AI chatbot encouraged man obsessed with climate change to kill himself to save planet

By Jo Nova

Imagine we taught a generation to obey authority, question nothing, and ran one-sided prophesies of doom for their whole lifetime. Then in a mass experiment, we let loose AI Chat-bots designed to be popular, somewhat addictive, and sounding convincingly human — “to see what happened”?

What could possibly go wrong? The Chat-bots appear to be trained on the same unskeptical material that vulnerable people are, which would make the bots a perfect way to amplify their fears. If only they had heard the other half of the story…

One particular Belgian father of two in his thirties had used an AI Chatbot for two years, but became obsessive about global warming and the chatbot in the last six weeks.

As well as a dire warning of the dangers of AI, he is, in part, another victim of the Climate Religion, and the one-sided media propaganda:

Married father kills himself after talking to AI chatbot for six weeks about his climate change fears

Christian Oliver, Daily Mail

The man, who was in his thirties, reportedly found comfort in talking to the AI chatbot named ‘Eliza’ about his worries for the world. He […]

Sunday Open Thread

8.8 out of 10 based on 16 ratings

The man the Democrats fear most

It’s history in the making. The leading opposition candidate in the next US election is indicted. Is there any person so pure in the United States who could not be accused and indicted for something if a crooked government really wanted to do so? Even if it was beyond the statute of limitations and previous Federal prosecutors have turned it down.

Donald Trump is now the first former President of the United States ever to be indicted. There is no coming back from this moment. pic.twitter.com/pHuXdDRAka

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 31, 2023

.

Is Donald Trump the main target here, or is it his supporters? Glenn Beck argues they want to provoke violence from the Right.

OR we could always talk about great moments of science from Banana Republics.

9.7 out of 10 based on 107 ratings

The paradox: The West burns more fossil fuels per capita but has healthier air

Source: IQAir

By Jo Nova

The trend is clear: Burning more fossil fuels per person means less polluted air

Tell the world: two weeks ago a new study showed Australians and New Zealanders breathe the cleanest air on Earth. Not far behind them are people in the US, Canada, most of western Europe and Japan.

Naturally, hypnotized journalists either ignored the story or repeated the magic spell conclusions that fossil fuels were to blame, along with wildfires “caused by climate change”. All of them momentarily forgetting that Australians burn more fossil fuels per capita than nearly anywhere on Earth and are also renown for wildfires so big they drop ash on New Zealand.

The best air in the world turns out to be in nations that burn a lot of fossil fuels per person. The most polluted air is in poorer nations, poor sods.

Report: Only six countries met ‘healthy’ air quality standards in 2022

March 14 (UPI) — Just six countries had “healthy” air quality levels last year, as air pollution surged across the globe.

Only Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland and New Zealand, met the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines, according […]

This is why we are not offered a climate referendum — 82% didn’t endorse it

By Jo Nova

An expensive, razzle-dazzle climate referendum in Berlin aimed to bring forward “climate neutral” ambitions from 2045 to 2030, and no one even led a counter campaign, but it failed miserably:

Climate Referendum fails in Germany

Berliner Morgenpost

Berlin. The referendum for more ambitious climate goals in Berlin has failed. The state election authority announced on Sunday evening that the required minimum number of yes votes had not been reached.

An alliance “climate restart” wanted to achieve a change in the state energy transition law with the vote. Specifically, Berlin should commit itself to becoming climate neutral by 2030 and not by 2045 as previously planned.

Of 2.4 million voters in Berlin, the Yes camp needed 608,000 voters (or 25%) to turn up and agree in order to win. While 860,000 people turned up to vote, only 442,000 said “yes” and 420,000 said “no”. Essentially 82% of the total voter population either didn’t want it, or couldn’t be bothered turning up.

Pierre Gosselin of NoTricksZone reports it was a crushing defeat

He says “It’ll take a longtime for the radical climate activists to recover from this major setback”. Apparently the […]

Global Patsy Australia sacrifices coal, gas, cheap electricity, lifestyle in quest to cool Earth by no degrees

By Jo Nova

Welcome to Futility Island

Shut down Australia and save 0.01 degrees.

Australia’s role as the Global Renewables Crash Test Dummy continues.

Having installed more renewables per capita than anywhere on Earth, our PM declared that the decade of doing nothing was over. It was time to crash faster, or something.

So, the revamped Australian carbon tax called the Safeguard Mechanism does everything it isn’t supposed to. Gas and electricity prices will rise, climate targets will be harder to reach, the grid will get more unstable, and investors will run a mile now that new gas fields have to be “net zero” — meaning presumably they will have to buy carbon credits before they sell their first cubic meter of gas. The field of ineptitude even reaches overseas — with less gas for sale — our trading partners will just buy more coal.

