know what caused the cooling.
Auto
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Here’s another 2019 study that also states that SLs during the previous Eemian I-G were 6 to 9 metres higher than today in 2024. That’s 20 to 30 feet higher, when co2 levels then were about 270 ppm.
Here’s the quote……
Abstract
During the Last interglacial (LIG) global mean sea level was likely 6-9 m higher than present, which provides an ideal palaeo-laboratory to understand coastal response to sea-level rise.
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Here’s the abstract of the MacDonald et al study showing that Nth Russia was also much warmer than today and boreal forests actually grew to the Arctic coastline during the early Holocene.
And temps then were up to 7 c warmer than 2024.
Here’s part of the abstract of the study.
Of course much cooler now in this NH region as well in 2024.
“Holocene Treeline History and Climate Change Across Northern Eurasia
G. MacDonald, A. Velichko, +11 authors Valery N. Gattaulin”
“Abstract Radiocarbon-dated macrofossils are used to document Holocene treeline history across northern Russia (including Siberia). Boreal forest development in this region commenced by 10,000 yr B.P. Over most of Russia, forest advanced to or near the current arctic coastline between 9000 and 7000 yr B.P. and retreated to its present position by between 4000 and 3000 yr B.P. Forest establishment and retreat was roughly synchronous across most of northern Russia. Treeline advance on the Kola Peninsula, however, appears to have occurred later than in other regions. During the period of maximum forest extension, the mean July temperatures along the northern coastline of Russia may have been 2.5° to 7.0°C warmer than modern”.
Here’s a link to the abstract and the study.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Holocene-Treeline-History-and-Climate-Change-Across-MacDonald-Velichko/ae409826d833599baa4077c5ab883a98d7c9917b
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Well here I sit wondering how mosses got to Antartica in the first place, and when? Could it be that 300 or 500 years ago (whenever) there was a patch of moss not one or twelve sq. kms., but horror!, 100 or 1,200 sq. kms. 🤠
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I recently seen a pop quiz asking what was the largest indigenous carnivore in Antarctica, anyone care to guess without googling the answer ?
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Using the definition of breeding on land?
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This is to distinguish between the vertebrate and invertebrate answer
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🛴
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I never specified vertebrate or invertebrate.only indigenous and Carnivorous Gee Aye but will give you a hint , its land based and related with the topic !
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I didn’t need a hint. Your terminology was ambiguous and didn’t necessarily exclude penguins. I know an entomologist on the team that sequenced the midge’s genome.
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You’ve been to Google Gee Aye ?
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Orca?
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No not Indigenous.
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Let me clarify yes Orcas , seals , penguins are native now to Antarctica but this carnivore has been on Antartica all along since it split off from the mainland .
This makes it the largest carnivorous Indigenous thing on Antartica.
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Leopard seal
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Again no not indigenous.
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Kindly just tell us your GQdd@mn answer, I’m sure it’s going to be marvellous but its not really that momentous is it? There’s evidently only 3 of us interested anyway.
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It’s actually an insect , which when you think of it is amazing but even more amazing is its lifecycle does rely on the fact some of Antartica has always had a green patch .
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An insect!
Does it eat meat?
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I give up
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I did muck the question up it should have read largest native land inhabitant , of which it’s a type of midge .
First discovered in the late 1800’s by a Belgian expedition to Antarctica.
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We keep getting these so called dangerous warming messages from the UN head donkey and his so called dangerous SLR lunacy.
Then we also have stories from the yappers about today’s terrible fires also caused by their ongoing so called dangerous global warming scary stories.
But there has been a big drop in numbers for death rates from fires and burns fron 1980 to 2021.
Again Australia has almost the lowest death rates since 1980 and the global death rates have dropped by more than 50 % over the last 41 years.
The global death rates in 1980 were 3.3 per 100,000 and only 1.5 per 100k today. Big drops in Africa since 1980 as well.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fire-death-rates?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~Low-income+countries~High-income+countries~Upper-middle-income+countries~Lower-middle-income+countries~African+Region+%28WHO%29~AUS~CAN~GBR~USA~ESP
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Global population in 1980 was only 4.4 billion and yet we have much lower death rates from fires and burns in 2021 and a drop of over 50%.
And Australia’s population was only 14.7 million in 1980 and 26 million in 2021.
Death rates for Aussies in 1980 were 1.2% per 100,000 and only 0.2% in 2021. Our Aussie death rates were therefore 6 times higher from fires and burns in 1980 than we have today. Incredible drop in just the last 41 years.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/WLD/world/population
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this should be celebrated –
more land on which to place solar panels and wind farms!
(or maybe a toxic lithium mine)
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Don’t worry. The blades and panels are very toxic. Disposal would be illegal, but windmills and solar panels are exempt from all normal environmental regulations!
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I have a Pet Flying Polar Bear and nobody believes me. <:o(
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The clueless Kerry donkey admitted in 2015 and 2021 that we’re wasting our time reducing our co2 emissions.
The NON OECD countries couldn’t care less about us, but they’re working hard and making sure their co2 emissions will be soaring for many more decades into the future.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/john-kerry-bidens-climate-czar-admits-u-s-co2-emission-cuts-are-pointless/
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This is the same presidential aspirant who just said the biggest problem he faces is the First Amendment. Free speech allows people to disagree with him. I would think that is the exact definition of a dictator.
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The fate under Sharia Law of a 15 year-old boy caught listening to music at prayer time.
https://x.com/realMaalouf/status/1846469290637049881?t=547w0d6pbfhR1N5v5K8goA&s=19
The Religion of Peace
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It is worth noting that Springer-Nature is a member of Covering Climate Now, an initiative to ensure the media present a synchronised message on climate change. So is Scientific American, and Agence France Presse, Reuters,. . . .
I cover this in my new book, which should be our at year’s end with Cambridge Scholars.
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Follow the data of Dresden and other German and Japanese cities. Firebombing was a well developed art before the end of WWII. Use up some of that dreadful Oil Company product and bomb the peninsula back into the stone age. That will surely slow the rate of advance considerably.
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