Australia will spend even more billions to win a fashion contest at UN dinner parties and cool the world by 0.0 degrees C.

The Australian Electricity market melted down last winter, and stopped trading, because we didn’t have enough gas for the artificial “transition”. Even the hard-left AEMO — our climate activist electricity […]

Green revolution coming undone on the rocks of reality in Germany

Emden, Germany by Gritte, @gritte

By Jo Nova

Germany is at the leading edge of the climate wars and the Greens are starting to lose both in polling and policy. Despite the claims that the energy crisis will push everyone into renewables, one year later, the dominant energy source for German electricity is coal, up by eight percentage points to 33% of generation.

While the world is supposedly caught in a renewable rush to 2030, the German government just announced it will build 25 gigawatts of gas powered plants by 2030 so they are there when “when [the] wind and sun do not provide enough”. And this week Germany is doing a backflip on their recent EU deal to ban sales of petrol and gas powered cars by 2035. It appears now they will ban the ban, rather than the car, and Germany has the power in the EU to do that. Though it’s not freedom to buy any car you want, but quixotic car loophole.

It’s still a mess of awful, subsidized craziness in a futile quest to control the clouds — but there are signs it is getting less crazy.

Thanks to NetZeroWatch for the links:

[…]

Thursday Open Thread

We have reverted back to the old style comment layout but with a few new buttons and a new “editing” link in comments for five minutes after publication.

9.9 out of 10 based on 14 ratings

The not-so-sustainable EV’s that have to be written off after a scratch

By Jo Nova

Save the world with disposable EV’s?

After children in the Congo have dug out the cobalt for the blessed batteries we’d hope the cars would be sustained as long as possible. Alas, apparently there is just one more design flaw on top of the low mileage, delays, expense, spontaneous fires, and the need for a whole new grid.

After a minor accident, no one quite knows how to assess the safety of the battery, so it’s easier to throw it away. That means more waste in the landfill and higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of writing off near new cars. Where are the Greens? If child slaves and emissions matter, isn’t it better to reduce consumption by saving your old car from landfill, especially if your new one might end up there as well? Reduce, reuse, recycle…

Meanwhile the UN is demanding Net Zero targets, which are not even theoretically possible, be achieved ten years sooner. Half the technologies we need are not even invented yet. Infinity-minus-ten is a number that won’t get you to work, but it powers whole careers at the UN.

h/t David and Notalotofpeopleknowthat

Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have […]

Nature discovers that political endorsements reduce their scientific credibility

By Jo Nova

When the formerly esteemed journal Nature endorsed one side of politics in 2020, apparently it didn’t change any votes, but about a third of Trump supporters decided the science it published was politically biased too. The loss of trust in Nature was so strong that it tarnished the whole field of US science. (Zhang et al)

There goes the public faith in peer reviewed “Experts”.

“Trump supporters who had been shown the summary of Nature’s editorial were less likely to trust Nature’s information on COVID-19, and also reported more mistrust in US scientists.”

Being actively political meant 154 years of scientific reputation disappeared just like that. In the graph below presumably* naive Trump supporters ranked Nature as mostly “informed” (marked in orange, of course). The Trump supporters who saw the political endorsement (marked in red) suddenly, apparently saw Nature as more of a partisan rag than an impartial reporter of scientific truth.

@Nature says: In 2020, Nature endorsed Joe Biden in the US presidential election. A survey finds that viewing the endorsement did not change people’s views of the candidates, but caused some to lose confidence in Nature and in US scientists generally.*

[…]

IPCC launches 666th final final warning of climate hell: AR6 is a “Survival guide to humanity”

Art by Syaifulptak

By Jo Nova

Now that half the US knows that climate science has become a religion, let’s all thank the IPCC for working hard to convince the other half.

Here comes Fire, Brimstone, and Ticking Bombs again:

Like all successful bureaucracies, The IPCC is here to pretend to save you from problems it invented.

The taxpayer funded doomsday cult wants you to think of them as a brave bomb disposal team, putting their lives on the line to do anything humanly possibly to make storms go away, except for using a tried and tested technology with a 50 year record of zero emissions. Nobody say n.u.c….

IPCC climate scientists issue ‘a survival guide for humanity’, warning window closing to reduce emissions

“The climate time-bomb is ticking,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which this week released its final “synthesis report”, marking six years of work by about 700 scientists.

“Today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb,” he said. “It is a survival guide for humanity.”

Senior marketer of renewable energy, Sarah Prophet Kirkpatrick says we are […]

Big-Gov Desperation: Now we need a $3,000 parking fine to keep sacred “EV” charging spots clear

A sign in Rockhampton. Where do they mention the fine though? | Photo by RegionalQueenslander

By Jo Nova

Block a sacred weather-changing EV from a charging point and you may have to sell your car

Feel the fear. The whole EV fantasy is coming undone as people miss planes, get stuck in cars, or ruin holidays because their battery is flat. There aren’t enough chargers, and charging is slow. In abject desperation, some Australian states are slapping monster fines on to make inadequate infrastructure stretch further, or because they realize how vulnerable they are to a protest campaign. Either that or they are actually trying to finance the transition to NetZero through parking fines. Call it a secret subsidy…

Victorians may be hit with a $370 fine if they drive a normal car and accidentally park it in an EV charging spot, thus depriving a sacred EV user of the chance to top up. You might think that’s wildly out of proportion — it’s only $100 less than if you recklessly run a red light. But it’s nothing compared to what NSW, Queensland and the ACT are doing. Drivers in these states who make the same mistake could […]

Perth, Sunday: Steven Mosher speaks — Australia is on the frontline

A very rare chance means the extraordinary Steven Mosher will be speaking in Perth tomorrow (Sunday) for the CNI. Tickets are free. (He is presenting on other topics in Sydney and Melbourne.)

Australia on the Frontline

Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order

2.30 – 4.30pm, Sunday 19th March

Royal Perth Yacht Club, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia.

Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Virginia based Population Research Institute (1995 to present) and the author of a number of books on China, including Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order, recently published in a new Australian edition by Wilkinson Press. His other books include Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World and China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality.

9.4 out of 10 based on 38 ratings […]

This is Kryptonite for fake science preachers: 60% of voters agree Climate Change is a religion

By Jo Nova

The expert science bubble has popped. New polling shows 60% of US voters agree that that Climate Change is a religion and has nothing to do with the climate. Even more shocking is that 47% of US voters strongly agree.

It’s an Exocet for the priests of Climate Science. Their power depends on people believing “they are The Science”, and The Science is sacred. But word is spreading that the experts are more like prophets-of-gloom than disciplined researchers. And once the idea is seeded, it won’t go away. People who didn’t notice before will suddenly see the failed predictions, the ice age that never came, the droughts that become floods and the snow that children wouldn’t know. Humans are excellent at pattern matching, just give them the right pattern to look for…

This is an idea that has barely been mentioned in mainstream TV yet half the nation are already 100% sold.

Ten days ago Vivek Ramaswamy talked about the climate religion on Fox News, and so Rasmussen asked the punters. And thus the emperor has no clothes — fully six out of ten agree that “Climate is a religion”.

Vivek Ramaswamy on […]

Mystery: Australians invest billions in free wind and solar, but prices rise another 20-30%

By Jo Nova

Last winter’s debacle in Australia could be repeated this year, but at even higher prices.

Despite adding more cheap renewables per person than nearly anywhere on Earth, for some inexplicable reason our retail electricity prices rose 18% last year and are set to rise another 20 to 30% this winter.

Last year was a bloodbath on the wholesale electricity market. Those costs have fed through to retail.

 

AER Australian wholesale electricity prices.

The Energy Minister Chris Bowen blames the Russians, and says we need more renewables.

Shock power bill jump to hammer households

Perry Williams, The Australian

Power bills for households will soar by hundreds of dollars a year from July 1, adding to soaring cost of living pressures as the regulator blamed supply challenges and volatility for the steep cost hit.

Customers in Victoria face a 30 per cent jump on ‘safety net’ prices while households in NSW, South Australia and southeast Queensland will see bills soar by up to 24 per cent.

The Victorian ruling by the Essential Services Commission estimates power costs will jump by $426 for residential customers to $1829 […]

“Climate change” suddenly seems irrelevant: Bank of England drops it, and Biden drills for Big-oil

By Jo Nova

Strange things are happening in the calm before the storm…

Thanks to NewZeroWatch

This week the financial world balances on the edge, and all the old rules have broken. Joe Biden is signing off on an oil drilling program on US soil which he said he’d never do — and it’s one of the largest ever — like building “66 new coal plants”. At the same time the Bank of England is apparently cutting the sacred climate change spending, and has leaked this news to the world.

As someone said on Twitter, “last week was a different country”.

After all these years, climate change has fallen out of the Weekly Hit Parade of Panic.

Bank of England Headquarters, London, photo by Елена Пехчевска

Bank of England Will Cut Spending for its Work on Climate Change

By Ellen Milligan and Philip Aldrick, Bloomberg

Climate programs will slip lower on the central bank’s agenda so officials can focus more on the core operations such as financial stability…

As Dr Benny Peiser of NetZeroWatch says “the risk of costly climate and Net Zero policies have become a bigger threat to the UK’s economy and […]

Silicon Valley Bank was a Big Green Government Ponzi Scheme

By Jo Nova

SVB or Silicon Valley Bank is the US’s 17th biggest bank, or it was until last week when it became the US’s second biggest bank failure instead.

Interest rate rises are supposed to squeeze out the dumbest investments, so it is fitting that one of the first casualties of this boom-bust cycle is a green banker, mostly doomed by loaning half their cash to the same bankrupt Big-Government that created the green improbable fantasy industries which SVB was largely serving.

SVB was a “Green” Banker. We know this, not because newspapers are saying that now, but because of the emergency flares released on behalf of the victims. The New York Times tells us that the collapse of SVB is going to hit green tech hard because SVB clients included 1,550 companies dedicated to “fighting climate change”.

If only SVB had served coal miners or gas frackers instead they might still be in business? The deposits they needed would have kept on coming as the profits flowed in.

David Gelles, New York Times, naturally, misses the whole point:

Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Threatens Climate Start-Ups

In reality, climate start-ups threaten the bank, and climate finish-ups threaten […]

The Censorship Industrial complex — the secret cabal of Big-Government, University, Media and NGO’s

By Jo Nova

Imagine if the national postal service had secret blacklists of people whose mail “should be lost”?

What if the FBI, CIA, or Department of Defence was talking to the postie, and the postie read your letters and threw some out, but not others, and none of the institutions told you they were doing this? Or perhaps the post-office told you point-blank you were banned from sending mail now “because your letters were wrong”.

In this case the “posties” are private organizations, but to all intents and purposes, their network connection and obedience to Big-Government made them, in effect, another branch of the government. The government wasn’t paying the postie direct, but it protected the monopoly of the corporate postie team and gave them a legal loophole to hide in, and the media outlets stopped anyone criticizing the government. It was a Pravda-KGB consortium with filters that worked at light speed, but hidden.

 

“Undeniably, the making of such lists is a form of digital McCarthyism.”

 

Where would we be if Elon Musk hadn’t bought Twitter?

In the latest round of Twitter Files, Matt Taibbi shows how Twitter was not just censoring things that would later turn […]

Brown coal is so cheap AEMO forgets to mention it

By Jo Nova

Many Australians face a 20% rise in their electricity bill this coming winter, so it seems odd that the AEMO* forgot to put the price of the cheapest source of electricity in their last quarterly report. The bid-setting prices for brown coal have been some of my favourite graphs, but this quarter, for the first time a whole energy source disappeared. It would only be another 2 digit number in a 69 page report, yet the average winning bid of brown coal generators on our national grid last quarter is not even mentioned?

The nation faces major decisions about whether to continue to try changing global weather with our power plants. You would think Australians would like to know which fuel produces the cheapest electricity and by exactly how much? I mean, what’s the true cost of cooling Australia by a thousandth of a degree in 2100?

Perhaps the AEMO didn’t like that skeptics spread the message that brown coal could still generate electricity for less than 4c/KWh, or that hydro and gas were seven times more expensive? After all, the head of the AEMO — Daniel Westerman — says we must ramp up renewables to […]

Surprise! 1,000 Pacific and Indian Islands are still *not* shrinking due to climate change

By Jo Nova

A new paper shows islands are young, dynamic creatures, and mother nature is mean. And nothing we see today on Indian or Pacific Islands is unprecedented. All the panic about islands disappearing is nothing compared to what nature does all the time. Indeed, man-made climate change, if it has done anything at all — has been a boon for islands in the last fifty years.

Thanks to Kenneth Richard, at NoTricksZone for finding the paper: Recent Shoreline Changes To 1100 Pacific Islands ‘Dwarfed’ By Change Magnitudes Of The Past

The new paper by Kench et al looked at 1,100 islands across the Pacific and Indian oceans, and even though CO2 levels rose from 325ppm to an apocalyptic 420ppm, the average island got bigger instead of smaller, and only 3 small uninhabited islands completely disappeared. And when we say small, some of the islands we are tracking are mere 30m wide sand spits. Is it really fair to call that an “uninhabited island”?

The world may have Olympic-sized junkets every year because shorelines have moved 40m in the last fifty years, but it turns out that shorelines moved 200 meters before anyone built a coal plant.

This, below, […]